Report to the ... Zionist Congress and to the Council of the Jewish Agency in ... · 1935-08-01 · 8.1935 · p. Seite 248

fare no better. There is a concensus of opinion among them that "freedom is much worse for many than arrests and exile." The opportunities to go to Palestine are also fewer. The passage, plus railway ticket, costs £125, a fact that deprives the Zionists almost entirely of any possibility of entertaining the idea of going to Palestine without external assistance. 5. Lithuania. The Lithuanian Party has strengthened its position in the last two years. The daily paper of the Party, Das Neie Wort, is read by large masses of the Jewish population. The Party was largely responsible for the great success of this year's shekel campaign, it takes an active part in the management of the Jewish schools and it co-operates in the work for the Zionist Funds. 6. Latvia. The recent revolution deprived the Party of all its fruitful work in the past and rendered impossible all further activity. During the first few weeks of the revolution many leading members of the Party were arrested, which ruined the whole Organisation. About thirty members were taken to concentration camps and detained for six months, when they were released on the condition that they left for Palestine. All the members who occupied positions as teachers, even those in Jewish autonomous schools, or as employees of the. Sick Fund, have been dismissed from their posts without any reason being given for their dismissal, without getting any compensation, and without having any prospect of employment elsewhere. The material position of those members is therefore very precarious and there is no solution for them except emigrating to Palestine. The only domain of activity left to the members of the Party, though in a restricted form, is the training of Chaluzim and all that directly relates to emigration to Palestine. 7. Rumania. The efforts to unite the two existing labour bodies, the Zeire-Zion and the Poale-Zion, have not yet succeeded. Nevertheless the Party extended the scope of its activities and a number of new groups have been added to the Party within the last two years. The Party in Transylvania has resumed its activities after a period of passivity. The main work of the Party consisted in cultivating the pioneering spirit among the Jewish Youth and organising Chaluzim groups, which efforts met with a great measure of success. 8. Germany. The Nazi Revolution brought about the complete formal liquidation of the Party in Germany and its independent work. The contact among the local groups and the Secretariat of the World Union has been reduced to a minimum. The whole activity of the Party was of a purely Zionist nature, within the framework of the Zionist Federation of Germany. 9. Czechoslovakia. The Party concentrated its work last year in Carpatho-Russia, where there are densely populated Jewish communities, consisting mostly of workers and artisans. As a result there are organised groups affiliated to the Party in almost every Jewish community there. Thanks to its initiative a " Haoved " 248