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Gilbert and Eleanor Kraus (seated in the center, next to the ship's captain) pose with the 50 Austrian Jewish children they brought to the United States. Photograph taken in June 1939. All the children rescued by the Krauses were from families that had previously tried to escape Nazi territory. After the children arrived in the United States, they were sent to live with foster families until their parents were able to immigrate. However, many were never reunited with their families.
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Gilbert and Eleanor Kraus (seated in the center, next to the ship's captain) pose with the 50 Austrian Jewish children they brought to the United States. Photograph taken in June 1939. All the children rescued by the Krauses were from families that had previously tried to escape Nazi territory. After the children arrived in the United States, they were sent to live with foster families until their parents were able to immigrate. However, many were never reunited with their families.
Photo
Gilbert and Eleanor Kraus with the 50 Austrian Jewish children they brought to the United States
Hilda Rattner (born Hilda Wiener ) was born into a Jewish family in Vienna on June 14, 1904. Not long after her birth, Hilda’s parents realized that she was deaf. Two years later, their fourth child, Richard, was born, and he was also deaf. Vienna in particular had a very vibrant deaf community where Jews and non-Jews mixed freely. Hilda and her brother Richard attended a Jewish school, where they learned to sign, and it was through these associations and activities that Hilda met Isadore Rattner, a deaf Jew from Poland. They married, and had three deaf children: Nelly, Joseph (who died at nine months), and Lilly. Over the years, Isadore and Hilda grew apart and filed for seperation. In March 1938, Germany annexed Austria. When Hilda saw Adolf Hitler during a military parade, surrounded by saluting Austrians, she realized that she and her family would have to escape. Hilda began to finalize plans for emigration. In April, 1940, they left quietly in the early morning. They boarded the SS Rex on a ten-day voyage to New York. When they arrived, they found that only their hearing grandmother would be allowed to disembark. Immigration officials were not convinced that four deaf people would be able to support themselves. The following day, they were ferried to Ellis Island, where they remained for five months. They eventually gained admittance to the United States, but only after immigration officials required that the family pay a $2,500 bond to show that they could support themselves while looking for work. In the evenings, Hilda and Richard attended English classes taught by a deaf teacher from Gallaudet University. They excelled at their studies and quickly learned enough to pass their citizenship exams. Through another student in their class, they learned the fate of Hilda's husband, Isadore. He had been sent to a concentration camp with a group of other deaf people, and was thought to have died in the gas chambers.
Photo
Group portrait of students in an English language class for deaf immigrants
Hans Vogel and his family fled Paris following the German invasion. They eventually received papers allowing them to immigrate to the United States. During this time, Hans kept a diary that contains postcards, hand-drawn maps, and other illustrations of their flight. This page describes the lead-up to their departure for the United States, from Lisbon, on the Nyassa. Hans was born in Cologne, Germany on December 3, 1926. The family left Germany in 1936, settling in Paris. They remained there until the outbreak of World War II. Hans's father, Simon, was interned by the French as an enemy alien at Lisieux, and later Gurs. When invading German forces reached Paris, the Vogel family fled south. Upon Simon's release from Gurs, the family reunited and settled in Oloron-Sainte-Marie, in the unoccupied zone of France, near the Spanish border. They remained there from June 1940 until April 1941, when they received papers from the United States Consulate allowing them to immigrate. They arrived in New York via Lisbon on the steamer Nyassa in August 1941. Sadly, Hans Vogel died at the age of 15 from an illness in 1943.
Media Essay
Hans Vogel's Diary
Diaries reveal some of the most intimate, heart-wrenching accounts of the Holocaust. They record in real time the feelings of loss, fear, and, sometimes, hope of those facing extraordinary peril. The diary of Hans Vogel, who fled Paris with his family while his father was interned, contains hand-drawn and colored maps of their flight. This page describes receiving papers allowing the family to immigrate to the United States.  Hans was born in Cologne, Germany on December 3, 1926. The family left Germany in 1936, settling in Paris. They remained there until the outbreak of World War II. Hans's father, Simon, was interned by the French as an enemy alien at Lisieux, and later Gurs. When invading German forces reached Paris, the Vogel family fled south. Upon Simon's release from Gurs, the family reunited and settled in Oloron-Sainte-Marie, in the unoccupied zone of France, near the Spanish border. They remained there from June 1940 until April 1941, when they received papers from the United States Consulate allowing them to immigrate. They arrived in New York via Lisbon on the steamer Nyassa in August 1941. Sadly, Hans Vogel died at the age of 15 from an illness in 1943.
Artifact
Hans Vogel's diary entry about receiving US immigration papers
Hans Vogel and his family fled Paris following the German invasion. They eventually received papers allowing them to immigrate to the United States. During this time, Hans kept a diary that contains postcards, hand-drawn maps, and other illustrations of their flight. This page describes the voyage on board the Nyassa to the United States.  Hans was born in Cologne, Germany on December 3, 1926. The family left Germany in 1936, settling in Paris. They remained there until the outbreak of World War II. Hans's father, Simon, was interned by the French as an enemy alien at Lisieux, and later Gurs. When invading German forces reached Paris, the Vogel family fled south. Upon Simon's release from Gurs, the family reunited and settled in Oloron-Sainte-Marie, in the unoccupied zone of France, near the Spanish border. They remained there from June 1940 until April 1941, when they received papers from the United States Consulate allowing them to immigrate. They arrived in New York via Lisbon on the steamer Nyassa in August 1941. Sadly Hans Vogel died at the age of 15 from an illness in 1943.  
Artifact
Hans Vogel's diary entry describing the voyage to the United States
Hans Vogel and his family fled Paris following the German invasion. They eventually received papers allowing them to immigrate to the United States. During this time, Hans kept a diary that contains postcards, hand-drawn maps, and other illustrations of their flight. This page describes arriving in New York.  Hans was born in Cologne, Germany on December 3, 1926. The family left Germany in 1936, settling in Paris. They remained there until the outbreak of World War II. Hans's father, Simon, was interned by the French as an enemy alien at Lisieux, and later Gurs. When invading German forces reached Paris, the Vogel family fled south. Upon Simon's release from Gurs, the family reunited and settled in Oloron-Sainte-Marie, in the unoccupied zone of France, near the Spanish border. They remained there from June 1940 until April 1941, when they received papers from the United States Consulate allowing them to immigrate. They arrived in New York via Lisbon on the steamer Nyassa in August 1941. Sadly, Hans Vogel died at the age of 15 from an illness in 1943.
Artifact
Hans Vogel's diary entry on arriving in New York
Hans Vogel and his family fled Paris following the German invasion. They eventually received papers allowing them to immigrate to the United States. During this time, Hans kept a diary that contains postcards, hand-drawn maps, and other illustrations of their flight. This page describes the lead-up to their departure for the United States, from Lisbon, on the Nyassa. Hans was born in Cologne, Germany on December 3, 1926. The family left Germany in 1936, settling in Paris. They remained there until the outbreak of World War II. Hans's father, Simon, was interned by the French as an enemy alien at Lisieux, and later Gurs. When invading German forces reached Paris, the Vogel family fled south. Upon Simon's release from Gurs, the family reunited and settled in Oloron-Sainte-Marie, in the unoccupied zone of France, near the Spanish border. They remained there from June 1940 until April 1941, when they received papers from the United States Consulate allowing them to immigrate. They arrived in New York via Lisbon on the steamer Nyassa in August 1941. Sadly, Hans Vogel died at the age of 15 from an illness in 1943.
Artifact
Hans Vogel's diary entry on boarding the refugee ship Nyassa
Henry Morgenthau, Jr., treasury secretary in the Roosevelt administration and later chairman of the United Jewish Appeal, greets Jewish refugees en route from Shanghai to Israel. New York, United States, March 2, 1949.
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Henry Morgenthau, Jr., greets Jewish refugees en route from Shanghai to Israel
As prewar antisemitism intensified, Hessy's family fled from Germany to Paris, France. France fell to the German army in June 1940. Hessy's family was smuggled into the "zone libre" (free zone) in southern France. The family received a US visa in 1941, but was unable to leave before the visa expired and could not obtain an extension. In 1942, the family obtained visas to enter Cuba, where they settled before immigrating to the United States in 1949.
Oral History
Hessy Levinsons Taft describes father's attempts to obtain visas for the family to emigrate from Nice, in the south of France
This document from the American Consul-General in Vienna certifies that the Trost family applied for American visas on September 15, 1938. It states that the family (Josef, Alice, Dorrit, and Erika) were placed on the waiting list for visas with the numbers 47291-47294.
Article
Immigration to the United States 1933–41
Between 1933 and 1939, Jews in Germany were subjected to arrest, economic boycott, the loss of civil rights and citizenship, incarceration in concentration camps, random violence, and the state-organized Kristallnacht ("Night of Broken Glass") pogrom. Jews reacted to Nazi persecution in a number of ways. Forcibly segregated from German society, German Jews turned to and expanded their own institutions and social organizations. However, in the face of increasing repression and physical violence, many Jews fled Germany. More Jews might have left Germany had such countries as the United States and Great Britain been more willing to admit them.
Map
Jewish emigration from Germany, 1933-1940
Map
Jewish "illegal" immigration, 1945-1947
Map
Jewish immigration to Israel, 1948-1950
Passengers on the SS Quanza while temporarily docked in Norfolk, Virginia. The Quanza was a Portuguese ship chartered by 317 Jewish refugees attempting to escape Nazi-dominated Europe in August 1940. Photo dated September 10, 1940.
Article
Jewish Refugees Aboard the SS Quanza
Amid intensifying anti-Jewish measures and the 1938 Kristallnacht ("Night of Broken Glass") pogrom, Johanna's family decided to leave Germany. They obtained visas for Albania, crossed into Italy, and sailed in 1939. They remained in Albania under the Italian occupation and, after Italy surrendered in 1943, under German occupation. The family was liberated after a battle between the Germans and Albanian partisans in December 1944.
Oral History
Johanna Gerechter Neumann describes her family's arrival in Bologna and aid received from Italian students before emigrating to Albania
Amid intensifying anti-Jewish measures and the 1938 Kristallnacht ("Night of Broken Glass") pogrom, Johanna's family decided to leave Germany. They obtained visas for Albania, crossed into Italy, and sailed in 1939. They remained in Albania under the Italian occupation and, after Italy surrendered in 1943, under German occupation. The family was liberated after a battle between the Germans and Albanian partisans in December 1944.
Oral History
Johanna Gerechter Neumann describes how her family obtained visas to emigrate to Albania

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