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Homeland

Paul Galfi's “Heimatschein”

“CERTIFICATE OF LOCAL CITIZENSHIP whereby it is confirmed that Paul Galfi Character or Occupation Middle School Student Age b. Sept. 25, 1921 in Vienna. Jewish Religious Community Family Status single possesses local citizenship in Vienna.”

VIENNA

Since the middle of the nineteenth century, Austrian citizens, regardless of ethnicity or religion, were required to keep a Heimatschein, a document testifying to their belonging to a certain locality. In practice, this was of relevance mainly if the holder fell upon hard times: according to the law, it was the home community listed in the Heimatschein that had to support the person in case of poverty or joblessness. The document shown here was issued on July 25, 1938, well over four months since the Nazi takeover, showing that for the time being, at least in this context, the policy had not changed vis-à-vis the country’s Jews.

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Trude Galfy Family Collection, AR 11664

Original:

Box 1, folder 1

Chronology of major events in 1938

Jewish physicians barred from practicing medicine

The later law of September 30th, 1938, was to order all Jewish doctors to display on their office signs a yellow star-of-david with a blue background. They could now only treat Jewish patients. Jewish Museum Berlin.

The fourth executive order issued under the Law on Reich Citizenship (part of the Nuremburg laws of 1935) severely curtails the ability of Jewish physicians to provide care. The new order states that, beginning September 30, 1938, Jewish doctors may only provide care for Jewish patients, and only in the role of nurse. As a result, 3000 physicians lose the right to practice medicine.

 

View chronology of major events in 1938

In Memoriam

Ludwig Schönmann's golden years take a dark final turn

“Memorial Album dedicated to the memory of my dear father, Ludwig Schönmann”

Vienna

Ludwig Schönmann, born in Neu-Isenburg in Germany in 1865, had come to Austria early in life and was thus spared the first five years of the Hitler regime. But from the day the German army entered Austria to annex the neighboring country in March 1938, the 73-year-old witnessed all the same persecution that had befallen Jews in Germany – only at an accelerated pace. Jewish businesses were ransacked and their owners expropriated. Jews were publicly humiliated and expelled from the Burgenland region, where they had first settled in the 13th century. Jewish students and teachers were pushed out of the universities, and the infamous Nuremberg Laws were extended to Austria, leading to the removal of Jews from public service. The first page of a memorial album in honor of Ludwig Schönmann lists July 24 as the day of his death.

SOURCE

Institution:

Jüdisches Museum Wien

Collection:

Memorial Album for Ludwig Schönmann

Original:

Archiv. Inv. No. 1094

An inappropriate insinuation

An American warns his Viennese cousin against coming to America to loaf

“I do not want you to be misled and to feel regret afterwards, so I am informing you in advance that you've got to work ambitiously to get ahead. If you have any illusions of leaving Germany to escape work and live a life of ease, you will be making a grave mistake.”

New York/Vienna

In May 1938, Betty Blum had contacted her nephew Stanley Frankfurt in New York. Her son Bruno had lost his position in Vienna, and it was unlikely that he would find other employment. She did not elaborate on the situation of Austria’s Jews in general since the country’s annexation by Nazi Germany but wondered whether Stanley could do something for Bruno. When Bruno received Stanley’s July 16 letter, he must have been both relieved and taken aback. While assuring him that he had been active on his behalf doing the paperwork necessary to prepare for his immigration to the US, his cousin in New York also saw fit to point out to him that if his intention was coming to America for the purpose of “living a life of ease,” he was on the wrong track. Was Stanley really so uninformed about the plight of Austrian Jewry under the new authorities? It can be assumed that his sincere efforts on his Austrian cousin’s behalf made up for the bafflement that must have been caused by his inappropriate insinuation.

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Blum Family Collection, AR 25132

Original:

Box 1, folder 5

Source available in English

Evicted from Red Vienna

Expelled from public housing, rejected by Swiss immigration

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

Bern/Vienna

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

SOURCE

Institution:

Jüdisches Museum Wien

Original:

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

Namesakes

Linked only by their common last-name, Kurt and Helen take a leap of faith

“Before I go much further, please let me impress this fact - that my entire family are eagerly awaiting the day that you will arrive in New York [...].”

NEW YORK/VIENNA

When 28-year-old Kurt Kleinmann of Vienna wrote to the Kleinmans in America, he could not have hoped for a kinder, more exuberant response than what he received from 25-year-old Helen. After finding the address of a Kleinman family in the US, Kurt had asked the total strangers in a letter dated May 25 to help him leave Austria by providing him with an affidavit. He had finished law school in Vienna and was now running his father’s wine business. Helen readily adopts the theory that the Kleinmanns and the Kleinmans might actually be related to one another, promising her “cousin” to procure an affidavit for him within the week. Affably and vivaciously, she assures him that the Kleinmans will correspond with him to make the time until departure feel shorter.

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Kurt and Helen Kleinman Collection, AR 10738

Original:

Box 1, folder 2

Source available in English

Papers in order

Even 10-year-old Hans must certify his taxes are paid

“I do not have any reservations regarding the emigration of Hans Weichert (10 years old) [...].”

Vienna

Jews wishing to escape the chicanery and physical danger under the Nazis by emigrating had to procure a large number of documents to satisfy both the Nazi authorities and the authorities in the country of destination. In order to obtain permission to leave Germany, applicants had to prove that they did not owe any tax money to the Reich. In addition to the taxes levied on all citizens, prospective emigrants had to pay the co-called “Reich Flight Tax.” Originally introduced during the Great Depression of the late 1920s and early 1930s, the original purpose of the tax was to prevent capital flight from further depleting the national coffers. Under the Nazis, its main purpose was to harass and expropriate Jews. The tax authorities under the Nazi regime certainly did a thorough job. When the Weichert family of Vienna, consisting of the lawyer Joachim Weichert, his wife Käthe, and the couple’s two children, Hans and Lilian, prepared to leave, a tax clearance certificate was issued even to the ten-year-old son. The document was valid for one month. Having all required documents ready and still valid by the time their quota number came up was an additional challenge faced by those wishing to emigrate.

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Weichert Family Collection, AR 25558

Original:

Box 1, folder 2

Loew Blow

Jewish doctors lose their jobs when a venerable hospital closes

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

Vienna

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

SOURCE

Institution:

Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Collection:

“Doctors Lose Post when Gestapo Closes Hospital”

Source available in English

Clutching at straws

Will a fleeting encounter with a stranger help Erika get an affidavit?

“It is very difficult to write to you because I am quite sure you have no idea who I am.”

Vienna

Erika Langstein was a young English teacher living in Vienna. In June 1938, having experienced the persecution of Jews in the Austrian capital for several months already, Erika sent a letter to Donald Biever, an American citizen, imploring him to help her and her Jewish father flee Austria by issuing an affidavit for them. Nothing would be unusual about this, except for the fact that the young woman had met Biever just once, briefly, on a train ride a year earlier, and had not communicated with him since. Despite the tenuous nature of their relationship, Erika describes to Biever the hopeless of the situation in Vienna. She also attaches a photo, in case Biever does not remember their encounter.

An absurd privilege

Emil Toffler may keep his job to familiarize the Aryans with the firm

Vienna

The family of Therese Wiedmann (née Toffler) in Vienna was secular and very well integrated. While the Tofflers were keenly aware of the situation in Germany, no one among Therese’s relatives foresaw that so many Austrians would be so quick to welcome Hitler and abandon Austrian independence. After the “Anschluss” in March 1938 she immediately lost her job with Tiller AG. Her grandfather, until recently the president of the company, was no longer permitted to enter his office. Her father, Emil, the executive manager, was kept around for the time being, in order to familiarize the new, “Aryan” management with the company’s operations. Luckily, he had transferred part of his assets to England before the “Anschluss.” In better days, the company was deemed sufficiently Austrian to be appointed a purveyor to the royal-imperial court, for which it produced army uniforms. This passport, issued to Therese Wiedmann on June 11, 1938, contains a visa that includes “all countries of the earth” and “return to the German Reich.”

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Therese Wiedmann Collection, AR 10863

Source available in English

Unbearable despair

Jewish Telegraphic Agency publishes list of recent suicides

“4 Deaths Announced Among Arrested Jews in Vienna; Family of 4 Committs suicide”

Vienna

The Anschluss, Austria’s annexation by Nazi Germany in March 1938, precipitated a wave of anti-Jewish violence. Emboldened by their new status and by the utter defenselessness of the Jewish population, Nazis and their sympathizers entered Jewish homes and seized whatever property they liked. Jewish-run businesses were ransacked or destroyed, and Jews of all ages were forced to carry out the demeaning task of scrubbing streets to remove political slogans under the eyes of jeering onlookers. With no protection to be expected from police, a feeling of utter abandonment and hopelessness drove many Jews to take their own lives. In the first two months after the Anschluss, 218 Jews escaped the state-sanctioned cruelty by taking their own lives. The JTA’s June 7 dispatch lists the most recent suicides—including that of a family of four—and deaths at the Dachau concentration camp.

Lifesaver

Frank Fenner from Michigan gives affidavit for nephew in Vienna

“...That I am willing and able to receive, maintain and support all those herein mentioned, and do hereby guarantee to save harmless the United States or any State, city or village or township thereof against any aliens herein mentioned becoming a public charge.”

Mendon, Michigan

Close to 50 years before issuing an affidavit of support for his nephew, Karl Grosser, in Vienna, Frank W. Fenner had himself immigrated to the United States from Europe. A restaurant and confectionery owner in Mendon, Michigan, he pledged to support his young relative until the 26-year-old became financially independent. Finding a sponsor was a key prerequisite for obtaining an immigration visa that was often hard to fulfill. The visa process began by registering with the nearest US consulate, at which point a number on the waiting list was assigned. The length of the list depended on the number of Jews from a given country allowed to enter the US according to the quota system that had been in place since 1924. Despite the severe refugee crisis, quotas were not raised in 1938. During the waiting period, applicants had to procure all the required documents as well as certified copies. Prospective immigrants were lucky if their documents were still valid when their numbers came up.

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Carl A. Grosser Collection, AR 10559

Original:

Box 1, folder 1

Left in the dark

No information for the families of thousands of incarcerated Jews

“Whether all or a few of the several thousand arrested have been sent to Dachau or to Styria or whether they will soon be released is a matter of frightening uncertainty. The events of the past few days will never be erased from the minds of thousands of women here.”

VIENNA

Nobody saw fit to inform the worried wives of thousands of Jewish men arrested by the Nazis about their spouses’ whereabouts and the expected period of imprisonment. Many of them decided to go to the Rossauer Lände detention facility and the central police station in order to get information on the whereabouts of their loved ones. According to this June 3 report from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, the detainees had been taken away in overcrowded railroad cars, many of them forced to remain in uncomfortable positions for up to five hours before departure. While there were intimations that those sent to the Dachau concentration camp in Germany would be exploited as construction workers in order to enlarge the camp and subsequently be released, many had no idea where their husbands were. The author of the report sees the “extraordinary callousness with which police have withheld information” as “one of the most terrifying aspects of the situation.”

SOURCE

Institution:

Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Collection:

“Nazis to Use Jewish Prisoners to Enlarge Dachau”

Source available in English

Soldier, pacifist, cabaret artist

Fritz Grünbaum interned at Dachau

“I see nothing, absolutely nothing. I must have accidentally gotten myself into National Socialist culture.”

DACHAU

After three decades of making his fellow Austrians laugh, cabaret artist Fritz Grünbaum’s career was brought to an abrupt end by the Anschluss. His politics alone would have sufficed to make him intolerable for the new regime: Grünbaum had returned from action in World War I not only a decorated soldier but also an avowed pacifist. As for Nazism, he did not mince words. Since 1933, he had been getting more political, and when during a 1938 performance a power outage caused the stage lights to go out, he commented glibly, “I see nothing, absolutely nothing. I must have accidentally gotten myself into National Socialist culture.” His last performance at the famous cabaret “Simpl” in Vienna just two days before the Anschluss was followed by an artistic ban on Jews. Grünbaum and his wife Lilly, a niece of Theodor Herzl, tried to flee to Czechoslovakia but were turned back at the border. On May 24, he was interned at the Dachau concentration camp. Grünbaum was also known as a serious art collector, mostly of modernist Austrian works, and a librettist.

SOURCE

Institution:

Jüdisches Museum Wien

Original:

Fritz Grünbaum at roll call in Dachau; Inv. No. 24631

Pitiless

Göring calls for a strict anti-Jewish boycott

“(...) a ‘pitiless anti-Jewish boycott’ until the last Jew is forced to emigrate from Austria.”

Vienna

In today’s release, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reports that the Deutsches Volksblatt in Vienna urges a “pitiless anti-Jewish boycott.” This, the paper argues, is the line demanded by Hermann Göring in his last speech in Vienna. Highly decorated in WWI as a fighter pilot, Göring had become a member of the NSDAP early on and was a member of its inner circle. He had established the Gestapo in 1933, was commander-in-chief of the German airforce (Luftwaffe) and as Plenipotentiary of the Four-Year Plan, he also wielded power over the German economy. Other than that, he is known for his pivotal role in bringing about the Anschluss and his passion for collecting art, which he often acquired in dubious ways.

SOURCE

Institution:

Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Collection:

“‘Pitiless Boycott’ of Jews Urged by Vienna Paper”

Source available in English

Opening night

A swashbuckler dazzles with help from an Austrian Jew

HOLLYWOOD

On May 14, 1938, American moviegoers lined up to see Errol Flynn in his latest swashbuckling adventure produced by Warner Brothers. Flynn’s turn as Robin Hood was especially thrilling thanks to the lush film score by an Austrian Jew whose music was no longer welcome at home. Although a citizen and resident of Austria, composer and conductor Erich Wolfgang Korngold felt the effects of Nazi cultural policy soon after 1933, since he had often worked in Germany. In this climate, he did not have to think twice about Max Reinhardt’s invitation in 1934 to compose the score for his Hollywood production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Korngold’s symphonic film scores broke new ground and established the typical “Hollywood sound.” In 1937, while on an extensive visit to Vienna to complete the orchestration of his opera “Die Kathrin,” he received an invitation from Warner Brothers to compose the score for “The Adventures of Robin Hood.” This assignment spared him the turmoil of the Anschluss. He returned to the US well before March 12, 1938. This photograph shows what appears to be a recording session for the Robin Hood score. The actor in the photograph is Basil Rathbone, who played Robin Hood’s nemesis, Sir Guy of Gisbourne. Korngold won an Academy Award for his compelling score—his second after “Anthony Adverse” (1937).

Brothers

Unlike his famous sibling, Albert Göring was an ally to the Jews

“Since in the meantime a significant calming has occurred, I do not believe that there will be any danger for you or for your brothers. If, however, should this situation occur again, you can count on me at any time.”

VIENNA

Unlike his older brother Hermann, the holder of several senior positions in the NS government and a notoriously brutal hater of Jews and dissidents, the engineer Albert Göring abhorred Nazism and was prepared to act on his convictions. He refused to join the party and demonstratively adopted Austrian citizenship. A resident of Vienna, he is said to have joined Jews, who after the Anschluss were forced to perform the humiliating task of scrubbing the pavement, and he did not hesitate to help victims and political opponents of the regime. In this letter to the Jewish lawyer, Dr. Hugo Wolf, he communicates his impression that “a significant calming” had taken place and his assumption that the danger was past. He also promises help in case of need.

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Max and Margareta Wolf Collection, AR 10699

Original:

Box 1, folder 2

A mother fights for her son

The Blums pin their hopes on America after job loss in Germany

“Bruno, my eldest son, has for many years contributed to our livelihood. Now, having lost his position and without any hope to get another one here, he intends to leave this country. But unfortunately, almost all countries close themselves against immigrants. Therefore I don’t see an other possibility as to try to get a permit to enter the U.S.A.”

Vienna/New York

Immediately after the Nazi takeover of Austria, Jewish shops and businesses had been put in the hands of “Aryan” provisional managers. In the course of this “Aryanization”—really the expropriation and theft of Jewish property—30-year-old Bruno Blum, a resident of Vienna, lost his job at the “Wiener Margarin-Compagnie” after little more than four years. Understanding that her eldest son’s chances to find a new job under Nazi rule were scant, Betty Blum approached her cousin Moses Mandl in New York for help with an affidavit. When she did not hear back from him, she wrote this letter to her nephew, Stanley Frankfurter, asking him to coax Moses Mandl into helping or turn to the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) for assistance.

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Blum Family Collection, AR 25132

Original:

Box 1, folder 5

Source available in English

“Finis Austriae”

Sigmund Freud celebrates his last birthday in Vienna

VIENNA

While Sigmund Freud, the “father of psychoanalysis,” clearly did not underestimate the significance of the Anschluss—“Finis Austriae” was the succinct commentary he jotted down in his diary—even the search of his home and publishing house by the Nazis did not prompt him to explore emigration. As a matter of fact, he reportedly commented on the unsolicited visit of the Nazis, who had made off with a substantial amount of money, with the dry remark, “I have never taken so much for a single visit.” But when his daughter Anna, herself a renowned psychoanalyst, was interrogated by the Gestapo shortly thereafter, the usually restrained Freud’s reaction was highly emotional, and he began weighing the various offers of asylum he had received. May 6, 1938 was his last birthday in Vienna.

Right of residence

A pre-nazi law assures safety on paper

Vienna

Austrian municipalities were required by law to issue documents known as a Heimatschein to their inhabitants confirming their right of residence. These papers guaranteed their holders the right to live in a given area and were necessary to access social welfare support in case of need. In May 1938, the 1849 law establishing this system was still in force—at least on paper. The Heimatschein of Carl Grosser, a young Jewish businessman, was renewed on May 2, 1938. Grosser had graduated from the prestigious Wasagymnasium, with its strikingly high percentage of Jewish students (up to 70%), in his native Vienna in 1932. Afterward, he joined his father’s necktie business, spent time in Germany and England to expand his professional horizons, and traveled extensively throughout Europe.

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Carl Grosser Collection, AR 10559

Original:

Box 1, folder 12

The best revenge

Paul Steiner dreams of Jewish self-determination in his diary

“The ‘civilized‘ world does evince indignation about the barbarity of the Germans, who truly do not deal with us very gently. But what do they do for hundreds of Burgenland Jews, who, for example, are making a tugboat in the middle of the Danube their shelter, or a patch of land between Germany and Yugoslavia?”

Vienna

A month and a half after the “Anschluss,” Paul Steiner is still incredulous. Everything seems so unbelievable, he writes in his diary, that “even ones own words are becoming astonishing and dubious.” He wonders what the outside world is doing for the Jews in light of German barbarity, especially for the Burgenland Jews, who were brutally expelled right after the “Anschluss” and ended up stranded in totally inadequate shelters while their belongings were appropriated by their former neighbors. Steiner also imagines the “revenge” that Jews will exact, shaming the world with their achievements once they are given the right to self-determination.

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Original:

Paul Steiner Collection, AR 25208; Box 1, folder 7

Liesl

Political opponents in jail

“I continue to do all that is necessary in your matter. The gentlemen are most accommodating, but due to being overburdened, they cannot handle everything so quickly.”

VIENNA

During the years of the authoritarian regime installed in Austria in 1934 (“Austrofascism”), the police prison at Rossauer Lände in Vienna (nicknamed “Liesl” by the locals) had already been used as a lockup not only for criminals but also for political dissidents. After the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany on March 12, 1938 (“Anschluss”), the first 150 Austrians were taken to the Dachau concentration camp from this notorious prison. Some, like Edmund Wachs, were held there in “protective custody,” a convenient tool used by the nazis to rid themselves of Jews and political opponents, since it could be imposed arbitrarily and left the prisoners little or no recourse to legal support. In this postcard, Edmund’s brother, the attorney Dr. Karl Wachs, reassures Edmund that he is doing everything he can to press his case and asks him for patience.

Race, not religion

Fired for his "race", a baptized physician receives an offer of aid from Canada

“If you come, we will do our best by you and try to help you. You may assure the Canadian High Commissioner that we will be responsible for you, so that you will not become a charge on the country.”

Vienna/Winnipeg

In gloomy times like these, a letter promising a work opportunity in Canada constituted a much needed ray of hope. Although in possession of what Heinrich Heine famously referred to as “the admission ticket to European culture”—a certificate of baptism—Anton Felix Perl was dismissed on “racial” grounds from his position as a resident at the General Hospital in Vienna in 1938. Luckily for Dr. Perl, he had the support of a prominent advocate, the Archbishop of Winnipeg, who gave him valuable advice regarding emigration to Canada as well as promising practical help in this letter dated April 25, 1938.

The Prater amusement park

Site of humiliation and torture

Vienna

This advertising brochure shows the Prater, a large public garden and popular amusement park in Vienna’s central 2nd district, in the 1930s. Here, on Saturday, April 23, hundreds of Viennese Jews were rounded up and subjected to beatings and maltreatment in front of jeering onlookers. Some were forced to eat grass. Jews of both sexes, regardless of age and health, were made to run in circles until they collapsed. Many of those thus humiliated suffered heart attacks, some died.

Safe for now

WWI combat veterans still protected

Vienna

Residents of Linz, Adolph Markus, his wife, and their two children were among the relatively few of Austria’s roughly 200,000 Jews not living in Vienna. On April 20, 1938 Markus went to visit his family in the capital in order to discuss the difficult situation and explore options for emigration. While his brother Rudi was prepared to lose his job any day, he opined that Adolph, as WWI combat veteran, had nothing to worry about. Indeed, combat veterans were exempt from certain anti-Jewish measures, as were Jews who had lost their father or a son in combat for Germany or its allies.

A letter from home

Maria Wolf writes to her husband, Arthur, away on business in Czechoslovakia

Vienna/Tannwald

For Arthur Wolf, a fervent Austrian patriot and veteran of WWI, the Nazi takeover of Austria in March meant the collapse of his world, the loss of his homeland and equal rights. Wolf was the manager of a textile factory in Tannwald (then Czechoslovakia). His Russian-born wife, Maria, had stayed behind in Austria with the couple’s son, Erich (b. 1923). Given recent events, the tone of Maria’s April 19 letter to Arthur is remarkably playful. She marvels about 15 year-old Erich’s poetry, speaks warmly about their mother-son relationship and expresses longing for Arthur, avoiding any obvious references to current events.

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Arthur Wolf Papers, AR 25270

Original:

Box 2, folder 5

54 years

Printmaker Michel Fingesten celebrates his birthday in exile

Trieste

After studies at the Academy of Art in Vienna, the printmaker Michel Fingesten had traveled extensively and ultimately settled in Germany. Neither the Austrian national’s Jewish descent nor his penchant for the erotic endeared him to the Nazis. The increasingly unbearable racial politics of the regime made him decide to stay in Italy after a family visit to Trieste in 1935. Fingesten is known mainly as an illustrator and as a prolific, imaginative designer of book plates. April 18, 1938 was his 54th birthday.

Watch what you say

A friend advises caution in correspondence

“According to all experience, it is more than justified if your wife is extremely cautious in correspondence and asks you to be cautious, too. The mere suspicion of spreading ‘atrocity propaganda’ is enough to get one into serious difficulties.”

London

A WWI veteran, Alfred Schütz had studied law, sociology, and philosophy at the University of Vienna. Since the late 1920s, he had worked for the international banking house Reitler & Co. During the German invasion of Austria, he happened to be on a business trip to France. He opted to stay abroad, leaving behind his wife and child. A friend who had visited Vienna from London writes about his conversation with Schütz’s wife, Ilse. In his letter, he dissuades Alfred from returning to Austria due to the new regime’s attitude of suspicion towards the international banking industry. In light of the impending danger, a temporary separation from his family seemed like a better option to Schütz than coming back to Vienna.

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Alfred Schutz Collection, AR 25500

Original:

Box 1, folder 18

Persecution in Austria, release from Dachau

Nazis in Austria pass a series of laws and directives

Vienna

Little more than a month after the Nazi takeover of Austria, a cascade of new regulations and actions taken by the new regime leaves little room for optimism. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reports for April 14 from Vienna that Jews within 50 kilometers of the Czechoslovak border are to be expelled. Nazi commissars will be put in charge of Austrian businesses at the latter’s expense. According to the JTA, in the case of hundreds of Jewish-owned businesses, this provision has already been enforced. Finally, a law has been introduced establishing new procedures for determining the racial status of illegitimate children. The one positive item in this substantial dispatch is the prospect that all Jews currently interned at the Dachau concentration camp will not only be released but will also receive permits to enter Palestine.

Forgone conclusion

Austrians (except for Jews) ratify the Anschluss

“A person who exercizes the right to vote even though he is barred from the right to vote, or is aware of descending from three fully Jewish grandparents, or as a person of mixed blood (at least two Jewish grandparents) married to a Jewish person, must immediately return this voter ID to the city hall and abstain from voting. Otherwise, he will be subject to severe punishment.”

Vienna

The entry of German troops into Austria on March 12 had preempted Chancellor Schuschnigg’s planned plebiscite on unification with Germany on March 13. The Nazis rescheduled the referendum for April 10 in conjunction with the first all-German Reichstag elections. Catholic bishops, under the leadership of Archbishop Theodor Innitzer, had issued a “solemn declaration” in which they called upon Catholic voters to cast their ballots in favor of the “Anschluss.” According to official figures, close to 100% of voters affirmed what was already an established fact. The document presented here is a voter ID to be used only by the addressee named on the front page. It explicitly excludes Jews from participating.

SOURCE

Institution:

Jüdisches Museum Wien

Collection:

Voter ID for referendum on April 10, 1938 (no. 225)

Original:

Inv. No. 26028/9

Change of heart

Once friendly to the Jews, a Catholic priest decries “uninvited guests.”

“Nobody called the Jews to the countries of Europe. They came as uninvited guests and pushed themselves so strongly to the forefront of all public professions, not always by excellent performances, that the least one can say is there came to exist a gross disproportion.”

VIENNA

In Austria’s new reality, opinions could change very quickly. In a news item from April 8, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reports that Catholic clergyman, Pastor Breckle of Trinity Church in Vienna, wrote an article in “Catholic Action,” that referred to the Jews as “uninvited guests” in Europe. Breckle accused the Jews of “pushing themselves to the forefront” and praised Hitler’s approach as “free and humane.” Breckle had until recently been considered friendly toward the Jewish community.

One man can only do so much

An Austrian in Buffalo overwhelmed by calls for aid

“Yesterday, within a single day, I received a whopping 11 requests for immigration affidavits, among them requests from mutual friends.”

Buffalo, New York/Vienna

Thanks to a Rockefeller fellowship awarded to him in 1933, the distinguished Viennese economist Fritz Machlup had left Austria years before the “Anschluss.” In 1935, he was appointed Professor of Economics at the University of Buffalo. As was to be expected, after the Nazis established their hold in Austria, friends and colleagues pinned their hopes on him as a guarantor. In this April 5 missive to his friend Alfred Schütz, he expresses concern that his letters of support might lose credibility because he had written so many, but nevertheless includes a note in English offering to assist Schütz in establishing himself in the US.

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Alfred Schutz Collection, AR 25500

Original:

Box 1, folder 17

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