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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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28

FRIDAY

28

China as a place of refuge

The SS Conte Verde transports Jews to China

Trieste/Shanghai

In the early years of the Nazi regime, Jews had sought refuge mainly in neighboring European countries, but also in Palestine and the United States. With the Nazis’ reach expanding and options for immigration diminishing, China increasingly turned into a destination for Jews seeking to escape. The SS Conte Verde was one of the steamers that brought refugees to Shanghai from the Italian ports of Genoa and Trieste. The voyage to China took one month and was quite costly – a challenge for German Jews whose financial situation had been severely eroded under the Nazis.

TAGS: displacement, economic persecution, emigration, Genoa, immigration, impoverishment, October 28, photo, refugees, Shanghai, Trieste

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Hans Eisfelder, Chinese Exile : My years in Shanghai & Nanking; Steamship Conte Verde (Lloyd Triestino) Transportation

Original:

ME 999; F 55499

Source available in English

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

23

SUNDAY

23

A joyous occasion in difficult times

A wedding as a respite

“For this marriage, consecrated by God, we fervently request salvation, peace and blessings.”

BERLIN

In a year marred by numerous alarming anti-Jewish measures, the wedding of Frieda Ascher and Bernhard Rosenberg on October 23rd in Berlin must have provided a much needed reprieve for their families and friends. The officiant at the ceremony was Dr. Moritz Freier, an orthodox rabbi. Many young Jews, unable to find work as a result of the intensification of antisemitism in Germany, approached Rabbi Freier since his wife Recha had already come up with the idea of helping Jewish youth to immigrate to Mandatory Palestine and settle in Kibbutzim, a project known as “Youth Aliyah,” in January 1933.

TAGS: antisemitism, Berlin, document, emigration, immigration, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, October 23, persecution, prominent people, rabbis, refugees, religion, transnational networks, welfare organizations, Youth Aliyah

SOURCE

Institution:

New Synagogue Berlin – Centrum Judaicum

Original:

Trust deed for Bernhard Rosenberg and Frieda Ascher; 7.5

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

21

FRIDAY

21

Looking toward Palestine

The Münzer family hopes for a reunion in Palestine

VIENNA

This photograph, taken in October 1938, shows Moses Münzer, a tailor in Vienna, and his wife Lisa, with their five children, Elfriede, Benno, Nelly, Gertrude and Siegfried. After the “Anschluss,” Moses Münzer, like many Jews, lost his job. Lisa Münzer started working as a cook in the soup kitchen of the Brigittenauer Tempel on Kluckygasse, sometimes assisted by her children. By October 21st, 15-year-old Gertrude was on her way to Palestine on Youth Aliyah, an organization founded by Recha Freier, the wife of an orthodox rabbi in Berlin, before the Nazi rise to power. Its goal was to help Jewish youth escape anti-Semitism in the Reich and settle in Palestine. Gertrude left on her own, but the intention was for the family to reunite in Palestine.

TAGS: Anschluss, antisemitism, Berlin, children, displacement, economic persecution, emigration, family, family separation, impoverishment, Jewish Community, October 21, Palestine, photo, rabbis, refugees, Synagogues, transnational networks, Vienna, welfare organizations, Youth Aliyah

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Gertrude Knopf Family Collection, AR 11692

Original:

Box 1, folder 1

Source available in English

18

TUESDAY

18

Fluch der Bürokratie

Waiting for a "capitalist certificate"

“At the moment there's no transfer whatsoever on preferential certificates. On the last preferential transfer, a total of 27 families came to Palestine. A new transfer tranche is to be issued in the winter, but one can't count on single people being considered, especially if they are already residing in a foreign country.”

Konstanz/Zurich

Dr. Herbert Mansbach, a young dentist from Mannheim, had gone to Switzerland after his studies in Germany in order to obtain his DDS and specialize in orthodontics. This, he believed, would be a sought-after skill in Palestine, where he wished to emigrate. However, immigration to Palestine had been curtailed drastically by the British: Dr. Mansbach’s friend Alfred Rothschild, a retired lawyer, informed him that there were no preferential immigration certificates to be had at the moment and that the qualification procedure for a “capitalist certificate” (a type of certificate the awarding of which was dependent on the applicant’s ability to produce at least £1000 and not subject to quotation) was still under way. The matter was of great urgency, since in mid-October, Dr. Mansbach’s residence permit for Switzerland had expired. Rothschild assumed that if the application for a regular certificate was going to go through, the Swiss authorities would allow his friend to stay in the country for the time being.

TAGS: bureaucracy, displacement, emigration, immigration, immigration procedures, Konstanz, letter, Mannheim, October 18, Palestine, refugees, transnational networks, Zurich

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Herbert Joseph Mansbach Collection, AR 7073

Original:

Box 1, folder 2

17

MONDAY

17

Joint summer camp promotes integration

The American Friends Service Committee promotes the integration of Jewish refugees

“Of particular pedagogical significance was the cooperative carrying out of all communal work. All participants engaged in all kinds of practical household activity and were instructed in gardening and agriculture. Familiarization with physical work thus obtained was not only pedagocically important, it also was an excellent school for the body and, along with intensive swimming, strengthened people's constitutions.”

Hyde Park, New York

Numerous Jewish organizations, such as the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, German Jewish Children’s Aid and the Boston Committee for Refugees were dedicated to the rescue of refugees from Nazi Germany. In 1938, it was a non-Jewish body, the American Friends Service Committee, that came up with a particularly good project: from mid-June to the beginning of September, it ran a camp in the Hudson Valley for about 70 persons, mostly Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany and about one third Americans, for the two sides to get to know each other by working, studying and singing together, sharing household chores, attending lectures and religious services and playing sports or games with each other. The author of this article in the October issue of the Aufbau is full of gratitude for what he calls “a remarkable contribution to the internal integration of our people in the country.”

TAGS: advocates, cultural life, displacement, Hyde Park NY, immigration, Journalism, media coverage, October 17, press article, refugees, religion, Sports, welfare organizations

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Reinhold Herz, "Nichtjuden helfen," Aufbau, Vol 4. No. 11, p. 5

14

FRIDAY

14

New company, old network

What does emigration look like for an entrepreneur?

“In connection with my affidavit permit me to point out that I did not state my yearly income, as the Hochhauser Leather Co Inc. has been founded only a short time ago.”

NEW YORK/VIENNA

In Vienna, Hans Hochhauser, together with his brother, had been a successful manufacturer and exporter of leather goods. But just one day after the “Anschluss,” he had packed up his life and fled Austria with his wife, Greta, and his daughter, Ilse, on adventurous paths: turned back at the Czech border, the family traveled to Switzerland by train and from there to England on a chartered flight, from whence the family finally made it to the United States. Having arrived in New York, Hans Hochhauser had to start from scratch: his new company was called “Hochhauser Leather Co. Inc.” In this letter to the US Consulate General in Vienna dated October 14, 1938, accompanying an affidavit for his cousin, Arthur Plowitz, he pointed out that while his new company was still in its beginnings, he was able to take advantage of his old business network.

TAGS: affidavits, Anschluss, bureaucracy, displacement, document, emigration, family, immigration, immigration procedures, letter, New York, October 14, refugees, transnational networks, Vienna

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Hans and Grete Hochhauser Collection, AR 12070

Original:

Box 1, folder 4

Source available in English

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

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

10

MONDAY

10

Denied at the border

No entry permit for Anneliese Riess

GENEVA/TURIN

In fact, Anneliese Riess was an archeologist. But after getting her PhD in Rome in November 1936, she had no chance as a foreigner to find employment in her dream profession. Therefore, she took a course in pediatric nursing in Geneva in 1937 and then returned to Rome. When the fascist government in Italy declared that foreign Jews were to leave the country within half a year, the school in Geneva agreed to employ Anneliese as an intern until the arrival of her US visa. However, due to Switzerland’s xenophobic and anti-Semitic immigration policy, she was denied entry at the border. In a letter from the school dated October 10th she was informed that such cases were so common among the students that the director of the school, Miss Borsinger, was not able to do anything for her to obtain a residence permit. She had, however, enclosed a letter to the consulate, testifying that Anneliese Riess was urgently expected at the nurse’s training school – albeit as a student. This, the letter states, was her only chance to be allowed entry.

TAGS: advocates, antisemitism, bureaucracy, commentary, displacement, emigration, Fascism, Geneva, immigration, immigration procedures, letter, October 10, refugees, Rome, transnational networks, Turin, visa application

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Anneliese Riess Collection, AR 10019

Original:

Box 1, folder 10

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

7

FRIDAY

7

A household in 11 boxes

Sending the household ahead

Fee for official customs clearance on site and SS supervision committee three 1/2 days: RM 75

VIENNA

Already a few months back, the dentist Max Isidor Mahl and his wife, Etta, a textile worker, had submitted their visa application to the American consulate in Vienna. Ever since, they had been waiting. Etta was a native of Poland, Max Isidor a native of Ukraine. The American immigration quotas for both these countries were already filled. But time was of the essence: this bill shows that already in October, the Mahls had their entire household shipped to the United States in order to bring it to safety. Transportation from Vienna to Hamburg and then, on a freighter, to New York was expensive. It cost almost 800 Reichsmarks for the couple to send the 11 boxes containing their household effects out of the country.

 

TAGS: Anschluss, bureaucracy, document, emigration, immigration, immigration procedures, October 7, Polish-born Jews, refugees, Vienna, visa application

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Lucie Blau Family Collection, AR 25419

Original:

Box 1, folder 15

6

Thursday

6

Au revoir Paris?

Joseph Roth wants to depart for Mexico

“It is of tremendous importance to me that he give permission to bring ten more comrades to Mexico.”

Paris/Mexico

The letter that Joseph Roth sends to his cousin Michael Grübel in Mexico is short. Though written in a familiar tone, it limits itself to the most important matters of organization. Roth thanks him for establishing contact with a Dor. Com. Silvio Pizzarello de Helmsburg. The latter, he hopes, will help him “bring ten comrades to Mexico.” Whom exactly Roth has in mind here remains a question. Moreover, Roth asks his cousin to also obtain a visa for him personally. The famous author and journalist had emigrated to Paris in 1933. From there, he had since published numerous novels and essays and written for emigrant publishers in different countries. However, now Roth too seemed to toy with the thought of leaving Europe.

 

TAGS: advocates, Anschluss, artists, bureaucracy, displacement, emigration, immigration, immigration procedures, letter, Mexico, October 6, Paris, prominent people, refugees, transnational networks, WWI veteran

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Joseph Bornstein Collection, AR 4082

Original:

Box 2, folder 4

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

30

FRIDAY

30

A distant relative

FRIDAY

“I appeal to your human sentiment and feeling for blood relations if I take the liberty of asking you to help me to emigrate to the States and procure the necessary affidavit for me.”

VIENNA/NEW YORK

It must have taken quite an effort for Eva Metzger-Hohenberg to write an imploring letter to her distant relative in Manhattan, Leo Klauber, a complete stranger to her. Her situation was precarious. There was no place for Jews in Germany anymore. Maria Metzger-Hohenberg appealed to Leo Klauber’s “humanity” and his “sense of a blood bond” and begged him to issue affidavits to her and her family. This letter from Vienna shows not only the desperate measures to which Jewish families had to resort, in order to make their emigration possible, but also drew a vivid picture of the situation in which many Jews found themselves in the Fall of 1938. Maria’s parents and her brother had to give up their butcher shop. Her husband’s wholesale business, which employed more than 140 staff members, was “aryanized.” In actuality, that meant it had to be sold for much less than its value. The fate of the Metzger-Hohenbergs was also that of countless other Jewish families during this time.

TAGS: affidavits, Anschluss, antisemitism, Aryanization, commentary, dispossession, economic persecution, emigration, family, immigration procedures, Jewish property, letter, Nazi laws, New York, public sphere, refugees, September 30, transnational networks, Vienna

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Laura and Leonard Yaffe Correspondence, AR 11921

Original:

Box 1, folder 1

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

28

WEDNESDAY

28

“For the last time”

Farewell at a Bar Mitzvah

They celebrated nonetheless. Many of the families with members whose Bar Mitzvah was taking place during this September would not be in Berlin much longer. However, on this day they all came together in the synagogue for one last time.

BERLIN

It was more of a wistful farewell than a joyful Bar Mitzvah: Rabbi Manfred Swarsensky seemed to be fully conscious of the situation in which his congregants at the Prinzregentenstraße Synagogue in Berlin found themselves. In his address on the occasion of the Bar Mitzvah of 15 teenagers, he captured the mood of this day of celebration: everything clearly bears “the stamp ‘for the last time.’” Many families, whose sons celebrated their Bar Mitzvah on this day, sat on packed suitcases. One family was departing the very next day. The synagoge, in Berlin’s Wilmersdorf neighborhood, had been one of the only synagogues first built during the Weimar Republic. It had also quickly developed into a center of Jewish culture. Now, at the end of September 1938, it was clear to the rabbi that his congregation was facing major changes: “In a few years, much of what’s here today will be gone and perhaps also forgotten.”

TAGS: Bar Mitzvah, Berlin, cultural life, emigration, Jewish Community, public sphere, rabbis, refugees, religion, September 28, Sermon, Synagogues, Weimar Republic

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Gerhard Walter Collection, AR 11826

Original:

Box 1, folder 1

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

22

THURSDAY

22

Abandoned synagogues

The congregations of Gliwice feel the consequences of emigration

“Many small congregations that belong to our association are completely abandoned. We must deal with their disbandment. Venerable houses of worship must be dispossessed of their purpose and sold.”

GLEIWITZ

On Rosh Hashanah, Arthur Kochmann had two wishes for the Association of Synagogues for Upper Silesia: that in the new year, every member’s wishes would be fulfilled, but also that Jews in Upper Silesia “would maintain their inner unity at all times” – two wishes which unfortunately had to come into conflict with each other many times in the fall of 1938. The number of emigrants from Gleiwitz had risen considerably over the past few months. Arthur Kochmann points at the dramatic consequences for many smaller synagogues in and in the vicinity of Gleiwitz: many would have to be closed and sold. For a long time, a provision for the protection of minorities from 1922 had protected many Jews in Gleiwitz from the anti-Semitic laws of the Nazis, but with its expiration in 1937, the reprieve came to an end.

TAGS: displacement, emigration, Gleiwitz, Jewish Community, Jewish holidays, Jewish property, Journalism, media coverage, Nazi laws, press article, refugees, religion, September 22, Synagogues

SOURCE

Institution:

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Original:

Auf Deine Hilfe hoffe ich, Gott, in: Jüdisches Gemeindeblatt, vol. 3, no. 18, p. 1. Courtesy of USHMM

19

MONDAY

19

Worldwide networks of aid

Kurt Grossmann and refugee aid

“If you receive a request from Mrs. Erna Winter (and child), who was until now supported by Democratic Refugee Relief in Prague, I ask you to respond with goodwill.”

PARIS

Jewish refugee organizations had wide networks. This was due to individuals such as Kurt Grossmann, who steadily made more connections with contacts and developed cooperation on an international level. Kurt Grossmann, a journalist and General Secretary of the German League of Human Rights from 1926 until 1933, had escaped from Berlin just before an arrest. He fled to Prague, where he established and developed Democratic Relief for Refugees. Grossmann knew how to use his network for the increasing number of Jewish refugees, who had reached Prague. Even in Paris, where he had lived since 1938, he campaigned for support from the local refugee aid organizations. For example, in a letter from Grossmann on September 19th, 1938, he urges M. Gaston Kahn of the Parisian Comité d’Assistance aux Réfugiés juifs to help Erna Winter and her child.

TAGS: advocates, Berlin, displacement, emigration, immigration, Jewish Community, letter, Paris, persecution, Prague, prominent people, refugees, September 19, transnational networks, welfare organizations

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Kurt Grossmann Collection, AR 25032

Original:

Box 1, folder 8

18

SUNDAY

18

By oath to do no harm

A Jewish physician worries about professional consequences of Nazi laws

“The last few weeks a Latin verse by Horace often drifts through my head, which in German translation goes something like this: And if the world collapses, it will strike dead an unshaken man.”

COLOGNE

An astonishing number of German physicians apparently not only had no qualms about being co-opted by the Nazi regime but actively subscribed to its racist and eugenic doctrines, conveniently ignoring their ostensible commitment to the Hippocratic Oath with its stipulation to do no harm. On top of propagating an ideology which declared Jews to be a danger to the “German race,” medical organizations in Germany expelled Jews, making it harder and harder for them to make a living. Under such circumstances, it’s not surprising that Dr. Max Schönenberg, a physician in Cologne, and his musician wife, Erna, supported their son Leopold’s emigration to Palestine in 1937, even though the boy was only 15 years old at the time. In this September 18th, 1938 letter to his son, Dr. Schönenberg touches upon various weighty topics, among them the regime’s recent decision to revoke Jewish doctors’ medical licenses and his uncertainty about his professional future (some Jewish physicians were given permission to treat Jewish patients).

TAGS: children, Cologne, displacement, economic persecution, emigration, family, family separation, impoverishment, letter, musicians, Palestine, persecution of Jewish professionals, refugees, September 18

SOURCE

Institution:

NS-Dokumentationszentrum der Stadt Köln

Original:

Best. 46

17

SATURDAY

17

Raised a Nazi

Erika Mann's book about the National-Socialist education system

NEW YORK

Erika Mann begins her book with a captivating description. She tells of a meeting with a Mrs. M. from Munich. At this time, Erika lived with her parents Thomas and Katia Mann in exile. Mrs. M. wanted to emigrate with her family too. This wish was incomprehensible to Erika Mann. After all, as affluent “Aryans,” Mrs. M. and her family had nothing to fear. But Mrs. M. made a more convincing statement: “I want the boy to become a decent human being–a man and not a Nazi.” This sentence would become the jumping-off point for Erika Mann’s study of indoctrination and the National-Socialist educational system. Her well-respected book appeared under the title “School for Barbarians : Education Under the Nazis” in the United States in 1938.

TAGS: book, children, displacement, emigration, family, Munich, New York, prominent people, refugees, school, September 17

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Original:

Erika Mann, School for Barbarians; Education under the Nazis,New York: Modern Age Books, 1938 ; LA 721.8 M312

15

THURSDAY

15

Bad prospects

Refugees in Czechoslovakia

“None of the refugees, of course, is permitted to work. Among them are business people, professionals and craftsmen, many of whom were once comfortably well off. Without material resources, often cut off from family and friends left behind, uncertain as to the future, this refugee colony is rapidly becoming a psychological problem as well as an economic and political one.”

Brno (Brünn)

The Jewish Telegraphic Agency described the situation of Austrian refugees in Czechoslovakia with far-sightedness. If none of their precarious circumstances changed (work ban, impoverishment, missing prospects…) the situation could soon become “a psychological problem as well as an economic and political one.” The JTA estimated that in the middle of September 1938 there were more than 1,000 refugees in Czechoslovakia, most of them in Brno, less than 50 kilometers from the Austrian border. Now a police measure stipulated a bail of 2,000 Czech crowns (70 dollars) for persons who had already spent more than two months in Czechoslovakia. Otherwise they would face deportation. Who could pay this money on their behalf was completely unclear. Neither the Jewish community of Brno nor the League of Human Rights had the means to do so.

TAGS: Anschluss, antisemitism, Brünn, displacement, dispossession, emigration, expulsion, immigration, impoverishment, Journalism, JTA, media coverage, persecution, refugees, September 15

SOURCE

Institution:

Jewish Telegraphic Agency 

Collection:

“500 Refugees Face Expulsion from Czechoslovakia”

Source available in English

14

WEDNESDAY

14

Urgent: seeking sponsors

Affidavits from at least two relatives, not to mention documents from banks and police departments… Kurt struggles with high hurdles to emigration

“It goes without saying that we wrote and are writing to any and all our acquaintances all over the world, but haven't yet had any positive results until now.”

Genoa/East Springfield, PA

Not a long letter, only a brief postcard was sent to Ludwig Guckenheimer from his old friend Kurt. Yet these few lines give a vivid impression of the situation in which his friend found himself. Kurt had sent the postcard from Genoa on the 14th of September. He’d been trying to prepare his emigration from there for some time. Kurt knew “that it’s time to rush.” Until now he’d failed for lack of money, but most of all from lack of sponsors. Many countries had massively heightened financial and bureaucratic hurdles to immigration in recent years. The United States for example expected, alongside numerous official certificates, at least two affidavits from close relatives. But Kurt wasn’t discouraged. Hope lay in efforts by his brother-in-law in Dallas.

TAGS: affidavits, antisemitism, bureaucracy, commentary, displacement, East Springfield PA, economic persecution, emigration, family, Genoa, immigration, immigration procedures, postcard, refugees, September 14, transnational networks, United States of America

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Gertrude Guckenheimer Collection, AR 10042

Original:

Box 1, folder 5

13

TUESDAY

13

Schoenberg’s exile

Simultaneously misunderstood and admired

Los Angeles

Arnold Schoenberg was a pioneer of modern compositional techniques. However, his music also polarized listeners. Some freneticially celebrated it, other rejected it as noise. On September 13th, the Vienna native celebrated his 62nd birthday. At this time the musician had been living in the United States for almost five years. Schoenberg, a son of Jewish parents, lost his position at the Prussian Academy of Art soon after the Nazis took power. Thereafter he fled first to Paris, then emigrated to the United States. In Los Angeles, he was able to resume his teaching at the University of California.

TAGS: antisemitism, displacement, emigration, immigration, Los Angeles, musicians, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, persecution of Jewish professionals, photo, prominent people, refugees, September 13

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Portrait of the composer Arnold Schoenberg, in: Arnold Schoenberg Collection, AR 1149

Original:

F 3070

12

MONDAY

12

Fake generosity

Forced emigration from Burgenland

“Two hundred Jewish residents of Burgenland province were ‘invited’ to leave Austria by an emigrant-smuggling scheme.”

Eisenstadt, Burgenland

“Free-of-charge”: it may seem like a generous “offer,” but behind this “free-of-charge” offer was ice-cold calculation. The Nazis’ evil intent was that all Jews still remaining in Burgenland, Austria, should leave the region. In Nazi jargon, this was called cleansing. After the “Anschluss,” Burgenland was the first Austrian region in which they had begun to systematically dispossess and expel the Jewish population. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported on September 12th that out of the 3,800 Jews, who had previously lived in Burgenland, 1,900 had already been expelled, 1,600 people had fled temporarily to Vienna, and another 300 were interned in ghettos in Burgenland. According to JTA, the “offer” of the emigrant-smuggling group was financed by the Gestapo with 100,000 marks from the assets of the recently dispossessed Jews of the region.

TAGS: Anschluss, antisemitism, Aryanization, Burgenland Jews, displacement, dispossession, economic persecution, Eisenstadt, emigration, expulsion, imprisonment, Jewish property, Journalism, JTA, media coverage, Nazi policies, public sphere, refugees, segregation, September 12

SOURCE

Institution:

Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Collection:

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

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

8

THURSDAY

8

A full-time job

The laborious preparations for emigration

Basel

In her short life, Hilde Lachmann-Mosse already had a few relocations behind her. The 26-year-old grew up in Berlin. Other stops were Woodbrooke in Great Britain (school), Freiburg (studies in medicine) and Basel (medical doctorate). Now she was facing another move: to the United States. She had already had the certificate of employment regarding her time as an assistant gynecologist at the university hospital in Basel translated into English, although that was only one step of many. Even if the actual certificate is only a few lines long, the three stamps of authentication from various institutions is evidence of how many appointments with authorities must have been necessary for Hilde Lachmann-Mosse finally to hold this document in her hands.

TAGS: Basel, Berlin, displacement, doctoral certificate, document, emigration, immigration, immigration procedures, prominent people, refugees, September 8

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Mosse Family Collection, AR 25184

Original:

Box 3, folder 35

Source available in English

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