In the course of 1938, the Jews' agonies under Nazi rule reached a new pinnacle. A perceptible upturn in their economic distress and isolation was compounded by overt violence. The events of Kristallnacht' (November 9ΓÇô10) made the Jews' lives intolerable. They were deprived of their sense of personal security; around 25,000 were interned in concentration camps. The events also dealt a lethal blow to the community, social, and cultural infrastructure that had sustained German Jewry until then. Under these harsh circumstances, a mass outflux of Jews began in late 1938.
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Austria
Nazi Germany's annexation of Austria on 13 March 1938 brought another 200,000 Jews into the sphere of Nazi rule. These Jews, who now endured an outbreak of humiliating street violence, mass arrests, and a more systematic and rigid Nazi policy than had applied in Germany up to that point, tumbled into helplessness.
Button title: ΓÇ£The whole family was helplessΓÇ¥. Inner Title: ΓÇ£From the Testimony of Herta Arnold, from a Jewish family in ViennaΓÇ¥. The atmosphere was very.... At home it was terrible. We did not know what had become of Father [whom the Germans had arrested] and what was happening to us. Mother could hardly cope with it. She just sat down and cried, and we were just little children - my brother was thirteen and a half and I was fourteen and a half.... The whole family was helpless. They went around, asked questions, and groped about.... Afterwards, a new law was passed every day: not to sit in the park, not to use the streetcar - and it simply affected our whole lives. We were more closed up at home and had nowhere to go....' Herta Arnold, Yad Vashem Archive VD630
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Austrian Jewry before the Nazi annexation
In the 1920's, and even more so in the 1930's, Austrian Jewry underwent an economic and demographic crisis. In 1934, following the Nazis' rise to power in Germany, Austria also underwent political changes. Austrian Chancellor Dollfuss, fearing a Nazi takeover, revoked parliamentary democracy and established a conservative authoritarian regime. The new political system, which had a prominent Christian character, undermined the position of the Jews. Although there was no explicit legislation, the new regime discriminated against Jews. The Austrian Nazi party was restricted, but other antisemitic organizations were given a free hand, which resulted in some cases in street violence against Jews.
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Sudetenland and Czechoslovakia
During the months of crisis that led to the Munich Agreement and to the annexation of the Sudetenland to the German Reich, anti-Jewish agitation and street violence by the local German Nazi party increased drastically, causing many Jews to flee. After the German occupation, almost all of the remaining Jews fled or were driven out of the region.
Flight from the Sudetenland
From a letter by S. Smith, a member of the Zionist Movement in Turn-Teplitz-Schoenau, 14 September 1938: …You cannot imagine the scenes at the railway station and on the bus going to Prague. The railway station looks like a refugee camp. Suitcases, backpacks, bedding and utensils are all over the place. People pushing and shoving. One cannot describe the farewell scenes. Only war can cause such suffering. The Plugah (group of the Zionist movement) was dismantled over night. A part of its members are already in Prague…. Everything was packed in haste, as I have to tell you, the danger of a pogrom is imminent…. Now I am all alone, without friends and all the members of the organisation…are gone…' Yad Vashem Archive, 02/596
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In the new Czecho-Slovak Republic
Following the annexation of the Sudetenland, a new Czecho-Slovak Republic was established in the remaining Czech and Slovak regions. The new government was under strong German pressure to introduce a policy of racial discrimination against Jews. Under the new circumstances there was a turn in Czech public opinion, which became more hostile to Jews. Many Jews were dismissed from the civil service and ousted from social organisations. On the eve of the March 1939 German occupation of the Czech lands of Bohemia and Moravia, which were to become the German "Protectorate", there were 118,310 Jews there, according to the racial definition of the Nuremberg Laws.
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Jews Forced Out of Germany
German Jews came under tougher restrictions and deeper isolation in the course of 1938. The official status of the religious community organisations was abolished and Jews were totally ousted from various areas of public and economic life. Jewish economic and welfare institutions were crippled precisely when more and more Jews were becoming destitute and the tide of fear gradually rose. The small stratum of affluent Jews who had managed until then to maintain their businesses under the Nazi regime were also dealt a serious blow in 1938. “What are bankers for?” From a letter sent by the president of a Jewish private bank in response to a loan application by the Gruenfeld Jewish textile company, June 21, 1938. … I do hope that you can appreciate why we are today unable to decide favorably on your request for a new loan. Even if there is no risk associated with such a loan, it could possibly entail an investment of bank capital which might be problematical for us in our own situation. You will probably ask, and with good right: so what then are bankers for? To which I can only reply: I no longer know the answer to that question either.' Avraham Barkai, From Boycott to Annihilation, The Ecomomic Struggle of German Jews 1933-1943, p. 148-149, Hanover & London 1989.
A climate of terror and economic restrictions. Inner Title ΓÇ£From the testimony of Miriam DoronΓÇ¥. ...Life turned very harsh. I remember the climate of fear very well, how I grew up in a climate of fear all around, of soldiers' footsteps, and of all kinds of rumours.... One of the employees in our business was active in the SS and told them about everything....What happened with German Jewry, I think, is that things may not have happened so dramatically, in one stroke. It was a chain of events. It was a process of sorts, from 1938, of fear that literally enveloped us all around - literally a climate, not yet of terror, but first of fear, and second, of very serious economic restrictions. Taxes on everything, limits, prohibitions.... We had a shoe store, one of the best.... Our family definitely had been well off, and we really became a family in distress.' Miriam Doron, Yad Vashem Archive 03:5703, Cassette 033C/1710.
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After Kristallnacht'
The torching of synagogues on the night of November 9, coupled with mass arrests and banishment to concentration camps of around 25,000 Jewish men across Germany, prompted extremely severe responses among the Jews. Overnight, the Germans' actions replaced the Jews' last vestiges of personal security with panic and dread. The Jewish leadership attempted to take action to improve matters, but they hardly stood a chance. Jews sought refuge anywhere. Inner Title ΓÇ£From the Testimony of Joseph LevyΓÇ¥. The days after Kristallnacht' were days of fear for all Jews throughout Germany. Pogroms and total destruction of Jewish property caused persecuted and defenseless people to seek refuge in the forests and mountains, to wander aimlessly, or to attempt to hide out with pitying Christian friends. None of us dared to show his face in the street, because young irresponsible punks conducted a campaign of terror there. Any Jewish man who circulated in the street was seized and turned over to the Gestapo under a barrage of verbal and physical abuse.... The lust to acquire and misuse power grew to insane levels.' Joseph B. Levy, My Life in Germany Before and After 30 January 1933, Yad Vashem Archive 0.33/975:74
The Jewish leadership in Berlin. Early on the morning of November 10, Leo Baeck went to the National Representation (Reichsvertretung) offices in Berlin and was bombarded from every direction with reports on the grisly eve. Together with Otto Hirsch, Baeck attempted to arrange a meeting with some high-ranking German official, but all the personalities he contacted turned him down. Shortly afterwards, Gestapo men entered the Representation offices, confiscated papers, and declared the building closed. Thus, the leaders of Berlin Jewry began to meet in Baeck's apartment. As they gathered the grim statistics on the extent of the arrests and the destruction, Baeck and his colleagues attempted to forward the information to Western diplomatic envoys and the foreign press. Leonard Baker, Days of Sorrow and Pain, Leo Baeck and Berlin Jews, p. 234-5, New York & London, 1978.
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Like a Drowning Man, Arthur Ruppin visited Germany two weeks after Kristallnacht' . In his report he described the conditions of Jewish organisations in Berlin: Nobody serious argues that he has a plan of any kind. They make attempts and grope about, but their thinking does not correspond to the extent of the distress. Everything they're doing seems to them like the motions of a drowning man who pounds the water as they drown him.' Ruppin's report indicates that many activists in the German-Jewish leadership, who had chosen to remain in Germany for years in order to lead the Jewish population, wished to leave after Kristallnacht' out of fear for their lives.
Yehoyakim Kokhavi, Jewish Public Institutions in Germany on the Morrow of the November 1938 Disturbances, in The November 1938 Disturbances: A Test for German Jewry, Ramat Efal, p.55, Yad Tabenkin, 1988 (Hebrew).
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Laughing and Dancing in Their World of Pretence. Two days after Kristallnacht' , Benno Cohn, deputy chairman of the Kulturbund der Juden in Deutschland - the Cultural League of the Jews in Germany - was summoned for an urgent talk with Hans Hinkel, the Nazi official in charge of culture at the Ministry of Propaganda. Hinkel informed him of a total prohibition for to Jews attend plays, concerts, and movies. Concurrently and surprisingly, however, he ordered Cohn to reactivate the Kulturbund on November 20. Title “In the world of pretence and make-believe”. It would have been suicidal to resist the order….In innumerable home women were waiting for some news of their arrested husbands and sons… and in the Jewish theatre the lights were up again…. Few people had come, mostly women and old folk and of course three men in bowler hats carrying brief cases, the inevitable delegation of the Gestapo. The gramophone blared a rumba and [the actors] laughed and danced in their world of pretence and make-believe one week after the pogrom.' Herbert Freeden, “A Jewish Theatre under the Swastika”, LBIYB, vol 1, p. 161-2, (1956)
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After Kristallnacht'
It became evident that the Nazis had decided to terminate Jewish life in Germany after Kristallnacht' , when the policy of encouraging Jews to emigrate gathered momentum. Masses of Jews attempted to leave Germany for any possible destination, and the organised Jewish activity that had developed in Germany since 1933 was dealt a grave blow.
From Immigrants to Refugees & Dissolution of Jewish Life
The circumstances that followed Kristallnacht' dramatically increased the number of Jews that emigrated from the Reich. The systematic search for a place to immigrate gave way to frantic flight. Over 100,000 Jews managed to leave Germany and Austria between the 'kristallnacht' and the outbreak of war. Those German Jews who had been would-be emigrants now became refugees. Although they encountered enormous difficulties in finding a country that would deign to take them in, they emigrated to every corner of the world: the United States, Britain, Palestine, South America and even Shanghai in China. ΓÇ£The St. Louis AffairΓÇ¥. On May 13, the St. Louis sailed from Hamburg with 930 Jewish passengers aboard, all of whom held entry visas for Cuba. When the ship reached Havana, its' passengers were told that their visas would not be honoured. American immigration officials similarly refused to allow the refugees to enter the United States. The ship was forced to returned to Europe and docked on June 17 in Antwerp. Belgium, the Netherlands, France, and Great Britain agreed to admit the refugees, but most were eventually murdered by the Nazis, who occupied three of these four countries.
We Had Nothing Left
From the Testimony of Liesel Joseph Loeb (audio) . At the time we were in the harbour of Havana and things just weren't moving along. We had some suicide attempts and there was near panic on board because, as I told you before, the men all had had to sign they would never return to Germany and if we had returned to Germany, the only place where we would have ended up was in a concentration camp because we had no homes left. We had no money left and we had nothing left…The world just didn't care. We were in touch with organisations all over the world.' Liesel Joseph Loeb , Yad Vashem 03/5706.
The Odyssey of Charlotte Stein-Pick of Munich, Spring of 1938
Charlotte's husband's uncle, who had emigrated to the United States as a young man, sends them a guarantee so that they can follow his example. However, their application is turned down because their kinship is not close enough. On 8 November 1938, in Stuttgart, with the assistance of an attorney from Stuttgart and a set of bribes, the couple obtains visas from the American consulate. On Kristallnacht' , 9-10 November, Charlotte's husband is arrested and taken to Dachau. He is released about a month later, ill with pneumonia and depression. In
July 1939, the family leaves its apartment in Munich, taking only a small portion of their belongings after having been forced to sell the rest. The cargo is forwarded to the United States on the last American cargo vessel to leave Germany before the war. On 25 August 1939, the couple bids farewell to Munich, crosses into Switzerland, and heads for Basel, where they plan to stay for one week. 27 August, as the war clouds build up, the couple decides to leave Basel at once and go to France, lest the borders be sealed. 30 August, they manage, with great difficulty, to reach the port of Cherbourg and are referred to Le Havre, where their ship has been rerouted. They are afraid to speak German, lest they be considered enemy aliens. Early September 1939, they reach the port as war is declared, only to discover that their ship to the United States is debarking from Southampton, England. They cannot go there for lack of British visas. On 8 September, after appling to the British consulate, the couple obtain transit visas, travel to Southampton, and board their ship. Several days later they reach New York, hoping to begin a new life but despondent about the relatives they have left behind. Eventually they settle in Portland, Oregon. Charlotte Stein-Pick, Meine verlorene Heimat, Bamberg, 1992, p. 57-97.
Emigration to Palestine
Despite the British Mandatory government's policy, which limited Jewish immigration, Palestine continued to be a major immigration destination for Jews from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia. The Palestine Office in Berlin, which was closed for several days after the Kristallnacht Pogrom of November 1938, was reopened with the permission of the German authorities and continued to distribute the few immigration certificates that were granted by the British authorities. At the same time, organised illegal immigration to Palestine ( 'Aliyah B' ) was set up with the knowledge of the German authorities, enabling thousands of Jews to emigrate to Palestine.
The First Illegal Transport from Germany to Palestine
From the testimony of Eva Becker from Regensburg: I arrived in Berlin from Regensburg in December with my husband, who had been arrested in November 1938.… Our passports were valid only for emigration, which meant we were not permitted to stay in Berlin. We were listed for the first illegal transport…because my husband had been liberated from Dachau on condition that he would leave the country…. The preparations were made by the Palestine Office…. The participants [of the transport] were mostly members of Hehalutz (Zionist Pioneer Groups)…. This meant that there were almost no old people among them…. The total number from Germany and Austria was approximately 500…. We left Berlin on 4 March 1939 in the evening…. We left Vienna in a special train, under Gestapo supervision…. We landed on the beach near Herzliyah [Palestine] on 15 March. The men had to wade through the water and the women were carried to the beach by men who were awaiting us. Then we had to continue on foot…'. Yad Vashem Archive 01/302.
Shanghai
Starting in August 1938, the city of Shanghai in China, which was under the joint international control of several powers, became a central destination for the emigration of Jewish refugees from Germany and Austria. Until May 1939 no visa or other documents were needed in order to emigrate to the Japanese zone of Shanghai. 17,000 refugees from Germany and Austria, most of them Jews, and another 1,000 Jews from Poland, settled there in this period.
No one knew anything about Shanghai
From the testimony of Horst Eisfelder: the threat of war was on the horizon. Australia, which was so far from Europe, seemed very tempting.… Our disappointment was great when after several months of anxiety we received a telegram from Canberra: 'His Majesty's Government regret to inform you that you are not entitled to receive an immigration visa'.… We had to act swiftly, as our passports, which had been issued for the express purpose of emigration and which were valid for six months only, were about to expire. The only possibility left was to emigrate to Shanghai…. No one knew anything about Shanghai. Most people could not even find it on the map. From the school atlas we learned that it was situated on the coast, so we bought beach clothes.… We crossed the German border on 26 October 1938…. During the voyage, which I spent mostly being sea-sick, I celebrated my 13th birthday.' Horst Eisfelder, Exil in China, in: Leben im Wartesaal, Exil in Shanghai 1938-1947 , Juedisches Museum im Stadtmuseum, p. 82-3, Berlin 1997.
Kindertransporte
The growing concern for the future of the Jews in Germany and the difficulties in emigration, prompted many parents to send their children abroad. Youngsters were sent to relatives or to schools in other countries, and others went to vocational training centers in other European countries or to work as household servants. British rescue groups, including the Quakers, started to bring groups of unaccompanied children to England before 1938. This activity intensified after the Kristallnacht November Pogrom, when about 10,000 such children and youngsters in organized transports ( Kindertransporte ) were admitted into Britain. Another 3,400 children were sent to Palestine through the Youth Aliyah , and some to European countries and the US.
I stood with a label around my neck
J.A.S. Grenville, age 11, left Germany for Britain on a Kindertransport . … In March 1939 we were assigned to a Kindertransport . My mother took us to the station; we were never to see her again…The special train left Berlin with a cheerful band of children who were glad to leave Germany …the pain and homesickness came later. We were in touch with our parents and loved ones only until the outbreak of war a few months later. In completely unfamiliar surroundings, and unable to speak a single world of English, I was separated from my two elder brothers and stood, a label round my neck with two other refugee boys in the waiting room at Harwich railway station….A tall haggard-looking Englishman turned up…He drove us in an ancient car to the boarding school…'. Peter Alter (ed.), Out of the Third Reich - Refugee Historians in Post-War Britain. p. 60-1, London & New York 1998.
Dissolution of Jewish Life
After Kristallnacht' , the Gestapo closed the offices of most Jewish organisations in Germany, including the Central Association (CV) and the Zionist movement. The Jewish welfare organisations were gravely disabled, the Jewish newspapers were closed down, and the Jews' educational and cultural activities were severely impaired. From this phase on, all Jewish institutions were placed under much tougher Nazi control. From the National Representation (Reichsvertretung) to the National Association. The National Representation was officially reactivated on November 29 with the approval of the Nazi authorities. In February 1939, its leaders decided, with the knowledge of the authorities and, in all probability, under their pressure, to rename their organisation the Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland (ΓÇ£Reich Association of Jews in GermanyΓÇ¥) - a compulsory centralised agency that would embrace all Jewish congregations and organisations that remained legal. The new association was placed under tight Nazi control and, on 4 July 1939 membership in it became a legal requirement for anyone considered Jewish under the Nuremburg Laws.
The Kulturbund
In early 1939, the Nazis foisted a change in the organisational pattern of the Jewish Cultural League. The activities of dozens of Jewish cultural organisations in various German towns, autonomous until them, was now placed under the supervision of a new centralised national board that operated under the Nazis' watchful eyes until it was shut down in September 1941. The new board was also given the task with the publishing and sale of Jewish books.
Jewish press
All the Jewish newspapers in Germany, which reflected a wide range of Jewish views, were shut down after Kristallnacht' . On November 23, they were replaced by the Juedisches Nachrichtenblatt - practically speaking, the mouthpiece of the National Representation (Reichsvertretung) and, afterwards, the Reichsvereinigung. Until it was closed down in 1943, it was the medium through which the Nazi regime communicated its directives to the Jews.
The Jews who stayed behind
The Jews who remained in Germany found themselves in an impossible existential situation. Most had no jobs. Early on in 1939 they were ordered to relinquish all valuables; the proceeds from the forced sale of their property were deposited in blocked accounts from, which the Jews were given minuscule monthly allotments. When the war broke out, 230,000 isolated and defenseless Jews still lived in Germany. Many were elderly, including a large number of widows who had remained in Germany with no place else to go.
