March 19, 1938
Detailed and trustworthy information is now available on the situation in Austria, both from Dr. Ruth Brunswick (who telephoned from Paris immediately on arriving there from Austria early this morning) and from the State Department in Washington…
The information from Austria indicates the seriousness of the local situation in Vienna,—with carefully organized confiscation of property, minute searching private homes, etc…. Through diplomatic channels efforts are being continued to win a special permission for Professor Freud to leave … For the rest, at present, no Jew is allowed to leave Austria under any circumstances…
Upon Hitter's annexation of Austria on March 12, 1938, and the immediate threat this presented to the Freuds, the American Psychoanalytic Association took formal action by establishing, under the chairmanship of Dr. Lawrence Kubie, an Emergency Committee on Relief and Immigration. Freud's harrowing escape from Vienna aided by of Ernest Jones, Marie Bonaparte and William Bullitt has been recounted at length by Ernest Jones, Max Schur and Peter Gay, the flight of other European analysts is less well known.
With the rise of Nazism and Hitler's assumption of the German chancellorship on January 3rd, 1933, most analysts fled Germany. Some began their exodus to the United States settled close to the German borders, many in Vienna, hoping that the National Socialists would fall from power and they could shortly resume their old life and careers. But these hopes were soon to be dashed; over the next five years Hitler would move from oppression to outright terror against Jews and anti-Nazis. In 1936 what remained of the Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute was integrated into the German Institute for Psychological Research and Psychotherapy—the infamous “Goring Institute.”
The Emergency Committee was formed from a committee established only two months earlier, in January, 1938, “to study all problems arising in connection with the migration of analysts from Europe to this country.” These problems included the relationship of emigre analysts to the American's constituent societies; the right of emigre analysts to teach and by whom such a right would be granted; and the issue of lay analysis. The original committee included Sandor Rado, Daniel French, Lewis Hill, George Daniels, M. Ralph Kaufman and Lawrence Kubie. Rather ironically, its primary functions were “to restrict and control immigration, to direct it into communities not already over-crowded, and to keep the teaching of analysis centered in the hands of our recognized teaching Institute.”
The Anschluss changed all this almost overnight. Concern over the problems occasioned by emigres was largely forgotten, blotted out by concern for their welfare. To obtain a wider geographical representation, Helene Deutsch and John M. Murray from Boston, Franz Alexander from Chicago, and Maurice Levin and Adolph Meyer from New York were added to the committee and Bertram Lewin was named treasurer.
In Kubie's initial report to the members of the American, on March 19, he mentions the need for money and affidavits to assist their colleagues in leaving Austria.
As immigration quotas filled, those wishing to leave needed non-quota vises which were extremely difficult to obtain. Affidavits were required guaranteeing that the signatory would provide, if necessary, financial support to the immigrant. In the early months, such affidavits were obtained through American colleagues, students and friends, connections afforded the Austrians through their participation in an international organization. For those lacking more direct connections Walter C. Langer, an American analyst in Vienna at the time of the Anschluss, travelled to the United States to obtain affidavits. He was able to return with almost fifty affidavits with the name of the emigre to be filled in as needed.
March 31, 1938
The situation in Vienna looks, if anything, more distressing than before… the emigration of Austrians, and particularly of Austrian Jews, is still possible only in rare and exceptional cases. Furthermore, those who leave … can take with them only 20 Austrian schillings (about $4.00)…
It is immediately and urgently essential to contribute everything that we possibly can …
—Lawrence S. Kubie, Chairman
To help with the overwhelming amount of work involved in the committee, Bettina Warburg was appointed co-chair in July, 1938. Her duties were to interview the new arrivals and to arrange financial assistance and employment. Kubie handled the overseas problems: visas, letters to consulates, and contacts with the Department of State.
Dr. Edward Kronold tells of leaving Vienna in the first week after the Anschluss. He first traveled to Czechoslovakia, the home of his wife whose relatives in the United States were able to supply them with affidavits. They traveled briefly to England and arrived in the United States in December 1938.
Else Pappenheim, then a candidate in the Vienna Institute, says, in an interview with Lisolotte Benais Stern, that she first realized in September of 1938, when her license to practice medicine was revoked, that she would have to leave Austria. It was difficult then for candidates to obtain affidavits and she unsuccessfully approached several people. Finally, the situation becoming more precarious, Judith Kestenberg, who had gone to the United States in 1937, helped arrange an affidavit from Michael Dunn, a lay analyst and colleague of Bettina Warburg. Dr. Pappenheim traveled first to Palestine where she stayed for several weeks, and then, when her December visa was valid, continued on to the United States.
An analyst who narrowly escaped the Nazis was Edith Jacobson. As she recounted her story to David Milrod, she had remained in Germany after 1933 to be close to her parents. One of her patients was a member of the resistance, and Dr. Jacobson was arrested and interrogated. When the Gestapo caught her in a lie, she was sentenced to a penitentiary. Because of a life- threatening illness, however, she was discharged to a hospital. Later, with the help of Annie Reich, she was provided with the passport of an analyst who had died several years earlier. She then fled to Munich and, in early May 1938, tried to escape through the Bohemian woods to Czechslovakia. On the way she encountered German soldiers, who warned her to turn back because of a Czech mobilization. She then took a train bound for Prague and fortunately was allowed through customs without the discovery of her false papers. The Emergency Committee provided her with an affidavit, and she arrived in the United States in the fall of 1938. She was met at the boat by the wife of Sandor Rado. Once she passed her language examination and state medical boards, she was allowed to work under Rado's guidance. “I really needed financial help,” she recalled, “and I became so sick; and Bettina Warburg and Kubie, to whom I turned, did help. I borrowed money from Kubie and Bettina, but the Rescue Committee also helped, and it was very important at that time. They knew what to do.”
In Kubie's report on the Committee's first year of activities, he acknowledged that many intense feelings were aroused by the emigres and that “these feelings were not without their elements of conflict and confusion.” He cautioned that “the more panicky attitude towards the problem has been grossly unnecessary.” The committee only could find “about forty potential immigrants in our own field for whom this Committee is primarily interested.” Of this group, five or six were lay analysts.
In the atmosphere of fear and restriction which filled most medical circles in America, this enlightened attitude was most welcome. During the preceding decade, the years of the Great Depression, approximately fourteen hundred physicians had fled Germany, Austria and Italy for the United States. Three-quarters of these were Jewish. The president of the American Medical Association, Dr. Terry M. Townshead, commented, “The law of self-preservation demands a curb on the overcrowding of communities already sufficiently supplied with physicians.” The AMA House of Delegates recommended that State boards of medical licensure require citizenship before granting a license. Only in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York and Maryland, could an immigrant physician be licensed, and then only if naturalization papers had been filed; other States imposed restrictions making licensure altogether impossible.
In May 1939, Kubie resigned his chairmanship when he became president of the New York Psychoanalytic Society. In its first year the committee had raised ten thousand dollars, not inconsiderable when placed next to the eleven hundred in the Association's treasury. Most of this money was used for loans to provide passage to the United States and to assist those who arrived. Any money repaid was returned to the fund. In addition, $2,000 was sent to Ernest Jones to assist refugees who had escaped to England.
At first [the] Committee operated independently of other existing relief orgaizations; but the futility of such isolated efforts soon became evident Dr. Kubie performed miracles in interesting most of the prominent medical men at the various hospitals in New York and elsewhere in becoming members of the General Advisory Council and the Advisory Boards of the Committee for the Resettlement of Foreign Physicians, organized under the aegis of the non-sectarian Coordinating Committee for Aid to Refugees.
The National Committee for the Resettlement of Foreign PHysicians, founded on February 1, 1939, had advisory boards representing twenty specialties. Its members interviewed newly arrived physicians and assisted them in preparing for their examinations and in finding employment. The American Psychoanalytic Association became one of the cooperating organizations. Warburg interviewed the majority of analysts who entered through the port of New York.
The placement of foreign physicians who had passed their medical examinations presented a very complex problem. “For political reasons,” overcrowing near the ports of entry on the Eastern seaboard was feared, despite the wishes of most analysts to remain there. The great concern was that if New York State imposed licensing restrictions, other states would follow. This would make it impossible for emigre physicians to practice.
The letters Dr. Warburg wrote for the committee afford rare glimpses the hardships of forced emigration:
He has been here for a couple of years. Tried to establish himself in practice, has not succeeded. Depressed. Trying to make a go of it … Nunberg says: “High moral and
Page 7intellectual standing … Whittels also knows him. Abe Blau says he is … of good character.
A short conversation with him makes it apparent that he is by no means a psychiatrist, that he knows little or nothing of psychotherapy, his training has been entirely alone medicolegal lines … I do not feel that we can recommend him for any hospital position until he is at least able to speak some English He has a wife and a five-month-old baby … I think ultimately he may be placed [in a position] in a mental hospital, provided it is understood that he is not a trained psychotherapist
Later, the difficulty of obtaining nonquota visas was greatly increased when the United States began requiring proof of at least two years of teaching in the country of origin before a teaching position in the US could be offered. For many immigrants, this form of employment was the only immediate option available. Psychoanalytic institutes, whether in Europe or the United States, were not regarded as accredited teaching institutions. George Gero recounts how he had left Germany for Denmark soon after Hitler's assumption of power. Then, in April, 1940, Germany occupied Denmark and he again had to flee. As he wa a citizen of Hungary and the quota for that country was filled, he needed a non-quota visa. The New York Psychoanalytic Institute, having invited him to teach, he approached the American consul.
The consul was friendly and sympathetic but told me that there were certain conditions with which I had to comply. In order to obtain a nonquota visa, he informed me, I would have to get an invitation from an academy, college, university or seminary. As far as he could see, he said, the New York Psychoanalytic Institute did not belong to any of those categories. I asked him what a seminary was. “A seminary,” he explained,
Page 8“trains young priests.” “That is the New York Psychoanalytic Institute,” I replied. But the answer was unacceptable. Time was running short
At length, after nine months and with the help of the committee, Gero's arrangements were completed. His circuitous trip to the United States, lasting a full six weeks, took him to Sweden, Finland, Russia and Japan; finally on New Year's Day 1941, he landed in San Francisc.
These teaching requirements for obtaining a visa from the Immigration Service necessitated, as Bettina Warburg wrote:
… acceptance by the committee of jobs in distant parts of the country, In faculties of unknown distinction, and in subjects which might or might not be suitable for the emigre urgently in need of leaving Europe without delay …
The committee had provided Gero a position teaching abnormal psychology and German at the New Mexico State College of Agriculture and Mechanical Arts in Las Cruces, in spite of the fact, as he put it, that “milking cows and pounding nails were two skills I certainly couldn't claim.” He telephoned Dr. Warburg and asked if he had to go. “You do,” she responded, “because if you don't it will make it more difficult for others to get an invitation and thus be rescued.” He did go and fulfilled his agreement.
For some, finding employment was unbelievably difficult. The committee wrote two hundred letters on behalf of David Rapaport before finding him a position at Osawatomie State Hospital in Kansas.
When Edward Krongold arrived in New York on 1938 it was suggested he meet with Bettina Warburg. She was pleasant, he mentions, and suggested various positions outside New York City, in places such as Rochester. Krongold thanked her, but through the assistance of friends and colleagues in New York, was able to begin a successful analytic practice by accepting eager but low- fee patients.
Else Pappenheim was promised a job at John Hopkins by Adolf Meyer who had the idea that her father in Palestine would pay her salary. This was not the case. Fortunately, she obtained a fellowship at the university and, after several months, a job in a state hospital. But then, when all her New York friends said, “why don't you come here, we make a living too, you know. Why don't you come?” Judith Kestenberg said, “Look we manage, you'll manage too.” She left for New York in January 1941.
Isidore Silberman arrived in New York in 1940 on a Dutch ship “which unfortunately on her return home was sent to the bottom of the sea by a German submarine.” He continues:
After our arrival … I went to see Dr. Kubie, who was instrumental in getting an affidavit for my family and me from a lawyer friend of his, a Mr. Pearson Neman. When I visited the latter, I had the most pleasant experience which introduced me to the American spirit of hospitality. He conveyed to me that his affidavit was more than a piece of paper;… he felt an obligation to support us till I was ready to do so on my own. When I thanked him for his generous offer, he was not pleased with my refusal, but offered me instead his friendship….
With the German invasion of Poland in September 1939 and the declaration of war by Britain and France, problems increased for analysts remaining Europe. After the fall of France in June, 1940, the Committee helped analysts financially in both unoccupied and, with greater difficulty, occupied France. Those analysts who managed to reach the United States at this time came from England, Portugal, Palestine, Switzerland and Italy.
In 1940 Kubie completed his term as president of The New York Psychoanalytic Society. He again co-chaired the committee and continued the increasingly difficult task of obtaining visas. Bettina Warburg writes:
Months of effort have often been needed to secure a release from a concentration camp, or to obtain exit permits and transit visas merely to reach a port from which to embark. The problems of each individual involved long exchanges of letters and documents. The work of the Committee has met with innumerable setbacks which have been heartbreaking to those still abroad whose hopes were repeatedly kindled and extinguished.
The yearly reports of the committee recount severe hardships, disappointments and near tragedies. Moses Barinbaum arrived in Lisbon in May 1941. Missing his boat by only hours, his visa expired before the next sailing. Because of his Aryan wife and son in Germany, the United States denied him another visa The committee then secured him an Ecuadorian visa, but the consul in Libson failed to notify him. He was to remain in that city a full two years.
Ernestina Freud, former wife of Martin Freud, and her daughter Sophie were stranded in Casablanca because their boat arrived in a port a day after their visa had expired. After a time, new visas were granted and they arrived safely in New York.
On July 1, 1941, new immigration rules were imposed by the State Department. Further investigation was required for those with relatives in Germany. Affidavits needed to be revised. The committee was forced to discontinue its efforts on behalf of several colleagues.
The yearly committee reports listing those it had aided became shorter. Fewer analysts arrived and those already here were adjusting to their new lives. The reports about analysts remaining in Europe became increasingly pessimistic. The committee had been negotiating for Ecuadorian visas when, in November 1942, Germany occupied all of France. Dr. Ernst Paul Hoffman, a Viennese analyst, had been transferred to Camp Les Mille after declining to leave on Cuban visa while his wife and child remained in occupied Belgium. He was put at liberty and managed to escape to Switzerland just prior to the occupation.
Less fortunate was Max Kohen, a German lay-analyst, who was deported from France to a concentration camp in Germany. Then there were Robert Jokl, Heinrich Stern and Rosa Walk, who had been awaiting visa reviews. The committee's final report of 1943 says that there was no news of Drs. Jokl and Stern; Dr. Walk was apprehended by the Gestapo and deported.
In the Netherlands, Karl Landauer was detained in Amsterdam, unable to leave. Arrangements made by the Committee for his immigration to Cuba, were in vain. Dr. Landauer was apprehended and sent to a concentration camp where he was to die.
The committee also had been trying to send funds to Freud's four aged sisters in Vienna The Nazis sent them all to concentration camps where all four—Marie, Pauline, Rosa and Adalfine perished.
One of the last actions of the committee took place at the end of 1942. Hugo Staub,
who had arrived improverished in the United States after being in a concentration camp in the Pyrenees, died suddenly in November of that year, leaving a widow and two teenaged daughters. The committee donated funds to assist in the education of his daughters and continued this through 1946.
By 1943 the committee had helped 149 people in all, of whom forty-one were physician analysts and thirteen were lay analysts. Others included psychiatrists and psychologists, as well as teachers, students, friends and relatives of analysts.
By 1948 the activities of the Committee were already fading into history. George J. Mohr, Secretary of the American, wrote Bettina Warburg: “I find some reference in our files to an Emergency Committee on Relief. I do not know whether this is a committee of the American Psychoanalytic Association at all or whether it still exists.” Dr. Warburg replied that after 1943 “the Committee's work was formally terminated because at that time there were no further immigration problems and all the people who had come to this country had been started on their way.” Its books were closed on March of 1948. Over the years, the Committee had raised thirty-three thousand dollars in support of European colleagues. The few outstanding debts were assigned for repayment to a recently formed independent subcommittee chaired by Robert Bak to assist Hungarian analysts.
At the time the committee disbanded, Bertram Lewin sent a letter to Bettina Warburg:
March 18, 1948
Dear Bettina,
Three rousing cheers! I wish that everyone knew what a swell job you have done in these delicate and difficult cases through all the years. Anyhow, I do and think you deserve, what is it? Orchids? No, double sunflowers!
In recounting these terrible times, one tends to agree with Freud's intellectual pessimism regarding the ability or desire of human beings to control the irrational and destructive forces within them. Throughout Freud's life, and most especially in the years preceding his death, he continued to love and to work against all odds. It was in this same spirit that the Emergency Committee on Relief and Immigration, under the leadership of Lawrence Kubie and Bettina Warburg, carried on its work.
The author thanks the Abraham A Brill Library of the New York Psychoanalytic Institute for the use of interviews with Drs. Pappenheim, Jacobson and Silberman, and the Archives of Psychiatry, New York Hospital Cornell Medical Center, for the use of the Warburg papers. A special thanks to Drs. George Gero and Edward Kronold for granting interviews. Dr. Jeffrey welcomes hearing from anyone with additional information about the work of the Emergency Committee on Relief and Immigration.