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"Creating 'New Americans': WWII-Era European Refugees' Formation of American Identities" D I S S E R T A T I O N zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades Doktor der Philosophie (Dr. phil.) Institut für Geschichtswissenschaften der Philosophischen Fakultät I der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin vorgelegt von Michael Luick-Thrams aus Mason City, Iowa, U.S.A. Präsident: Prof. Dr. Dr. h. c. Hans Meyer Dekan: Prof. Dr. Ludolf Herbst 1. Prof. Dr. Ludolf Herbst 2. Prof. Dr. Hartmut Kaelble Tag der Disputation: 2. Juli 1997 Introduction: Creating "New Americans": WWII-Era European Refugees' Formation of American Identities i Scholastic Considerations, Perspectives and Goals ii 0.1 Scholastic Considerations ii 0.2 Scholastic Perspectives v 0.3 Scholastic Goals viii References to Sources ix Part I: Persecution, Flight and Reception of WWII-era Refugees 1 Chapter 1 Persecution and Flight of WWII-era Refugees 2 General Comments 2 References to Specific Examples 3 1.1 Political Refugees 3 1.2 Exiled Artists 11 1.3 Intellectuals 18 1.4 Religious Dissenters 25 1.5 "Non-Aryans" 28 1.6 Refugees from Nazi-Occupation 41 Chapter 2 Reception in Residential Refugee Programs 43 General Comments 43 References to Specific Examples 44 2.1 Agricultural Projects 44 2.2 Boarding Schools 53 2.3 Rest Homes 63 2.4 Hostels 72 2.5 Government-sponsored Camps 80 Part II: Documentation and Analysis of Scattergood Hostel 97 Chapter 3 Scattergood Hostel as Refugee Center and Integration Program 98 3.1 Friends' Motives 98 3.2 Friends' Goals 101 Chapter 4 Scattergood Hostel's Guests 121 4.1 Characteristics "Typical" of Refugees from Nazi-occupied Europe 121 4.2 Ways in Which Scattergood Hostel Guests Differed from the Norm 133 4.3 Official Quaker Policies Regarding the Treatment of Guests 138 Chapter 5 Scattergood Hostel's Staff 142 5.1 Religious Affiliation 142 5.2 Age 144 5.3 Profession 145 5.4 Training 146 5.5 Ethnicity 148 Chapter 6 Scattergood Hostel's Community 150 6.1 Community Spirit within the Hostel 150 6.2 Outside Sentiment Toward the Hostel 154 Chapter 7 Scattergood Hostel's Work, Education and Freetime Programs 160 7.1 Work 160 7.2 Education 162 7.3 Freetime 164 Chapter 8 Scattergood Hostel's Job Placement Program 166 8.1 Premises 166 8.2 Failures 168 8.3 Successes 171 8.4 Specific Examples 172 Chapter 9 Scattergood Hostel Refugee's Changing Relationship to America 180 9.1 Initial Impressions of America 180 9.2 Later Attitudes toward America 192 Part III: Comparisons of Refugee Programs and Refugees' Formation of American Identities 213 Chapter 10 Comparisons of Refugee Programs 214 Chapter 11 WWII-era European Refugees' Formation of American Identities 221 11.1 Means of "Americanization" through Adaptation and Adjustment 223 11.2 Results of "Americanization" Process 232 Closing Comment 239 Appendixes 240 ABBREVIATIONS 250 Bibliography 251 1. PERTAINING TO SCATTERGOOD HOSTEL 251 1.1 PUBLISHED MATERIALS 251 1.2 UNPUBLISHED MATERIALS* 251 1.3 INTERVIEWS 253 2. PERTAINING TO WWII-ERA REFUGEES 254 2.1 SELECTED TITLES: 254 2.2 SUGGESTED TITLES: 262 Acknowledgments 271 Introduction: Creating "New Americans": WWII-Era European Refugees' Formation of American Identities From 1939 to 1943, 185 refugees from Nazi-ruled Germany, Austria, Poland, France, Czechoslovakia, Russia, Hungary, Luxembourg and Latvia found refuge at Scattergood, a temporary hostel in what had been a Friends [also known as "Quaker"] boarding school near West Branch, a village on the Iowa prairies. Those fleeing Europe included not only Jews, but also political opponents of the Nationalsozialisten, religious dissenters, former Reichstag members and Berlin Senat staff, judges, lawyers, journalists, merchants, artists, elderly ladies and single young men, students and children. With the help of volunteers, the refugees- Quakers preferred calling them "guests"- sought to overcome the trauma of their experiences in Europe, find a niche for themselves in a foreign society and generally adapt to life in the New World. Sponsored by Philadelphia-based American Friends Service Committee [AFSC], the hostel strove to rehabilitate, integrate and assimilate the refugees who came to it seeking assistance. Reflecting their native culture and the era in which they lived, the Quakers who operated the hostel believed that the best way to help newcomers was to prepare European émigrés for integration and assimilation into U.S. culture-in their words, to "create 'New Americans'". Friends did so to help exiles join American society-and thus avoid isolation or provoking natives' anti-foreigner sentiment-while some of refugees sought to adapt to their new environs as a means of basic survival. The Quakers' over-riding goal of Americanizing their guests guided almost every aspect of the hostel's program: instruction in American life and institutions as well as the English language, work in the garden and house, freetime activities, etc; their efforts had far-reaching effect and yielded mixed results. Concurrently, their guests had to juggle who they had been on one hand with new identities they were building on the other; like other refugees at that time, some of the exiles sojourning at Scattergood Hostel attempted to become "Americanized". This dissertation examines four basic questions relevant to the process through which World War II-era European refugees formed new identities in America: through what means and to what degree did refugees become "Americanized", what did it mean to them to i become "American" and how did their relationships with America change over time? Scholastic Considerations, Perspectives and Goals 0.1 Scholastic Considerations Although it focuses above all on one particular Quaker refugee project, this study does not exist in isolation. On a larger level the questions it raises involve the formation of cultural identity in general-but in this case in regard to identity specifically as affected by refugee integration and assimilation. It concentrates on Scattergood Hostel, however, primarily for two reasons-the practical one being that in researching the rehabilitation, integration and assimilation of refugees fleeing Nazi-ruled Europe, I found less than twenty centers where those being served actually lived on the premises. Numerous Jewish, Christian or other agencies offered exiles day-program assistance- English lessons, short-term employment or the chance to sew torn clothes- but hardly any attempted to take refugees in, expose them to American life, culture and institutions or, indeed, cultivate "New Americans". Few agencies helped refugees integrate or assimilate1 through comprehensive immersion programs per se; as most left that to chance or "fate". Where integration and assimilation were left to chance, the minutiae of those processes also were left largely unrecorded-and therefore difficult to analyze systematically. Relative to other residential centers I researched, the refugees and staff at Scattergood left proportionately far more material behind than any of the others. Also, all refugees landing in America had to adapt to some extent to the society they found in the New World-and presumably they couldn't help but be changed as people through that experience. What was different about the refugees who passed through Quaker refugee centers, however, was that they underwent conscious, organized exposure to 1 Besides facilitating integration and assimilation, Friends' efforts served a second vital role. While Quaker efforts on behalf of refugees in America were "unique, concentrating as they did on orientation and Americanization", their importance did not stop there. Even if only smallscale pilot projects, they "signaled to the big relief agencies the way that refugees should be treated"- with respect and the whole person in mind (Genizi, 1983, p. 193). ii America and Americans.2 The new identities they formed, therefore, might be described as the products of "accelerated assimilation": they were not left to assimilate by chance but were encouraged to do so through intent. Quakers didn't have to force their guests to adapt, however, as most of them welcomed the opportunity. Émigré Gerhart Saenger wrote: "the refugee of today is the American of tomorrow". Before a newcomer to the United States could become "one of us", however, she or he had to learn American manners, customs, and ideals. The more he becomes assimilated, the more he will feel at home and be able to take his place in the social and economic life of the nation. We cannot become members of a society before we have learned its standards of right and wrong, its aspirations and its religion, its traditions or cultural heritage.3 Saenger described "Americanization" as largely a "learning process". Unless she or he was still a child upon arriving in the New World, for the immigrant, however, adjustment to American society was "difficult". An adult refugee had been indoctrinated as a child into a society whose customs and ideals [had] become part of his own personality. Now he must relearn and forget, suppressing his old way of living. Moreover, many refugees must undergo this process of adaptation to a new manner of life at a time when learning is no longer easy.4 Above all-according to this premise-refugees first had to adapt to new or at least altered positions in life before they could become "Americans". The "mere learning" of American customs or manners, "mere intellectual penetration" into American culture alone was not enough: "inner emotional acceptance" of the refugees' situation on the one hand and "the 2 While this study considers the formation of "American" identities, in theory similar experiences might have been true for European refugees who fled Nazism and landed in a "New World" countries: Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Argentina, Brazil, etc. One reason for focusing on those who landed in the U.S. is that more refugees settled there than in all the other countries combined (Kirk, 1995, p.