Briefing from Steve Schwager, CEO and Executive Vice President

Fred Zeidman, Chairman of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, publicly honored JDC on Yom Hashoah two weeks ago at the Days of Remembrance ceremony in our country’s Capitol Rotunda. In the presence of President Barack Obama, Zeidman praised JDC’s role in the 1939 story of the SS St. Louis. Irv and I feel enormous pride, as should we all, in this very meaningful recognition of JDC’s part in this series of historic events.

In an effort to flee Nazi Germany, 907 refugees sailed from Hamburg on May 15, 1939 on the SS St. Louis and reached Havana, Cuba on May 27, 1939. Arrangements for the voyage were organized independently by the Hamburg-American Line, without the involvement of any Jewish organizations. After the Cuban government refused to honor the refugees’ accredited landing documents, however, JDC became involved in negotiations with the Cuban government. These discussions unfortunately failed, as did efforts by JDC to find a haven for the desperate refugees elsewhere in the Americas. After 12 days of waiting, the St. Louis sadly sailed back to Hamburg with all of its passengers.

While the St. Louis was on the high seas, JDC, in close cooperation with other groups, negotiated with the governments of Holland, Belgium, England, and France to accept the refugees until homes in other countries could be found. JDC posted a cash guarantee of $500,000 ($500 per refugee) in order to make the arrangement feasible and to cover upkeep costs wherever necessary. The telegram from the appreciative passengers to Morris C. Troper, JDC’s Chairman, Executive Council 1938-1942 is in JDC’s archives and can be viewed here.

In England, JDC continued to support the last of the St. Louis refugees until 1948, but in France, Belgium, and Holland, the Nazi occupation reduced the channels of outside aid and ultimately brought those routes to a standstill. After the occupation of France, some St. Louis refugees escaped to Switzerland. But there were others who returned to Europe on that fateful ship who ultimately met a tragic end in concentration camps.

Fred Zeidman’s edited remarks are as follows:

Members of Congress, administration officials, ambassadors, liberators of the camps, righteous among the nations, friends of the Museum, and most especially, survivors of the Holocaust.

We are honored by your presence and grateful for your commitment to the cause of remembrance.

And Mr. President, it is our profound privilege to have you among us. As someone who has demonstrated a lifetime commitment to social justice, your presence is especially meaningful, and we welcome you today.

We often say that remembrance is not about the past. It is also about our world today. And in these days of remembrance, we recall that the responsibility for bringing the lessons of memory to bear in our world resides with each of us.

What each of us does, this year’s theme declares, makes a difference. . . .

. . . .and what is within our power is also our responsibility. What we do matters.

Therein lies a story—a story of heroism of the truest sort.

It began on an infamous ship called the St. Louis, whose Jewish passengers fled Nazi Germany 70 years ago in May 1939, seeking safety in the United States by way of Cuba. Most of you know the shameful result: first Cuba, then our country, turned them away.

The story might have ended there…because people concluded they could not make a difference…that the forces involved were too powerful, the number of individuals too vast, the dangers too distant.

But two individuals, Lawrence Berenson and Morris Troper, who worked for the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, felt otherwise. They knew that returning these passengers to Hitler’s Germany would doom them. So they aggressively negotiated with Cuba, then the US, and when all that proved futile, arranged for the passengers to be accepted in what were then four safe European countries.

The following year, the continent was consumed by war, but the JDC clung to the belief that they could still make a difference for the passengers on the St. Louis.

They tracked them one by one as they spread across Europe. They allocated what were then enormous funds. They placed some children in safe homes. They helped some parents escape. Of course, they did not save them all. But they saved some. By the scale of the Holocaust, one might say they saved “few.” But the ethic these individuals lived by is the same ethic we celebrate today. What you do matters.

In that lesson there is an inspiration—and a warning.

The inspiration is the knowledge, the certainty, that what we do makes a difference.

The warning is this: the Holocaust was not merely a massive event on a massive scale. Six million Jews, each one an individual human being, were murdered by other individual human beings. Some individual human beings tried to help them. Most did not.

And when we—individual human beings—look away and surrender to futility, we are like the bystanders of this dark period, and become complicit in the crime. Inaction is as consequential as action.

Therefore, today, we recall individuals like Lawrence Berenson and Morris Troper whose actions mattered. And we honor others who rescued as well. And we pay tribute to those who helped defeat Nazi tyranny as we welcomed the flags of the liberating divisions of the United States army.

JDC Board member Susie Stern attended this commemoration and shared Mr. Zeidman’s remarks with us. As we learn over and over again, Board members are often filled with enormous pride at what our organization accomplishes and, equally important, they are also our finest advocates. JDC’s archives hold a letter from Bernard Horwich, a past JDC lay leader from Chicago, written on June 24, 1939, to James N. Rosenberg, JDC’s Board Chairman, and Joseph C. Hyman, JDC’s Executive Vice Chairman, in which he expressed very moving appreciation for what we were able to do for the passengers of the St. Louis. That remarkable letter can be seen here. And he concludes with a paragraph to which many of you can relate: “. . . . I shall make your wonderful work known by mail and otherwise to as many of my friends and acquaintances as possible.”

It is important that we keep telling the JDC story, as so many of you do, not only for the sake of pride in our past—but for what the legacy of those past achievements can provide for the future of Jewish people and others worldwide.

The Three R's of JDC

According to Will Recant, Assistant Executive Vice President, JDC has a great elevator speech that captures the essence and importance of JDC's long-time mission of Rescue, Relief and Renewal of Jews wherever they may be.

Search and Rescue – On the Ground in Georgia

When the Russia/Georgia conflict erupted on August 7, JDC’s expertise and long history in rescuing Jews in times of crisis enabled us to mobilize our resources and respond immediately. We were one of the first agencies on the ground and, in some areas, the only agency present. Shauli Dritter, Director of Field Operations for JDC in the Former Soviet Union, was one of the eight staff members who arrived in Georgia on August 8 to join our local team already in the region. He was deployed to the Russian town of Vladikavkaz to seek out and assist Jewish refugees who may have escaped from Georgia and South Ossetia on their own.

Shauli recently gave a firsthand account of our rescue operations and shared what happened while on the ground in the war zone. The following is a summary of his report:

There was an initial 72-hour window in which to pull Jews out of the conflict zones and to areas of safety. During these first days there was much confusion, allowing JDC staff members to get in and get out of the area easily and without many obstacles from either Georgian or Russian forces. We knew we had to act quickly and efficiently to ensure that all Jews who were in danger were taken to safety.

Knowing that refugees would flee further into Georgia as well as into Russia, two JDC command posts were established, one in each country. Shauli and Yitzhak Averbuch were sent to the Russian city of Vladikavkaz in order to coordinate efforts from that side of the border. JDC-sponsored Hesed Assistance Centers in Georgia keep detailed records of Jews living in Georgia and split up those lists amongst staff members. Shauli and Yitzhak were given a list of the names of the 17 Jews living in the city of Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia near the Russian border, a city that was virtually destroyed by ongoing attacks from both sides.

Upon entering Tskhinvali, the two began questioning people in order to locate all the names of the elderly on their list. Shauli was speaking with locals when he heard shouting nearby. Yitzhak was taken into custody by members of the South Ossetia militia wanting to see his papers, thinking he may be a spy. Rather than leave his colleague to militia members, Shauli also turned himself into their custody. Both men were in possession of cell phones as well as satellite phones (a fact that did not help convince the militiamen that they were not spies but rather representatives of a non-governmental relief organization).

After what seemed like hours of questioning, both Shauli and Yitzhak were handed over to Russian intelligence agents, a fortuitous move for the fate of our directors, as the Russian government and intelligence agents are familiar with JDC and the work that we do all over Russia. After some more questioning, both Shauli and Yitzhak were released and ordered to leave the area.

Throughout the rest of that day, Shauli and Yitzhak searched throughout the refugee camps and Tskhinvali, and 16 out of the 17 people on the list were located, taken to safety and provided with basic necessities, including food, water, and shelter. However, one woman, Rosa Rivka, was still missing.


Rosa Rivka is a homebound 97-year-old woman who lives alone and relies on JDC's aid for hot meals and medicine. They knew she would not be able to survive on her own. After an intense search, Shauli and the rest of JDC’s rescue workers discovered her two days later, huddled in her kitchen—the only room in her apartment that had not been destroyed by the constant attacks. Terrified, hungry, and in need of her medicine, Rosa Rivka refused to leave her kitchen, where she had been sleeping for days. JDC gave her food, water, and much-needed medication and convinced her to move out of her bombed apartment and into a safer space. JDC staff will make certain that Rivka has what she needs as the days progress.

According to Shauli, this is the essence of JDC: one Jew was waiting for us and we were there for her in her time of need.

With their mission in Tskhinvali complete, both Shauli and Yitzhak returned to the Georgian capital of Tbilisi in order to assist with search and rescue operations in other areas of the conflict which lied within an hour’s drive from the capital. Their priority was to find a way to safely enter and exit the conflict zone in their search for Jews, particularly around the city of Gori, where it was almost impossible to gain entry. In order to find a way around this obstacle, Shauli worked with the Georgian Red Cross, which already had access to the conflict zones in order to distribute aid to refugees.

Because of our partnership with the Red Cross formed by Shauli, JDC’s search and rescue team had full access to the conflict zone around Gori. In fact, JDC had far more access than journalists and foreign correspondents trying to report on the situation. Shauli and his colleagues became a source of information for other relief agencies about what was actually happening around the city of Gori.

They traveled into the area with the Red Cross, transported the sick and wounded out of the area, and brought in doctors and other medical personnel to relieve those who had been working tirelessly since the conflict began.

JDC is currently working to help rebuild homes and relocate Jewish refugees, and is beginning non-sectarian humanitarian programs in the region to help those affected by the conflict.