VOLAJRUME JOURNAL NO. januarY 20 The sixty-fifth anniversary of our journal hat would the founding prominent among them, formed the editors of AJR Information, crucial bridgehead between the Jewish W the predecessor of this journal, donor organisations overseas and the have said if they had been told in January desperate recipients in Europe. The 1946 that it would still be going strong in plight of the Jewish refugees extended 2011, 65 years after it first saw the light of beyond Europe to Shanghai, as an day? The first issue stated that the journal’s article in the journal entitled ‘How 15,000 primary aim was ‘to keep its readers refugees survived Japanese ghetto’ informed about the position of Jewries showed; Shanghai had been a refuge of on the Continent and about the work for last resort for Jews from Germany and their relief and rehabilitation’, while also Austria before its occupation by Japan dealing extensively with ‘the problems in 1941, and the destitute survivors of of refugees in this country and the legal, Japanese brutality were yet another economic and social questions and all concern for their fellow Jews in Britain the factors which add up to their status’, and the USA. and reporting on the activities of the AJR. Werner Rosenstock, General Secretary of the AJR, 1941-82, and Editor of AJR Information, But the principal focus of the journal’s The editors were Werner Rosenstock, 1946-82 concern was Germany, where the who continued in that capacity until 1982, ‘emaciated and half-starved’ remnants Herbert Freeden (Friedenthal), who left But conditions in Britain were vastly of German Jewry were eking out an for Israel in 1950, and Ernst Lowenthal, better than those obtaining in much of existence amidst the physical ruins who left for Germany in 1946 to take up a Europe, where people were often without of their cities and the moral ruin of senior appointment in the field of Jewish adequate food, clothing or heating. The Germany after Hitler. These articles were relief. cataclysm of the war had left large groups to develop into the extensive coverage The yellowing pages of the early issues of people adrift in foreign countries as of German and Austrian matters that of AJR Information transport one back ‘Displaced Persons’, homeless, stateless was such a feature of AJR Information to a world that is barely recognisable and lacking almost all amenities. The from the 1950s. If anything, the Jews today. The cheap paper and smudged very first page ofAJR Information carried in the large DP camps like Deggendorf print of those distant volumes act as a a prominent notice appealing for 12,000 and Foehrenwald in Bavaria fared better reminder that the journal was launched garments a month for the Jews of Europe, than those in the cities. Reports from the amidst the austerity of the post-war who were suffering great privation in the camps by leading Jewish figures like years, when male refugees, often highly first post-war winter, in the towns and Norman Bentwich and Miriam Warburg qualified, were reduced to seeking villages where they lived as survivors or portray a better situation than that in employment as packers, bookkeepers in DP camps. Few people now remember Berlin, where, according to a visiting or storekeepers, and female refugees that the AJR had its own clothing depot at AJR official, some Jews were still wearing offered their services as typists, cutters 1, Broadhurst Gardens, behind Finchley their concentration camp outfits and or machinists, ready, as one of the Road Tube Station, where thousands of the chairman of the Jewish community journal’s many advertisements put it, to garments were collected to be sent on to possessed one suit and no underwear. do ‘linen repairs of any kind (except shirt Jews in need on the Continent. Conditions in Vienna were as bad – ‘The collars)’. Ladies residing in Priory Road, In those days of slow communications Viennese live mostly on bread, potatoes in London’s West Hampstead, have not still recovering from wartime disruption – and peas. Sugar, fats and meat are been taking in other people’s clothes for the second issue of the journal announced not available, even for those who hold mending for a good 50 years. And the that it had again become possible to ration-cards for these foodstuffs’ – and days when elderly refugees advertised send letters not more than 1 ounce in they were exacerbated by persistent desperately for accommodation in single weight to Austria – the organisations of anti-Semitism. rooms in boarding-houses are mercifully the Jewish refugees in London, the AJR The shadow of the Holocaust fell long past. and the Council of Jews from Germany continued overleaf AJR JOURNAL januarY 20 THE SIXTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY OF OUR JOURNAL cont. from page 1 london trip heavily over the first issues of the journal. The AJR acted to assist the integration tuesday 22 march to thursday 24 march 2011 It still comes as a shock to read ‘Baby of its members into British society. The outfits for Belsen camp urgently required’ AJR Information had a regular column The trip will include a visit to the on the front page of the March 1946 issue, called ‘Law and Life’, which gave advice on Jewish Museum; a Theatre outing; though Belsen was by then the largest problems like starting a limited company a visit to the House of Commons camp for displaced Jews in the British or eligibility for the new Family Allowance. with a talk by the Speaker, the Rt zone of occupation in Germany. It was It also had a column called ‘In Parliament’, Hon John Berkow; a Guided Tour of London Attractions; a visit to some years before the classified ads of and another that reported on events in the Olympic site; accommodation AJR Information ceased to be dominated Anglo-Jewry, later entitled ‘Anglo-Judaica’. at a London hotel; a dinner with by the ‘Missing Persons’ columns, Part of the journal’s remit was to publicise London members (see below). where lists of forlorn enquiries appeared the AJR’s own services to its members: Open to all members from relatives and friends of Jews who its Social Services Department, founded For further details, please call had been deported, uprooted or had in 1941 with Dr Adelheid Levy as its lone Susan Harrod at Head Office otherwise disappeared during the Nazi social worker, its Employment Agency, on 020 8385 3070 years. which found jobs for members until Reports of the fate of entire Jewish it was itself overtaken by redundancy communities also came in from Germany. in the 1960s, and the many meetings, london dinner They make sombre reading, like that from lectures and other events that ‘Head wednesday 23 march 2011 Gelsenkirchen: ‘Two transports left for Office’ organised in London or that the On Wednesday 23 March there Riga, the first one in January, 1942, a few network of local groups arranged across will be a dinner at Belsize Square survivors of which eventually reached the country. Synagogue to coincide with the Sweden in April, 1945. The second As early as February 1946, the journal London Trip. A guest speaker will th transport, departed on 30 March, never reported that the AJR’s Executive was be announced shortly. arrived. Nothing was ever heard of what planning to establish a ‘Home for Aged If you live in the London area happened to these deportees.’ Or from People’, ‘a task which the AJR must try and wish to attend, please call Worms, the oldest Jewish settlement to accomplish with all their strength’; Susan Harrod at Head Office in Germany: ‘All remaining Jews were not many years later, with the help of on 020 8385 3070 sent to Piaski, near Lublin, in 1942. Until restitution money channelled through November, 1942, one of the deportees the Central British Fund for Jewish Relief managed to write to her father who for and Rehabilitation, the first of the Old Age from their native lands. some reason had been left behind. After Homes, Otto Schiff House, was opened in The first issue of the journal found that, there was complete silence …’ Netherhall Gardens. These were places space in its eight pages for a long article on It was against this background that AJR where the unique social culture of the the theatre director Fritz Wisten, entitled members sought to build new lives for German-speaking Jews from Central ‘Max Reinhardt’s successor’, which themselves and their families in post-war Europe could be preserved. The pages of combined a review of Wisten’s recent Britain, and the AJR set out to help them. AJR Information are full of reminders of production of G. E. Lessing’s celebrated Its journal provided plentiful information that rich cultural heritage and its rebirth philo-Semitic drama Nathan the Wise with about such matters as naturalisation, a in the changed conditions of post-war memories of his production of the same key concern for stateless refugees seeking Britain. The high cultural level of the play for the Jüdischer Kulturbund, the to acquire British nationality, or the journal reflects the admiration for the arts Jewish cultural organisation under the employment prospects for demobilised and sciences, culture and education that Nazis, in the very different conditions refugee members of the armed forces, the Jewish refugees brought with them of summer 1933. Books of interest to who numbered several thousand, or the readership listed in the same issue the first steps in the complex process AJR Directors included the actor Alexander Granach’s of restitution, which were detailed in Gordon Greenfield autobiography, a volume of poems by Michael Newman an article of January 1946 by Walter Carol Rossen the (non-Jewish) refugee poet Max Breslauer, a lawyer and leading figure AJR Heads of Department Hermann-Neisse and the refugee author Susie Kaufman Organiser, AJR Centre in the AJR.