External links are disabled on the kiosk. Please visit archive links from desktop or mobile devices.

The following organizations have offered their materials for inclusion in the 1938 Projekt:
 
About Partners Education Contributors
Advanced Search

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.

BACK TO TIMELINE

8

THURSDAY

8

A full-time job

The laborious preparations for emigration

Basel

In her short life, Hilde Lachmann-Mosse already had a few relocations behind her. The 26-year-old grew up in Berlin. Other stops were Woodbrooke in Great Britain (school), Freiburg (studies in medicine) and Basel (medical doctorate). Now she was facing another move: to the United States. She had already had the certificate of employment regarding her time as an assistant gynecologist at the university hospital in Basel translated into English, although that was only one step of many. Even if the actual certificate is only a few lines long, the three stamps of authentication from various institutions is evidence of how many appointments with authorities must have been necessary for Hilde Lachmann-Mosse finally to hold this document in her hands.

TAGS: Basel, Berlin, displacement, doctoral certificate, document, emigration, immigration, immigration procedures, prominent people, refugees, September 8

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Mosse Family Collection, AR 25184

Original:

Box 3, folder 35

Source available in English

7

Wednesday

7

Waiting yet again

Immigration quotas are strict

“We must inform you that the quota is already filled.”

Berlin/Breslau

Appointed date: uncertain. The American Consulate General at Breslau didn’t even tell Carl Proskauer and his family a date in the distant future on which they could once again apply for a U.S. visa. The quota was already full. The American quota determined how many persons per country of birth (not per country of citizenship!) were allowed to immigrate to the United States annually. In the year 1938, the number of visa applications from Germany rose rapidly. For individual cases such as that of Curt Proskauer and his family, this meant yet another round of excruciating waiting periods and exhausting paperwork, since many documents, which the Breslau dentist and historian of medicine had already submitted to the American Consulate General, would expire after a certain period. Whether Curt Proskauer could apply for a visa again by then? Uncertain!

TAGS: affidavits, Berlin, Breslau, bureaucracy, displacement, emigration, family, immigration, immigration procedures, letter, politics, refugees, September 7, United States of America, visa application

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Paul Proskauer Collection, AR 25641

Original:

Box 2, folder 30

4

SUNDAY

4

A last class photo

Gisela and her family right before emigration

DRESDEN

Gisela Kleinermann (top row, right) had recently turned 10 years old. With her arm around her classmate, she looks, with a slight smile, into the camera. At this time, Gisela may already have known that she will not be part of this class of the Jewish school in Dresden any longer. In late summer 1938, her mother Erna prepared her family’s emigration to the United States. Step by step, in recent years the Nazis forced segregation in public schools. In many Jewish communities—as well as in Dresden—new Jewish schools were founded as a result.

TAGS: antisemitism, children, Dresden, emigration, family, immigration procedures, Jewish Community, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, persecution, photo, schools, segregation, September 4, visa application

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Class picture of Gisela Kleinermann, Erna Weingold Kleinermann Collection, AR 11787

Original:

F 001

31

WEDNESDAY

31

The main thing is get out

The growing sense of demoralization pushes Jews out of the country

“The Aryanization process is proceeding unstoppably, there's no halt to it. Will the miracles of the Old Testament come back? How beautiful it was back in the day! The passage through the Red Sea…..! The plague of locusts…..! The deaths of the firstborns…..! etc. But we're in the wrong place today, and the Old Testament's no longer allowed to be read.”

BONN/NEW YORK

Ludwig Gottschalk of Bonn did not mince words in this August 31st letter to his friends, Betty and Morris Moser, in New York. By now, Jews in Germany were living in such a state of demoralization and constant fear that the wish to leave was omnipresent, regardless of what was to be expected “outside.” According to his information, the U.S. Consulate General in Stuttgart was so overburdened by all the applications for immigration that new affidavits were currently not even being processed. The Gottschalks already had a waiting number and expected to be able to emigrate relatively soon. Meanwhile, they were learning English. Ludwig alluded to the changes that had occurred in Germany since his friends had left by calling them “Israel” and “Sara.” On August 17th, a decree had been issued forcing Jews to add one of these names to their given names in order to make their Jewish identity obvious.

TAGS: affidavits, antisemitism, Aryanization, August 31, Bonn, commentary, emigration, immigration procedures, Language skills, letter, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, New York, segregation, visa application

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Betty and Morris Moser Collection, AR 25497

Original:

Box 1, folder 3

27

SATURDAY

27

Contacts worth more than money

Agnes Graetz uses her network to help her daughter emigrate to the USA

"I ask you to write to me, if at all possible, in the near future, as to whether you see a possibility which does not - as seems to be customary now - require implausibly high guarantees and legal fees."

Lucerne

An illness during a journey forced Wilhelm Graetz to extend his stay in Switzerland. In light of the escalating situation in Germany, he decided to relinquish his home in Berlin. The formerly well-off couple was in no position to help out their four children financially but benefitted from widely spread contacts. Wilhelm Graetz had been a member of the board of the Berlin Jewish Community, and as the chairman of the German “ORT,” he knew potential helpers in many places. In August, a trip took him to Hungary. On the 27th, his wife Agnes made use of her time by asking the well-known territorialist and “ORT” leader, David Lvovich, to help one of her three daughters, who urgently needed an affidavit in order to be able to emigrate to America.

TAGS: affidavits, antisemitism, August 27, Berlin, bureaucracy, displacement, emigration, family, family separation, immigration, immigration procedures, impoverishment, Jewish Community, letter, Lucerne, refugees, transnational networks

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

William Graetz Collection, AR 4121

Original:

Archivbox 1, Ordner 3

23

TUESDAY

23

News from the Kleinman(n)s

Kurt in Switzerland, sister and brother-in-law may follow

"My Jewish name is Elke, and since I speak Yiddish and you speak German, we should be able to understand each other very well."

NEW YORK/BASEL

Kurt Kleinmann of Vienna and Helen Kleinman in America had never met in person. After Kurt came up with the creative idea to contact a family with a similar name in New York, hoping that his American namesakes might be willing to help him procure an affidavit, an increasingly intense correspondence developed between the young man and the Kleinmans’ daughter. With determination, Helen took the matter into her hands. Three months after Kurt first contacted the Kleinmans, when Helen wrote this letter, not only was Kurt’s emigration underway, but Helen had also enlisted the help of an aunt to submit an affidavit for a cousin of his, with whom he had in the meantime managed to flee to Switzerland. What’s more she had enlisted yet another aunt to do the same for Kurt’s sister and brother-in-law, who were still stranded in Vienna.

TAGS: affidavits, Anschluss, August 23, Basel, bureaucracy, emigration, family, family separation, immigration, immigration procedures, Language skills, letter, New York, procedures, transnational networks, Vienna

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Kurt and Helen Kleinman Collection, AR 10738

Original:

Box 1, folder 2

Source available in English

22

MONDAY

22

Coercion

Joachim Weinert is both shoved and stood up by bureaucracy

"I reserve the right to take criminal measures according to § 33 Dev. VO [Foreign Exchange Act] and grant you a period of three days to attend to the matter."

VIENNA

Within the first few months after the annexation of Austria by the Nazis, Dr. Joachim Weichert, a Czech-born lawyer, lost most of his clients. He had no choice but to compile the documents necessary for emigration. In June, the family was notified by the Consulate General of the United States that valid affidavits and other documents had arrived for them from America. Nevertheless, due to the fact that the Czech quota was exhausted for the time being, they were put on a waiting list and told they wouldn’t receive visas for the next eight months. By August 22nd, it had been almost two weeks since Dr. Weichert was ordered by the Devisenstelle (financial administrative office in charge of supervising monetary transactions and emigration) in Vienna to submit within one week an itemized list of his assets. In this official communication from August 22nd, he is given an ultimatum of three days, after which criminal measures will be taken.

TAGS: affidavits, Anschluss, antisemitism, August 22, bureaucracy, economic persecution, emigration, immigration, immigration procedures, letter, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, persecution of Jewish professionals, Vienna, visa application

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Weichert Family Collection, AR 25558

Original:

Box 1, folder 1

18

THURSDAY

18

A questionnaire

Anti-Semitism in the Saxony town of Merseburg drives Bernhard Taitza to emigrate

"Means for establishing a life, provided that export will be authorized; means to cover travel costs: 'None. RM 8000, confiscated in Germany and which I am seeking to have released. Otherwise, my relatives in America will provide me with sufficient means of subsistence.'"

Prague

The negligible number of Jews (50 out of a total of 31,576 in 1933) in the town of Merseburg, in Saxony, did not dissuade local Nazis from terrorizing them. As early as 1934, Bernhard Taitza, a local merchant, reported on Jewish residents’ anguish at Nazis marching past their homes while singing anti-Semitic songs. The atmosphere became so unbearable that in 1938 he made his way out of Germany to Prague. Days later, on August 18th, he submitted this questionnaire to HICEM, founded in 1927 as a coalition of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, the Jewish Colonization Association and Emigdirect, another Jewish migration organization. With two children already residing in America, Taitza was fortunate enough to have an affidavit and didn’t have to worry too much as to whether he would regain possession of the money confiscated from him by the Nazis.

TAGS: affidavits, antisemitism, August 18, displacement, document, economic persecution, emigration, family, family separation, Hate speech, immigration procedures, Prague, refugees, transnational networks, violence, welfare organizations

SOURCE

Institution:

New Synagogue Berlin – Centrum Judaicum

Original:

Bernhard Taitza, former Merseburg, arrives at CSR ; CJA, 1 C Hi 1, No. 21, #12497, Image 1

14

SUNDAY

14

A super woman

Woman entrepreneur turned housewife takes charge

“I think I write to the children of Emanuel and Victoria Magen and I beg you to help us to come to America.”

Berlin

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.

TAGS: affidavits, antisemitism, August 14, Berlin, children, emigration, family, immigration, immigration procedures, letter, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, Women

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Margot Friedlander Collection, AR 11397

Original:

Box 1, folder 1

Source available in English

9

TUESDAY

9

No prejudicial information

A religious organization confirms they have no concerns regarding Edmund Wachs

"The undersigned pastoral care agency hereby confirms that our office has no prejudicial information regarding Mr. Edmund Wachs."

VIENNA

This certificate, issued by the Rabbinate of the Vienna Israelite Community, was just one among a plethora of documents that Edmund Wachs had gathered in order to facilitate his emigration to the United States. Shortly after the Anschluss, Wachs was put in “protective custody,” a power handed to the Nazis by the “Decree of the Reich President for the Protection of People and State,” also known as the “Reichstag Fire Decree.” The Reichstag Fire of February 27th, 1933, an act of arson involving the German Parliament building in Berlin, served as cause and justification for this law. It was passed on the following day and legalized the arbitrary arrest of anyone suspected of lack of loyalty towards the regime. The law did not stipulate the exact elements of the alleged offence and was widely used against Jews and political opponents.

TAGS: Anschluss, antisemitism, August 9, bureaucracy, document, emigration, immigration procedures, imprisonment, Jewish Community, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, persecution, religion, Vienna

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Edmund and Berta Wachs Collection, AR 25093

Original:

Box 1, folder 2

8

MONDAY

8

Escape plan with a detour

A travel agency helps Ursula Meseritz with her travel planning to the USA

“Following up on your visit to our office today, we are sending you the itinerary and the bill.”

NEW YORK

As the only member of her family, 18-year-old Ursula Meseritz left Germany in July and embarked from Le Havre to New York aboard the R.N.S. “Britannic.” Adolf Floersheim, a former neighbor and a resident of the U.S. since 1937, provided an affidavit for the young woman. Her parents, Olga and Fritz Meseritz, who had arranged for her emigration, remained in Hamburg. A travel agency, Plaut Travels, on Madison Avenue in New York, apparently run by German-Jewish immigrants, prepared the itinerary for Ursula’s next journey to the West Coast, with a leisurely detour to the capital, and sent it to her on August 8th.

TAGS: affidavits, August 8, displacement, document, emigration, family separation, Hamburg, immigration, immigration procedures, Le Havre, letter, Los Angeles, New York, refugees, transnational networks

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Ursula Meseritz Elgart Family Collection, AR 25544

Original:

Box 1, folder 14

7

SUNDAY

7

Meet me in Geneva

Antisemitism in Italy means Rome is no longer a refuge

“Please write to me in Geneva about when we can see each other. I'm already looking forward to seeing you so much.”

Biel/Villars-sur-Ollon

Until 1933, her Jewishness barely played a role in the life of Anneliese Riess, a thoroughly secular student of classical archeology. Once the Nazis came to power, however, it became clear to her that as a Jew in Germany, there was no future for her. She decided to emigrate to Italy, where she obtained a doctorate (Rome, 1936). With slim chances of finding work in her field in Italy, the young woman enrolled in a rigorous class for childcare assistants in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1937. After surgery in June 1938, she spent several months in Villars-sur-Ollon. In July, the Directorate General for Demographics and Race was established in Italy to formulate the nation’s racial policies. Thus, Rome ceased to be a possible place of refuge. In the same month, Riess’s father had arrived in the US and was making efforts to arrange for her immigration. This postcard, dated August 7th and addressed to Anneliese in Villars, was refreshingly free of any reference to the precarious developments in Europe and provided the welcome prospect of meeting up with a friend amidst all the uncertainty.

TAGS: affidavits, antisemitism, August 7, Biel, displacement, emigration, family, family separation, Fascism, immigration, immigration procedures, Nazi policies, politics, postcard, refugees, Rome, transnational networks, Villars-sur-Ollon

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Anneliese Riess Collection, AR 10019

Original:

Box 1, folder 9

6

SATURDAY

6

Take a number

Helina Mayer is number 9443 on the waitlist for an appointment at the US Consulate

“You are registered in the waiting list of visa applicants under no. 9443 and should promptly notify us of any change of address.”

Stuttgart

Jews were hardly the only “undesirables” the US Immigration Act of 1924 aimed to keep out of the country. When the law was introduced, efforts to exclude certain nationalities, especially Chinese, Japanese, and other Asian immigrants, had been going on for half a century. In the early 1920s, a quota system was introduced that favored immigrants from Northern Europe. The quotas were not adjusted to address the severe refugee crisis created by the persecution of Jews by Nazi Germany. Even for nationals of the favored countries of origin, just doing all the paperwork to get on the waiting list for an American visa was a major headache, and the waiting could be demoralizing. As documented by this ticket issued to Helina Mayer in Mainz by the US Consulate General in Stuttgart, applicants could expect to be summoned for examination according to their number in line, provided they had submitted “satisfactory proof” that their livelihood in the US was secured.

TAGS: affidavits, antisemitism, August 6, bureaucracy, document, emigration, immigration, immigration procedures, Mainz, politics, refugees, Stuttgart, United States of America, visa application

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Joan Salomon Family Collection, AR 25380

Original:

Box 1, folder 5

29

FRIDAY

29

Rough sea and swell

After seven days of travel, Anton Felix Perl arrives on a new continent

„Civil Examination Stamp“

QUEBEC

In the eyes of the Nazis, the fact that both his parents had converted to Catholicism in the year of his birth, 1912, and that he was baptized as an infant, did not make Anton Felix Perl any less of a Jew. After attending a Catholic high school in Vienna, the Schottengymnasium, he went to medical school, from which he graduated in 1936. Two years into his residency at the Allgemeines Krankenhaus, he was dismissed on racial grounds. In this stressful situation, Dr. Perl contacted high-ranking Catholic clergymen in Canada. With the help of the archbishops of Winnipeg and Regina, his immigration was arranged, and after a seven-day voyage from Liverpool, he arrived in Canada and got his civil examination stamp from the immigration office in Quebec on July 29, 1938. Canada’s immigration policy was extremely restrictive, especially towards those persecuted for religious or “racial” reasons. For once, Dr. Perl’s baptism certificate proved useful.

TAGS: Anschluss, antisemitism, Church, document, emigration, ID, immigration, immigration procedures, July 29, persecution of Jewish professionals, Quebec, Vienna

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Perl Family Collection, AR 25190

Original:

Box 1, folder 1

Source available in English

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

19

TUESDAY

19

Keep your tired

Visa stop at the United States Consulate General

Berlin

On July 19, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reports that the United States Consulate General in Berlin stopped accepting new visa applications. According to the Consulate, about 2000 people have applied for visas per month. Due to the high demand, the Consulate prioritizes clearing the files of the applications on hand for the time being. The oftentimes hard-won affidavits and other documents of new applicants will not be accepted anymore, though new applicants will be put on a waitlist. In consequence, this means that Jews who are planning to leave Germany or the annexed Austria for the USA will have to wait until next year to get a chance at obtaining a visa. It can be assumed that the 60,000 to 70,000 applications by emigrants from Germany/Austria which are waiting to be processed will already significantly surpass the annual US quota of 27,370 visas for immigrants from the Deutsches Reich.

TAGS: affidavits, Anschluss, Berlin, emigration, immigration procedures, Journalism, JTA, July 19, media coverage, United States of America, Visa applications

SOURCE

Institution:

Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Collection:

“U.S. Consulate in Berlin Stops Accepting Visa Applications; Has 60,000 on Hand”

Source available in English

16

SATURDAY

16

An inappropriate insinuation

An American warns his Viennese cousin against coming to America to loaf

“I do not want you to be misled and to feel regret afterwards, so I am informing you in advance that you've got to work ambitiously to get ahead. If you have any illusions of leaving Germany to escape work and live a life of ease, you will be making a grave mistake.”

New York/Vienna

In May 1938, Betty Blum had contacted her nephew Stanley Frankfurt in New York. Her son Bruno had lost his position in Vienna, and it was unlikely that he would find other employment. She did not elaborate on the situation of Austria’s Jews in general since the country’s annexation by Nazi Germany but wondered whether Stanley could do something for Bruno. When Bruno received Stanley’s July 16 letter, he must have been both relieved and taken aback. While assuring him that he had been active on his behalf doing the paperwork necessary to prepare for his immigration to the US, his cousin in New York also saw fit to point out to him that if his intention was coming to America for the purpose of “living a life of ease,” he was on the wrong track. Was Stanley really so uninformed about the plight of Austrian Jewry under the new authorities? It can be assumed that his sincere efforts on his Austrian cousin’s behalf made up for the bafflement that must have been caused by his inappropriate insinuation.

TAGS: affidavits, Anschluss, emigration, family, immigration procedures, July 16, letter, New York, transnational networks, Vienna

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Blum Family Collection, AR 25132

Original:

Box 1, folder 5

Source available in English

14

THURSDAY

14

Evicted from Red Vienna

Expelled from public housing, rejected by Swiss immigration

“In response to your application dated June 10, 1938, we regret to inform you that your request for permission to enter Switzerland cannot be granted at the present time.”

Bern/Vienna

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.

TAGS: Anschluss, antisemitism, Bern, bureaucracy, emigration, expulsion, immigration, immigration procedures, July 14, letter, Nazi policies, persecution, politics, Vienna, visa application

SOURCE

Institution:

Jüdisches Museum Wien

Original:

Letter from the Swiss Federal Immigration Police ; Inv. No. 20991/ 26

12

TUESDAY

12

Namesakes

Linked only by their common last-name, Kurt and Helen take a leap of faith

“Before I go much further, please let me impress this fact - that my entire family are eagerly awaiting the day that you will arrive in New York [...].”

NEW YORK/VIENNA

When 28-year-old Kurt Kleinmann of Vienna wrote to the Kleinmans in America, he could not have hoped for a kinder, more exuberant response than what he received from 25-year-old Helen. After finding the address of a Kleinman family in the US, Kurt had asked the total strangers in a letter dated May 25 to help him leave Austria by providing him with an affidavit. He had finished law school in Vienna and was now running his father’s wine business. Helen readily adopts the theory that the Kleinmanns and the Kleinmans might actually be related to one another, promising her “cousin” to procure an affidavit for him within the week. Affably and vivaciously, she assures him that the Kleinmans will correspond with him to make the time until departure feel shorter.

TAGS: affidavits, Anschluss, emigration, family, immigration procedures, July 12, letter, New York, persecution of Jewish professionals, Vienna

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Kurt and Helen Kleinman Collection, AR 10738

Original:

Box 1, folder 2

Source available in English

10

SUNDAY

10

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:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Weichert Family Collection, AR 25558

Original:

Box 1, folder 2

5

TUESDAY

5

Jewish emigration

The periodical of the Jewish Hilfsverein der Juden in Deutschland educates Jewish refugees

Berlin

The “Aid Society of German Jews,” founded in Berlin in 1901, mainly supported Jewish immigrants to Germany. After the Nazis came into power, the association, now forced to call itself “Aid Society of Jews in Germany,” helped to facilitate Jewish emigration from Germany. In this context, it offered help with questions concerning government agencies, passport issues, or vocational retraining and also granted financial support. An important organ for its work was the periodical Jüdische Auswanderung (“Jewish Emigration”), which informed its readers about general living and work conditions but also about specific questions regarding Jewish culture in various countries. In the July 1938 issue, the US, Cuba, and the Philippines were introduced.

TAGS: Berlin, document, emigration, immigration, immigration procedures, impoverishment, July 5, Nazi policies, welfare organizations

SOURCE

Institution:

Deutsches Historisches Museum

Original:

“Jewish Emigration.” Brochure for Emigration and Resettlement Questions ; Inv. Nr: Do2 91/194

23

THURSDAY

23

Interview at the US-Consulate

Heinz Ries is finally allowed to immigrate

Havana

After his first official attempt to immigrate had failed under adventurous circumstances, 20 year-old Heinz Ries of Berlin made another effort to get permission to live in the US permanently and legally. For months, he had struggled in the shadows as an undocumented immigrant in New York. After obtaining an affidavit of support, Ries traveled to Havana and visited the US consulate there on June 23, 1938. Finally, he was admitted legal entry into the United States. After the war he returned to Germany for some time, first in the employment of the Allies, then as a photo journalist for the New York Times. The photographs of the Berlin Blockade and the Airlift, taken during these years, made him world-famous under the name Henry Ries.

TAGS: affidavits, artists, Berlin, bureaucracy, document, emigration, Havana, ID, immigration, immigration procedures, June 23, New York, prominent people

SOURCE

Institution:

Deutsches Historisches Museum

Original:

Immigrant Identification Card Issued by the US Department of State for Heinz Ries ; Inv.No. Do2 2009/488

Source available in English

16

THURSDAY

16

Clutching at straws

Will a fleeting encounter with a stranger help Erika get an affidavit?

“It is very difficult to write to you because I am quite sure you have no idea who I am.”

Vienna

Erika Langstein was a young English teacher living in Vienna. In June 1938, having experienced the persecution of Jews in the Austrian capital for several months already, Erika sent a letter to Donald Biever, an American citizen, imploring him to help her and her Jewish father flee Austria by issuing an affidavit for them. Nothing would be unusual about this, except for the fact that the young woman had met Biever just once, briefly, on a train ride a year earlier, and had not communicated with him since. Despite the tenuous nature of their relationship, Erika describes to Biever the hopeless of the situation in Vienna. She also attaches a photo, in case Biever does not remember their encounter.

TAGS: affidavits, Anschluss, antisemitism, emigration, immigration procedures, June 16, letter, persecution, refugees, transnational networks, Vienna

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Letter from Erika Langstein to Donald Biever, AR 3757

Source available in English

12

SUNDAY

12

Anne knows better

The Franks celebrate the 9th birthday of their daughter

Amsterdam

Leaving behind an increasingly antisemitic Germany, the Frank family of Frankfurt am Main fled to the Netherlands shortly after the Nazis rose to power. They settled on Merwedeplein in Amsterdam’s River Quarter, where more and more German-speaking immigrants were finding refuge. So large was the influx of Jews that some in the Dutch Jewish community were worried it would affect their standing in society and cause antisemitism. The Franks’ older daughter, Margot, went to school on Jekerstraat. Anne attended the Sixth Montessori School, a mere 5 minutes away from the family home. Fifteen of her classmates were Jewish. She loved telling and writing stories. Anne was curious, demanding, interested and very articulate. As her good friend Hanneli Goslar’s mother would say, “God knows everything, but Anne knows better.” In 1938, Anne’s father, Otto, applied for immigration visas to the United States. June 12 was her 9th birthday.

TAGS: Amsterdam, antisemitism, children, displacement, emigration, Frankfurt am Main, immigration, immigration procedures, June 12, photo, prominent people, refugees, visa application

SOURCE

4

SATURDAY

4

Lifesaver

Frank Fenner from Michigan gives affidavit for nephew in Vienna

“...That I am willing and able to receive, maintain and support all those herein mentioned, and do hereby guarantee to save harmless the United States or any State, city or village or township thereof against any aliens herein mentioned becoming a public charge.”

Mendon, Michigan

Close to 50 years before issuing an affidavit of support for his nephew, Karl Grosser, in Vienna, Frank W. Fenner had himself immigrated to the United States from Europe. A restaurant and confectionery owner in Mendon, Michigan, he pledged to support his young relative until the 26-year-old became financially independent. Finding a sponsor was a key prerequisite for obtaining an immigration visa that was often hard to fulfill. The visa process began by registering with the nearest US consulate, at which point a number on the waiting list was assigned. The length of the list depended on the number of Jews from a given country allowed to enter the US according to the quota system that had been in place since 1924. Despite the severe refugee crisis, quotas were not raised in 1938. During the waiting period, applicants had to procure all the required documents as well as certified copies. Prospective immigrants were lucky if their documents were still valid when their numbers came up.

TAGS: Affidavit, bureaucracy, emigration, family, immigration procedures, June 4, Mendon MI, politics, refugees, transnational networks, United States of America, Vienna, visa application

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Carl A. Grosser Collection, AR 10559

Original:

Box 1, folder 1

27

FRIDAY

27

Henry Kissinger turns 15

The teenager suffers from blatant antisemitism in his home town Fürth

FÜRTH

On May 27, 15 year-old Heinz Alfred (later Henry) Kissinger celebrated his birthday in his native Fürth one last time. Heinz had attended the Jewish elementary school and a Gymnasium in his home town. From 1933, Jewish children were no longer allowed to attend public schools, so that only the Israelitische Realschule was open to him and his younger brother, Walter. Elsewhere, too, the new times made themselves felt in the children’s lives. Suddenly, they were no longer allowed to join the other kids and swim in the river Altmühl when they were visiting with their grandparents in Leutershausen. Heinz was an avid fan of the local soccer team and a player himself, but under the Nazis, Jews were prohibited from attending their games. Even though his father, Louis, had been put on permanent furlough from his job as a teacher at a girls school when the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service came into effect in 1933, he was inclined to stick it out in Germany. It was thanks to his resolute mother, Paula (née Stern), that in April 1938, Louis Kissinger applied for passports. By May, the family’s preparations for emigration were in full gear. Relatives of hers had emigrated to the US already before 1933 and were now helping with the bureaucratic groundwork.

TAGS: antisemitism, children, emigration, family, Fürth, immigration procedures, May 27, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, persecution of Jewish professionals, photo, prominent people, public sphere, schools, segregation, Sports

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Portrait of Henry Kissinger, Henry Kissinger Collection , AR 4041.

Original:

F 3558

26

DONNERSTAG

26

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:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Herbert Guenzburger Collection, AR 5947

Original:

Box 1, folder 2

7

SATURDAY

7

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:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Blum Family Collection, AR 25132

Original:

Box 1, folder 5

Source available in English

4

WEDNESDAY

4

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:

Deutsches Historisches Museum

Original:

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

1

SUNDAY

1

Compass Travel Bureau

Emigrating is not as easy as it may seem

“Would you like to have your relatives here? Do you need help surmounting the difficulties?”

New York

In an ad in the Aufbau aimed at German immigrants, the Compass Travel Bureau in New York offered “expert advice in all matters related to immigration and the handling of all the formalities of traveling.” The reference to “formalities” elides the excruciating bureaucratic hurdles facing prospective emigrants. Jews desperate to leave Germany first had to obtain quota numbers and a plethora of documents from various German authorities and to contend with the slow postal service as they sought sponsors in America.

TAGS: advertisement, affidavits, bureaucracy, displacement, emigration, immigration, immigration procedures, Journalism, May 1, New York, refugees

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

“Announcement”, Aufbau, Vol. 5, no. 6, p. 8.

26

TUESDAY

26

Starting over at 40

Moses Wainstein overcomes the hurdles of international bureaucracy

Marseille

Marseille was one of the most important ports of departure for the refugees on their way overseas. It was here that Moses Wainstein obtained the papers he still needed for his emigration to Uruguay. This certificate of vaccination was written in Spanish for submission to the authorities there. The former Berliner had already had his belongings shipped to Marseille by a German company. Wainstein was 40 years of age at this point.

TAGS: April 26, Berlin, bureaucracy, displacement, document, emigration, immigration procedures, Marseille, medical record, refugees, South America

SOURCE

Institution:

Deutsches Historisches Museum

Original:

Vaccination certificate issued on the steamer “Campana” for Moses Wainstein; Inv. No.: Do2 89/1008.4

Chronology of major events in 1938

Jews ordered to declare financial assets

A Jewish business vandalized in Vienna. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Herman Göring issues an order requiring Jews to declare all assets exceeding 5,000 Reichsmark. This includes assets at home and abroad. Those who do not comply face financial penalties as well as prison. Alf Krüger, the Minister of Economics, declares that the new regulations “pave the way for the complete and lasting elimination of Jews from the German economy.”  Three days later, in a meeting at Göring’s offices in the Aviation Ministry, they resolve “to transform Jewish assets in a way that does not allow for Jews to have any further influence on the economy.” Göring will later reveal that this meeting also resulted in a plan to “Aryanize” the German economy. He explains: “[…] First, the Jew being ejected from the economy, transfers his property to the state. He will be compensated. The compensation is to be listed in the debit ledger and shall bring a certain percentage of interest. The Jew shall have to live out of this interest.” After the November pogroms, the National Socialists use the financial data collected to force Jews to hand over a quarter of their assets to the National Socialist authorities. When efforts to make restitution begin after the end of World War II, these same data help identify rightful beneficiaries.

 

View chronology of major events in 1938

BACK TO TOP

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

Website and exhibition design by C&G Partners