Thousands of Jews survived the war thanks to Youth Aliya. The goal of this German-Jewish organization was to save lives by helping young Jews, many orphaned, to emigrate from Germany to Palestine to be educated and absorbed into the kibbutzim (cooperative farming communities). The movement helped rescue German Jews from the Nazis, mobilized Jews living in the West, and served Jews residing in Palestine.

Ultimately led by American Zionist Henrietta Szold and others, Youth Aliya helped 5000 Jews escape from Germany, operating legally during the 1930s because Nazi government policy called for forced emigration of Jews. After the outbreak of war, more than 3000 European Jewish children were saved. Another 15,000 were brought to Palestine between the end of the war and the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948.

The organization's daring goals contrasted sharply with its conservative structure. Throughout the 1930s it required Jewish children to be physically and psychologically healthy, and they could not be from single-parent families. Once the war began, the goal was to save lives, and the requirements became more flexible. The kibbutzim became the hosts for approximately 85 percent of the Aliya youths. After the war Youth Aliya members aided several thousand young Jews in displaced-persons camps and helped even more to immigrate to Palestine.
Photo: Central Zionist Archive/United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archive