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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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26

MONDAY

26

No new arrangement for siblings

Argentina tightens immigration requirements

“I always feel miserable when I have to write you letters destroying hopes on your side time and again. It makes me feel guilty, even though I can't do anything about it with the best will in the world.”

Buenos Aires/Berlin

Due to the perception prevalent since the middle of the 19th century that immigrants, preferably from Europe, were needed to populate the vast expanses of Argentina, the country’s immigration policy was comparatively generous. But already following WWI, the country’s needs for manpower were perceived as saturated, and by the 20s, administrative barriers to immigration were put up. With victims of Nazi persecution seeking refuge, immigration policy was tightened even more. Nevertheless, many thousands of German Jews as well as political adversaries of the regime found refuge in Argentina. Among them was Max Busse. His sister, Anna Nachtlicht, had heard about plans of the Argentine government to ease immigration and make it possible to request permits for siblings. Max immediately went to make inquiries, but the results were sobering. In this December 26th letter, he is forced to tell her that no such plans seem to exist. Relatives in France had offered the Nachtlichts to stay with them to wait for their visas for a third country. Perhaps, Max suggests, it would be easier to apply from there.

TAGS: Berlin, Buenos Aires, commentary, December 26, displacement, emigration, immigration, immigration procedures, letter, politics, refugees, visa application, WWI

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Nachtlicht Family Collection, AR 25031

Original:

Box 1, folder 7

23

FRIDAY

23

Bureaucracy without empathy

The effects of a 1917 law in the year 1938

“In order to establish his admissibility into the United States under the immigration laws the alien must establish that he is not subject to exclusion under any of the excluding provisions of Section 3 of the Immigration Act of February 5, 1917 including that relating to persons likely to become a public charge.”

Washington D.C./Virginia Beach, Virginia

America was struggling with economic difficulties, and an unfavorable attitude towards “aliens” prevailed in Congress. Among much of the populace, the idea of admitting large numbers of Jewish immigrants was not popular, and President Roosevelt was not inclined to relax America’s immigration restrictions. Thus, when Alice Rice of Virginia Beach tried to facilitate the immigration of her Czech relatives, she received the standard answer from the acting chief of the Foreign Office’s visa division, Eliot B. Coulter. He emphasized the importance of proving that the applicants were not likely to become “public charges” and pointed to the provisions of the 1917 Immigration Act, which, in addition to economic prerequisites, made immigration dependent on a host of conditions grounded in considerations of a political, racial, moral and health-related nature, as well as stating that a person 16 or more years of age was eligible for immigration only if literate. Despite the valiant efforts of Frances Perkins, Secretary of Labor, whose department was in charge of immigration and naturalization issues at the time, US policy was not revised to accommodate the needs created by the wave of refugees coming out of Nazi Germany. Interestingly, one of the justifications for this was that the German quota was actually never filled – without mentioning, of course, that this was a result of the “public charge” provision, which made it impossible for many German Jews, who had been systematically driven into poverty by the Nazis, to successfully apply for visas.

TAGS: advocates, bureaucracy, December 23, displacement, economic persecution, immigration, immigration procedures, impoverishment, letter, politics, prominent people, refugees, United States of America, Virginia Beach VA, visa application, Washington D.C.

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Klein-Cohn Family Collection, AR 6217

Original:

Box 1, folder 3

Source available in English

22

THURSDAY

22

No respite for Jews at German spas

A refugee from Germany intervenes

“Circumstances are especially adverse in this case, not to say sad. Her parents have been unemployed for a long time, since, living on an island in the North sea, they were among the first victims of the Nazi movement.”

Wangerooge

Already in the late 19th century, hostility towards Jews was common in German spas, some of which advertised themselves as “free of Jews.” In the Baltic and North Seas, entire islands presented themselves as anti-Semitic. Nevertheless, some had a small Jewish population. On the beaches of the North Sea health resort of Wangerooge, swastika flags were displayed as early as 1920, just after becoming the symbol of the Nazi party. When the Nazis had been voted into power, the situation became even harder for the island’s Jews. On December 22nd, 1938, Fritz Jacoby, himself a beneficiary of the work of the Boston Committee for Refugees and a recent arrival to the United States, turned to Willy Nordwind, its co-chair, on behalf of Marga Levy, a 24-year-old native of Wangerooge. In the wake of the pogrom of November 9-10, all of her male relatives had been incarcerated, there was no money and no way to make a living. Thus, the grateful Mr. Jacoby implores the Committee to provide the young woman with a “domestic affidavit” which would enable her to “work day and night to feed her parents.”

TAGS: affidavits, antisemitism, bureaucracy, December 22, emigration, immigration, immigration procedures, impoverishment, letter, November Pogroms, persecution, politics, public sphere, refugees, Wangerooge, welfare organizations

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Willy Nordwind Collection, AR 10551

Original:

Box 1, folder 15

3

SATURDAY

3

Action, not anger

The “Aufbau” sounds a call to action

“One can only overcome hatred by rising above it oneself through positive action.”

New York

Reacting to the November Pogroms, thus far the most massive outburst of anti-Jewish violence in Germany, the December editorial of the Aufbau does not make do with expressions of pain and mourning but forcefully calls to counter Nazi brutality with positive action. “The answer to barbarism has always been enlightenment,” it quoted US Commissioner of Education J.W. Studebaker, a staunch believer in democracy and the central role of public discussion and civic education in making it function. The editorial reassured Jewish brethren in Germany that all of America was united in working on “putting an end to barbarism in Central Europe.” It wholeheartedly endorsed the government’s position, propagating education and enlightenment as means to fight back “this gravest of assaults on human culture.”

TAGS: antisemitism, commentary, December 3, Journalism, kristallnacht, media coverage, New York, November Pogrom, politics, press article, prominent people, transnational networks, violence

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Editorial "Aufbau," Vol. 4, no. 13, p. 5

29

TUESDAY

29

Their only hope

Africa as a refuge

“My parents only hope, to get them out, is me.”

Rongai/Nairobi

In 1903, in the wake of the Kishinev pogrom, the British government agreed to allow European Jewish settlement in a territory then known as the “East Africa Protectorate,” today’s Kenya. Due to massive opposition from within the Zionist movement, the plan, known by the misleading name “Uganda Scheme,” did not come to fruition. 35 years later, Paul Egon Cahn, most recently a resident of Cologne, found himself in Rongai, Kenya. After the November pogroms, the 20-year-old car mechanic began to try to get his parents out of Germany. While European settlers and members of the local Indian community in Kenya opposed the immigration of Jewish refugees, the “Kenya Jewish Refugee Committee,” which had facilitated his immigration, was supportive. Thus, the young man turned to its secretary, Israel Somen, for help: he urgently needed the £100 the British Colonial Office charged for two entry permits.

TAGS: antisemitism, Cologne, displacement, emigration, family, family separation, immigration, impoverishment, Jewish Community, kristallnacht, letter, Nairobi, November 29, November Pogrom, persecution, politics, refugees, Rongai, violence, welfare organizations, Zionism

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Paul Egon Cahn Collection, AR 25431

Original:

Box 1, folder 1

Source available in English

26

SATURDAY

26

The future of humanity and culture

A call to action in bad times

“If ever there was a need for brave hearts, clear minds and strong fists, it is today, as nothing less than the future of humanity and culture is at stake!”

New York

No one reading the November issue of the Aufbau could have missed the front-page editorial message in bold print: under the heading “The Great Trial,” forceful language is employed to decry the abject failure of “the heads of state of the so-called democracies,” who have sacrificed Czechoslovakia to Nazi Germany. Jewish refugees are left stranded in no man’s land in Bohemia, in Germany, the Nazis are dealing an “economic death blow” to the Jews, the British are jeopardizing the Zionist project, and “little more than a faint memory” remains of the Evian Conference, summoned in July to tackle the problem of resettling Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany. Surely, this is “an era of complete sinfulness.” Will those under threat finally brace up?

TAGS: commentary, dispossession, economic persecution, Evian conference, Jewish property, Journalism, media coverage, Munich Agreement, New York, November 26, politics, press article, refugees, Sudetenland, Zionism

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

"Die große Prüfung," Editorial, Aufbau, Vol. 4, No. 12, p. 1

15

TUESDAY

15

A sensitive eccentric

A political activist surrenders

Berlin

In this watercolor portrait of a young girl, we do not see the artist John Hoexter’s familiar acerbity but rather a much gentler side. The Expressionist and Dadaist was a leftist activist and idealist and was not very good at making money. For years he contributed to the magazine “Der blutige Ernst” (“Bloody Earnest”), which disseminated undogmatic leftist thought with the help of first-rate contributors who were not paid for their efforts. Hoexter’s financial situation also was not helped by the fact that in trying to control his asthma, he had gotten addicted to morphine early in life. In addition to his considerable artistic talent, he was forced to develop his skills as a “shnorrer.” He was at home in the Bohemian circles frequenting places like the “Cafe Monopol” and the “Romanisches Cafe.” After the Nazis were handed power in 1933, Hoexter’s leftist circle of friends shrank more and more, which, along with the ongoing debasement of Jews by the regime, did not fail to take a toll on him. Under the impact of the violence experienced during the night of pogroms (later known as “Kristallnacht” or “Night of Broken Glass”) Hoexter committed suicide on November 15th.

TAGS: antisemitism, art, artists, Berlin, Journalism, kristallnacht, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, November 15, November Pogrom, persecution, politics, prominent people, resistance, violence

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Hans John Hoexter, Portrait of a Little Girl 20th century

Original:

80.135

Chronology of major events in 1938

Jewish children expelled from schools.

A young student practices Hebrew in the all-Jewish Goldschmidt School in Berlin, 1938.

The National Socialists expel Jewish children from all public schools. From now on, Jewish children are only allowed to attend segregated Jewish schools. Jewish schools must be operated and funded by the Jewish communities, which by now have been deprived of all means of financial support.

View chronology of major events in 1938

13

Sunday

13

A slide back to barbarism

Public opinion in Britain is unanimous

“The first lesson to draw from the persecutions,” Sir Archibald said, “is the urgent need for generous fulfillment of British obligations to world Jewry and the League of Nations under the Palestine Mandate.”

London

As the Jewish Telegraphic Agency would have it, the English were united in their dismay about the anti-Jewish violence in Germany. Expressing their “indignation and disgust” and referring to the recent anti-Jewish violence in Germany as a “slide back to barbarism” and “inhuman fury,” they condemned the pogroms orchestrated by the Nazis. Some, like the Sunday Times and Sir Archibald Sinclair, leader of the Liberal Party, used the events as an opportunity to reinforce the need for a national home for the Jews.

TAGS: advocates, antisemitism, Journalism, JTA, kristallnacht, London, media coverage, Nazi policies, November 13, November Pogrom, politics, prominent people, public sphere, violence, Zionism

SOURCE

Institution:

Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Collection:

“British, American Public Opinion Reflects Horror at German Events”

Source available in English

7

MONDAY

7

Murder in Paris

An act of despair

Paris

On November 3rd, 1938, Herszel Grynszpan, a young Jew of Polish extraction, had received a message saying that his parents and two siblings had been expelled from their home in Hannover to Poland. The Polish parliament had recently passed a law according to which citizens who had spent five or more years abroad could be stripped of their citizenship. Fearing to be left irrevocably with over 70,000 Polish Jews, the Nazi regime had deported about 17,000 of them just days earlier. Herszel, who had managed to enter France in 1936, was living with his uncle and aunt at this point. Upset about the fate of his fellow countrymen, he walked into the German embassy in Paris on November 7th, shot to death a German career diplomat, 29 year-old Ernst vom Rath, and was arrested immediately.

TAGS: antisemitism, children, expulsion, family, family separation, Hannover, imprisonment, kristallnacht, Nazi policies, November 7, November Pogrom, Paris, persecution, photo, Polenaktion, Polish-born Jews, politics, prominent people, refugees, violence, Zbaszyn

SOURCE

Institution:

Bundesarchiv

Collection:

Photograph of Herszel Grynzspan

Original:

Bild 146-1988-078-08

2

WEDNESDAY

2

Protest by ballot

Endangered democracy

“All of us who are even somewhat familiar with day-to-day politics in America know that the President of the United States, whom all of us greatly revere, would never even think of interpreting these laws in a purely personal way. But what guarantees do we have that a successor won't read them that way?”

New York

The fact that they had eluded the dangers of Nazism didn’t mean that it was time for immigrants to let down their guard. The editorial of the November issue of Aufbau exhorted the newcomers to acquire knowledge about the workings of American politics in order to be able to prevent developments similar to those that had brought the present government to power in Germany. In particular, the author warns against the curtailment of rights by “constitutional” means. The most potent protest against attempts to undermine democracy, in his opinion, was “protest by ballot.” Only those candidates who stood for true Americanism, as he saw it—for peace and justice, or, in other words, for democracy—deserved to be elected.

TAGS: commentary, immigration, Journalism, media coverage, New York, November 2, politics, press article, refugees

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

"Die ernste Pflicht des Wählens" Editorial, Aufbau, Vol. 4, No. 12, p. 5

31

MONDAY

31

Politics and farewell

Adolph Markus's diary addresses political shifts and preparations for emigration

“Chamberlain and Daladier explained after their return to their people that now peace was secured for a long time and that it was agreed by Hitler to get together again for a new conference in the case of further possible difference.”

LINZ

At the end of October, Adolph Markus looked back on an eventful month. Preceded by the Munich Conference, at which representatives of Germany, Great Britain, France and Italy decided that Czechoslovakia was to cede its borderlands (“Sudetenland”) to Germany in exchange for peace, German troops had occupied these areas, which had a sizeable German population totaling about 3 million. As Markus points out, with the Sudetenland, Czechoslovakia had lost its line of defense. According to his diary entry, both in Britain and in France, people’s relief that war had been averted was soon followed by deep suspicion regarding Hitler’s true intentions. On a more personal note, the author mentions a hair-styling course and English classes which he has been taking in Vienna, clearly in preparation for emigration. Meanwhile, due to the expectation that soon all Jews would be expelled from his home town, Linz, half of the contents of his apartment had been sold.

TAGS: Anschluss, diary, emigration, expulsion, Jewish property, Language skills, Linz, Munich Agreement, October 31, politics, prominent people, Sudetenland

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Diary, February 1938–December 1939, Adolph Markus, ME1090

Original:

Box 1, folder 1

Source available in English

29

SATURDAY

29

The expulsion of Polish Jews

Die Vertreibung polnischer Juden

COLOGNE

Fearing a massive influx of Polish Jews from Nazi-annexed Austria, the Polish parliament had passed a law in March 1938 allowing for the possibility of revoking the citizenship of anyone who had lived outside the country for at least five years. On October 15th, a decree was published according to which only persons with a valid control stamp in their passports would be allowed into the country. The decree was to go into effect on October 30th. In light of the presence of well over 70,000 Polish Jews in Reich territories, the regime acted fast: within the framework of the so-called “Polenaktion” (“Polish Action”), from October 27 to 29, thousands of Polish Jews were expelled by the Nazis. Many of these Polish citizens had little or no connection to their country of origin and they had nothing and no one to return to. One of the victims of the decree was Ida, the housekeeper of the Schönenberg family in Cologne. On October 29th, Dr. Schönenberg, Ida’s employer for the past three years, writes to his son Leopold in Palestine and describes how she had to report to the police with barely 3 1/2 hours prior warning. Ida was a native of Cologne and had a fiancé in Germany.

TAGS: Anschluss, Cologne, expulsion, family, family separation, letter, Nazi policies, October 29, Palestine, persecution, Polenaktion, Polish-born Jews, politics, Zbaszyn

SOURCE

Institution:

NS-Dokumentationszentrum der Stadt Köln

Original:

Best. 46

26

WEDNESDAY

26

What will he live on in America?

Refugee with no English and few skills needs help finding work

“We need not point out to you that Mr. Raskin is already past the age at which the native born experience difficulty in finding new employment. Mr. Raskin speaks little English. He knows no craft. His experience as a candy salesman is of no great help to him when applying for a new job.”

NEW YORK/BOSTON

Since the early 1880s, federal immigration law in the US included a provision seeking to keep out people likely to become a “public charge.” Under the impact of the Great Depression, President Herbert Hoover reinforced the ban in 1930. Aid organizations were hard pressed to find employment for the newcomers: on October 26, a representative of the Employment Department of the Greater New York Coordinating Committee for German Refugees explains to Willy Nordwind of the Boston Committee for Refugees the challenges of finding work for a man who had managed to enter the country but barely spoke any English and had no work experience to boast save as a candy salesman. Nevertheless, the representative promises to continue his efforts on the immigrant’s behalf.

TAGS: Boston, displacement, Great Depression, immigration, Language skills, letter, New York, October 26, politics, prominent people, refugees, United States of America, welfare organizations

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Willy Nordwind Collection, AR 10551

Original:

Box 1, folder 26

Source available in English

Chronology of major events in 1938

The Polenaktion

A photograph capturing the "Polenaktion".

The National Socialists deport about 17,000 Polish Jews from the German Reich. The mass deportation is referred to as the Polenaktion (Polish Measure), and it is a new high water mark in anti-Jewish discrimination. The Polish parliament issued laws in March and October that threatened to revoke the citizenship of Polish citizens living abroad. For example, passports that were issued abroad were declared invalid starting October 30, unless they were inspected and approved by the Polish Consulates. Through these measures, the Polish government hoped to prevent the mass emigration of tens of thousands of Polish Jews from the German Reich to Poland. When the German Embassy in Warsaw learned of the invalidation of Polish passports in October, the National Socialists responded with deportation orders, mass arrests, and transports to the Polish border.

View chronology of major events in 1938

25

TUESDAY

25

Sudeten Jews under attack

Attacks on Sudeten Jews after the Munich Treaty

“The program for expulsion of thousands of Jews from Czechoslovakia and restriction of the economic activities of those who remain, outlined by minister without portfolio Stanislav Bucovsky, was adopted in its entirety yesterday as a resolution by the Committee of the Sokol Communities, representative body of the Czech youth athletic organization.” [original]

Prague

On September 29, 1938, the signatories of the Munich Treaty had decreed that Czechoslovakia was to cede to Germany its northern and western border areas, the Sudetenland, which was inhabited predominantly by Germans. Immediately after the incursion of German troops, there were eruptions of violence against Jews. Of the 25,000 to 28,000 Jews living in the area, thousands were driven to flee. On October 25, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reports on the catastrophic material effects of the mass flight: the losses were estimated at 7 billion crowns at least in wages and property left behind. To make things worse, since Munich, open expressions of antisemitism had also proliferated on the Czech side—both by the populace and those representing the government.

TAGS: antisemitism, dispossession, economic persecution, expulsion, impoverishment, Jewish property, Journalism, JTA, media coverage, Munich Agreement, October 25, politics, Prague, refugees, Sudetenland, violence

SOURCE

Institution:

Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Collection:

“7 Billion Kronen Abandoned by Sudeten Refugees; Billion Salvaged” „7 Billion Kronen Abandoned by Sudeten Refugees; Billion Salvaged“

Source available in English

22

SATURDAY

22

Resistance by Jews in exile

In the United States, Toni Sender warns of the dangers of National Socialism

BERLIN

Since 1920, Toni Sender was a delegate of the Social Democratic Party in the parliament of the Weimar Republic. Early on, she began to oppose National Socialism and warned of the dangers it posed to democracy. Exposed to hostility and threats as a social democrat and a Jew, she fled in March 1933 first to Czechoslovakia and then to Belgium, continuing her struggle against the Nazis in exile. In 1935, she emigrated to the United States. There too, as an orator and journalist, she tried to inform the public abroad about the criminal character of National Socialism. As this letter from the Secret State Police (Gestapo) to the investigating judge at the People’s Court (Volksgerichtshof), dated October 22nd, 1938, demonstrates, her resistance did not go unnoticed.

TAGS: antisemitism, Berlin, displacement, emigration, letter, October 22, persecution, politics, public sphere, refugees, resistance, Weimar Republic

SOURCE

Institution:

Die Gedenkstätte Deutscher Widerstand

Original:

Bundesarchiv Berlin-Lichterfelde; R3018 NJ-15413

13

THURSDAY

13

Dwindling paths of escape

Closed borders, deportations

“Premier Jan Syrovy has rejected a request for relaxation of the Government’s decision to deport refugees from Austria.”

Prague

Since the “Anschluss,” Czechoslovakia had enormously tightened its policy towards refugees from Austria, specifically Jewish ones. The official border crossings were closed to Austrian Jews – many had no choice but to enter Czechoslovakia via the dangerous paths of what was known as the “Green Border,” stretches of land not secured by checkpoints along the course of the border. Even international diplomatic interventions, such as those of the International League of Human Rights (as reported by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency on October 13th, 1938), couldn’t sway Czechoslovakia from its restrictive course. Sir Neill Malcolm, the Commissioner of Refugees for the League of Nations, had called on the Czechoslovakian prime minister to reconsider the practice of deporting Austrian refugees. Without success.

TAGS: advocates, Anschluss, antisemitism, displacement, emigration, expulsion, immigration, Journalism, JTA, League of Nations, media coverage, October 13, persecution, politics, Prague, prominent people, refugees, transnational networks

SOURCE

Institution:

Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Collection:

“Czechs Refuse to Relax Policy on Refugees”

Source available in English

12

WEDNESDAY

12

Doctors become “caregivers of the sick”

Discriminatory regulations for Jewish doctors

Nazi authorities were now referring to Jewish doctors as “caregivers of the sick” and forced them to clearly mark their practice signs as those of Jews.

BERLIN

The dimensions of the triangles of the Star of David which Jewish “caregivers of the sick” were to add to the signs for their offices was from now on to be 3 1/2 cm. The specifications in the letter dated of October 12th, 1938, from the Berlin Reich Physicians’ Chamber were meticulous. And they did not end with specifications down to the millimeter: The background color was to be “sky-blue,” and the Star of David in the top left corner was to have a “lemon” color. On September 30th, according to the Reich Citizen Law, licenses for Jewish doctors had expired. Only a few got permission to continue to practice as “caregivers of the sick” of Jewish patients exclusively. The authors hinted that the patronizing had not yet reached its peak: in order to do justice to the requirements of the “Law on the Alteration of Family and Personal Names” (coming into force Jan. 1, 1939), it was advisable to add the name “Israel” or “Sara” to the practice sign already now, to avoid future costs.

 

TAGS: antisemitism, Aryanization, Berlin, bureaucracy, document, economic persecution, letter, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, October 12, persecution of Jewish professionals, politics, public sphere, segregation

SOURCE

Institution:

Jüdisches Museum Berlin

Collection:

Hirschberg Family Collection

11

TUESDAY

11

Driven to suicide

Suicide of a democratically-minded editor-in-chief

PRAGUE

Since 1876, the Prager Tagblatt was known as a bastion of liberal- democratic positions. Over time, it acquired a staff of first-rate writers, including greats such as Franz Kafka, Max Brod, Kurt Tucholsky, Egon Erwin Kisch and Alfred Döblin – to name but a few. The paper was valued for its excellent reporting, its outstanding feuilleton and its unique style: even the political reporting was not devoid of humor. As a liberal-democratic paper with a predominantly Jewish staff, the Tagblatt had unequivocally positioned itself against the Nazi regime. Several of the roughly 20,000 political adversaries of the Nazis who had escaped to Czechoslovakia joined the ranks of the publication’s contributors. After the entry of the German Army to the Sudetenland in early October of 1938, the situation of German-speaking democrats came to a head in Czechoslovakia, too: according to this report from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, dated October 11, the editor-in-chief of the Prager Tagblatt, Rudolf Thomas, and his wife committed suicide out of despair over the situation.

 

TAGS: displacement, emigration, Journalism, JTA, media coverage, Munich Agreement, October 11, politics, Prague, prominent people, refugees, Sudetenland

SOURCE

Institution:

Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Collection:

"Praha Jewish Editor Dies After Suicide Pact with Wife"

Original:

Box 3, folder 35

Source available in English

9

SUNDAY

9

Anti-Semitism in Italy too

Race-based laws of marriage

“Marriage between ‘Aryan’ Italians and members of the Hamitic (North African), Semitic, or any other ‘non-Aryan’ races was forbidden.”

Rome

The Fascist Grand Council of Italy, a central organ of the Mussolini regime, published a “Declaration on Race” at the beginning of October which in many places was reminiscent of the Nuremberg Laws. Anti-Semitic through and through, the document codified many regulations regarding marriage, Italian citizenship, and the employment of Jews in civil service in Italy. On October 9th, only a few days after its publication, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported about this Fascist body of legislation. “Intermarriage” between “Aryan” Italians and “members of the Hamitic (North African), Semitic or other ‘non-Aryan’ races” would henceforth be forbidden. Another regulation hit those Jews who had emigrated to Italy from Austria and Germany especially hard. All Jews who had settled in Italy after 1919, were to lose their Italian citizenship and be expelled.

 

TAGS: antisemitism, bureaucracy, displacement, emigration, expulsion, Fascism, Journalism, JTA, media coverage, Nazi laws, October 9, persecution, persecution of Jewish professionals, politics, public sphere, refugees, Rome, segregation

SOURCE

Institution:

Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Collection:

“Intermarriage Banned; Many Groups Exempted from Expulsion Edict”

Source available in English

4

MONDAY

4

“America First!”

Looking forward and not back

But freedom and justice are not handed to us; here too, we must work and fight for them!

New York

The claim of the editorial in the October issue of Aufbau was clear: reminding readers that they were now “Americans with all rights, but also with all duties.” It acknowledged the existence mainly of familial and cultural ties but at the same time emphasized the importance of facing the future rather than looking to the past. The slogan was “America First!,” which can be understood as a call to Jewish immigrants to integrate into American society. The author of the editorial also supplied arguments: Europe could no longer guarantee the fundamental values of freedom and justice. In the United States, however, with its Bill of Rights, it was worth it to stand and fight for these values. The Jewish Club, as publisher of Aufbau, positioned itself clearly within American society, and expected this attitude from its readers and members as well.

TAGS: commentary, emigration, immigration, Journalism, media coverage, New York, October 4, politics, press article, refugees, United States of America

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

"America First" Editorial, Aufbau, Vol. 4, No. 11, p. 5

3

SUNDAY

3

Closed doors

Canada's restrictive immigration policy

Aid for the victims of “political persecution and unprovoked aggression” will be made a major feature of “national peace action week" [...]"

Ottawa

A central goal of “National Peace Action Week,” planned by the Canadian League of Nations Society, was to raise awareness among the Canadian public of the suffering of persecuted Jews. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported on October 3rd, 1938 on the plan to establish a national committee of Jewish and other Canadian leaders for the purpose of sensitizing the public to the Jewish refugee crisis and requesting that appropriate measures be taken by the government. Because Canada had enforced restrictive isolationist policy against immigrants since at least the Great Depression, the country had no refugee policy. This already made it difficult for Jewish refugees to immigrate to Canada. An additional problem was widespread anti-Semitism among the public.

TAGS: advocates, antisemitism, displacement, emigration, Great Depression, immigration, Journalism, JTA, media coverage, October 3, Ottawa, persecution, politics, public sphere, refugees, transnational networks, welfare organizations

SOURCE

Institution:

Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Collection:

“Canadian League Body to Form Group to Aid Refugees”

Source available in English

29

THURSDAY

29

Mass exodus

More than 20,000 Jews leave the Sudetenland

“Only about 2,000 Jews of a population of 22,000 have remained in the Sudeten German districts, which have also been deserted by the Czech population.” [original version in English]

Munich

When on September 29th the so-called “Munich Agreement” between Hitler, the British Premier Chamberlain, the French Premier Daladier, and the Italian dictator Mussolini was concluded, over 20,000 Jews had already fled from the regions of the Sudetenland. This was reported by the Jewish Telegraph Agency on the day of the Agreement. With a months-long propaganda campaign by the Nazis and raucous threats that the Wehrmacht would invade Czechoslovakia, it had already been clear to many Jews for weeks that they would have no future in the Sudetenland. With the Agreement, the Czech regions, in which the Sudeten German minority lived, would be surrendered to the German Reich. Czechoslovakia did not sit at the bargaining table in Munich.

TAGS: displacement, Journalism, JTA, media coverage, Munich, Munich Agreement, politics, press article, prominent people, refugees, September 29, Sudetenland

SOURCE

Institution:

Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Collection:

“20,000 Jews Evacuate Sudeten Area”

Source available in English

Chronology of major events in 1938

The Munich Agreement

Many Jewish lawyers had already been leaving Germany and Austria. Among them was Joachim Weichert of Vienna, who had been practicing law in Vienna for decades. Weichert Family Collection, Leo Baeck Institute.

Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and Italy sign the Munich Agreement. In the absence of Czechoslovakia, which, like the Soviet Union, was not invited to the conference, the participating nations resolve that Czechoslovakia must cede the “Sudetenland” to the German Reich. The agreement calls for the evacuation of the narrow band of territory along Czechoslovakia’s northern, western, and southern borders within ten days. Two days after the agreement is signed, the Wehrmacht enters the Sudetenland. By allowing the conflict over the autonomy of ethnic Germans in Czechoslovakian borderlands to escalate into an international crisis, Hitler has succeeded in first isolating and then breaking up Czechoslovakia.

View chronology of major events in 1938

27

TUESDAY

27

Paragraphs and paragraphs…

Prior oral and written inquiries and petitions are useless.

Prior oral and written inquiries and petitions are useless.

VIENNA

The lives of many Jews had become undone within the span of half a year, through occupational bans, Aryanization, dispossession, and denaturalization. After the Anschluss, many Austrian Jews again found themselves in an unstable and chaotic situation. It was all the more cynical then that many of them seemed to be confronted with a complicated, in some ways pedantic bureaucracy regarding visas. A September 27th, 1938 letter from the American Consulate General to Tony (Antonie) and Kurt Frenkl gives example of this: “Your visa application can be accepted at the earliest within months.” The quotas for Central European immigrants were filled. In order to be put on a waiting list for a visa, applicants had to fill in a pre-registration form. And, in order to “avoid delays,” an individual affidavit had to be submitted per person. So Tony and Kurt had to wait even longer, bracing themselves for the next bureaucratic hurdle.

TAGS: affidavits, Anschluss, Aryanization, bureaucracy, dispossession, document, emigration, immigration, immigration procedures, Jewish property, letter, Nazi policies, politics, September 27, Vienna, visa application

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Tony Frenkl Collection, AR 11032

Original:

Box 1, folder 1

Chronology of major events in 1938

Remaining Jewish lawyers disbarred

In this anti-Semitic cartoon, a Jewish lawyer is seen swindling money and goods from German peasants. Elvira Bauer, Trau keinem Fuchs auf grüner Heid und keinem Jud auf seinem Eid (Nuremberg: Stürmer Verlag, 1936). Leo Baeck Institute.

The already precarious situation of Jewish lawyers and other legal professionals takes a turn for the worse. Many are forced to close their practices as their gentile clients take their business elsewhere and their Jewish clients flee the country. In early 1937, about 1750 “non-aryan” lawyers or other professionals with legal training were still active in Germany. On September 27, the Nazis issue a complete ban on Jews practicing law, which enters into effect on November 30 in Germany and December 31 in Austria. After this, only a tiny number of Jewish lawyers remain active in a restricted capacity. As so-called Konsulenten, they are permitted to advise and represent only Jewish clients.

View chronology of major events in 1938

25

SUNDAY

25

Fluent English!

Language barriers in exile

“Fluent English in a couple weeks. Original, simple, scientific method.”

New York

Speak English fluently! This may have been among the resolutions of Jewish immigrants in the United States for the upcoming Jewish new year. The September edition of “Aufbau” featured a whole array of offers for learning English. Sundry advertisements wooed immigrants with, for example, “a low fee” and “original” methods in order to improve one’s English within a few weeks. These advertisements hit on a market. Because, to those who’d come to the United States, the English language posed an initial and legitimate, yet essential hurdle. Whoever wanted to work in the American environment and build a new life had to be able to be understood.

TAGS: advertisement, immigration, Jewish Community, Journalism, Language skills, New York, politics, refugees, September 25

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Unterricht, Aufbau, Vol. 4, No. 10, p. 10

Source available in English

11

FRIDAY

11

A former sanctuary

Growing anti-Semitism in Italy

Rome/Ostia Antica

Rome is the paradise of every ancient historian, a city rife with history. However, for Herbert Bloch, since 1935 a Ph.D. in Roman History, it was something more, a sanctuary from Nazi Germany. The native Berliner had come to the University of Rome as a student shortly after Hitler took over. In 1938, he was part of the team that excavated and examined much of the area of Ostia Antica, the ancient seaport of Rome. The photo shows Bloch on September 11th, 1938, in front of parts of the excavations. But 1938 was also the year in which the previously latent yet tangible anti-Semitism of fascist Italy officially became state policy. Just a few days before this photo was taken, Mussolini had passed the first of many anti-Semitic race laws. The “Measures for the Defense of the Race in the Fascist School” of September 5th, 1938 had especially hit home for Herbert Bloch. The law – among other matters – barred all Jewish teaching staff from schools and universities. Rome could no longer be Bloch’s place of refuge.

TAGS: antisemitism, displacement, emigration, Fascism, Ostia Antica, persecution of Jewish professionals, photo, politics, refugees, Rome, schools, September 11

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Herbert Bloch Collection, AR 25628

Original:

Box 2, folder 12

10

SATURDAY

10

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:

Jüdisches Museum Wien

Original:

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

7

Wednesday

7

Waiting yet again

Immigration quotas are strict

“We must inform you that the quota is already filled.”

Berlin/Breslau

Appointed date: uncertain. The American Consulate General at Breslau didn’t even tell Carl Proskauer and his family a date in the distant future on which they could once again apply for a U.S. visa. The quota was already full. The American quota determined how many persons per country of birth (not per country of citizenship!) were allowed to immigrate to the United States annually. In the year 1938, the number of visa applications from Germany rose rapidly. For individual cases such as that of Curt Proskauer and his family, this meant yet another round of excruciating waiting periods and exhausting paperwork, since many documents, which the Breslau dentist and historian of medicine had already submitted to the American Consulate General, would expire after a certain period. Whether Curt Proskauer could apply for a visa again by then? Uncertain!

TAGS: affidavits, Berlin, Breslau, bureaucracy, displacement, emigration, family, immigration, immigration procedures, letter, politics, refugees, September 7, United States of America, visa application

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Paul Proskauer Collection, AR 25641

Original:

Box 2, folder 30

5

MONDAY

5

Helpless League of Nations

550,000 more refugees expected

“Another 550,000 Catholics, Legitimists and ‘non-Aryans,’ will be obliged to leave the Greater Reich.”

Geneva

The League of Nation’s report was alarming. Sir Neill Malcom, the High Commissioner for German Refugees in the League, estimated that 550,000 more people would soon be forced to leave the German Reich. Non-governmental refugee organizations were already completely overwhelmed. What to do? The conference of Evian just two months earlier had failed. Large host countries, such as the United States, had not adjusted their immigration quotas. On September 5th, the JTA reported on Sir Malcom’s proposals – which, in light of the international situation, were themselves inadequate: countries which had not so far given refugees permission to work were encouraged to more strongly cooperate with each other and at least allow people to earn a small sum for a new start in exile.

TAGS: antisemitism, displacement, emigration, Evian conference, Geneva, immigration, Journalism, JTA, League of Nations, media coverage, persecution, politics, prominent people, refugees, September 5

SOURCE

Institution:

Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Collection:

“550,000 More Must Leave Reich, Malcolm Tells League”

Source available in English

2

WEDNESDAY

2

Traitor!

Harsh judgment of Schuschnigg

“As I said before […] I consider Schuschnigg a traitor and if he were to fall into my hands today, instead of Hitler's, his fate would be even crueler.”

Paris

“A traitor!” The journalist and author Joseph Bornstein left no doubt with regard to his opinion of the former Austrian chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg. Indeed, with friendly but very pointed words, he made it clear in a letter to his friend Bosch that Bosch’s “faith in the good faith in Schuschnigg” is totally wrong. Many Austrian Jews had long placed their hopes in Schuschnigg, who had tried as Chancellor to defend Austria from the influence of National-Socialist Germany. After the sender of this letter, Joseph Bornstein, lost his German citizenship in 1933, he immigrated to Paris. There he very quickly joined the intellectual milieu of other German journalists and authors in exile. He continued his collaboration with Leopold Schwarzschild and was active as editor-in-chief for the intellectual journal “Das neue Tagebuch” (The New Diary).

TAGS: commentary, displacement, emigration, immigration, Jewish Community, Journalism, letter, Paris, Polish-born Jews, politics, prominent people, refugees, September 2

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Joseph Bornstein Collection, AR 4082

Original:

Box 2, folder 1

15

MONDAY

15

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:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Winn Family Collection, AR 25493

Original:

Box 1, folder 5

13

SATURDAY

13

Free CUNY for Refugees

A lawyer campaigns for refugees' right to education

“I believe that their admission to the colleges of the City of New York would not just constitute an act of kindness but would at the same time also be a step in the required direction in order to help these people to become useful and educated members of our democracy.”

NEW YORK

Ellis Levy, a Jewish attorney who lived in New York, decided to take up the cause of the immigrants fleeing Nazi persecution. In a letter to Mayor LaGuardia, an excerpt of which was published in the August issue of Aufbau, he pointed out that many of the newcomers were arriving in the country penniless, often after having been forced to abandon their studies or professional training. At the time of Mr. Ellis’s intervention, a bill regarding the possibility of opening city colleges to non-citizens was about to be brought before the Board of Higher Education. The attorney asked Mayor LaGuardia to exercise his influence on the Board to bring about a positive decision. This, he argued, would serve both the needs of the immigrants and the interests of U.S. democracy. And, indeed, it was decided, effective September 1 of that year, to admit to city colleges persons with adequate prior education who were in the process of naturalization.

TAGS: August 13, displacement, immigration, impoverishment, Journalism, media coverage, New York, persecution, politics, press article, prominent people, refugees, United States of America

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Zum Besten von Einwanderern, Aufbau, Vol. 4, No. 9, p. 4

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