Four score and seven years ago, in 1938, reports of terrible pogroms were reaching Jewish communities in America. After Hitler’s Germany annexed Austria in March, Jews were beaten, robbed, murdered, and forcibly removed from their homes. Anti-Jewish laws spread across the region as Czechoslovakia was partitioned. Many Jews in Germany starved as non-Jewish stores refused them service, while Jewish-owned businesses were spray-painted, looted, and vandalized.
Desperate to escape, many German Jews scrambled to obtain visas. But even those who managed to leave were only permitted ten Reichsmarks – about four American dollars. The price of escape was everything: property, savings, and personal possessions were confiscated.
That same year, American Jewry mobilized. The United Jewish Appeal was formed by merging the Joint Distribution Committee, responsible for overseas relief, and the United Palestine Appeal, focused on settling Jews in Palestine. The UJA concentrated its efforts on rescuing Jews from Nazi Europe.
While American Jews tried to help, they were also surrounded by signs of growing antisemitism at home and disturbing admiration for Hitler in unexpected places. Hitler openly admired three world-famous Americans from Detroit: Charles Lindbergh, Henry Ford, and Father Charles Coughlin.
Lindbergh visited Berlin and accepted the German Eagle award from Hermann Göring. On Henry Ford’s 75th birthday in August 1938, he accepted the Grand Cross of the Supreme Order of the German Eagle, the Reich’s highest honor for non-Germans. Hitler’s personal congratulations were read aloud at Ford’s birthday dinner before 1,500 guests. The Jewish War Veterans of the United States swiftly condemned the move as “an endorsement of the cruel barbarous inhuman action and policies of the Nazi regime.”
Meanwhile, Father Coughlin used his national radio platform, reaching 49 stations, to spread pro-Nazi rhetoric. In 1938, as Jews were being persecuted across Europe, he told his audience that Hitler stood as a “defense mechanism against the incursion of communism.”
Against this backdrop of hostility, American Jews searched for pride and found it in the baseball diamond. Hank Greenberg, the Detroit Tigers’ legendary first baseman, electrified Jewish fans as he chased Babe Ruth’s single-season home run record. Greenberg finished with 58, just two homer’s short, but he gave Jews reason to stand tall at a time of growing fear.
Still, antisemitism ran deep. A 1938 Gallup Poll revealed that 45 percent of non-Jews believed “Jews in America had too much power,” while 26 percent agreed that “Germany would be better off if it drove Jews out.”
The world watched, or looked away, as Germany escalated its brutality. On November 9 and 10, Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass, saw more than 200 synagogues and over 7,000 Jewish businesses destroyed across Germany and Austria. Jews were attacked, beaten, robbed, and murdered. Thousands were sent to concentration camps. In Vienna alone, 22 Jews took their own lives out of terror. As if this weren’t enough, survivors were then hit with an “Atonement Payment,” a 25 percent tax on Jewish assets to “pay” for the supposed sins of their people.
American Jews followed the horror as best they could. Local newspapers reported the atrocities, though often days or weeks late. Radio carried brief mentions. Moviegoers sometimes saw newsreels of the destruction. Commercial television was still a decade away.
But what they saw was enough. The flames of Kristallnacht, the voices of Ford and Coughlin, and the cries of Europe’s Jews formed a chilling picture. It united American Jews in horror, heartbreak, and a resolve to act.
