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Most jewish immigrants who came to America with very little because most only brought what they could carrier or their things were taken by the Germans when put into ghettos. When they came most only had one suitcase a person, they would bring mostly personal affects and valuble items

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Even though these immigrants fled the Nazi's, they weren't welcome with open arms in America. Some  people in America did not respect the rights of these immigrants and hated them. Even though the hate was not the level of the Germans, it still wasn't easy getting through life..

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Even though it was good that people came to America, it did present problems. Many public service were stressed do to the introduction to the population. Also, the wages got smaller while the immigrants began to look for jobs.

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Albert Einstein, known as the Father of the Atomic Bomb. Albert Einstein moved to the United States when he was offered a job at Princeton during Nazi suppression. He would not only make the atom bomb but would also help many Jewish immigrants arrive by applying for visas.

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Once in America Jewish began to prosper financially after starting business and dealing in their trades, but lost much of their spirituality and heritage while trying to achieve the American dream

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When jews immigrated to America they had never really lived in large urban centers in a population of all jewish which helped corral their culture and how they developed and prospered in America

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Everyday Life in the Warsaw Ghetto / גטו ורשה [in color]

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Bo Berens
Trevor Compton
John Huggins

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Hillel House exhibit focuses on Jewish businesses in Nazi Berlin

Approximately 160,000 Jews lived in Berlin when the Nazis rose to power in 1933, and 40,000 of them owned businesses. Throughout the next decade, they were stripped of their livelihoods. First came nonviolent, economic sabotage-the Nazi Party cut their connections with non-Jewish business owners, blocked their channels of supply and service, and gained the support of chambers of commerce throughout the city. Systematic violence followed, with pogroms that attempted to cripple not just Jewish business owners but the entire Jewish community.

Final Sale: The End of Jewish Owned Businesses in Nazi Berlin, an exhibit now on display in the Rubin-Frankel Gallery at the Florence & Chafetz Hillel House, sheds light on the racist business environment that the Nazis fostered to destroy Jewish businesses through intimidation, crippling laws and regulations, embezzlement, theft, and violence. The exhibitis on view through the week of January 5.

Jonathan Zatlin, a College of Arts & Sciences associate professor of history and one of the exhibit's organizers, stresses that while focusing on Nazi genocide is important, it is just as vital to explore how Nazi anti-Semitism flourished, moving from low-level economic discrimination into a comprehensive set of laws that prevented Jews from participating in German society.

During the November 1938 pogrom known as Kristallnacht,Nazi paramilitary henchmen and non-Jewish civilians destroyed and plundered Jewish businesses in Berlin and throughout Germany and Austria. A law was passed that prohibited Jews from owning or operating businesses and that transferred the ownership of Jewish businesses to non-Jews. "The Nazis thought they were liberating Germany from Jews and liberating property from Jewish hands," Zatlin says. "So, they thought they were doing something good, which is really frightening."

By 1941, Zatlin says, none of the city's businesses were owned by Jews. "The Nazis were really trying to get rid of Jews, and they started doing it culturally and politically, but they were also always doing it economically," he says. "They wanted to get rid of them. And when the ones who were left refused to leave, the Nazis got violent."

The exhibit, presented by the Elie Wiesel Center for Judaic Studies, focuses on a small but diverse sample of Jewish businesses that operated in Berlin during the rise of the Nazis and on the effect of Nazi policies on individual lives. "The personal anecdotes can be a very powerful way for the people to enter into the history," Zatlin says.

One of the seven featured businesses is Yva Photographic Studio, which was owned by fashion and commercial photographer Else Ernestine Neuländer (known as Yva). Yva opened her studio in Berlin in 1930. But Nazi campaigns and legislation soon made life difficult. Models refused to work with her, and she eventually had to give the studio to a non-Jewish friend before it shut down entirely in 1938. By 1942, Yva and her husband were arrested by the Gestapo and sent to the concentration camp at Sobibór, where they perished. Zatlin says that Yva has not received enough attention as a significant figure in the world of fashion photography and a trailblazer for women in business.

The exhibition also highlights the case of Moritz Fröhlich, the owner of Fröhlich & Pelz Glass-Crystal-Porcelain. Fröhlich took on a non-Jewish business partner, Kurt Pelz, in 1934 in an attempt to protect his business from the Nazis, but by 1938, Pelz had forced Fröhlich out, without compensation. Fröhlich and his family were secular Jews with strong German loyalties, but in the face of Nazi abuse, they left Germany in 1939 on the Iberia, the last ship that successfully brought Jewish refugees to the United States. Fröhlich's son, Peter Gay, is an eminent historian and a Yale University professor emeritus.

"There is this way in which they think that they're German, and suddenly they're being told that they're not, and this has consequences for their business," Zatlin says. "The other thing that's rather shocking is they barely got out, and we wouldn't have had Peter Gay if they hadn't. How many people didn't get out who would have been like Peter Gay?"

Zatlin hopes that Final Sale will prompt members of the BU community to think about the ways racism affects American society today. "I am interested in having different kinds of people think more broadly about this issue and come together around it as way of both combating it as a social evil and thinking about it historically," he says. "Americans like to think of themselves as great egalitarians. We love diversity and we fought this wonderful, just war against the Nazis, who were the ultimate racists. If our identity is really contingent on that notion of having fought the Nazis in this just war, why is it that we're able to tolerate certain social arrangements that promote, reinforce, or don't change racist arrangements, especially within the economy? I think it's really important to try to make these issues relevant to each generation."

Final Sale: The End of Jewish Businesses in Nazi Berlin is on exhibit in the Rubin-Frankel Gallery at the Florence & Chafetz Hillel House, 213 Bay State Rd., until the week of January 5. The exhibit is free and open to the public. The gallery is open Monday through Saturday, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Sunday from 3 to 9 p.m. Information about the exhibit is here.
Samantha Pickette can be reached at pickette@bu.edu.

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Final Sale | BU Today | Boston University

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Hillel House exhibit focuses on Jewish businesses in Nazi Berlin Approximately 160,000 Jews lived in Berlin when the Nazis rose to power in 1933, and 40,000 of them owned businesses. Throughout the next decade, they were stripped of their livelihoods.

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When arriving in America jewish people supported their family  through petty commerce such as owning stores and also artisan trades like shoe making and tailoring.

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The main reason for the Jewish migration was to escape the German death camps such as Dachau and Auschwitz. Another reason was to be able to create a new life because their belongings and houses were destroyed and looted. That is why many shops were created. (see Jewish Commerce)

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After World War 1, there were over 300,000 Jews in the Zionist movemnet. Around 1917, Red Army units and Bolshevik supporters attacked most of the Zionist supporters which caused thousands to flock to the U.S. because they could freely speak about their movement.

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During, WWII, many European Jews fled their homes to the United States. Unfortunately, the USA has a impassable quota of how many people can immigrate from other countries. At the end of 1940's they would have to adjust the quota to allow for 400,000 refuges to come from Europe.

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Deconstructing History: Ellis Island | History

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During World War Two, the Jewish people were harsly treated by the Germans who occupied Poland. Ghettos were established to house the Jews before they were moved to the death camps. Many escaped into Russia before the Germans captures Poland.

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Ellis Island was in full swing during and after World War Two to give all immigrants, who were mostly Jewish, the proper documentation needed to live in the U.S. Also, these long processes caused many family names were switched around due to language barriers.