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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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24

SATURDAY

24

Stateless from now on

The number of denaturalizations grows

Berlin

Alfred Basch, born September 27th, 1915, in Magdeburg, was henceforth stateless. With the publication of his name in the Gazette of the German Reich, he was deprived of German citizenship. The basis for this was the “Law on the Revocation of Naturalizations and the Deprivation of German Citizenship.” It had been valid for five years. Yet in recent months the number of denaturalizations had clearly risen, often affecting persons and families, who after World War I thanks to the comparably liberal naturalization policy of the Weimar Republic, had become German citizens. On the basis of this law, in September 1938 alone, 116 families became stateless from one day to the next. And that wasn’t enough. The publication of their full names and places, as well as dates of birth, set them up as targets for discrimination, making it impossible for them to go on living a normal life, even if only temporarily.

TAGS: antisemitism, Berlin, document, family, immigration, Magdeburg, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, persecution, Polish-born Jews, public sphere, September 24, Weimar Republic, WWI

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Gesamtverzeichnis der Ausbürgerungslisten, 1933-1938 : nach dem amtlichen Abdruck des "Reichsanzeigers"

Original:

f JX 4231 S8 M5 Copy 1

19

MONDAY

19

Worldwide networks of aid

Kurt Grossmann and refugee aid

“If you receive a request from Mrs. Erna Winter (and child), who was until now supported by Democratic Refugee Relief in Prague, I ask you to respond with goodwill.”

PARIS

Jewish refugee organizations had wide networks. This was due to individuals such as Kurt Grossmann, who steadily made more connections with contacts and developed cooperation on an international level. Kurt Grossmann, a journalist and General Secretary of the German League of Human Rights from 1926 until 1933, had escaped from Berlin just before an arrest. He fled to Prague, where he established and developed Democratic Relief for Refugees. Grossmann knew how to use his network for the increasing number of Jewish refugees, who had reached Prague. Even in Paris, where he had lived since 1938, he campaigned for support from the local refugee aid organizations. For example, in a letter from Grossmann on September 19th, 1938, he urges M. Gaston Kahn of the Parisian Comité d’Assistance aux Réfugiés juifs to help Erna Winter and her child.

TAGS: advocates, Berlin, displacement, emigration, immigration, Jewish Community, letter, Paris, persecution, Prague, prominent people, refugees, September 19, transnational networks, welfare organizations

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Kurt Grossmann Collection, AR 25032

Original:

Box 1, folder 8

15

THURSDAY

15

Bad prospects

Refugees in Czechoslovakia

“None of the refugees, of course, is permitted to work. Among them are business people, professionals and craftsmen, many of whom were once comfortably well off. Without material resources, often cut off from family and friends left behind, uncertain as to the future, this refugee colony is rapidly becoming a psychological problem as well as an economic and political one.”

Brno (Brünn)

The Jewish Telegraphic Agency described the situation of Austrian refugees in Czechoslovakia with far-sightedness. If none of their precarious circumstances changed (work ban, impoverishment, missing prospects…) the situation could soon become “a psychological problem as well as an economic and political one.” The JTA estimated that in the middle of September 1938 there were more than 1,000 refugees in Czechoslovakia, most of them in Brno, less than 50 kilometers from the Austrian border. Now a police measure stipulated a bail of 2,000 Czech crowns (70 dollars) for persons who had already spent more than two months in Czechoslovakia. Otherwise they would face deportation. Who could pay this money on their behalf was completely unclear. Neither the Jewish community of Brno nor the League of Human Rights had the means to do so.

TAGS: Anschluss, antisemitism, Brünn, displacement, dispossession, emigration, expulsion, immigration, impoverishment, Journalism, JTA, media coverage, persecution, refugees, September 15

SOURCE

Institution:

Jewish Telegraphic Agency 

Collection:

“500 Refugees Face Expulsion from Czechoslovakia”

Source available in English

14

WEDNESDAY

14

Urgent: seeking sponsors

Affidavits from at least two relatives, not to mention documents from banks and police departments… Kurt struggles with high hurdles to emigration

“It goes without saying that we wrote and are writing to any and all our acquaintances all over the world, but haven't yet had any positive results until now.”

Genoa/East Springfield, PA

Not a long letter, only a brief postcard was sent to Ludwig Guckenheimer from his old friend Kurt. Yet these few lines give a vivid impression of the situation in which his friend found himself. Kurt had sent the postcard from Genoa on the 14th of September. He’d been trying to prepare his emigration from there for some time. Kurt knew “that it’s time to rush.” Until now he’d failed for lack of money, but most of all from lack of sponsors. Many countries had massively heightened financial and bureaucratic hurdles to immigration in recent years. The United States for example expected, alongside numerous official certificates, at least two affidavits from close relatives. But Kurt wasn’t discouraged. Hope lay in efforts by his brother-in-law in Dallas.

TAGS: affidavits, antisemitism, bureaucracy, commentary, displacement, East Springfield PA, economic persecution, emigration, family, Genoa, immigration, immigration procedures, postcard, refugees, September 14, transnational networks, United States of America

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Gertrude Guckenheimer Collection, AR 10042

Original:

Box 1, folder 5

13

TUESDAY

13

Schoenberg’s exile

Simultaneously misunderstood and admired

Los Angeles

Arnold Schoenberg was a pioneer of modern compositional techniques. However, his music also polarized listeners. Some freneticially celebrated it, other rejected it as noise. On September 13th, the Vienna native celebrated his 62nd birthday. At this time the musician had been living in the United States for almost five years. Schoenberg, a son of Jewish parents, lost his position at the Prussian Academy of Art soon after the Nazis took power. Thereafter he fled first to Paris, then emigrated to the United States. In Los Angeles, he was able to resume his teaching at the University of California.

TAGS: antisemitism, displacement, emigration, immigration, Los Angeles, musicians, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, persecution of Jewish professionals, photo, prominent people, refugees, September 13

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Portrait of the composer Arnold Schoenberg, in: Arnold Schoenberg Collection, AR 1149

Original:

F 3070

10

SATURDAY

10

Not noted for panhandling

A good conduct certificate from the police in 1938

“...herby it is confirmed, that within the last five years there are no suspicious matters noted that would prohibit travel, especially not panhandling.”

VIENNA

At first glance it may seem abstruse. A certificate of good conduct from the police confirms to an employee of an insurance company, Franz Resler of Vienna, that he has not made himself suspicious, especially “not by panhandling.” At second glance, however, it is exactly the emphasis on panhandling that points to all the existential crises in which many Austrian Jews increasingly found themselves in 1938. With the “Anschluss” the Nazis had massively increased the economic pressure on Jews living in Austria. “Aryanisation” of companies and occupational bans deprived numerous people of their livelihood. As a result, Franz Resler and his wife Anna planned their emigration to Argentina, where Franz Resler’s sister Fanny had been living since the 1920s.

TAGS: Anschluss, Aryanization, document, economic persecution, emigration, family, immigration, immigration procedures, impoverishment, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, politics, September 10, South America, Vienna

SOURCE

Institution:

Jüdisches Museum Wien

Original:

Good conduct certificate for Franz Resler issued for the purposes of his immigration to Argentina; Archive Inv. No. 5769/3

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

6

TUESDAY

6

Don’t give up

The physician Max Wolf wishes to escape the imminent occupational ban

“According to your request, we confirm to you that from 1924 until the 30th of September 1938, you were a full member of the Society of Physicians in Vienna.”

Vienna

Dr. Max Wolf had already found his area of expertise years ago. Since 1922 Wolf practiced as a dermatologist in the Vienna Polyclinic as well as published numerous scientific essays in this field. The Vienna native had studied at the time of the First World War, and shortly thereafter he served on the Italian front as a M.A.S.H. doctor. Now, however, his career was about to end. After the “Anschluss,” the Nazis barred Jewish lawyers and judges in Austria from working. A ban for Jewish doctors was imminent. Meanwhile, Max and his wife Margarata Wolf prepared their emigration. The certificate about Wolf’s membership in the Viennese Society of Physicians makes it clear: Max Wolf did not intend to give up his profession while in exile.

TAGS: Anschluss, emigration, immigration, letter, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, persecution of Jewish professionals, September 6, Vienna, WWI, WWI veteran

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Max and Margareta Wolf Collection, AR 10699

Original:

Box 1, folder 4

5

MONDAY

5

Helpless League of Nations

550,000 more refugees expected

“Another 550,000 Catholics, Legitimists and ‘non-Aryans,’ will be obliged to leave the Greater Reich.”

Geneva

The League of Nation’s report was alarming. Sir Neill Malcom, the High Commissioner for German Refugees in the League, estimated that 550,000 more people would soon be forced to leave the German Reich. Non-governmental refugee organizations were already completely overwhelmed. What to do? The conference of Evian just two months earlier had failed. Large host countries, such as the United States, had not adjusted their immigration quotas. On September 5th, the JTA reported on Sir Malcom’s proposals – which, in light of the international situation, were themselves inadequate: countries which had not so far given refugees permission to work were encouraged to more strongly cooperate with each other and at least allow people to earn a small sum for a new start in exile.

TAGS: antisemitism, displacement, emigration, Evian conference, Geneva, immigration, Journalism, JTA, League of Nations, media coverage, persecution, politics, prominent people, refugees, September 5

SOURCE

Institution:

Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Collection:

“550,000 More Must Leave Reich, Malcolm Tells League”

Source available in English

3

SATURDAY

3

Ways out disappearing

The cruelty of Swiss refugee policy

“Reason: Illegal entry”

Zurich

The reason was short and simple: “Illegal entry” appears in the police document declaring a one-year ban on entry into Switzerland and Liechtenstein for Kurt Kelman. The 19-year-old student from Vienna would face imprisonment up to six months and a heavy fine if he violated this ban. Kurt Kelman had entered Switzerland from Austria not long ago and was imprisoned by the Zurich police afterward. Soon after the annexation of Austria, Switzerland passed visa obligations on Austrians. And recently it had tightened its already restrictive immigration policy. Border control and increased rejections at the border became commonplace. This was particularly hard on Austrian Jews such as the student Kurt Kelman. Since the annexation of Austria, the Nazis had heightened the pressure on Jews to emigrate enormously.

TAGS: Anschluss, antisemitism, bureaucracy, commentary, emigration, entry ban, immigration, persecution, refugees, September 3, Vienna, Zurich

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Kurt Kelman Collection, AR 11292

Original:

Box 1, folder 1

2

WEDNESDAY

2

Traitor!

Harsh judgment of Schuschnigg

“As I said before […] I consider Schuschnigg a traitor and if he were to fall into my hands today, instead of Hitler's, his fate would be even crueler.”

Paris

“A traitor!” The journalist and author Joseph Bornstein left no doubt with regard to his opinion of the former Austrian chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg. Indeed, with friendly but very pointed words, he made it clear in a letter to his friend Bosch that Bosch’s “faith in the good faith in Schuschnigg” is totally wrong. Many Austrian Jews had long placed their hopes in Schuschnigg, who had tried as Chancellor to defend Austria from the influence of National-Socialist Germany. After the sender of this letter, Joseph Bornstein, lost his German citizenship in 1933, he immigrated to Paris. There he very quickly joined the intellectual milieu of other German journalists and authors in exile. He continued his collaboration with Leopold Schwarzschild and was active as editor-in-chief for the intellectual journal “Das neue Tagebuch” (The New Diary).

TAGS: commentary, displacement, emigration, immigration, Jewish Community, Journalism, letter, Paris, Polish-born Jews, politics, prominent people, refugees, September 2

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Joseph Bornstein Collection, AR 4082

Original:

Box 2, folder 1

30

TUESDAY

30

Ma’ayan Tsvi

The Maccabi Movement in Germany prepared founding members of the settlement

Ma'ayan

The increased influx of European Jews seeking safety from the Nazis to Palestine led to resistance on the side of Palestinian Arabs. In 1936, an armed revolt erupted. During this period, Jewish settlers made use of a law from the times of the Ottoman Empire, according to which an unauthorized structure could not be demolished once it had a roof. By cover of night and with prefabricated pieces, they erected a fence surrounded by a stockade, so that, in the event of discovery by officials from the British Mandate, nothing could be done about it. At the same time, a structure of this kind was immediately defensible against attacks by local Arabs. One of these settlements was Ma’ayan (later known as Ma’ayan Tsvi), situated west of Zikhron Ya’acov on the northern coastal plain. Its 70 founding members, as members of the Maccabi Movement in Germany (and, since 1935, in Palestine itself), were prepared for pioneer life in the land.

TAGS: August 30, hakhsharah, immigration, Jewish Community, Ma'ayan, Palestine, photo, refugees, transnational networks, violence, Zionism

SOURCE

Institution:

Courtesy of Kedem Auction House

Original:

Photograph Album – Establishment of Ma'ayan Tzvi Kibbutz

28

SUNDAY

28

“Illegal” immigrant

Gisella Jellinek becomes Nadja in Palestine

"Belated congratulations on your 18th birthday and I wish you whatever you wish for yourself, long life, health, heroism, courage, to be a good Haverah, and that your ideal will be realized, and not to forget (...) plenty of work."

Brünn/Rishon LeZion

It was under adventurous circumstances that Gisella Jellinek made her way to Palestine in June 1938. As part of a group of several hundred youths, she was smuggled into the area of the Mandate. The moment she came ashore in Palestine, she had to make use of the Hebrew language skills she had acquired at the Zionist agricultural training camp in Austria, in order to avoid being identified as an illegal immigrant by the British authorities. Roughly two months after her arrival, Gisella, who now called herself Nadja, turned 18. In this belated birthday note, her sister Berta wishes her “heroism, courage, and to be a good Haverah (kibbutz member).”

TAGS: August 28, Brünn, children, commentary, emigration, family, family separation, hakhsharah, immigration, Jewish Community, Language skills, letter, Palestine, Rishon LeZion, transnational networks, Zionism

SOURCE

Institution:

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

Collection:

Berta Jellinek [to her older sister] Gisella Nadja Jellinek

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

26

FRIDAY

26

Recent arrivals

The Boston Committee for Refugees does what it can

"ISAAC BIRNBAUM, age 53, retail tobacco and clothing merchant. (speaks no English whatever)"

Boston

Of the American-Jewish self-help groups assisting Jews in leaving Europe and rebuilding their lives in the United States, the Boston Committee for Refugees was the first. Established in 1933, it consisted entirely of volunteers. Under the leadership of Walter H. Bieringer and Willy Nordwind, the Committee chiefly endeavored to obtain affidavits for would-be immigrants and see to it that they would find employment upon arrival in the U.S. Since the Great Depression, the State Department had orders to keep people “likely to become a public charge” out. It was of great importance to ensure the livelihood of the refugees. The annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany and the colossal failure of the Évian Conference on Refugees reinforced the urgency of helping the desperate asylum seekers. On August 26th, 1938, the Committee’s Acting Executive Secretary sent Bieringer a list of recent arrivals in need of placement.

TAGS: advocates, Anschluss, August 26, Boston, document, emigration, Evian conference, Great Depression, immigration, impoverishment, Jewish Community, letter, refugees, transnational networks, welfare organizations

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Willy Nordwind Collection, AR 10551

Original:

Box 1, folder 38

Source available in English

25

THURSDAY

25

Adversity the mother of innovation

Intellectuals plan a housing project in the USA for unemployed Jewish physicians

"You know that as of October 1st, all of us will no longer be doctors; German medical licenses have been revoked for all those of our faith. Of course, there are many who won't know how to make a living and won't be able to continue living here."

BERLIN/NEW YORK

The existential crisis of Jewish doctors in Germany, which had passed through various stages (exclusion from public service and health insurance funds, prohibition of cooperation between Jewish and “Aryan” physicians, etc.) escalated with the employment ban in July 1938 and required a creative approach. On August 25th, Dr. Felix Pinkus, a renowned Berlin dermatologist, wrote to his friend, Dr. Sulzberger, in America, in order to win him over as a fellow campaigner in an aid project. The sociologist and national economist Franz Oppenheimer had come to the idea of establishing a kind of residential colony for former doctors from Germany. The funding for this would be covered by contributions from American-Jewish doctors. According to Oppenheimer’s calculations, roughly 1,000 physicians would use this remedy. (Dr. Pinkus estimated that it was closer to 3,000).

 

TAGS: antisemitism, August 25, Berlin, commentary, displacement, economic persecution, emigration, immigration, Jewish Community, letter, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, New York, persecution of Jewish professionals, prominent people, segregation, transnational networks

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Felix Pinkus Family Collection, AR 25456

Original:

Box 1, folder 41

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

21

SUNDAY

21

For an 18th birthday, current events

Hugo Jellinek congratulates his daughter and gives commentary on current events

"Bohemia is a tough nut on which this gang of criminals will break their teeth, or let's call it a Buchtel [sweet, filled yeast roll] on which these maniacal devils will choke. Despite the many local traitors, the government and the people are unified in their unflappable will to defend freedom and the achievements of democracy to the last drop of blood."

Brünn/Rishon LeZion

Hugo Jellinek was proud of his daughter Gisella, who had become a glowing Zionist during Hakhsharah and just months before had immigrated to Palestine as part of a group of daring youngsters. For her 18th birthday, not only did he send his first-born daughter congratulations, he also shared his thoughts about current events with her. From his new vantage point in Brünn/Brno (Czechoslovakia), where he had fled from Vienna after a warning, German maneuvers alongside the Czechoslovakian border were worrying him. But he was convinced that, unlike in the case of Austria, the Wehrmacht would face fierce opposition. He felt very bitter about the suspicion of and lack of solidarity with needy Jewish refugees among wealthier members of the Jewish community in Brno. Moreover, he was greatly worried by the eviction notices Austrian Jews were receiving, among them his relatives. Among all the worry and complaint was a silver lining, an acquaintance with a woman.

TAGS: Anschluss, August 21, Brünn, bureaucracy, children, commentary, displacement, document, emigration, family, family separation, hakhsharah, immigration, impoverishment, letter, Munich Agreement, Palestine, refugees, Rishon LeZion, transnational networks, visa application, welfare organizations, 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

19

FRIDAY

19

To Haifa? Not now.

Uncle Alfred advises his nephew against visiting

"To my way of thinking, the moment when we should come here will be designated by a higher authority. Fate will show us when we should come here. I have never seen as many unhappy people concentrated in one country as here."

Haifa/Merano

After six years in Palestine, Alfred Hirsch’s verdict was unequivocal: given the country’s political, climatic and economic structure, even people of the highest intelligence and stamina could not achieve much. He did not mince words in trying to dissuade his nephew, Ulli, from coming. Living in the very secular Haifa, Alfred Hirsch was convinced that for a young, Orthodox Jew like Ulli, life in Palestine would be a big disappointment at that point in history. Between the atmosphere generated by the collective misery of a large number of uprooted, depressed people and the political unrest, which led to major economic problems, the timing just didn’t feel right to Uncle Alfred. (The political unrest mentioned is the 1936-39 Arab Revolt in reaction to the massive influx of European Jews and the prospect of the establishment of a national home for the Jews in Palestine, as stipulated by the Balfour Declaration in 1917.)

TAGS: August 19, commentary, displacement, emigration, family, Haifa, immigration, Jewish Community, letter, Merano, Palestine, refugees, religion, Zionism

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Julius and Elisabeth Hirsch Family Collection, AR 25585

Original:

Box 1, folder 10

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

13

SATURDAY

13

Free CUNY for Refugees

A lawyer campaigns for refugees' right to education

“I believe that their admission to the colleges of the City of New York would not just constitute an act of kindness but would at the same time also be a step in the required direction in order to help these people to become useful and educated members of our democracy.”

NEW YORK

Ellis Levy, a Jewish attorney who lived in New York, decided to take up the cause of the immigrants fleeing Nazi persecution. In a letter to Mayor LaGuardia, an excerpt of which was published in the August issue of Aufbau, he pointed out that many of the newcomers were arriving in the country penniless, often after having been forced to abandon their studies or professional training. At the time of Mr. Ellis’s intervention, a bill regarding the possibility of opening city colleges to non-citizens was about to be brought before the Board of Higher Education. The attorney asked Mayor LaGuardia to exercise his influence on the Board to bring about a positive decision. This, he argued, would serve both the needs of the immigrants and the interests of U.S. democracy. And, indeed, it was decided, effective September 1 of that year, to admit to city colleges persons with adequate prior education who were in the process of naturalization.

TAGS: August 13, displacement, immigration, impoverishment, Journalism, media coverage, New York, persecution, politics, press article, prominent people, refugees, United States of America

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Zum Besten von Einwanderern, Aufbau, Vol. 4, No. 9, p. 4

11

THURSDAY

11

Individual hakhsharah

17-year-old Marianne suffers alone in England

“And now to the point that is most important to you at the moment. Daddy has already written you his views, we are very much concerned that you stay in England, and much as we feel sorry for you, you'll have to get through this somehow.”

Teplitz

In July 1938, 17-year-old Marianne Pollak traveled all by herself from Teplitz/Teplice (Czechoslovakia) to England. Not accustomed to the climate there, the young girl developed rheumatism and was in generally miserable condition. Every few days, her mother wrote her caring, supportive letters. While clearly vexed by Marianne’s unhappiness, Mrs. Pollak and her husband made sure to communicate to her the importance of her staying in England. Apparently, Marianne was in an individual hakhsharah program, meaning that she was acquiring skills preparing her for pioneer life in Palestine. In Eastern Europe, the Zionist Pioneer organization “HeChalutz” (“The Pioneer”) had been offering agricultural and other training courses for prospective settlers in pre-state Palestine since the late 19th century. A German branch was established in 1923, but the concept gained traction in western Europe only during the Great Depression and had its broadest reach during the years of persecution by the Nazis. Instead of being prepared collectively on farms, youngsters could also get their training individually, as seems to have been the case with Marianne.

TAGS: August 11, children, displacement, emigration, family, family separation, Great Depression, hakhsharah, immigration, letter, Palestine, refugees, Teplitz, transnational networks, Zionism

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

John Peters Pinkus Family Collection, AR 25520

Original:

Box 2, folder 22

10

WEDNESDAY

10

Alfred Döblin in exile

Now a citizen of France, the author celebrates his 60th birthday

Paris

Barely one month after the collapse of the Weimar Republic, a “democracy without a user’s manual,” as he called it in “The German Masked Ball,” and one day after the Reichstag fire, the writer and Social Democrat Alfred Döblin left Germany. After a brief interlude in Switzerland, he moved to Paris with his wife and three sons in September 1933. Occasional publications with the German-language “publisher-in-exile” (Exilverlag) Querido (Amsterdam) yielded minimal income, and Döblin’s lack of French language skills were a major stumbling block to his gaining a foothold professionally. From 1936 on, the Döblins were French citizens. The 10th of August was the author’s 60th birthday.

TAGS: artists, August 10, displacement, emigration, family, immigration, impoverishment, Language skills, Paris, photo, prominent people, refugees, Weimar Republic

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Portrait of Alfred Döblin

Original:

F 2087A

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

1

MONDAY

1

It can happen here

Jewish immigrants warn of the fragility of American Democracy

“From what has been expounded here, it follows for us Jewish immigrants who have experienced fascism in our own flesh that we must mobilize all our forces in order to secure the continued existence of the United States as a democratic political system. Here too influential groups are at work undermining the achievements of democracy.”

NEW YORK

In the August issue of the Aufbau, an unidentified group of young immigrants was given the opportunity to call for the preservation and activation of democracy in the United States. They argue that the fascist regimes in Europe used the economic crises created by the unbridled military buildup in their countries to legitimize the confiscation of Jewish property. While praising the Roosevelt administration’s generosity and its openness to social reforms for the benefit of those who had escaped fascism, the group warns against the reactionary forces attacking this policy and their attempts to undermine democracy in the United States. The Aufbau editorial board noted its reservations regarding the group’s assessment of the role of economic factors in history but wrote that it was happy to grant the young people space to voice their concerns.

TAGS: August 1, commentary, dispossession, Fascism, immigration, Jewish Community, Jewish property, Journalism, media coverage, New York, politics, press article, refugees, United States of America

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

“Für lebendige Demokratie,” Aufbau, Vol. 4, No. 9, p. 2.

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

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.

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