constitution its headquarters was to be in Switzerland, and delayed the move for a year. By March 1937 most national federations (except for Spain, still in the throes of the civil war, and Switzerland) had left the UEA and affiliated with the newly established International Esperanto League (IEL). The remaining Geneva UEA, with the support of Lidia Zamenhof, the daughter of L.L. Zamenhof, taking a courageous stand against Nazi Germany and their co-opting of the German Esperanto movement, spoke out against the regime and made efforts to help Jews desperate to flee persecution in Germany. Return to ideals After the Second World War the German Esperanto Association purged itself of its Nazi past and of members like Anton Vogt, a Nazi party member who in 1935 had been UEA vice-president. While a resolution put forward by Dr. Ivo Lapenna on behalf of eight national Esperanto associations to condemn fascism did not pass at the Bern Congress, in part because of fears of having to take sides in the incipient Cold War, the German association dedicated itself to anti-fascism and pacifism. Anti-fascist sentiment was very popular among Esperantists; after all, Nazi Germany had eventually prohibited Esperanto in the Third Reich despite all the prewar attempts to meld the incompatible ideals of Esperantism and Nazi ideology. By now atrophied to a shadow of its former self, the leadership of the Geneva UEA realized that an organization independent of the successful IEL had no future. Thus, at the first postwar Congress in 1947, they decided to reunify with the IEL under the old name of Universal Esperanto Association (UEA). Notes Further reading Peter Glover Forster, The Esperanto Movement, 1982, Walter de Gruyter pub., 413 pages, Marcus Sikosek (Ziko van Dijk): Die neutrale Sprache. Eine politische Geschichte des Esperanto-Weltbundes (German, The neutral language: A political history of the World Esperanto Association), Bydgoszcz: Skonpres 2006, Esperanto history Esperanto organizations