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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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14

MONDAY

14

A taste of home

German-Jewish newspaper advertises German sausage in New York

“Finally, what you have been wishing for: genuine, good, German sausage, made from premium beef and veal at the lowest daily price.”

New York

After the tribulations of their forced emigration, often accompanied by a loss of status, property, and basic faith in humanity, German Jews might not have been expected to feel particularly nostalgic for their former home. This ad from the Aufbau, the New York-based German-Jewish paper published by the German-Jewish Club, shows that nevertheless, Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany were not necessarily in a hurry to give up their eating habits.

TAGS: advertisement, displacement, emigration, Jewish Community, Journalism, March 14, New York, refugees

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Advertisement, Aufbau, Vol. 4, no. 4, p. 9.

10

THURSDAY

10

Preparing for Motherhood

Congregations add gender-specific gifts for girls

“The bestowal is made under the same conditions as that of the bar mitzvah gifts for the boys: upon request, congregations comprising fewer than 1000 souls receive the book free of charge.”

Berlin

In response to numerous requests, the Prussian State Association of Jewish Congregations, a voluntary association founded in 1921, decided to provide gifts to girls in parallel with the religious books given to boys upon becoming B’nai Mitzvah. While the books given to boys were aimed at deepening Jewish knowledge, the book offered to girls, Jewish Mothers by Egon Jacobsohn and Leo Hirsch, offered biographical sketches of the mothers of Jewish luminaries including Theodor Herzl, Walter Rathenau, and Heinrich Heine. As early as the the 19th century, reform-oriented synagogues in Germany began offering a collective “confirmation” for boys and girls. In some places, an individual ceremony for girls was customary, but there was no such thing as the modern bat mitzvah ceremony in 1938.

TAGS: Bar Mitzvah, Berlin, children, Jewish Community, letter, March 10, religion, Synagogues

SOURCE

Institution:

New Synagogue Berlin – Centrum Judaicum

Collection:

Memorandum of the Prussian State Association of Jewish Congregations to member congregations regarding gifts of books for girls on the occasion of their confirmation and graduation from school as well as bar mitzvah gifts for boys

Original:

CJA, 2 A 2, No. 2749

7

MONDAY

7

Tie Game

Hakoah Wien and Jewish sports culture

Vienna

The soccer team Hakoah Wien’s match against SV Straßenbahn Wien, the sports club of the Vienna tramway company, ended in a 2:2 tie on March 7, 1938. Hakoah was part of the famous Viennese Jewish sports club, Sportverein Hakoah Wien. The club had been established in 1909 as a result of the changing attitude towards the body and health in the liberal Jewish community. This membership card belonged to one of the club’s foremost coaches, the swim coach Zsigo Wertheimer. Wertheimer had coached Ruth Langer, who famously refused to join the Austrian Olympic team in 1936, when she was just 15 years old.

TAGS: Anschluss, ID, Jewish Community, March 7, politics, prominent people, Sports, Vienna

SOURCE

Institution:

Jüdisches Museum Wien

Collection:

Membership card of Fatherland Front of Zsigo Wertheimer

Original:

Inv. No. 16776

4

FRIDAY

4

Parochet, dark-blue

The last days of the Jewish Institute for the Blind in Vienna

Vienna

This dark blue parochet (curtain for covering the Torah Ark in a synagogue) is part of the collection of the Israelitisches Blindeninstitut (Jewish Institute for the Blind) in Vienna. The institution was established in 1871 with the purpose of educating blind Jewish students. Professions taught ranged from manual occupations to translating and interpreting. Due to its excellent reputation, the school attracted students not only from Austria, but also from most other European countries. March 4 was one of its last days of undisturbed activity.

TAGS: Anschluss, art, Disability, Jewish Community, March 4, religion, Synagogues, Vienna, welfare organizations

SOURCE

Institution:

Jüdisches Museum Wien

Collection:

Parochet

Original:

Inv. No. 2837

28

MONDAY

28

Confidence in chancellor Schuschnigg

Therapeutic Optimism

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

Vienna

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

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

SOURCE

Institution:

Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Collection:

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

Source available in English

27

SUNDAY

27

Three Jewish Mother Tongues

A Tel-Aviv born actor brings “new Palestinian poetry” to New York

“His Hebrew program numbers are especially likely to draw major attention, since it can safely be assumed that no actor in New York has ever rendered the Bible and modern poetry in Hebrew in so sublime a fashion.”

New York

Few among the immigrant New York audience expected to attend a trilingual event of the Theodor Herzl Society had ever encountered native speakers of modern Hebrew: Hence, it is no wonder the Aufbau assumed that the Hebrew part would constitute the greatest attraction. The featured artist of the evening, actor Albert Klar (Sklarz), born and raised in Tel Aviv, had begun his career in Berlin under renowned directors such as Reinhardt and Piscator. He had made his way to New York thanks to an invitation from the great Yiddish actor and director, Morris Schwartz, who hired him for his Yiddish Art Theater. The venue was Ansche Chesed, a synagogue on the Upper West Side founded by German immigrants.

TAGS: artists, Berlin, cultural life, February 27, Jewish Community, Journalism, Language skills, New York, Palestine, press article, prominent people, religion, Synagogues, Tel Aviv

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

“Hebräisch-Jiddisch-Deutsch,” Aufbau, Vol. 5, no. 3, p. 4.

22

TUESDAY

22

Coffee and cake in “Frankfurt on Hudson”

A New Life in Washington Heights, NYC

While enjoying coffee, cake, card games and a pleasant entertainment program, those present will have the opportunity to talk about their concerns.

New York

Between the Nazis’ rise to power in 1933 and the year 1938, about 16.000 Jews had immigrated to the United States. Many German Jews had made their home in New York, especially in the neighborhood of Washington Heights in northern Manhattan, gaining it the nickname “Frankfurt on the Hudson.” The event schedule of the German-Jewish Club lists a “Family evening with Kaffee-Klatsch” which offers “artistic and musical interludes.” The event is geared towards the needs of the older members of the community, as “a substitute for lodge, singing club, social club and other associations,” promising participants an opportunity to discuss what they had on their minds. In addition to cultural activities in German, the massive influx of German-speaking Jews to Washington Heights led to the establishment of numerous new synagogues, beginning with “Tikvoh Chadoshoh”—“New Hope.”

TAGS: advertisement, cultural life, displacement, emigration, February 22, immigration, Jewish Community, New York, public sphere, refugees, religion, Synagogues

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

“Februar-Programm des Deutsch-Jüdischen Clubs”, Aufbau, no. 3, 4

Original:

Vol. 3, no. 4: 3

9

WEDNESDAY

9

Frightening figures

The demographic change of the Jewish Community in Vienna

Vienna

The figures computed by the registry office of the Vienna Jewish Community and published here in the Jewish paper Die Stimme paint a bleak picture: between 1923 and 1937, the number of Jews in Vienna had decreased from 201,208 to around 167,000. The notice specifically mentions emigration between 1935 and 1936. Moreover, probably as a result both of the general insecurity and the changed age structure of the community, the number of births among Austrian Jews had gone down from 2,733 in 1923 to a mere 720 in 1937. Among the 2,824 deaths in 1937, 105 are entered as suicides.

TAGS: Anschluss, emigration, February 9, Jewish Community, Journalism, media coverage, press article, Vienna

SOURCE

Institution:

Compact Memory, Universitätsbibliothek Frankfurt am Main

Collection:

“Der Rückgang der jüdischen Bevölkerung Wiens” Die Stimme, Vol. 19, no. 730, February 9, 1938.

6

SUNDAY

6

Émigrés on ice

The rich social-life of German-Jewish refugees in New York includes winter sports.

Yonkers, New York

Among the many kinds of physical activity offered to the readers of the Aufbau by the German-Jewish Club, such as ping-pong, skiing, swimming and even a Katerbummel (a morning stroll after a night of heavy drinking), there was also an invitation to go ice-skating in Tibbetts Brook Park in Yonkers, New York. A familiar activity among sympathetic fellow German-speakers at a venue featuring a Tudor revival bathhouse may have awakened memories of better days in Europe. Despite their traumatic experiences under Nazism and their forced departure, many German Jews continued to feel a profound cultural connection to the country they had called their home.

TAGS: advertisement, cultural life, displacement, emigration, February 6, Jewish Community, New York, refugees, Sports, Yonkers NY

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

“Februar-Programm des deutsch-jüdischen Clubs,” Aufbau, Vol. 4, no. 3, p. 3.

3

THURSDAY

3

Unprotected

The Jewish community of Vienna faces its dissolution—700 years after the granting of the Privilege of Protection

Vienna

This photograph shows a picturesque bird’s-eye view of Vienna’s 1st municipal district. At the beginning of 1938, the Austrian capital was still home to almost 170,000 Jews and 80,000 members of mixed (Christian-Jewish) marriages. Jews made up about 10 percent of Vienna’s population. The majority of local Jews were well integrated into Austrian society: not only was German their native tongue, they also shaped the cultural and social landscape of the city. Among them were the father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, the Albanologist Norbert Jokl, the author Friedrich Torberg, and the composer Arnold Schoenberg.

TAGS: Anschluss, February 3, Jewish Community, photo, prominent people, Vienna

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Vienna, Jewish Community Collection, AR 2432

Original:

F 24082

30

SUNDAY

30

No Reward for Patriotism

The Nazis suspend the newspaper of the Central Association of German Citizens of Jewish Faith.

“The paper is the second Jewish organ to be suspended within a week.”

Berlin

The C.V.-Zeitung, Paper for German and Jewish Culture was the organ of the “Central Association of German Citizens of Jewish Faith.” The Central Association’s political bent was liberal-conservative and it strove to represent the interests of all Jews, regardless of religious affiliation. The newspaper aimed to raise the self-confidence of German Jews as well as to deepen their love of “both German and Jewish culture.” (Jüdisches Lexikon 1927). January 30, 1938 was the last day of ordinary operations for the C.V.-Zeitung. On the 31st, the Nazis ordered its temporary suspension until February 24 with no reason given.

TAGS: antisemitism, Berlin, January 30, Jewish Community, Journalism, JTA, media coverage, Nazi policies, persecution, politics

SOURCE

Institution:

Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Collection:

“C.v. Zeitung Suspended”

Source available in English

29

SATURDAY

29

Religion, culture and the struggle for human dignity

Synagogues adapt to the changing needs of Jewish life.

Berlin

This drawing shows the interior of the Prinzregentenstraße Synagogue in Berlin (Wilmersdorf). Built in 1930, the building was designed to fulfill the needs of a liberal congregation. As shown in the picture, the synagogue boasted a magnificent organ. Rabbi Leo Baeck gave the sermon at the opening ceremony. From 1933, when Jews began to be pushed out of Germany’s cultural life, the synagogue also became a Jewish cultural center.

TAGS: art, Berlin, cultural life, January 29, Jewish Community, prominent people, public sphere, rabbis, religion, segregation, Synagogues

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

"Synagogue Prinzregentenstrasse." Werner Stein Collection, AR 10775

Original:

2005.87

22

SATURDAY

22

Victory of the underdog

The theater of the Berliner Kulturbund features a powerless hero who wins over his antagonist.

Berlin

With Adolphe Adam’s comic opera “If I were King” and Ladislaus Bus-Fekete’s “Cape of Good Hope,” the Berlin Kulturbund offered its guests lighthearted distractions. The Jewish audience in Berlin in 1938 must have been receptive to an opera in which the powerless but honest hero wins and the bad guy gets his well-deserved punishment.

TAGS: advertisement, artists, Berlin, cultural life, January 22, Jewish Community, Kulturbund, musicians, public sphere, segregation

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Kulturbundbühne (Berlin): Kulturbund deutscher Juden, MF B1080

Original:

Vol. 6, no. 1: 11

14

FRIDAY

14

Staged normalcy

The Berlin Jewish Community: Between practical and intellectual needs

Berlin

The January issue of the Berlin Kulturbund magazine conveys a sense of normalcy—local businesses advertise merchandise and services like cosmetics, women’s apparel and car repairs, while the Kulturbund schedule offers Eugene Scribe’s “The Ladies’ Battle.” The comedy must have provided a welcome respite from the worrisome situation.

TAGS: advertisement, Berlin, cultural life, January 14, Jewish Community, Journalism, Kulturbund, public sphere, segregation

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Kulturbundbühne (Berlin): Kulturbund deutscher Juden, MF B1080

Original:

Vol. 6, no.1

11

TUESDAY

11

“Who won’t betray us in the end?”

Theater becomes the last cultural resort

Berlin

As German Jews were getting arrested or being forced to leave the country, the performances put on by the local branches of the Jewish Kulturbund (Culture Association) were among the few places of refuge where Jews could enjoy culture as in earlier days. Among other things, in the winter season of 1937/1938 the Jüdischer Kulturbund Berlin performed Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin (Director: Dr. Kurt Singer) and Scribe’s The Ladies’ Battle (Director: Fritz Wisten). Since 1935, the Kulturbund’s venue had been the theater at 57 Kommandantenstrasse, the former Herrnfeld Theater, where popular Jewish plays had once been staged.

TAGS: advertisement, artists, Berlin, cultural life, January 11, Jewish Community, Journalism, Kulturbund, musicians, prominent people, public sphere, segregation

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Kulturbundbühne (Berlin): Kulturbund deutscher Juden, MF B1080

Original:

Vol. 6, no. 1: 3

10

MONDAY

10

One-way ticket

The travel agency on Meineke Street: South America, Columbia, Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru, and Chile

“To South America (West Coast), Columbia-Equador-Bolivia-Peru-Chile”

Berlin

If advertisements in newspapers reflect the main needs of society, then the Berlin Jüdisches Gemeindeblatt (Jewish Community Paper) from January 1938 can serve as a perfect example of such needs in times of crisis. By January 1938, when the majority of German Jews were preparing for emigration or actively looking for ways to leave the country, advertisements for travel agencies and shipping companies dominated the commercial space of the newspaper. The main destinations of German-Jewish emigrants were Palestine as well as North- and South America.

TAGS: advertisement, Berlin, emigration, January 10, Jewish Community, Journalism, Palestine, South America

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Gemeindeblatt der Jüdischen Gemeinde zu Berlin, MF B427/ 1

Original:

Vol. 28, no. 2: 7

9

SUNDAY

9

Where strength and joy flow

A new Jewish Community Center in Hamburg

“We are responsible for the spirits and souls of the people. We cannot let them be crushed by everyday worries and hardship, be beaten down by the running battle of life, or whither away in the close air and restless drudgery.” (p.3)

Hamburg

In his opening speech at the inauguration ceremony for the new Jewish community center in Hamburg, Max M. Warburg, scion of a renowned family of bankers, describes the challenges the community is facing at the present moment and states the mission of the building and its leadership in troubled times. Describing theater as a source not only of “uplift and joy” but also of “moral fortitude,” Warburg declares the community center to be intended first and foremost as a home for the performances of actors and musicians of the Jewish Kulturbund.

TAGS: artists, cultural life, Hamburg, January 9, Jewish Community, Kulturbund, musicians, prominent people, public sphere, segregation, Speech

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Max M. Warburg Collection, AR 1211

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