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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

SUNDAY

1

Compass Travel Bureau

Emigrating is not as easy as it may seem

“Would you like to have your relatives here? Do you need help surmounting the difficulties?”

New York

In an ad in the Aufbau aimed at German immigrants, the Compass Travel Bureau in New York offered “expert advice in all matters related to immigration and the handling of all the formalities of traveling.” The reference to “formalities” elides the excruciating bureaucratic hurdles facing prospective emigrants. Jews desperate to leave Germany first had to obtain quota numbers and a plethora of documents from various German authorities and to contend with the slow postal service as they sought sponsors in America.

TAGS: advertisement, affidavits, bureaucracy, displacement, emigration, immigration, immigration procedures, Journalism, May 1, New York, refugees

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

“Announcement”, Aufbau, Vol. 5, no. 6, p. 8.

2

MONDAY

2

Right of residence

A pre-nazi law assures safety on paper

Vienna

Austrian municipalities were required by law to issue documents known as a Heimatschein to their inhabitants confirming their right of residence. These papers guaranteed their holders the right to live in a given area and were necessary to access social welfare support in case of need. In May 1938, the 1849 law establishing this system was still in force—at least on paper. The Heimatschein of Carl Grosser, a young Jewish businessman, was renewed on May 2, 1938. Grosser had graduated from the prestigious Wasagymnasium, with its strikingly high percentage of Jewish students (up to 70%), in his native Vienna in 1932. Afterward, he joined his father’s necktie business, spent time in Germany and England to expand his professional horizons, and traveled extensively throughout Europe.

TAGS: Anschluss, document, economic persecution, May 02, schools, Vienna

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Carl Grosser Collection, AR 10559

Original:

Box 1, folder 12

3

TUESDAY

3

Segregation in Kindergarten

A Hamburg lawyer reports on his young daughter's education

“The times have become very serious. We are depressed and despondent, and therefore there is little leisure and inclination to write and take photographs as elaborately as before.”

Hamburg

Even though he professes to be in low spirits due to the serious situation and therefore hardly inclined to write and take photographs as regularly as before, Wilhelm Hesse, a lawyer in Hamburg, describes the development of his daughter Helen in some detail in his diary. He reports on her capacity to think logically and a desire to learn so strong that the parents feel they have to make her slow down a bit. Hesse also writes with satisfaction about Helen’s progress in a Jewish kindergarten, but he does not fail to mention that she must learn to get along better with her little sister, Evchen. Since the passing of the Nuremberg Laws in 1935—Helen was two years old at the time—Jewish children were no longer allowed to attend non-Jewish kindergartens, and Jewish kindergarten teachers were prohibited from taking care of non-Jewish children. The Hesse family was religiously observant and might have opted for a Jewish institution even under normal circumstances.

TAGS: children, commentary, diary, family, Hamburg, May 3, Nazi laws, religion, segregation

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Helen and Eva Hesse Family Collection, AR 25327

Original:

Box 1, folder 3

4

WEDNESDAY

4

Monetary hurdles

The Reich Office of Foreign Exchange Control requests large sums from emigrating Jews

Berlin/Dresden

Before Martha Kaphan could travel to Mandatory Palestine, she had to deposit the considerable amount of 800 Reichsmark at the Dresdner Bank. The Reich Office of Foreign Exchange Control, which played a major role in the exploitation of Jewish emigrants, demanded the sum for the issuance of her tourist visa. Thousands of Jews tried to enter Palestine illegally by means of  tourist visas with the intention of applying for permanent visas later. Apparently, Martha Kaphan did not emigrate for long. The British Consulate confirmed her departure on December 24, 1938. The deposit was paid on December 29, 1938 in Breslau, and the account was closed on January 10, 1939.

TAGS: Dresden, economic persecution, emigration, immigration, immigration procedures, May 4, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, official document, Palestine, refugees, visa application

SOURCE

Institution:

Deutsches Historisches Museum

Original:

Deposit Confirmation for the Receipt of a Tourist Visa for Palestine; Do2 2000/1000

5

THURSDAY

5

Leave the rest to the Kadosh Baruch Hu

Sigmund Hirsch encourages his nephew Julius not to worry about politics

“As for politics, don't you worry, my dear boy. Do your duty and leave the rest to the Kadosh Baruch Hu. Personal views no longer count, otherwise I would tell you that I personally do not believe there will be war right now. What will be done if it does come, God forbid, will become apparent then. Nobody is sufficiently prescient in order to predict what will be. It goes without saying that you will stay in Italy. But as I said, I consider any discussion of this topic misguided, since nobody wants this war which would only cause universal ruin.”

Genoa/Merano

In 1935, under mounting pressure, the orthodox Hamburg physician Henri Hirsch left Germany and joined his brother Sigmund in Genoa, Italy. Shortly thereafter, he was joined by his second wife, Roberta, and by some of his young adult sons, and moved with them to Merano. In 1938, Henri Hirsch died. In this letter to his nephew Julius, Sigmund Hirsch tries to assuage the young man’s worries about an impending war, exhorting him to put his faith in God and promising help. Since he had been based in Italy for a while, many seem to have pinned their hopes on him: with palpable regret, he relates how little he can do for the “thousands” of people asking him for help.

TAGS: commentary, displacement, emigration, family, Genoa, letter, May 5, Merano, persecution of Jewish professionals, refugees, religion

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Julius and Edith Hirsch Collection, AR 25585

Original:

Box 1, folder 22

6

FRIDAY

6

“Finis Austriae”

Sigmund Freud celebrates his last birthday in Vienna

VIENNA

While Sigmund Freud, the “father of psychoanalysis,” clearly did not underestimate the significance of the Anschluss—“Finis Austriae” was the succinct commentary he jotted down in his diary—even the search of his home and publishing house by the Nazis did not prompt him to explore emigration. As a matter of fact, he reportedly commented on the unsolicited visit of the Nazis, who had made off with a substantial amount of money, with the dry remark, “I have never taken so much for a single visit.” But when his daughter Anna, herself a renowned psychoanalyst, was interrogated by the Gestapo shortly thereafter, the usually restrained Freud’s reaction was highly emotional, and he began weighing the various offers of asylum he had received. May 6, 1938 was his last birthday in Vienna.

TAGS: Anschluss, antisemitism, commentary, emigration, May 6, persecution of Jewish professionals, photo, prominent people, Vienna

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Portrait of Sigmund Freud in 1920. Sigmund Freud Collection, AR 827

Original:

F 2177

7

SATURDAY

7

A mother fights for her son

The Blums pin their hopes on America after job loss in Germany

“Bruno, my eldest son, has for many years contributed to our livelihood. Now, having lost his position and without any hope to get another one here, he intends to leave this country. But unfortunately, almost all countries close themselves against immigrants. Therefore I don’t see an other possibility as to try to get a permit to enter the U.S.A.”

Vienna/New York

Immediately after the Nazi takeover of Austria, Jewish shops and businesses had been put in the hands of “Aryan” provisional managers. In the course of this “Aryanization”—really the expropriation and theft of Jewish property—30-year-old Bruno Blum, a resident of Vienna, lost his job at the “Wiener Margarin-Compagnie” after little more than four years. Understanding that her eldest son’s chances to find a new job under Nazi rule were scant, Betty Blum approached her cousin Moses Mandl in New York for help with an affidavit. When she did not hear back from him, she wrote this letter to her nephew, Stanley Frankfurter, asking him to coax Moses Mandl into helping or turn to the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) for assistance.

TAGS: affidavits, Anschluss, Aryanization, dispossession, economic persecution, emigration, family, immigration procedures, Jewish property, letter, May 7, Nazi policies, New York, persecution of Jewish professionals, refugees, Vienna, welfare organizations

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Blum Family Collection, AR 25132

Original:

Box 1, folder 5

Source available in English

8

SUNDAY

8

The Trial

Jewish Cultural Association features a play about Arab-Jewish reconciliation

Berlin

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.

TAGS: artists, Berlin, cultural life, document, Kulturbund, May 08, Palestine, Polish-born Jews, politics, prominent people

SOURCE

Institution:

New Synagogue Berlin – Centrum Judaicum

Original:

Invitation to the premiere of The Trial, a play by [Shulamit] Bat-Dori, adapted by Herbert Friedenthal, at the Theater of the Jewish Cultural Federation, Kommandantenstrasse 57; CJA, 1 D Gr 1, Nr. 10, #13322, Bl. 13

9

MONDAY

9

Abortion and politics

German-Jewish Club organizes lecture with physician from Germany

New York

On May 9, the Ärztegruppe of the German-Jewish Club (an informal association of physicians within the city’s main German émigré organization) in New York offered a lecture on the topic of abortion. During the Weimar Republic, repeated efforts had been made to abolish or at least reform the anti-abortion paragraph (§218). Its opponents pointed out that it put the working class at a disadvantage, since poverty was the chief motivation for abortion. In 1926, a member of the Reichstag representing a coalition of three right-wing parties, including the NSDAP, proposed legalizing abortion for Jews only. Under the Nazi regime, which promoted the production of “racially valuable” offspring, abortion was illegal unless it prevented the birth of children considered “undesirable.” In the US, the depression had led to an increased demand for abortion, and by the beginning of the 1930s hundreds of birth control clinics had sprung up. Poverty and the lack of access to qualified practitioners often led to the injury or death of pregnant women through self-induced miscarriage. The lecturer, Dr. Walter M. Fürst, was a recent arrival from Hamburg.

TAGS: advertisement, antisemitism, cultural life, Great Depression, Hamburg, Journalism, May 9, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, New York, politics, segregation

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

„Ärztegruppe der German-Jewish Club“, Aufbau, Vol. 4, Nr. 6, S. 4.

10

TUESDAY

10

Stuck in No Man’s Land

League of Nations intervenes for 56 expellees

Belgrade

The annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany in March 1938 had brought an abrupt end to 1,000 years of Jewish life in the Burgenland region, Austria’s easternmost state. The expulsion of the small Jewish population, carried out by the SS, local Nazi officials, and civilian collaborators, commenced immediately. This article by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reports on the League of Nations’ intervention on behalf of 56 expellees who had ended up in “no man’s land” in the border area between Austria and Yugoslavia. The League’s High Commissioner for German Refugees requested the temporary accommodation of the displaced persons by Yugoslavia, to be followed by permanent resettlement elsewhere.

TAGS: Anschluss, antisemitism, Belgrade, Burgenland Jews, displacement, dispossession, expulsion, Journalism, JTA, League of Nations, May 10, media coverage, Nazi policies, refugees, violence

SOURCE

Institution:

Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Collection:

“Yugoslavia Gives Haven to 56 Refugees on League’s Request”

Source available in English

11

WEDNESDAY

11

Antisemitic premises

Hungarian nobleman criticizes a proposed bill that would restrict freedom of Jews

“The bill restricting Jews in the nation's economic and cultural life was sharply attacked in the Chamber of Deputies today by Count Aponyi [sic], who declared that apart from its inhumanity it contained unjustified libels and reflections against the Hungarian Jews.”

Budapest

From its inception, the Horthy government had made no secret of its antisemitism. As a matter of fact, in 1920, Hungary was the first European country after World War I to introduce a numerus clausus to limit Jews’ access to higher education. First in reaction to territorial and demographic losses in WWI, later in the wake of the Great Depression, there was a striking proliferation of fascist and right wing extremist movements in Hungary, some calling themselves “national-socialist.” One such group was the rabidly antisemitic Arrow Cross Party, founded in 1935. In 1938 a bill was introduced to restrict the economic and cultural freedom of Jews in the country. This May 11 report from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency describes Count Apponyi’s vehement critique of the bill in the Chamber of Deputies. Dr. Istvan Milotaj, deputy of a right-wing party, defended the bill, claiming that Jews could not be assimilated and that even figures such as Disraeli and Blum had “spiritually remained Jews.”

TAGS: antisemitism, Budapest, economic persecution, Fascism, Great Depression, Journalism, JTA, May 11, media coverage, persecution, politics, prominent people, segregation, WWI

SOURCE

Institution:

Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Collection:

“Bill Curbing Jews Assailed in Hungarian Parliament”

Source available in English

12

THURSDAY

12

Brothers

Unlike his famous sibling, Albert Göring was an ally to the Jews

“Since in the meantime a significant calming has occurred, I do not believe that there will be any danger for you or for your brothers. If, however, should this situation occur again, you can count on me at any time.”

VIENNA

Unlike his older brother Hermann, the holder of several senior positions in the NS government and a notoriously brutal hater of Jews and dissidents, the engineer Albert Göring abhorred Nazism and was prepared to act on his convictions. He refused to join the party and demonstratively adopted Austrian citizenship. A resident of Vienna, he is said to have joined Jews, who after the Anschluss were forced to perform the humiliating task of scrubbing the pavement, and he did not hesitate to help victims and political opponents of the regime. In this letter to the Jewish lawyer, Dr. Hugo Wolf, he communicates his impression that “a significant calming” had taken place and his assumption that the danger was past. He also promises help in case of need.

TAGS: advocates, Anschluss, antisemitism, commentary, letter, May 12, Vienna

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Max and Margareta Wolf Collection, AR 10699

Original:

Box 1, folder 2

13

FRIDAY

13

No time to lose

Jewish paper advises to quickly learn foreign languages

“It is really nothing new that the most important preparation for emigration is learning languages.”

HANNOVER

By May 1938, emigration seemed to be on the mind of every German and Austrian Jew. This article in the <i>Hannover Jüdisches Gemeindeblatt</i>, for example, exhorts prospective emigrants to lose no time and start studying English as soon as possible. According to the paper, at least two-thirds of German-Jewish emigrants were likely to settle down in English-speaking countries, and even those heading to Latin America would profit from a solid knowledge of English. On the other hand, proficiency in Spanish could be useful because of extensive trade relations between North and South America. The answer to the question “Spanish or English?” therefore was an emphatic “Both!”

TAGS: commentary, displacement, emigration, Hannover, Journalism, Language skills, May 13, media coverage, press article, refugees, South America

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

“English oder Spanisch?”, Hannover Jüdisches Gemeindeblatt, Vol. 15, No. 19, p. 1.

14

SATURDAY

14

Opening night

A swashbuckler dazzles with help from an Austrian Jew

HOLLYWOOD

On May 14, 1938, American moviegoers lined up to see Errol Flynn in his latest swashbuckling adventure produced by Warner Brothers. Flynn’s turn as Robin Hood was especially thrilling thanks to the lush film score by an Austrian Jew whose music was no longer welcome at home. Although a citizen and resident of Austria, composer and conductor Erich Wolfgang Korngold felt the effects of Nazi cultural policy soon after 1933, since he had often worked in Germany. In this climate, he did not have to think twice about Max Reinhardt’s invitation in 1934 to compose the score for his Hollywood production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Korngold’s symphonic film scores broke new ground and established the typical “Hollywood sound.” In 1937, while on an extensive visit to Vienna to complete the orchestration of his opera “Die Kathrin,” he received an invitation from Warner Brothers to compose the score for “The Adventures of Robin Hood.” This assignment spared him the turmoil of the Anschluss. He returned to the US well before March 12, 1938. This photograph shows what appears to be a recording session for the Robin Hood score. The actor in the photograph is Basil Rathbone, who played Robin Hood’s nemesis, Sir Guy of Gisbourne. Korngold won an Academy Award for his compelling score—his second after “Anthony Adverse” (1937).

TAGS: Anschluss, antisemitism, cultural life, displacement, emigration, Hollywood, May 14, musicians, photo, prominent people, refugees, Vienna

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Picture of Erich Korngold orchestrating the 1938 American film “Robin Hood.” The star of the movie, Basil Rathbone, on the right.

15

SUNDAY

15

Pedigree papers

The “Aryan certificate” furthers the marginalization of Jews

Freiberg

After the so-called “Aryan Paragraph” of the “Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service” of April 7, 1933 came into effect, members of certain professions were required to prove their “purely Aryan descent” in order to continue practicing their professions. The 38 year-old surgeon Dr. Walter Bernhard Kunze of Freiberg in Saxony was among those who had to fill in a form regarding his lineage for the “Aryan certificate.” The form, dated May 15, 1938, contains personal data reaching back to the generation of his grandparents. To the form, the corresponding documents from the civil registry office and the parish office had to be attached. Obtaining the numerous copies from the church and communal offices in the places of birth and residence of the grandparents often entailed a significant bureaucratic burden to the individual. The “Aryan certificate” was an effective tool of National Socialist racial policy by which persons seen as “non-Aryan” could be stigmatized and increasingly marginalized.

TAGS: antisemitism, bureaucracy, document, Freiberg, May 15, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, persecution of Jewish professionals, segregation

SOURCE

Institution:

Deutsches Historisches Museum

Original:

Questionnaire to establish proof of Aryan lineage

16

MONDAY

16

Education disrupted

Ruth Wertheimer navigates antisemitic discrimination and emigration

Paris

Ruth Wertheimer was born in Halberstadt (Saxony Anhalt) in 1915. Thanks to the revenue from a successful corset and lingerie shop with several branches, the family was living comfortably. However, in 1929, several years before the Nazis’ ascent to power, the family business had already suffered economic damage due to a libelous, antisemitically motivated claim against one of its proprietors, Ruth’s aunt Johanna. In 1932, while attending a business school in Berlin, where the family had moved in Ruth’s childhood, she was subjected to such intense antisemitism from teachers and classmates that she decided to quit before graduating. The passport displayed here was issued on May 16 in Paris and also lists Paris as Ruth’s place of residence. Her mother and stepfather had moved there in 1935. In Paris, Ruth resumed her studies.

TAGS: antisemitism, Berlin, displacement, economic persecution, emigration, Halberstadt, May 16, Paris, passport, refugees, schools

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Ruth Worth Collection, AR 25024

Original:

Box 1, folder 1

17

TUESDAY

17

The first woman rabbi

Regina Jonas on “Religious problems of the Jewish Community today"

Berlin

A few inconspicuous lines in today’s issue of the Jüdische Rundschau advertise a lecture in Berlin’s “Ohel Jizchak” Synagogue by “Miss Regina Jonas” on the topic “Religious problems of the Jewish Community today.” Regina Jonas had studied with much dedication at the Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums in Berlin and fought hard to reach her goal of becoming a rabbi. Not wishing to rock the boat in these troubled times, even liberal rabbis who might have been positively inclined toward the ordination of women, such as Leo Baeck, were not willing to ordain her. Her final thesis was a halakhic treatise on the topic “May a Woman Hold Rabbinic Office?” It was Rabbi Max Dienemann who in 1935 made her the first female rabbi in history. Interestingly, in spite of the passionate opposition in some quarters and doubts regarding the validity of Regina Jonas’s ordination, she enjoyed the respect even of some orthodox rabbis, who henceforth addressed her as Fräulein Rabbiner or “colleague.” The Jüdische Rundschau apparently preferred to play it safe.

TAGS: advertisement, Berlin, cultural life, Jewish Community, Journalism, May 17, prominent people, public sphere, rabbis, religion, Synagogues, Women

SOURCE

Institution:

Compact Memory, Universitätsbibliothek Frankfurt am Main

Collection:

“Ankündigungen,” Jüdische Rundschau, Vol. 44, issue 39, p. 7.

18

WEDNESDAY

18

Despite everything, music

Conductor Erich Erck directs Jewish Chamber Orchestra

MUNICH

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.

TAGS: antisemitism, cultural life, Jewish Community, Kulturbund, May 18, Munich, musicians, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, persecution of Jewish professionals, photo, prominent people, public sphere, segregation, Synagogues, WWI veterans

SOURCE

Institution:

Jüdisches Museum Berlin

Original:

Erich Eisner as a conductor in the Liberal Synagogue in Munich, Erich Eisner Collection, Gift of Manfred Eisner

19

THURSDAY

19

Conflict in Palestine

Away from national socialism, but violence remains

"There were no casualties.”

Jerusalem

Nothing in this May 19 Jewish Telegraphic Agency report from its Jerusalem correspondent could provide German or Austrian Jews eager to leave for safer shores with the hope that life in Palestine would grant them peace and quiet. Between Arab attacks on Jewish workers or Jewish-built infrastructure and labor unrest among unemployed Jews, the only reassuring aspect of Palestine was its distance from the epicenter of Nazi activity. Since the beginning of the Great Revolt, Arabs, British, and Jews in Palestine had been embroiled in an often violent conflict—scarcely an attraction for weary Central-European Jews eager for peace.

TAGS: emigration, Jerusalem, Journalism, JTA, May 19, media coverage, Palestine, violence

SOURCE

Institution:

Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Collection:

“Arabs Attack Jews Erecting Border Barricade”

Source available in English

20

FRIDAY

20

Pitiless

Göring calls for a strict anti-Jewish boycott

“(...) a ‘pitiless anti-Jewish boycott’ until the last Jew is forced to emigrate from Austria.”

Vienna

In today’s release, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reports that the Deutsches Volksblatt in Vienna urges a “pitiless anti-Jewish boycott.” This, the paper argues, is the line demanded by Hermann Göring in his last speech in Vienna. Highly decorated in WWI as a fighter pilot, Göring had become a member of the NSDAP early on and was a member of its inner circle. He had established the Gestapo in 1933, was commander-in-chief of the German airforce (Luftwaffe) and as Plenipotentiary of the Four-Year Plan, he also wielded power over the German economy. Other than that, he is known for his pivotal role in bringing about the Anschluss and his passion for collecting art, which he often acquired in dubious ways.

TAGS: Anschluss, antisemitism, economic persecution, Hate speech, Journalism, JTA, May 20, media coverage, Nazi policies, Nazi propaganda, prominent people, public sphere, Vienna, WWI, WWI veterans

SOURCE

Institution:

Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Collection:

“‘Pitiless Boycott’ of Jews Urged by Vienna Paper”

Source available in English

21

SATURDAY

21

A silly ditty

Heinz Neumann celebrates his bar mitzvah with a song

“May God grant you all health, contentment and happier times again.”

Berlin

It is hard to imagine that the guiding hand of an adult was not involved in writing the toast that Heinz Neumann made at his bar mitzvah celebration on May 21 in Berlin: the way in which the boy expresses his gratitude for having been granted a carefree life by his parents despite the difficult times scarcely comes across as the style of a 13 year-old. Heinz promises to “keep in mind the ethical commandments of Judaism” and wishes everyone health, contentment and happier times. Luckily, in order to brighten things up a bit, one of his grandmothers and an aunt had composed a song with light-hearted lyrics based on the melody of a familiar German oompah tune in honor of the bar mitzvah. It can be assumed that the festive meal, crowned by a “Fürst Pückler Icecream Cake,” also raised the celebrants’ spirits.

TAGS: Bar Mitzvah, Berlin, children, family, Jewish Community, May 21, photo, religion

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Neumann and Jacks Family Collection, AR 25580

Original:

Box 1, folder 1

Chronology of major events in 1938

The National Socialists in Austria adopt the Nuremberg Laws

A diagram explaining the Nuremberg Laws. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Hitler issued the laws at the 7th Congress of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP) in September 1935. The Reichsbürgergesetz (Reich Citizenship Law) defines who shall be considered a Jew. The law furthermore differentiates mere citizens from Reichsbürger (citizens of the Reich). Reichsbürger are those citizens which have German or near-German blood. The Blutschutzgesetz (Law to Protect German Blood and German Honor), prohibits marriage between Jews and non-Jews. These laws codify the core elements of the Nazis’ antisemitic ideology. With their implementation in Austria, discrimination against Jews is not merely permitted, but integral to all state functions.

View chronology of major events in 1938

22

SUNDAY

22

Ready for Germany

The despair of a nationalist German Jew

“I am a Jew! A Jew in a desperate position: a Jewish German who in spite of everything that has befallen him or perhaps because of it cannot shed his ties to Germany [...].”

Hildesheim/Berlin

The writer of this letter was a young man from Hildesheim, Fritz Schürmann (later Frank Shurman), born in 1915. Even though he is said to have struggled with antisemitism well before the Nazis rose to power, he joined the Deutscher Vortrupp (“German Vanguard”) in 1934, a group of young, extremely nationalistic Jews whose slogan was “Ready for Germany” and who hailed National Socialism as a force preventing Germany’s downfall. Given these views, it must have been especially painful for him to confront the bitter reality of rejection by German society. In this letter, he thanks a Mr. Dilthey in Berlin for the distinction of having spent time with him and dramatically informs him of his Jewish identity. “I am a Jew! A Jew in a desperate position: a Jewish German who in spite of everything that has befallen him or perhaps because of it cannot shed his ties to Germany […].” Denied his identity as a German by the Nazi regime, the writer communicates the crippling effects of the political situation on his psyche and the absurd notion of having to leave Germany in order to be able to be German.

TAGS: antisemitism, Berlin, commentary, emigration, Hildesheim, letter, May 22, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, politics

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Frank M. Shurman Collection, AR 25219

Original:

Box 1, folder 25

23

MONDAY

23

Faster and faster

Leo Baeck turns 65

“And this year will be a difficult one; the wheel is turning faster and faster. It will really test our nerves and our capacity for careful thought.”

Berlin

In April 1938, Rabbi Leo Baeck, the president of the Reich Representation of Jews in Germany and as such the main representative of German Jewry, had presciently written, “And this year will be a difficult year; the wheel is turning faster and faster. It will really test our nerves and our capacity for careful thought.” Baeck had been an army chaplain in World War I and as a patriot must have been extremely pained by the persecution of German Jewry. With large parts of the community reduced to poverty, Jewish rights curtailed, Jews pushed to the margins of society, and no prospects for improvement, Rabbi Baeck’s 65th birthday on May 23 probably was quite a somber affair.

TAGS: antisemitism, Berlin, commentary, economic persecution, impoverishment, Jewish Community, May 23, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, photo, prominent people, rabbis, religion, segregation, welfare organizations, WWI, WWI veterans

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Lucian Loeb, Leo Baeck in his library, Berlin, 1935. Leo Baeck Collection, AR 66

Original:

F 12073

24

TUESDAY

24

Soldier, pacifist, cabaret artist

Fritz Grünbaum interned at Dachau

“I see nothing, absolutely nothing. I must have accidentally gotten myself into National Socialist culture.”

DACHAU

After three decades of making his fellow Austrians laugh, cabaret artist Fritz Grünbaum’s career was brought to an abrupt end by the Anschluss. His politics alone would have sufficed to make him intolerable for the new regime: Grünbaum had returned from action in World War I not only a decorated soldier but also an avowed pacifist. As for Nazism, he did not mince words. Since 1933, he had been getting more political, and when during a 1938 performance a power outage caused the stage lights to go out, he commented glibly, “I see nothing, absolutely nothing. I must have accidentally gotten myself into National Socialist culture.” His last performance at the famous cabaret “Simpl” in Vienna just two days before the Anschluss was followed by an artistic ban on Jews. Grünbaum and his wife Lilly, a niece of Theodor Herzl, tried to flee to Czechoslovakia but were turned back at the border. On May 24, he was interned at the Dachau concentration camp. Grünbaum was also known as a serious art collector, mostly of modernist Austrian works, and a librettist.

TAGS: Anschluss, artists, Concentration Camps, cultural life, Dachau, imprisonment, May 24, persecution of Jewish professionals, photo, politics, prominent people, refugees, Vienna, WWI, WWI veterans

SOURCE

Institution:

Jüdisches Museum Wien

Original:

Fritz Grünbaum at roll call in Dachau; Inv. No. 24631

25

WEDNESDAY

25

More conflict in Palestine

Six dead, Jews and Arabs

“This morning a Jewish bus en route to Jerusalem was shot at near Lifta. A police escort returned the fire, reportedly inflicting several casualties.”

Jerusalem

Time and again, unsettling news about sectarian violence in Palestine reached Jewish readers in the diaspora. On May 25, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, a prime source of information on the situation of the Jews under the Nazis and of developments in the Yishuv, reports under the headline “6 Deaths Added to Terror Toll in Palestine.” It writes about the latest victims in Jerusalem, Haifa and Tiberias—both Jews and Arabs—and the circumstances of their deaths.

TAGS: Jerusalem, Journalism, JTA, May 25, media coverage, Palestine, violence

SOURCE

Institution:

Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Collection:

“6 Deaths Added to Terror Toll in Palestine.”

Source available in English

26

DONNERSTAG

26

Paperwork

Emigrants must overcome a sea of bureaucratic and financial hurdles

LÖRRACH

Since 1937, Lina and Siegmund Günzburger of Lörrach in southwest Germany and their son, Herbert, had been preparing their paperwork for emigration. The requirements amounted to nothing short of a nightmare. Prospective emigrants had to procure numerous personal documents, letters of recommendation, and affidavits. They were also required to prepare an inventory of all their belongings and to document that they had paid all their taxes. Apparently, the required documents also included this copy of the marriage certificate for Siegmund’s grandparents. Especially perfidious was the so-called “Reich Flight Tax.” Originally introduced in the waning days of the Weimar Republic to prevent capital flight in reaction to the government’s austerity policy, under the Nazis, it became a tool to cynically punish the Jews for leaving a country that was doing everything it could to make it unbearable for them to stay.

TAGS: affidavits, antisemitism, bureaucracy, displacement, document, economic persecution, emigration, family, immigration procedures, Lörrach, May 26, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, refugees, Weimar Republic

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Herbert Guenzburger Collection, AR 5947

Original:

Box 1, folder 2

27

FRIDAY

27

Henry Kissinger turns 15

The teenager suffers from blatant antisemitism in his home town Fürth

FÜRTH

On May 27, 15 year-old Heinz Alfred (later Henry) Kissinger celebrated his birthday in his native Fürth one last time. Heinz had attended the Jewish elementary school and a Gymnasium in his home town. From 1933, Jewish children were no longer allowed to attend public schools, so that only the Israelitische Realschule was open to him and his younger brother, Walter. Elsewhere, too, the new times made themselves felt in the children’s lives. Suddenly, they were no longer allowed to join the other kids and swim in the river Altmühl when they were visiting with their grandparents in Leutershausen. Heinz was an avid fan of the local soccer team and a player himself, but under the Nazis, Jews were prohibited from attending their games. Even though his father, Louis, had been put on permanent furlough from his job as a teacher at a girls school when the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service came into effect in 1933, he was inclined to stick it out in Germany. It was thanks to his resolute mother, Paula (née Stern), that in April 1938, Louis Kissinger applied for passports. By May, the family’s preparations for emigration were in full gear. Relatives of hers had emigrated to the US already before 1933 and were now helping with the bureaucratic groundwork.

TAGS: antisemitism, children, emigration, family, Fürth, immigration procedures, May 27, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, persecution of Jewish professionals, photo, prominent people, public sphere, schools, segregation, Sports

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Portrait of Henry Kissinger, Henry Kissinger Collection , AR 4041.

Original:

F 3558

28

SATURDAY

28

Brit Shalom

Martin and Paula Buber move to Jerusalem

Jerusalem

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.

TAGS: emigration, Jerusalem, May 28, Nazi policies, Palestine, persecution of Jewish professionals, photo, politics, prominent people, refugees, segregation, Zionism

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Portrait of Martin Buber, 1930. Henry Schwarzschild Collection, AR 10024.

Original:

F 11336

29

SUNDAY

29

The Jewish Hospital in Hamburg

Despite being undermined by the Nazis, the hospital keeps up its work

“As a friendly keepsake of our common years at the I.K.”

Hamburg

Depicted here is the facade of the Jewish Hospital in Hamburg. The photograph is part of an album preceded by the above inscription dated May 29, 1938. The hospital was endowed by merchant and banker Salomon Heine, also known as the “Rothschild of Hamburg,” in memory of his late wife Betty and inaugurated in 1843. The poet Heinrich Heine, Salomon’s nephew and beneficiary, honored the occasion with his poem Das neue israelitische Hospital zu Hamburg, in which he called it “A hospital for poor, sick Jews, for human beings who are thrice miserable, afflicted with three vicious ailments, with poverty, bodily pain, and Jewishness!” Even though the Nazi regime had been undermining the hospital’s finances since 1933, it had withstood these measures and was still able to take care of its patients in May 1938.

TAGS: antisemitism, economic persecution, Hamburg, impoverishment, Jewish Community, May 29, photo, prominent people, public sphere, welfare organizations

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Israelitisches Krankenhaus, Hamburg, photograph album, AR 6812

30

MONDAY

30

Mindset

Not enthusiastic, but with a will to succeed

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

TEL AVIV/ZURICH

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

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

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Herbert Joseph Mansbach Collection, AR 7073

Original:

Box 1, folder 2

31

TUESDAY

31

Adoption in Germany

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

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

WUPPERTAL-ELBERFELD/NEW YORK

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

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

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Frederick Rosenbaum Collection, AR 6707

Original:

Box 1, folder 1

Chronology of major events in 1938

Law on the Confiscation of Degenerate Art

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

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

View chronology of major events in 1938

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