Collection of letters relating to the immigration of Oskar and Josefine Moser, and Ernestine and Anna Hartmann.
Object numberM2020/039:005
TitleCollection of letters relating to the immigration of Oskar and Josefine Moser, and Ernestine and Anna Hartmann.
Description16 letters concerning the immigration of Oskar Moser and his wife Josefine, her mother and sister (Ernestine and Anna Hartmann), appealing through the Quakers’ German Emergency Fellowship Committee (GEFC), 1938-1939. From Vienna in May 1938, Oskar Moser initially contacted the Sydney Quakers through a family friend in South Africa, Gloria Oppenheim, sister to Camilla Wedgewood, the President and Chairperson of the GEFC in Sydney. The Viennese-Jewish family feared greatly for their lives following the Anschluss, the annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany, on 12 March 1938. Gloria Oppenheim argued the case that Oskar, born 11 February 1898, grew up in the country so knows animal farming and agriculture; both skills that were sought after by the Australian government. Furthermore, his wife and sister-in-law can 'cook well and do embroidery', indicating that they could go into domestic service.
In June 1938, Oskar wrote, “I am forced to apply to the goodness of anyone who is ready to help. As a Jew I have not the slightest possibility of living here; on the contrary I have to leave the country within the shortest time but there is no possibility for me of immigrating to any country since all of them have closed their frontiers. Will you therefore pardon me for sending this letter, for it is the last attempt in my despair.” Despite his skills and desperate situation however, the family’s application to Australia was initially rejected.
In August 1938, Oskar Moser wrote again to Camilla Wedgewood, appealing to her for help in overturning this decision. Oskar wrote, “Unfortunately the news which you have transmitted us means our complete ruin… I only wrote to you, when I saw no other way out and when it was a matter of to be or not to be.” Several of the letters in this collection detail correspondence between Camilla and the Australian Department of Interior, wherein Camilla campaigned for the Moser family over many months. They eventually raised the 600 pounds landing fees and Camilla obtained offers of employment for them.
Oskar and Josefine Moser, and Ernestine and Anna Hartmann arrived in Sydney on board the Strathmore in May 1939.
Part of a collection of 442 documents from the archives of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), which relate to victims of persecution desperate to escape Nazi Germany and Austria. As early as 1933 the Nazis began implementing discriminatory laws intended to vilify and exclude those deemed “racially undesirable”, rounding up political dissidents and incarcerating them in camps, dismissing officials in civil service and positions in the universities, forcing the Aryanization of Jewish businesses, forbidding Jews from practicing in their professions, and so on. The ‘Kristallnacht’ pogrom in November 1938 was the turning point resulting in mass emigration. Yet increasingly, nations, including Australia, limited quotas for Jewish refugees. In 1938, the German Emergency Fellowship Committee of the Quakers was established in Sydney. The letters, applications and articles through this committee speak to the urgent appeals flooding into benevolent organisations like the Quakers from ‘non-Aryans,’ including Jews, conscientious objectors, opponents of Nazi ideology and other ‘undesirables’. One letter from January 1939 mentions 70,000 applications for immigration to Australia at the Department of the Interior. The letters in this collection give voice to some of the individuals that made up that number; many of whom were never able to escape Europe.
In June 1938, Oskar wrote, “I am forced to apply to the goodness of anyone who is ready to help. As a Jew I have not the slightest possibility of living here; on the contrary I have to leave the country within the shortest time but there is no possibility for me of immigrating to any country since all of them have closed their frontiers. Will you therefore pardon me for sending this letter, for it is the last attempt in my despair.” Despite his skills and desperate situation however, the family’s application to Australia was initially rejected.
In August 1938, Oskar Moser wrote again to Camilla Wedgewood, appealing to her for help in overturning this decision. Oskar wrote, “Unfortunately the news which you have transmitted us means our complete ruin… I only wrote to you, when I saw no other way out and when it was a matter of to be or not to be.” Several of the letters in this collection detail correspondence between Camilla and the Australian Department of Interior, wherein Camilla campaigned for the Moser family over many months. They eventually raised the 600 pounds landing fees and Camilla obtained offers of employment for them.
Oskar and Josefine Moser, and Ernestine and Anna Hartmann arrived in Sydney on board the Strathmore in May 1939.
Part of a collection of 442 documents from the archives of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), which relate to victims of persecution desperate to escape Nazi Germany and Austria. As early as 1933 the Nazis began implementing discriminatory laws intended to vilify and exclude those deemed “racially undesirable”, rounding up political dissidents and incarcerating them in camps, dismissing officials in civil service and positions in the universities, forcing the Aryanization of Jewish businesses, forbidding Jews from practicing in their professions, and so on. The ‘Kristallnacht’ pogrom in November 1938 was the turning point resulting in mass emigration. Yet increasingly, nations, including Australia, limited quotas for Jewish refugees. In 1938, the German Emergency Fellowship Committee of the Quakers was established in Sydney. The letters, applications and articles through this committee speak to the urgent appeals flooding into benevolent organisations like the Quakers from ‘non-Aryans,’ including Jews, conscientious objectors, opponents of Nazi ideology and other ‘undesirables’. One letter from January 1939 mentions 70,000 applications for immigration to Australia at the Department of the Interior. The letters in this collection give voice to some of the individuals that made up that number; many of whom were never able to escape Europe.
Production date 1938 - 1939
Production periodpre-World War II
Object nameofficial correspondence
Materialpaper
Language
- English
Credit lineSydney Jewish Museum Collection, donated by the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers)