The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) grew from organisations founded in 1881 to assist Jewish migrants arriving at Ellis Island, USA. During World War Two HIAS provided immigration and refugee services. After the war, HIAS was instrumental in evacuating the displaced persons camps and aiding in the resettlement of some 150,000 people in 330 U.S. communities, as well as Canada, Australia and South America. More recently, since the mid-70s, HIAS has helped more than 300,000 Jewish refugees from the former Soviet Union and its successor states escape persecution and rebuild new lives in the United States. As the migration arm of the organised American Jewish community, HIAS also advocates on behalf of refugees and migrants on the international, national and community level.
Hans Heinrich Lammers (1879-1962), was a career civil servant, who joined the Nazi party in 1932 and was appointed by Hitler to chief of the Chancery on 30 January 1933, and promoted to Reichsminister on 26 November 1937. After 1941, the power and influence that Lammers was used to wielding passed increasingly to Martin Bormann.
Thomas Cook (Thomas Cook and Son Ltd) ran a freight forwarding and storage business in Lisbon. During World War Two Portugal was neutral and Jews and others escaped there (often through Spain) en route to the USA and other places of refuge. Jews in Europe, intending to leave would have sent their belongings to Thomas Cook, Lisbon, as it was an internationally trusted firm, with offices around the world. In 1940 it was owned by Companie de Wagons-Lits, based in Brussels, but was later sequestrated by the British Government.
Unknown
These three unrelated documents are evidence of anti-Semitic measures taken by the Nazis.
Louis Löwenthal, was a Jewish travelling salesman, in Berlin and other locations in Germany.
Josef Reheis, a German citizen, was prosecuted for uttering 'unpatriotic' sentiments about the war. Having admitted to two strangers that he regularly listened to foreign radio stations for reliable news about the progress of the war and that he felt Germany was sure to lose, he was denounced by them, and sentenced to two years imprisonment.
Unknown
Reports by Hungarian Foreign Office officials of meetings and discussions with British foreign office officials and secret service agents shed some light on the background to relations between the two countries immediately before and during World War Two.
Alliance Israélite Universelle was a Jewish organisation founded in France in 1865 as a reaction to antisemitism, and the main aim of which was the defence of world Jewry. The Ligue Internationale contre le Racisme et l'Antisémitisme was created in 1928. The latter was not an exclusively Jewish organisation but its defence of East European Jews attracted many Jews and the tendency of many of its members to seek confrontation with antisemites on the streets brought it into alliance with left-wing organisations.
Nothing is known of the provenance or authorship of this report, which is a digest of details about an international anti-Jewish congress which took place in Belgium.
This miscellaneous collection of reports document the situation of German Jewish refugees in Portugal in the 1930s. Reference is made to the Committee for the Aid of Jewish Refugees and to its founder Augusto d'Esaguy.
Delegacíon de Asociaciones Israelitas Argentinas, originally called the Comite contra el Racismo y el Antisemitismo de la Argentina, was an umbrella organisation was founded in July 1935 for all important Jewish bodies in Argentina apart from the communists.
Hilfsverein Deutschsprechender Juden was founded by seven members of the German Jewish immigrant community of Buenos Aires who had been ostracized by Buenos Aires' non-Jewish 'German Colony'. The organisation assisted German Jewish immigrants who could no longer rely on the support of the German non-Jewish institutions many of which had succumbed to Nazi antisemitic propaganda.
Comite contra el Racismo y el Antisemitismo de la Argentina was founded by Argentine Jews in December 1934, comprising delegates from the major Jewish organisations and supported by the Jewish Colonization Association.
Nothing is known of the provenance and little is known of the authorship of these letters and reports which document the situation of Jews in Brazil in the 1930s.
Interessen-Gemeinschaft Farbenindustrie was a German conglomerate of companies formed in 1925 - many produced dyes, but soon later turning to advanced chemistry. IG Farben was founded as a reaction to Germany's defeat in World War One and held a monopoly on chemical production. During the National Socialist regime, it manufactured Zyklon B, a poison used for delousing, and later used as the lethal agent in the gas chambers of the death camps of Auschwitz and Majdanek. The company was a major user of slave labour and as a result 13 directors of IG Farben were sentenced to prison terms between one and eight years before a US military tribunal at the Nuremberg Trials, following the IG Farben Trial (1947-1948). As a result, in 1951, the company was split up into the original constituent companies.
In 1943 the occupation authorities in Salonika, Greece set up the Office for the Distribution of Jewish Property.
The Brand family were a Jewish family from Vienna. Max Brand came to Great Britain in 1939. Nothing is known of the fate of family members.
Siegfried Weiner was a Jewish lawyer who lived in Regensburg, Bavaria until October 1933, when the family emigrated to Palestine. The family later returned to Regensburg.
The Jewish Central Information Office, now known as the Wiener Library, was established in 1933. Alfred Wiener, a German Jew who worked in the Central Association of German Citizens of Jewish Faith, fled Germany in 1933 for Amsterdam and together with Professor David Cohen, set up the Jewish Central Information Office, collecting and disseminating information about events happening in Nazi Germany. The collection was transferred to Manchester Square, London in 1939 with Wiener making the resources available to British government intelligence departments. The Library soon became known as 'Dr Wiener's Library' and the name was adopted.
After the war the Library's academic reputation increased and the collecting policies were broadened. Funds were raised, a new board was formed and the Library was re-launched. Work continued in providing material to the United Nations War Crimes Commission and bringing war criminals to justice. During the 1950s and 1960s the library began gathering eyewitness accounts, a resource that was to become a unique and important part of the Library's collection. In 1956 the Library was forced to move from Manchester Square and temporary accommodation had to be found, with some material being put into storage. A new premises was found in Devonshire Street. The Weiner library is the world's oldest Holocaust memorial institution.
Little is known about the author save for that which is contained in the letter itself, namely that Emmerich Menzner was a rank and file member of an SS cavalry regiment in an unidentified part of Poland in 1942, and that he hailed from Litzmannstadt (Lodz).
The Deutscher Fichte-Bund was a German, nationalist, antisemitic organisation, founded in Hamburg in 1914, the objective of which seemed to be the dissemination of propaganda both in Germany and abroad.
The Board of Deputies of British Jews is the main representative body of British Jews. Founded in 1760 it has since become a widely recognised forum for the views of the different sectors of the UK Jewish community.
The Aliens Committee was formed by the Board in 1905 (the year the first Aliens Restrictions Act was passed) to ensure that Jewish immigrants received considerate treatment and to provide help with naturalisation problems.
Born 1888; Lt in the 10th Battalion, Middlesex Regiment; fought in the First World War; advocate of pacifism during the 1930s, attempted to mediate a truce in the Second World War by visiting the German legation in Dublin, leading to his name being placed on a list of persons to be arrested in the event of a German invasion. Patron of the British Peoples Party, an anti-war party that was accused of fascist sympathies; died 1953.
Rosa and Hedwig Seelig owned and ran a hotel for a relatively affluent clientele in Bad Kissingen, Bavaria. After the hotel was plundered during Kristallnacht, the two sisters went to live at a Jewish home for the aged in Frankfurt. They perished in Auschwitz during World War Two.
The articles, written by a variety of authors, were commissioned by Dr Heilbrunn with the intention of publishing a book on the recent history of Franfurt's Jews. The book was never published.
Dr Josef Fadenhecht was a Bulgarian Jewish teacher and lawyer.
Lazarus Horowitz was a Jew lving in Lucerne, Switzerland.
Rosel and Selli Goldstein were sisters and German speaking Jews, originally from Dresden. Before the outbreak of World War Two, they moved to Gorlice, Poland.
Unknown
In April 1933, Joyce Weiner was a young free-lance journalist who had recently spent two semesters as Hilfslektorin at the University of Leipzig. She had many friends in Leipzig and was, therefore, aware of the situation in which the Jewish population found itself. In view of this, she agreed to become the Honorary Secretary of the Hospitality Committee organised by the ladies of the B'nai Brith (in association with the main German Refugees Committee). At the committee she met many talented and distinguished refugees from Germany, the vanguard being professional people such as artists, writers, doctors and scientists. Amongst them was Frau Irma Sernau, a well-known fashion editor from Berlin. Because Joyce Weiner was able to render some service to friends of Frau Sernau, that lady desired to make some return. Her sister, Lola Sernau, was, at that time, private secretary to Leon Feuchtwanger, who was, in Sanary with other famous writers. Lola Sernau arranged for interviews with four of these writers, it being understood that these would be published in John O'London's Weekly, then a reputable and highly regarded literary paper of a popular nature. This was in the summer of 1933. Accordingly, Joyce Weiner had four fascinating conversations with, in turn, Feuchtwanger, Thomas and Heinrich Mann and Arnold Zweig. On her return to England, however, she received a letter from Lola Sernau asking her to stay her hand for the reasons stated in the letter and so the interviews were not published. In fact, for safety's sake they were not written. Irma Sernau went to and from Germany during this period, helping friends to emigrate. She managed to get to France just before the outbreak of war. There she took an active part in the resistance, escaping death many times but surviving and having an unexpected reunion with Joyce Weiner in the late 1950s. Lola Sernau had an honoured place among the exiled writers in Ascona, where eventually Irma died and is buried.
Gerechtigkeit ('Justice') was a weekly newspaper, the first issue of which was published in September 1933. It was founded by Irene Harand, an Austrian, who was also co-founder of Weltverband gegen Rassenhass und Menschennot (World League against Racial Hatred and Human Suffering). The paper was published for about 5 years and for part of the time in several European languages. Gerechtigkeit had a simple philosemitic message: anti-semitism was a moral outrage not only against Jews but also against Christian ideals; Nazism was a pagan movement, which, if not halted, would destroy European civilisation.
The Deutsch-Jüdischen Wanderbund was established in Aug 1921 by groups of young Jewish nature lovers in various parts of Germany who felt uncomfortable in the Wandervogel movement on account of growing antisemitism. The liberal Jewish membership felt itself to be both German and Jewish and therefore rejected the Zionism and orthodoxy of other Jewish youth movements. The organisation folded in 1932.
HMT Dunera was a British passenger ship built as a troop transport in the late 1930s. On 10 Jul 1940 The Duneraleft Liverpool with men classed as enemy aliens, who were considered a risk to British security. Although many of the internees had in fact fled Europe to escape Nazi persecution, they were considered to have been German agents, potentially helping to plan the invasion of Britain. Included were 2,036 Jewish refugees from Austria and Germany, 451 German and Italian prisoners of war and others including the survivors of the Arandora Star disaster. They were taken to Australia for internment in the rural towns of Hay, New South Wales and Tatura, Victoria Australia. The ship had a maximum capacity of 1,500 - including crew - however on this voyage there were 2,542 transportees. The resultant condition has been described as 'inhumane', the transportees were also subjected to ill-treatment and theft by the 309 poorly trained British guards on board. On arrival in Sydney, the first Australian on board was medical army officer Alan Frost. He was appalled and his subsequent report led to the court martial of the army officer-in-charge, Lieutenant-Colonel William Scott.
Herbert Goldsmith (formerly Goldschmidt), was one of the internees on the HMT Dunera and subsequently a detainee at 'Camp 8', Hay Internment camp for refugees, New South Wales, Australia.
Erwin Kallir, was the canteen manager at 'Camp 8', Hay Internment camp for refugees, New South Wales, Australia.
Unknown
Ferdinand Schwarz was a resident of Frankfurt am Main. He applied to work for a company called J Wolfin in England.
This collection of correspondence consists mostly of letters written by a school teacher, Hellmut Lange from Chemnitz, Saxony, to an English woman, Miss Jessie Nicholson in South London between 1933 and August 1939.
Unknown
Possibly these reports were either commissioned by or came about as the result of the activities of the Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland.
The author of the report was a Jew who was imprisoned for 3 months in both Vienna and Prague without apparent reason until he managed to obtain travel permits to Bohemia and Moravia.
The author is a former Czech civil servant who fled with his wife from Czechoslovakia to England, via Katovice, Poland in 1939.
The League of Old Judeans had been brought together by Louis Sarna, who organised the annual wreath laying at the Cenotaph, which continued until 1928. In that year he was instrumental in founding the Jewish Ex-Servicemens Legion which eleven years later was to become AJEX - The Association of Jewish Ex-Servicemen and Women. AJEX had its beginnings at a Meeting in London in 1928. One of a series of Meetings held throughout Britain to protest at Arab anti-Jewish riots in Palestine. Louis Sarna was Honorary Secretary until his retirement in 1952.
Gurs was a major internment camp in France, near Oloron-Sainte-Marie and 80 kilometers from the Spanish border. Established in 1939 to absorb Republican refugees from Spain, Gurs served later as a concentration camp for Jews from France and refugees from other countries. While under the administration of Vichy France (1940-1942) most non-Jewish prisoners were released and approximately 2000 Jews were permitted to emigrate. In 1941 Gurs held some 15,000 prisoners. The camp was controlled by the Germans from 1942 to 1944, during which time several thousand inmates were deported to extermination camps in Poland. An unknown number succeeded in escaping and reaching Spain or hiding in Southern France. Gurs was liberated in the summer of 1944.
The Jüdische Volkspartei was founded in August 1919 to represent and promote Jewish national interests in German communities. It therefore set itself apart from the liberal assimilationists of the Central Verein, the parties representing Jewish orthodoxy and the Zionist parties. A large part of its membership and leadership comprised eastern Jews.
Hillel (Gilel) Storch, was a Latvian Jew and Swedish resident, who helped save the lives of thousands of European Jews during the Nazi era. Born in Dvinsk, Latvia, he went to Riga where he was engaged in his father's world-wide business activities. He arrived in Stockholm in 1940 in transit to the USA. He decided to stay in Sweden primarily to keep in closer touch with his relatives who remained in Latvia. Before he arrived in Sweden he was already an active Zionist, having represented the Jewish Agency in Dvinsk and participated in the promotion of the emigration of 3000 Latvian Jews to Palestine. In Sweden he continued to work as a representative of the Jewish Agency (the forerunner to the Jewish government in Palestine). At the same time he represented the World Jewish Congress in Sweden. He was actively involved with promoting Zionist causes including providing assistance for Israel's war of independence. His most significant achievements were the rescue of some 20,000 Jewish and non-Jewish concentration camp inmates and the provision of humanitarian aid to concentration camp inmates.
The Waffen-SS was the combat arm of the Schutzstaffel or SS. In contrast to the Wehrmacht, Germany's regular army, the Waffen-SS was an elite combat unit composed of volunteer troops with particularly strong personal commitments to Nazi ideology.
The Bavarian Political Police was created by Reichsfuehrer SS Heinrich Himmler in 1933. It was independent from the authority of the police headquarters in Munich, allowing the Nazi party to control the police.