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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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7

THURSDAY

7

Cutting Ties

A Berlin native leaves the Jewish community

Berlin

Was Hans Petzold, a 36 year-old native of Berlin, hoping to save himself by ending his affiliation with Judaism? Under a regime obsessed with racial purity, such measures made little difference. According to the “resignation card file” of the Berlin Jewish Community, Petzold filed to leave the Jewish religion (Judentum) on April 7, 1938. Curiously, an additional note indicates that he left the Jewish community the following month, on May 30. These files now held by the Centrum Judaicum Foundation at the Neue Synagogue in Berlin record the departures some 20,000 Berlin Jews from the faith or the community for many reasons going back to the 19th century. Some converted, some joined the orthodox secession community Adass Jisroel, and others simply moved away. After 1933, some may have hoped to escape persecution by the Nazi authorities.

TAGS: antisemitism, April 7, Berlin, document, Jewish Community, persecution, religion, Synagogues

SOURCE

Institution:

New Synagogue Berlin – Centrum Judaicum

Collection:

Card indicating resignation from membership in the Jewish Community of Berlin for Hans Petzold

Original:

CJA, 2 A 1

27

SUNDAY

27

Parental Pride

Family life in the shadow of the Nazi regime

“Helen is growing fast, looks healthy and lively and is a pretty girl. She is mentally agile and is already beginning to count, write and read.”

Hamburg

Wilhelm Hesse was the son of an orthodox business man. He resided in Hamburg with his wife Ruth and his two little daughters, Helen and Eva, whose early years he recorded in diaries that he kept for the children. The entries are interspersed with references to Jewish holidays and photographs of the children. In this entry, he documents proudly and in detail the progress of his daughter Helen, who is not yet five years old at this time. A lawyer with a doctorate, Hesse had been laid off already in April 1933.

TAGS: children, diary, family, Hamburg, Jewish holidays, March 27, persecution of Jewish professionals, religion

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Helen and Eva Hesse Family Collection, AR 25327

Original:

Box 1, folder 3

10

THURSDAY

10

Preparing for Motherhood

Congregations add gender-specific gifts for girls

“The bestowal is made under the same conditions as that of the bar mitzvah gifts for the boys: upon request, congregations comprising fewer than 1000 souls receive the book free of charge.”

Berlin

In response to numerous requests, the Prussian State Association of Jewish Congregations, a voluntary association founded in 1921, decided to provide gifts to girls in parallel with the religious books given to boys upon becoming B’nai Mitzvah. While the books given to boys were aimed at deepening Jewish knowledge, the book offered to girls, Jewish Mothers by Egon Jacobsohn and Leo Hirsch, offered biographical sketches of the mothers of Jewish luminaries including Theodor Herzl, Walter Rathenau, and Heinrich Heine. As early as the the 19th century, reform-oriented synagogues in Germany began offering a collective “confirmation” for boys and girls. In some places, an individual ceremony for girls was customary, but there was no such thing as the modern bat mitzvah ceremony in 1938.

TAGS: Bar Mitzvah, Berlin, children, Jewish Community, letter, March 10, religion, Synagogues

SOURCE

Institution:

New Synagogue Berlin – Centrum Judaicum

Collection:

Memorandum of the Prussian State Association of Jewish Congregations to member congregations regarding gifts of books for girls on the occasion of their confirmation and graduation from school as well as bar mitzvah gifts for boys

Original:

CJA, 2 A 2, No. 2749

4

FRIDAY

4

Parochet, dark-blue

The last days of the Jewish Institute for the Blind in Vienna

Vienna

This dark blue parochet (curtain for covering the Torah Ark in a synagogue) is part of the collection of the Israelitisches Blindeninstitut (Jewish Institute for the Blind) in Vienna. The institution was established in 1871 with the purpose of educating blind Jewish students. Professions taught ranged from manual occupations to translating and interpreting. Due to its excellent reputation, the school attracted students not only from Austria, but also from most other European countries. March 4 was one of its last days of undisturbed activity.

TAGS: Anschluss, art, Disability, Jewish Community, March 4, religion, Synagogues, Vienna, welfare organizations

SOURCE

Institution:

Jüdisches Museum Wien

Collection:

Parochet

Original:

Inv. No. 2837

28

MONDAY

28

Confidence in chancellor Schuschnigg

Therapeutic Optimism

“We always had and continue to have full confidence in our Chancellor, in his open heart, fair-mindedness and sincerity. That confidence was strengthened after Thursday's declaration emphasizing that the government will stand by the Constitution of May, 1934.”

Vienna

At the end of February 1938, there still seemed to be at least a few rays of hope for Austrian Jewry. In a sermon at the Vienna Central Synagogue, Chief Rabbi Israel Taglicht expressed the confidence of Austrian Jewry in Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg. A few days earlier, the Chancellor had asserted that Austria would hold fast to the principles of the Constitution of May 1934, which granted Jews equality before the law and religious freedom. About the same time, the pro-Nazi mayor of Graz had been dismissed for raising a swastika flag over City Hall. To prevent Nazi demonstrations, the University of Graz and the Technical College had been temporarily closed.

TAGS: Anschluss, commentary, February 28, Graz, Jewish Community, Journalism, JTA, media coverage, politics, rabbis, religion, Synagogues, Vienna

SOURCE

Institution:

Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Collection:

“Austrian Jews Express Confidence in Schuschnigg; Nazi Mayor Ousted”

Source available in English

27

SUNDAY

27

Three Jewish Mother Tongues

A Tel-Aviv born actor brings “new Palestinian poetry” to New York

“His Hebrew program numbers are especially likely to draw major attention, since it can safely be assumed that no actor in New York has ever rendered the Bible and modern poetry in Hebrew in so sublime a fashion.”

New York

Few among the immigrant New York audience expected to attend a trilingual event of the Theodor Herzl Society had ever encountered native speakers of modern Hebrew: Hence, it is no wonder the Aufbau assumed that the Hebrew part would constitute the greatest attraction. The featured artist of the evening, actor Albert Klar (Sklarz), born and raised in Tel Aviv, had begun his career in Berlin under renowned directors such as Reinhardt and Piscator. He had made his way to New York thanks to an invitation from the great Yiddish actor and director, Morris Schwartz, who hired him for his Yiddish Art Theater. The venue was Ansche Chesed, a synagogue on the Upper West Side founded by German immigrants.

TAGS: artists, Berlin, cultural life, February 27, Jewish Community, Journalism, Language skills, New York, Palestine, press article, prominent people, religion, Synagogues, Tel Aviv

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

“Hebräisch-Jiddisch-Deutsch,” Aufbau, Vol. 5, no. 3, p. 4.

22

TUESDAY

22

Coffee and cake in “Frankfurt on Hudson”

A New Life in Washington Heights, NYC

While enjoying coffee, cake, card games and a pleasant entertainment program, those present will have the opportunity to talk about their concerns.

New York

Between the Nazis’ rise to power in 1933 and the year 1938, about 16.000 Jews had immigrated to the United States. Many German Jews had made their home in New York, especially in the neighborhood of Washington Heights in northern Manhattan, gaining it the nickname “Frankfurt on the Hudson.” The event schedule of the German-Jewish Club lists a “Family evening with Kaffee-Klatsch” which offers “artistic and musical interludes.” The event is geared towards the needs of the older members of the community, as “a substitute for lodge, singing club, social club and other associations,” promising participants an opportunity to discuss what they had on their minds. In addition to cultural activities in German, the massive influx of German-speaking Jews to Washington Heights led to the establishment of numerous new synagogues, beginning with “Tikvoh Chadoshoh”—“New Hope.”

TAGS: advertisement, cultural life, displacement, emigration, February 22, immigration, Jewish Community, New York, public sphere, refugees, religion, Synagogues

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

“Februar-Programm des Deutsch-Jüdischen Clubs”, Aufbau, no. 3, 4

Original:

Vol. 3, no. 4: 3

29

SATURDAY

29

Religion, culture and the struggle for human dignity

Synagogues adapt to the changing needs of Jewish life.

Berlin

This drawing shows the interior of the Prinzregentenstraße Synagogue in Berlin (Wilmersdorf). Built in 1930, the building was designed to fulfill the needs of a liberal congregation. As shown in the picture, the synagogue boasted a magnificent organ. Rabbi Leo Baeck gave the sermon at the opening ceremony. From 1933, when Jews began to be pushed out of Germany’s cultural life, the synagogue also became a Jewish cultural center.

TAGS: art, Berlin, cultural life, January 29, Jewish Community, prominent people, public sphere, rabbis, religion, segregation, Synagogues

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

"Synagogue Prinzregentenstrasse." Werner Stein Collection, AR 10775

Original:

2005.87

4

TUESDAY

4

Unexpected allies

Words of Solidarity for German Jews from the US National Methodist Students Conference

“The National Methodist Students Conference has adopted a resolution protesting strongly against persecution of Jews in Germany and elsewhere.” (Jewish Telegraphic Agency)

St. Louis, Missouri

While the Methodists constituted a minority in Germany, they were a major denomination in the English-speaking world. The Nazis began wooing Methodist leaders in Germany as early as 1933, hoping to use them to propagandize fellow Methodists in the United States. German Methodist leaders became willing tools of the Nazis; not only did Methodist bishops avoid criticizing the regime, they explicitly praised what they saw as its successes. Against this background, it is all the more remarkable that the US National Methodist Students Conference adopted a resolution in which it condemned the antisemitic policies of Nazi Germany.

TAGS: advocates, antisemitism, January 4, Journalism, JTA, media coverage, Nazi policies, religion, St. Louis MO

SOURCE

Institution:

Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Collection:

"Methodist Students Hit Persecution of Jews in Reich, Racial Bias in U.S"

Source available in English

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