TY - JOUR TI - The Bernheim Petition DO - https://doi.org/doi:10.7282/T3PV6P65 PY - 2017 AB - In May 12, 1933, a petition in the name of Franz Bernheim was sent by the Zionist leadership to the League of Nations in an effort to defend the Jews of German Upper Silesia from Hitler’s legal onslaught of their civil and social rights. Since the region was protected by the German-Polish Convention of 1922, the Council of the League of Nations accepted the petition as legitimate and ruled that the Nazi German government had to comply with its international obligations. In an attempt to halt further political damage, and only after a protracted discussion, it agreed to comply. The German-Polish Convention would expire on July 15, 1937, in which date all Nazi laws would apply to this region. In the interim, Nazi compliance was uneven at best. Given these results, the Zionist leaders chose to concentrate their efforts on the Zionist project in Mandate Palestine as a more viable goal to defend Jewish rights. KW - Jewish Studies KW - Jews--Persecutions--Germany KW - League of Nations LA - eng ER -