Jewish Women in Nazi Germany before Emigration (Part E)
Source: Marion Kaplan, ΓÇ£Jewish Women in Nazi Germany before EmigrationΓÇ¥ in: S. Quack, (ed.), Between Sorrow and Strength, Women Refugees of the Nazi Period , (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 11 - 48.
Women's Organisations
Jewish women's organisations, the League of Jewish women in particular, tried to alleviate the worsening condition of all Jews, giving special attention to the plight of women. Whereas from its inception in 1904, the League had focused on feminist issues of concern to Jewish women, between 1933 and its demise in 1938, the League took part in a battle for survival along with other Jewish organisations. This endeavour had several aims: (1) to keep communal organisations intact and to maintain Jewish customs and traditions; (2) to help needy Jews; and (3) to prepare people for emigration. The remainder of this chapter briefly sketches these attempts.
With the Nazi seizure of power, the League began to work closely with the Central Organisation of Jews in Germany and its welfare bureau (Zentralausschuss fuer Hilfe und Aufbau) 140 . As the Jewish community continued to draw closer together under the pressure from outside, the League also strengthened its ties to other Jewish women's organisations and to the Jewish youth movement. Furthermore, it founded new chapters and welcomed new members. When, for example, professional women's organisations were Nazified in the process called Gleichschaltung (co-ordination) and Jewish women were thrown out, the League set up its own groups for Jewish career women. In Berlin, the League's Professional Women's Group grew so large that it consisted of nine subgroups, including nursery school teachers, youth group leaders, doctors, gym teachers, arts and crafts instructors, and groups interested in pedagogy 141 . A letter written by one of these new members noted: 'As everything crumbled around us, as our professional groups were dissolved, as we lost our jobs, the League invited all professional women. Soon, various groups were formed to give everyone the opportunity to meet with professional colleagues and to attend professionally interesting lectures' 142 .
Typically, the women's organisation also looked after members' morale. It instituted neighbourhood evenings, 'so that women of different professions living in one neighbourhood could meet ...to come together both intellectually and spiritually in a small circle.' 143 One woman reported: 'The first evening was unforgettable. Everyone introduced themselves by name and profession, skimmed over their education, hiring, and job, and - disintegration . . . Then we spoke of our adjustment to our current lives.' 144
Unwilling to accept cultural deprivation, Jews resisted their exclusion from German cultural life by creating their own. German Jews continued to appreciate German music and the Enlightenment classics in their own theatres and auditoriums. This included holding concerts and public lectures on secular topics in the synagogues 145 . They also promoted Jewish education, opening two Jewish continuing education centres in 1934 146 . The League of Jewish Women sponsored cultural activities, such as reading circles, lectures, and a newsletter, that were primarily concerned with Jewish custom, history, and religion. In Bochum, for example, women studied Mishna 147 . In Gelsenkirchen, forty-five to fifty participants formed a study group called "A Path Through the Jewish Year." 148 In Munich, they studied the weekly Torah section, attended a Bible course, and heard guest lectures on the era of Jewish emancipation 149 . Women in Koenigsberg participated in a lecture series on the Bible 150 . And in Cologne, a study group met to discuss Jewish newspapers and the philosophy of Martin Buber 151 . Local League groups also organised travelling libraries (like those in Rhineland and Westphalia), concerts, and exhibits of Jewish women artists 152 . Local sections of the League also, but more rarely, discussed general topics relating to cultural issues and women. As late as January 1935 the Berlin chapter discussed "Recent Literature on the Woman Question." In these early years of Nazi rule, Jewish women, like Jewish men, refused to give up their dual identities as Germans and as Jews. As they turned more and more to Jewish learning and culture, they upheld their version of German culture, both enlightened and liberal, against the barbarism they saw around them. The leaders of the League of Jewish Women reaffirmed their allegiance to the women's movement, seeing themselves as 'trustees of the German women's movement in its purest, most spiritual, social-ethical, un-political form.' Bertha Pappenheim, the founder of the League, refused to yield her German heritage, insisting that: Being a German, a woman, and a Jew are three duties that can strain an individual to the utmost, but also three sources of... vitality. They do not extinguish each other in fact they strengthen and enrich each other 153 .
The League knew that people whose social and economic conditions had declined so rapidly needed psychological and material support. One creative way to resist demoralisation was to publish a cookbook, which helped to solve a nutritional dilemma for Jews who had difficulty buying kosher meat after Hitler forbade ritual slaughtering. It went through four editions in its first year (1935). When the Nuremberg Laws excluded Jews from the German Winter Relief, the League participated in a Jewish Winter Relief program. In numerous cities, its members helped to collect money, clothing, and fuel. In Berlin, eighteen collecting depots sent about 30,000 care packages to needy families every month 154 .
As more and more Jews lost their jobs and businesses (at the end of 1936, about 20 percent were on welfare and another 20 to 25 percent were living off the capital they had received from the sale of their businesses), the League tried to help Jewish women and their families adjust to lower living standards 155 . Its local chapters offered courses in cooking, baking, darning, ironing, knitting, tailoring, sewing, first aid instruction, and household repairs. In Bochum, for example, one branch organised four evenings with the theme of "Self Help." 156 In various cities, the League set up communal kitchens, small play groups for children whose mothers needed to do part-time work, and discussion sessions where women could talk about their problems and receive practical and moral support 157 . In Munich, 130 women regularly attended such Hausfrau afternoons 158 .
The League also expanded its child care facilities (which included a lunch program, a home, and a rest home for children), its rest home for working women, and its support of the retired women and widows groups. Furthermore, it increased its subsidies for needy women who had to take recuperative vacations or visit a health spa. In October 1938 the League's newsletter recommended setting up communal apartments as a way of stemming the housing shortage and caring for the Jewish elderly 159 . Aware of a growing need among men as well, the League instituted home economics courses for boys, opened one of its homes for the aged to "older gentlemen," and offered places in its Berdormitory (formerly for women students) for "also possibly young men." 160
Repeatedly, the newsletter underlined the essential role of women in providing persecuted families with a peaceful home environment. The League took for granted the notion that women were the ones who preserved the family's equilibrium. It assumed that women would persevere in their usual role of providing optimism and sustenance. In turn, it helped women with practical, emotional, and intellectual advice when they could no longer face the misery around them 161 .
The last important effort of the League of Jewish Women involved preparing women for emigration. At first, the organisation did not support emigration. After the Nuremberg Laws, however, it intensified its efforts to train girls for agriculture, domestic service, and crabs - careers in demand in Palestine and other countries of destination 162 . By 1936 the L's newsletter and counselling centres focused extensively on the question of emigration. They discussed practical problems, cultural differences, and the legal status of women in such faraway places as Paraguay, Shanghai, and New York. Furthermore, the organisation intended to organise its members' abroad so that they could extend aid to newly arrived refugees. Yet, as already mentioned, the League remained dissatisfied with the rate at which women emigrated 163 .
After the November Pogrom, the League was ordered dissolved. Its treasury and institutions were absorbed into the Central Organisation of Jews in Germany. Its leaders joined the staff of that organisation. Although many of these women had opportunities to emigrate (many had accompanied children out of the country, only to return), they chose to continue their work for the Jewish community. Their duties became more difficult and depressing. In July 1942 Hannah Karminski, former executive secretary of the League, wrote to a friend: 'This work can no longer give any satisfaction. It hardly has anything to do with what we understood 'social work' to mean ...but, because one continues to work with people, once in a while there are moments in which being here seems to make sense.' 164 Most of these women were deported in 1942 and became victims of Hitler's war against the Jews.
German-Jewish women had lived in familiar, comfortable surroundings until these had turned hostile and murderous, like a grotesque dream. They coped in a gender-specific way. Their roles as housewives and mothers sharpened their alertness to danger, helping some plan for the future. Others, confronted with the increasing dreadfulness of daily life, uncomprehending children, escalating deprivation and anxiety, and the loss of yesterday's friends, gathered their families about them and tried to manage as best they could. They were able to resist complete despondency through family and social networks. They had to manage the proverbial double burden of employment and housework and indeed a triple burden when one adds escalating emotional care taking. In addition, many volunteered to work for women's organisations. These organisations attempted to alleviate some of the practical and psychological stress within a community suddenly impoverished, ostracised, and sundered by the emigration of its loved ones. In the limited time and space allotted them and with the restricted means at their disposal, women's organisations encouraged job retraining, emigration, and self-help, while attempting to boost morale and a positive Jewish consciousness. Neither organisations nor individuals were able to withstand the force of state persecution and terror, and ultimately, the annihilation of the Jewish community in Germany.
References:
140. Rita Thalmann notes that the male-led Reichsvertretung never acknowledged the important work of the League, agreeing only in April 1938 to have one woman recommended by the League on its board. However, unlike the representatives from other major Jewish organisations on the board, this woman would not represent the League but only herself. ΓÇ£Juedische Frauen,ΓÇ¥ 296.
141. BJFB , Jan. 1935: 10.
142. BJFB , Dec. 1935: 13.
143.Ibid.
144.Ibid.
145.Jonathan J. Helfand, ΓÇ£ Halakhah and the Holocaust: Historical Perspectives,ΓÇ¥ in R. Braham, ed., Perspectives on the Holocaust (Boston, 1983).
146.See Herbert Freeden, ΓÇ£Kultur nur fuer Juden': Kulturkampf' in der juedischen Presse in Nazideutschland,ΓÇ¥ in Paucker, ed., Jews in Nazi Germany .
153.ΓÇ£Aus der Welt der Frau,ΓÇ¥ Juedische Rundschau , Feb. 14, 1935, 18.
154. BJFB , Feb. 1935: 11. BJFB , Nov. 1935: 6. BJFB , Jan. 1936: 6. Seventy-five thousand Jews received Winter Help in January 1936. These included mixed marriages where the head of household was Jewish, and foreign Jews. For the large cities, the figures were: Berlin, 25,258 people; 20 percent of the Jews in Breslau, or 4,001 people; and 13 percent of the Jews in Frankfurt/Main, or 3,409 people.
156.These were divided into classes on the care of linens and clothing, the home tool chest, thrifty and practical cooking, the home first-aid and pharmacy kit. BJFB , Feb. 1935: 4, 11. BJFB , May 1935: 10.
161.Ella Werner Collection, LBI, collection no. 3079, folder 22.
162.Affiliates provided a variety of training: Crafts were taught in the home economics schools in Breslau, Frankfurt/Main, and Hamburg; tailoring was taught in Hamburg and Cologne; infant nursing was taught at Neu-Isenburg and in Frankfurt/Main; teacher's aide training was available in Frankfurt/Main; courses for governess' took place in Cologne; technical teachers' training was provided in the Jewish Home Economics School, Frankfurt/Main. The main Home Economics School of the League of Jewish Women at Wolfratshausen expanded all of its courses. BJFB , March 1938: 3.
163. BJFB , June 1936. BJFB , Dec. 1936.
164.ΓÇ£Letters from Berlin,ΓÇ¥ Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 2 (1957): 312.
