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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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4

FRIDAY

4

A girl leads the way

Hope for a future in Palestine

“I imagine that you are doing well there. According to your letter, it seems like a paradise to me. Dear Lotte, you can believe me, I'd like to be in your place, as life here is very sad and boring, especially now that Benno is not at home.”

Vienna/Gan Shmuel

The arrival of Gertrude Münzer’s first letter from Palestine was a cause for joy, relief and hope to her family that had remained behind in Austria. The Münzers were a well-integrated family, but after the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany, the tide turned and they had to endure increasing hardship, starting with their eviction from their home and Moses Münzer losing his job. With parental encouragement, Gertrude was the only member of her family to go to Palestine with a Zionist youth group. Inspired by her example, her older brother, Benno, had gone on hakhsharah. In his reply to Gertrude, dated November 4th, her father pleads with the 15-year-old girl to recruit support for him at the kibbutz or elsewhere to enable him to follow with the rest of the family.

TAGS: Anschluss, children, displacement, economic persecution, emigration, family, family separation, Gan Shmuel, immigration, Jewish Community, letter, November 4, Palestine, refugees, transnational networks, Vienna, Youth Aliyah, Zionism

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Gertrude Knopf Family Collection, AR 11692

Original:

Box 1, folder 1

Source available in English

23

SUNDAY

23

A joyous occasion in difficult times

A wedding as a respite

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

BERLIN

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

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

SOURCE

Institution:

New Synagogue Berlin – Centrum Judaicum

Original:

Trust deed for Bernhard Rosenberg and Frieda Ascher; 7.5

21

FRIDAY

21

Looking toward Palestine

The Münzer family hopes for a reunion in Palestine

VIENNA

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

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

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Gertrude Knopf Family Collection, AR 11692

Original:

Box 1, folder 1

Source available in English

26

TUESDAY

26

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

9

SATURDAY

9

It will get easier

Encouragement for a seventeen-year-old

“Of course it takes a while to warm up to one another, especially if one does not know the language.”

Teplitz

Mrs. Pollak in Teplitz (Teplice), Czechoslovakia, was vacillating between relief that her daughter was safely out-of-reach from the Nazis reach and worry about 17-year-old Marianne’s physical and emotional wellbeing. After changing her initial plans to go to Palestine on Youth Aliyah, the young girl was now in England all by herself. The annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany had heightened fears of a similar fate in Czechoslovakia. Refugees were kept out of the country, and local Jews had double the reason to worry – both as Czechs, and as Jews. With news from Vienna and Palestine bleak and Czechoslovakia’s future uncertain, Mrs Pollak made a loving effort to reassure Marianne that things would get easier for her in the new country over time.

TAGS: Anschluss, antisemitism, children, displacement, emigration, family, family separation, July 9, letter, Munich Agreement, Palestine, refugees, Teplitz, transnational networks, Youth Aliyah

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

John Peters Pinkus Family Papers, AR 25520

Original:

Box 2, folder 22

11

MONDAY

11

Rose Luria Halprin Celebrates her Birthday

The American Zionist leader worked to rescue young German Jews through the Youth Aliyah

Jerusalem/Berlin

As a leading functionary in various Zionist organizations, most notably the Hadassah Women’s Zionist Organization of North America, Rose Luria Halprin had moved to Jerusalem in 1934, where she worked as the liaison between the local Hadassah branch and the National Office in the US. Having befriended Henrietta Szold, who led the Youth Aliyah in Palestine, Halprin, too, became involved in efforts to rescue German-Jewish youth by bringing them to Palestine. The Youth Aliyah had been founded by the prescient Recha Freier, wife of a Berlin-based rabbi, on the very day the Nazis were voted into government, January 30, 1933. In the years 1935 to 1938, Halprin repeatedly visited Berlin. April 11, 1938 was her 42nd birthday.

TAGS: April 11, Berlin, children, Jerusalem, Jewish Community, Palestine, photo, prominent people, rabbis, transnational networks, Women, Youth Aliyah, Zionism

SOURCE

Institution:

American Jewish Historical Society

Collection:

Rose Halprin in 1934. Haddassah Archives at the American Jewish HIstorical Society.

17

THURSDAY

17

“Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine!”

Children set out on their journeys to Palestine with Youth Aliyah

“Joy and pain are fighting against each other, as are courage and fear, mourning and hopefulness. One cries, the other laughs. Here the pain of separation is stronger, there the self-painted picture of the future outshines all grief of separation.”

Berlin

Immediately after the Nazis seized power, on January 30, 1933, Berlin-based Recha Freier founded the Jüdische Jugendhilfe (“Committee for the Assistance of Jewish Youth”) soon to be known as Jugend-Alija (“Youth Aliyah”). The organization’s goal was to bring Jewish children past the age of elementary school to safety in Palestine. In the youth supplement of the Israelitisches Familienblatt of February 17, 1938, the children’s feelings are described as they depart for Palestine: Not only did they have to cope with the separation from their parents and families, but also with the uncertainty about their future.

TAGS: Berlin, children, emigration, family separation, February 17, Journalism, media coverage, Palestine, press article, refugees, welfare organizations, Youth Aliyah, Zionism

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

“Aufbruch der Jugend”, B1032

Original:

Vol. 4, no. 2

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Curated by Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin © 2018 Leo Baeck Institute

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