17

WEDNESDAY

Sara for women, Israel for men

Compulsory first names for Jews

"If a Jew bears a name differing from those which according to § 1 can be given to Jews, as of January 1, 1939, he must adopt an additional first name, namely Israel in the case of a male and Sara in the case of a female."

Berlin

Twice in the course of German history, Jews were forced to change their names: the first time through the introduction of (often stigmatizing) family names during the Emancipation, the second time through the introduction of compulsory first names: “Sara” for Jewish women and “Israel” for Jewish men (August 17, 1938). Thus, Jews were singled out and made to stand apart from the rest of society. If the given name appeared on an officially approved list of Jewish names issued by the Nazis, no additional name was required. The regime also saw to it that Jews who had changed their family names in order to blend in and avoid discrimination had to return to their previous names.

TAGS: antisemitism, August 17, Berlin, document, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, persecution, segregation

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Kurt Hirschfeld Collection, AR 25708

Original:

Box 1, folder 1

Chronology of major events in 1938

Jews forced to adopt new first names

A passport for a Jewish woman clearly displays the legally ordered middle name of Sara. Marianne Salinger Collection, Leo Baeck Institute.

Jewish Germans with a first name that the Nazis do not consider “typically Jewish” are forced to adopt an additional first name as of January 1, 1939. Men are assigned the name Israel, women the name Sara. The intent of this policy is to make Jews more immediately identifiable as Jews. This initiative marks the first attempt to mark Jews and to segregate them from the rest of the population. On January 24, 1939, the order is extended to include Jews in Austria and the Sudetenland.

View chronology of major events in 1938

14

SUNDAY

A super woman

Woman entrepreneur turned housewife takes charge

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

Berlin

Gusty Bendheim, a Berliner, had never met the American branch of her family. As a 42-year-old divorcee, she had no other choice but to turn to her overseas relatives. She asked these quasi-strangers for help facilitating emigration for herself and her children, Ralph (13) and Margot (17). Gusty was an enterprising sort: by the time she got married to Arthur Bendheim, a businessman from Frankfurt/Main, around 1920, she had established three button stores. After the wedding, Arthur took over management and Gusty became a housewife. In spite of the increasingly alarming anti-Jewish measures taken by the Nazi government, Arthur was not willing to leave. After the couple’s divorce in 1937, Gusty took matters into her own hands. In this August 14th, 1938 letter to her unknown relatives, in addition to her request for help, she states that her former husband is ready to pay the costs of travel for her and their children to the United States.

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

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Margot Friedlander Collection, AR 11397

Original:

Box 1, folder 1

Source available in English

9

TUESDAY

No prejudicial information

A religious organization confirms they have no concerns regarding Edmund Wachs

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

VIENNA

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

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

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Edmund and Berta Wachs Collection, AR 25093

Original:

Box 1, folder 2

4

THURSDAY

Selective service

Bruno Blum's Jewish descent exempts him from military service

“We hereby testify that according to the documents presented to our office, Mr. Bruno Blum, born Aug. 11, 1907, in Buczacz, is a Full Jew.” [Volljude was the Nazi term for a person with at least three Jewish grandparents].

VIENNA

Article 1 of §15 of the Nazi Conscription Law (introduced on May 21, 1935) stipulated that “Aryan descent is a prerequisite for active military service.” In the 1936 amendment, the language was even clearer: “A Jew cannot perform active military service.” In order to get permission to leave the country, prospective male emigrants had to present a document to the local military authorities confirming their Jewish descent and thus proving that they were not simply seeking to shirk their duties by emigrating. On August 4, 1938, the registry of the Vienna Jewish Religious Community, based on the documentation available to them, attested to Bruno Blum’s Jewish ancestry on both sides as part of the paperwork he had to submit in order to get permission to emigrate.

TAGS: Anschluss, antisemitism, August 4, bureaucracy, document, emigration, Jewish Community, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, segregation, Vienna

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Blum Family Collection, AR 25132

Original:

Box 1, folder 1

3

WEDNESDAY

Incremental Aryanization

Jewish doctors lose their accreditation

“The number of Jews this new decree affects is estimated at between 6,000 and 7,000.”

Berlin

The percentage of Jews among German physicians was so high that, initially, a comprehensive employment ban did not seem expedient to the Nazis. Instead, they issued the “Administrative Order regarding the Admission of Jewish Physicians” of April 22, 1933, which excluded “non-Aryan” doctors from working with the Statutory Health Insurance Funds unless they began their practice before WWI or could prove that they or their fathers had been frontline soldiers in the war. Starting in 1937, Jews could no longer obtain doctoral degrees. In an August 3, 1938 notice, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency draws attention to the fourth supplementary regulation added to the Reich Citizenship Law, passed days earlier, according to which, effective September 30, Jewish physicians were to lose their medical licences.

TAGS: antisemitism, Aryanization, August 3, Berlin, Journalism, JTA, media coverage, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, persecution of Jewish professionals, press article, WWI, WWI veterans

SOURCE

Institution:

Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Collection:

“Purge of Lawyers, Dentists Expected to Follow Ousting of Jewish Doctors in Reich”

Source available in English

31

SUNDAY

Out of respect for the “Volksgemeinschaft”

New law outlaws bequests to Jews

“§ 48 A disposition on grounds of death is null and void if it violates healthy public sentiment in a manner grossly contradicting the respect which a responsible testator must exhibit towards family and ethnic community.”

Berlin

With the Enabling Act (Ermächtigungsgesetz) of March 24, 1933, the newly installed government of Adolf Hitler left little doubt about how it viewed the rule of law. The act allowed the government to suspend the constitution whenever it saw fit, to formulate laws and decrees without the involvement of parliament, and even to create treaties between Germany and other countries without parliamentary consent or compliance with the constitution. The arbitrariness and randomness of the legal system this created were intensified by the frequent evocation of the Gesundes Volksempfinden (“healthy popular sentiment”), a term that implied that the people’s putatively uncorrupted, natural instincts should be the basis of Germany’s jurisprudence. One such case was the “Law on the Creation of Testaments and Contracts of Inheritance” (§48) of July 31. Invoking “the needs of the Volksgemeinschaft“—code for racially conceived German national community—the law invalidated contracts through which a deceased person’s property was bequeathed to a Jew.

TAGS: antisemitism, Berlin, document, economic persecution, July 31, Nazi laws, Nazi policies

SOURCE

Institution:

ALEX - Historische Rechts- und Gesetzestexte Online

Collection:

Reichgesetzblatt, Jahrgang 1938.

28

THURSDAY

The veneer of legality

All Jews required to carry ID cards

“Possession of a card is compulsory for all Jews and ‘Aryans’ of military age, but voluntary for other ‘Aryans.’”

Berlin

Identification cards for use within Germany were introduced by decree of the Minister of the Interior, Wilhelm Frick, on July 22, 1938. Frick, a lawyer by training, consistently worked to furnish the anti-democratic, anti-Jewish measures of the regime with the veneer of legality. Frick’s initial order was vague about who would be required to carry IDs (“The Reich Minister of the Interior determines which groups of German nationals and to what extent are subject to compulsory identification”), but this was clarified in an announcement on July 23. Apart from men of military service age, it was mainly Jews of all age-groups who were required to apply for IDs. The purpose of the IDs was to clearly identify and stigmatize Jews and further separate them from the rest of the population. In a July 28 notice, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reports on this latest legal atrocity.

TAGS: antisemitism, Berlin, Journalism, JTA, July 28, media coverage, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, prominent people, segregation

SOURCE

Institution:

Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Collection:

“Reich Jews from Age of 3 Months Must Carry Identity Cards”

Original:

Box 1, folder 5

Source available in English

24

SUNDAY

In Memoriam

Ludwig Schönmann's golden years take a dark final turn

“Memorial Album dedicated to the memory of my dear father, Ludwig Schönmann”

Vienna

Ludwig Schönmann, born in Neu-Isenburg in Germany in 1865, had come to Austria early in life and was thus spared the first five years of the Hitler regime. But from the day the German army entered Austria to annex the neighboring country in March 1938, the 73-year-old witnessed all the same persecution that had befallen Jews in Germany – only at an accelerated pace. Jewish businesses were ransacked and their owners expropriated. Jews were publicly humiliated and expelled from the Burgenland region, where they had first settled in the 13th century. Jewish students and teachers were pushed out of the universities, and the infamous Nuremberg Laws were extended to Austria, leading to the removal of Jews from public service. The first page of a memorial album in honor of Ludwig Schönmann lists July 24 as the day of his death.

TAGS: Anschluss, Burgenland Jews, document, economic persecution, expulsion, Jewish property, July 24, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, persecution of Jewish professionals, public sphere, segregation, Vienna, violence

SOURCE

Institution:

Jüdisches Museum Wien

Collection:

Memorial Album for Ludwig Schönmann

Original:

Archiv. Inv. No. 1094

20

WEDNESDAY

“Jews Unmasked”

Nazi censors deem an antisemitic film politically useful

“Summary. The movie offers a cross-section of Jewish film production during the system period [derogatory term for the Weimar Republic] and proves the necessity of the Nuremberg Laws, which brought an end to this subversive activity in the fields of culture and the economy.”

Berlin

Immediately after their rise to power in January 1933, the Nazis began to extend their control over every aspect of cultural life in Germany. As a popular medium capable of reaching large numbers of people—and one perceived as being dominated by Jews—film was of central importance to the new regime. Before the production of a new movie could begin, the script had to pass pre-censorship. The final product was scrutinized by the censorship authority for film (Film-Prüfstelle) of the Reich Propaganda Ministry. Under the Nazi regime, the state’s relationship with the film industry changed. While prior to 1933, authorities had primarily sought to censor or suppress material deemed harmful, the Nazi regime actively instrumentalized the film industry to promote National Socialist ideology. The anti-Semitic film “Juden ohne Maske” (“Jews unmasked”), whose authorization card from the censors is shown here, is such a case. It received the rating “valuable to national policy”, but it was also restricted to screenings for adult audiences in the context of NSDAP events.

TAGS: antisemitism, Berlin, cultural life, document, Hate speech, July 20, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, propaganda

SOURCE

Institution:

New Synagogue Berlin – Centrum Judaicum

Original:

Authorization card from the Berlin Film Censorship Office for the Nazi propaganda film, “Juden ohne Maske” [“Jews Unmasked”] ; CJA, 7.78

18

MONDAY

Counted and controlled

Dillkreis county conducts a survey of its Jewish population

Dillenburg

On July 18, the commissioner of Dillkreis county in Hessen instructed the mayors of the cities Herborn, Dillenburg, and Haigern as well as police officials of the county to conduct a statistical survey of the Jewish population in their communities every three months. An official of the city of Herborn received the memorandum ordering the count and made notes showing that 51 Jews lived in the city on June 30, 1938. Three Jews had left their homes in the prior quarter. These local censuses of the Jewish population complemented other surveys that tracked the movement of Jews on a national level. To monitor and control the Jews in the country, the National Socialists used a variety of administrative tools, such requiring Jews to declare their financial assets, carry identification papers at all times, or change their names.

TAGS: antisemitism, bureaucracy, Dillenburg, document, economic persecution, emigration, July 18, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, persecution

SOURCE

Institution:

Deutsches Historisches Museum

Original:

Survey circulated by the County Commissioner of Dillkreis (Landrat des Dillkreises) regarding the census of Jewish residents, completed for the city of Herborn ; Inv. Nr. Do2 88/1738.4

17

SUNDAY

Double jeopardy

Disabled and Jewish, Ursula Meseritz was a target of multiple Nazi policies

“The beautiful back of the head in animated conversation. Ach, the sun!”

Berlin

As a deaf-mute Jew, Ursula Meseritz was doubly inferior in the eyes of the Nazis. Since July 14, 1933, the Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring had been in effect, which legalized the forced sterilization of the deaf, the blind, the cognitively disabled, epileptics, and others. Ursula had attended the only Jewish institution for the deaf-mute in Germany, the “Israelitische Taubstummenanstalt” in Berlin Weißensee. Under the Nazi regime, the use of sign language was forbidden in public schools, and in 1936, Jewish students were excluded from institutions catering to the needs of the deaf-mute. According to a “Questionnaire for Emigrants,” which she had submitted in April 1938, Ursula had been trained as a lab worker for clinical diagnostics and was hoping to work in this field in the United States. The captions on these photographs (dated July 17, 1938) show that in spite of the difficult times, the 19-year-old had not lost her sense of humor. They appear to show Ursula and her sister with their parents celebrating one last time before Ursula departed for the US.

TAGS: Berlin, Disability, emigration, family, family separation, July 17, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, photo, schools, welfare organizations

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Ursula Meseritz Elgart Family Collection, AR 25544

Original:

Box 1, folder 5

11

MONDAY

Rejection letter

Dismissed from the post office for being Jewish, Johanna seeks new employment

“I am 37 years old, worked for the Berlin post office for 14 years and was dismissed because of the Aryan Paragraph. The office was very satisfied with my performance.”

Berlin

“The position under discussion has been filled,” was the terse answer Johanna Rosenthal, a former postal clerk, received to her application for a job as a telephone operator. After 14 years of service with the Deutsche Reichspost, she had been dismissed at the end of 1933. As she points out in her letter, her employment in public service as a Jew has been made impossible by the “Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service.” The provisional pension of 68 Reichsmark that she had been granted was not enough to live on, so she sought new employment.

TAGS: antisemitism, Berlin, economic persecution, impoverishment, July 11, letter, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, persecution of Jewish professionals

SOURCE

Institution:

Deutsches Historisches Museum

Original:

Johanna Rosenthal's application with negative response ; Inv. Nr. Do2 2002/762

6

WEDNESDAY

Dr. Singer’s Suitcase

Lilian Singer was a pioneering woman physician in Prag

PRAGUE

Lilly Popper (later Lilian Singer) was born in 1898 into a German-speaking family in Brünn (Brno). After graduation from the Gymnasium (high school), she began medical school in Vienna, later transferring to Berlin. There, in 1923, she got her driver’s license, which was just beginning to become socially acceptable for women. After a longer interruption, during which she worked for her father’s business and for a company in Amsterdam, she went back to school and in 1933 graduated from the Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin, which had been accepting women as guest auditors since 1892 (and as full-time students since 1908), an opportunity initially seized by a disproportionately large number of Jewish women. With the “Law against the Overcrowding of German Universities” of April 1933, the Nazis limited the access of both Jews and women to higher education, but these regulations did not apply to foreigners. After graduation, Lilian returned to Czechoslovakia. In 1938, she was a resident in surgery at a teaching hospital in Prague. The suitcase shown in the photograph accompanied her on her many journeys.

TAGS: July 6, Munich Agreement, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, persecution of Jewish professionals, photo, Prague, Women

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Lilian Singer Collection, AR 25363

Original:

LBI Artifacts Collection

20

MONDAY

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.

TAGS: antisemitism, Berlin, economic persecution, imprisonment, Journalism, JTA, June 20, media coverage, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, photo, public sphere, violence

SOURCE

Institution:

New Synagogue Berlin – Centrum Judaicum

Collection:

Photograph of antisemitic graffiti applied between June 15–20, 1938 at the furniture store of A[dolf] Brünn jr. Berliner Allee 29-31, Berlin-Weißensee

Original:

CJA, 7.103, 4

Source available in English

Institution:

Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Collection:

“Report: Labor Camps to Be Built for Arrested Reich Jews”

Institution:

Institut für Stadtgeschichte Frankfurt am Main

Original:

Archivsignatur: S7Z1938-31, Fotografin: Hannah Reeck

14

TUESDAY

Marked

A new decree requires Jewish shops be flagged

Berlin

Despite the patriotism often espoused by German Jews and their manifold contributions to society, the Reichsbürgergesetz (“Reich Citizen Law”) of 1935 officially assigned an inferior status to Jews, declaring them to be mere “nationals” and further segregating them from the rest of the population. Over time, supplementary decrees were issued that provided the exact Nazi definition of what made a person a Jew and forced Jewish public servants into retirement. On June 14, 1938, the third such supplementary decree stipulated that Jewish-owned businesses were to be marked as such.

TAGS: antisemitism, Berlin, document, economic persecution, June 14, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, persecution of Jewish professionals, segregation

SOURCE

Institution:

Gemeinnütziger Verein für regionale Kultur- und Zeitgeschichte Gelsenkirchen

Collection:

Reichbürgergesetz

13

MONDAY

Fire sale

Jews prepare for expulsion from Burgenland

“Here one learns what really counts in life. People no longer care about money any more, either, that has become irrelevant too.”

Eisenstadt

The Jewish community of Eisenstadt in the Burgenland region of Austria had never been a large one, but as the oldest Jewish community in the area, it dated back to the 14th century and had a rich cultural life. The moment Austria was annexed by Nazi Germany on March 12, 1938, Jews were vulnerable. Under the deeply racist Gauleiter Tobias Portschy, the Burgenland was the first part of Austria to expel its Jewish population. In June 1938, Hilde Schlesinger Schiff was in Eisenstadt helping her parents get ready to relocate. In a birthday letter to her daughter Elisabeth, Hilde calls Elisabeth “a true Jewish child, not settled, always ready to be on the move,” in contrast with her own emotional connectedness to Eisenstadt, from which she is now forced to uproot herself. Mrs. Schlesinger Schiff writes that she hopes her parents will soon be allowed to immigrate to Czechoslovakia, but bureaucratic hurdles remain. Meanwhile, she is clearly taken aback by the eagerness of non-Jews to snatch up the family’s property at a low price, calling it “grave robbery.”

TAGS: Anschluss, antisemitism, bureaucracy, Burgenland Jews, displacement, dispossession, Eisenstadt, emigration, expulsion, family, immigration, Jewish Community, Jewish property, June 13, letter, Nazi laws

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

The letter of my mother (Hilde Schlesinger Schiff) written to me on my birthday in June 1938, AR 6418

Original:

Box 1, folder 1

Chronology of major events in 1938

Mass Arrests and Expansion of Buchenwald

Prisoners carrying containers of soup in Dachau, June 28, 1938. Bundesarchiv, Bild 152-23-27A / CC-BY-SA 3.0. Photographed by Bauer, Friedrich Franz.

Between June 13–18, National Socialists carry out mass arrests. The Juni-Aktion (June Measures) are part of the mission Arbeitsscheu Reich. The campaign began in January (see entry from January 26) and continued in April with 1,500–2,000 arrests. In June, the National Socialists arrest an additional 9,000 men and intern them in concentration camps (KZ). Among those imprisoned are 2,300 Jews—a disproportionate number when compared to the share of Jews in the general population. Hitler himself has ordered a focus on Jews along with so-called “anti-social” elements (“beggars, homeless, and alcoholics”). Jews whose criminal record includes a prison sentence of at least 4 weeks are arrested again. The National Socialists deport the Jewish men to the concentration camps Dachau, Sachsenhausen, and Buchenwald. Buchenwald in particular will become infamous, as it is the destination for the largest number of those arrested during the mission Arbeitsscheu Reich. Guards force the prisoners to expand the Buchenwald camp into the largest KZ in central Germany. About 500 of the prisoners are forced to live in a former stable. They are fed 10 ounces of bread and 3 cups of thin gruel per day. The horrendous living conditions will lead to 150 deaths within the next 8 weeks.

View chronology of major events in 1938

11

SATURDAY

An absurd privilege

Emil Toffler may keep his job to familiarize the Aryans with the firm

Vienna

The family of Therese Wiedmann (née Toffler) in Vienna was secular and very well integrated. While the Tofflers were keenly aware of the situation in Germany, no one among Therese’s relatives foresaw that so many Austrians would be so quick to welcome Hitler and abandon Austrian independence. After the “Anschluss” in March 1938 she immediately lost her job with Tiller AG. Her grandfather, until recently the president of the company, was no longer permitted to enter his office. Her father, Emil, the executive manager, was kept around for the time being, in order to familiarize the new, “Aryan” management with the company’s operations. Luckily, he had transferred part of his assets to England before the “Anschluss.” In better days, the company was deemed sufficiently Austrian to be appointed a purveyor to the royal-imperial court, for which it produced army uniforms. This passport, issued to Therese Wiedmann on June 11, 1938, contains a visa that includes “all countries of the earth” and “return to the German Reich.”

TAGS: Anschluss, antisemitism, Aryanization, dispossession, document, economic persecution, June 11, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, passport, Vienna

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Therese Wiedmann Collection, AR 10863

Source available in English

9

THURSDAY

Stölpchensee

The last public bathing spot for Jews in Berlin

Berlin/Stölpchensee

In 1935, the Nazi party press had orchestrated a campaign to exclude Jews from public swimming pools, citing “unpleasant incidents” or warning the public of the “danger” allegedly posed by Jews. Suddenly, signs inscribed with texts like “Jews are not permitted access to this facility” were put up almost everywhere. Stölpchensee, one of the lakes just outside Berlin, was the last public bathing spot to which Berlin Jews had access. Fritz and Friedel F. were married and lived in Berlin, where Fritz owned a lamp store. In June of 1938, their weekend cottage at Stölpchensee was still a family escape from the city and harassment.

TAGS: antisemitism, Berlin, family, Hate speech, Journalism, June 9, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, persecution, photo, propaganda, public sphere, segregation

SOURCE

Institution:

Private Collection William J. Davidson

Original:

“From the Freudenthal Family Album”

Chronology of major events in 1938

Destruction of the Main Synagogue in Munich

A postcard depicting the Main Synagogue in Munich. Private collection.

The Nazis destroy the Main Synagogue in the city center of Munich and replace it with a parking lot. The monumental Neo-Romanesque building was built in 1878. Just a few days before the demolition, the Jewish Community in Munich is told that it has to sell the Synagogue for 100.000 Reichsmark. The synagogue is the first of many that the Nazis will destroy in 1938.

View chronology of major events in 1938

27

FRIDAY

Henry Kissinger turns 15

The teenager suffers from blatant antisemitism in his home town Fürth

FÜRTH

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

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

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

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

Original:

F 3558

26

DONNERSTAG

Paperwork

Emigrants must overcome a sea of bureaucratic and financial hurdles

LÖRRACH

Since 1937, Lina and Siegmund Günzburger of Lörrach in southwest Germany and their son, Herbert, had been preparing their paperwork for emigration. The requirements amounted to nothing short of a nightmare. Prospective emigrants had to procure numerous personal documents, letters of recommendation, and affidavits. They were also required to prepare an inventory of all their belongings and to document that they had paid all their taxes. Apparently, the required documents also included this copy of the marriage certificate for Siegmund’s grandparents. Especially perfidious was the so-called “Reich Flight Tax.” Originally introduced in the waning days of the Weimar Republic to prevent capital flight in reaction to the government’s austerity policy, under the Nazis, it became a tool to cynically punish the Jews for leaving a country that was doing everything it could to make it unbearable for them to stay.

TAGS: affidavits, antisemitism, bureaucracy, displacement, document, economic persecution, emigration, family, immigration procedures, Lörrach, May 26, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, refugees, Weimar Republic

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Herbert Guenzburger Collection, AR 5947

Original:

Box 1, folder 2

23

MONDAY

Faster and faster

Leo Baeck turns 65

“And this year will be a difficult one; the wheel is turning faster and faster. It will really test our nerves and our capacity for careful thought.”

Berlin

In April 1938, Rabbi Leo Baeck, the president of the Reich Representation of Jews in Germany and as such the main representative of German Jewry, had presciently written, “And this year will be a difficult year; the wheel is turning faster and faster. It will really test our nerves and our capacity for careful thought.” Baeck had been an army chaplain in World War I and as a patriot must have been extremely pained by the persecution of German Jewry. With large parts of the community reduced to poverty, Jewish rights curtailed, Jews pushed to the margins of society, and no prospects for improvement, Rabbi Baeck’s 65th birthday on May 23 probably was quite a somber affair.

TAGS: antisemitism, Berlin, commentary, economic persecution, impoverishment, Jewish Community, May 23, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, photo, prominent people, rabbis, religion, segregation, welfare organizations, WWI, WWI veterans

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Lucian Loeb, Leo Baeck in his library, Berlin, 1935. Leo Baeck Collection, AR 66

Original:

F 12073

22

SUNDAY

Ready for Germany

The despair of a nationalist German Jew

“I am a Jew! A Jew in a desperate position: a Jewish German who in spite of everything that has befallen him or perhaps because of it cannot shed his ties to Germany [...].”

Hildesheim/Berlin

“The times have become very serious. We are depressed and despondent, and therefore there is little leisure and inclination to write and take photographs as elaborately as before.”

Hamburg

Even though he professes to be in low spirits due to the serious situation and therefore hardly inclined to write and take photographs as regularly as before, Wilhelm Hesse, a lawyer in Hamburg, describes the development of his daughter Helen in some detail in his diary. He reports on her capacity to think logically and a desire to learn so strong that the parents feel they have to make her slow down a bit. Hesse also writes with satisfaction about Helen’s progress in a Jewish kindergarten, but he does not fail to mention that she must learn to get along better with her little sister, Evchen. Since the passing of the Nuremberg Laws in 1935—Helen was two years old at the time—Jewish children were no longer allowed to attend non-Jewish kindergartens, and Jewish kindergarten teachers were prohibited from taking care of non-Jewish children. The Hesse family was religiously observant and might have opted for a Jewish institution even under normal circumstances.

TAGS: children, commentary, diary, family, Hamburg, May 3, Nazi laws, religion, segregation

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Helen and Eva Hesse Family Collection, AR 25327

Original:

Box 1, folder 3

30

SATURDAY

Black triangles

Undesirables taken to Buchenwald Concentration Camp

Buchenwald

April 30 1938 marked the tenth and last day of “Aktion Arbeitsscheu Reich,” a punitive campaign targeting individuals deemed “work-shy” and “asocial.” The designation was sufficiently broad to target a vast array of elements deemed “undesirable” by the Nazis. Between 1,500 and 2,000 men thus classified were taken to the Buchenwald Concentration Camp in this first wave of such arrests, including Jews. They were identified by black triangles on their prison uniforms.

TAGS: antisemitism, April 30, Buchenwald, Concentration Camps, document, imprisonment, Juni-Aktion, Nazi laws, Nazi policies

SOURCE

Institution:

Bundesarchiv Bild

Collection:

Table of Colored Classification Symbols for Prisoners in Concentration Camps

Original:

Image 146-1993-051-07

22

FRIDAY

Brain drain

The physicians Brinitzer emigrate to India

Bangalore

Jenny Brinitzer was born in Riga, Latvia in 1884. After studies in Berne, Berlin and Kiel, she managed to establish herself as the first female physician in Hamburg Altona. There, the mother of three worked for 20 years in a joint practice with her husband, the dermatologist Dr. Eugen Brinitzer. In 1933, Jews constituted about one fourth of Hamburg’s physicians. Jewish physicians who worked directly for health insurance funds or for the public health service had been dismissed within the first two years of the Nazi regime. Starting in 1935, the Nazis began circulating a list of 150 Jewish doctors in Hamburg as part of their campaign to separate Jewish doctors from their “Aryan” patients. In April 1938, Dr. Jenny Brinitzer and her husband left Germany and emigrated to Bangalore, India.

TAGS: April 22, Bangalore, displacement, emigration, Hamburg, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, persecution of Jewish professionals, photo, refugees, segregation

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Photographs of the Brinitzer Residence in Bangalore, India, undated (1938–46), Trude Kersten Collection, AR 25403

Original:

Box 2, folder 8

Source available in English

14

THURSDAY

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.

TAGS: Anschluss, antisemitism, April 14, Aryanization, children, Concentration Camps, Dachau, dispossession, economic persecution, expulsion, Journalism, JTA, media coverage, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, Palestine, Vienna

SOURCE

Institution:

Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Collection:

“Jews Along Entire Czechoslovak Border Slated for Expulsion by Nazis”

Source available in English

3

SUNDAY

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.

TAGS: antisemitism, April 3, Aryanization, economic persecution, Journalism, JTA, media coverage, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, persecution of Jewish professionals, Vienna, WWI veterans

SOURCE

Institution:

Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Collection:

“Austria Acts to Bar Jews from Law, Public Markets; 3 Arrested”

Source available in English

The Leo Baeck Institute New York | Berlin would like to thank the following Cooperating Partners who contributed valuable resources to the production and maintenance of the 1938 Projekt:

The following organizations have offered their materials for inclusion in the 1938 Projekt:

The Leo Baeck Institute New York | Berlin would like to thank the following Cooperating Partners who contributed valuable resources to the production and maintenance of the 1938 Projekt:

The following organizations have offered their materials for inclusion in the 1938 Projekt:

The Leo Baeck Institute New York | Berlin would like to thank the following Cooperating Partners who contributed valuable resources to the production and maintenance of the 1938 Projekt:

The following organizations have offered their materials for inclusion in the 1938 Projekt:

17

WEDNESDAY

WEDNESDAY

17

Sara for women, Israel for men

Compulsory first names for Jews

Chronology of major events in 1938

Jews forced to adopt new first names

14

SUNDAY

SUNDAY

14

A super woman

Woman entrepreneur turned housewife takes charge

9

TUESDAY

TUESDAY

9

No prejudicial information

A religious organization confirms they have no concerns regarding Edmund Wachs

4

THURSDAY

THURSDAY

4

Selective service

Bruno Blum's Jewish descent exempts him from military service

3

WEDNESDAY

WEDNESDAY

3

Incremental Aryanization

Jewish doctors lose their accreditation

31

SUNDAY

SUNDAY

31

Out of respect for the “Volksgemeinschaft”

New law outlaws bequests to Jews

28

THURSDAY

THURSDAY

28

The veneer of legality

All Jews required to carry ID cards

24

SUNDAY

SUNDAY

24

In Memoriam

Ludwig Schönmann's golden years take a dark final turn

20

WEDNESDAY

WEDNESDAY

20

“Jews Unmasked”

Nazi censors deem an antisemitic film politically useful

18

MONDAY

MONDAY

18

Counted and controlled

Dillkreis county conducts a survey of its Jewish population

17

SUNDAY

SUNDAY

17

Double jeopardy

Disabled and Jewish, Ursula Meseritz was a target of multiple Nazi policies

11

MONDAY

MONDAY

11

Rejection letter

Dismissed from the post office for being Jewish, Johanna seeks new employment