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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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26

TUESDAY

26

The League for Human Rights

“These Dogs of Hitler and Göring will never succeed”

“The Jewish sense of charity will not die, and these bastards Hitler and Göring will never get their wish to see the emigrants die in the gutter.”

Brünn/Rishon LeZion

Hugo Jellinek was a man of many talents. The outbreak of WWI forced him to quit medical school in Vienna. As a soldier, he was severely wounded in Samarkand and fell in love with his nurse, who later became the mother of his three daughters. The couple settled down in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. His young wife having died in 1926, he fled the Soviet Union in 1930 and ultimately returned to Vienna, where he utilized his knowledge of 8 languages as a translator and also worked as a freelance journalist. Thanks to a warning about impending arrest by the Nazis, he was able to escape to Brünn (Czechoslovakia) in June 1938. His eldest daughter, eighteen year-old Gisella Nadja, departed for Palestine the same day. In this colorful letter, Hugo shows fatherly concern for Nadja’s well-being, but also talks at length about the hardship he himself has faced as a refugee and reports that his cousin’s son is interned at the Dachau Concentration Camp. He mentions with gratification what he calls the “League,” probably referring to the aid center of the “League for Human Rights,” which was looking after the refugees, defying Hitler’s sinister goals. Ultimately, however, the most important thing for him was the fight for a country of one’s own.

TAGS: advocates, Brünn, children, commentary, Concentration Camps, Dachau, displacement, emigration, family, family separation, imprisonment, July 26, Language skills, letter, Palestine, refugees, Rishon LeZion, welfare organizations, WWI, WWI veterans, Youth Aliyah, Zionism

SOURCE

Institution:

Letters, Documents and Images of the Jellinek Family Confronting the Holocaust, created by Paulette Jellinek

Collection:

Letter from Hugo Jellinek to Gisella Nadja Jellinek

23

SATURDAY

23

Excuses from Évian

The Jewish community takes stock of the international refugee conference

“As always, we Jews are merely objects, not partners on an equal footing. To realize this is especially painful on the 34th anniversary of Theodor Herzl's death, but the fact that close to 40 Jewish organizations participated in Évian as mere spectators indicates well enough how little even we Jews - even in matters of our own existence as a people - have progressed.”

Évian-les-Bains

After the Anschluss, the problem of refugees from Germany and Austria became even more pressing. In order to address the issue, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt had called for an international conference in Évian in July, 1938. The conference was anticipated with great hopes by the German-Jewish community but, due to the refusal of the international community to adjust immigration quotas to actual needs, the impact of Évian was extremely limited. Nevertheless, the Jüdisches Gemeindeblatt für Rheinland und Westfalen (Jewish Community Newsletter for Rhineland and Westphalia) tried to present some positive results by pointing out the readiness of several South American countries to absorb Jewish refugees. Regardless of the palpable attempt to remain hopeful, the underlying tone of this front page article in the July 23 issue is not one of excessive optimism.

TAGS: Anschluss, commentary, emigration, Evian conference, Evian-les-Baines, immigration, Journalism, July 23, media coverage, politics, press article, prominent people, refugees, South America

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

“Von Evian nach London”, Jüdisches Gemeindeblatt für Rheinland und Westfalen

Original:

No. 29, Band 8, p. 1.

22

FRIDAY

22

Bread for strangers

A Rheinland business owner sees the US as a land of generosity

“Our main concern remains selling the house, the business we can sell twice over or liquidate, so as far as that is concerned, we don't have to worry too much.”

Neuwied am Rhein/New York

In this letter, Isidor Nassauer, based in Neuwied am Rhein, cooly describes his emigration plans to his friends, the Moser family, who are already in the US. Unsolicited, his brother-in-law has sent an affidavit, which due to a missing signature could not be used and had to be sent back. While waiting for the signed document, Mr. Nassauer is taking English lessons. Even though he has no idea how he will subsist in America, the fact that “so much bread has been baked for strangers” there gives him confidence. He is most concerned about selling the family house and seems certain that selling or liquidating the business (a brush factory) will be easy. In general, Jews were forced to sell their property far below its actual value.

TAGS: affidavits, commentary, displacement, economic persecution, emigration, family, family separation, immigration procedures, Jewish property, July 22, Language skills, letter, Neuwied am Rhein, New York, refugees

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Betty and Morris Moser Collection, AR 25497

Original:

Box 1, folder 2

13

WEDNESDAY

13

No mountain high enough

Separated by the Nazis, Käthe and Regina keep in touch

“For these things, it would be worth-while keeping something like a diary. And also for the sake of many other things that occur only in our century. Do it, if you can, brave one, admirable one. You certainly have much to say, from this distance, reflections, real ones, not fabricated ones.”

St. Gallen/Binghamton, NY

Käthe Hoerlin and Regina Ullmann had at least three things in common: both had Jewish ancestors, both converted to Catholicism, and both had the trajectories of their lives impacted by the Nazi regime. Regina Ullmann, a poetess and writer, was expelled from the Association for the Protection of the Rights of German Authors (Schutzverband Deutscher Schriftsteller) and left Germany to return to her native St. Gallen, Switzerland. Käthe Hoerlin’s first husband, the music critic Willi Schmid, was executed by the regime in 1934 in a case of mistaken identity. Days after this tragedy, Käthe, who was the secretary of the ill-fated Nanga Parbat expedition, got news that nine of its participants had died trying to climb the famed Himalayan peak. In 1938, thanks to the help of a Nazi official who had assisted her with her compensation claims after Schmid’s death, she got permission to get married to the non-Jewish alpinist and physicist Hermann Hoerlin (marriages between “half-Jews,” as she was classified, and “persons of German blood” required special permits which were rarely given). Hoerlin was highly critical of the regime’s interference in scientific research. This letter, which exudes sincere empathy and interest in her friend’s well-being in her new surroundings as well as groundedness in her Catholic identity, was written by Regina Ullmann just after the Hoerlins had emigrated to the United States.

TAGS: antisemitism, Binghamton NY, commentary, emigration, July 13, letter, Nazi policies, persecution of Jewish professionals, prominent people, St. Gallen

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Kate and Herman Hoerlin Collection, AR 25540

Original:

Box 2, folder 13

3

SUNDAY

3

No keeping up

Border regulations change at rapid pace

“You will say, why hasn't that been done yet, but that's because of the rapid succession of regulations & you can't get information that fast.”

FRANKFURT AM MAIN/NEW YORK

This letter from a father to his children is dominated almost entirely by concerns about transferring people and goods out of Germany. According to the writer, regulations were changing so rapidly that it was hard to keep track. Lately it had been decreed that both for articles to be shipped and for personal baggage, itemized lists had to be submitted which were subject to authorization. This could be rather time-consuming. The writer of the letter points out that the speed with which answers are given is not keeping up with the speed of the changes necessitating inquiries.

TAGS: commentary, economic persecution, emigration, family, family separation, Frankfurt am Main, Jewish property, July 3, letter, Nazi policies, New York

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Gerda Dittmann Collection, AR 10484

Original:

Box 1, folder 3

19

SUNDAY

19

A letter from Shanghai

Report from a German Jewish refugee

“There is not a single Jew here who cannot feed himself.”

Shanghai/Berlin

At a time when more and more German Jews became anxious to leave the country, this letter from a German-Jewish emigrant in Shanghai, addressed to the “gentlemen of the Hilfsverein [Aid Society of Jews in Germany]” and published in the “Jüdisches Gemeindeblatt für Berlin,” must have infused prospective emigrants with new hope: the writer exuberantly thanks the Hilfsverein for counseling him and gushes over the multitude of professional options available to immigrants at his new location, “provided, of course, that you have a skill and are able to work intensely.” According to him, musicians, physicians, and merchants are greatly in demand, and the situation is especially promising for secretaries and shorthand typists – on condition that they have perfect command of the English language, which could by no means be taken for granted among German Jews. The newcomers were not the only Jews in the country; a Sephardic community had been present in Shanghai since the middle of the 19th century, and settlement by Ashkenazi Jews had begun in the early 20th century and intensified in the wake of the Russian Revolution.

TAGS: Berlin, commentary, displacement, emigration, Jewish Community, Journalism, June 19, Language skills, letter, musicians, refugees, Shanghai, welfare organizations

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Gemeindeblatt der Jüdischen Gemeinde zu Berlin

Original:

Vol. 28, No. 25, p. 5.

18

SATURDAY

18

Planted evidence

The Gestapo visits Adolph Markus

“If they wanted to arrest me, they also would have to take my two small boys, who otherwise would be without care, or they should wait approx. six weeks, until my wife is back from the hospital.”

Linz

Since discussing the possibility of emigration with his relatives in Vienna on April 20, Adolph Markus of Linz had taken up English lessons at the synagogue twice to three times a week. On April 29, his brother-in-law had been picked up by the Gestapo, and the Markuses’ tension and nervousness was beginning to rub off on the children. Two weeks later, Mrs. Markus was questioned by the Gestapo about the value of a house she owned and all her other property. Finally, on June 18, two Gestapo officers appeared at the family’s home: While going over the contents of some boxes, one of them tried to frame Adolph Markus by sneaking in a communist leaflet. Markus mustered the calm and self-assurance to point out to the officers that he had never been politically active in any way. His allusion to his frontline service in World War I, combined with the remark that if they were to arrest him, they would have to take along his two little boys, since their mother was in the hospital, made them change their mind. They left – threatening to return after six weeks if he wasn’t going to leave the country on his own accord.

TAGS: antisemitism, children, commentary, Communists, diary, economic persecution, emigration, family, Jewish Community, June 18, Language skills, Linz, persecution, Synagogues, WWI veterans

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Diary, February 1938–December 1939, Adolph Markus, ME1090

Source available in English

6

MONDAY

6

Universal humanity

Claude G. Montefiore celebrates his 80th birthday

“Even dismal days had not caused the Jewish people to relinquish their faith that goodness is at home everywhere on earth. On difficult days, they would consider the words of Rabbi Tanchuma, ‘Do not say, since I have suffered abuse and humiliation, my neighbor too shall suffer them, but know whom you would be abusing: him who was created in the image of God.’ ”

Ludwigshafen

In his “Remarks about the Feast of Weeks,” published in the June issue of the “Jewish Community Paper for the Rhenish Palatinate Region,” Rabbi Dr. Ernst Steckelmacher of Ludwigshafen poses a real challenge to his readers. He interprets the Book of Ruth, one of the readings during the Feast of Weeks, as an example of Judaism’s emphasis on the precedence of the universal over the particular. Through Ruth, who embodies universal humanity, the book shows that goodness can be found anywhere. This was not an intuitive message at a time when the ostracism of Jews from German society forced them to turn inward. June 6, 1938, was not only the second day of Shavuot, but also the 80th birthday of Claude G. Montefiore, the President of the World Union of Progressive Judaism. Dr. Steckelmacher acknowledges this occasion and reinforces his universalist message by drawing attention to the similar sentiments of Claude Montefiore.

TAGS: commentary, Jewish holidays, Journalism, June 6, Ludwigshafen, press article, prominent people, rabbis, religion, segregation

SOURCE

Institution:

Compact Memory, Universitätsbibliothek Frankfurt am Main

Collection:

„Das Judentum - universallistische Religion. Bemerkungen zum Wochenende“, Jüdisches Gemeindeblatt für das Gebiet der Rheinpfalz, no. 10 (1938): 7

3

FRIDAY

3

Left in the dark

No information for the families of thousands of incarcerated Jews

“Whether all or a few of the several thousand arrested have been sent to Dachau or to Styria or whether they will soon be released is a matter of frightening uncertainty. The events of the past few days will never be erased from the minds of thousands of women here.”

VIENNA

Nobody saw fit to inform the worried wives of thousands of Jewish men arrested by the Nazis about their spouses’ whereabouts and the expected period of imprisonment. Many of them decided to go to the Rossauer Lände detention facility and the central police station in order to get information on the whereabouts of their loved ones. According to this June 3 report from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, the detainees had been taken away in overcrowded railroad cars, many of them forced to remain in uncomfortable positions for up to five hours before departure. While there were intimations that those sent to the Dachau concentration camp in Germany would be exploited as construction workers in order to enlarge the camp and subsequently be released, many had no idea where their husbands were. The author of the report sees the “extraordinary callousness with which police have withheld information” as “one of the most terrifying aspects of the situation.”

TAGS: Anschluss, antisemitism, commentary, Concentration Camps, Dachau, family, family separation, imprisonment, Journalism, JTA, June 3, media coverage, Vienna, violence

SOURCE

Institution:

Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Collection:

“Nazis to Use Jewish Prisoners to Enlarge Dachau”

Source available in English

23

MONDAY

23

Faster and faster

Leo Baeck turns 65

“And this year will be a difficult one; the wheel is turning faster and faster. It will really test our nerves and our capacity for careful thought.”

Berlin

In April 1938, Rabbi Leo Baeck, the president of the Reich Representation of Jews in Germany and as such the main representative of German Jewry, had presciently written, “And this year will be a difficult year; the wheel is turning faster and faster. It will really test our nerves and our capacity for careful thought.” Baeck had been an army chaplain in World War I and as a patriot must have been extremely pained by the persecution of German Jewry. With large parts of the community reduced to poverty, Jewish rights curtailed, Jews pushed to the margins of society, and no prospects for improvement, Rabbi Baeck’s 65th birthday on May 23 probably was quite a somber affair.

TAGS: antisemitism, Berlin, commentary, economic persecution, impoverishment, Jewish Community, May 23, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, photo, prominent people, rabbis, religion, segregation, welfare organizations, WWI, WWI veterans

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Lucian Loeb, Leo Baeck in his library, Berlin, 1935. Leo Baeck Collection, AR 66

Original:

F 12073

22

SUNDAY

22

Ready for Germany

The despair of a nationalist German Jew

“I am a Jew! A Jew in a desperate position: a Jewish German who in spite of everything that has befallen him or perhaps because of it cannot shed his ties to Germany [...].”

Hildesheim/Berlin

The writer of this letter was a young man from Hildesheim, Fritz Schürmann (later Frank Shurman), born in 1915. Even though he is said to have struggled with antisemitism well before the Nazis rose to power, he joined the Deutscher Vortrupp (“German Vanguard”) in 1934, a group of young, extremely nationalistic Jews whose slogan was “Ready for Germany” and who hailed National Socialism as a force preventing Germany’s downfall. Given these views, it must have been especially painful for him to confront the bitter reality of rejection by German society. In this letter, he thanks a Mr. Dilthey in Berlin for the distinction of having spent time with him and dramatically informs him of his Jewish identity. “I am a Jew! A Jew in a desperate position: a Jewish German who in spite of everything that has befallen him or perhaps because of it cannot shed his ties to Germany […].” Denied his identity as a German by the Nazi regime, the writer communicates the crippling effects of the political situation on his psyche and the absurd notion of having to leave Germany in order to be able to be German.

TAGS: antisemitism, Berlin, commentary, emigration, Hildesheim, letter, May 22, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, politics

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Frank M. Shurman Collection, AR 25219

Original:

Box 1, folder 25

13

FRIDAY

13

No time to lose

Jewish paper advises to quickly learn foreign languages

“It is really nothing new that the most important preparation for emigration is learning languages.”

HANNOVER

By May 1938, emigration seemed to be on the mind of every German and Austrian Jew. This article in the <i>Hannover Jüdisches Gemeindeblatt</i>, for example, exhorts prospective emigrants to lose no time and start studying English as soon as possible. According to the paper, at least two-thirds of German-Jewish emigrants were likely to settle down in English-speaking countries, and even those heading to Latin America would profit from a solid knowledge of English. On the other hand, proficiency in Spanish could be useful because of extensive trade relations between North and South America. The answer to the question “Spanish or English?” therefore was an emphatic “Both!”

TAGS: commentary, displacement, emigration, Hannover, Journalism, Language skills, May 13, media coverage, press article, refugees, South America

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

“English oder Spanisch?”, Hannover Jüdisches Gemeindeblatt, Vol. 15, No. 19, p. 1.

12

THURSDAY

12

Brothers

Unlike his famous sibling, Albert Göring was an ally to the Jews

“Since in the meantime a significant calming has occurred, I do not believe that there will be any danger for you or for your brothers. If, however, should this situation occur again, you can count on me at any time.”

VIENNA

Unlike his older brother Hermann, the holder of several senior positions in the NS government and a notoriously brutal hater of Jews and dissidents, the engineer Albert Göring abhorred Nazism and was prepared to act on his convictions. He refused to join the party and demonstratively adopted Austrian citizenship. A resident of Vienna, he is said to have joined Jews, who after the Anschluss were forced to perform the humiliating task of scrubbing the pavement, and he did not hesitate to help victims and political opponents of the regime. In this letter to the Jewish lawyer, Dr. Hugo Wolf, he communicates his impression that “a significant calming” had taken place and his assumption that the danger was past. He also promises help in case of need.

TAGS: advocates, Anschluss, antisemitism, commentary, letter, May 12, Vienna

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Max and Margareta Wolf Collection, AR 10699

Original:

Box 1, folder 2

6

FRIDAY

6

“Finis Austriae”

Sigmund Freud celebrates his last birthday in Vienna

VIENNA

While Sigmund Freud, the “father of psychoanalysis,” clearly did not underestimate the significance of the Anschluss—“Finis Austriae” was the succinct commentary he jotted down in his diary—even the search of his home and publishing house by the Nazis did not prompt him to explore emigration. As a matter of fact, he reportedly commented on the unsolicited visit of the Nazis, who had made off with a substantial amount of money, with the dry remark, “I have never taken so much for a single visit.” But when his daughter Anna, herself a renowned psychoanalyst, was interrogated by the Gestapo shortly thereafter, the usually restrained Freud’s reaction was highly emotional, and he began weighing the various offers of asylum he had received. May 6, 1938 was his last birthday in Vienna.

TAGS: Anschluss, antisemitism, commentary, emigration, May 6, persecution of Jewish professionals, photo, prominent people, Vienna

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Portrait of Sigmund Freud in 1920. Sigmund Freud Collection, AR 827

Original:

F 2177

5

THURSDAY

5

Leave the rest to the Kadosh Baruch Hu

Sigmund Hirsch encourages his nephew Julius not to worry about politics

“As for politics, don't you worry, my dear boy. Do your duty and leave the rest to the Kadosh Baruch Hu. Personal views no longer count, otherwise I would tell you that I personally do not believe there will be war right now. What will be done if it does come, God forbid, will become apparent then. Nobody is sufficiently prescient in order to predict what will be. It goes without saying that you will stay in Italy. But as I said, I consider any discussion of this topic misguided, since nobody wants this war which would only cause universal ruin.”

Genoa/Merano

In 1935, under mounting pressure, the orthodox Hamburg physician Henri Hirsch left Germany and joined his brother Sigmund in Genoa, Italy. Shortly thereafter, he was joined by his second wife, Roberta, and by some of his young adult sons, and moved with them to Merano. In 1938, Henri Hirsch died. In this letter to his nephew Julius, Sigmund Hirsch tries to assuage the young man’s worries about an impending war, exhorting him to put his faith in God and promising help. Since he had been based in Italy for a while, many seem to have pinned their hopes on him: with palpable regret, he relates how little he can do for the “thousands” of people asking him for help.

TAGS: commentary, displacement, emigration, family, Genoa, letter, May 5, Merano, persecution of Jewish professionals, refugees, religion

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Julius and Edith Hirsch Collection, AR 25585

Original:

Box 1, folder 22

3

TUESDAY

3

Segregation in Kindergarten

A Hamburg lawyer reports on his young daughter's education

“The times have become very serious. We are depressed and despondent, and therefore there is little leisure and inclination to write and take photographs as elaborately as before.”

Hamburg

Even though he professes to be in low spirits due to the serious situation and therefore hardly inclined to write and take photographs as regularly as before, Wilhelm Hesse, a lawyer in Hamburg, describes the development of his daughter Helen in some detail in his diary. He reports on her capacity to think logically and a desire to learn so strong that the parents feel they have to make her slow down a bit. Hesse also writes with satisfaction about Helen’s progress in a Jewish kindergarten, but he does not fail to mention that she must learn to get along better with her little sister, Evchen. Since the passing of the Nuremberg Laws in 1935—Helen was two years old at the time—Jewish children were no longer allowed to attend non-Jewish kindergartens, and Jewish kindergarten teachers were prohibited from taking care of non-Jewish children. The Hesse family was religiously observant and might have opted for a Jewish institution even under normal circumstances.

TAGS: children, commentary, diary, family, Hamburg, May 3, Nazi laws, religion, segregation

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Helen and Eva Hesse Family Collection, AR 25327

Original:

Box 1, folder 3

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

24

SUNDAY

24

Our name should perish with us

A Jewish physician describes a nightmarish visit to her hometown

“Father says he doesn't want to sell the company. The name - it should perish with us [...].”

Laupheim

The diary of Dr. Hertha Nathorff (née Einstein) paints a vivid and at times nightmarish picture of the Jewish physician’s experiences in Nazi Germany. On April 24, she describes a visit with her parents in her native Laupheim in Swabia. Many Jewish shops had been sold, and their owners had emigrated. The Nazis’ efforts to malign and isolate the Jews had been so successful that passers-by were afraid to greet her. Her father had informed her that he was not going to sell the company which had been in the family’s possession for four generations and that he would prefer that it perish along with their name. The degree of isolation experienced by German Jews at the time is also evident in another episode mentioned in the diary: Dr. Nathorff is amazed at the fact that her former professor had the courage to send her regards through a patient.

TAGS: antisemitism, April 24, commentary, diary, dispossession, economic persecution, emigration, family, Laupheim, persecution of Jewish professionals, public sphere, segregation

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Hertha Nathorff, Memoir, Reichstagsbrandt, ME 460.

20

SATURDAY

20

Safe for now

WWI combat veterans still protected

Vienna

Residents of Linz, Adolph Markus, his wife, and their two children were among the relatively few of Austria’s roughly 200,000 Jews not living in Vienna. On April 20, 1938 Markus went to visit his family in the capital in order to discuss the difficult situation and explore options for emigration. While his brother Rudi was prepared to lose his job any day, he opined that Adolph, as WWI combat veteran, had nothing to worry about. Indeed, combat veterans were exempt from certain anti-Jewish measures, as were Jews who had lost their father or a son in combat for Germany or its allies.

TAGS: Anschluss, antisemitism, April 20, commentary, diary, economic persecution, emigration, family, Linz, Nazi policies, Vienna, WWI veterans

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Diary, February 1938–December 1939, Adolph Markus, ME1090

Source available in English

18

FRIDAY

18

A new mission for World Jewry

Bratislava's Jewish paper calls for solidarity with Austrian Jews

“Austrian Jews have an old tradition as fully equal citizens who have always put their forces into the service of their homeland and have contributed to the latter's prosperity in all economic, social, and cultural fields”.

Vienna

The entire front page of Bratislava’s German-language religious-Zionist “Allgemeine Jüdische Zeitung” is dedicated to the Anschluss. Jews are called upon to stand by their Austrian coreligionists. An anonymous source notes the impoverished state of many Jews in Austrian lands and the resulting need to restructure social services as well as address the increasingly urgent issues of occupational retraining and emigration. The reader is reminded that Austria is still a member of the League of Nations and that Austrian law stipulates equal rights for religious and national minorities. Among other sources quoted is the British Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Butler, who reports having received assurances that the German government would “endeavor to achieve a moderation” of its policy towards minorities. The paper also reports that the President of the World Jewish Congress, Rabbi Wise, has appealed to the League of Nations to help Austrian Jewry. The rest of the picture is bleak: newspapers suspended, prominent Jews arrested, a Jewish theater closed, Jewish physicians dismissed, and other chicanery. The paper calls upon Jews everywhere to come to the aid of their Austrian brethren.

TAGS: Anschluss, antisemitism, Bratislava, commentary, cultural life, impoverishment, Jewish Community, Journalism, League of Nations, March 18, media coverage, Nazi policies, persecution of Jewish professionals, politics, press article, prominent people, rabbis, Vienna, Zionism

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Nationalsozialistisches Regime in Ősterreich, Allgemeine Jüdische Zeitung, Vol. 6, p. 1.

Original:

Vol. 6, p. 1

Chronology of major events in 1938

The National Socialists arrest 150 public figures

A raid on the Jewish Community offices in Vienna on March 18, 1938. Bundesarchiv Bild 152-05 - 15A.

The spring of 1938 is marked by a series of assaults on Jews in Vienna and a number of other European cities. These Anschluss pogroms constitute an escalation of the National Socialist policy of persecution. Citizens humiliate, bully, and attack Jews publicly. Shortly after the Annexation, National Socialists in Austria arrest about 150 public figures. A third of those arrested are Jews, including writer Heinrich Jacob, librettist Fritz Löhner-Beda, cabaret artist Fritz Grünbaum, Social-Democratic politician and lawyer Robert Danneberg, laywer Jakob Ehrlich, lawyer and president of the Jewish Community in Vienna, Desider Friedmann, and spice dealer Hans Kotányi. In April, the National Socialists will deport the group in an action referred to as the Prominententransport (“VIP-transport”). It will be the first deportation to the concentration camp Dachau.

View chronology of major events in 1938

15

TUESDAY

15

Hitler’s Homecoming

Adolph Marcus reacts to Hitler's return to Linz

“From day to day the anxiety among the personnel is growing [...].”

Linz

From March 12 to 14, Hitler visited Linz, which he had considered his home town since his adolescence there. In his address to the local populace he stylized himself as the enforcer of the people’s will and invoked the German soldiers’ “willingness to sacrifice” and the “greatness and glory” of the German people. While many reacted with enthusiasm, others were seized by fear. In his diary, Adolph Markus captures the anxious atmosphere at his workplace in Linz days after the “Anschluss.”

TAGS: Anschluss, commentary, diary, economic persecution, Linz, March 15, prominent people, public sphere

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Diary, February 1938–December 1939, Adolph Markus, ME1090

Chronology of major events in 1938

Adolf Hitler celebrates the annexation of Austria

Central Linz, Austria, following the Anschluss. Time Inc.

The Heldenplatz in Vienna is crowded when Adolf Hitler hails “the accession of my homeland to the German Reich.” According to the Führer, the annexation of Austria places the country in its proper role as a “bulwark” of the Reich. Hitler challenges the Austrian people to never let themselves be “exceeded by anyone anywhere in their fidelity to the greater German national community.” Many newspapers carry the speech the following morning, including Vienna’s Volks-Zeitung, whose masthead is henceforth emblazoned with a swastika.

View chronology of major events in 1938

12

SATURDAY

12

The Unthinkable

Emotional reaction of one Austrian Jew to the Anschluss

“What yesterday seemed to me barely fathomable, a thought which I would thrust aside so that it would not enter my mind, is no longer a matter of trepidation and grief to me: emigration.”

Vienna

In spite of numerous signals that Austria was changing its political course, the Anschluss on March 12 caught many Austrian Jewish citizens by surprise. One of them was 25-year-old law graduate Paul Steiner. As is often the case with witnesses of cataclysmic historical events, he did not understand the magnitude of the change until it was a fact. On the day of the Anschluss, he expressed feelings of disbelief in his diary. Within just a few hours of the historical change, Steiner’s love and commitment to Austria changed into a feeling of indifference and alienation. Not seeing any hope in the new Austrian political reality, he made the quick but rational decision to leave his native land as soon as possible.

 

Follow a 24-hour multimedia reconstruction of the Annexation of Austria online at www.zeituhr1938.at

Live from March 11, 2018, 18:00 until March 12, 2018, 18:00 (Central European Time)

 

TAGS: Anschluss, commentary, diary, emigration, March 12, politics, Vienna

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Paul Steiner Collection, AR 25208

Original:

Box 1, folder 7

Chronology of major events in 1938

The Annexation of Austria

Austrian women cheering the arrival of German troops during the Anschluss. Time Inc.

In reaction to German threats, the Austrian president Wilhelm Miklas convenes an independent but pro-Nazi government headed by Arthur Seyß-Inquart, which governs from March 11–13. The Wehrmacht, the SS, and police invade Austria on March 12. At the command of Adolf Hitler, Austria’s National Socialist government begins the process of annexation, in which Austria is to merge gradually yet completely with the German Reich. National Socialism will rule in Vienna and its surroundings until the Red Army arrives in mid-April 1945. The Declaration of Independence will nullify the Annexation on April 27, 1945. In many other part of Austria, however, it will be the end of the Second World War in May 1945 that finally brings an end to National Socialism.

View chronology of major events in 1938

11

FRIDAY

11

Calm before the storm

No one knows what tomorrow will bring

“The streets are strangely calm, "Calm before the storm." At five p.m. there are swastika flags on display on some buildings (Meyerzett House). According to a radio report, the Austrian government has resigned and Seyß-Inquart is said to have assumed power. Deeply upset, we are rushing home from the shop.”

Linz

Adolph Markus lived in Linz, Austria with his wife and two children. One month before the “Anschluss” (the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany on March 12, 1938), he started keeping a diary which offers a gripping account of the growing tension. The situation was changing from day to day, and the Jews could only guess what would happen next. One day before the annexation, Markus wrote in his diary: “The streets are strangely calm. ‘Calm before the storm.’”

 

Follow a 24-hour multimedia reconstruction of the Annexation of Austria online at www.zeituhr1938.at

Live from March 11, 2018, 18:00 until March 12, 2018, 18:00 (Central European Time)

 

TAGS: Anschluss, commentary, diary, Linz, March 11, politics

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Diary, February 1938 – December 1939, Adolph Markus, ME1090

Source available in English

28

MONDAY

28

Confidence in chancellor Schuschnigg

Therapeutic Optimism

“We always had and continue to have full confidence in our Chancellor, in his open heart, fair-mindedness and sincerity. That confidence was strengthened after Thursday's declaration emphasizing that the government will stand by the Constitution of May, 1934.”

Vienna

At the end of February 1938, there still seemed to be at least a few rays of hope for Austrian Jewry. In a sermon at the Vienna Central Synagogue, Chief Rabbi Israel Taglicht expressed the confidence of Austrian Jewry in Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg. A few days earlier, the Chancellor had asserted that Austria would hold fast to the principles of the Constitution of May 1934, which granted Jews equality before the law and religious freedom. About the same time, the pro-Nazi mayor of Graz had been dismissed for raising a swastika flag over City Hall. To prevent Nazi demonstrations, the University of Graz and the Technical College had been temporarily closed.

TAGS: Anschluss, commentary, February 28, Graz, Jewish Community, Journalism, JTA, media coverage, politics, rabbis, religion, Synagogues, Vienna

SOURCE

Institution:

Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Collection:

“Austrian Jews Express Confidence in Schuschnigg; Nazi Mayor Ousted”

Source available in English

20

SUNDAY

20

Imminent danger

Dark premonitions fill the pages of the diary of a Jew from Linz

“Meanwhile the Nazi demonstrations are taking on ever-expanding dimensions, making the immense threat to Austria appear closer and closer.”

Linz

The Austrian Adolph Markus had started a diary on January 12, the day Hitler forced the “Berchtesgaden Treaty” on the Austrian chancellor, Schuschnigg. The treaty stipulated the release of National-Socialist prisoners, gave free rein to Nazi political organizing, and granted a greater measure of participation in government activities to their political representatives. Markus personally witnessed the thuggish behaviour of the released prisoners and their reception by sympathizers in the streets of Linz. In his diary entry on February 20, he records the events of the preceding day and reveals his worries for his country.

TAGS: Anschluss, commentary, diary, February 20, Linz, Nazi policies, prominent people, public sphere

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Diary, February 1938–December 1939, Adolph Markus, ME1090

Source available in English

18

FRIDAY

18

Under the radar in Italy?

Italian antisemitism does not target local Jews, says report

“The anti-semitic movement in Italy is directed not at Italian Jews but rather at world Jewry, which is notoriously anti-fascist. Moreover, the movement is more political than racist in character.”

Rome

The orthodox Jüdische Presse quotes the state-run Austrian wire service Amtliche Nachrichtenstelle with a reassuring assessment of the situation of Jews in Italy: While there was an antisemitic movement “like everywhere else,” it was very moderate, and rather than targeting Italian Jewry, it opposed “World Jewry” due to the latter’s notoriously anti-fascist stance. Interestingly, the moderate nature of the antisemitic movement in Italy is seen as a result of the absence of a “Jewish movement” in the country. Indeed, Zionism had attracted very few followers in Italy, and between 1926 and 1938, only 151 Italian Jews had emigrated to Palestine.

TAGS: antisemitism, commentary, emigration, Fascism, February 18, Journalism, media coverage, Palestine, press article, Rome, Vienna, Zionism

SOURCE

Institution:

Compact Memory, Universitätsbibliothek Frankfurt am Main

Collection:

“Italien”, Jüdische Presse, nr. 1 (1938): 7

12

SATURDAY

12

Mouth of the Hydra

Old debates about Zionism and assimilation take on a new urgency in an atmosphere of heightened antisemitism

“It was the arrival of Jewish-nationalist Zionism and Poland's unification with Russian territories—with the ‘Litvaks’— that first opened the filth-spewing maw of the antisemitic Hydra. It is political Zionism that gave them the idea of an ‘alien’ people.”

Warsaw

One month before Anschluss, the Austrian-Jewish weekly Die Wahrheit, exhorts Austrian Jews to learn from the development of antisemitism in Poland. The Vienna-based paper, which, since the twenties had increasingly advocated integration and distanced itself from Zionism, perceived Zionism as a dangerous breach with Polish-Jewish history: in the past, says the author of this article, Jews in Poland stood out with their patriotism and commitment to matters of national concern. He opines that their turning towards Palestine creates the impression of a lack of loyalty, thus giving ammunition to Jew-haters. Moreover, the article accuses Zionists of exerting undue pressure upon dissenters.

TAGS: Anschluss, antisemitism, commentary, February 12, Journalism, media coverage, Palestine, press article, Vienna, warsaw, Zionism

SOURCE

Institution:

Compact Memory, Universitätsbibliothek Frankfurt am Main

Collection:

„Das Erwachen,“ Die Wahrheit, Jg. 1938, Nr. 7, S. 5.

4

FRIDAY

4

Atmosphere of hopelessness

A once-celebrated public health official writes in his diary

„One company after another founded by Jews is ,aryanized‘ – so goes the euphemistic term; Jews are being forced out of the other businesses and pushed into the arms of the welfare agencies. The Sperrmark is rising uncontrollably, so that the emigration of the few capitalists is being made even harder.“

Berlin

“May you continue for a long time to be granted the opportunity to dedicate your tried and tested skills to the welfare and benefit of the city.” With these words, Berlin mayor Heinrich Sahm congratulated Prof. Erich Seligmann, Director of Scientific Institutes at the Public Health Department and an eminent authority on issues of public health, on his 25th year of service in 1932. Barely half a year later, in March 1933, Seligmann was dismissed, despite his recognized scientific achievements and his outstanding knowledge in the field of epidemics control, which he had demonstrated inter alia as a staff surgeon in World War I. In this diary entry dated February 4, 1938, Seligmann writes about “widespread confiscation of passports from Jews” and “an atmosphere of hopelessness.” Seligmann was planning a trip to Rome, where he and his wife Elsa hoped to meet their son Rolf.

TAGS: Aryanization, Berlin, commentary, diary, economic persecution, family, family separation, February 4, persecution of Jewish professionals, prominent people, Rome, WWI, WWI veteran

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Erich Seligmann Collection, AR 4104

Original:

DM 79, Diary 2

6

THURSDAY

6

“A quiet light in the dark night”

Birthday wishes in difficult times

“Blessed are we if at the end of our days we can also say that we bravely fought throughout our lives, when we can lie down with the awareness of having fairly struggled until the end.”

Dresden/Hildesheim

Sometimes the dark events were even reflected in the tone of birthday greetings. Fritz Schürmann, a Jewish teenager from Hildesheim, and Gerhard Loeffler, a Protestant from Dresden, had been good friends for years. On the occasion of  Fritz’s 18th birthday, Gerhard wished him safety, solace, and strength. Untypically for people of so young an age, the friend tries to convince Fritz of the necessity of hard experiences in the life of every human being.

TAGS: commentary, Dresden, Hildesheim, January 6, letter

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Frank M. Shurman Collection, AR 25219  

Original:

Box 2, folder 8

5

WEDNESDAY

5

Crisis management

Factory owners navigating the needs of the day

“None of us can predict how things will turn out, no one can take offense at our holding on for as long as possible to what we have built together, and whether what we do now or in the near future is correct, cannot be judged by any one. Perhaps everything was wrong and too late.”

Göppingen

On January 5, 1938, Kuno Fleischer wrote to the shareholders of his family’s paper factory in the small Baden-Wurttemberg town of Eislingen about a recent business dispute and alluded darkly to a time when “grave decisions will have to be made swiftly.” He told his fellow owners—his brother and nephews—that he would soon travel to the United States to “orient himself” adding, “No one of us can predict how things will turn out, and no one can take offense at our holding on for as long as possible to what we have built together.”

TAGS: commentary, economic persecution, emigration, Göppingen, January 5, letter

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Fleischer-Steiner Family Collection, AR 25083

Original:

Box 1, folder 3

Chronology of major events in 1938

Law on Alteration of Family and Personal Names

Page from a ledger book of the Gesellschaft der Freunde in Berlin, 1792 - 1793.

The new Law on Alteration of Family and Personal Names regulates the change of names of German citizens and individuals without citizenship who live in the German Reich. The law empowers the Interior Minister to issue rules concerning given names and unilaterally change those names that do not conform to the rules, including names which were changed before the Nazis seizure of power in 1933. This primarily affects assimilated Jews who adopted less apparently Jewish names, which the Nazis viewed as an attempt to camouflage their Jewishness. The new law is the Nazis’ first step toward marking Jews by forcing them to adopt ‘typical’ Jewish names.

View chronology of major events in 1938

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