Letters of Judge Henry Ellenbogen, now digitized, provide glimpse into Jews’ struggles in pre-war Europe
'Allow the information to sit in your mind, without having to necessarily draw a conclusion'
A digitized collection of historic papers details the painful and tedious realities of immigration.
Held at the Heinz History Center’s Rauh Jewish Archives, the items include correspondence to and from Judge Henry Ellenbogen, an Austrian-born Jewish lawyer and former judge on the Allegheny Court of Common Pleas, who served in the U.S. House of Representatives between 1933-1938.
Among the 574 letters recently uploaded to Historic Pittsburgh — a digital repository of Western Pennsylvanian archives — are desperate pleas and methodical requests to help evacuate Jews from pre-war Europe.
One item, dated Oct. 28, 1938, is a missive from New Yorker Fred Goodman to Ellenbogen begging that Goodman’s brother, Walter Gutmann, be sent an affidavit of support.
“A few days ago I had the opportunity to meet a recent immigrant from Vienna,” Goodman wrote. “He tells me that the passport situation has become very acute and that only very few Jews escape confinement in concentration camps where a great number succumb from mistreatment and starvation.”
Another item, dated July 23, 1938, is a cable from Ellenbogen to the U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull imploring Hull to intercede on behalf of Dr. Adolf Grunbaum, a prisoner at the Dachau concentration camp.
“I know Dr. Gruenbaum personally and would like to be of assistance to him,” Ellenbogen wrote. “I need not tell you, Mr. Secretary, that incarceration at Dachau present [sic] distinct danger to the health and life of Dr. Gruenbaum. I know that your powers in this matter are limited, because Dr. Gruenbaum is an Austrian citizen, but I hope that in view of the fact that he has relatives here who are American citizens, and in view of my own deep interest in this, you will find it possible to convey to the German authorities your concern in this matter.”
Thanks to underwriting by the Ellenbogen family, Catelyn Cocuzzi, a project archivist at the Rauh, began preparing the papers for remote access nearly a year ago.
“These letters are so raw and offer a lens into this really dark moment in history and this really traumatic experience,” she said. “We see sensitive materials at times, but until this collection, until this correspondence, I hadn’t really faced anything of this nature. And it just was really powerful for me to see these people 3,000 miles away reaching out to Henry Ellenbogen, and seeing how he’s able to work the system and able to figure out ways to help.”
Readers of the collection can find both emotionally agonizing and seemingly bland administrative writings.
“One of the values of an archive is to put specificity on a story that’s often spoken about in general terms,” Rauh Director Eric Lidji said. “The story of Jewish escape from Europe — but migration more broadly — is often talked about in a very general way. And I don’t know that people really understand the actual mechanics of how it worked during that time period.”
The complicated nature of “bureaucratic maneuvering” when lives are at risk, he added, “changes the way you look at that experience.”
Lidji hopes educators and scholars can convey that “this is actually what it looked like to try to navigate that process of getting out of one country and getting into another.”
Cocuzzi noted that although archives are often considered remote storehouses for academics, these items have broad appeal.
“It is really important to have this out there so people can see this type of material,” she said.
Engaging with archival material is different from “reading a history book where there’s a story being presented to you,” but there are ways to easily reap the benefits of this collection, Lidji said.
“Set a timer for 20 minutes on your phone and just go through and start to grab some of these letters at random…You could probably read between five and 10 of these, and just watch as the back and forth unfolds,” he said. “Try and look at the dates and understand what you know about what was happening in terms of the Nuremberg Laws, Anschluss, invasion of Czechoslovakia so that you can kind of understand where these conversations fit in this larger international narrative.”
Once that process is complete, “just allow the information to sit in your mind, without having to necessarily draw a conclusion. Just listen to the voices and the humanity of it,” he said.
The collection isn’t merely a time capsule, Cocuzzi said.
“These are situations that are still happening today — across the board, across all countries — and it is still really difficult.” PJC
Adam Reinherz can be reached at areinherz@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.
comments