Reich Youth Finds New Ways of Making Living

About 69,000 Jewish young people between the ages of fourteen to twenty-four seek training in manual trades and farm work to be prepared to exist at all in Germany, or to be equipped for settlement in other lands, Joseph C. Hyman, secretary of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, declares in a report submitted to the executive committee of this organization, upon his return from Europe.

Thousands of younger children who find life a martyrdom in the public schools will have to be taught in special Jewish classes, he added, and thousands of men and women, dislodged from jobs and professional life, will have to be re-trained for self-support in Germany itself, he stated.

While abroad, Mr. Hyman, besides cepresenting the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee at the German refugee conference at Lausanne, visited various cities in Germany, where he conferred with many of the leaders of welfare, emigration and economic Jewish aid associations who are directing the efforts of the Jewish population to readjust their lives to meet the new situation there.

PROBLEM OF ECONOMIC AID

Amidst the many difficulties with which the Jews of Germany have to contend, the problem of economic assistance to merchants, tradesmen, shop-keepers and artisans through cooperative loan societies and free loan committee is urgent, Mr. Hyman declared. But it is in the field of vocational reorientation, of guidance and training, that the Central Committee of German Jews for Relif and Reconstruction–the committee through which the Joint Distribution Committee operates in Germany–is making its greatest effort. Not only youth must be schooled for self-support, but also large numbers of adults, declassed and dislodged from the professions, the civil service, mercantile pursuits and the like, who must be helped to transform themselves into farm hands, metal workers, carpenters, house-painters, plumbers, cabinet workers, mechanics, and other vocations, {SPAN}..e{/SPAN} stated.

The precipitate rush which started early last April, resulting in the exodus of 65,000 refugees from Germany within a few months, has subsided, Mr. Hyman reported, due to the realization that possibilities for emigration are extremely limited. In recent months only a small number have been able to locate on a permanent basis in other countries, including Palestine.

Nevertheless, Mr. Hyman points out, there is a great desire for emigration, especially for the Jewish youth, but it is realized that prospective emigrants must be methodically prepared so that they may be acceptable as workers outside Germany, and may be even better equipped to fight for their economic existence in Germany, in which so many of them in all events will have so remain.

ALLOT BUDGET FOR RELIEF

The German Jewish Central Committee for Relief and Reconstruction proposes the report states, to allot almost half of its budget for the first six months of 1934 to this work of economic aid, directed reemployment, retraining and initial vocational preparation.

“The German leaders accept as tundamental that only in proportion as the communities and institutions of German Jewry make every possible effort and strain their own resources, can they expect corresponding aid from the Jews of other lands”, Mr. Hyman says in his report.

“The one element that emerged from the entire problem,” the report continues, “is the grim determination of Jewish leaders to readjust their whole scale of the education of their young. Grave difficulties confront them in these plans, both in connection with agricultural and artisan training and other manual pursuits.”