"Discussion with Jekef, October 1940". Jacob Edelstein with unidentified Zionists.
Photo courtesy of the Beit Theresienstadt Archives, Kibbutz Givat Chayim-Ihud, Israel.
The meaning of the word resettlement was soon to change to deportations to death, but Edelstein continued to seek the possibility of real emigration while most of the free world refused to accept refugees from Nazi-occupied Europe. The emigration of Jews was initially supported by the Nazis themselves, and while many others refused to negotiate with them, Edelstein took the burden upon himself.
He was in contact with Eichmann, the Nazi expert on the Jews and - still in the true sense of the word at the time - on schemes to expel them from Europe. Eichmann sent Edelstein to Palestine, but arranging legal entry for more than a dozen people was impossible at that time. Edelstein continued to negotiate, in Geneva, in Trieste, in Berlin, in Bratislava. He devised ways of circumventing orders and regulations, collaborating with people who, like him, would become icons of Czech Jewish history: Marie Schmolka, Leo Hermann, Hanna Steiner, František Weidmann. Both the Protectorate and the Nazi authorities were particularly interested in Jewish property, and so most emigration schemes were based on exchanging property for the opportunity to emigrate. After being invited as an observer to Eichmann's first attempt to deport Central European Jews to Poland, known as the Nisko Plan, Edelstein no longer had any doubt about what awaited the deported Jews "in the East." He spent the rest of his life encouraging illegal emigration and trying to keep Protectorate citizens labeled as Jews on their home territory for as long as possible.
When can contact with the enemy be considered collaboration? When can it not be labeled as such?