Upheaval hits home and work | OCTOBER 2
In August 1938, Irma Umlauf’s life had begun to unravel: she had been notified that the Jewish-owned company in Breslau for which she worked was going to be liquidated, leaving her jobless. And her landlord had terminated her lease. While there was no law in October 1938 stipulating that non-Jews could not have Jewish tenants, some landlords were eager to get rid of them. In Irma Umlauf’s case, the problem was that her Jewish co-tenants could no longer afford the place and had moved out. The non-Jewish landlord, according to Irma, was afraid to accept other Jewish tenants, and since Jews and non-Jews weren’t allowed to share living space, she had no choice but to leave. Among the other topics broached by Irma in this letter to her friend Hilde Liepelt in Berlin, is her job situation. Luckily, the Landesverband in Berlin gave her permission to do language lessons in the Jewish communities of Münsterberg and Fraustadt, both near Breslau, providing her both with means to live as well as allowing her to continue caring for her mother. A little extra income was generated by singing engagements.
Desecration and devastation | OCTOBER 1
During the night of September 30th going into October 1st, the synagogue of Mellrichstadt in Lower Franconia was completely devastated. In fact, the mob had it in for the congregants: Sudeten German refugees had incited the public to ambush worshippers on their way to the synagogue. However, the Jewish congregation had been warned with sufficient time and services canceled. Now the angry mob of Sudeten Germans and residents of Mellrichstadt stood before the door of the synagogue. Stones were thrown, the door was broken open and the interior destroyed. The mob did not spare the Torah scrolls and other ritual items. After that night, the synagogue could no longer be used.
Urgent: seeking sponsors | SEPTEMBER 14
Not a long letter, only a brief postcard was sent to Ludwig Guckenheimer from his old friend Kurt. Yet these few lines give a vivid impression of the situation in which his friend found himself. Kurt had sent the postcard from Genoa on the 14th of September. He’d been trying to prepare his emigration from there for some time. Kurt knew “that it’s time to rush.” Until now he’d failed for lack of money, but most of all from lack of sponsors. Many countries had massively heightened financial and bureaucratic hurdles to immigration in recent years. The United States for example expected, alongside numerous official certificates, at least two affidavits from close relatives. But Kurt wasn’t discouraged. Hope lay in efforts by his brother-in-law in Dallas.
A super woman | AUGUST 14
Gusty Bendheim, a Berliner, had never met the American branch of her family. As a 42-year-old divorcee, she had no other choice but to turn to her overseas relatives. She asked these quasi-strangers for help facilitating emigration for herself and her children, Ralph (13) and Margot (17). Gusty was an enterprising sort: by the time she got married to Arthur Bendheim, a businessman from Frankfurt/Main, around 1920, she had established three button stores. After the wedding, Arthur took over management and Gusty became a housewife. In spite of the increasingly alarming anti-Jewish measures taken by the Nazi government, Arthur was not willing to leave. After the couple’s divorce in 1937, Gusty took matters into her own hands. In this August 14th, 1938 letter to her unknown relatives, in addition to her request for help, she states that her former husband is ready to pay the costs of travel for her and their children to the United States.
Evicted from Red Vienna | JULY 14
For a dyed-in-the-wool social democrat like the journalist, translator and writer Maurus (Moritz) Mezei, the changes that quickly took hold in Austria after the country’s unimpeded annexation by Nazi Germany must have been doubly troubling. During the period known as “Red Vienna,” the first-ever period of democratic rule in the city from 1918 to 1934, the Mezei family had moved to the “Karl-Marx-Hof,” a public housing project. Starting in 1938, “non-Aryan” families, including the Mezeis, were threatened with expulsion from the compound. Tenant protections initially remained in place for Jews, but they no longer applied to public housing. On June 10, Mezei had applied for immigration to Switzerland, but the reply, written on July 14, was negative. Only if he was to procure an immigration visa from a country overseas would Swiss immigration authorities reconsider his case and possibly grant temporary asylum.
Marked | JUNE 14
Despite the patriotism often espoused by German Jews and their manifold contributions to society, the Reichsbürgergesetz (“Reich Citizen Law”) of 1935 officially assigned an inferior status to Jews, declaring them to be mere “nationals” and further segregating them from the rest of the population. Over time, supplementary decrees were issued that provided the exact Nazi definition of what made a person a Jew and forced Jewish public servants into retirement. On June 14, 1938, the third such supplementary decree stipulated that Jewish-owned businesses were to be marked as such.
Opening night | MAY 14
On May 14, 1938, American moviegoers lined up to see Errol Flynn in his latest swashbuckling adventure produced by Warner Brothers. Flynn’s turn as Robin Hood was especially thrilling thanks to the lush film score by an Austrian Jew whose music was no longer welcome at home. Although a citizen and resident of Austria, composer and conductor Erich Wolfgang Korngold felt the effects of Nazi cultural policy soon after 1933, since he had often worked in Germany. In this climate, he did not have to think twice about Max Reinhardt’s invitation in 1934 to compose the score for his Hollywood production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Korngold’s symphonic film scores broke new ground and established the typical “Hollywood sound.” In 1937, while on an extensive visit to Vienna to complete the orchestration of his opera “Die Kathrin,” he received an invitation from Warner Brothers to compose the score for “The Adventures of Robin Hood.” This assignment spared him the turmoil of the Anschluss. He returned to the US well before March 12, 1938. This photograph shows what appears to be a recording session for the Robin Hood score. The actor in the photograph is Basil Rathbone, who played Robin Hood’s nemesis, Sir Guy of Gisbourne. Korngold won an Academy Award for his compelling score—his second after “Anthony Adverse” (1937).
Persecution in Austria, release from Dachau | APRIL 14
Little more than a month after the Nazi takeover of Austria, a cascade of new regulations and actions taken by the new regime leaves little room for optimism. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reports for April 14 from Vienna that Jews within 50 kilometers of the Czechoslovak border are to be expelled. Nazi commissars will be put in charge of Austrian businesses at the latter’s expense. According to the JTA, in the case of hundreds of Jewish-owned businesses, this provision has already been enforced. Finally, a law has been introduced establishing new procedures for determining the racial status of illegitimate children. The one positive item in this substantial dispatch is the prospect that all Jews currently interned at the Dachau concentration camp will not only be released but will also receive permits to enter Palestine.
A taste of home | MARCH 14
After the tribulations of their forced emigration, often accompanied by a loss of status, property, and basic faith in humanity, German Jews might not have been expected to feel particularly nostalgic for their former home. This ad from the Aufbau, the New York-based German-Jewish paper published by the German-Jewish Club, shows that nevertheless, Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany were not necessarily in a hurry to give up their eating habits.
Kibbutz Giv’at Brenner | FEBRUARY 14
Kibbutz Giv’at Brenner was established in 1928 by young immigrants from Poland and Lithuania who were soon joined by a group from Germany. As in many other kibbutzim, conditions at Giv’at Brenner were initially harsh, causing some members to leave. In the 1930s, due to the absorption of new immigrants, the kibbutz grew. Over time, a thriving agriculture and various industrial enterprises, including a cannery and a factory for irrigation equipment developed. The picture presented here shows the carpentry shop of the kibbutz in 1938. A unique feature was Beit Yesha, a vegetarian convalescent home established in the mid thirties—the first of its kind in a kibbutz.
Staged normalcy | JANUARY 14
The January issue of the Berlin Kulturbund magazine conveys a sense of normalcy—local businesses advertise merchandise and services like cosmetics, women’s apparel and car repairs, while the Kulturbund schedule offers Eugene Scribe’s “The Ladies’ Battle.” The comedy must have provided a welcome respite from the worrisome situation.