JDC in the 1930s
Telegram from Rabbi Irving Reichert sent from Prague to Rabbi Jonah B. Wise in New York.
June 1933.
Roll call for newly arrived prisoners, mostly Jews arrested during the “Night of Broken Glass” pogrom, at the Buchenwald concentration camp.
Buchenwald, Germany, 1938.
Under the threat of imminent war, JDC’s multi-faceted support to the German Jewish community became even more critical as restrictions passed by the Nazi government rendered German Jews unable to continue their education or earn a livelihood. In response to this catastrophic situation, JDC drew upon its resources to rescue and aid refugees in their flight from Nazi Europe to locations across the globe. JDC was forced to end its Agro-Joint work in the Soviet Union.
In Depth
Rescue Efforts in the Nazi Era
Sorting oranges grown in Palestine for shipment to the market
After World War I, JDC helped set up the Central Band of Cooperative Institutions, which financed agricultural projects in Palestine and played an especially important role in the growth of the citrus industry.
Palestine, 1930s.
Jewish children with a JDC staff member en route to summer camp
In interwar Poland, JDC enabled tens of thousands of impoverished children to attend fresh air camps.
Warsaw, c.1932-35. Photograph: Foto-Forbert Studio.
Radiogram from Rabbi Emanuel Reichert to Rabbi Jonah Wise, JDC National Campaign Chair
JDC sent Rabbi Reichert to Germany and Czechoslovakia to assess and report on the situation. Rabbi Reichert’s message told of the urgent conditions in Germany and pleaded for assistance to save lives.
June 1933.
Mining course at Kibbutz Hotzvei Avanim
JDC, often working with ORT, supported a variety of vocational training programs in the interwar period in Europe.
Klesow, Poland (now Klesiv, Ukraine), 1930s.
Youngsters at an agricultural hachshara (pioneer training) camp in the Neuendorf, Germany
As the largest foreign contributor to the budgets of local relief organizations in Germany after Hitler’s rise to power, JDC helped finance the training and retraining of workers excluded from their former professions, including the specialized training of young emigrants bound for Palestine.
Neuendorf, Germany, 1934.
Newspaper advertisement published following Kristallnacht
JDC joined in a nationwide humanitarian appeal to assist the victims of Kristallnacht, “the Night of Broken Glass,” attacks against Jews and Jewish property throughout Germany on the night of November 9-10, 1938.
New York, November 17, 1938.
Elderly refugee, expelled from his home in Slovakia, protecting his grandchild from the frost, in a camp along the border between Czechoslovakia and Hungary
Several thousand refugees, stranded in about a dozen camps in no-man’s-land along the frontiers of Central and Eastern Europe, received JDC aid.
Border between Czechoslovakia and Hungary, 1938.
JDC-supported refugee shelter in Diepoldsau, Switzerland
Following Kristallnacht and the annexations of Austria and the Sudetenland in 1938, refugees streamed into Switzerland, and the JDC allocations swelled to meet their needs.
Diepoldsau, Switzerland, 1938.
German Jewish refugees departing from Bremerhaven, Germany
From 1933 to 1939, some 110,000 emigrants from Germany received assistance from JDC-supported organizations.
Bremerhaven, Germany, 1938.
Polish Jewish refugees in Vilna, Lithuania
After the Lithuanian seizure of Vilna from Poland in October 1939, JDC instituted an emergency relief program, providing food, housing, medical care, aid for children and the elderly, educational activities, and vocational training for the 60,000 residents of Vilna and some 25,000 from other parts of Poland.
Vilna, Lithuania, 1939.
Exhibit
Everything Possible: JDC and the Children of the DP Camps
Featuring historic photographs from the JDC Archives, focuses on JDC’s significant efforts on behalf of children in the displaced persons camps established by the Allied Armed Forces after World War II. JDC was permitted to enter the camps to supplement minimal provisions with critical nutritional, medical, educational, and religious services for survivors.
