Youth Aliyah Records in the Hadassah Archives

"I too am a totalitarian, I want to rescue the totality of German youth." - Henrietta Szold, 1939

So begins The Archives of Youth Aliyah, 1933-1960 prepared by Lawrence D. Geller, Ph.D. Funded by a generous grant by the National Endowment for the Humanities, Dr. Geller's guide was published in 1983 on the occasion of the Fiftieth Anniversary of Youth Aliyah's 1933 founding. Of the collection, Dr. Geller wrote, "The archives of Youth Aliyah ...are in the widest, most descriptive sense, the archives of tragedy and hope."

During the intervening years, The Files of Youth Aliyah in the Hadassah Archives have evolved. This current guide reflects the addition of more recently acquired materials, the availability of several yet-to-be processed addendum and corresponding shifts in arrangement. Undiminished, indeed hopefully enhanced, is the documentation of Miss Szold's endeavors to rescue German youth and the archives' legacy of "tragedy and hope."

The following historical overview is based upon Dr. Geller's scholarship in The Archives of Youth Aliyah.

Youth Aliyah was founded in Germany in 1933 by Recha Freier. Following Hitler's rise to power as Chancellor the same year, the political strength of the Nazi party increasingly threatened the stability of European Jewish communities. Thus, Recha Freier's initial concept was to establish a collaborative of Zionist organizations to pool their resources in order to relocate German Jewish children to Palestine pending resolution of the political situation. However, as the Nazi resolve to eradicate the Jewish population became a systemic function, Youth Aliyah became a full-fledged child rescue effort. From 1933-1945, this "coalition" rescued 11,000 Jewish children relocating them to Palestine.

Such profound accomplishment would not have been achieved had it not been for the efforts of Henrietta Szold who in 1934 became the Director of the Youth Aliyah Department in the Central Department for the Settlement of German Jews (later the Youth Department of the Jewish Agency) in Jerusalem. Through Miss Szold's intervention and under the leadership of Hadassah National President Rose Jacobs and Hadassah National Youth Aliyah Committee Chairman Marian G. Greenberg, Hadassah extended itself in 1935 to become the primary fund raising entity for Youth Aliyah in the United States.

The subsequent years, particularly those during the war, were fraught with the unrelenting political and administrative processes necessary to secure the release of Jewish children from detention, death and displaced person camps throughout Europe. The obstacles were not only related to the impact of the War in Europe but also to the British Mandate Government's limitation on immigration to Palestine. The efforts to maintain the process of rescue required an international collaboration between multiple agencies throughout Continental Europe, the United Kingdom, Palestine and the United States.

Moreover, Youth Aliyah strove to provide a true "home-coming" for these displaced children. The files document Hadassah's establishment of youth villages, children's day centers, residential facilities and "foster placements" networks. These efforts required on-going international collaborative efforts in order to establish the infrastructure necessary to fund and maintain these institutions. Additionally, Youth Aliyah developed vocational, educational, therapeutic and rehabilitative programs to assist the children toward a holistic integration into the community.

Since its inception in 1933, the mission of Youth Aliyah has not waned. To the contrary, since the end of the Second World War Youth Aliyah has continued serving Jewish youth communities globally including those in Ethiopia and North Africa, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, Russia and Asia. The files document these efforts. While The Jewish Agency gradually took on primary programmatic care of Youth Aliyah in the 1990s, today there are over 300,000 Youth Aliyah graduates from over 80 nations and Hadassah continues its essential support toward residential, educational, vocation and therapeutic services for displaced and "at-risk" Jewish youth as a proud partner in the Youth Aliyah movement.