page_title: Ze'ev Jabotinsky
section_title: Evacuation plan for the Jews of Poland, Hungary and Romania
hierarchical_section_title: Ze'ev Jabotinsky / Evacuation plan for the Jews of Poland, Hungary and Romania
caption_attribution_description: English: ZEEV JABOTINSKY (BOTTOM R) MEETING WITH BETAR LEADERS IN WARSAW. BOTTOM LEFT MENAHEM BEGIN. זאב ז'בוטינסקי נפגש עם מנהיגי בית"ר בורשה, פולין. משמאל למטה, מנחם בגין.
context_page_description: Ze'ev Jabotinsky, MBE, was a Russian Jewish Revisionist Zionist leader, author, poet, orator, soldier and founder of the Jewish Self-Defense Organization in Odessa. With Joseph Trumpeldor, he co-founded the Jewish Legion of the British army in World War I. Later he established several Jewish organizations in Palestine, including Betar, Hatzohar, and the Irgun.
  His influence on Israeli politics is profound: through his closest protégé Menachem Begin's administration, consolidating the domination of Israeli politics by the right-wing Likud party; and through the administrations of Likud's leader Benjamin Netanyahu, the son of his former personal secretary and historian, Benzion Netanyahu.
context_section_description: During the 1930s, Jabotinsky was deeply concerned with the situation of the Jewish community in Eastern Europe. In 1936, Jabotinsky prepared the so-called "evacuation plan", which called for the evacuation of 1.5 million Jews from Poland, Baltic States, Third Reich, Hungary and Romania to Palestine over the span of next ten years.The plan was first proposed on 8 September 1936 in the conservative Polish newspaper Czas, the day after Jabotinsky organized a conference where more details of the plan were laid out; the emigration would take 10 years and would include 750,000 Jews from Poland, with 75,000 between age of 20-39 leaving the country each year. Jabotinsky stated that his goal was to reduce Jewish population in the countries involved to levels that would make them disinterested in its further reduction
  The same year he toured Eastern Europe, meeting with the Polish Foreign Minister, Colonel Józef Beck; the Regent of Hungary, Admiral Miklós Horthy; and Prime Minister Gheorghe Tătărescu of Romania to discuss the evacuation plan. The plan gained the approval of all three governments, but caused considerable controversy within the Jewish community of Poland, on the grounds that it played into the hands of anti-Semites. In particular, the fact that the 'evacuation plan' had the approval of the Polish government was taken by many Polish Jews as indicating Jabotinsky had gained the endorsement of what they considered to be the wrong people.
  The evacuation of Jewish communities in Poland, Hungary and Romania was to take place over a ten-year period. However, the British government vetoed it, and the World Zionist Organization's chairman, Chaim Weizmann, dismissed it. Chaim Weizmann suggested that Jabotinsky was willing to accept Madagascar as one destination for limited emigration for Jews, due to political issues involved with settlement in Palestine, and dispatches from Warsaw by British ambassador Hugh Kennard, corroborate Weizmann's account Two years later, in 1938, Jabotinsky stated in a speech that Polish Jews were "living on the edge of the volcano", and warned that a wave of pogroms would happen in Poland sometime in the near future. "Catastrophe is approaching. ... I see a terrible picture ... the volcano that will soon spew out its flames of extermination," he said. Jabotinsky went on to warn Jews in Europe that they should leave for Palestine as soon as possible. There is much discussion about whether or not Jabotinsky actually predicted the Holocaust. In his writings and public appearances he warned against the dangers of an outbreak of violence against the Jewish population of Central and Eastern Europe. However, as late as August 1939, he was certain that war would be averted.
caption: Ze'ev Jabotinsky (bottom right) meeting with Betar leaders in Warsaw. Bottom left Menachem Begin (probably 1939).
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