Havaara Agreement, 1933: Controversial agreement to facilitate emigration of German Jews to Palestine

Haavara (Transfer) was a company established in 1935 as the the result of an agreement between the Jewish Agency (the official Jewish executive in Palestine) and the Nazi regime. The agreement was designed to facilitate Jewish emigration to Palestine. Though the Nazis had ordered Jewish emigrants to surrender most of their property before leaving Germany, the Ha’avara agreement let them retain some of their assets by transferring them to Palestine as German export goods. Approximately 50,000 Jews emigrated to Palestine under this arrangement. (Source: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/heritage/episode8/documents/documents_11.html)

For a lengthy discussion of the transfer agreement and the controversy surrounding its relationship to the international Jewish movement to boycott German goods, see this article from Yad Vashem: http://www.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%203231.pdf