15 - The Genossinen and the Khaverim: Socialist Women from the German-Speaking Lands and the American Jewish Labor Movement, 1933-1945

Summary

Much has been written in both popular literature and more scholarly works on the strained encounters between Yiddish-speaking and German-speaking Jews. Whatever their relations may have been in the world at large or in earlier periods, there is no evidence of any such strains between the socialist exiles from the German-speaking lands (many of whom were of Jewish origin) and the American Jewish labor movement in the years of the Third Reich. To the Jews of Central Europe, Yiddish-speaking Jews living in Germany and Austria before the Nazi era may well have been, to use Jack Wertheimer's phrase, “unwelcome strangers.” The socialist exiles from Germany and Austria, both those who were Jewish and those who were not, were perceived by the Jewish labor movement in America, however, not as strangers but as comrades in struggle. The women exiles from German-speaking Europe who were in contact with the American Jewish labor movement during the war, moreover, seem to have formed even deeper and longer-lasting bonds with that movement than did their male counterparts.

The organization most instrumental in creating ties between Jewish socialists in America and socialist exiles from the German-speaking lands was the Jewish Labor Committee (JLC). There were no women in the national leadership of the JLC either before or during World War II. The JLC, moreover, did not specifically orient its rescue and relief activities toward women. There were, however, a number of women who were aided by the JLC during the war years, including a significant number of women from German-speaking Europe.