Against the Odds:

American Jews and the Rescue of Europe's Refugees, 1933-1941



Where:

Museum of Jewish Heritage, 36 Battery Pl., Manhattan; 646-437-4202.

When:

Sunday-Tuesday, Thursday, 10 a.m.-5:45 p.m.; Wednesday, 10 a.m.-8 p.m.; Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. (closed Saturdays)

How much:

$12, adults; $10, seniors $7, students; children 12 and under, free Wednesdays 4-8 p.m.

Summer program:

Hello Gorgeous! A Barbara Film Fest: "Funny Girl," June 26; "What's Up Doc?" July 10; "The Way We Were," July 17; "A Star is Born," July 24; "Yentl," July 31; all screenings at 6:30 p.m.

More information: Visit

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MANHATTAN, NY -- Paul Salmon, grandfather of Staten Island businessman Henry Salmon, was born in Germany in 1898 and had the paper to prove it.

His birth certificate (reissued in 1938 as part of a visa application) is one of the first things to see in the Museum of Jewish Heritage's show, "Against the Odds: American Jews and the Rescue of Europe's Refugees."

Having been sent to Dachau, Salmon managed to secure a visa and win release. In the meantime, his wife Erna, 14-year-old son Egon and daughter Edith boarded the liner St. Louis, carrying 938 Jewish passengers to Havana.

But Cuba only accepted a few dozen refugees. Other countries, including the United States, weren't very interested, and the St. Louis returned to Europe.

The Salmons didn't stay long, however. Belgium, took 214 passengers, them included. Eventually the family was reunited on the Island, where a cousin, Dr. Siegfried Solomon of Hart Boulevard, had sponsored their visas.

The family settled on the Island, where Egon Salmon started a realty business.

A few St. Louis passengers found their way to safe havens, but most didn't. They were seized and sent to the camps or they perished in hiding..

"Against the Odds," the perfect title for the show, relates many variations on the Salmon story, from both sides — that of the sponsors, who were resourceful and pragmatic and that of the escapees, who were desperate and lucky.

It's installed in a big, square gallery in a back-and-forth pattern, like a route through a maze. The path is defined by suspended "curtains" of fluttering business-sized sheets of paper, evoking the bureaucratic horrors of officialdom in the late 1930s.

The route gets narrower and narrower as "Against the Odds" moves towards 1941, when the war slammed the door on emigration.

The installation: "Against the Odds: American Jews and the Rescue of Europe's Refugees, 1933-1941" at the Museum of Jewish Heritage.

The artifacts in the exhibit include documents, correspondence and photographs. Personal items are relatively scarce but powerful. One letter to a granddaughter from a grandfather at Terezin included a bouquet of wildflowers.

The exhibit acknowledges obvious facts: That pre-war escape routes in Germany were open mostly to people with money. Even as the regime imposed exorbitant exit fees and requirements, it limited the amount of money that could leave the country.

Too little help was available to far too few and immigration quotas kept refugees away. Open anti-Semitism was nearly a respectable socio-political stance in wartime America and elsewhere.

The visa process was agonizingly slow. In the late 1930s, candidates with all the required paperwork in place were defeated by time.

From Stuttgart in 1938, Ludwig Klein wrote to his daughter Gerdi: "We ourselves are No. 22,345 on the waiting list" (hoping for one of 11,000 places). Gerdi Klein and her brothers reached the U.S.; their parents went to Auschwitz.

"Against the Odds" focuses on the lucky tickle that escaped and the American families that helped make it possible. For last week's opening at the museum, hundreds of descendants from both sides of this story attended a private reception, traveling from North Dakota, Chicago, Florida and Israel.

North Dakota?

Yes. A highly conscientious German-born North Dakotan, Herman Stern, sponsored 125 refugees, pledging his business, savings and home as proof of his solvency. In the event that the refugees became indigent, they became their sponsor's responsibility.

Ironically, Stern saved many strangers but was unable to help his own brothers.

Sponsors played fast and loose with the rules. A woman who helped with the elaborate red tape, said there were blanket instructions: Identify all of the visa applicants who lacked ties to a sponsor as "cousins."

In Germany in the late 1930s, American phonebooks saved lives. Jews pored over them, seeking relatives who might be sponsors.

Vienna-based composer Erich Zeisel knew no one in the States, but he looked in a directory and found a Morris Zeisel. He wrote to Morris who was no relation at all, and Morris sponsored Erich and his wife, Gertrude, identifying them as "cousins." A 1939 photograph portrays the Austrian Zeisels just before they left Vienna.

Some American families had the means to rescue dozens. The Kestenbaum family of Brooklyn —they were Manhattan-based furriers — issued affidavits to family, friends and strangers, nearly 900 in all.

Nationally, Americans were opposed to political refugees. In 1938, acknowledging the effects of the Depression-era, a public opinion poll asked: What is your attitude toward allowing German, Austrian and other political refugees to come to the U.S.

Some 67 percent said: Try to keep them out. The other 18 percent said let them in, but don't raise the quota.

The following year, Sen. Robert A. Wagner (D-NY) and Sen. Edith N. Rogers (R-Ma.) sponsored legislation to authorize the U.S. to admit 20,000 European refugee children (outside the existing quotas) over the next two years.

Two-thirds of the public opposed the bill and Congress threatened to reduce existing quotas if it passed. The bill died.

Michael J. Fressola is the arts editor for the Advance. He may be reached at fressola@siadvance.com.