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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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31

THURSDAY

31

Recommendation from Karl Bonhoeffer

Klaus' and Dietrich's father puts in a good word for a colleague

“She has extraordinary diagnostic faculties. She has a great energy for work. She is reliable and dependable in medical service. It is these qualities which won for her the admiration of the physicians at the hospital and the confidence of her patients.”

Berlin

Prof. Karl Bonhoeffer, a psychiatrist and neurologist as well as the father of two prominent opponents of the Nazi regime, Klaus and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, taught at Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin and was in charge of the Department for Mental and Neurological Diseases at the Charité Hospital. In this letter of recommendation, written in English for use in exile, Bonhoeffer praises the extraordinary achievements of his Jewish colleague, Dr. Herta Seidemann. While his attitude toward certain Nazi programs (such as the forced sterilization of carriers of certain congenital diseases and euthanasia) remains controversial, his efforts on behalf of several Jewish colleagues are indisputable.

TAGS: advocates, Berlin, emigration, letter, March 31, Nazi policies, persecution of Jewish professionals, prominent people

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Herta Seidemann Collection, AR 25060

Original:

Box 1, folder 5

Source available in English

21

MONDAY

21

Anneliese’s daily struggles

The correspondence of a dispersed family

“In any case, I'd advise you to approach the lady. She might be able to do something for you among her circle of acquaintances.”

Berlin / Rome

In March 1938, Anneliese Riess was living in Rome, Italy. In addition to keeping in touch with her sister, Else (see entry from February 5), she corresponded with her parents in Berlin. As in other families scattered across several countries, the letters of the Riess family deal with everyday events and practical information about emigration. With her Italian visa about to expire, Anneliese is trying to find a new safe haven. Through their network of friends, her mother has learned that there might be a position for Anneliese in Lund, Sweden. In this letter, she advises her to find out more about it.

TAGS: Berlin, emigration, family, family separation, letter, March 21, Rome, transnational networks

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Anneliese Riess Collection, AR 10019

Original:

Box 1, folder 9

19

SATURDAY

19

Aryanization

Forced sale of a cotton mill

“We are pleased to take this opportunity to thank you for the confidence you have shown us.”

Augsburg

After more than one hundred successful years in business, the cotton weaving mill M.S. Landauer in Augsburg announces the sale of the company. Throughout the Nazi period, as part of the program of “Aryanization”, Jews were coerced into selling their property to non-Jews, usually significantly below market value. In some cases, owners preempted official orders by selling to a trusted business associate, which did not generally help them avoid major losses. Ironically, the founder of the F.C. Ploucquet company, which now owned the plant, had been of Huguenot extraction and thus himself belonged to a community that had experienced severe persecution.

TAGS: Aryanization, Augsburg, dispossession, economic persecution, letter, March 19, Nazi policies

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Landuaer Family Collection, AR 207

Original:

Box 1, folder 2

16

WEDNESDAY

16

Colleagues across continents

A teacher from Frankfurt connects with a colleague in the United States

“We would like to meet people over there with whom we can also discuss our plans—not our personal plans but the Jewish-social ones. After all, the situation of Jewish youth is getting more serious from day to day, and we feel obligated to seize all possibilities that we see over there.”

Frankfurt am Main/Bonn

Having barely begun his career as a teacher at the Goethe-Gymnasium in Frankfurt/Main, Hans Epstein lost his job shortly after the Nazi rise to power in 1933. After a brief intermezzo as a teacher at the famous “Philanthropin” in Frankfurt/Main, a progressive Jewish school with the motto “For Enlightenment and Humanity”, he became a co-founder of the “Anlernwerkstatt”, which prepared Jewish youngsters for emigration to the US. The mathematician Otto Toeplitz, a passionate educator who had lost his position at the University of Bonn in 1935, was now teaching children and organizing the emigration of students to the United States. In this letter, Epstein asks Toeplitz for a letter of recommendation and for contacts in the United States that might be useful for his endeavors.

TAGS: Bonn, children, emigration, Frankfurt am Main, Jewish Community, letter, March 16, persecution of Jewish professionals, schools, transnational networks

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Hans Epstein Collection, AR 6362

Original:

Box 1, folder I.13

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

8

TUESDAY

8

Family bonds

An Affidavit from uncle Charles

“As soon as I get all this information from you I will prepare the necessary affidavits and will also send the information to Dr. Pollak, who will also send his affidavits so that you and your family can come here.”

Newark, New Jersey/Baden

Charles Manshel, a wealthy businessman and himself a native of Austria, promises his cousin in Baden near Vienna to prepare affidavits for her and her family once he has all the required personal information. The letter shows Manshel’s sincere efforts to not only pave the way to immigration for his relatives but also do something for the professional integration of his niece’s husband, Dr. Eduard Ehrlich. Manshel was no stranger to hardship himself, having provided for his family since his father’s premature death when he was 16 years old.

TAGS: affidavits, Baden, document, emigration, family, immigration procedures, letter, March 8, Newark NJ, transnational networks

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

George and Paul Ehrlich Collection, AR 11418

Original:

Box 1, folder 1

Source available in English

25

FRIDAY

25

Heartache

Young lovers face separation

“I say it is a good thing not to see each other for a longer period, for only then can one see how much or how little people have changed.”

Hamburg/Merano

By 1938, the Hirsch family from Hamburg had emigrated to Italy. In light of the volatile situation in Europe, members of the family began to look into options for emigration to the United States or South America. Julius Hirsch had met Elisabeth Schiff on a visit to Belgium in 1935 and fallen in love with her. The Schiff family had no plans to leave Europe, and when visas for El Salvador were procured for Julius and other members of his family, he must have been pained at the prospect of being so distant from his beloved. This letter from a friend in Hamburg reassures him that a temporary separation is not such a bad thing. Forced to remain in Italy because the US denied him the necessary transit visa, Julius ultimately reunited with Elisabeth in England.

TAGS: bureaucracy, displacement, emigration, family separation, February 25, Hamburg, immigration procedures, letter, Merano, refugees, South America

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Julius and Elisabeth Hirsch Collection, AR 25585

Original:

Box 1, folder 14

19

SATURDAY

19

Doing fine here in prison

Letters from Alfred Rahn

“I am doing well under the circumstances, and if you do not worry, I shall be able to bear it doubly well.”

Nuremberg/Fürth

Not wishing to leave behind the family business and hoping that the Jews’ situation would improve over time, Alfred Rahn had initially been reluctant to consider emigration. However, in 1937 the family obtained US visas and sold the business to a non-Jew. Since they had not officially approved the sale, the Nazis accused Rahn of trying to hide funds. As a result, he had to serve a 14-month prison term. From prison, Rahn writes to his wife Lilli in a matter-of-fact way about his hope to be transferred to a different section of the prison, the work imposed on him, and the books he reads. He manages to create the impression that nothing much is amiss.

TAGS: economic persecution, emigration, family, family separation, February 19, Fürth, immigration procedures, imprisonment, letter, Nuremberg

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Rahn Family Collection, AR 25538

Original:

Box 1, folder 10

15

TUESDAY

15

A refuge under threat

The home of the Jewish Women's Association in Neu-Isenburg

“Isenburg Police issued an ultimatum to us today to hand over Esther Kleinmann's complete papers (notice of change of address and passport) by the 25th of this month, otherwise she will be deported.”

Neu-Isenburg/Darmstadt

Bertha Pappenheim (1859–1936), born and raised in Vienna, was a leading German-Jewish feminist. Better known as the patient Anna O. in Sigmund Freud’s “Studies on Hysteria,” she later moved to Frankfurt a.M., where she gradually shifted the emphasis of her activism from charitable work to women’s empowerment. In 1907, she established a home in Neu-Isenburg for young Jewish women in need of protection, a feat she considered her most important achievement. Under the Nazis, the home had to register all inhabitants with the police. In the letter displayed here, the secretary of the home asks Rabbi Dr. Merzbach at the District Rabbinate in Darmstadt to immediately send the papers of a resident of the home, Esther Kleinmann, who would otherwise face deportation.

TAGS: antisemitism, bureaucracy, Darmstadt, February 15, letter, Nazi policies, Neu-Isenburg, persecution, prominent people, rabbis, welfare organizations, Women

SOURCE

Institution:

Jüdisches Museum Berlin

Collection:

Katz/Rubin Family Collection, Gift of Sally and Chaim Katz

11

FRIDAY

11

Sell the jewelry

Brothers in exile worry about their parents

“By the way, do you happen to have mom's jewelry with you? Because mom had asked me if you told me, because I advised them to sell it, so that they would have means to live.”

Chelles/New York

In February 1938, two brothers living in two different continents, Joszi Josefsberg in Europe (Chelles, France) and Arthur Josefsberg (New York) discuss in their correspondence how best to proceed to obtain affidavits to rescue their parents, who are still in Germany. But not only the fact that their parents’ emigration has not yet been secured worries Joszi—he is also concerned about their material survival. Such concerns were common among Jews who had left behind parents, siblings, and often spouses. Nazi efforts to force Jews out of numerous professions had made it harder and harder for those remaining in Germany to earn a living.

 

Several months after the 1938Projekt was completed, LBI learned that the letter was misdated while transcribed. Although it was written later than February 1938, LBI decided to keep it in the project under the same date because of the important content.

TAGS: affidavits, Chelles, economic persecution, emigration, family, family separation, February 11, immigration procedures, impoverishment, letter, New York, persecution of Jewish professionals

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Arthur Josefsberg Correspondence, AR 25590

Original:

Box 1, folder 1

Source available in English

5

SATURDAY

5

Career change

Archeologist seeking work as a nurse

“I remembered an old acquaintance and wrote a letter which was answered very nicely, and I hope he'll get in touch with me within the next few days. I'd like to hear some advice regarding our old man and old lady and the like [...].”

Turin/Rome

In this short missive from Turin, written in a casual, sisterly tone to her sister Anneliese in Rome, Elsa Riess communicates her worries about their parents, who have remained in Berlin. Elsa is concerned about her father’s employment situation and declares her intention to find out about possible ways to help their parents, from whom she hasn’t heard for a while. Anneliese had come to Italy in 1933 to study archeology, earning her PhD in 1936. Because of her own uncertain material situation, she was not in a position to help her parents financially. Unemployable as a foreigner in Italy and hoping to increase her opportunities by adding a practical skill, she had decided to take a course as a baby and child nurse in Geneva in 1937.

TAGS: Berlin, displacement, economic persecution, emigration, family, family separation, February 5, Geneva, impoverishment, letter, refugees, Rome, Turin

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Anneliese Riess Collection, AR 10019

Original:

Box 1, folder 9

Chronology of major events in 1938

Law on Alteration of Family and Personal Names

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

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

View chronology of major events in 1938

23

SUNDAY

23

The American dream

A Jew who has taken the leap calls upon a friend to follow suit.

“My most beautiful dream is that all the people I like should live near me.”

New York/Berlin

As the number of Jewish emigrants from Germany was constantly growing, so was the number of letters exchanged between friends and relatives who had already left and those who stayed behind. In his handwritten letter from January 23, Mikloś Ehrenfeld suggests to his friend Kunibert in Berlin that it would be a good idea for him to leave Germany in spite of his good position and come to America, as Ehrenfeld himself did. Self-actualization and the fulfillment of personal dreams, Ehrenfeld wrote, were possible in America but hopeless in Germany.

TAGS: Berlin, displacement, emigration, January 23, letter, New York, refugees

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Rolf David Collection, AR 6994

17

MONDAY

17

Mixed marriage by special permit

Letter congratulating Hermann Hoerlin on his upcoming wedding with Käthe Schmid

I wish the two of you every blessing. There certainly is no more magnificent, nobler character, no human being more joyously equipped by nature than Käthe Schmid, and therefore it says a lot that she is, as it were, being bestowed upon you, dear Mr. Hoerlin, and this wholeheartedly, with no ifs or buts, without any reservations.

Salzburg/Stuttgart

An unidentified author congratulates the German mountain climber and physicist Hermann Hoerlin, based in Stuttgart, on his upcoming wedding with Käthe Schmid, who was considered a “Half-Jew” in Nazi parlance. The “Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor,” adopted in 1935, forbade marriages between Jews and non-Jews. Despite the law, the couple Hoerlin-Schmid obtained a special permit and the wedding could go ahead.

TAGS: antisemitism, January 17, letter, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, prominent people, Salzburg, Stuttgart

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Kate and Herman Hoerlin Collection, AR 25540

Original:

Box 2, folder 13

13

THURSDAY

13

Advice from New York

Remittances to Jewish recipients in Nazi Germany

We wish to point out that when using Haavaramark for your remittances you further the Jewish emigration from Germany.

New York

A representative of the New York office of Intria International Trade & Investment Agency Ltd., London, advises a client in New York to use the “Haavaramark” for “transfers to persons of Jewish descent residing in Germany.” The Haavara (transfer) Agreement had been made between Zionist representatives and the Nazis in 1933. It enabled emigrants to deposit money in a German account, which was used to pay for the import of German goods to Palestine. The proceeds from the sales of these goods in Palestine, after the deduction of costs, was disbursed to the new immigrants.

TAGS: document, economic persecution, emigration, Haavara, impoverishment, January 13, letter, New York, Palestine, Zionism

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Ludwig Rosenberger Family Collection, AR 5824

Original:

Box 1, folder 25

12

WEDNESDAY

12

An arbitrary ordeal

Little Herbert waits for a visa

Does Papa remember the “dung beetle”, when Mr. M. said that he would never leave Germany and that a “Jewish Colony” should be built in Germany? Apparently he has been having second thoughts. The first proof was that he took his son out of the Kaiser Friedrich Gymnasium, and the second that he is sending his son to America.

Zurich/New York

Herbert Freeman was born Herbert Friedmann on December 13, 1925 in Frankfurt/Main, Germany. His father, Leo Friedmann, immigrated to the United States first. Herbert, his mother, and his brother applied for a US visa in Stuttgart. During the obligatory health check-up, the perfectly healthy Herbert was diagnosed as a “tuberculosis carrier” and was unable to join his mother and brother on their journey to the United States in 1936. After repeated unsuccessful attempts, in order to circumvent the Stuttgart US Consulate, 12-year-old Herbert was sent to Zurich (permission to file an application outside Germany was obtained in no small part thanks to the intervention of Albert Einstein). The letter was written during Herbert’s stay in Switzerland. He mentions his upcoming visit to the US Consulate and reapplying for the visa, and describes his days while separated from his relatives.

TAGS: bureaucracy, children, emigration, family separation, Frankfurt am Main, immigration procedures, January 12, letter, New York, prominent people, visa application, Zurich

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Herbert Freeman Family Collection, AR 25346

Original:

Box 1, folder 4

8

SATURDAY

8

Doing fine under the circumstances

A letter from prison

“Under the circumstances I am doing fine, and when I think that it will be already two weeks tomorrow, I can hardly believe it. One must not think and brood too much, that’s the only way to keep one’s spirit up. And that’s what I want!”

Fürth

Preparing for emigration to the United States, Alfred Rahn sold the family business, the M.S. Farrnbacher Ironmongery, in November 1937 without the consent of the Nazi authorities. Instead of leaving for the US at the end of December as planned, he therefore had to serve a 14 month prison term. From his prison cell in Fürth, Alfred Rahn expresses gratitude to his wife for gifts already received and asks for further necessities. His wife Lilly was a literary scholar and the last Jewish doctoral student to have graduated from the University of Erlangen (in 1934).

TAGS: economic persecution, emigration, family, family separation, Fürth, imprisonment, January 8, letter, Nazi policies

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Rahn Family Collection, AR 25538

Original:

Box 1, folder 10

6

THURSDAY

6

“A quiet light in the dark night”

Birthday wishes in difficult times

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

Dresden/Hildesheim

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

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

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Frank M. Shurman Collection, AR 25219  

Original:

Box 2, folder 8

5

WEDNESDAY

5

Crisis management

Factory owners navigating the needs of the day

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

Göppingen

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

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

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Fleischer-Steiner Family Collection, AR 25083

Original:

Box 1, folder 3

Chronology of major events in 1938

Law on Alteration of Family and Personal Names

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

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

View chronology of major events in 1938

2

SUNDAY

2

Correspondence across the ocean

German-Jewish families separated by immigration restrictions

"Meanwhile the new year has arrived. What will it bring?"

Columbus, Ohio/Mannheim

This letter was written by Otto Neubauer, who had recently arrived in America from Mannheim, to his father Maximilian and his brother Ernst back home. Since the rest of the family was unable to emigrate despite years of trying, Otto wrote them regularly. The rich exchange of letters between the members of the Neubauer family reflects, as in the case of many other German Jewish emigrants in the 1930s, deep longing and attempts to describe every aspect of the new life in America.

TAGS: Columbus OH, displacement, emigration, family separation, January 2, letter, Mannheim, refugees

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Otto Neubauer Collection, AR 25339

Original:

Box 1, folder 3

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