But history is full of uncomfortable truths, and if we don’t talk about them, we let the elites control the narrative, the truth matters, and it’s time we expose it. I found this old clip from the 80s that lays it out crystal clear, and I’m going to play it for you, so make sure to share this video with everyone you know. Coming out, revealing secret negotiation between the Nazis and the Zionists in 1933, which allowed German Jews and their assets to go to Palestine. Rich Samuels joins us tonight with the story of the controversy behind the book, and the author’s struggle to write it.

Rich? Deborah, with the rise of Adolf Hitler to power in the spring of 1933, the Jews of the world were faced with a dilemma. They could raise a cry of protest, a cry few would heed, or they could make a deal with Hitler, a deal that would bring a step closer their dream of an independent Jewish state. The choice they made was difficult and agonizing. This new book describes that choice. The book is called The Transfer Agreement. This is Israel a few days ago, the season of Passover. And this is Germany 51 years ago, the blossoming of Adolf Hitler’s springtime.

A key factor in the vitality of today’s Israel, the book’s author argues, was an agreement reached in 1933 between a group of Zionists and the man who would later try to kill every living Jew. The great irony is that Adolf Hitler became the chief economic sponsor of the state of Israel. It will be an argument against, and a wrong argument against, Zionists. Some who lived through those times fear the response to this book. The parents of the author feared its very writing. I was buried in a grave, it’s from the seven people. I was seven times captured.

Edwin Black’s parents are Holocaust survivors. My parents never talked much about the Holocaust. Edwin Black, who filled the void left by the silence of his parents, has written this book, a dense detailed chronicle of the early months of 1933. Believe it or not! January 30th, 1933, Hitler becomes Germany’s interim chancellor. The Third Reich has begun. But in this country on March 4th, attention is diverted by the inauguration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. More power to you, President Roosevelt. The entire country’s behind you, thrilled with hope and patriotism. But ominous headlines tell what’s already happening to the Jews of Germany.

The protest of American Jews was heard almost immediately. It was based on only the sparsest of press reports, and nowhere was that protest more vocal than here in New York City. Walt Creed’s local and national organizations and labor parties are joining this gigantic demonstration passing through famous Washington Arch. Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, honorary president of the American Jewish Congress, leads the procession down Fifth Avenue on foot. Father arranged for the first great mass meeting at Madison Square Garden to discuss capitalism. He felt that when freedom was threatened, silence condoned oppression always. Thousands who waited hours behind police lines rushed forward as the doors of Madison Square Garden are open.

Jews and Gentiles join in the race for seats, and 22,000 of them get in. I was a young kid then, you see, as a teenager. And I belonged to a Zionist youth group, and we were all summoned to go to that rally. Well, it was a very agitated rally. Many years speaking, a few English speaking, and Rabbi Wise mounted an appeal to the Jewish people to do something to save Jewish honor. Most of the important, well-established Jews were very angry at him, said this was sensationalism, and that if anything happened to the Jews in Germany, the blood of the Jews would be on his head.

Dr. Stephen S. Wise, rabbi of the pre-synagogue and the national leader of liberal thought, speaks in behalf of the Jews of the United States. This is not a Jewish meeting. This is the conscience of America making itself built. The conscience of Nazi Germany made itself felt five days later. Across the Reich, Hitler’s troops shut down Jewish-owned businesses for 24 hours. Within days, American Jews marched calling for the boycott of all German exports. Jews throughout Europe echoed that call, so did Jews everywhere. But a group of Zionists at the same time was quietly negotiating an agreement with the Nazis to allow the immigration of German Jews and the transfer of their assets to Palestine.

That deal, reported in August 1933, was the transfer agreement. Palestine, sparsely settled by Jews at the time, was radically changed as a result. I lived in Palestine from 1933 to 1936, and we saw every week transports of German Jews coming to settle in Palestine. Many new professions were introduced by them into the country, and they played a leading role in making Palestine then a more advanced and progressive country. Israel is really what it is because of the foundation laid by the Eastern European group, and then the lift toward an educated and well-organized government that came with the immigration of the German-Jewish group.

German-Jewish settlement of Palestine was, for a time, official Nazi policy. These photos of Jewish life in Palestine, along with a lengthy text, appeared in 1934. In the Berlin paper, they’re on grief. The publisher, Hitler’s propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels. A Nazi visit to Palestine was the title of the multi-part series. A medal was struck by Goebbels in commemoration. On one side, the swastika. On the other, the Star of David. Hitler demanded one concession for the transfer agreement, that the call for a boycott of the Reich, raised by Jews here and elsewhere, be rejected by the Zionists.

The Zionists made that concession. And so, while Nazis were marching in Germany, and while Jews were marching here, diplomacy was wanting a more important story. In the Mediterranean, for the dream of a nation-state for Jewish people came a step closer to reality. The story in this book some will find hard to accept. I still feel the hurt. But after I read it, I said, I’m all with you. Oh, yeah, don’t write it. Because everything was exactly what happened, and that’s the truth, and you cannot deny it. And the truth must prevail. And I’m not worried by the people who will find the book in bad taste, the smart people, the intelligent people, the people who went through.

You’ll understand. The order is torn, is torn between two profound feelings, that he has to be afar a Jewish state, and that the silence which his parents have kept, well, he has to retaliate against that silence, and he takes it out on others. It was a quest. It took me around the world. Financially, it depleted me. Emotionally, it drained me. And as far as my being a Jewish person, understanding my Jewish identity and my relationship to Israel and the Holocaust, it has fulfilled me, has given me identity. That he tries to exercise his own demons by creating ghosts to visit the nights of others, is really a very personal drama.

And my only hope is that he will not damage the people, the state, and the brethren and sisters who we proclaim to church. Did you find what you wanted to know? Yes, I know what happened, and I know why. The transfer agreement will be available shortly. Macmillan is the publisher. Thanks, Patrick. [tr:trw].