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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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2

SATURDAY

2

Repression, resilience and relief

Jewish welfare organizations alleviate suffering

Berlin

By 1938, the ability of Jews to make a living had been seriously curtailed by a series of laws aimed at humiliating, isolating, and impoverishing them. While not all Jews were affected equally by these changes, the number of Jews dependent on the services of welfare organizations, such as the Jewish Winter Relief, was constantly on the rise. The level of solidarity and the support for the Winter Relief were remarkable. Much of the money came from small donations, and the Kulturbund held cultural events in support of the organization. Volunteers from women’s and youth groups assisted in the fundraising efforts.

TAGS: April 2, Berlin, cultural life, economic persecution, impoverishment, Jewish Community, Kulturbund, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, photo, public sphere, segregation, welfare organizations, Women

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Photo Abraham, Speisungen, fuer viele 1000 Mark, Sammlung Heinrich Stahl, AR 7171

Original:

F 7410

26

SATURDAY

26

Denaturalized

Jewish immigrants in Germany lose their citizenship

Worms

The passage in July 1933 of a law allowing the government to revoke the citizenship of those naturalized after the end of WWI had given Nazi officials a tool to deprive “undesirables” of their citizenship. The law targeted the Nazis’ political adversaries as well as Jews; 16,000 Eastern European Jews had gained German citizenship between the proclamation of the republic on November 9, 1918 and the Nazi rise to power in January 1933. Among those whose names appear on the expatriation list dated March 26, 1938 are Otto Wilhelm, his wife Katharina and the couple’s three children, residents of Worms and all five of them natives of Germany.

TAGS: children, document, expulsion, family, March 26, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, Polish-born Jews, Worms, WWI

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Carl Misch, Gesamtverzeichnis der Ausbürgerungslisten, 1933-1938, Paris 1939, List 38.

5

SATURDAY

5

Homosexual Relations with a Jew

A tennis star is arrested

Berlin

The handsome, blond, and athletic scion of a noble family in Lower Saxony, Gottfried von Cramm had all the features sought by the Nazis for propaganda purposes. Nevertheless, the two-time winner of the French Open tennis tournament (1934 and 1936) explicitly refused to be used as a poster boy for Nazi ideology and never joined the NSDAP. After repeatedly spurning opportunities to ingratiate himself with the regime, it was another issue that got him into trouble. On March 5, 1938, von Cramm was arrested under Paragraph 175 of the German penal code, which prohibited homosexual conduct. He was alleged to have had a relationship with a Galician Jew, the actor Manasse Herbst. Reformers had nearly succeeded in overturning the statute during the Weimar republic, but the Nazis tightened it after their ascent to power.

TAGS: Berlin, March 5, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, photo, prominent people, Sports, Weimar Republic

SOURCE

Institution:

Das Digitale Bildarchiv des Bundesarchivs

Collection:

Gottfried von Cramm (l.) with Irish opponent George Lyttleton Rogers before their Davis Cup match in Berlin, June 1932.

Original:

Bild 102-13555

23

WEDNESDAY

23

Tel Aviv, Bauhaus, and “Grand Illusion”

Ben Yehuda Street in Tel Aviv

Tel Aviv

This view of Ben Yehuda Street in Tel Aviv shows some of the typical buildings in the background to which it owes its unofficial name, “The White City.” Since 1933 and especially after the “Reichsbürgergesetz” came into effect in 1935, Bauhaus-trained architects had left Germany and were now putting their mark on Tel Aviv, either through their own creations or through their influence on others. The photo is dominated by the Migdalor building, which was built in 1935 and housed the city’s first air-conditioned movie theater. On the external wall there is a huge advertisement for Jean Renoir’s 1937 movie “Grand Illusion,” which due to its pacifist message was banned in Nazi Germany.

TAGS: artists, cultural life, displacement, emigration, February 23, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, photo, public sphere, refugees, Tel Aviv

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

“Tel-Aviv Towns and Villages”, Arthur Prinz Collection, AR 5103

Original:

F 27204

Chronology of major events in 1938

The Port of Tel Aviv opens

The opening of the port in Tel-Aviv. National Photograph Collection of Israel.

The port of Tel Aviv is completed and officially opened. When the Arab city of Jaffa closed its port in 1936 to counteract the rising number of Jewish immigrants, Tel Aviv established a port known as Sha’ar Zion, the Gate to Zion. During two years of construction, the capacity of the port was very limited, but it nevertheless took on an enormous symbolic importance for the Jews fleeing the National Socialists. With the official opening of the port, regular cargo traffic begins immediately, and the first passenger will arrive in April 1938. Two years later, when escape from Germany has become impossible and World War II has begun, the port will be closed for civilian usage and serve exclusively as a military port.

View chronology of major events in 1938

16

WEDNESDAY

16

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.

TAGS: antisemitism, Berlin, economic persecution, February 16, impoverishment, Journalism, JTA, media coverage, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, persecution of Jewish professionals, welfare organizations

SOURCE

Institution:

Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Collection:

“Reich Jews Ask Increased Funds for Relief”

Source available in English

10

THURSDAY

10

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.

TAGS: antisemitism, displacement, emigration, February 10, Geneva, Journalism, League of Nations, media coverage, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, politics, press article, prominent people, refugees

SOURCE

Institution:

Compact Memory, Universitätsbibliothek Frankfurt am Main

Collection:

„Die Staatenkonferenz in der Flüchtlingsfrage.“ Der Israelit , Vol. (1938), Nr. 6.

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

7

FRIDAY

7

Improvisation impinged

Werner Dambitsch and his “Excentric [sic] Jazz Orchester”

This ID grants permission to participate in Jewish events. The holder is permitted to work, but the Reich Association does not guarantee employment.   

Breslau/ Berlin

Werner Wilhelm Dambitsch was born on June 23, 1913 in Breslau (today Wroclaw, Poland). Werner was interested in music from an early age, but he had to purchase his first instrument, a saxophone, with money he had earned himself. He did this in 1932 at the age of 19 and founded with four friends the ‘Excentric [sic] Jazz Orchester’. In order to perform, the combo had to join the “Reichsverband der jüdischen Kulturbünde in Deutschland” (Reich Association of Jewish Cultural Federations) and was forced to change the name to “Erstes Jüdisches Jazz-Orchester” (First Jewish Jazz Orchestra). While the association did not guarantee steady income or employment, at least it allowed the artists to perform at events attended by Jewish audiences. This image shows Werner Dambitsch’s Kulturbund membership card.

TAGS: Berlin, Breslau, cultural life, document, ID, January 7, Kulturbund, musicians, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, public sphere, segregation

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Werner Dambitsch Collection, AR 11719

1

SATURDAY

1

Mutual aid for the dispossessed

The Jewish Winter Relief Organization

“No one should suffer hunger and cold. Give to the best of your ability with a joyous heart.”

Berlin

After the passing of the Nuremberg Laws in 1935, Jews were excluded from the support of the “Winter Relief Agency of the German People” and had to organize their own relief agency. Nazi legislation was making it more and more difficult for Jews in Germany to earn a living. The Jewish Winter Relief Organization stepped into the breach and assisted impoverished members of the community with food, medicine, and heating fuel. The photo was taken at a concert for the benefit of the Jewish Winter Relief.

TAGS: Berlin, cultural life, impoverishment, January 1, musicians, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, photo, welfare organizations

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Heinrich Stahl Collection, AR 7171

Original:

F 7401

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