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The Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin presents the year 1938 through the eyes of Jews, whose personal documents detail their experiences and the hardships they suffered as well as the growing tensions in Europe and diminishing hope for Jews in Germany and Austria.

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12

MONDAY

12

Fake generosity

Forced emigration from Burgenland

“Two hundred Jewish residents of Burgenland province were ‘invited’ to leave Austria by an emigrant-smuggling scheme.”

Eisenstadt, Burgenland

“Free-of-charge”: it may seem like a generous “offer,” but behind this “free-of-charge” offer was ice-cold calculation. The Nazis’ evil intent was that all Jews still remaining in Burgenland, Austria, should leave the region. In Nazi jargon, this was called cleansing. After the “Anschluss,” Burgenland was the first Austrian region in which they had begun to systematically dispossess and expel the Jewish population. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported on September 12th that out of the 3,800 Jews, who had previously lived in Burgenland, 1,900 had already been expelled, 1,600 people had fled temporarily to Vienna, and another 300 were interned in ghettos in Burgenland. According to JTA, the “offer” of the emigrant-smuggling group was financed by the Gestapo with 100,000 marks from the assets of the recently dispossessed Jews of the region.

TAGS: Anschluss, antisemitism, Aryanization, Burgenland Jews, displacement, dispossession, economic persecution, Eisenstadt, emigration, expulsion, imprisonment, Jewish property, Journalism, JTA, media coverage, Nazi policies, public sphere, refugees, segregation, September 12

SOURCE

Institution:

Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Collection:

“Austria Spurs Smuggling of Jews over Border; Travel Agency Aids Gestapo Burgenland Purge”

Source available in English

24

SUNDAY

24

In Memoriam

Ludwig Schönmann's golden years take a dark final turn

“Memorial Album dedicated to the memory of my dear father, Ludwig Schönmann”

Vienna

Ludwig Schönmann, born in Neu-Isenburg in Germany in 1865, had come to Austria early in life and was thus spared the first five years of the Hitler regime. But from the day the German army entered Austria to annex the neighboring country in March 1938, the 73-year-old witnessed all the same persecution that had befallen Jews in Germany – only at an accelerated pace. Jewish businesses were ransacked and their owners expropriated. Jews were publicly humiliated and expelled from the Burgenland region, where they had first settled in the 13th century. Jewish students and teachers were pushed out of the universities, and the infamous Nuremberg Laws were extended to Austria, leading to the removal of Jews from public service. The first page of a memorial album in honor of Ludwig Schönmann lists July 24 as the day of his death.

TAGS: Anschluss, Burgenland Jews, document, economic persecution, expulsion, Jewish property, July 24, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, persecution of Jewish professionals, public sphere, segregation, Vienna, violence

SOURCE

Institution:

Jüdisches Museum Wien

Collection:

Memorial Album for Ludwig Schönmann

Original:

Archiv. Inv. No. 1094

13

MONDAY

13

Fire sale

Jews prepare for expulsion from Burgenland

“Here one learns what really counts in life. People no longer care about money any more, either, that has become irrelevant too.”

Eisenstadt

The Jewish community of Eisenstadt in the Burgenland region of Austria had never been a large one, but as the oldest Jewish community in the area, it dated back to the 14th century and had a rich cultural life. The moment Austria was annexed by Nazi Germany on March 12, 1938, Jews were vulnerable. Under the deeply racist Gauleiter Tobias Portschy, the Burgenland was the first part of Austria to expel its Jewish population. In June 1938, Hilde Schlesinger Schiff was in Eisenstadt helping her parents get ready to relocate. In a birthday letter to her daughter Elisabeth, Hilde calls Elisabeth “a true Jewish child, not settled, always ready to be on the move,” in contrast with her own emotional connectedness to Eisenstadt, from which she is now forced to uproot herself. Mrs. Schlesinger Schiff writes that she hopes her parents will soon be allowed to immigrate to Czechoslovakia, but bureaucratic hurdles remain. Meanwhile, she is clearly taken aback by the eagerness of non-Jews to snatch up the family’s property at a low price, calling it “grave robbery.”

TAGS: Anschluss, antisemitism, bureaucracy, Burgenland Jews, displacement, dispossession, Eisenstadt, emigration, expulsion, family, immigration, Jewish Community, Jewish property, June 13, letter, Nazi laws

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

The letter of my mother (Hilde Schlesinger Schiff) written to me on my birthday in June 1938, AR 6418

Original:

Box 1, folder 1

Chronology of major events in 1938

Mass Arrests and Expansion of Buchenwald

Prisoners carrying containers of soup in Dachau, June 28, 1938. Bundesarchiv, Bild 152-23-27A / CC-BY-SA 3.0. Photographed by Bauer, Friedrich Franz.

Between June 13–18, National Socialists carry out mass arrests. The Juni-Aktion (June Measures) are part of the mission Arbeitsscheu Reich. The campaign began in January (see entry from January 26) and continued in April with 1,500–2,000 arrests. In June, the National Socialists arrest an additional 9,000 men and intern them in concentration camps (KZ). Among those imprisoned are 2,300 Jews—a disproportionate number when compared to the share of Jews in the general population. Hitler himself has ordered a focus on Jews along with so-called “anti-social” elements (“beggars, homeless, and alcoholics”). Jews whose criminal record includes a prison sentence of at least 4 weeks are arrested again. The National Socialists deport the Jewish men to the concentration camps Dachau, Sachsenhausen, and Buchenwald. Buchenwald in particular will become infamous, as it is the destination for the largest number of those arrested during the mission Arbeitsscheu Reich. Guards force the prisoners to expand the Buchenwald camp into the largest KZ in central Germany. About 500 of the prisoners are forced to live in a former stable. They are fed 10 ounces of bread and 3 cups of thin gruel per day. The horrendous living conditions will lead to 150 deaths within the next 8 weeks.

View chronology of major events in 1938

10

TUESDAY

10

Stuck in No Man’s Land

League of Nations intervenes for 56 expellees

Belgrade

The annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany in March 1938 had brought an abrupt end to 1,000 years of Jewish life in the Burgenland region, Austria’s easternmost state. The expulsion of the small Jewish population, carried out by the SS, local Nazi officials, and civilian collaborators, commenced immediately. This article by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reports on the League of Nations’ intervention on behalf of 56 expellees who had ended up in “no man’s land” in the border area between Austria and Yugoslavia. The League’s High Commissioner for German Refugees requested the temporary accommodation of the displaced persons by Yugoslavia, to be followed by permanent resettlement elsewhere.

TAGS: Anschluss, antisemitism, Belgrade, Burgenland Jews, displacement, dispossession, expulsion, Journalism, JTA, League of Nations, May 10, media coverage, Nazi policies, refugees, violence

SOURCE

Institution:

Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Collection:

“Yugoslavia Gives Haven to 56 Refugees on League’s Request”

Source available in English

29

FRIDAY

29

The best revenge

Paul Steiner dreams of Jewish self-determination in his diary

“The ‘civilized‘ world does evince indignation about the barbarity of the Germans, who truly do not deal with us very gently. But what do they do for hundreds of Burgenland Jews, who, for example, are making a tugboat in the middle of the Danube their shelter, or a patch of land between Germany and Yugoslavia?”

Vienna

A month and a half after the “Anschluss,” Paul Steiner is still incredulous. Everything seems so unbelievable, he writes in his diary, that “even ones own words are becoming astonishing and dubious.” He wonders what the outside world is doing for the Jews in light of German barbarity, especially for the Burgenland Jews, who were brutally expelled right after the “Anschluss” and ended up stranded in totally inadequate shelters while their belongings were appropriated by their former neighbors. Steiner also imagines the “revenge” that Jews will exact, shaming the world with their achievements once they are given the right to self-determination.

TAGS: Anschluss, April 29, Burgenland Jews, commentary, diary, displacement, expulsion, Vienna, violence

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Original:

Paul Steiner Collection, AR 25208; Box 1, folder 7

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Curated by Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin © 2018 Leo Baeck Institute

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