At the end of 1942, I tried, at the request of a group, to persuade Eichmann and Himmler to stop exterminating European Jewry and to allow some Jewish children to emigrate to Palestine. I had already discussed with representatives of the Joint in Bratislava the possibility of allowing adults to accompany the transport and we even discussed the number. Later some of the children arrived in Theresienstadt. Eichmann then told me to report to him in Berlin. He told me there the matter had come to the notice of the Mufti through his intelligence service in Palestine. Haj Amin el-Husseini, the grand Mufti of Jerusalem, who spent the war in Berlin as guest of the Germans, has protested to Himmler against the scheme, giving as his reason that these Jewish children would be adults in a few years and would reinforce the Palestine Jewish community. According to Eichmann, Himmler canceled the entire operation and even issued an order banning any future occurrences of this nature, so that no Jew would be allowed to go to Palestine from areas under German control. Another possibility has been suggested. General Erwin Rommel, after the defeat of his Africa Corps at El-Alamein in 1943, returned to Germany and asked Hitler's approval of a deal to raise the morale of his troops by ransoming thousands of German soldiers captured by the British. The quid pro quo would have been Jews, particularly Jewish children, for German soldiers. Far-fetched as this may seems it could tie in with the Mufti's learning of the Theresienstadt transport.

Holocaust·Politics