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The crowd looked on quietly

Shop windows vandalized with antisemitic graffiti

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

Berlin

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

Fear of free thinkers

National Socialist informers in the public sphere

“Among the places visited by the police were Trump’s, one of the most popular cafes in the city, where half a dozen Jews were picked up, and also the Meudtner Cafe.”

Berlin

On June 17, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reports that in the last four days, the Nazi authorities have re-intensified their raids on cafés in Berlin and elsewhere in the country, which between June 13 and 17 have led to the arrests of 2,000 Jews. During the Weimar Republic, there had been a thriving Kaffeehauskultur—artists and intellectuals practically saw certain cafes as their homes, where they would spend half of their days and nights discussing art, literature, and politics. Under the Nazis, this phenomenon quickly disappeared; they suspected subversive activities among these free thinkers. The public sphere was infested with informers. By the time of the Juni-Aktion, in the context of which these raids were carried out, the original clientele had largely disappeared. Ostensibly, the raids were targeting “anti-social elements.” In fact, however, they constituted the first mass-arrest of Jews. The Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Gobbels, had summarized the intention with the pithy words: “Our password is chicanery, not the law.”

Case by case

Australia’s refugee policy

“News from Melbourne has reached the Canadian Department of Immigration to the effect that "no special facilities will be granted for the admission of groups of Jewish migrants to Australia.”

Melbourne

Under the impact of the Nazi rise to power and increasing antisemitism in Europe, the great Yiddish writer and cultural activist Melekh Ravitch had had the foresight to raise the funds for a trip from his native Poland to Australia as soon as 1933 in order to scout the inhospitable Kimberley region as a possible place for Jewish settlement. His optimistic conclusion was that the challenges of the Outback could be tackled with “mer vaser, veyniker bir”—“more water, less beer.” By 1938, the territorialist Frayland Lige also began to look into the possibility. As per the Jewish Telegraphic Agency’s report on June 15, the government was willing to consider individual cases of Jews wishing to immigrate but was not willing to support Jewish mass settlement in the country.

Without warning

Nazis tear down main Synagogue in Munich

“The correspondent understands that the Nazis offered a small sum for distribution among needy Munich Jews for compensation for the synagogue, which is valuable freehold property.”

Munich

Ostensibly for traffic-related reasons, the city of Munich informed the Jewish Religious Community on June 8 that it was to sell the magnificent, centrally located Main Synagogue and the lot on which it stood for a fraction of its actual value. On June 9, the demolition of the building, which for little more than 50 years had served as the spiritual and cultural center of the Jewish Community, began. According to this June 10 report by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Chancellor Hitler had personally ordered the removal of the “eyesore.” Rabbi Baerwald, the spiritual leader of the community, received no more than a few hours advance warning in order to salvage the community’s most sacred objects. The recently acquired organ was passed on to a newly-built Catholic church. The loss of this building that had once been a symbol of pride, permanence, and belonging, was devastating to the Jewish Community of Munich.

SOURCE

Institution:

Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Collection:

“Hitler Orders Razing of Old Synagogue in Munich”

Source available in English

Unbearable despair

Jewish Telegraphic Agency publishes list of recent suicides

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

Vienna

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

Left in the dark

No information for the families of thousands of incarcerated Jews

“Whether all or a few of the several thousand arrested have been sent to Dachau or to Styria or whether they will soon be released is a matter of frightening uncertainty. The events of the past few days will never be erased from the minds of thousands of women here.”

VIENNA

Nobody saw fit to inform the worried wives of thousands of Jewish men arrested by the Nazis about their spouses’ whereabouts and the expected period of imprisonment. Many of them decided to go to the Rossauer Lände detention facility and the central police station in order to get information on the whereabouts of their loved ones. According to this June 3 report from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, the detainees had been taken away in overcrowded railroad cars, many of them forced to remain in uncomfortable positions for up to five hours before departure. While there were intimations that those sent to the Dachau concentration camp in Germany would be exploited as construction workers in order to enlarge the camp and subsequently be released, many had no idea where their husbands were. The author of the report sees the “extraordinary callousness with which police have withheld information” as “one of the most terrifying aspects of the situation.”

SOURCE

Institution:

Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Collection:

“Nazis to Use Jewish Prisoners to Enlarge Dachau”

Source available in English

No Jews allowed

Bad Ischl restricts Jews to specific hotels

„Ghetto Hotels to be established at Austrian Resort“

BAD ISCHL

In 19th century, the Central Association of German Citizens of Jewish Faith began to publish lists of spas and hotels at which Jewish guests were not welcome. Some resorts even advertised themselves as judenfrei (“free of Jews”). After World War I, the phenomenon known as Bäder-Antisemitismus (“spa antisemitism”) increased, and with the Nazi rise to power in 1933, it became official policy. By 1935, Jews had been effectively banned from the Northern German bathing resorts, and from spas in the interior of the country by 1937. It was not until the Anschluss in March 1938 that Jews were pushed out of Austrian spas as well. Bad Ischl and other locations in the Salzkammergut region were particularly popular with Jews, to the point that in 1922, the Austrian-Jewish writer Hugo Bettauer quipped that “it caused a stir when people suspected of being Aryans showed up.” In a notice from June 2, The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reports that at the behest of the Nazi commissioner in charge, Jews were to be “segregated in Jewish hotels and pensions” and were no longer permitted to attend cultural events in Bad Ischl.

SOURCE

Institution:

Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Collection:

“Ghetto Hotels to Be Established at Austrian Resort”

Source available in English

More conflict in Palestine

Six dead, Jews and Arabs

“This morning a Jewish bus en route to Jerusalem was shot at near Lifta. A police escort returned the fire, reportedly inflicting several casualties.”

Jerusalem

Time and again, unsettling news about sectarian violence in Palestine reached Jewish readers in the diaspora. On May 25, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, a prime source of information on the situation of the Jews under the Nazis and of developments in the Yishuv, reports under the headline “6 Deaths Added to Terror Toll in Palestine.” It writes about the latest victims in Jerusalem, Haifa and Tiberias—both Jews and Arabs—and the circumstances of their deaths.

SOURCE

Institution:

Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Collection:

“6 Deaths Added to Terror Toll in Palestine.”

Source available in English

Pitiless

Göring calls for a strict anti-Jewish boycott

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

Vienna

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

SOURCE

Institution:

Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Collection:

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

Source available in English

Conflict in Palestine

Away from national socialism, but violence remains

"There were no casualties.”

Jerusalem

Nothing in this May 19 Jewish Telegraphic Agency report from its Jerusalem correspondent could provide German or Austrian Jews eager to leave for safer shores with the hope that life in Palestine would grant them peace and quiet. Between Arab attacks on Jewish workers or Jewish-built infrastructure and labor unrest among unemployed Jews, the only reassuring aspect of Palestine was its distance from the epicenter of Nazi activity. Since the beginning of the Great Revolt, Arabs, British, and Jews in Palestine had been embroiled in an often violent conflict—scarcely an attraction for weary Central-European Jews eager for peace.

SOURCE

Institution:

Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Collection:

“Arabs Attack Jews Erecting Border Barricade”

Source available in English

No time to lose

Jewish paper advises to quickly learn foreign languages

“It is really nothing new that the most important preparation for emigration is learning languages.”

HANNOVER

By May 1938, emigration seemed to be on the mind of every German and Austrian Jew. This article in the <i>Hannover Jüdisches Gemeindeblatt</i>, for example, exhorts prospective emigrants to lose no time and start studying English as soon as possible. According to the paper, at least two-thirds of German-Jewish emigrants were likely to settle down in English-speaking countries, and even those heading to Latin America would profit from a solid knowledge of English. On the other hand, proficiency in Spanish could be useful because of extensive trade relations between North and South America. The answer to the question “Spanish or English?” therefore was an emphatic “Both!”

Antisemitic premises

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

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

Budapest

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

SOURCE

Institution:

Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Collection:

“Bill Curbing Jews Assailed in Hungarian Parliament”

Source available in English

Stuck in No Man’s Land

League of Nations intervenes for 56 expellees

Belgrade

The annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany in March 1938 had brought an abrupt end to 1,000 years of Jewish life in the Burgenland region, Austria’s easternmost state. The expulsion of the small Jewish population, carried out by the SS, local Nazi officials, and civilian collaborators, commenced immediately. This article by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reports on the League of Nations’ intervention on behalf of 56 expellees who had ended up in “no man’s land” in the border area between Austria and Yugoslavia. The League’s High Commissioner for German Refugees requested the temporary accommodation of the displaced persons by Yugoslavia, to be followed by permanent resettlement elsewhere.

A Jewish cinema institute?

The Propaganda Ministry plans films to promote Jewish emigration

Berlin

According to a Jewish Telegraphic Agency report, on April 21, the Propaganda Ministry of Nazi Germany authorized the creation of a Jewish Cinema Institute. The name was misleading. It was not intended to serve the cultural enrichment of the Jewish community. The main purpose of the Institute was supposed to be the production of movies showing life in Palestine and urging German Jews to emigrate. In other words, the plan was just another part of the Nazi scheme to rid Germany of its Jews. At the same time, Der Stürmer, one of the most viciously antisemitic newspapers in Nazi Germany, declared that Jews should not be allowed inside cinemas and theaters.

SOURCE

Institution:

Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Collection:

“Reich Authorizes Films Urging Jewish Emigration”

Source available in English

Persecution in Austria, release from Dachau

Nazis in Austria pass a series of laws and directives

Vienna

Little more than a month after the Nazi takeover of Austria, a cascade of new regulations and actions taken by the new regime leaves little room for optimism. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reports for April 14 from Vienna that Jews within 50 kilometers of the Czechoslovak border are to be expelled. Nazi commissars will be put in charge of Austrian businesses at the latter’s expense. According to the JTA, in the case of hundreds of Jewish-owned businesses, this provision has already been enforced. Finally, a law has been introduced establishing new procedures for determining the racial status of illegitimate children. The one positive item in this substantial dispatch is the prospect that all Jews currently interned at the Dachau concentration camp will not only be released but will also receive permits to enter Palestine.

Change of heart

Once friendly to the Jews, a Catholic priest decries “uninvited guests.”

“Nobody called the Jews to the countries of Europe. They came as uninvited guests and pushed themselves so strongly to the forefront of all public professions, not always by excellent performances, that the least one can say is there came to exist a gross disproportion.”

VIENNA

In Austria’s new reality, opinions could change very quickly. In a news item from April 8, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reports that Catholic clergyman, Pastor Breckle of Trinity Church in Vienna, wrote an article in “Catholic Action,” that referred to the Jews as “uninvited guests” in Europe. Breckle accused the Jews of “pushing themselves to the forefront” and praised Hitler’s approach as “free and humane.” Breckle had until recently been considered friendly toward the Jewish community.

Denied the right to make a living

Lawyers and market vendors are banned from their professions

Vienna

According to this JTA notice, April 3, 1938, marked an additional milestone in the curtailment of the professional freedom of Austrian Jews. From this day on, the Ministry of Justice could revoke at will the licenses of Jewish lawyers, with the exception of those who had been admitted to the bar before 1914 or were war veterans or the direct descendents of war veterans. Between 800 and 900 lawyers were estimated to be affected by the new provision. Another professional group that was impacted by the effects of Nazi policy was market vendors. Jews operating mobile as well as permanent stands were no longer entitled to make a living this way. Moreover, in the short period since the Nazi takeover, the first “Aryanizations” of Jewish-owned factories had already taken place.

No coming back

Polish parliament passes a new bill against Jewish returnees

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

Warsaw

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

As far away as possible

Applications for immigration in the Australian consulate reach a new high

“The British consulate general admitted the would-be emigrants in groups of a hundred, giving out applications for visas and information on requirements for settlement in all parts of the British empire.”

Vienna

More than two weeks had passed since the Nazi takeover in Austria. The initial shock and disbelief among Jews had given way to despair and panic. Many reacted by seeking information about visa requirements for countries like the United States, Great Britain and Australia, which promised a safe haven and sufficient distance from the dramatic new situation in Austria. Between March 24 and 28, the Australian consulate alone received 6,000 applications for immigration—a number which considerably exceeded the country’s official immigration quota.

Lost at home

Austrian Jewry and the US Consulate in Vienna

“Hundreds came in the belief that the United States was prepared to admit and to pay the passage of 20,000 immigrants. Consular authorities addressed groups of applicants, explaining the real situation.”

Vienna

In another dramatic report from Vienna, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency describes panicked Jews flocking to the US Consulate hoping in vain to receive some kind of support. Especially prominent Jewish citizens faced harassment and arrest by the secret police. Austrian Jewish leaders were forced to inform the police about their activities, while their German counterparts were unable to come to their support due to border restrictions. The situation of thousands of Jewish actors had become so desperate that even the Nazi representative of the Austrian Theater Guild acknowledged it and permitted a campaign in their support.

SOURCE

Institution:

Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Collection:

“2,000 Jam U.S. Consulate at Vienna, Seek Visas”

Source available in English

Chronology of major events in 1938

Roosevelt’s call for a conference on refugee crisis raises hopes

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Library of Congress.

In response to the dramatic rise in the number of refugees, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt calls for an international conference. Following the annexation of Austria by the German Reich on March 12, 1938, the number of people fleeing from the National Socialists rises significantly. By now, however, most countries have become unwilling to accept more refugees, placing victims of Nazi persecution in a desperate situation. Since 1933, two agencies under the auspices of the League of Nations—the Nansen International Office for Refugees and the High Commissioner for Refugees from Germany in Lucerne, have worked to solve the refugee crisis without success. The conference will convene July 6–15 at Évian-les-Bains, France.

View chronology of major events in 1938

A new mission for World Jewry

Bratislava's Jewish paper calls for solidarity with Austrian Jews

“Austrian Jews have an old tradition as fully equal citizens who have always put their forces into the service of their homeland and have contributed to the latter's prosperity in all economic, social, and cultural fields”.

Vienna

The entire front page of Bratislava’s German-language religious-Zionist “Allgemeine Jüdische Zeitung” is dedicated to the Anschluss. Jews are called upon to stand by their Austrian coreligionists. An anonymous source notes the impoverished state of many Jews in Austrian lands and the resulting need to restructure social services as well as address the increasingly urgent issues of occupational retraining and emigration. The reader is reminded that Austria is still a member of the League of Nations and that Austrian law stipulates equal rights for religious and national minorities. Among other sources quoted is the British Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Butler, who reports having received assurances that the German government would “endeavor to achieve a moderation” of its policy towards minorities. The paper also reports that the President of the World Jewish Congress, Rabbi Wise, has appealed to the League of Nations to help Austrian Jewry. The rest of the picture is bleak: newspapers suspended, prominent Jews arrested, a Jewish theater closed, Jewish physicians dismissed, and other chicanery. The paper calls upon Jews everywhere to come to the aid of their Austrian brethren.

Chronology of major events in 1938

The National Socialists arrest 150 public figures

A raid on the Jewish Community offices in Vienna on March 18, 1938. Bundesarchiv Bild 152-05 - 15A.

The spring of 1938 is marked by a series of assaults on Jews in Vienna and a number of other European cities. These Anschluss pogroms constitute an escalation of the National Socialist policy of persecution. Citizens humiliate, bully, and attack Jews publicly. Shortly after the Annexation, National Socialists in Austria arrest about 150 public figures. A third of those arrested are Jews, including writer Heinrich Jacob, librettist Fritz Löhner-Beda, cabaret artist Fritz Grünbaum, Social-Democratic politician and lawyer Robert Danneberg, laywer Jakob Ehrlich, lawyer and president of the Jewish Community in Vienna, Desider Friedmann, and spice dealer Hans Kotányi. In April, the National Socialists will deport the group in an action referred to as the Prominententransport (“VIP-transport”). It will be the first deportation to the concentration camp Dachau.

View chronology of major events in 1938

Discrimination and arrests

One day after the Anschluss, hostility against Austrian Jews escalates

Vienna

After their triumphant entry into Austria, the Nazis lost no time in intimidating the country’s Jews and forcing them out of positions of influence and out of society at large. Prominent bankers and businessmen were arrested, other Jews—especially those employed in fields that were considered “Jewish,” such as the theater and the press—removed from office and replaced by “Aryans.” At the same time that the atmosphere in Austria became unbearably hostile towards Jews, organizations aiming to facilitate Jewish emigration to Palestine were raided and it was announced that the passports of “certain people” would be voided. It bears mentioning that the number of Jews in Austria in March 1938 was about 206,000—no more than 3% of the total population.

SOURCE

Institution:

Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Collection:

“Drive Launched to Reduce Jews to Reich Status”

Source available in English

All hands on deck

The World Zionist Executive meets in London

London

The newspaper Die Stimme was considered the official mouthpiece of the National Zionist Committee in Austria. In its March 9 issue, it quotes a JTA report on the conference of the World Zionist Executive in London. Although tensions in Austria were running high, the conference had other pressing matters on its agenda, such as immigration to Palestine and changes in the British attitude towards it. Among the proposals discussed were lowering the price of the shekel in a number of Eastern European countries and establishing coordinating councils for Zionist activities.

Antisemitism in Austria

Reports by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Vienna

In 1933, the “Fatherland Front” had been established as the sole representative body of Austrian citizenry and as a replacement for parliamentary democracy. It had strong ties to the Catholic Church and was deeply antisemitic. Nevertheless, there were Jews among its ranks, and it saw itself as opposed to the (Protestant-dominated) Nazis. When Nazi groups, clearly emboldened by their recently improved status, took to the streets, proudly parading with swastikas, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported on an antisemitic demonstration at the University of Vienna, an institution where anti-Jewish sentiment had been rampant for centuries. On the same day, the news agency informed its readership about counter demonstrations organized by the Vaterländische Front.

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.

Under the radar in Italy?

Italian antisemitism does not target local Jews, says report

“The anti-semitic movement in Italy is directed not at Italian Jews but rather at world Jewry, which is notoriously anti-fascist. Moreover, the movement is more political than racist in character.”

Rome

The orthodox Jüdische Presse quotes the state-run Austrian wire service Amtliche Nachrichtenstelle with a reassuring assessment of the situation of Jews in Italy: While there was an antisemitic movement “like everywhere else,” it was very moderate, and rather than targeting Italian Jewry, it opposed “World Jewry” due to the latter’s notoriously anti-fascist stance. Interestingly, the moderate nature of the antisemitic movement in Italy is seen as a result of the absence of a “Jewish movement” in the country. Indeed, Zionism had attracted very few followers in Italy, and between 1926 and 1938, only 151 Italian Jews had emigrated to Palestine.

“Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine!”

Children set out on their journeys to Palestine with Youth Aliyah

“Joy and pain are fighting against each other, as are courage and fear, mourning and hopefulness. One cries, the other laughs. Here the pain of separation is stronger, there the self-painted picture of the future outshines all grief of separation.”

Berlin

Immediately after the Nazis seized power, on January 30, 1933, Berlin-based Recha Freier founded the Jüdische Jugendhilfe (“Committee for the Assistance of Jewish Youth”) soon to be known as Jugend-Alija (“Youth Aliyah”). The organization’s goal was to bring Jewish children past the age of elementary school to safety in Palestine. In the youth supplement of the Israelitisches Familienblatt of February 17, 1938, the children’s feelings are described as they depart for Palestine: Not only did they have to cope with the separation from their parents and families, but also with the uncertainty about their future.

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

“Aufbruch der Jugend”, B1032

Original:

Vol. 4, no. 2

25 Pfennige

Jewish Winter Relief alleviates poverty with a small raise in statutory fees among Germany's Jews

“In certain communities in those districts the destitute total is between 40 to 90 per cent of the total Jewish population. This is partly explicable by the fact that rural communities are especially open to the full force of the anti-semitic propaganda machine.”

Berlin

In mid-February 1938, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, for years an attentive observer of the situation of German Jews, reports once again on the precarious position of Jews in Germany and the struggle of the Jewish Winter Relief to do justice to the acute needs of the community’s poorest. While the new, obligatory contribution addressed ongoing needs and made it easier to survive the winter, the numerous laws imposed by the Nazis since 1933 that banned Jews from various professions lead to an irreversible deterioration of their material situation.

SOURCE

Institution:

Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Collection:

“Reich Jews Ask Increased Funds for Relief”

Source available in English

Between deceit, lies and propaganda

The future of Germany's Jews according to the SS

“In 20 years Germany will be free of the bulk of its Jewish population, Das Schwarze Korps, organ of Chancellor Hitler’s elite guards, declares in its current issue in a leading article accusing the Jews of not wanting to emigrate.”

Berlin

In early 1938, a variety of assumptions regarding the future of the Jews circulated. The official SS organ Das Schwarze Korps (The Black Corps), for example, surmises that after the exclusion of Jews from “the spiritual and political life of the nation,” the physical separation from the majority of Jews within about twenty years will be no chimera. According to this notice disseminated by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA), Das Schwarze Korps, claims that the Jews are not willing to leave Germany and that the “small number” of Jewish emigrants should not be ascribed to “foreign exchange and other problems” but rather to the unwillingness of Jews in other countries to “lift a finger to give the emigrants or would-be emigrants a home.” In fact, by 1937, as many as 130,000 (out of a total of 600,000) Jews had left the country.

SOURCE

Institution:

Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Collection:

“Nazi Organ Sees Germany Free of Jews in 20 Years”

Source available in English

Mouth of the Hydra

Old debates about Zionism and assimilation take on a new urgency in an atmosphere of heightened antisemitism

“It was the arrival of Jewish-nationalist Zionism and Poland's unification with Russian territories—with the ‘Litvaks’— that first opened the filth-spewing maw of the antisemitic Hydra. It is political Zionism that gave them the idea of an ‘alien’ people.”

Warsaw

One month before Anschluss, the Austrian-Jewish weekly Die Wahrheit, exhorts Austrian Jews to learn from the development of antisemitism in Poland. The Vienna-based paper, which, since the twenties had increasingly advocated integration and distanced itself from Zionism, perceived Zionism as a dangerous breach with Polish-Jewish history: in the past, says the author of this article, Jews in Poland stood out with their patriotism and commitment to matters of national concern. He opines that their turning towards Palestine creates the impression of a lack of loyalty, thus giving ammunition to Jew-haters. Moreover, the article accuses Zionists of exerting undue pressure upon dissenters.

Hoping for a breakthrough

The refugee crisis

Geneva

Already in 1936, the League of Nations had appointed Sir Neill Malcolm as “High Commissioner for German Refugees.” In light of the increasing stream of refugees from Nazi Germany, an inter-governmental conference was convened in February 1938 in Geneva under the aegis of the League of Nations. The orthodox paper Der Israelit reports on the first day of the gathering, which was attended by delegates from 14 states. Through the Nuremberg Laws, Jews had been downgraded from “citizens of the Reich” to mere “subjects.” As soon as they left Germany, they could be stripped off their citizenship entirely. Two members of the liaison committee, N. Bentwich from London and M. Seroussi from Paris, therefore demanded the extension of refugee status to stateless migrants as well.

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