12

“Austria Spurs Smuggling of Jews over Border; Travel Agency Aids Gestapo Burgenland Purge”

Collection:

Source available in English

10

SATURDAY

Not noted for panhandling

A good conduct certificate from the police in 1938

“...herby it is confirmed, that within the last five years there are no suspicious matters noted that would prohibit travel, especially not panhandling.”

VIENNA

At first glance it may seem abstruse. A certificate of good conduct from the police confirms to an employee of an insurance company, Franz Resler of Vienna, that he has not made himself suspicious, especially “not by panhandling.” At second glance, however, it is exactly the emphasis on panhandling that points to all the existential crises in which many Austrian Jews increasingly found themselves in 1938. With the “Anschluss” the Nazis had massively increased the economic pressure on Jews living in Austria. “Aryanisation” of companies and occupational bans deprived numerous people of their livelihood. As a result, Franz Resler and his wife Anna planned their emigration to Argentina, where Franz Resler’s sister Fanny had been living since the 1920s.

TAGS: Anschluss, Aryanization, document, economic persecution, emigration, family, immigration, immigration procedures, impoverishment, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, politics, September 10, South America, Vienna

SOURCE

Institution:

Original:

Good conduct certificate for Franz Resler issued for the purposes of his immigration to Argentina; Archive Inv. No. 5769/3

6

TUESDAY

Don’t give up

The physician Max Wolf wishes to escape the imminent occupational ban

“According to your request, we confirm to you that from 1924 until the 30th of September 1938, you were a full member of the Society of Physicians in Vienna.”

Vienna

Dr. Max Wolf had already found his area of expertise years ago. Since 1922 Wolf practiced as a dermatologist in the Vienna Polyclinic as well as published numerous scientific essays in this field. The Vienna native had studied at the time of the First World War, and shortly thereafter he served on the Italian front as a M.A.S.H. doctor. Now, however, his career was about to end. After the “Anschluss,” the Nazis barred Jewish lawyers and judges in Austria from working. A ban for Jewish doctors was imminent. Meanwhile, Max and his wife Margarata Wolf prepared their emigration. The certificate about Wolf’s membership in the Viennese Society of Physicians makes it clear: Max Wolf did not intend to give up his profession while in exile.

TAGS: Anschluss, emigration, immigration, letter, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, persecution of Jewish professionals, September 6, Vienna, WWI, WWI veteran

SOURCE

Institution:

Max and Margareta Wolf Collection, AR 10699

Collection:

Original:

Box 1, folder 4

4

SUNDAY

A last class photo

Gisela and her family right before emigration

DRESDEN

Gisela Kleinermann (top row, right) had recently turned 10 years old. With her arm around her classmate, she looks, with a slight smile, into the camera. At this time, Gisela may already have known that she will not be part of this class of the Jewish school in Dresden any longer. In late summer 1938, her mother Erna prepared her family’s emigration to the United States. Step by step, in recent years the Nazis forced segregation in public schools. In many Jewish communities—as well as in Dresden—new Jewish schools were founded as a result.

TAGS: antisemitism, children, Dresden, emigration, family, immigration procedures, Jewish Community, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, persecution, photo, schools, segregation, September 4, visa application

SOURCE

Institution:

Class picture of Gisela Kleinermann, Erna Weingold Kleinermann Collection, AR 11787

Collection:

Original:

F 001

1

THURSDAY

“Israel” and “Sara”

When names become political...

“If the motives on which this regulation is based were not so abysmally cruel, there would be nothing from its content about which to complain. ‘Israel’ means ‘Fighter for God’ and ‘Sarah’ or ‘Sara’ […] means 'Princess.’

NEW YORK

In August 1938 a new decree had been issued. Jewish people with names that were—in the perspective of the Nazis—not “typically Jewish” were to bear (starting January 1, 1939, the latest) a second given name: “Sara” for women, “Israel” for men. The September issue of Aufbau put the perfidy of this regulation in a nutshell: “If the motives on which this regulation is based were not so abysmally cruel, there would be nothing from its content about which to complain. ‘Israel’ means ‘Fighter for God’ and ‘Sarah’ or ‘Sara’ […] means ‘Princess.’” Not only did the Nazis help themselves to the content of Jewish culture, but they also misused it in order to restrict the private sphere of Jews on a massive scale.

TAGS: antisemitism, commentary, Jewish Community, Journalism, media coverage, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, New York, press article, public sphere, segregation, September 1

SOURCE

Institution:

Israel und Sarah, Aufbau, Vol. 4, No. 10, p. 5

Collection:

31

WEDNESDAY

The main thing is get out

The growing sense of demoralization pushes Jews out of the country

“The Aryanization process is proceeding unstoppably, there's no halt to it. Will the miracles of the Old Testament come back? How beautiful it was back in the day! The passage through the Red Sea…..! The plague of locusts…..! The deaths of the firstborns…..! etc. But we're in the wrong place today, and the Old Testament's no longer allowed to be read.”

BONN/NEW YORK

Ludwig Gottschalk of Bonn did not mince words in this August 31st letter to his friends, Betty and Morris Moser, in New York. By now, Jews in Germany were living in such a state of demoralization and constant fear that the wish to leave was omnipresent, regardless of what was to be expected “outside.” According to his information, the U.S. Consulate General in Stuttgart was so overburdened by all the applications for immigration that new affidavits were currently not even being processed. The Gottschalks already had a waiting number and expected to be able to emigrate relatively soon. Meanwhile, they were learning English. Ludwig alluded to the changes that had occurred in Germany since his friends had left by calling them “Israel” and “Sara.” On August 17th, a decree had been issued forcing Jews to add one of these names to their given names in order to make their Jewish identity obvious.

TAGS: affidavits, antisemitism, Aryanization, August 31, Bonn, commentary, emigration, immigration procedures, Language skills, letter, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, New York, segregation, visa application

SOURCE

Institution:

Betty and Morris Moser Collection, AR 25497

Collection:

Original:

Box 1, folder 3

29

MONDAY

Resistance through passport forgery

The postal ID of Felix Perls

Berlin

The Jewish businessman Felix Perls was born in Beuthen (Upper Silesia) in 1883. By April 1st, 1938, following Nazi regulations, he had to relinquish his position as director of the Upper Silesian Lumber Industry Corporation. Two months later, he and his wife, Herta, moved to Berlin-Grunewald, in order to escape the hostility in Beuthen. Perls tampered with his 1938 postal ID. He changed its date of issue and its validity period. Postal ID cards were needed for receiving confidential mail but were accepted as identification documents elsewhere too.

TAGS: antisemitism, Aryanization, August 29, Berlin, Beuthen, displacement, document, ID, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, persecution of Jewish professionals

SOURCE

Institution:

Die Gedenkstätte Deutscher Widerstand

25

THURSDAY

Adversity the mother of innovation

Intellectuals plan a housing project in the USA for unemployed Jewish physicians

"You know that as of October 1st, all of us will no longer be doctors; German medical licenses have been revoked for all those of our faith. Of course, there are many who won't know how to make a living and won't be able to continue living here."

BERLIN/NEW YORK

The existential crisis of Jewish doctors in Germany, which had passed through various stages (exclusion from public service and health insurance funds, prohibition of cooperation between Jewish and “Aryan” physicians, etc.) escalated with the employment ban in July 1938 and required a creative approach. On August 25th, Dr. Felix Pinkus, a renowned Berlin dermatologist, wrote to his friend, Dr. Sulzberger, in America, in order to win him over as a fellow campaigner in an aid project. The sociologist and national economist Franz Oppenheimer had come to the idea of establishing a kind of residential colony for former doctors from Germany. The funding for this would be covered by contributions from American-Jewish doctors. According to Oppenheimer’s calculations, roughly 1,000 physicians would use this remedy. (Dr. Pinkus estimated that it was closer to 3,000).

TAGS: antisemitism, August 25, Berlin, commentary, displacement, economic persecution, emigration, immigration, Jewish Community, letter, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, New York, persecution of Jewish professionals, prominent people, segregation, transnational networks

SOURCE

Institution:

Felix Pinkus Family Collection, AR 25456

Collection:

Original:

Box 1, folder 41

22

MONDAY

Coercion

Joachim Weinert is both shoved and stood up by bureaucracy

"I reserve the right to take criminal measures according to § 33 Dev. VO [Foreign Exchange Act] and grant you a period of three days to attend to the matter."

VIENNA

Within the first few months after the annexation of Austria by the Nazis, Dr. Joachim Weichert, a Czech-born lawyer, lost most of his clients. He had no choice but to compile the documents necessary for emigration. In June, the family was notified by the Consulate General of the United States that valid affidavits and other documents had arrived for them from America. Nevertheless, due to the fact that the Czech quota was exhausted for the time being, they were put on a waiting list and told they wouldn’t receive visas for the next eight months. By August 22nd, it had been almost two weeks since Dr. Weichert was ordered by the Devisenstelle (financial administrative office in charge of supervising monetary transactions and emigration) in Vienna to submit within one week an itemized list of his assets. In this official communication from August 22nd, he is given an ultimatum of three days, after which criminal measures will be taken.

TAGS: affidavits, Anschluss, antisemitism, August 22, bureaucracy, economic persecution, emigration, immigration, immigration procedures, letter, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, persecution of Jewish professionals, Vienna, visa application

SOURCE

Institution:

Weichert Family Collection, AR 25558

Collection:

Original:

Box 1, folder 1

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:

Kurt Hirschfeld Collection, AR 25708

Collection:

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

15

MONDAY

Vacation idyll

A sunny letter to father

"We're having a great time. The sun has been shining for two days now, so we were able to go swimming, but the radio is forecasting rain again tomorrow."

Nespeky/Prague

Hitler’s plans for Czechoslovakia could not have been clearer: on May 30th, 1938, he declared to the Wehrmacht (German army) that it was his “immutable resolve” to shatter the country “in the foreseeable future.” Already months before, he had incited the leader of the Sudeten German Party, which was partly bankrolled by Nazi Germany, to conjure up a confrontation by making unreasonable demands on behalf of the German minority in the country. Under the influence of events in Germany, anti-Semitism had increased. But, so far, it had only led to boycotts and physical violence in the border areas of Northern and Western Bohemia, which were predominantly inhabited by Germans. While this crisis was brewing in the background, the psychiatrist and writer Josef Weiner, his wife, Hanka, and their two young daughters were on vacation in the central Bohemian town of Nespeky. Hanka’s letter (in Czech) to her father, the renowned Prague lawyer Oskar Taussig, smacks of a perfectly idyllic holiday atmosphere and spares its reconvalescent recipient anything unpleasant.

TAGS: antisemitism, August 15, children, family, Jewish Community, letter, Munich Agreement, Nazi policies, Nespeky, politics, Prague, prominent people, Sudetenland, violence

SOURCE

Institution:

Winn Family Collection, AR 25493

Collection:

Original:

Box 1, folder 5

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:

Margot Friedlander Collection, AR 11397

Collection:

Original:

Box 1, folder 1

Source available in English

12

FRIDAY

Evicted

Housing woes reach Jews in Vienna

“The tenant, whose lease was terminated, is a Jew, and fellow tenants can no longer be expected to live side-by-side with him.”

VIENNA

Until 1938, about 60,000 Jews lived in the Leopoldstadt district of Vienna, a fact that earned it the moniker “Isle of Matzos.” Between the end of World War I and the rise of “Austrofascism” in 1934, the Social-Democratic municipal government began to create public housing. By the time of the Anschluss in March 1938, there was a massive housing shortage in the city. The Nazis began to evict Jewish tenants from public housing. In light of the tendency of the police to ignore encroachment on Jewish property, it was easy for antisemitic private landlords to follow this example. Being a Jew was enough of a reason for eviction. When house owner Ludwig Munz filled in the eviction order form for his tenants Georg and Hermine Topra, he came up with as many as three reasons: his own purported need for the place, back rent, and consideration for the neighbors, who could not be expected to put up with having to live side-by-side with Jews.

TAGS: Anschluss, antisemitism, August 12, bureaucracy, document, Fascism, Jewish property, Nazi policies, persecution, Vienna, WWI

SOURCE

Institution:

Original:

Inv. No. 5171/2

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:

Edmund and Berta Wachs Collection, AR 25093

Collection:

Original:

Box 1, folder 2

7

SUNDAY

Meet me in Geneva

Antisemitism in Italy means Rome is no longer a refuge

“Please write to me in Geneva about when we can see each other. I'm already looking forward to seeing you so much.”

Biel/Villars-sur-Ollon

Until 1933, her Jewishness barely played a role in the life of Anneliese Riess, a thoroughly secular student of classical archeology. Once the Nazis came to power, however, it became clear to her that as a Jew in Germany, there was no future for her. She decided to emigrate to Italy, where she obtained a doctorate (Rome, 1936). With slim chances of finding work in her field in Italy, the young woman enrolled in a rigorous class for childcare assistants in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1937. After surgery in June 1938, she spent several months in Villars-sur-Ollon. In July, the Directorate General for Demographics and Race was established in Italy to formulate the nation’s racial policies. Thus, Rome ceased to be a possible place of refuge. In the same month, Riess’s father had arrived in the US and was making efforts to arrange for her immigration. This postcard, dated August 7th and addressed to Anneliese in Villars, was refreshingly free of any reference to the precarious developments in Europe and provided the welcome prospect of meeting up with a friend amidst all the uncertainty.

TAGS: affidavits, antisemitism, August 7, Biel, displacement, emigration, family, family separation, Fascism, immigration, immigration procedures, Nazi policies, politics, postcard, refugees, Rome, transnational networks, Villars-sur-Ollon

SOURCE

Institution:

Anneliese Riess Collection, AR 10019

Collection:

Original:

Box 1, folder 9

5

FRIDAY

Kisses and best wishes

A sweet note to grandmother in Breslau

“I hope your pain has gotten better. Lots of kisses and best wishes, and a good שבת [Shabbes], also to the Blumenthals, your grandson, Michael”

Oldenburg/Breslau

Based on his handwriting and style, it seems that Michael Seidemann was quite young when he wrote this postcard to his grandmother, Louise Seidemann, in Breslau. Interestingly, the address from which he sent it was identical to that of the synagogue of the town, Oldenburg. Even though the earliest records of Jewish presence in Oldenburg are from the 14th century, it was only in 1855 that the congregation opened its first synagogue built specifically for this purpose. As a result of Emancipation, Jews came to contribute to Oldenburg’s commerce by selling shoes, books, bicycles, and musical instruments, as cattle dealers and in agriculture, among other things. Their share of the population rarely exceeded 1%. Nevertheless, in the 1920s, antisemitic thugs began attacking Jewish businesses. In 1933, the town had 279 Jewish inhabitants, out of a total of 66,951. By the time Michael wrote this postcard, only two out of dozens of Jewish shops and businesses remained in the town.

TAGS: antisemitism, August 5, Breslau, children, displacement, economic persecution, emigration, family, Jewish Community, Nazi policies, Oldenburg, persecution, postcard, refugees, religion, synagogue, violence

SOURCE

Institution:

Herta Seidemann Collection, AR 25060

Collection:

Original:

Box 1, folder 6

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:

Blum Family Collection, AR 25132

Collection:

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:

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

Collection:

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:

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

Collection:

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:

New Synagogue Berlin – Centrum Judaicum

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:

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:

Ursula Meseritz Elgart Family Collection, AR 25544

Collection:

Original:

Box 1, folder 5

14

THURSDAY

Evicted from Red Vienna

Expelled from public housing, rejected by Swiss immigration

“In response to your application dated June 10, 1938, we regret to inform you that your request for permission to enter Switzerland cannot be granted at the present time.”

Bern/Vienna

For a dyed-in-the-wool social democrat like the journalist, translator and writer Maurus (Moritz) Mezei, the changes that quickly took hold in Austria after the country’s unimpeded annexation by Nazi Germany must have been doubly troubling. During the period known as “Red Vienna,” the first-ever period of democratic rule in the city from 1918 to 1934, the Mezei family had moved to the “Karl-Marx-Hof,” a public housing project. Starting in 1938, “non-Aryan” families, including the Mezeis, were threatened with expulsion from the compound. Tenant protections initially remained in place for Jews, but they no longer applied to public housing. On June 10, Mezei had applied for immigration to Switzerland, but the reply, written on July 14, was negative. Only if he was to procure an immigration visa from a country overseas would Swiss immigration authorities reconsider his case and possibly grant temporary asylum.

TAGS: Anschluss, antisemitism, Bern, bureaucracy, emigration, expulsion, immigration, immigration procedures, July 14, letter, Nazi policies, persecution, politics, Vienna, visa application

SOURCE

Institution:

Original:

Letter from the Swiss Federal Immigration Police ; Inv. No. 20991/ 26

13

WEDNESDAY

No mountain high enough

Separated by the Nazis, Käthe and Regina keep in touch

“For these things, it would be worth-while keeping something like a diary. And also for the sake of many other things that occur only in our century. Do it, if you can, brave one, admirable one. You certainly have much to say, from this distance, reflections, real ones, not fabricated ones.”

St. Gallen/Binghamton, NY

Käthe Hoerlin and Regina Ullmann had at least three things in common: both had Jewish ancestors, both converted to Catholicism, and both had the trajectories of their lives impacted by the Nazi regime. Regina Ullmann, a poetess and writer, was expelled from the Association for the Protection of the Rights of German Authors (Schutzverband Deutscher Schriftsteller) and left Germany to return to her native St. Gallen, Switzerland. Käthe Hoerlin’s first husband, the music critic Willi Schmid, was executed by the regime in 1934 in a case of mistaken identity. Days after this tragedy, Käthe, who was the secretary of the ill-fated Nanga Parbat expedition, got news that nine of its participants had died trying to climb the famed Himalayan peak. In 1938, thanks to the help of a Nazi official who had assisted her with her compensation claims after Schmid’s death, she got permission to get married to the non-Jewish alpinist and physicist Hermann Hoerlin (marriages between “half-Jews,” as she was classified, and “persons of German blood” required special permits which were rarely given). Hoerlin was highly critical of the regime’s interference in scientific research. This letter, which exudes sincere empathy and interest in her friend’s well-being in her new surroundings as well as groundedness in her Catholic identity, was written by Regina Ullmann just after the Hoerlins had emigrated to the United States.

TAGS: antisemitism, Binghamton NY, commentary, emigration, July 13, letter, Nazi policies, persecution of Jewish professionals, prominent people, St. Gallen

SOURCE

Institution:

Kate and Herman Hoerlin Collection, AR 25540

Collection:

Original:

Box 2, folder 13

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

7

THURSDAY

Loew Blow

Jewish doctors lose their jobs when a venerable hospital closes

“Many Jewish physicians in Vienna have lost their livelihood due to the closing of the famous Loew Sanitorium by the Gestapo.”

Vienna

Until its forcible closure, reported on by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency on July 7, 1938, the Loew Sanatorium served as a private hospital for the well-heeled in Vienna. Prominent Jewish and non-Jewish patients came here for treatment and surgery. Among the institution’s many illustrious patients were the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, the composer Gustav Mahler, the painter Gustav Klimt and the socialite and composer Anna Mahler-Werfel. The JTA notice specifically mentions the Jewish physicians who lost their livelihood due to the hospital’s closure. According to the criteria established by the Nazis, there were no less than 3,200 Jews or “mixed-blood descendents of Jews” among Vienna’s 4,900 physicians, whereas about one third of the physicians in the country as a whole were Jewish.

TAGS: Anschluss, antisemitism, Journalism, JTA, July 7, media coverage, Nazi policies, persecution, persecution of Jewish professionals, prominent people, Vienna

SOURCE

Institution:

“Doctors Lose Post when Gestapo Closes Hospital”

Collection:

Source available in English

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:

Lilian Singer Collection, AR 25363

Collection:

Original:

LBI Artifacts Collection

5

TUESDAY

Jewish emigration

The periodical of the Jewish Hilfsverein der Juden in Deutschland educates Jewish refugees

Berlin

The “Aid Society of German Jews,” founded in Berlin in 1901, mainly supported Jewish immigrants to Germany. After the Nazis came into power, the association, now forced to call itself “Aid Society of Jews in Germany,” helped to facilitate Jewish emigration from Germany. In this context, it offered help with questions concerning government agencies, passport issues, or vocational retraining and also granted financial support. An important organ for its work was the periodical Jüdische Auswanderung (“Jewish Emigration”), which informed its readers about general living and work conditions but also about specific questions regarding Jewish culture in various countries. In the July 1938 issue, the US, Cuba, and the Philippines were introduced.

TAGS: Berlin, document, emigration, immigration, immigration procedures, impoverishment, July 5, Nazi policies, welfare organizations

SOURCE

Institution:

Deutsches Historisches Museum

Original:

“Jewish Emigration.” Brochure for Emigration and Resettlement Questions ; Inv. Nr: Do2 91/194

3

SUNDAY

No keeping up

Border regulations change at rapid pace

“You will say, why hasn't that been done yet, but that's because of the rapid succession of regulations & you can't get information that fast.”

FRANKFURT AM MAIN/NEW YORK

This letter from a father to his children is dominated almost entirely by concerns about transferring people and goods out of Germany. According to the writer, regulations were changing so rapidly that it was hard to keep track. Lately it had been decreed that both for articles to be shipped and for personal baggage, itemized lists had to be submitted which were subject to authorization. This could be rather time-consuming. The writer of the letter points out that the speed with which answers are given is not keeping up with the speed of the changes necessitating inquiries.

TAGS: commentary, economic persecution, emigration, family, family separation, Frankfurt am Main, Jewish property, July 3, letter, Nazi policies, New York

SOURCE

Institution: