Last birthday in Germany | FEBRUARY 8
The philosopher of religion Martin Buber was born on February 8, 1878, in Vienna. Best known for his 1923 work I and Thou, he also, in collaboration with Franz Rosenzweig, created a new translation of the Hebrew Bible into German. Buber was so popular with German-Jewish youth that the term “Bubertät” (“Buberty”) was coined to describe the phenomenon. Buber was among the proponents of a bi-national state in Palestine and in 1925, together with Gershom Scholem, Robert Weltsch, Hugo Bergmann, Ernst Simon and others, he founded “Brit Shalom,” an organisation that promoted Arab-Jewish coexistence on the basis of justice and equality. On February 8, he celebrated his 50th birthday.
A totalitarian regime fears the free press | DECEMBER 30
One of the first official acts of the new Nazi rulers in 1933 had been the elimination of the independent press. Already in February, the freedom of the press was abolished, and from October, only such individuals who were deemed politically reliable and could prove their “Aryan” descent were admitted to journalistic professions. Ernst Feder (b. 1881), a jurist and erstwhile editor for domestic affairs at the “Berliner Tageblatt,” fulfilled neither of these requirements. In his Parisian exile, he resumed his activities as a journalist as one of the founders of the German-language Pariser Tageblatt (1933-36) and as a freelance writer. On the pages of his diary, he covers a plethora of topics, ranging from the personal to the philosophical and political. Among his friends and fellow exiles was the gynecologist and endocrinologist, Dr. Selmar Aschheim (b. 1878). As Feder notes in his diary on December 30th, the eminent physician and scientist was looking for an alternative source of income, should he be denied the possibility to practice in France. Especially older emigrants often had to overcome major obstacles in order to gain a foothold abroad. Language barriers and admission examinations, for which decades of professional experience were not seen as a substitute, additionally exacerbated the situation.
Not the country of her dreams | DECEMBER 28
Stella was not thrilled about the idea of living in Palestine. Like her friend, Annemarie Riess, with whom she shared her feelings on December 28th, she had fled to Italy. But as a Jew, she was no longer welcome there, either. According to the fascist regime’s new racial laws, non-native Jews were to leave the country within six months. 2,000 of the 10,000 foreign Jews who had settled down in Italy before 1919 were exempt from the provision. At least Stella had an immigration certificate for Palestine, issued by the Mandatory Government, and at a Tel Aviv clinic, an unpaid position that came with free room and board was waiting for her. Nevertheless, she continued to try to get permission to enter the US or England. Actually, even the offer on an unpaid position was more than many immigrant physicians could expect in Palestine. Since 1936, there was a surplus of physicians in the land, and a new wave of immigration after the annexation of Austria in February 1938 (“Anschluss”) had aggravated the situation even more.
At the mercy of Nazi authorities | DECEMBER 24
Not long after power was handed to the Nazis, the motto “Police – your friends and helpers,” which already during the Weimar Republic often reflected a hope rather than reality, lost any hint of meaning for opponents of the regime and for the country’s Jews. A law introduced as early as February 1933 stipulated that police officers who resorted to the use of firearms against people perceived as enemies of the regime were to go unpunished. As part of an unholy trinity, in tandem with the SA and SS, the police quickly became an instrument of Nazi terror. Therefore, obtaining a police clearance certificate was probably not the easiest of the requirements of would-be immigrants applying for US visas. On December 24th, 1938, this important document was issued to Ernst Aldor, a resident of Vienna.
A safe place for Marianne | DECEMBER 18
For many Jewish children in Germany, going to school had become an ordeal: the constant anti-Jewish indoctrination of German students was poisoning the atmosphere, teachers as the agents of this policy rarely supported the Jewish children, and the mere act of getting to school and back could be like running the gauntlet. As a result, Jewish schools began to proliferate, and those who could afford it sent their children to boarding schools abroad. When Ruth Berlak, in Berlin, received this friendly note from St. Margaret’s School in Westgate-on-Sea, Kent, informing her of the acceptance of her 13-year-old daughter, Marianne, as a pupil, little more than a month had passed since the Nazi regime had decreed the removal of Jewish children from German schools. Marianne’s maternal grandfather was Rabbi Dr. Leo Baeck, the president of the Reich Representation of Jews in Germany. Her father’s father was Leo Berlak, the chairman of the Association of Jewish Heimatvereine, clubs devoted to the maintenance of local traditions.
Money: the make-or-break | DECEMBER 8
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.
Help among friends | NOVEMBER 28
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.
Where is Paul Weiner? | NOVEMBER 18
Willi Jonas and his wife Hilde owned a shoe shop in tranquil Basel, Switzerland. Deeply worried about their relatives in Germany, Willi Jonas sent his Swiss chauffeur to sound out the situation. In a November 18th, 1938 letter, the couple tell emigré friends in America about their loved ones’ experiences during and since the night of pogroms (later known as “Kristallnacht” or “Night of Broken Glass”). Louis Jonas, a cattle dealer in Waldbreitbach near Neuwied, has gotten away without material losses. However, after having had to spend 4 days in jail and being released only due to the fact that he is above 50, all he wants is to get out. The news from Worms is even more alarming: Paul Weiner has been taken to a concentration camp and nobody has seen fit to notify his wife, Berta (née Jonas), as to which. The couple’s home was almost entirely wrecked, some of their property stolen.
Political and other earthquakes | NOVEMBER 8
Days after his 12th birthday on April 15th, 1938, Harry Kranner, along with all his Jewish schoolmates, had been expelled from the Kandlgasse Realgymnasium in Vienna. By November, Harry’s mother, Gertrude, and his stepfather, Emil Fichmann, were making preparations for emigration. Harry shows great excitement about the prospect of traveling and the various pieces of equipment he’ll receive. In the November 8th entry in his new diary, given to him by his mother for the purpose of recording his emigration experience, he enthusiastically reports about his new leather gloves. But the bulk of the entry is concerned with the strong earthquake the night before.
Politics and farewell | OCTOBER 31
At the end of October, Adolph Markus looked back on an eventful month. Preceded by the Munich Conference, at which representatives of Germany, Great Britain, France and Italy decided that Czechoslovakia was to cede its borderlands (“Sudetenland”) to Germany in exchange for peace, German troops had occupied these areas, which had a sizeable German population totaling about 3 million. As Markus points out, with the Sudetenland, Czechoslovakia had lost its line of defense. According to his diary entry, both in Britain and in France, people’s relief that war had been averted was soon followed by deep suspicion regarding Hitler’s true intentions. On a more personal note, the author mentions a hair-styling course and English classes which he has been taking in Vienna, clearly in preparation for emigration. Meanwhile, due to the expectation that soon all Jews would be expelled from his home town, Linz, half of the contents of his apartment had been sold.
China as a place of refuge | OCTOBER 28
In the early years of the Nazi regime, Jews had sought refuge mainly in neighboring European countries, but also in Palestine and the United States. With the Nazis’ reach expanding and options for immigration diminishing, China increasingly turned into a destination for Jews seeking to escape. The SS Conte Verde was one of the steamers that brought refugees to Shanghai from the Italian ports of Genoa and Trieste. The voyage to China took one month and was quite costly – a challenge for German Jews whose financial situation had been severely eroded under the Nazis.
Fluch der Bürokratie | OCTOBER 18
Dr. Herbert Mansbach, a young dentist from Mannheim, had gone to Switzerland after his studies in Germany in order to obtain his DDS and specialize in orthodontics. This, he believed, would be a sought-after skill in Palestine, where he wished to emigrate. However, immigration to Palestine had been curtailed drastically by the British: Dr. Mansbach’s friend Alfred Rothschild, a retired lawyer, informed him that there were no preferential immigration certificates to be had at the moment and that the qualification procedure for a “capitalist certificate” (a type of certificate the awarding of which was dependent on the applicant’s ability to produce at least £1000 and not subject to quotation) was still under way. The matter was of great urgency, since in mid-October, Dr. Mansbach’s residence permit for Switzerland had expired. Rothschild assumed that if the application for a regular certificate was going to go through, the Swiss authorities would allow his friend to stay in the country for the time being.
Finally, a reply! | OCTOBER 8
The importance of personal correspondence for a family that was scattered all over is shown by that of Lili Pinkus and her relatives. Through weekly letters, for example, she kept in touch with her 16-year-old stepson, Hans Joseph, nicknamed Pippo, who was going to school in her home town of Brünn (Brno), Czechoslovakia. The same regularity, however, was expected of him. Her letter from October 10th demonstrates what it must have meant when his replies were delayed: “Infinite relief” is how she describes what she felt when, after a long time, two postcards from the 16-year-old finally arrived. Lili Pinkus writes to her stepson about the everyday life of their family. However, she omits the worries with which she and her husband must have been struggling. The family’s textile factory in Neustadt, Upper Silesia (“S. Fränkel”), was one of the largest manufacturers of linen in the world. Lili Pinkus’ husband, Hans Hubert, had been in charge of the family business since 1926. But now, the “Aryanization” of the company was imminent.
“For the last time” | SEPTEMBER 28
It was more of a wistful farewell than a joyful Bar Mitzvah: Rabbi Manfred Swarsensky seemed to be fully conscious of the situation in which his congregants at the Prinzregentenstraße Synagogue in Berlin found themselves. In his address on the occasion of the Bar Mitzvah of 15 teenagers, he captured the mood of this day of celebration: everything clearly bears “the stamp ‘for the last time.’” Many families, whose sons celebrated their Bar Mitzvah on this day, sat on packed suitcases. One family was departing the very next day. The synagoge, in Berlin’s Wilmersdorf neighborhood, had been one of the only synagogues first built during the Weimar Republic. It had also quickly developed into a center of Jewish culture. Now, at the end of September 1938, it was clear to the rabbi that his congregation was facing major changes: “In a few years, much of what’s here today will be gone and perhaps also forgotten.”
By oath to do no harm | SEPTEMBER 18
An astonishing number of German physicians apparently not only had no qualms about being co-opted by the Nazi regime but actively subscribed to its racist and eugenic doctrines, conveniently ignoring their ostensible commitment to the Hippocratic Oath with its stipulation to do no harm. On top of propagating an ideology which declared Jews to be a danger to the “German race,” medical organizations in Germany expelled Jews, making it harder and harder for them to make a living. Under such circumstances, it’s not surprising that Dr. Max Schönenberg, a physician in Cologne, and his musician wife, Erna, supported their son Leopold’s emigration to Palestine in 1937, even though the boy was only 15 years old at the time. In this September 18th, 1938 letter to his son, Dr. Schönenberg touches upon various weighty topics, among them the regime’s recent decision to revoke Jewish doctors’ medical licenses and his uncertainty about his professional future (some Jewish physicians were given permission to treat Jewish patients).
A full-time job | SEPTEMBER 8
In her short life, Hilde Lachmann-Mosse already had a few relocations behind her. The 26-year-old grew up in Berlin. Other stops were Woodbrooke in Great Britain (school), Freiburg (studies in medicine) and Basel (medical doctorate). Now she was facing another move: to the United States. She had already had the certificate of employment regarding her time as an assistant gynecologist at the university hospital in Basel translated into English, although that was only one step of many. Even if the actual certificate is only a few lines long, the three stamps of authentication from various institutions is evidence of how many appointments with authorities must have been necessary for Hilde Lachmann-Mosse finally to hold this document in her hands.
“Illegal” immigrant | AUGUST 28
It was under adventurous circumstances that Gisella Jellinek made her way to Palestine in June 1938. As part of a group of several hundred youths, she was smuggled into the area of the Mandate. The moment she came ashore in Palestine, she had to make use of the Hebrew language skills she had acquired at the Zionist agricultural training camp in Austria, in order to avoid being identified as an illegal immigrant by the British authorities. Roughly two months after her arrival, Gisella, who now called herself Nadja, turned 18. In this belated birthday note, her sister Berta wishes her “heroism, courage, and to be a good Haverah (kibbutz member).”
A questionnaire | AUGUST 18
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.
Escape plan with a detour | AUGUST 8
As the only member of her family, 18-year-old Ursula Meseritz left Germany in July and embarked from Le Havre to New York aboard the R.N.S. “Britannic.” Adolf Floersheim, a former neighbor and a resident of the U.S. since 1937, provided an affidavit for the young woman. Her parents, Olga and Fritz Meseritz, who had arranged for her emigration, remained in Hamburg. A travel agency, Plaut Travels, on Madison Avenue in New York, apparently run by German-Jewish immigrants, prepared the itinerary for Ursula’s next journey to the West Coast, with a leisurely detour to the capital, and sent it to her on August 8th.
The veneer of legality | JULY 28
Identification cards for use within Germany were introduced by decree of the Minister of the Interior, Wilhelm Frick, on July 22, 1938. Frick, a lawyer by training, consistently worked to furnish the anti-democratic, anti-Jewish measures of the regime with the veneer of legality. Frick’s initial order was vague about who would be required to carry IDs (“The Reich Minister of the Interior determines which groups of German nationals and to what extent are subject to compulsory identification”), but this was clarified in an announcement on July 23. Apart from men of military service age, it was mainly Jews of all age-groups who were required to apply for IDs. The purpose of the IDs was to clearly identify and stigmatize Jews and further separate them from the rest of the population. In a July 28 notice, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reports on this latest legal atrocity.
Counted and controlled | JULY 18
On July 18, the commissioner of Dillkreis county in Hessen instructed the mayors of the cities Herborn, Dillenburg, and Haigern as well as police officials of the county to conduct a statistical survey of the Jewish population in their communities every three months. An official of the city of Herborn received the memorandum ordering the count and made notes showing that 51 Jews lived in the city on June 30, 1938. Three Jews had left their homes in the prior quarter. These local censuses of the Jewish population complemented other surveys that tracked the movement of Jews on a national level. To monitor and control the Jews in the country, the National Socialists used a variety of administrative tools, such requiring Jews to declare their financial assets, carry identification papers at all times, or change their names.
Staff exodus | JULY 8
The Zionist Federation of Germany was in a tricky position. While it supported the emigration of Jews from Nazi Germany, it struggled with the consequences of constantly losing capable staff members, especially on the leadership level. Nevertheless, Benno Cohn, member of the Federation’s executive board, generously supported yet another departing colleague with a deeply appreciative letter of recommendation. Rudolf Friedmann had been associated with the Zionist Central Office since 1933 in various capacities, serving it with the utmost diligence and dedication. Cohn praises his organizational abilities and ideas and warmly recommends Friedmann to any Zionist or other Jewish organization.
A professional farewell letter | JUNE 28
The observance of Shabbat, holidays, and kashrut was so deeply ingrained in the life of the Lamm family in Munich that even the Catholic cook, Babett, saw to it that the traditional customs were adhered to. While traditional in their understanding of Judaism, the Lamms were open to worldly matters. After high school, Hans briefly studied law, but, understanding that in the new political climate, there was no way a Jew could advance in the field, he embarked on a career in journalism instead. The career paths of Jewish jounalists at the time were also stymied by the fact that non-Jewish papers would not hire them and Jewish ones were forced to close down one by one. In 1937, Lamm relocated to Berlin, where he studied with Leo Baeck and Ismar Elbogen at the Lehranstalt für die Wissenschaft des Judentums, in order to deepen his understanding of Judaism. Deeply rooted in German culture as he was, it was difficult for him to decide to emigrate. Yet eventually, his older brother convinced him that there was no future for Jews in Germany. In this letter, the 25 year-old Lamm cordially and politely, yet without palpable emotion, bids farewell to the editors of the Jewish monthly, Der Morgen, a high-level publication to which he had been contributing, expressing his gratitude for their support.
Shattered existence | JUNE 26
The first major rupture in artist Gustav Wolf’s biography had occurred during World War I. He had volunteered for frontline duty and was badly injured. His brother Willy was killed in combat. The works in which he processed his wartime experiences leave no doubt about his feelings. Instead of glorifying war, he shows its horrors. His confrontation with antisemitism during and after the war led him to an increased awareness of his own Jewishness. In 1920 he accepted a professorship at the Baden Art School in Karlsruhe, trying to realize his ideal of an equitable partnership between teacher and student. After a year, he quit this “dead activity,” referring to the school as “an academy of schemers.” In 1929, he designed the set for Fritz Lang’s silent film “Woman in the Moon,” an early science-fiction movie. Upon the Nazi rise to power in 1933, he canceled his memberships with all the artists’ associations to which he had belonged. In his letter to the Baden Secession, he explained his decision with the following words: “I must first get my bearings again. The foundations of my existence have been called into question and shaken.” After extended stays in Switzerland, Italy and Greece, he returned to Germany in 1937. In February 1938, he boarded a ship to New York. June 26, 1938 was his 49th birthday.
Planted evidence | JUNE 18
Since discussing the possibility of emigration with his relatives in Vienna on April 20, Adolph Markus of Linz had taken up English lessons at the synagogue twice to three times a week. On April 29, his brother-in-law had been picked up by the Gestapo, and the Markuses’ tension and nervousness was beginning to rub off on the children. Two weeks later, Mrs. Markus was questioned by the Gestapo about the value of a house she owned and all her other property. Finally, on June 18, two Gestapo officers appeared at the family’s home: While going over the contents of some boxes, one of them tried to frame Adolph Markus by sneaking in a communist leaflet. Markus mustered the calm and self-assurance to point out to the officers that he had never been politically active in any way. His allusion to his frontline service in World War I, combined with the remark that if they were to arrest him, they would have to take along his two little boys, since their mother was in the hospital, made them change their mind. They left – threatening to return after six weeks if he wasn’t going to leave the country on his own accord.
You never write, you never call… | JUNE 8
Hans Joseph Pinkus was a direct descendant of Samuel Fränkel, founder of a textile factory in Neustadt (Upper Silesia), which for a while was the primary employer in the entire region and one of the world’s foremost producers of linens. His grandfather, Max, had been a personal friend and patron of the Nobel Prize-winning author Gerhart Hauptmann. His great-uncle, the scientist Paul Ehrlich, had been a Nobel laureate, too. Lili, Hans Joseph’s stepmother, was hardly intimidated by this pedigree. In this letter, written on June 8, 1938, she gives him a major dressing down for having neglected his correspondence with his parents and sternly inquires whether he flunked his exam in the Czech language. At this point, 16 year-old “Pipo,” as the family called him, was staying with his step-grandmother in Brünn (Brno, Czechoslovakia) and attending school there. His parents and half-sisters lived in Neustadt: the directorship of the the S. Fränkel company had been handed down to male members of the Pinkus family for several generations and was now held by his father, Hans Hubert.
Brit Shalom | MAY 28
In 1933, the distinguished philosopher of religion Martin Buber decided to relinquish his honorary professorship at Goethe University in Frankfurt/Main in protest against the Nazi rise to power. Consequently, the regime forbade him to give public lectures. In the years to follow, Buber founded the Central Office for Jewish Adult Education and countered the Nazis’ efforts to marginalize and destroy German Jewry by strengthening Jewish identity through education. It was not until May 1938 that he followed a call to the Hebrew University to assume the new chair for Social Philosophy and moved to Jerusalem with his wife Paula, a writer. The couple settled down in the Talbiyeh neighborhood in the Western part of the city, which at the time was inhabited by both Jews and Arabs. It borders on Rehavia, then a major stronghold of immigrants from Germany. Buber was among those envisioning peaceful coexistence in a bi-national state.
Despite everything, music | MAY 18
After stints with various orchestras in Germany and Austria, in 1930, the conductor Erich Erck returned to Munich, where he had studied music. The Nazis forced him to relinquish his stage name and return to his family name, Eisner. His application for membership in the Reichsmusikkammer was rejected, since his Jewishness was seen as more damning than his combat service for Germany in WWI was redeeming. After he was banned from employment in 1935, he initiated the establishment of the Munich branch of the Jüdischer Kulturbund and became the executive director of its Bavarian State Association. He also took over the Orchestra of the Kulturbund (founded in 1926 as the “Jewish Chamber Orchestra”), in which capacity he appears on this photograph from the ensemble’s May 18, 1938 performance at Munich’s monumental Main Synagogue on Herzog-Max-Straße.
The Trial | MAY 8
After Polish-born Shulamit Gutgeld’s return to Palestine from several years of study in Berlin with the greats of German theater, Erwin Piscator and Max Reinhardt, she changed her name to Bat Dori – “daughter of my generation” or “contemporary.” And that she certainly was in a very conscious way: her plays were highly political and attuned to the events of the day—so much so that the British mandatory authorities forbade the performance of her 1936 play, “The Trial,” which called for peace between Jews and Arabs and was critical of the British. The Berlin branch of the Jüdischer Kulturbund, however, decided to produce the play. The document shown here is an invitation to the May 8 performance at the Kulturbund-Theater on Kommandantenstraße under the direction of Fritz Wisten.
Liesl | APRIL 28
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.
Safe for now | APRIL 20
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.