22

Collection:

Original:

Box 1, folder 15

8

THURSDAY

Money: the make-or-break

Rescue depends on money

“You will, of course, realize that it is impossible for us to assist you financially. In fact, my previous letter to you will have shown how urgent our need is for further funds for local relief.”

Nairobi/Rongai

The reply of the secretary of the Kenya Jewish Refugee Committee, Israel Somen, to Paul Egon Cahn’s request for help was rather reserved: the young man urgently wished to bring his parents from Cologne to join him, but he didn’t have the £100 which were to be paid to the British Colonial Office in Mombasa for entry permits. The financial situation of the Committee was utterly strained, so that Somen could only advise the young man to submit an orderly application with the immigration board in Nairobi. In addition, he would have to furnish proof that he was able to pay for his parents’ upkeep and that he had paid the fee for the permits. Only then would it be conceivable that the authority would follow the request, provided the Refugee Committee would give him security. This, too, Somen emphasized, was contingent on Paul Egon Cahn’s ability to prove that his parents would not be a financial burden on the Committee or on the local authorities.

TAGS: bureaucracy, Cologne, December 8, emigration, family, family separation, immigration procedures, impoverishment, letter, Mombasa, Nairobi, Rongai, welfare organizations

SOURCE

Institution:

Paul Egon Cahn Collection, AR 25431

Collection:

Original:

Source available in English

1

Thursday

Last resort: emigration

The Joint Distribution Committee's report after the November Pogroms

[original, p. 1] “The plight of the Jews in the Reich is indescribable. Robbed of their means of livelihood, thrown out of their homes, not being able to buy in Aryan stores, terror-striken [original spelling] by the latest excesses, threatened with arrest and hard labor at concentration camps, there exists for them no other solution but to emigrate.”

Berlin

Sent to take stock after the November Pogroms in Germany, the American Joint Distribution Committee’s emissary to Germany, George Rooby, traveled to several cities to collect first-hand impressions. His findings were deeply disturbing: Berlin, Nuremberg, Fürth, Frankfurt-on-Main, no matter where he went, he saw synagogues burnt down, Jewish shops demolished and ransacked, Torah scrolls desecrated, and was met by terror-stricken Jews whose leadership had been forbidden to operate or taken to concentration camps. Non-Jews extending a helping hand exposed themselves to the danger of Nazi reprisals. The almost complete absence of small children and babies was explained to Rooby as a result of the fact that nativity among Jews had receded considerably since the Nazis’ accession to power. Leaders of Jewish communities had assured him that there was enough money to cover immediate welfare needs. Those organizations, however, whose goal was to advance emigration, were facing a serious lack of funds. Generally, hope prevailed that the Reich Representation of Jews in Germany would soon be allowed to operate again and play its part in accelerating emigration. Its success, of course, depended on the willingness of other countries to receive German Jews. Rooby’s conclusion was unambiguous: the only hope to escape the violence was emigration.

TAGS: antisemitism, Berlin, children, Concentration Camps, December 1, document, emigration, Frankfurt am Main, Fürth, impoverishment, imprisonment, Jewish Community, Jewish property, kristallnacht, November Pogrom, Nuremberg, religion, Synagogues, violence, welfare organizations

SOURCE

Institution:

George Rooby Collection, AR 6550

Collection:

Original:

Source available in English

29

TUESDAY

Their only hope

Africa as a refuge

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

Rongai/Nairobi

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

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

SOURCE

Institution:

Paul Egon Cahn Collection, AR 25431

Collection:

Original:

Source available in English

28

MONDAY

Help among friends

An old friend in need

“It’s practically impossible to get through to the US consulate here, since they give no information at all, and for that you don’t have to spend hours standing in a cold yard and waiting.”

BERLIN/BOSTON

Willy Nordwind, co-chair of the Boston Committee for Refugees, tirelessly endeavored to save Jews from the grip of the Nazis by helping them immigrate to the United States. Himself an immigrant from Germany and familiar with the requirements, he helped organize affidavits and saw to it that newcomers with fields of expertise as heterogeneous as “tobacco and clothing retail business,” “tourism,” “expert buyer and salesman of hosiery,” and “wholesale fish dealer” found employment in America. Most of the people he helped were total strangers to him, but some of his beneficiaries were personal acquaintances. On November 28th, 1938, his friend Seppel pleads with Nordwind to find a special arrangement for him that would speed things up. Requests for visas had risen sharply since the pogrom night of November 9th to 10th (later known as “Kristallnacht” or “Night of Broken Glass”), and the usual waiting period for the processing of affidavits was far too long.

TAGS: affidavits, Berlin, Boston, immigration, immigration procedures, kristallnacht, letter, November 28, November Pogrom, persecution, refugees, transnational networks, violence, visa application, welfare organizations

SOURCE

Institution:

Collection:

Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Original:

Box 1, folder 24

25

Friday

The limits of hospitality

Asylum for Jewish children

The children will be housed there until arrangements for placing them in private homes and for their education have been completed.

London

The news of the brutal acts of violence perpetrated against German and Austrian Jews during the November pogroms sent shockwaves through Jewish communities. On November 15, a group of Jewish leaders in Britain requested that their government grant temporary shelter to Jewish youngsters who were to be returned to their countries later on. On November 25, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported on the planned opening of a camp for 600 child refugees from Germany on the east coast of England. The British chapter of the World Movement for the Care of Children from Germany was to recruit families to offer foster homes for 5,000 children. The plan had government approval – provided the children were under 17 years of age and the costs of their support would not be a burden to the public.

TAGS: advocates, children, displacement, emigration, immigration, Jewish Community, Journalism, JTA, kindertransport, kristallnacht, London, media coverage, November 25, November Pogrom, refugees, violence, welfare organizations

SOURCE

Institution:

Original:

91.13

Source available in English

23

WEDNESDAY

Placing trust in strangers

Aid organization takes its responsibility seriously

A man who is good enough to fill out affidavits would certainly not take advantage of these people.

New York/Boston

Could Willy Nordwind of the Boston Committee for Refugees—an organization not dealing specifically with unaccompanied child immigrants—be entrusted with the well-being of a 16-year-old girl? The Relief Organization of Jews in Germany was not ready to take chances: rather than just sending Frieda Diamont on her way, the organization turned to the National Council of Jewish Women in New York to ascertain Mr. Norwind’s integrity. The Council’s Merle Henoch passed on the case to Jewish Family Welfare in Boston, Mass., where Nordwind, too, was based. For her there was no doubt: as generous a helper as Willy Norwind must be a trustworthy ally.

TAGS: advocates, Berlin, Boston, children, displacement, ethical dilemmas, family, immigration, Jewish Community, letter, New York, November 23, refugees, transnational networks, welfare organizations, Women

SOURCE

Institution:

Collection:

Original:

Box 1, folder 8

Source available in English

10

Thursday

Solidarity

Jewish and Christian organizations support refugees in Brazil

“Dear Bernhard and dear Anni, please do absolutely everything you can. Our only hope for survival is attached to you.”

Gemen/Porto Alegre

Even though the climate under the Vargas regime in Brazil was becoming increasingly anti-Jewish, refugees could count on the support of allies. Already in 1933, an aid organization for German-Jewish refugees had come into being in Sao Paulo. And in 1936 in Porto Alegre, where Bernhard and Anni Wolf had recently fled from East Frisia, refugees established a Jewish culture and welfare society. The overall attitude of the Church was ambiguous; nevertheless, a Catholic aid committee for refugees lent significant aid to the newcomers. After an unsuccessful attempt to arrange their immigration to Brazil at the consulate in Cologne, Bernhard’s brother Richard and his wife Jola pinned all their hope on their relatives in Brazil.

TAGS: advocates, antisemitism, Church, cultural life, displacement, emigration, family, Gemen, immigration, immigration procedures, letter, November 10, Porto Alegre, refugees, South America, welfare organizations

SOURCE

Institution:

Bernhard Wolff Family Collection, AR 5482

Collection:

Original:

Box 1, folder 9

5

SATURDAY

More mosquitoes than in Palestine

Texan hospitality helps refugees ease into new beginnings

“The second thing is the almost unbelievable hospitality which is extended to everyone in this country. And yet, no major fuss is being made. Rather, people let you live with them in their homes, as if you were part of the family. The police officer or the salesclerk - no matter who - they're all accommodating, because they can't do it any other way.”

Houston, Texas

With a documented presence reaching back as far as the 12th century and as the second largest community after Berlin, Jews in Frankfurt were a profoundly established part of society. But under the Nazis, Frankfurt Jews, like all of German Jewry, were made to feel like unwelcome strangers in their own city and country, and large numbers of them were leaving Germany. The November issue of the “Jüdische Gemeindeblatt für Frankfurt” shows the omnipresence of the topic of emigration. Numerous ads were offering services and equipment specifically for emigrants. The “Aid Association of Jews in Germany” offered the latest news regarding immigration requirements to various countries but also a warning not to fall into the trap of fraudsters charging would-be emigrants hefty fees for useless advice. However, one contribution sticks out; in a letter from Houston, Texas, a former resident of Frankfurt shares her first impressions. The heat was challenging, potatoes didn’t feature prevalently enough on the menu, mosquito nets (“more mosquitoes than in Palestine”) and plastic flowers required some getting used to, not to mention giant spiders and flying cockroaches. On the other hand, there were built-in cupboards and large beds, as well as, best of all, the “almost unbelievable hospitality” of the locals.

TAGS: antisemitism, displacement, emigration, Frankfurt am Main, Houston TX, immigration, Jewish Community, Journalism, media coverage, November 5, press article, refugees, transnational networks, United States of America, welfare organizations

SOURCE

Institution:

Goethe Universität Frankfurt am Main

Collection:

Gemeindeblatt der Israelitischen Gemeinde Frankfurt am Main

26

WEDNESDAY

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:

Collection:

Deutsches Historisches Museum

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

24

MONDAY

Discrimination of mixed couples

Dismissal after 25 years in service

BERLIN

Ernst Patzer, an employee of the criminal investigation department of the Berlin police and seriously disabled in World War I, had lost his job in March 1938. The reason was the Public Service Law of 1937 which barred those married to Jews from public service – and Patzer had been married to a German-Jewish woman for 25 years. This additional move of the Nazi regime to push Jews and their relatives out of all spheres of life hit the Patzers very hard: he was the sole wage earner and, after 25 years of service, lost not only his position but also any claim to his pension. This letter of October 24, 1938, shows how step by step, Ernst Patzer was excluded from civic participation. In vain he wrote, as a former frontline soldier, to Hitler and Göring, in order to obtain continued employment with a government agency. The marriage lasted, and he finally found work as an auditor with AEG (a producer of electrical equipment). The Patzers survived National Socialism.

TAGS: Berlin, economic persecution, family, impoverishment, letter, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, October 24, segregation, welfare organizations, WWI, WWI veterans

SOURCE

Institution:

Collection:

Inv.Nr. Do 89/102II

23

SUNDAY

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

21

FRIDAY

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:

Gertrude Knopf Family Collection, AR 11692

Collection:

Original:

Source available in English

17

MONDAY

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:

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

Collection:

16

SUNDAY

A man of many talents

Actor, director, designer: Friedel Dzubas' many roles

Groß-Breesen, Silesia

When Gotthold Ephraim Lessing’s tragedy “Emilia Galotti” was put on at the non-Zionist agricultural training camp run by the Reich Representation of Jews in Germany in Groß-Breesen (Silesia), the talented and energetic Friedel Dzubas, 23, was central to making it happen: not only did he direct the performance, design the costumes and design and create the stage decoration, he also played the role of Odoardo, the tragic heroine’s father. Lessing, the son of a Lutheran pastor and a central figure of the German enlightenment, had taken up the cause of the Jews early on in life and eternalized his close friend, the philosopher Moses Mendelssohn, in his play “Nathan the Wise.” His determined stance earned him a place of honor in the hearts and minds of German Jews as well as in their libraries.

TAGS: advocates, artists, cultural life, document, Groß-Breesen, October 16, prominent people, welfare organizations

SOURCE

Institution:

Dzubas Estate

Original:

Courtesy of Dzubas Estate

5

WEDNESDAY

A time for pause

Berlin

“Where circumstances permit, the teacher should also use gramophone records in this lesson. For the high holidays, there's a range of good recordings of synagogue music available.”

Berlin

In 1938, Yom Kippur fell on October 5th, a Wednesday. The educational department of the “Reich Representation of Jews in Germany” had published a booklet this year which contained numerous suggestions as to how the holiday could be observed in schools. It reads like a didactic handout which could have been written exactly the same way in earlier or in later years. There is no reference to the difficult circumstances in which Jews and, not the least, Jewish schoolchildren found themselves in Germany in 1938. In the previous five years, the Nazis had gradually implemented “racial segregation” in public schools. Already by 1936, the ratio of Jewish students in public schools was nearly half of what it had been before.

TAGS: Berlin, children, document, Jewish Community, Jewish holidays, October 5, public sphere, religion, schools, segregation, Synagogues, welfare organizations

SOURCE

Institution:

Eliezer L. Ehrmann, Arbeitsplan fuer Rosch Haschana und Jom Kippur, Berlin: Reichsvertretung der Juden in Deutschland, Schulabteilung, 1938

Collection:

Chronology of major events in 1938

Jews’ passports invalidated

The passport of a Jewish woman stamped with the obligatory "J" for Jew. Siegmund Feist Collection, Leo Baeck Institute

The Reich Ministry of the Interior invalidates all passports owned by Jews. From now on, only those marked with a prominent red letter “J” will be considered valid. The measure is another step in the Nazis’ campaign to permanently separate Jews from the rest of the population

View chronology of major events in 1938

3

SUNDAY

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

2

SATURDAY

Upheaval hits home and work

Search for a home and a job

“Now imagine, on top of all this misery the prospect of my going on a ‘long vacation’ while I need to be mom's provider. And then, yesterday, a ray of hope appeared, I got permission from the Landesverband in Berlin to conduct English classes in the provinces.”

BRESLAU/BERLIN

In August 1938, Irma Umlauf’s life had begun to unravel: she had been notified that the Jewish-owned company in Breslau for which she worked was going to be liquidated, leaving her jobless. And her landlord had terminated her lease. While there was no law in October 1938 stipulating that non-Jews could not have Jewish tenants, some landlords were eager to get rid of them. In Irma Umlauf’s case, the problem was that her Jewish co-tenants could no longer afford the place and had moved out. The non-Jewish landlord, according to Irma, was afraid to accept other Jewish tenants, and since Jews and non-Jews weren’t allowed to share living space, she had no choice but to leave. Among the other topics broached by Irma in this letter to her friend Hilde Liepelt in Berlin, is her job situation. Luckily, the Landesverband in Berlin gave her permission to do language lessons in the Jewish communities of Münsterberg and Fraustadt, both near Breslau, providing her both with means to live as well as allowing her to continue caring for her mother. A little extra income was generated by singing engagements.

TAGS: antisemitism, Berlin, Breslau, cultural life, economic persecution, emigration, family, Language skills, letter, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, October 2, welfare organizations

SOURCE

Institution:

New Synagogue Berlin – Centrum Judaicum

Original:

Letter from Irma Umlauf in Breslau, to her friend Hilde Liepelt in Berlin ; 7.379, Bl. 14

19

MONDAY

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:

Kurt Grossmann Collection, AR 25032

Collection:

Original:

Box 1, folder 8

26

FRIDAY

Recent arrivals

The Boston Committee for Refugees does what it can

"ISAAC BIRNBAUM, age 53, retail tobacco and clothing merchant. (speaks no English whatever)"

Boston

Of the American-Jewish self-help groups assisting Jews in leaving Europe and rebuilding their lives in the United States, the Boston Committee for Refugees was the first. Established in 1933, it consisted entirely of volunteers. Under the leadership of Walter H. Bieringer and Willy Nordwind, the Committee chiefly endeavored to obtain affidavits for would-be immigrants and see to it that they would find employment upon arrival in the U.S. Since the Great Depression, the State Department had orders to keep people “likely to become a public charge” out. It was of great importance to ensure the livelihood of the refugees. The annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany and the colossal failure of the Évian Conference on Refugees reinforced the urgency of helping the desperate asylum seekers. On August 26th, 1938, the Committee’s Acting Executive Secretary sent Bieringer a list of recent arrivals in need of placement.

TAGS: advocates, Anschluss, August 26, Boston, document, emigration, Evian conference, Great Depression, immigration, impoverishment, Jewish Community, letter, refugees, transnational networks, welfare organizations

SOURCE

Institution:

Collection:

Letters, Documents and Images of the Jellinek Family Confronting the Holocaust, created by Paulette Jellinek

Original:

Box 1, folder 38

Source available in English

21

SUNDAY

For an 18th birthday, current events

Hugo Jellinek congratulates his daughter and gives commentary on current events

"Bohemia is a tough nut on which this gang of criminals will break their teeth, or let's call it a Buchtel [sweet, filled yeast roll] on which these maniacal devils will choke. Despite the many local traitors, the government and the people are unified in their unflappable will to defend freedom and the achievements of democracy to the last drop of blood."

Brünn/Rishon LeZion

Hugo Jellinek was proud of his daughter Gisella, who had become a glowing Zionist during Hakhsharah and just months before had immigrated to Palestine as part of a group of daring youngsters. For her 18th birthday, not only did he send his first-born daughter congratulations, he also shared his thoughts about current events with her. From his new vantage point in Brünn/Brno (Czechoslovakia), where he had fled from Vienna after a warning, German maneuvers alongside the Czechoslovakian border were worrying him. But he was convinced that, unlike in the case of Austria, the Wehrmacht would face fierce opposition. He felt very bitter about the suspicion of and lack of solidarity with needy Jewish refugees among wealthier members of the Jewish community in Brno. Moreover, he was greatly worried by the eviction notices Austrian Jews were receiving, among them his relatives. Among all the worry and complaint was a silver lining, an acquaintance with a woman.

TAGS: Anschluss, August 21, Brünn, bureaucracy, children, commentary, displacement, document, emigration, family, family separation, hakhsharah, immigration, impoverishment, letter, Munich Agreement, Palestine, refugees, Rishon LeZion, transnational networks, visa application, welfare organizations, Zionism

SOURCE

Institution:

Collection:

Letter from Hugo Jellinek to Gisella Nadja Jellinek

18

THURSDAY

A questionnaire

Anti-Semitism in the Saxony town of Merseburg drives Bernhard Taitza to emigrate

"Means for establishing a life, provided that export will be authorized; means to cover travel costs: 'None. RM 8000, confiscated in Germany and which I am seeking to have released. Otherwise, my relatives in America will provide me with sufficient means of subsistence.'"

Prague

The negligible number of Jews (50 out of a total of 31,576 in 1933) in the town of Merseburg, in Saxony, did not dissuade local Nazis from terrorizing them. As early as 1934, Bernhard Taitza, a local merchant, reported on Jewish residents’ anguish at Nazis marching past their homes while singing anti-Semitic songs. The atmosphere became so unbearable that in 1938 he made his way out of Germany to Prague. Days later, on August 18th, he submitted this questionnaire to HICEM, founded in 1927 as a coalition of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, the Jewish Colonization Association and Emigdirect, another Jewish migration organization. With two children already residing in America, Taitza was fortunate enough to have an affidavit and didn’t have to worry too much as to whether he would regain possession of the money confiscated from him by the Nazis.

TAGS: affidavits, antisemitism, August 18, displacement, document, economic persecution, emigration, family, family separation, Hate speech, immigration procedures, Prague, refugees, transnational networks, violence, welfare organizations

SOURCE

Institution:

New Synagogue Berlin – Centrum Judaicum

Original:

Bernhard Taitza, former Merseburg, arrives at CSR ; CJA, 1 C Hi 1, No. 21, #12497, Image 1

26

TUESDAY

The League for Human Rights

“These Dogs of Hitler and Göring will never succeed”

“The Jewish sense of charity will not die, and these bastards Hitler and Göring will never get their wish to see the emigrants die in the gutter.”

Brünn/Rishon LeZion

Hugo Jellinek was a man of many talents. The outbreak of WWI forced him to quit medical school in Vienna. As a soldier, he was severely wounded in Samarkand and fell in love with his nurse, who later became the mother of his three daughters. The couple settled down in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. His young wife having died in 1926, he fled the Soviet Union in 1930 and ultimately returned to Vienna, where he utilized his knowledge of 8 languages as a translator and also worked as a freelance journalist. Thanks to a warning about impending arrest by the Nazis, he was able to escape to Brünn (Czechoslovakia) in June 1938. His eldest daughter, eighteen year-old Gisella Nadja, departed for Palestine the same day. In this colorful letter, Hugo shows fatherly concern for Nadja’s well-being, but also talks at length about the hardship he himself has faced as a refugee and reports that his cousin’s son is interned at the Dachau Concentration Camp. He mentions with gratification what he calls the “League,” probably referring to the aid center of the “League for Human Rights,” which was looking after the refugees, defying Hitler’s sinister goals. Ultimately, however, the most important thing for him was the fight for a country of one’s own.

TAGS: advocates, Brünn, children, commentary, Concentration Camps, Dachau, displacement, emigration, family, family separation, imprisonment, July 26, Language skills, letter, Palestine, refugees, Rishon LeZion, welfare organizations, WWI, WWI veterans, Youth Aliyah, Zionism

SOURCE

Institution:

Letters, Documents and Images of the Jellinek Family Confronting the Holocaust, created by Paulette Jellinek

Collection:

Letter from Hugo Jellinek to Gisella Nadja Jellinek

17

SUNDAY

Double jeopardy

Disabled and Jewish, Ursula Meseritz was a target of multiple Nazi policies

“The beautiful back of the head in animated conversation. Ach, the sun!”

Berlin

As a deaf-mute Jew, Ursula Meseritz was doubly inferior in the eyes of the Nazis. Since July 14, 1933, the Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring had been in effect, which legalized the forced sterilization of the deaf, the blind, the cognitively disabled, epileptics, and others. Ursula had attended the only Jewish institution for the deaf-mute in Germany, the “Israelitische Taubstummenanstalt” in Berlin Weißensee. Under the Nazi regime, the use of sign language was forbidden in public schools, and in 1936, Jewish students were excluded from institutions catering to the needs of the deaf-mute. According to a “Questionnaire for Emigrants,” which she had submitted in April 1938, Ursula had been trained as a lab worker for clinical diagnostics and was hoping to work in this field in the United States. The captions on these photographs (dated July 17, 1938) show that in spite of the difficult times, the 19-year-old had not lost her sense of humor. They appear to show Ursula and her sister with their parents celebrating one last time before Ursula departed for the US.

TAGS: Berlin, Disability, emigration, family, family separation, July 17, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, photo, schools, welfare organizations

SOURCE

Institution:

Ursula Meseritz Elgart Family Collection, AR 25544

Collection:

Original:

Box 1, folder 5

5

TUESDAY

Jewish emigration

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

Berlin

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

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

SOURCE

Institution:

Deutsches Historisches Museum

Original:

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

1

FRIDAY

Radio, gramophone, newspapers, novels

How to learn a foreign language

“For the beginner, the native instructor is advantageous only if he has sufficient knowledge of the student's mother tongue to recognize the difficulties he is facing and enough didactic schooling to overcome them by adequate means.”

NEW YORK

In his article “Ten Commandments for Assiduous Language Learners,” published in the July issue of the Aufbau, Dr. Eugene I. Stern recommends making use of the entire arsenal available to the modern student of American English: radio, gramophone, newspapers, and novels. The meticulousness with which he describes what he considers the most promising methodology for language acquisition meets every stereotype associated with German Jews. Dr. Stern does not promise any shortcuts, and his assessment of the language learner’s prospects is not the most optimistic. He opens by declaring mastery of a foreign language to be an unattainable goal. Nevertheless, younger German-Jewish immigrants in America tended to acquire proficiency in English within a few years, while their counterparts in pre-state Palestine were notoriously slow and reluctant to pick up Hebrew. German Jews in America were assisted in their endeavors by various institutions, such as the National Refugee Service, the Adult Education Council, the YMCA, the YWCA, which offered free English classes to the newcomers.

TAGS: immigration, Journalism, July 1, Language skills, New York, Palestine, press article, welfare organizations

SOURCE

Institution:

Zehn Gebote für Sprachbeflissene, Aufbau, Vol. 4, no. 9, p. 1.

Collection:

30

THURSDAY

A 5th birthday

Little Helen turns a year older

Hamburg

Wilhelm Hesse was a loving and profoundly involved father. Since the births of his daughters, Helen (1933) and Eva (1936), he had meticulously documented the girls’ development in diaries which he kept for them. In addition to little texts and poems he composed, he included numerous photographs as well as material referring to Jewish holidays. Occasionally, the frequently humorous, sometimes even childlike tone is interrupted by material documenting the political situation, such as a call by Rabbi Leo Baeck for Jewish unity and solidarity in the name of the Reich Representation of German Jews. But Helen and her sister Eva were lucky enough to be too young to grasp what was looming around them. June 30 was Helen’s 5th birthday.

TAGS: children, diary, Hamburg, Jewish Community, Jewish holidays, June 30, photo, politics, prominent people, rabbis, religion, welfare organizations

SOURCE

Institution:

Helen and Eva Hesse Family Collection, AR 25327

Collection:

Original:

Box 1, folder 3

19

SUNDAY

A letter from Shanghai

Report from a German Jewish refugee

“There is not a single Jew here who cannot feed himself.”

Shanghai/Berlin

At a time when more and more German Jews became anxious to leave the country, this letter from a German-Jewish emigrant in Shanghai, addressed to the “gentlemen of the Hilfsverein [Aid Society of Jews in Germany]” and published in the “Jüdisches Gemeindeblatt für Berlin,” must have infused prospective emigrants with new hope: the writer exuberantly thanks the Hilfsverein for counseling him and gushes over the multitude of professional options available to immigrants at his new location, “provided, of course, that you have a skill and are able to work intensely.” According to him, musicians, physicians, and merchants are greatly in demand, and the situation is especially promising for secretaries and shorthand typists – on condition that they have perfect command of the English language, which could by no means be taken for granted among German Jews. The newcomers were not the only Jews in the country; a Sephardic community had been present in Shanghai since the middle of the 19th century, and settlement by Ashkenazi Jews had begun in the early 20th century and intensified in the wake of the Russian Revolution.

TAGS: Berlin, commentary, displacement, emigration, Jewish Community, Journalism, June 19, Language skills, letter, musicians, refugees, Shanghai, welfare organizations

SOURCE

Institution:

Gemeindeblatt der Jüdischen Gemeinde zu Berlin

Collection:

Original:

Vol. 28, No. 25, p. 5.

5

SUNDAY

Jewish schools

A safe space

“In his essay ‘Halakha and Aggada,’ Bialik passes on an interpretation which he has heard from Achad Haam: ‘He who heeds the spirit will hear from between its [this Mishna's] lines the murmur of the heart and the trembling concern for the future of a people which ‘walks the path’ and holds in its hands none of its possessions but a book, and whose entire inner connection to any one of its countries of residence is based only on its spirit.”

Berlin

For many Jewish children, going to public school turned into hell under the Nazis. Just getting there could mean running a gauntlet of anti-Jewish slights. At school, exclusion by fellow students and teachers was the rule. In order to spare their children this ordeal, parents who could afford it sent their children to Jewish schools. Before 1933, most assimilated German Jews attended public schools. However, in the hostile climate of the Nazi regime attendance at Jewish schools grew. Dr. Elieser L. Ehrmann, a pedagogue and employee of the school department of the Reich Representation of Jews in Germany had developed curricula for teachers at Jewish schools which aimed to deepen the knowledge of Jewish holidays and the customs accompanying them and thus instill a positive Jewish identity. The excerpt shown here is from Ehrmann’s “Curriculum for the Omer and Shavuot [Feast of Weeks],” published in 1938 by the Reich Representation of Jews in Germany. That year, the first day of Shavuot fell on June 5.

TAGS: antisemitism, Berlin, children, document, Jewish Community, Jewish holidays, June 5, religion, schools, segregation, welfare organizations

SOURCE

Institution:

Ehrmann, Eliezer L., and Reichsvertretung Der Juden in Deutschland, Berlin Schulabteilung. Arbeitsplan Fuer Omerzeit Und Schawuot. Berlin: Reichsvertretung Der Juden in Deutschland, 1938.

Collection:

31

TUESDAY

Adoption in Germany

Mrs. Rosenbaum from New York travels to meet her new child

“A local family interested in our work has kindly offered to host you and the child chosen by you in their home for a while so that you will have the opportunity to help the child get used to you, which will certainly be easier in the friendly atmosphere of a private home than if you had to live in a hotel with the child.”

WUPPERTAL-ELBERFELD/NEW YORK

The Central Office for Jewish Foster Homes and Adoption took its mandate for protecting mothers and children very seriously. When Frances and Bernard Rosenbaum of New York decided to adopt a German child, the agency offered Mrs. Rosenbaum accommodations in a private home while picking up the boy in Germany, so that the relationship would not have to begin in a hotel. The Central Office for Jewish Foster Homes and Adoption was part of the League of Jewish Women, founded in 1904 by Bertha Pappenheim in order to foster charitable activity while affirming Jewish identity. An outgrowth of this initiative was the development of professional social work.

TAGS: children, family, Jewish Community, letter, May 31, New York, prominent people, transnational networks, welfare organizations, Women, Wuppertal-Elberfeld

SOURCE

Institution:

Frederick Rosenbaum Collection, AR 6707

Collection:

Original:

Box 1, folder 1

Chronology of major events in 1938

Law on the Confiscation of Degenerate Art

"Boys on a Playground" by Otto Möller, date unknown. Otto Möller was an artist labeled degenerate by the Nazis. His work was removed from museums in Germany under this new law. Some was auctioned off in forced sales, and other works destroyed. Leo Baeck Institute.

The “Law on the Confiscation of Degenerate Art” legalizes the plunder of artworks deemed “degenerate” by the Nazis. This applies primarily to modern art that does not conform to the racial or aesthetic criteria of National Socialist ideology, and of course, it applies to all works by Jewish artists. By the end of May, 1938, the Nazis have already confiscated works from museums and other public art collections. With the passage of this law, the confiscated works became legal property of the state. Except in a few cases of “financial hardship,” the owners receive no compensation. Amazingly, this law legalizing the arbitrary looting of artworks will remain in force until 1968. The Allies will fail to remove the law from the books when they excise other elements of Nazi law from the German legal code after the war. The Monuments and Museums Council of Northwestern Germany will even reinforce the law in a September 1948 decision to replace the works rather than demanding their return.

View chronology of major events in 1938

30

MONDAY

Mindset

Not enthusiastic, but with a will to succeed

“I think that if you were to decide for Palestine, you would not need any enthusiasm for it. The majority immigrate without any enthusiasm today, but you need the firm determination to assert yourself here in spite of all difficulties, meager income and hard work in a tough climate.”

TEL AVIV/ZURICH

Herbert Mansbach, a German dentistry student temporarily based in Switzerland, was lucky. A friend of his worked for the “Sick Fund” (Kupat Holim) of the General Workers’ Association in Israel (Histadrut) and was able to share valuable information with him pertaining to acceptance as a kibbutz member and employment in Palestine. The main prerequisites for kibbutz membership were affiliation with the HeHalutz pioneer youth movement and some knowledge of Hebrew. However, in order to be hired as a dentist in Tel Aviv, total mastery of Hebrew was a must. Herbert’s friend painted a sobering picture of the mental state of the new immigrants. The majority, he writes, come without enthusiasm—determination to succeed is more important.

TAGS: displacement, emigration, family, immigration, Language skills, letter, May 30, Palestine, refugees, Tel Aviv, welfare organizations, Zionism, Zurich

SOURCE

Institution: