Dedication
FOR LIZ,
WHO ALWAYS KNEW
Epigraph
Whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he has saved the entire world.
—THE TALMUD
Contents
Dedication
Epigraph
Introduction
PART I: THE PLAN
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
PART II: THE RESCUE
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
PART III: NEW LIVES
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
EPILOGUE
The Fifty Children
Afterword
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
List of Illustrations
Index
About the Author
Also by Steven Pressman
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
Introduction
The inch-thick stack of yellowing onionskin paper rested in a brown cardboard binder held together by a rusting metal clasp. For years my wife, Liz, had kept it tucked away, half forgotten, in a desk drawer in our home in San Francisco, mixed in with the usual assortment of bank statements, medical records, and other household documents. But there was nothing even remotely mundane about the astonishing tale that had been carefully typed out on those brittle pages decades earlier. The contents of a small plastic bag, wedged between the manila file folders in the same desk drawer, added graphic drama to the pages in the binder: more than a dozen German passports, each stamped with a menacing Nazi swastika and bearing the name and photograph of a young girl or boy.
The broad outline of what Gil and Eleanor Kraus, my wife’s maternal grandparents, had accomplished in the spring of 1939 was not exactly a secret. Family members had long been aware of the couple’s daring voyage into Nazi Germany on the eve of the Holocaust and their return to the United States with fifty Jewish children in their care. For the rest of their lives, however, neither of them spoke in any detail with family or friends about their unlikely adventure. They certainly offered no clues that explained how—or why—a Jewish couple from Philadelphia wound up in Nazi-controlled Vienna determined to rescue children whose lives were at stake.
Eleanor, however, had written it all down. At some point she typed out a richly detailed account of a seemingly far-fetched plan that began with a simple discussion between her husband, Gil, and his friend Louis Levine, the head of a national Jewish fraternal organization called Brith Sholom. At first glance, the typewritten pages read like an improbable, if not impossible, product of a vivid imagination.
Incredibly, the rescue mission took place precisely as Eleanor described it. In fact, its full historical significance extended well beyond her own account. The fifty boys and girls whose lives were saved by Gil and Eleanor Kraus comprised the largest single known group of children, traveling without their parents, who were legally admitted into the United States during the Holocaust.
I first learned of Eleanor’s private manuscript not long after Liz and I met in the summer of 2000. But it took another decade before I was able to give it my full attention and dig more deeply into this fascinating episode that for years had remained hidden in plain sight. It quickly became clear that this was much more than just another Holocaust rescue story. Research into Gil and Eleanor’s unheralded exploits led to a greater understanding of the obstacles that stood in their way as they valiantly (and in Gil’s case, single-mindedly) carried out their mission. The rescue project took place within the context of a profoundly hostile social and political environment in the United States that made their achievement all the more stunning—and, sadly, all the more singular. Moreover, the Krauses embarked on their journey during a brief window of time when the Nazis, determined to rid the Third Reich of all Jews, were allowing—in fact, pressuring—them to leave. Tragically, the greater challenge was finding countries that would take them in.
Gil and Eleanor Kraus never set out to be heroes. They were ordinary people who did something extraordinary and whose courageous deeds came very close to being lost to history. The stack of Eleanor’s pages, ever more fragile to the touch, has been carefully placed back in the desk drawer. At long last I am proud to bring the dramatic story of their quiet heroism out of the darkness.
PART ONE
THE PLAN
CHAPTER 1
No one in his right mind would go to Germany now. It’s not safe, especially for Jews. I’d be too scared to put a foot into that country, assuming the storm troopers would even let us in.
—ELEANOR KRAUS
PHILADELPHIA
JANUARY 1939
Eleanor Kraus glanced around the dining room of her spacious three-story brick home on Cypress Street, in Philadelphia’s well-heeled Fitler Square neighborhood. The dinner hour was approaching, and Eleanor wanted to be sure that the table had been set properly. Although her husband, Gil, had not yet arrived home from his downtown law office, Eleanor had already dressed for the evening, choosing a silk dress and a pair of T-strap pumps. A double strand of pearls, set off against a new pair of matching earrings and a deep-red coat of lacquered nail polish, completed the look. Carlotta Greenfield, one of Gil’s nieces, was bringing her fiancé to dinner, and Eleanor, as always, wanted everything to shine.
When Gil walked through the front door a few minutes after six o’clock, Eleanor greeted him with a quick kiss on the cheek and reminded him that their guests were due to arrive any moment. Gil smiled knowingly at his wife, removed his overcoat, and set down his worn leather briefcase. As Eleanor was turning to dash back into the kitchen to check with the family cook on the dinner preparations, Gil caught her eye. “There is something that I need to discuss with you. Come into the bathroom while I shave. We can talk in there and while I’m getting dressed.”
Eleanor followed him upstairs and into the bathroom that adjoined the couple’s bedroom. Gil undid his necktie and pulled off his starched white dress shirt, leaving on a sleeveless undershirt as he prepared to shave. He was forty-two years old, and he and Eleanor had been married for more than fourteen years. But as he stood there in the bathroom, filling the sink with steaming hot water and then carefully scraping the straight edge razor across his face, it struck Eleanor just how fit and handsome he still was. With his broad shoulders and muscular torso, Gil had retained his physique of more than twenty years earlier, when he had competed on both the varsity wrestling and football teams during his undergraduate days at the University of Pennsylvania.
While Eleanor perched on the edge of the bathtub, Gil mentioned that his good friend Louis Levine had dropped by earlier that day. Levine was a successful real estate man in New York, but his visit to Gil’s office had nothing to do with business matters. He had come in his capacity as the grand master of Brith Sholom, a national Jewish fraternal organization to which Gil also belonged.
The two men had talked all that afternoon
about a seemingly impossible idea—whether there might be a chance to help save Jewish children trapped inside Nazi Germany. Both Gil and Levine were only too aware of the worsening conditions for Jews living inside Hitler’s Reich, and they discussed the possibility that Brith Sholom might be able to sponsor some kind of rescue effort. Levine reminded Gil that the group had recently built a children’s summer camp along the banks of Perkiomen Creek in Collegeville, a semirural area about an hour outside of Philadelphia. On the other side of the camp, Brith Sholom had also constructed a large stone house that included twenty-five bedrooms. The house, intended for possible use as an old-age home, at the moment was standing completely empty.
Gil had enormous respect for Levine, and he listened closely as his friend spoke passionately about the ever-increasing dangers that were confronting Jews—adults and children alike—living in Nazi Germany. As the afternoon wore on, Levine finally got to the real point of his visit. He knew all about Gil’s reputation as a tough-minded lawyer who seemed able to solve just about any challenge put before him. Levine bluntly asked if Gil himself would be willing to take on the children’s rescue project.
Reacting almost instinctively, Gil surprised himself by immediately agreeing. Of course, he was aware of the difficult—perhaps insurmountable—obstacles that would stand in the way of such a project ever succeeding. Would the Nazis consider letting children leave Germany? And even if they would, America’s rigid immigration laws presented another imposing barrier. But Levine knew his friend well: Gil had a strong sense of justice, of right and wrong, and the rescue idea was right. Coincidentally three prominent Philadelphia Quakers—Rufus Jones, Robert Yarnall, and George Walton, all of whom Gil knew quite well—had traveled on their own to Berlin only a few weeks earlier in an effort to help Jews get out of Germany. Quaker groups in the United States, organized under the banner of the American Friends Service Committee, had become active in a variety of Jewish rescue efforts ever since Hitler had come to power in 1933. The Philadelphia trio had set out in hopes of meeting with high-ranking Nazi officials—perhaps even with Hitler himself—and arguing the case for making it easier for Jewish families to leave the Reich. But the high-minded mission was rebuffed. “Germans Ridicule Visiting Friends” read the headline in the December 9 edition of the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin. The accompanying article, an Associated Press dispatch from Berlin, reported that a German newspaper controlled by Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels “declared today that ‘we must laugh’ at the Quaker delegation, which is coming from the United States to investigate the condition of Jews and other minorities in Germany.”
Other groups, including several leading Jewish organizations, had been trying since 1934—within a year of Hitler becoming Germany’s chancellor—to bring Jewish children to safety in the United States. Such efforts had yielded very little success, resulting in the rescue of only a small handful of children before bumping up against America’s stringent immigration regulations. No one could figure out a way to bring in larger numbers of children. By the time that Louis Levine left Gil’s office on that January afternoon, Gil knew that he could not possibly turn down the challenge that others had been unable to meet.
Eleanor listened patiently while Gil recounted the conversation with Levine. Drying his face with a small cotton towel she handed him, he told her that Levine was confident that Brith Sholom’s members would readily agree to raise all the money necessary for bringing children over to the United States. Gil glanced at the mirror and then turned toward Eleanor. Levine had asked if he would be willing to take on the project, he said. It would be a very complicated undertaking, of course, but he had promised his friend that he would certainly think it over. For the moment at least, Gil decided not to tell his wife that he had made up his mind on the spot.
Finally, it was Eleanor’s turn to talk. “Gil, this is really crazy!” she exclaimed. “No one in his right mind would go into Nazi Germany right now. It’s not safe, especially for Jews. I’m not sure you could stand it for even twenty-four hours. I’d be too scared to put a foot into that country, assuming the storm troopers would even let us in.” Gil was quiet as he stepped into the bedroom, where he began to dress for dinner. He certainly was not surprised by her reaction. He was fully aware of the risks involved in moving ahead with the rescue plan. Traveling to Nazi Germany held little appeal for a Jew—even one traveling with the protection of an American passport. Gil also knew that the project would almost certainly require him to spend several weeks or even months in Europe. And even then, there was no way of knowing if the plan had any chance of succeeding.
IN THE WEEKS and months leading up to Gil and Eleanor’s conversation, the newspapers had been filled with articles that described in grim detail the progressively brutal measures directed against hundreds of thousands of Jews living in Germany and Austria. On January 2, an Associated Press dispatch, which appeared in newspapers throughout the United States and Canada, reported on a New Year’s message from Joseph Goebbels that demanded an international solution to the world’s “Jew problem.” “Germany’s Jews … started the new year in dire circumstances,” wrote the AP’s Berlin correspondent. “Emigration, in the face of the Nazi aim to drive all but elderly Hebrews from the Reich, has bogged down in a jam of applications at consulates and in the problem of financing the exodus.” A week later, on January 9, newspapers published a United Press report, also from Berlin, disclosing that hundreds of Jews had recently been brought into Gestapo headquarters, where they were forced to sign pledges to leave Germany or face imprisonment. “Similar pledges were exacted from Jews released from Nazi concentration camps in recent weeks,” the wire service reported, “even though it was impossible for many to obtain foreign visas or enough money to get out of the country.”
Ten months earlier, Hitler’s storm troopers had streamed into neighboring Austria to carry out the Anschluss—Austria’s annexation into the Third Reich. With only token opposition to Hitler’s plan to fold the country into a Greater Germany, the German troops had been warmly embraced—in fact, eagerly welcomed. More than a million cheering citizens of Vienna lined the streets to greet Hitler with flowers, outstretched arm salutes, and thundering shouts of “Sieg Heil!” when he triumphantly motorcaded into the city in the late afternoon of Monday, March 14. The following morning, Hitler appeared on a balcony overlooking the vast Heldenplatz, where tens of thousands had gathered to hear him speak. He did not disappoint them. “In this hour I can report to the German people the greatest accomplishment of my life,” Hitler proclaimed. “As Führer and chancellor of the German nation and the Reich, I can announce before history the entry of my homeland into the German Reich.”
The Nazis wasted no time in subjecting Vienna’s 185,000 Jews to the harsh measures that had been directed much more gradually against the 600,000 Jews who lived in Germany. There was nothing secret about these actions, all of which were widely reported in American newspapers. “Adolf Hitler has left behind him in Austria an anti-Semitism that is blossoming far more rapidly than ever it did in Germany,” the New York Times reported on March 16, two days after Hitler’s celebrated arrival. “All Jewish executives at Vienna’s largest department store were arrested immediately after Hitler’s arrival, the business being ‘taken over’ by Nazis. Shops, cafés and restaurants were raided and large numbers of Jews were arrested.” Two weeks later, on April 3, a lengthy article in the Times described the terrifying new landscape for the Jews of Vienna. “In Austria, overnight, Vienna’s Jews were made free game for mobs, despoiled of their property, deprived of police protection, ejected from employment and barred from sources of relief,” the newspaper informed its readers. “The frontiers were hermetically sealed against their escape.” Within six weeks of the Anschluss, Austria’s new Nazi leaders announced their intention to rid Vienna of all of its Jews within four years. “‘By 1942, Jewish elements must be eradicated from Vienna and must disappear,’ ” the Times reported on April 27 in an article that q
uoted from an editorial published in Hitler’s official newspaper. “‘By that time no business, no factory should be allowed to remain in Jewish hands. No Jews should have an opportunity to earn a living … Jews! Abandon all hope. There is only one possibility for you: Emigrate—if someone will accept you.’ ”
The situation for Jews trapped inside Germany and Austria became even more desperate in the weeks that led up to Louis Levine’s meeting with Gil. The November pogrom known as Kristallnacht had completely erased what slim doubts still remained about the Nazis’ aims. Anyone reading the newspapers in America knew exactly what was going on in Europe.
As she pored over these chilling stories, Eleanor had also sensed the dangers that might greet anyone who hoped to do something in response to these tragic events, and she said as much to her husband as they walked downstairs to await their guests. Gil offered little to calm his wife’s anxieties. Instead he frankly explained to Eleanor just how difficult it would be to bring Jewish refugees—even children—into the United States. Labor Department regulations made it impossible for any organization to bring children, unaccompanied by parents, into the country. This meant that Brith Sholom officially could neither sponsor the children’s rescue nor legally act on its own to bring them to America. Although the group might be allowed to house and care for the children once they were here, there was still the challenge of complying with the nation’s strict labor and immigration laws. Gil knew he would have to find another way to bring in children without running afoul of these laws.
50 Children: One Ordinary American Couple's Extraordinary Rescue Mission into the Heart of Nazi Germany Page 1