30

Melitta Gans Collection, AR 11175

Collection:

24

SUNDAY

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

22

FRIDAY

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:

Betty and Morris Moser Collection, AR 25497

Collection:

Original:

Box 1, folder 2

18

MONDAY

Counted and controlled

Dillkreis county conducts a survey of its Jewish population

Dillenburg

On July 18, the commissioner of Dillkreis county in Hessen instructed the mayors of the cities Herborn, Dillenburg, and Haigern as well as police officials of the county to conduct a statistical survey of the Jewish population in their communities every three months. An official of the city of Herborn received the memorandum ordering the count and made notes showing that 51 Jews lived in the city on June 30, 1938. Three Jews had left their homes in the prior quarter. These local censuses of the Jewish population complemented other surveys that tracked the movement of Jews on a national level. To monitor and control the Jews in the country, the National Socialists used a variety of administrative tools, such requiring Jews to declare their financial assets, carry identification papers at all times, or change their names.

TAGS: antisemitism, bureaucracy, Dillenburg, document, economic persecution, emigration, July 18, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, persecution

SOURCE

Institution:

Original:

Survey circulated by the County Commissioner of Dillkreis (Landrat des Dillkreises) regarding the census of Jewish residents, completed for the city of Herborn ; Inv. Nr. Do2 88/1738.4

11

MONDAY

Rejection letter

Dismissed from the post office for being Jewish, Johanna seeks new employment

“I am 37 years old, worked for the Berlin post office for 14 years and was dismissed because of the Aryan Paragraph. The office was very satisfied with my performance.”

Berlin

“The position under discussion has been filled,” was the terse answer Johanna Rosenthal, a former postal clerk, received to her application for a job as a telephone operator. After 14 years of service with the Deutsche Reichspost, she had been dismissed at the end of 1933. As she points out in her letter, her employment in public service as a Jew has been made impossible by the “Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service.” The provisional pension of 68 Reichsmark that she had been granted was not enough to live on, so she sought new employment.

TAGS: antisemitism, Berlin, economic persecution, impoverishment, July 11, letter, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, persecution of Jewish professionals

SOURCE

Institution:

Original:

Johanna Rosenthal's application with negative response ; Inv. Nr. Do2 2002/762

10

SUNDAY

Papers in order

Even 10-year-old Hans must certify his taxes are paid

“I do not have any reservations regarding the emigration of Hans Weichert (10 years old) [...].”

Vienna

Jews wishing to escape the chicanery and physical danger under the Nazis by emigrating had to procure a large number of documents to satisfy both the Nazi authorities and the authorities in the country of destination. In order to obtain permission to leave Germany, applicants had to prove that they did not owe any tax money to the Reich. In addition to the taxes levied on all citizens, prospective emigrants had to pay the co-called “Reich Flight Tax.” Originally introduced during the Great Depression of the late 1920s and early 1930s, the original purpose of the tax was to prevent capital flight from further depleting the national coffers. Under the Nazis, its main purpose was to harass and expropriate Jews. The tax authorities under the Nazi regime certainly did a thorough job. When the Weichert family of Vienna, consisting of the lawyer Joachim Weichert, his wife Käthe, and the couple’s two children, Hans and Lilian, prepared to leave, a tax clearance certificate was issued even to the ten-year-old son. The document was valid for one month. Having all required documents ready and still valid by the time their quota number came up was an additional challenge faced by those wishing to emigrate.

TAGS: Anschluss, antisemitism, bureaucracy, children, dispossession, document, economic persecution, emigration, Great Depression, immigration procedures, Jewish property, July 10, persecution of Jewish professionals, Vienna

SOURCE

Institution:

Weichert Family Collection, AR 25558

Collection:

Original:

Box 1, folder 2

3

SUNDAY

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:

Gerda Dittmann Collection, AR 10484

Collection:

Original:

Box 1, folder 3

25

SATURDAY

Liver dumplings, Christmas stollen, matzo balls

National Socialism destroys what was grown over centuries

Krumbach

In Anni Buff’s personal recipe book, dated June 25, 1938, traditional Bavarian dishes, like liver dumplings, Christmas stollen, and cottage cheese doughnuts, certainly outweighed traditional Jewish ones, such as matzo balls. The Jewish community in her native Krumbach was well integrated. Since its peak in the early 19th century, when it constituted about 46% of the population, its ranks had declined considerably, and by 1933, only 1,5% of Krumbachers were Jewish. In spite of this negligible presence of Jews, National Socialism with its rabidly antisemitic message took hold fast, and even before it became national policy, Jews in the little town were harassed by SA men. By 1938, the abuse had become so unbearable that Anni’s father Julius, who dealt in upholstery material, began to explore possibilities to find a new home on safer shores, such as the US, the Dominican Republic, or Shanghai. Not even the fact that he had lost a brother in WWI and had himself served in the 16. Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment—along with a young Austrian named Adolf Hitler—did anything to improve his standing with Nazi authorities.

TAGS: antisemitism, document, economic persecution, emigration, Jewish Community, June 25, Krumbach, Nazi policies, persecution, prominent people, WWI, WWI veterans

SOURCE

Institution:

Anni Krantz Collection, AR 11284

Collection:

Original:

Box 1, folder 2

20

MONDAY

The crowd looked on quietly

Shop windows vandalized with antisemitic graffiti

“The word ‘Jew’ was smeared in thick red letters on the window of every Jewish shop, sometimes with a Star of David added, to fix in the minds of Berliners that these were stores for them to avoid entering at all costs.”

Berlin

Section 17 of the Third Supplementary Decree on the Reich Citizenship law (Reichsbürgergesetz), issued on June 14, called for marking Jewish businesses at a date yet to be determined. The Nazis lost no time. According to this article by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, days later, the word “Jew” and Nazi slogans were smeared on Jewish shop windows throughout Berlin in an organized fashion, with the same red, hard-to-remove oil paint used everywhere. There could be no doubt that the action was carried out with blessings from above. While no opposition from the non-Jewish population is recorded, the correspondent does point out that unlike in Vienna and in less affluent parts of Berlin, the crowd on Kurfürstendamm looked on quietly, without major enthusiasm. Tension among Jews was intensified by reports of plans to build labor camps where Jews apprehended in recent raids were to be put to work.

TAGS: antisemitism, Berlin, economic persecution, imprisonment, Journalism, JTA, June 20, media coverage, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, photo, public sphere, violence

SOURCE

Institution:

New Synagogue Berlin – Centrum Judaicum

Collection:

Photograph of antisemitic graffiti applied between June 15–20, 1938 at the furniture store of A[dolf] Brünn jr. Berliner Allee 29-31, Berlin-Weißensee

Original:

CJA, 7.103, 4

Source available in English

Institution:

“Report: Labor Camps to Be Built for Arrested Reich Jews”

Collection:

Institution:

Institut für Stadtgeschichte Frankfurt am Main

Original:

Archivsignatur: S7Z1938-31, Fotografin: Hannah Reeck

18

SATURDAY

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:

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

Collection:

Source available in English

14

TUESDAY

Marked

A new decree requires Jewish shops be flagged

Berlin

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.

TAGS: antisemitism, Berlin, document, economic persecution, June 14, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, persecution of Jewish professionals, segregation

SOURCE

Institution:

Gemeinnütziger Verein für regionale Kultur- und Zeitgeschichte Gelsenkirchen

Collection:

Reichbürgergesetz

11

SATURDAY

An absurd privilege

Emil Toffler may keep his job to familiarize the Aryans with the firm

Vienna

The family of Therese Wiedmann (née Toffler) in Vienna was secular and very well integrated. While the Tofflers were keenly aware of the situation in Germany, no one among Therese’s relatives foresaw that so many Austrians would be so quick to welcome Hitler and abandon Austrian independence. After the “Anschluss” in March 1938 she immediately lost her job with Tiller AG. Her grandfather, until recently the president of the company, was no longer permitted to enter his office. Her father, Emil, the executive manager, was kept around for the time being, in order to familiarize the new, “Aryan” management with the company’s operations. Luckily, he had transferred part of his assets to England before the “Anschluss.” In better days, the company was deemed sufficiently Austrian to be appointed a purveyor to the royal-imperial court, for which it produced army uniforms. This passport, issued to Therese Wiedmann on June 11, 1938, contains a visa that includes “all countries of the earth” and “return to the German Reich.”

TAGS: Anschluss, antisemitism, Aryanization, dispossession, document, economic persecution, June 11, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, passport, Vienna

SOURCE

Institution:

Therese Wiedmann Collection, AR 10863

Collection:

Source available in English

8

WEDNESDAY

You never write, you never call…

Lili reminds her stepson to stay in touch

“We really have enough to worry about as is and have no need to also lose sleep over the fact that you are not writing. You can believe me that I was seriously worried before deciding to give you a call.”

Neustadt, Upper Silesia/Brünn

Hans Joseph Pinkus was a direct descendant of Samuel Fränkel, founder of a textile factory in Neustadt (Upper Silesia), which for a while was the primary employer in the entire region and one of the world’s foremost producers of linens. His grandfather, Max, had been a personal friend and patron of the Nobel Prize-winning author Gerhart Hauptmann. His great-uncle, the scientist Paul Ehrlich, had been a Nobel laureate, too. Lili, Hans Joseph’s stepmother, was hardly intimidated by this pedigree. In this letter, written on June 8, 1938, she gives him a major dressing down for having neglected his correspondence with his parents and sternly inquires whether he flunked his exam in the Czech language. At this point, 16 year-old “Pipo,” as the family called him, was staying with his step-grandmother in Brünn (Brno, Czechoslovakia) and attending school there. His parents and half-sisters lived in Neustadt: the directorship of the the S. Fränkel company had been handed down to male members of the Pinkus family for several generations and was now held by his father, Hans Hubert.

TAGS: Brünn, children, economic persecution, family, June 8, letter, Neustadt, prominent people

SOURCE

Institution:

John Peters Pinkus Family Papers, AR 25520

Collection:

Original:

B 2, F 16

7

TUESDAY

Unbearable despair

Jewish Telegraphic Agency publishes list of recent suicides

“4 Deaths Announced Among Arrested Jews in Vienna; Family of 4 Committs suicide”

Vienna

The Anschluss, Austria’s annexation by Nazi Germany in March 1938, precipitated a wave of anti-Jewish violence. Emboldened by their new status and by the utter defenselessness of the Jewish population, Nazis and their sympathizers entered Jewish homes and seized whatever property they liked. Jewish-run businesses were ransacked or destroyed, and Jews of all ages were forced to carry out the demeaning task of scrubbing streets to remove political slogans under the eyes of jeering onlookers. With no protection to be expected from police, a feeling of utter abandonment and hopelessness drove many Jews to take their own lives. In the first two months after the Anschluss, 218 Jews escaped the state-sanctioned cruelty by taking their own lives. The JTA’s June 7 dispatch lists the most recent suicides—including that of a family of four—and deaths at the Dachau concentration camp.

TAGS: Anschluss, antisemitism, Concentration Camps, Dachau, economic persecution, family, Jewish property, Journalism, JTA, June 7, media coverage, Vienna, violence

SOURCE

Institution:

“4 Deaths Announced Among Arrested Jews in Vienna; Family of 4 Commits Suicide”

Collection:

Source available in English

29

SUNDAY

The Jewish Hospital in Hamburg

Despite being undermined by the Nazis, the hospital keeps up its work

“As a friendly keepsake of our common years at the I.K.”

Hamburg

Depicted here is the facade of the Jewish Hospital in Hamburg. The photograph is part of an album preceded by the above inscription dated May 29, 1938. The hospital was endowed by merchant and banker Salomon Heine, also known as the “Rothschild of Hamburg,” in memory of his late wife Betty and inaugurated in 1843. The poet Heinrich Heine, Salomon’s nephew and beneficiary, honored the occasion with his poem Das neue israelitische Hospital zu Hamburg, in which he called it “A hospital for poor, sick Jews, for human beings who are thrice miserable, afflicted with three vicious ailments, with poverty, bodily pain, and Jewishness!” Even though the Nazi regime had been undermining the hospital’s finances since 1933, it had withstood these measures and was still able to take care of its patients in May 1938.

TAGS: antisemitism, economic persecution, Hamburg, impoverishment, Jewish Community, May 29, photo, prominent people, public sphere, welfare organizations

SOURCE

Institution:

Israelitisches Krankenhaus, Hamburg, photograph album, AR 6812

Collection:

26

DONNERSTAG

Paperwork

Emigrants must overcome a sea of bureaucratic and financial hurdles

LÖRRACH

Since 1937, Lina and Siegmund Günzburger of Lörrach in southwest Germany and their son, Herbert, had been preparing their paperwork for emigration. The requirements amounted to nothing short of a nightmare. Prospective emigrants had to procure numerous personal documents, letters of recommendation, and affidavits. They were also required to prepare an inventory of all their belongings and to document that they had paid all their taxes. Apparently, the required documents also included this copy of the marriage certificate for Siegmund’s grandparents. Especially perfidious was the so-called “Reich Flight Tax.” Originally introduced in the waning days of the Weimar Republic to prevent capital flight in reaction to the government’s austerity policy, under the Nazis, it became a tool to cynically punish the Jews for leaving a country that was doing everything it could to make it unbearable for them to stay.

TAGS: affidavits, antisemitism, bureaucracy, displacement, document, economic persecution, emigration, family, immigration procedures, Lörrach, May 26, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, refugees, Weimar Republic

SOURCE

Institution:

Herbert Guenzburger Collection, AR 5947

Collection:

Original:

Box 1, folder 2

23

MONDAY

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:

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

Collection:

Original:

F 12073

20

FRIDAY

Pitiless

Göring calls for a strict anti-Jewish boycott

“(...) a ‘pitiless anti-Jewish boycott’ until the last Jew is forced to emigrate from Austria.”

Vienna

In today’s release, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reports that the Deutsches Volksblatt in Vienna urges a “pitiless anti-Jewish boycott.” This, the paper argues, is the line demanded by Hermann Göring in his last speech in Vienna. Highly decorated in WWI as a fighter pilot, Göring had become a member of the NSDAP early on and was a member of its inner circle. He had established the Gestapo in 1933, was commander-in-chief of the German airforce (Luftwaffe) and as Plenipotentiary of the Four-Year Plan, he also wielded power over the German economy. Other than that, he is known for his pivotal role in bringing about the Anschluss and his passion for collecting art, which he often acquired in dubious ways.

TAGS: Anschluss, antisemitism, economic persecution, Hate speech, Journalism, JTA, May 20, media coverage, Nazi policies, Nazi propaganda, prominent people, public sphere, Vienna, WWI, WWI veterans

SOURCE

Institution:

“‘Pitiless Boycott’ of Jews Urged by Vienna Paper”

Collection:

Source available in English

16

MONDAY

Education disrupted

Ruth Wertheimer navigates antisemitic discrimination and emigration

Paris

Ruth Wertheimer was born in Halberstadt (Saxony Anhalt) in 1915. Thanks to the revenue from a successful corset and lingerie shop with several branches, the family was living comfortably. However, in 1929, several years before the Nazis’ ascent to power, the family business had already suffered economic damage due to a libelous, antisemitically motivated claim against one of its proprietors, Ruth’s aunt Johanna. In 1932, while attending a business school in Berlin, where the family had moved in Ruth’s childhood, she was subjected to such intense antisemitism from teachers and classmates that she decided to quit before graduating. The passport displayed here was issued on May 16 in Paris and also lists Paris as Ruth’s place of residence. Her mother and stepfather had moved there in 1935. In Paris, Ruth resumed her studies.

TAGS: antisemitism, Berlin, displacement, economic persecution, emigration, Halberstadt, May 16, Paris, passport, refugees, schools

SOURCE

Institution:

Ruth Worth Collection, AR 25024

Collection:

Original:

Box 1, folder 1

11

WEDNESDAY

Antisemitic premises

Hungarian nobleman criticizes a proposed bill that would restrict freedom of Jews

“The bill restricting Jews in the nation's economic and cultural life was sharply attacked in the Chamber of Deputies today by Count Aponyi [sic], who declared that apart from its inhumanity it contained unjustified libels and reflections against the Hungarian Jews.”

Budapest

From its inception, the Horthy government had made no secret of its antisemitism. As a matter of fact, in 1920, Hungary was the first European country after World War I to introduce a numerus clausus to limit Jews’ access to higher education. First in reaction to territorial and demographic losses in WWI, later in the wake of the Great Depression, there was a striking proliferation of fascist and right wing extremist movements in Hungary, some calling themselves “national-socialist.” One such group was the rabidly antisemitic Arrow Cross Party, founded in 1935. In 1938 a bill was introduced to restrict the economic and cultural freedom of Jews in the country. This May 11 report from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency describes Count Apponyi’s vehement critique of the bill in the Chamber of Deputies. Dr. Istvan Milotaj, deputy of a right-wing party, defended the bill, claiming that Jews could not be assimilated and that even figures such as Disraeli and Blum had “spiritually remained Jews.”

TAGS: antisemitism, Budapest, economic persecution, Fascism, Great Depression, Journalism, JTA, May 11, media coverage, persecution, politics, prominent people, segregation, WWI

SOURCE

Institution:

“Bill Curbing Jews Assailed in Hungarian Parliament”

Collection:

Source available in English

7

SATURDAY

A mother fights for her son

The Blums pin their hopes on America after job loss in Germany

“Bruno, my eldest son, has for many years contributed to our livelihood. Now, having lost his position and without any hope to get another one here, he intends to leave this country. But unfortunately, almost all countries close themselves against immigrants. Therefore I don’t see an other possibility as to try to get a permit to enter the U.S.A.”

Vienna/New York

Immediately after the Nazi takeover of Austria, Jewish shops and businesses had been put in the hands of “Aryan” provisional managers. In the course of this “Aryanization”—really the expropriation and theft of Jewish property—30-year-old Bruno Blum, a resident of Vienna, lost his job at the “Wiener Margarin-Compagnie” after little more than four years. Understanding that her eldest son’s chances to find a new job under Nazi rule were scant, Betty Blum approached her cousin Moses Mandl in New York for help with an affidavit. When she did not hear back from him, she wrote this letter to her nephew, Stanley Frankfurter, asking him to coax Moses Mandl into helping or turn to the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) for assistance.

TAGS: affidavits, Anschluss, Aryanization, dispossession, economic persecution, emigration, family, immigration procedures, Jewish property, letter, May 7, Nazi policies, New York, persecution of Jewish professionals, refugees, Vienna, welfare organizations

SOURCE

Institution:

Blum Family Collection, AR 25132

Collection:

Original:

Box 1, folder 5

Source available in English

4

WEDNESDAY

Monetary hurdles

The Reich Office of Foreign Exchange Control requests large sums from emigrating Jews

Berlin/Dresden

Before Martha Kaphan could travel to Mandatory Palestine, she had to deposit the considerable amount of 800 Reichsmark at the Dresdner Bank. The Reich Office of Foreign Exchange Control, which played a major role in the exploitation of Jewish emigrants, demanded the sum for the issuance of her tourist visa. Thousands of Jews tried to enter Palestine illegally by means of tourist visas with the intention of applying for permanent visas later. Apparently, Martha Kaphan did not emigrate for long. The British Consulate confirmed her departure on December 24, 1938. The deposit was paid on December 29, 1938 in Breslau, and the account was closed on January 10, 1939.

TAGS: Dresden, economic persecution, emigration, immigration, immigration procedures, May 4, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, official document, Palestine, refugees, visa application

SOURCE

Institution:

Original:

Deposit Confirmation for the Receipt of a Tourist Visa for Palestine; Do2 2000/1000

2

MONDAY

Right of residence

A pre-nazi law assures safety on paper

Berlin

By 1938, the ability of Jews to make a living had been seriously curtailed by a series of laws aimed at humiliating, isolating, and impoverishing them. While not all Jews were affected equally by these changes, the number of Jews dependent on the services of welfare organizations, such as the Jewish Winter Relief, was constantly on the rise. The level of solidarity and the support for the Winter Relief were remarkable. Much of the money came from small donations, and the Kulturbund held cultural events in support of the organization. Volunteers from women’s and youth groups assisted in the fundraising efforts.

TAGS: April 2, Berlin, cultural life, economic persecution, impoverishment, Jewish Community, Kulturbund, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, photo, public sphere, segregation, welfare organizations, Women

SOURCE

Institution:

Photo Abraham, Speisungen, fuer viele 1000 Mark, Sammlung Heinrich Stahl, AR 7171

Collection:

Original:

F 7410

1

FRIDAY

Hotel Métropole

A luxury hotel turned Gestapo quarters

Vienna

Situated on Morzinplatz in Vienna’s central 1st District, the Hotel Métropole had been built for the Vienna World Exhibition in 1873. The luxurious building, designed by architects Carl Schumann and Ludwig Tischler, boasted a magnificent dining room and a splendorous inner court. After the Annexation of Austria, the Gestapo confiscated the hotel from its Jewish owners, and on April 1, 1938, the secret police began operations in their new headquarters in Vienna. With a staff of 900, it was the largest of the Gestapo offices in the Reich. The first order issued from the new headquarters was to transport a group of Austrian prisoners to the Dachau concentration camp. This photograph shows a tablecloth used at Hotel Métropole in better days.

TAGS: Anschluss, April 1, Concentration Camps, Dachau, dispossession, economic persecution, imprisonment, Jewish property, Nazi policies, photo, Vienna

SOURCE

Institution:

Jüdisches Museum Wien

Collection:

Tablecloth from Hotel Metropol

Original:

Inv. No. 20526

30

WEDNESDAY

No coming back

Polish parliament passes a new bill against Jewish returnees

“The law will affect thousands of Jews living in Austria, Germany, Palestine and elsewhere.”

Warsaw

In the wake of Austria’s annexation by Nazi Germany, the Polish parliament (“Sejm”), fearing the return of up to 20,000 Polish citizens from Austria, passed a bill according to which Poles who had lived abroad for more than five years were to lose their citizenship. The situation of the Jews had improved somewhat under the Piłsudski government (1926–1935), but after the marshal’s death, especially in the atmosphere created by the “Camp of National Unity” (from 1937 onward), antisemitism was resurgent. Universities applied quotas to Jewish students and introduced “ghetto benches” for them, Jews were held responsible for the Great Depression, Jewish business were boycotted and looted, and hundreds of Jews were physically harmed, some killed.

TAGS: Anschluss, antisemitism, economic persecution, Great Depression, Journalism, JTA, March 30, media coverage, Polenaktion, Polish-born Jews, politics, public sphere, violence, warsaw, Zbaszyn

SOURCE

Institution:

“Poland Enacts Law Denationalizing Thousands Living Abroad”

Collection:

Source available in English

20

SUNDAY

Branded

Defamation spills over to Austria

Vienna

This stereoscopic image from March 1938 shows a lingerie store in Vienna with a sticker that says “Jewish business” attached to its window. Immediately after the German Army’s entry into Austria, celebrated in many places, on March 12, 1938, the local Jewish population began to suffer from the same kind of defamation as German Jews had since 1933. The picture is part of the Sammlung Schönstein (Schönstein Collection) at the German Historical Museum. At the beginning of the 1930s, Otto Schönstein (1891–1958) of Nuremberg established his Raumbild Verlag, which published albums of stereoscopic photographs. In 1937, Heinrich Hoffmann, Hitler’s “personal photographer,” became involved in the publishing house, which was showing signs of economic difficulties, and used it for the dissemination of NS propaganda.

TAGS: Anschluss, economic persecution, March 20, Nazi policies, photo, propaganda, public sphere, Vienna

SOURCE

Institution: