The swift pace of industrial development in the Jewish Autonomous Region meant that there was a shortage of qualified workers and managers. So the World ORT Union took on itself the organising of the resettlement in the Jewish Autonomous Region of industrial and agricultural specialists from the countries of Western Europe, where, due to the pre-war economic crisis and a growing mood of anti-Semitism, it was becoming increasingly difficult for Jews to find work. The successful realisation of this project would mean that everyone was a winner: thousands of unemployed Jews would gain work in their specialist fields, and the numerous industrial sites of Birobidzhan would gain the qualified workforce they so badly needed.

The Nazi threat should also be taken into account. The war which was inevitably coming could in a moment reduce the whole Jewish population of Europe to the condition of refugees, so that the old ‘territorialist’ ideas espoused by the members of the World ORT Union leadership were coming to be of great topical importance.

With regard to the new resettlement project, a letter was sent to KOMZET on 9 November 1935, signed by J. Tsegelnitski, in support of certain ‘provisions’ whereby it was envisaged that the Central Board of the ORT Union would be ‘taken on as a partner in the resettlement of Jewish workers from abroad’ to a permanent domicile in Birobidzhan. This document proposed: that candidates for resettlement should be chosen ‘from among those who had graduated from the professional schools, technical colleges, training workshops and farms maintained by ORT in various countries (Poland, Lithuania, Latvia etc.)’; that ORT should publicise, through its offices ‘in America, Africa and the countries of Western Europe’, its offer to give financial aid to relatives wishing to resettle in Birobidzhan and to ‘transfer to KOMZET’s current account 200 American dollars for every resettling family or individual’; that settlers should be given every assistance ‘in drawing up documents enabling them to quit their country of residence and enter the USSR’. In addition, the ORT Union would also pledge itself to provide each resettling specialist worker with ‘the tools appropriate to his trade, and in cases of necessity to draw on special funds for this purpose’.

To this letter there came an immediate reply, signed by the deputy chairman of KOMZET, B. Trotsky. It said that Tsegelnitski’s proposals had been basically accepted, but that at the same time ‘widespread publicity, before the beginning of work on the aforesaid resettlement, would be undesirable’. The question was a delicate one: the Soviet leadership was afraid of a mass Jewish immigration into the USSR. While the Soviet government ‘declared its readiness to permit the entry into the USSR, and settlement in the Jewish Autonomous Region, of 1,000 Jewish families and 500 individual Jewish workers from other countries in 1936 and 1937’ (the ORT Union Central Board planned to ‘resettle in Birobidzhan 200–300 families of foreign Jews’), Tribuna carried an article entitled ‘Precise arrangements for settlement from abroad’, whose author, indicated only by the initials M. R., insistently explained to the journal’s readers that: ‘The announcement in 1936 of the reception of foreign workers into the Jewish Autonomous Region may produce among the broad masses the illusion of great emigration possibilities, and such illusions may well worsen their already unenviable situation, making them quit active participation in the forces of labour and bread and in the social-political struggle. …

It is in no way to be thought that the purpose of the Jewish Autonomous Region is to solve either the “Jewish question” or the question of unemployed Jewish workers in any capitalist country whatever. … Only the closest unity of Jewish workers and the labouring masses with other exploited masses in the struggle against Fascism can bring them (the Jewish masses) liberation’.

Such declarations can hardly have reassured the leaders of the ORT Union, hoping as they did that in the event of Nazi aggression Jewish refugees from the occupied countries might find shelter in the Soviet ‘Jewish homeland.’

However, the idea of resettling in Birobidzhan was becoming more and more popular among the Jews of Eastern Europe and Germany. A number of letters have been preserved, addressed to the Paris headquarters of the ORT Union, mostly from former subjects of the Russian empire who knew the Russian language, all expressing a desire to relocate to Birobidzhan. Moreover, most of these missives were written in the months following B. Trotsky’s positive answer. On every letter an ORT official has written the date of receipt and appended a brief decision. Some of these letters are extremely short, consisting of only a few phrases, such as this one from Khaim Khakham: ‘With regard to the Jewish colonisation in Birobidzhan, I most humbly request you to reply and inform me whether I, living in the town of Cagul (Bessarabia)⁸, might go to Birobidzhan with my family, which consists of six persons. If this is possible, I ask you to please write and inform me of all the necessary formalities: what documents I should have, how much money it will cost and so on (dated 4 June 1936)’.

There are longer letters, occupying several pages, with detailed descriptions of the wretched situation being endured by the writer and his family because of the economic slump and the anti-Semitic atmosphere in which they live. Such a letter was written to ORT by G. Chakir from the town of Bolgrad⁹: ‘I am Bessarabian. I have a secondary-school education. I have a family; I am 50 years old and my wife is the same age. We have two sons; one is 24, the other 11. I am a senior engineer and machinist with a diploma from the Polytechnic in Nancy. I am a specialist in viticulture, in which I have had 25 years’ experience. Up to this time I have been manager of the most important vineyard in Bessarabia … it has 100 hectares of vines and produces 50 to70 thousand litres of wine annually… And now, at my age, after long years of work, … in the prime of my working life and with an enormous fund of practical knowledge, I find myself without any means of existence. I entered this profession in my youth, for I was convinced that a part of the Jewish community ought to cease living by trade. But now the Christian landowners here will not allow Jews to work on their lands, particularly not as managers; and as for Jewish landowners, there are hardly any. … This, of course, will not surprise you; who knows how many hungry Jews there are in the world? But I would still like to draw your attention to a Jewish agricultural specialist, of whom there can be very few among the masses going forth as colonists. I and my family represent, possibly, precisely the type of person you wish to see among those whom you are sending out. …

We have heard here, very vaguely, of colonies in the Crimea, the Caucasus and Bir-Bidzhan (sic), but about all this we have no very clear idea. … Perhaps you may find somewhere to place a family such as mine. I am ready to go anywhere where grass and vines will grow, to find a way of making a living (dated 25 March 1936).’

Other letters vividly describe the various bureaucratic obstacles that faced potential settlers. For example Friedrich Eidis, of Kremenetz¹⁰, describes in his letter the difficult situation he finds himself in and asks for the help of the ORT Union: ‘The emigration inspector refused to include me among the recipients of free passports, adding that if I could produce a formal contract of employment in the USSR he could give me a passport free of charge. A formal contract must be certified by Narkomindel (People’s Commissariat of Foreign Affairs) in Moscow and passed by the Polish consulate in Moscow. … Anyone not possessing such a document must pay 400 zloty to obtain a passport.

I therefore request you to send me, if possible, three individual contracts: (1) for myself as a dental technician or statistician (as you please), (2) for my wife as a dentist and (3) for my daughter as whatever profession you see fit (she is a student, 18 years old). Without these separate contracts the situation will be so difficult that we will have to postpone our journey until the spring or even longer.

I have received notification from the consul in Warsaw of permission for myself, my wife Pesya and my daughter Maria to enter the USSR. I have just been with my papers to the government emigration office, from which I received an unfavourable response.

I must request you to make haste, as with each day we are detained here our material and political situation becomes worse.

I and my wife have liquidated our business, and the authorities, who already know officially of my intention to enter a “plague-ridden” country, are looking askance at us... (dated 18 July 1936).’

In conducting their resettlement campaign the officials of the Paris headquarters of the ORT Union worked in close contact with J. Tsegelnitski, who was permanently located in Moscow. To him were sent applications from potential settlers, as well as letters from the secretaries of the executive committee of the World ORT Union with requests to make every effort with the Soviet authorities to speed up the issue of visas for this or that candidate for resettlement. It should be noted that settlement in the Jewish Autonomous Region came under the jurisdiction of the NKVD. It was this organisation that was responsible for the constant influx of labour, including labour from abroad, into the building-sites of Birobidzhan. A special section of the NKVD was occupied with the issuing of visas to future settlers; naturally, particular attention was devoted to checking their loyalty, so that no hostile elements or spies might enter the Soviet Union. This process dragged on for several months, if not years, and potential settlers in the new Soviet homeland — many of whom, carried away by their enthusiasm, had burned all their bridges behind them — remained in complete ignorance regarding their future fate.

Nowhere is such a situation better characterised than in a corpus of documents which has been dubbed ‘The Baerwald File’. This voluminous correspondence between J. Tsegelnitski and the Executive Committee of the ORT Union tells of Franz Baerwald’s attempt to relocate to Birobidzhan.

In the first letter, dated 7 April 1936, Tsegelnitski informs Baerwald: ‘The question of the arrangements for work in your speciality in the Jewish Autonomous Region’ has been decided favourably by KOMZET, and now, ‘to obtain the legal right of entry into the USSR, you should apply to the Soviet consulate in Brussels and complete all the necessary formalities.’ An addendum to the letter states that ‘according to the prescribed regulations, persons moving to Birobidzhan to work should take Soviet citizenship and work in the Jewish Autonomous Region for a period of three years’, and also that the sum of 200 dollars must be transferred to the account of the ORT Union in Paris to cover the costs associated with relocation.

At the beginning of May 1936 J. Tsegelnitski received a reply from Baerwald, in which he states that he can ‘raise this sum only with great effort’ and asks whether his brother Hans Georg Baerwald, professor of physics at the University of Tomsk, might pay this sum in roubles on his behalf. In his turn J. Tsegelnitski informed the ORT Union that ‘in the present situation’ it was not possible to comply with this request, and he asked his Paris colleagues to ‘contact citizen Baerwald and explain the present state of affairs to him’.

By mid-May the situation seemed to be settled. According to a letter from J. Tsegelnitski to Paris dated May 25, Baerwald had transferred the sum demanded to Paris. But a new obstacle had arisen. It appeared that the documents submitted by Baerwald and his wife to the Soviet consulate in Brussels had not arrived at the visa section of the NKVD in Moscow. In a reply to a letter of July 3 we read that according to ORT’s information: ‘Baerwald had already given his papers to the consulate at the end of April. … In order to avoid such a delay in granting him a visa as a settler in Birobidzhan, as has happened with specialists of the European portion of the USSR, we request that you contact the responsible authorities with a view to shortening the procedure. It would be highly desirable that Soviet consulates abroad should be issued with corresponding instructions. As we have repeatedly had occasion to observe, the consulates up to now have not been notified of KOMZET resolutions relating to Birobidzhan, and of the conditions for entry to this region for Jews from abroad.’

But on 20 July 1936, to judge from a message addressed to J. Tsegelnitski in Moscow, no such moves had been made in the case of Baerwald, although ‘according to an inquiry, his and his wife’s papers … had already reached Moscow on 14 May.’ Visas had not been issued even in 10 days. But here a curious detail emerges, which gives the Baerwald affair a peculiar poignancy. As J. Tsegelnitski was informed by the Executive Committee of the ORT Union in its last letter, dated 30 July: ‘From D. Lvovich, who has returned from a trip to New York, we have learned, incidentally, that Franz Baerwald … is in fact the nephew of Paul Baerwald¹¹, president of American Joint. This circumstance compels us to address ourselves to you once more in the matter of Baerwald and to point out the necessity of sending a visa with the utmost urgency. Excessive delay in this matter will without doubt give an unfavourable impression of our work.’

Unfortunately, the correspondence breaks off here. Did Franz Baerwald receive his long-awaited visa? Did he succeed in moving to Birobidzhan? What was his ultimate fate? We do not know. But from this Kafkaesque story we can see how miserably badly the Soviet bureaucratic machine functioned: not only did the different departments fail to co-ordinate their work, but at times they were not notified of their immediate tasks. One can only wonder at the extraordinary efforts constantly demanded of the ORT staff for the realisation of their mission in the USSR. Despite all the drive and energy with which they pursued their task of aiding the Jewish settlers, they often failed to achieve the desired result. Such apparent indifference on the part of the Soviet authorities can partly be explained by the state of torpidity in which many officials lived on the eve of the year 1937.

Stalin’s wave of repression, which had affected the entire leadership of the Jewish Autonomous Region and thousands of ordinary settlers, led to the closing down of all foreign Jewish charitable organisations on USSR territory. As a result, the industry and agriculture of Birobidzhan was left to the mercy of fate. According to an authoritative witness, the historian D. Vaiserman, who has spent many years studying the Birobidzhan archives: ‘from 1938 to 1940 the Jewish Autonomous Region did not receive a single automobile or machine or any kind of industrial equipment, nor a single combine or tractor for its collective farms.’