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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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1

TUESDAY

1

Destination Uruguay

The Electrician Moses Wainstein is Montevideo-bound

Berlin

In the spring of 1938, the Berlin electrician Moses Wainstein was making arrangements to join the steady stream of Jewish emigrants. His destination was faraway Montevideo. He was planning to travel from Berlin to Marseille, where he intended to board a ship for South America. On March 1, he received the requisite French transit visa. Uruguay was regarded as a country with strong democratic traditions, little pressure on newcomers to adapt, and good job prospects for tradesmen. Jewish relief organizations and travel agencies advised prospective emigrants on choosing their new home, finding the best route possible, and procuring the required papers.

TAGS: Berlin, document, emigration, immigration procedures, March 1, Marseille, Montevideo, South America, ticket, welfare organizations

SOURCE

Institution:

Deutsches Historisches Museum

Collection:

Transit confirmation from the shipping company "Chargeurs Réunis & Sud Atlantique" for Moses Wainstein's journey through France

Original:

Inv. Nr. Do2 89/1008.6

2

WEDNESDAY

2

End of “The Eternal Road”

Kurt Weill celebrates his 38th Birthday in New York

New York

Unwelcome in Nazi Germany as a Jew, a socialist, and a composer of music considered “degenerate” by the regime, Kurt Weill was able to celebrate his 38th birthday on March 2 in safety. After attacks in the Nazi press and targeted protests, Weill had already emigrated to France in 1933. Rehearsals for the premiere of his opera “The Eternal Road” (libretto: Franz Werfel) provided him with an opportunity to travel to the United States in 1935. Due to numerous technical difficulties, the premiere was postponed until 1937. Weill seized the opportunity and remained in America.

TAGS: cultural life, displacement, emigration, March 2, musicians, New York, photo, prominent people, refugees

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Kurt Weill Collection, AR 2754. Photo c. 1929

Original:

F 3483

3

THURSDAY

3

Harold MacMichael

A new British High Commissioner for Palestine

Jerusalem

This etching by the German-Jewish artist Hermann Struck depicts the fifth British High Commissioner for Palestine, Harold MacMichael, who took office on March 3, 1938. MacMichael had previously held various positions in Africa. The High Commissioner was the highest-ranking representative of the Empire in Mandatory Palestine. The creator of the portrait, Hermann Struck, an Orthodox Jew and an early proponent of Zionism, had emigrated to Palestine in 1923 and settled in Haifa. He was renowned in particular for his masterful etchings, a technique he had taught to artists such as Chagall, Liebermann, and Ury.

TAGS: art, artists, emigration, Haifa, Jerusalem, March 3, Palestine, prominent people, Zionism

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Portrait of High Commissioner Harold MacMichael, 1940

Original:

78.486b

4

FRIDAY

4

Parochet, dark-blue

The last days of the Jewish Institute for the Blind in Vienna

Vienna

This dark blue parochet (curtain for covering the Torah Ark in a synagogue) is part of the collection of the Israelitisches Blindeninstitut (Jewish Institute for the Blind) in Vienna. The institution was established in 1871 with the purpose of educating blind Jewish students. Professions taught ranged from manual occupations to translating and interpreting. Due to its excellent reputation, the school attracted students not only from Austria, but also from most other European countries. March 4 was one of its last days of undisturbed activity.

TAGS: Anschluss, art, Disability, Jewish Community, March 4, religion, Synagogues, Vienna, welfare organizations

SOURCE

Institution:

Jüdisches Museum Wien

Collection:

Parochet

Original:

Inv. No. 2837

5

SATURDAY

5

Homosexual Relations with a Jew

A tennis star is arrested

Berlin

The handsome, blond, and athletic scion of a noble family in Lower Saxony, Gottfried von Cramm had all the features sought by the Nazis for propaganda purposes. Nevertheless, the two-time winner of the French Open tennis tournament (1934 and 1936) explicitly refused to be used as a poster boy for Nazi ideology and never joined the NSDAP. After repeatedly spurning opportunities to ingratiate himself with the regime, it was another issue that got him into trouble. On March 5, 1938, von Cramm was arrested under Paragraph 175 of the German penal code, which prohibited homosexual conduct. He was alleged to have had a relationship with a Galician Jew, the actor Manasse Herbst. Reformers had nearly succeeded in overturning the statute during the Weimar republic, but the Nazis tightened it after their ascent to power.

TAGS: Berlin, March 5, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, photo, prominent people, Sports, Weimar Republic

SOURCE

Institution:

Das Digitale Bildarchiv des Bundesarchivs

Collection:

Gottfried von Cramm (l.) with Irish opponent George Lyttleton Rogers before their Davis Cup match in Berlin, June 1932.

Original:

Bild 102-13555

6

SUNDAY

6

Antisemitism in Austria

Reports by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Vienna

In 1933, the “Fatherland Front” had been established as the sole representative body of Austrian citizenry and as a replacement for parliamentary democracy. It had strong ties to the Catholic Church and was deeply antisemitic. Nevertheless, there were Jews among its ranks, and it saw itself as opposed to the (Protestant-dominated) Nazis. When Nazi groups, clearly emboldened by their recently improved status, took to the streets, proudly parading with swastikas, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported on an antisemitic demonstration at the University of Vienna, an institution where anti-Jewish sentiment had been rampant for centuries. On the same day, the news agency informed its readership about counter demonstrations organized by the Vaterländische Front.

TAGS: Anschluss, antisemitism, Church, Journalism, JTA, March 6, media coverage, politics, Vienna

SOURCE

Institution:

Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Collection:

“Nazis Demonstrate in Jewish Quarters and Vienna University”

Source available in English

7

MONDAY

7

Tie Game

Hakoah Wien and Jewish sports culture

Vienna

The soccer team Hakoah Wien’s match against SV Straßenbahn Wien, the sports club of the Vienna tramway company, ended in a 2:2 tie on March 7, 1938. Hakoah was part of the famous Viennese Jewish sports club, Sportverein Hakoah Wien. The club had been established in 1909 as a result of the changing attitude towards the body and health in the liberal Jewish community. This membership card belonged to one of the club’s foremost coaches, the swim coach Zsigo Wertheimer. Wertheimer had coached Ruth Langer, who famously refused to join the Austrian Olympic team in 1936, when she was just 15 years old.

TAGS: Anschluss, ID, Jewish Community, March 7, politics, prominent people, Sports, Vienna

SOURCE

Institution:

Jüdisches Museum Wien

Collection:

Membership card of Fatherland Front of Zsigo Wertheimer

Original:

Inv. No. 16776

8

TUESDAY

8

Family bonds

An Affidavit from uncle Charles

“As soon as I get all this information from you I will prepare the necessary affidavits and will also send the information to Dr. Pollak, who will also send his affidavits so that you and your family can come here.”

Newark, New Jersey/Baden

Charles Manshel, a wealthy businessman and himself a native of Austria, promises his cousin in Baden near Vienna to prepare affidavits for her and her family once he has all the required personal information. The letter shows Manshel’s sincere efforts to not only pave the way to immigration for his relatives but also do something for the professional integration of his niece’s husband, Dr. Eduard Ehrlich. Manshel was no stranger to hardship himself, having provided for his family since his father’s premature death when he was 16 years old.

TAGS: affidavits, Baden, document, emigration, family, immigration procedures, letter, March 8, Newark NJ, transnational networks

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

George and Paul Ehrlich Collection, AR 11418

Original:

Box 1, folder 1

Source available in English

9

WEDNESDAY

9

All hands on deck

The World Zionist Executive meets in London

London

The newspaper Die Stimme was considered the official mouthpiece of the National Zionist Committee in Austria. In its March 9 issue, it quotes a JTA report on the conference of the World Zionist Executive in London. Although tensions in Austria were running high, the conference had other pressing matters on its agenda, such as immigration to Palestine and changes in the British attitude towards it. Among the proposals discussed were lowering the price of the shekel in a number of Eastern European countries and establishing coordinating councils for Zionist activities.

TAGS: Anschluss, emigration, immigration, Journalism, JTA, London, March 9, media coverage, Palestine, politics, press article, Vienna, Zionism

SOURCE

Institution:

Compact Memory, Universitätsbibliothek Frankfurt am Main

Collection:

"Die Sitzung des Aktionskomitees.”, Die Stimme, Vol. 1, no. 742, p. 1.

10

THURSDAY

10

Preparing for Motherhood

Congregations add gender-specific gifts for girls

“The bestowal is made under the same conditions as that of the bar mitzvah gifts for the boys: upon request, congregations comprising fewer than 1000 souls receive the book free of charge.”

Berlin

In response to numerous requests, the Prussian State Association of Jewish Congregations, a voluntary association founded in 1921, decided to provide gifts to girls in parallel with the religious books given to boys upon becoming B’nai Mitzvah. While the books given to boys were aimed at deepening Jewish knowledge, the book offered to girls, Jewish Mothers by Egon Jacobsohn and Leo Hirsch, offered biographical sketches of the mothers of Jewish luminaries including Theodor Herzl, Walter Rathenau, and Heinrich Heine. As early as the the 19th century, reform-oriented synagogues in Germany began offering a collective “confirmation” for boys and girls. In some places, an individual ceremony for girls was customary, but there was no such thing as the modern bat mitzvah ceremony in 1938.

TAGS: Bar Mitzvah, Berlin, children, Jewish Community, letter, March 10, religion, Synagogues

SOURCE

Institution:

New Synagogue Berlin – Centrum Judaicum

Collection:

Memorandum of the Prussian State Association of Jewish Congregations to member congregations regarding gifts of books for girls on the occasion of their confirmation and graduation from school as well as bar mitzvah gifts for boys

Original:

CJA, 2 A 2, No. 2749

11

FRIDAY

11

Calm before the storm

No one knows what tomorrow will bring

“The streets are strangely calm, "Calm before the storm." At five p.m. there are swastika flags on display on some buildings (Meyerzett House). According to a radio report, the Austrian government has resigned and Seyß-Inquart is said to have assumed power. Deeply upset, we are rushing home from the shop.”

Linz

Adolph Markus lived in Linz, Austria with his wife and two children. One month before the “Anschluss” (the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany on March 12, 1938), he started keeping a diary which offers a gripping account of the growing tension. The situation was changing from day to day, and the Jews could only guess what would happen next. One day before the annexation, Markus wrote in his diary: “The streets are strangely calm. ‘Calm before the storm.’”

 

Follow a 24-hour multimedia reconstruction of the Annexation of Austria online at www.zeituhr1938.at

Live from March 11, 2018, 18:00 until March 12, 2018, 18:00 (Central European Time)

 

TAGS: Anschluss, commentary, diary, Linz, March 11, politics

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Diary, February 1938 – December 1939, Adolph Markus, ME1090

Source available in English

12

SATURDAY

12

The Unthinkable

Emotional reaction of one Austrian Jew to the Anschluss

“What yesterday seemed to me barely fathomable, a thought which I would thrust aside so that it would not enter my mind, is no longer a matter of trepidation and grief to me: emigration.”

Vienna

In spite of numerous signals that Austria was changing its political course, the Anschluss on March 12 caught many Austrian Jewish citizens by surprise. One of them was 25-year-old law graduate Paul Steiner. As is often the case with witnesses of cataclysmic historical events, he did not understand the magnitude of the change until it was a fact. On the day of the Anschluss, he expressed feelings of disbelief in his diary. Within just a few hours of the historical change, Steiner’s love and commitment to Austria changed into a feeling of indifference and alienation. Not seeing any hope in the new Austrian political reality, he made the quick but rational decision to leave his native land as soon as possible.

 

Follow a 24-hour multimedia reconstruction of the Annexation of Austria online at www.zeituhr1938.at

Live from March 11, 2018, 18:00 until March 12, 2018, 18:00 (Central European Time)

 

TAGS: Anschluss, commentary, diary, emigration, March 12, politics, Vienna

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Paul Steiner Collection, AR 25208

Original:

Box 1, folder 7

Chronology of major events in 1938

The Annexation of Austria

Austrian women cheering the arrival of German troops during the Anschluss. Time Inc.

In reaction to German threats, the Austrian president Wilhelm Miklas convenes an independent but pro-Nazi government headed by Arthur Seyß-Inquart, which governs from March 11–13. The Wehrmacht, the SS, and police invade Austria on March 12. At the command of Adolf Hitler, Austria’s National Socialist government begins the process of annexation, in which Austria is to merge gradually yet completely with the German Reich. National Socialism will rule in Vienna and its surroundings until the Red Army arrives in mid-April 1945. The Declaration of Independence will nullify the Annexation on April 27, 1945. In many other part of Austria, however, it will be the end of the Second World War in May 1945 that finally brings an end to National Socialism.

View chronology of major events in 1938

13

SUNDAY

13

Discrimination and arrests

One day after the Anschluss, hostility against Austrian Jews escalates

Vienna

After their triumphant entry into Austria, the Nazis lost no time in intimidating the country’s Jews and forcing them out of positions of influence and out of society at large. Prominent bankers and businessmen were arrested, other Jews—especially those employed in fields that were considered “Jewish,” such as the theater and the press—removed from office and replaced by “Aryans.” At the same time that the atmosphere in Austria became unbearably hostile towards Jews, organizations aiming to facilitate Jewish emigration to Palestine were raided and it was announced that the passports of “certain people” would be voided. It bears mentioning that the number of Jews in Austria in March 1938 was about 206,000—no more than 3% of the total population.

TAGS: Anschluss, antisemitism, Aryanization, emigration, imprisonment, Journalism, JTA, March 13, media coverage, Palestine, persecution of Jewish professionals, prominent people, Vienna, violence

SOURCE

Institution:

Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Collection:

“Drive Launched to Reduce Jews to Reich Status”

Source available in English

14

MONDAY

14

A taste of home

German-Jewish newspaper advertises German sausage in New York

“Finally, what you have been wishing for: genuine, good, German sausage, made from premium beef and veal at the lowest daily price.”

New York

After the tribulations of their forced emigration, often accompanied by a loss of status, property, and basic faith in humanity, German Jews might not have been expected to feel particularly nostalgic for their former home. This ad from the Aufbau, the New York-based German-Jewish paper published by the German-Jewish Club, shows that nevertheless, Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany were not necessarily in a hurry to give up their eating habits.

TAGS: advertisement, displacement, emigration, Jewish Community, Journalism, March 14, New York, refugees

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Advertisement, Aufbau, Vol. 4, no. 4, p. 9.

15

TUESDAY

15

Hitler’s Homecoming

Adolph Marcus reacts to Hitler's return to Linz

“From day to day the anxiety among the personnel is growing [...].”

Linz

From March 12 to 14, Hitler visited Linz, which he had considered his home town since his adolescence there. In his address to the local populace he stylized himself as the enforcer of the people’s will and invoked the German soldiers’ “willingness to sacrifice” and the “greatness and glory” of the German people. While many reacted with enthusiasm, others were seized by fear. In his diary, Adolph Markus captures the anxious atmosphere at his workplace in Linz days after the “Anschluss.”

TAGS: Anschluss, commentary, diary, economic persecution, Linz, March 15, prominent people, public sphere

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Diary, February 1938–December 1939, Adolph Markus, ME1090

Chronology of major events in 1938

Adolf Hitler celebrates the annexation of Austria

Central Linz, Austria, following the Anschluss. Time Inc.

The Heldenplatz in Vienna is crowded when Adolf Hitler hails “the accession of my homeland to the German Reich.” According to the Führer, the annexation of Austria places the country in its proper role as a “bulwark” of the Reich. Hitler challenges the Austrian people to never let themselves be “exceeded by anyone anywhere in their fidelity to the greater German national community.” Many newspapers carry the speech the following morning, including Vienna’s Volks-Zeitung, whose masthead is henceforth emblazoned with a swastika.

View chronology of major events in 1938

16

WEDNESDAY

16

Colleagues across continents

A teacher from Frankfurt connects with a colleague in the United States

“We would like to meet people over there with whom we can also discuss our plans—not our personal plans but the Jewish-social ones. After all, the situation of Jewish youth is getting more serious from day to day, and we feel obligated to seize all possibilities that we see over there.”

Frankfurt am Main/Bonn

Having barely begun his career as a teacher at the Goethe-Gymnasium in Frankfurt/Main, Hans Epstein lost his job shortly after the Nazi rise to power in 1933. After a brief intermezzo as a teacher at the famous “Philanthropin” in Frankfurt/Main, a progressive Jewish school with the motto “For Enlightenment and Humanity”, he became a co-founder of the “Anlernwerkstatt”, which prepared Jewish youngsters for emigration to the US. The mathematician Otto Toeplitz, a passionate educator who had lost his position at the University of Bonn in 1935, was now teaching children and organizing the emigration of students to the United States. In this letter, Epstein asks Toeplitz for a letter of recommendation and for contacts in the United States that might be useful for his endeavors.

TAGS: Bonn, children, emigration, Frankfurt am Main, Jewish Community, letter, March 16, persecution of Jewish professionals, schools, transnational networks

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Hans Epstein Collection, AR 6362

Original:

Box 1, folder I.13

17

THURSDAY

17

House of love

A Jewish home for children in Berlin—and beyond

Berlin

The notoriously authoritarian Prussian education system had traditionally aimed for obedience and discipline, often breaking children’s wings early on. In the “Ahawah” (Hebr. for “love”) Children’s Home on Auguststraße in Berlin’s central borough, a different spirit reigned: children shared in decision-making through a “Children’s Council”, the goal being to transform them into citizens rather than subjects. Corporal punishment was forbidden and employees were encouraged to create the atmosphere of a home. Beate Berger, a nurse and head of the children’s home since 1922, took a group of children with her when she emigrated to Palestine in 1934 and returned to Germany many times in the ensuing years to rescue more children. The photos show costumed children at the Purim celebration of the children’s home.

TAGS: Berlin, children, emigration, Jewish Community, Jewish holidays, March 17, Palestine, photo, welfare organizations

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Ahawah Children's Home, Collection AR 6427

Original:

ALB 78

18

FRIDAY

18

A new mission for World Jewry

Bratislava's Jewish paper calls for solidarity with Austrian Jews

“Austrian Jews have an old tradition as fully equal citizens who have always put their forces into the service of their homeland and have contributed to the latter's prosperity in all economic, social, and cultural fields”.

Vienna

The entire front page of Bratislava’s German-language religious-Zionist “Allgemeine Jüdische Zeitung” is dedicated to the Anschluss. Jews are called upon to stand by their Austrian coreligionists. An anonymous source notes the impoverished state of many Jews in Austrian lands and the resulting need to restructure social services as well as address the increasingly urgent issues of occupational retraining and emigration. The reader is reminded that Austria is still a member of the League of Nations and that Austrian law stipulates equal rights for religious and national minorities. Among other sources quoted is the British Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Butler, who reports having received assurances that the German government would “endeavor to achieve a moderation” of its policy towards minorities. The paper also reports that the President of the World Jewish Congress, Rabbi Wise, has appealed to the League of Nations to help Austrian Jewry. The rest of the picture is bleak: newspapers suspended, prominent Jews arrested, a Jewish theater closed, Jewish physicians dismissed, and other chicanery. The paper calls upon Jews everywhere to come to the aid of their Austrian brethren.

TAGS: Anschluss, antisemitism, Bratislava, commentary, cultural life, impoverishment, Jewish Community, Journalism, League of Nations, March 18, media coverage, Nazi policies, persecution of Jewish professionals, politics, press article, prominent people, rabbis, Vienna, Zionism

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Nationalsozialistisches Regime in Ősterreich, Allgemeine Jüdische Zeitung, Vol. 6, p. 1.

Original:

Vol. 6, p. 1

Chronology of major events in 1938

The National Socialists arrest 150 public figures

A raid on the Jewish Community offices in Vienna on March 18, 1938. Bundesarchiv Bild 152-05 - 15A.

The spring of 1938 is marked by a series of assaults on Jews in Vienna and a number of other European cities. These Anschluss pogroms constitute an escalation of the National Socialist policy of persecution. Citizens humiliate, bully, and attack Jews publicly. Shortly after the Annexation, National Socialists in Austria arrest about 150 public figures. A third of those arrested are Jews, including writer Heinrich Jacob, librettist Fritz Löhner-Beda, cabaret artist Fritz Grünbaum, Social-Democratic politician and lawyer Robert Danneberg, laywer Jakob Ehrlich, lawyer and president of the Jewish Community in Vienna, Desider Friedmann, and spice dealer Hans Kotányi. In April, the National Socialists will deport the group in an action referred to as the Prominententransport (“VIP-transport”). It will be the first deportation to the concentration camp Dachau.

View chronology of major events in 1938

19

SATURDAY

19

Aryanization

Forced sale of a cotton mill

“We are pleased to take this opportunity to thank you for the confidence you have shown us.”

Augsburg

After more than one hundred successful years in business, the cotton weaving mill M.S. Landauer in Augsburg announces the sale of the company. Throughout the Nazi period, as part of the program of “Aryanization”, Jews were coerced into selling their property to non-Jews, usually significantly below market value. In some cases, owners preempted official orders by selling to a trusted business associate, which did not generally help them avoid major losses. Ironically, the founder of the F.C. Ploucquet company, which now owned the plant, had been of Huguenot extraction and thus himself belonged to a community that had experienced severe persecution.

TAGS: Aryanization, Augsburg, dispossession, economic persecution, letter, March 19, Nazi policies

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Landuaer Family Collection, AR 207

Original:

Box 1, folder 2

20

SUNDAY

20

Branded

Defamation spills over to Austria

Vienna

This stereoscopic image from March 1938 shows a lingerie store in Vienna with a sticker that says “Jewish business” attached to its window. Immediately after the German Army’s entry into Austria, celebrated in many places, on March 12, 1938, the local Jewish population began to suffer from the same kind of defamation as German Jews had since 1933. The picture is part of the Sammlung Schönstein (Schönstein Collection) at the German Historical Museum. At the beginning of the 1930s, Otto Schönstein (1891–1958) of Nuremberg established his Raumbild Verlag, which published albums of stereoscopic photographs. In 1937, Heinrich Hoffmann, Hitler’s “personal photographer,” became involved in the publishing house, which was showing signs of economic difficulties, and used it for the dissemination of NS propaganda.

TAGS: Anschluss, economic persecution, March 20, Nazi policies, photo, propaganda, public sphere, Vienna

SOURCE

Institution:

Deutsches Historisches Museum

Collection:

Image of a Lingerie shop in Vienna

Original:

Inv. No. Schönstein 4207

21

MONDAY

21

Anneliese’s daily struggles

The correspondence of a dispersed family

“In any case, I'd advise you to approach the lady. She might be able to do something for you among her circle of acquaintances.”

Berlin / Rome

In March 1938, Anneliese Riess was living in Rome, Italy. In addition to keeping in touch with her sister, Else (see entry from February 5), she corresponded with her parents in Berlin. As in other families scattered across several countries, the letters of the Riess family deal with everyday events and practical information about emigration. With her Italian visa about to expire, Anneliese is trying to find a new safe haven. Through their network of friends, her mother has learned that there might be a position for Anneliese in Lund, Sweden. In this letter, she advises her to find out more about it.

TAGS: Berlin, emigration, family, family separation, letter, March 21, Rome, transnational networks

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Anneliese Riess Collection, AR 10019

Original:

Box 1, folder 9

22

TUESDAY

22

Women’s Rights are Human Rights

The League of Jewish Women counsels young women on emigration

Berlin

Since its founding in 1904, the League of Jewish Women had worked to ensure the dignity and independence of Jewish women and especially to protect them from sexual exploitation by facilitating professional training. By 1938, another issue had come to the fore: emigration. On March 22, 1938, the Group of Professional Women within the League, represented by Dr. Käthe Mende, hosted a discussion for “female youth” about questions of career and emigration. The guest speaker was Lotte Landau-Türk, and the discussion was moderated by Prof. Cora Berliner, a former employee in the German Department of Commerce and a professor of economics who had been dismissed from public service after the Nazi rise to power in 1933.

TAGS: Berlin, document, emigration, Jewish Community, March 22, persecution of Jewish professionals, prominent people, ticket, welfare organizations, Women

SOURCE

Institution:

New Synagogue Berlin – Centrum Judaicum

Collection:

Invitation to an event presented by the Group of Professional Women in the Berlin chapter of the League of Jewish Women on the topic of “Career and Emigration for Female Youth.”

Original:

CJA, 1 C Fr 1, No. 31, #9835, Bl. 32

23

WEDNESDAY

23

Soma Morgenstern

A man of letters meets an old friend in exile

Vienna/Paris

Soma Morgenstern held a doctorate in law, but he preferred making a living as a writer, authoring feuilletons on music and theater. Born in Eastern Galicia and fluent in several languages, including Ukrainian and Yiddish, he chose German for his journalistic and literary endeavors. After his dismissal in 1933 from the Frankurter Zeitung, whose culture correspondent he had been while based in Vienna, he barely managed to stay afloat with occasional journalistic work. The annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany made his situation entirely untenable. He was forced into emigration, leaving behind his wife, a child, and many manuscripts. By March 23 he had made his way to safety in Paris, where he stayed at the Hôtel de la Poste with another famous Galician exile, his old friend, the author Joseph Roth.

TAGS: Anschluss, children, displacement, emigration, Journalism, March 23, Paris, persecution of Jewish professionals, photo, prominent people, refugees, Vienna

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Portrait of Soma Morgenstern, Photograph by Otto E. Nelson, undated. Soma Morgenstern Collection, AR 6350

Original:

F 001

24

THURSDAY

24

An ordinary eulogy in a time of immeasurable loss

Max Kirschner honors Hedwig Waller

Frankfurt am Main

A mere 20 years had passed since the end of World War I, during which Dr. Max Kirschner, a Frankfurt physician, had been decorated with the Iron Cross—remarkably, for extending aid to enemy infantrymen. Yet the fact that Kirschner had fought in the War as one of 100,000 German Jews, 12,000 of whom lost their lives, did not in the long run improve his standing with the authorities. In his eulogy for Hedwig Wallach, scion of an old Frankfurt family, he praised the deceased’s quiet devotion to her husband, her lively interest in her children and the quiet bravery with which she had borne her illness.

TAGS: Frankfurt am Main, March 24, persecution of Jewish professionals, Speech, WWI, WWI veterans

SOURCE

Institution:

Jüdisches Museum Berlin

Original:

Speech of Max Kirschner on the occasion of Hedwig Wallach's funeral, Kirschner Family Collection

25

FRIDAY

25

Lost at home

Austrian Jewry and the US Consulate in Vienna

“Hundreds came in the belief that the United States was prepared to admit and to pay the passage of 20,000 immigrants. Consular authorities addressed groups of applicants, explaining the real situation.”

Vienna

In another dramatic report from Vienna, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency describes panicked Jews flocking to the US Consulate hoping in vain to receive some kind of support. Especially prominent Jewish citizens faced harassment and arrest by the secret police. Austrian Jewish leaders were forced to inform the police about their activities, while their German counterparts were unable to come to their support due to border restrictions. The situation of thousands of Jewish actors had become so desperate that even the Nazi representative of the Austrian Theater Guild acknowledged it and permitted a campaign in their support.

TAGS: Anschluss, antisemitism, artists, emigration, immigration, Journalism, JTA, March 25, media coverage, Nazi policies, persecution of Jewish professionals, prominent people, Vienna

SOURCE

Institution:

Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Collection:

“2,000 Jam U.S. Consulate at Vienna, Seek Visas”

Source available in English

Chronology of major events in 1938

Roosevelt’s call for a conference on refugee crisis raises hopes

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Library of Congress.

In response to the dramatic rise in the number of refugees, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt calls for an international conference. Following the annexation of Austria by the German Reich on March 12, 1938, the number of people fleeing from the National Socialists rises significantly. By now, however, most countries have become unwilling to accept more refugees, placing victims of Nazi persecution in a desperate situation. Since 1933, two agencies under the auspices of the League of Nations—the Nansen International Office for Refugees and the High Commissioner for Refugees from Germany in Lucerne, have worked to solve the refugee crisis without success. The conference will convene July 6–15 at Évian-les-Bains, France.

View chronology of major events in 1938

26

SATURDAY

26

Denaturalized

Jewish immigrants in Germany lose their citizenship

Worms

The passage in July 1933 of a law allowing the government to revoke the citizenship of those naturalized after the end of WWI had given Nazi officials a tool to deprive “undesirables” of their citizenship. The law targeted the Nazis’ political adversaries as well as Jews; 16,000 Eastern European Jews had gained German citizenship between the proclamation of the republic on November 9, 1918 and the Nazi rise to power in January 1933. Among those whose names appear on the expatriation list dated March 26, 1938 are Otto Wilhelm, his wife Katharina and the couple’s three children, residents of Worms and all five of them natives of Germany.

TAGS: children, document, expulsion, family, March 26, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, Polish-born Jews, Worms, WWI

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Carl Misch, Gesamtverzeichnis der Ausbürgerungslisten, 1933-1938, Paris 1939, List 38.

27

SUNDAY

27

Parental Pride

Family life in the shadow of the Nazi regime

“Helen is growing fast, looks healthy and lively and is a pretty girl. She is mentally agile and is already beginning to count, write and read.”

Hamburg

Wilhelm Hesse was the son of an orthodox business man. He resided in Hamburg with his wife Ruth and his two little daughters, Helen and Eva, whose early years he recorded in diaries that he kept for the children. The entries are interspersed with references to Jewish holidays and photographs of the children. In this entry, he documents proudly and in detail the progress of his daughter Helen, who is not yet five years old at this time. A lawyer with a doctorate, Hesse had been laid off already in April 1933.

TAGS: children, diary, family, Hamburg, Jewish holidays, March 27, persecution of Jewish professionals, religion

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Helen and Eva Hesse Family Collection, AR 25327

Original:

Box 1, folder 3

28

MONDAY

28

As far away as possible

Applications for immigration in the Australian consulate reach a new high

“The British consulate general admitted the would-be emigrants in groups of a hundred, giving out applications for visas and information on requirements for settlement in all parts of the British empire.”

Vienna

More than two weeks had passed since the Nazi takeover in Austria. The initial shock and disbelief among Jews had given way to despair and panic. Many reacted by seeking information about visa requirements for countries like the United States, Great Britain and Australia, which promised a safe haven and sufficient distance from the dramatic new situation in Austria. Between March 24 and 28, the Australian consulate alone received 6,000 applications for immigration—a number which considerably exceeded the country’s official immigration quota.

TAGS: Anschluss, emigration, immigration procedures, Journalism, JTA, March 28, media coverage, Vienna, visa application

SOURCE

Institution:

Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Collection:

“Goering’s Warning Sends Thousands to U.S., British Consulates in Rush for Visas” „Goering’s Warning Sends Thousands to U.S., British Consulates in Rush for Visas“

Source available in English

29

TUESDAY

29

A second Salzburg?

Max Reinhardt rebuilds his life and career in California

HOLLYWOOD

The Austrian-born theater and film director Max Reinhardt emigrated to the US in October 1937, accompanied by his wife Helene Thimig, an actress. By introducing technical innovations and elevating the position of the director, Reinhardt played a pivotal role in the development of modern theater. With his production of H. von Hoffmannsthal’s “Jedermann” in 1920, he became one of the co-founders of the Salzburg Festival. Shortly after he settled down in the US, plans emerged to found “another Salzburg” festival in California. This time, he wrote his friend Arturo Toscanini, he would be working “under more favorable climatic and political conditions, and perhaps with greater financial means.” Among his achievements in the US were staging Werfel’s “The Eternal Road” (1937) and founding the Max Reinhardt Workshop for Stage, Screen and Radio, a theater and film academy in Hollywood (1937–1939). He did not think very highly of US audiences.

TAGS: artists, cultural life, displacement, emigration, Hollywood, March 29, musicians, persecution of Jewish professionals, photo, prominent people, refugees, Salzburg

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Portrait of Max Reinhardt, Phot. Hänse-Hermann, Berlin, 1906.

Original:

F 4068A

30

WEDNESDAY

30

No coming back

Polish parliament passes a new bill against Jewish returnees

“The law will affect thousands of Jews living in Austria, Germany, Palestine and elsewhere.”

Warsaw

In the wake of Austria’s annexation by Nazi Germany, the Polish parliament (“Sejm”), fearing the return of up to 20,000 Polish citizens from Austria, passed a bill according to which Poles who had lived abroad for more than five years were to lose their citizenship. The situation of the Jews had improved somewhat under the Piłsudski government (1926–1935), but after the marshal’s death, especially in the atmosphere created by the “Camp of National Unity” (from 1937 onward), antisemitism was resurgent. Universities applied quotas to Jewish students and introduced “ghetto benches” for them, Jews were held responsible for the Great Depression, Jewish business were boycotted and looted, and hundreds of Jews were physically harmed, some killed.

TAGS: Anschluss, antisemitism, economic persecution, Great Depression, Journalism, JTA, March 30, media coverage, Polenaktion, Polish-born Jews, politics, public sphere, violence, warsaw, Zbaszyn

SOURCE

Institution:

Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Collection:

“Poland Enacts Law Denationalizing Thousands Living Abroad”

Source available in English

31

THURSDAY

31

Recommendation from Karl Bonhoeffer

Klaus' and Dietrich's father puts in a good word for a colleague

“She has extraordinary diagnostic faculties. She has a great energy for work. She is reliable and dependable in medical service. It is these qualities which won for her the admiration of the physicians at the hospital and the confidence of her patients.”

Berlin

Prof. Karl Bonhoeffer, a psychiatrist and neurologist as well as the father of two prominent opponents of the Nazi regime, Klaus and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, taught at Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin and was in charge of the Department for Mental and Neurological Diseases at the Charité Hospital. In this letter of recommendation, written in English for use in exile, Bonhoeffer praises the extraordinary achievements of his Jewish colleague, Dr. Herta Seidemann. While his attitude toward certain Nazi programs (such as the forced sterilization of carriers of certain congenital diseases and euthanasia) remains controversial, his efforts on behalf of several Jewish colleagues are indisputable.

TAGS: advocates, Berlin, emigration, letter, March 31, Nazi policies, persecution of Jewish professionals, prominent people

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Herta Seidemann Collection, AR 25060

Original:

Box 1, folder 5

Source available in English

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