Persecution in Austria, release from Dachau | APRIL 14
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.
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.
Blackmailed into emigration | DECEMBER 29
The large-scale arrests of Jewish men during the November Pogroms – around 30,000 were incarcerated at the Sachsenhausen, Buchenwald and Dachau concentration camps – fulfilled its purpose: it served to blackmail Jews into giving up on their remaining assets and emigrating. Among the 10,911 Jews held in Dachau alone were Georg Friedmann, owner of a fashion shop in Schwandorf (Bavaria) and his son, Bruno. Lillian Friedman, his wife, lost no time. Already in November, with her husband and son still incarcerated, she went to the travel agency of the Hamburg-America-Line in Munich for a consultation, which was followed by an intensive correspondence. Thanks to a wealthy relative in New York (who had heard about them for the first time in this context), they had received an affidavit. The plan was to travel to New York via Cuba. On December 29th, the Hamburg-America-Line issued a receipt to Mrs. Friedmann for the passage from Hamburg to Havanna of her son, Bruno, and her mother-in-law, Amanda Friedmann.
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.
Stolen art | DECEMBER 25
Jewish furriers began to do business at the Leipzig Trade Fair in the middle of the 16th century. For hundreds of years, Jewish traders were allowed into Leipzig only during the fair, but even so, they significantly contributed to the city’s wealth. In the wake of the legal equalization of the Jews in the 19th century, Jewish furriers began to settle in Leipzig, concentrating on a street known as Brühl. Over time, Jews helped to turn the city into an international center of the fur trade. After 1933, many Jewish furriers fled to centers of the trade abroad. Siegmund Fein, born in Leipzig in 1880, was still in Leipzig in 1938. His and his wife’s ordeal under the Nazis culminated during the November pogroms. Siegmund Fein was incarcerated at the Buchenwald concentration camp from November 11th to 30th and badly maltreated. After his release, he was refused appropriate medical care. On December 20th, he fled to Brussels. The painting displayed here, “Head of a Girl” by the German classicist painter Anselm Feuerbach was confiscated by the Nazis – along with other works of art from the Feins’ collection.
Bureaucracy without empathy | DECEMBER 23
America was struggling with economic difficulties, and an unfavorable attitude towards “aliens” prevailed in Congress. Among much of the populace, the idea of admitting large numbers of Jewish immigrants was not popular, and President Roosevelt was not inclined to relax America’s immigration restrictions. Thus, when Alice Rice of Virginia Beach tried to facilitate the immigration of her Czech relatives, she received the standard answer from the acting chief of the Foreign Office’s visa division, Eliot B. Coulter. He emphasized the importance of proving that the applicants were not likely to become “public charges” and pointed to the provisions of the 1917 Immigration Act, which, in addition to economic prerequisites, made immigration dependent on a host of conditions grounded in considerations of a political, racial, moral and health-related nature, as well as stating that a person 16 or more years of age was eligible for immigration only if literate. Despite the valiant efforts of Frances Perkins, Secretary of Labor, whose department was in charge of immigration and naturalization issues at the time, US policy was not revised to accommodate the needs created by the wave of refugees coming out of Nazi Germany. Interestingly, one of the justifications for this was that the German quota was actually never filled – without mentioning, of course, that this was a result of the “public charge” provision, which made it impossible for many German Jews, who had been systematically driven into poverty by the Nazis, to successfully apply for visas.
No respite for Jews at German spas | DECEMBER 22
Already in the late 19th century, hostility towards Jews was common in German spas, some of which advertised themselves as “free of Jews.” In the Baltic and North Seas, entire islands presented themselves as anti-Semitic. Nevertheless, some had a small Jewish population. On the beaches of the North Sea health resort of Wangerooge, swastika flags were displayed as early as 1920, just after becoming the symbol of the Nazi party. When the Nazis had been voted into power, the situation became even harder for the island’s Jews. On December 22nd, 1938, Fritz Jacoby, himself a beneficiary of the work of the Boston Committee for Refugees and a recent arrival to the United States, turned to Willy Nordwind, its co-chair, on behalf of Marga Levy, a 24-year-old native of Wangerooge. In the wake of the pogrom of November 9-10, all of her male relatives had been incarcerated, there was no money and no way to make a living. Thus, the grateful Mr. Jacoby implores the Committee to provide the young woman with a “domestic affidavit” which would enable her to “work day and night to feed her parents.”
New demands of an old man | DECEMBER 19
While Dr. Hermann Mansbach and his wife, Selma, had left their home in Mannheim and relocated to Haifa in September 1938, their son, Herbert, a dentist like his father, was stuck in Switzerland, trying to join his parents. The young man had left Germany following a Nazi decree according to which the conferment of doctorates to Jews was to cease immediately. Obtaining a certificate for entry into Palestine proved to be difficult, and to make things worse, Herbert had been defrauded of all his money. On December 19th, Hermann Mansbach gave an account of his new life in Palestine to the Frank family in Zurich, who were helping his son, and to Herbert himself. He describes the difficulty of starting over poor as a result of Nazi regulations and his struggle to learn English and Hebrew and to make money. As if that weren’t enough, political unrest was simmering in the background. Mrs. Mansbach adds that she and her husband never leave home at the same time in order to avoid missing a patient. Things are hard, but, as Dr. Mansbach says, their lot is certainly better than being in a concentration camp.
Dependent on the kindness of others | DECEMBER 17
As the wife of a successful architect, Anna Nachtlicht had enjoyed social prestige and experienced years of material comfort. However, in 1932, the Great Depression forced the couple to auction off their art collection, and in 1933, Leo Nachtlicht lost his occupation. Eventually, the couple was left with no other choice but to rent out rooms. The couple’s two adult daughters, Ursula (b. 1909) and Ilse (b. 1912) contributed to the household. But the situation became untenable. As Anna Nachtlicht writes to her brother Max in Argentina on December 17th, the family had “every reason” to fear that they were about to lose their apartment in Berlin-Wilmersdorf, on top of everything else. While there was realistic hope that their daughters would soon find employment in England, Anna and Leo’s efforts to find refuge abroad had remained largely unsuccessful. Relatives on Leo’s side in France had agreed to house the couple temporarily, until a third country would offer them a permanent home. Anna Nachtlicht clearly resented having to ask for help and deplored the dependence on others, but the constant decline of the situation and dark forebodings left her no choice. She had heard that Argentina was about to change its immigration policy and make it possible to request permits for siblings. With undisguised despair, she asks her brother in Buenos Aires to immediately request a reunification with her and facilitate their emigration.
Total arbitrariness | DECEMBER 16
One of the tools in the hands of the Nazis to terrorize Jews was arbitrary incarceration: the Enabling Act of March 24th, 1933, handed the regime the legal basis for the perfidious institution of “protective custody”: persons deemed to “endanger the security of the people” could be detained without concrete charges. Ostensibly, the policy was aimed at political adversaries. In fact, however, it was frequently used against Jews. The salesman Hans Wilk was among its first victims: in 1933, at 24 years of age, he spent over four months at the Lichtenburg concentration camp. During the November pogroms of 1938, he was among the roughly 30,000 Jewish men incarcerated in concentration camps. On December 16th, he was released from the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in Oranienburg near Berlin. The requirement to report immediately to the State Police in his home town of Potsdam indicated that the harassment was not yet over.
The plain truth | DECEMBER 15
Julie Jonas in Hamburg and her daughters, Elisabeth and Margarethe, had sworn to report to each other truthfully on their emotional well-being. Almost daily, there was an exchange of postcards. For a few weeks, the two girls had been in England. Their father, the lawyer Julius Jonas, had outlasted several Nazi laws aimed at pushing Jews and opponents of the regime out of the legal professions. But with the issue of the “Fifth Decree Supplementing the Reich Citizenship Law” on November 30th, 1938, he was disbarred. December 15th was his birthday. Already on the day before, Julie Jonas had written to the children that their nerves had worn “rather thin” and that they weren’t at all in the mood for a birthday. Nevertheless she bravely tried to show her joy about the girls’ well-being.
With the blessings of the Nazis | DECEMBER 13
Until 1938, dozens of Jewish periodicals managed to withstand the mounting pressure of the regime. However, even since 1935, they were no longer publicly for sale, and since 1937, their freedom of reporting had been severely curtailed. After the Pogrom Night of November 9th to 10th (later known as “Kristallnacht”), a comprehensive prohibition brought the over-130-year history of the Jewish press in Germany to an abrupt halt. In order to be able nevertheless to spread official communiques through a paper aimed specifically at Jews, a Jewish newsletter, the “Jüdische Nachrichtenblatt” was established, the first issue of which was published on November 23rd in Berlin. Albeit edited by Jews, it was under total control of the Reich Ministry of Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda. On December 13th, the Vienna edition appeared for the first time.
Contradictory messages | DECEMBER 12
The banishment of Jews from public spaces was far advanced by now. Already in 1933, Jewish creative artists had been dismissed from state-sponsored cultural life. Since November 12th, 1938, Jews were no longer admitted even as audience members at “presentations of German culture” and were banished from concert halls, opera houses, libraries and museums. More and more restaurants and shops denied access to Jews. On Dec. 12th, 1938, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency pointed out a striking discrepancy: while abroad, the “German News Bureau,” the central news agency of the Reich which followed the directives of the Propaganda Ministry, spread the information that from January 1st, 1939, certain anti-Semitic measures would be relaxed, quite the opposite had been communicated to Jews inside the Reich. One fact, however, was not hidden: the goal was to prompt all Jews to emigrate, “also in the interest of the Jews themselves,” as the Bureau put it.
Ungrateful fatherland | DECEMBER 5
All six sons of the Hamburg industrialist, S. Anker, were among the 85,000 Jewish soldiers who went to battle for Germany in World War I. Two of of them, Heinrich and Richard, belonged to the 457 Hamburg residents among the 12,000 Jewish fallen. Otto Anker, b. 1883, survived, badly wounded. After the Nazis had been voted to power in 1933, his sons left the country and tried to get their parents to do the same. However, decorated with the Iron Cross and married to a non-Jewish woman, Otto Anker felt safe. The gratitude of the Fatherland kept within limits: in 1938, Otto Anker’s business was “aryanized.” This ID, stamped on December 6th, is marked with a conspicuous “J.”
Banks as accomplices | DECEMBER 4
As double earners, the Nathorffs did quite well materially for a number of years: the pediatrician Hertha Nathorff was the director of a children’s home and baby nursery run by the Red Cross in Berlin Charlottenburg, and her husband, Erich, was an internist at the Moabit Hospital. On the side, the couple had a private practice. Shortly after the Nazis came to power, both lost their positions, but they maintained their joint practice until September 1938, when the licenses of all Jewish physicians were revoked. Erich Nathorff was among the few Jewish physicians who were allowed to tend to the needs of Jewish patients exclusively as so-called “caretakers of the sick.” However, during the November Pogroms, he was incarcerated at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. On December 4th, Hertha Nathorff confided to her diary that due to the insecure situation, she had “sent away” her son and that she was having financial problems. Due to the Nazis’ policy of blocking the accounts of Jews whose financial situation would have permitted them to leave the country, she had no access to her money.
Their only hope | NOVEMBER 29
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.
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.
An unexpected gesture | NOVEMBER 27
Thanks to his thriving practice in the Steinbühl neighborhood of Nuremberg, Dr. Adolf Dessauer had achieved a certain prosperity. His generous apartment offered a children’s room for his sons, Heinz and Rolf, maid’s quarters, space for his practice and a waiting room, a living and dining room, and, not least, a bedroom with furniture made of cherry wood. In 1937, due to the effects of anti-Semitic legislation targeting doctors, Dr. Dessauer was forced to give up his practice. Emigration was the only solution. But how to take the beautiful bedroom furniture abroad? The Nazis rendered this concern obsolete: During the November pogroms, in the night of November 9 to 10 (later known as “Kristallnacht” or “Night of Broken Glass”), the furniture was smashed to pieces and a portrait of the Nobel laureate, Paul Ehrlich, slashed and ruined. Only a few days after the shock of the brutal destruction, the Dessauers experienced a rare gesture of decency. A total stranger returned the portrait, which was by now perfectly restored.
The future of humanity and culture | NOVEMBER 26
No one reading the November issue of the Aufbau could have missed the front-page editorial message in bold print: under the heading “The Great Trial,” forceful language is employed to decry the abject failure of “the heads of state of the so-called democracies,” who have sacrificed Czechoslovakia to Nazi Germany. Jewish refugees are left stranded in no man’s land in Bohemia, in Germany, the Nazis are dealing an “economic death blow” to the Jews, the British are jeopardizing the Zionist project, and “little more than a faint memory” remains of the Evian Conference, summoned in July to tackle the problem of resettling Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany. Surely, this is “an era of complete sinfulness.” Will those under threat finally brace up?
Banned from his art | NOVEMBER 22
The works of the Expressionist painter and graphic artist Bruno Gimpel were classified as “degenerate” during the Third Reich. Neither his voluntary service as an aide in a military hospital during World War I nor his “mixed marriage” with an “Aryan” woman spared him the usual repressive measures. On November 22nd, 1938 he received a letter from the Reichskammer der Bildenden Künste, the Nazi authority in charge of the visual arts, which yet again denied him membership and banned him from all branches of his profession. In 1935, this institution of the Third Reich had once before rejected a request for admission by the Dresden artist. Since 1937, he had no choice but to make a living by giving drawing lessons to Jewish children.
New hope for help | NOVEMBER 20
For 19 years, Fritz Feldstein had been working at a bank in Vienna to the full satisfaction of his superiors. But, in 1938, after Nazi Germany annexed neighboring Austria, he lost his position. On July 5th, the family registered with the US consulate in Vienna, but for immigration, affidavits were needed. After months of deeply upsetting political changes, Fritz Feldstein ventured an unusual step. On Oct. 16th, he turned to a Julius Feldstein in Los Angeles who, he hoped, might be a relative, appealing to “the well-known American readiness to help.” Soon, a correspondence developed, also involving Fritz’s wife, Martha, and their daughter, Gerda. The 11-year-old was not only a skillful piano player, she obviously also had a knack for languages. On November 20th, she writes to the Feldsteins in California for the first time – in English.
What is already bad gets worse | NOVEMBER 19
The Intrators had been forced to flee once before: the anti-Jewish climate in their native country, Poland, had caused Rachel (Rosa) and Jakob in 1905 to make Berlin their home. Their son Alexander, born the same year, later became a successful concert violinist. Gerhard, five years his junior, went to law school, but the Nazis had hardly been brought to power when they began to systematically push Jews out of the legal professions. In light of the hopelessness of pursuing a juridical career in Germany, the 27-year-old emigrated to the US in 1937. Now he was making massive efforts to bring his parents. On November 19th, his father reported on the arrival of the affidavit which was needed for immigration. However, he added, they did not expect to receive their visas any time soon. Meanwhile, their circle of relatives and friends was getting smaller and smaller. Some were being forced by the Nazis to return to Poland, others simply disappeared.
No reprieve | NOVEMBER 17
Whoever had hoped that peace and quiet would return after the pogroms on and through the night of November 9th to 10th (later known as “Kristallnacht” or “Night of Broken Glass”) had been mistaken. In its November 17th dispatch, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency gives account of a new wave of arrests and violence. The initial round of violence had been orchestrated to look like a spontaneous outburst of popular rage after the assassination of an employee at the German Embassy in Paris, Ernst vom Rath, at the hand of a 17-year-old Jew. The pogrom was followed by a series of legislative measures eliminating Jews from commercial life in Germany and forcing them to “restore the streetscape” after the arson attacks on synagogues and the destruction of Jewish businesses. Apparently, the diplomat’s funeral in Düsseldorf was now serving as a subterfuge for renewed violence. The US consulate in Berlin was flooded by Jews seeking asylum for fear of additional assaults—in vain, as the article states.
A sensitive eccentric | NOVEMBER 15
In this watercolor portrait of a young girl, we do not see the artist John Hoexter’s familiar acerbity but rather a much gentler side. The Expressionist and Dadaist was a leftist activist and idealist and was not very good at making money. For years he contributed to the magazine “Der blutige Ernst” (“Bloody Earnest”), which disseminated undogmatic leftist thought with the help of first-rate contributors who were not paid for their efforts. Hoexter’s financial situation also was not helped by the fact that in trying to control his asthma, he had gotten addicted to morphine early in life. In addition to his considerable artistic talent, he was forced to develop his skills as a “shnorrer.” He was at home in the Bohemian circles frequenting places like the “Cafe Monopol” and the “Romanisches Cafe.” After the Nazis were handed power in 1933, Hoexter’s leftist circle of friends shrank more and more, which, along with the ongoing debasement of Jews by the regime, did not fail to take a toll on him. Under the impact of the violence experienced during the night of pogroms (later known as “Kristallnacht” or “Night of Broken Glass”) Hoexter committed suicide on November 15th.
Shattered splendor | NOVEMBER 14
On August 13th, 1869, the synagogue on Michelsberg in Wiesbaden had been officially opened in a festive ceremony. The building was meant to serve the increased spatial needs of the congregation but also testified to its increased wealth and civic self-assurance. In the presence of representatives of other faith communities, Rabbi Süskind had referred to the liberal house of worship as a “planting ground for patriotic virtues” which was to prove its unifying power not only within the circle of one’s own co-religionists, but “also in the wider circles of humanity.” After the pogrom that took place through the night of November 9th into 10th, 1938 (later known as “Kristallnacht” or “Night of Broken Glass”), all that was left of the magnificent building in Moorish-Byzantine style was the external wall. The interior was entirely gutted.
Not a trace of uncle Arthur | NOVEMBER 12
Harry Kranner was a boy of 12 when the Nazis staged a wave of anti-Jewish violence unprecedented in scope and intensity – purportedly a “spontaneous outburst of popular rage” in reaction to the murder of an employee of the German embassy in Paris at the hand of a young Jew. However, Harry’s diary entries show that he was keenly aware of the events around him. In the early morning of November 10th, when the violent events of the night spilled over from Germany into Austria, two Gestapo officers had come to the family’s home in Vienna – ostensibly in search of weapons. Harry understood how extraordinarily lucky he was to have gotten away with nothing more than a scare. He had heard about Jews being locked into or out of their apartments. But one big worry remained: by November 12th, there was still no trace of his uncle Arthur, who had been arrested along with thousands of other Jews. Following a news report that all arrestees were to be deported to the Dachau and Mauthausen concentration camps from the Vienna Westbahnhof, Harry’s father and aunt rushed there, hoping to find uncle Arthur, but to no avail. Meanwhile, it was reported that the Jews were going to be charged a hefty penalty for the violence to which they themselves had fallen victim.
Arson | NOVEMBER 11
As Jews in Chemnitz were struggling to come to terms with the brutal violence they had experienced two days before – the magnificent synagogue had been set on fire and destroyed during the November Pogroms, in the night from November 9 to 10 (later known as “Kristallnacht” or “Night of Broken Glass”), and 170 members of the community deported to the Buchenwald concentration camp – the community’s representative, the merchant Josef Kahn, was contacted by the town’s mayor. With mind-boggling cynicism, he demanded the removal within three days of the ruins of “the synagogue […] which caught fire in the night from November 9th to 10th, 1938.” If the order wasn’t carried out within the prescribed time, the municipal building inspection department (Baupolizei) would arrange clearance at the owner’s expense.
Relative luck | NOVEMBER 9
Richard Neubauer was lucky. When, during the November pogroms, throughout the night from the 9th to the 10th (later known as “Kristallnacht” or “Night of Broken Glass”), Nazi thugs destroyed the property of his relatives in Germany, he was already in safety in New York. In this letter, his brother Fritz describes to him in vivid detail the horrific destruction wrought upon Jews and their belongings and the terror caused by the brutality. The Neubauer brothers had inherited the Neubauer Print Shop in Ludwigshafen. Due to the destruction of the free press through its forced conformity under the Nazis, the print shop had lost all its business. Thanks to some lucky coincidences, Fritz, his wife Ruth, and their two children were in possession of train tickets making it possible to legally cross the border into Switzerland. Ruth had managed to salvage them from the wreckage of their furniture.
Murder in Paris | NOVEMBER 7
On November 3rd, 1938, Herszel Grynszpan, a young Jew of Polish extraction, had received a message saying that his parents and two siblings had been expelled from their home in Hannover to Poland. The Polish parliament had recently passed a law according to which citizens who had spent five or more years abroad could be stripped of their citizenship. Fearing to be left irrevocably with over 70,000 Polish Jews, the Nazi regime had deported about 17,000 of them just days earlier. Herszel, who had managed to enter France in 1936, was living with his uncle and aunt at this point. Upset about the fate of his fellow countrymen, he walked into the German embassy in Paris on November 7th, shot to death a German career diplomat, 29 year-old Ernst vom Rath, and was arrested immediately.
A girl leads the way | NOVEMBER 4
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.
From bank teller to celebrated Hollywood composer | NOVEMBER 3
Mr. Wachsmann, an industrialist in Königshütte, Upper Silesia, tried to talk his gifted son, Franz, out of embarking on an unprofitable career as a musician. He imagined a more solid career for the youngest of his seven children. But Franz would not be dissuaded. While briefly working as a bank teller, he used his salary to pay for his real interests: piano; music theory; and composition lessons. After two years in this disagreeable position, he went to Dresden, later to Berlin to study music. Recognizing the young man’s talent, the composer Friedrich Hollaender asked him to orchestrate his score for the legendary 1930 movie, “The Blue Angel” with Marlene Dietrich. When in 1934, Franz was beaten up by Nazi hoodlums, he needed no further persuasion to leave the country and boarded a train to Paris the same evening. In 1935, he moved on to the United States, where, under the name “Waxman,” he quickly became a sought-after composer of film music. On November 3, 1938, Richard Wallace’s movie “The Young in Heart” was launched, with a soundtrack by Franz Waxman.