overseas. At the heart of the organisation was a committee for relief and reconstruction which also prepared young people for the day when they could start their lives afresh. Leo Baeckâs initiative sparked off a response in other European countries. In Britain the lead was given by a veteran campaignerfor refugees whose experience of directing relief work went back to the Great War. Born in Germany, Otto M. Schiff was a wealthy City stockbroker who diverted much of his time and resources to the Jewsâ Temporary Shelter in Whitechapel. Founded towards the end of the last century to provide for the thousands of near-destitute families who fled the Russian pogroms, the Shelter was well regarded by the Home Office, the officials who held command over the destiny of foreigners seeking to enter Britain. Otto Schiff was a severely practical man who could distinguish between what might be achieved in an ideal world and what could be realistically expected in real life. Schiffâs priority was to make the powers in Whitehall realise that the German Jews were facing more than a little local difficulty. Reflecting earlier impressions in Germany, many politicians and senior civil servants had yet to be persuaded that Hitler was other than a tough operator who just might be capable of pulling Germany into shape. There were still Jewish leaders who believed that Hitler was open to reason. Sir Herbert Samuel, one time high commissioner for Palestine and Home Secretary in the 1931 âNational Governmentâ, Lionel de Rothschild, MP, whose banking family was said to be the sixth great power of Europe, and Lord Reading among others had frequent meetings with the German ambassador in the fond expectation of softening the Nazi line. In April 1933 there was talk of an all-Jewish Parliamentary delegation to Berlin â a proposal which did not go down well with the Foreign Office, where the visit was interpreted as interference in matters beyond British jurisdiction. Hardly a day passed without some notable figure sounding forth on Hitler as âa man of peaceâ and his party as a âgreat stabilising forceâ. Alone among the national press the Manchester Guardian consistently denounced Nazi persecution. Other papers found much to admire. âWhatever one may think of his methods,â opined The Times , âHitler is genuinely trying to transform revolutionary fervour into moderate and constructive effort and to impose a high standard of public service.â To argue the case for those German Jews who did not see the future of their country in such rosy terms, Otto Schiff founded the Jewish Refugees Committee. (It was later to become the German Jewish Aid Committee, to get away from the idea thatrefugee status was permanent, and later still to revert to the original title to escape from the abhorrence of all things German.) His first move was to gain the sympathy of the Home Office. Schiff knew that it was not enough to argue his case on humanitarian grounds alone. Against the sufferings of the German Jews had to be set the prior claims of the British unemployed, not to mention the vocal protests of British taxpayers. Somehow, concessions to German refugees had to be made to seem trouble-free so that the civil servants and their political masters could have the pleasure of feeling generous without appearing to give too much away. In March 1933 Schiff hit on a way of achieving this by promising that, in return for a relaxed interpretation of entry regulations, his committee would guarantee that no Jewish refugee would become a charge on public funds. In a sense this was merely a restatement of existing regulations. But Schiffâs offer assumed a change of emphasis from individual to community responsibility, allowing wider discretion to immigration officials to let in immigrants who had little evidence to show that they could care for themselves. In effect, Schiff was saying that the Jewish