3,000 Hear Locker-vladeck Debate on Transfer Pact

Before a demonstrative crowd of 3,000, Berl Locker, Zionist Labor leader, and B. C. Vladeck, head of the Jewish Labor Committee, last night debated the merits of the Germany-Palestine transfer agreement at Mecca Temple.

The debate was frequently interrupted by volunteered rebuttals, cheers, whistles and boos. On a number of occasions Mr. Locker had to ask his friends not to decrease his allotted time by applauding. The crowd seemed about evenly dived in sentiment.

Mr. Locker stressed the importance of transferring the Jews from Germany and emphasized the “practical” necessity as opposed to the “dogmatism” of Mr. Vladeck’s view that the boycott must be maintained at all costs.

He asked Mr. Vladeck if it were true that funds sent through Germany by the transfer were aiding the Nazi regime, was it not equally true that relief funds transmitted by the Joint Distribution Committee to Germany also aided the Nazis. However, he expressed the belief that both activities were justified.

Contesting the point made by Mr. Vladeck that the transfer agreement is predominantly for the benefit of rich Jews, Mr. Locker said that only about 50,000 marks can be withdrawn by a person under the transfer.

Mr. Vladeck charged that the transfer was engineered by a minority for its own benefit. He held that if the agreement really helped the Jews Hitler would not permit it. He termed Haavara, the Palestine trustee office for the execution of the pact, a “boycott-breaking agency” and characterized the transfer as “dealing with the enemy.”

Not only does the transfer harm the boycott, asserted Mr. Vladeck, but it hurts Palestine industry. He quoted copies of letters to back his contention that Haavara was not only selling German goods in Palestine, but was extending the sale throughout the Near East, as a result of which, he said, the boycott was being broken in Iraq and other countries.

In his rebuttal, Mr. Vladeck held that not all the Jews should be transferred from Germany on the ground that other countries would then be encouraged to persecute their Jews in order to get rid of them. He repeated his contention that the transfer aided only rich German Jews.

He declared that even the Zionist laborites who, he said, helped put through the agreement, are ashamed of it, as evidenced by the fact that their news bureau, the Palcor Agency, played down discussion of the agreement during the Lucerne World Zionist Congress.

He also charged that in many cases capital is withdrawn from Germany without the gransfer of German Jews and that the money realized is used for Jewish national institutions.