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Collection of letters, applications, articles and other documents that formed part of the Quaker archive, 1938-1939
[nb-NO]Object number[nb-NO]M2020/039
[nb-NO]Title[nb-NO]Collection of letters, applications, articles and other documents that formed part of the Quaker archive, 1938-1939
[nb-NO]Description[nb-NO]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. The letters, applications and articles in this collection 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’.
Quakers have worked for humanitarian causes since their establishment in seventeenth century England from Christian origins. In 1933, the Quakers in London established a committee to assist the persecuted. In 1938, the German Emergency Fellowship Committee (GEFC) was established in Sydney. Initially aimed at helping German ‘non-Aryan Christians’, they quickly expanded their remit.
Correspondence with Camilla Wedgwood, the President and Chairperson of the committee in Sydney, forms the core of the Quaker Collection. At the time Camilla was an anthropologist and Principal of the Sydney University Women’s College. She told a friend that she was Chair ‘because my name is so English that no one however prejudiced could pretend that I was either a Jew or a scheming German, and I have a certain aura of respectability’. The volume of correspondence to and from the GEFC was enormous. Swamped with work, Camilla admitted, ‘to work like this, one has to develop the hide of a rhinoceros.’
The collection encompasses a diverse cross-section of people, including stateless people making direct appeals, English and American Quakers working in Europe on their behalf, Australian governmental responses, and ordinary Australians offering help. Letters request assistance with visas, seek contacts for work, thank Camilla for her help or provide references. Many also close the door on hope; the numerous letters of rejection providing a good indication of the limitations and conditions of immigration to Australia. Having a guaranteed offer of employment and the £200 landing fee gave people their best chance. Agricultural experience and domestic work were amongst the best pathways to acceptance by Canberra.
The GEFC worked cooperatively with international organisations, with the Australian Jewish Welfare Society and with various church committees. When war broke out though, military shipping gained priority over passengers. There was little more the Society of Friends could do, and the documents in this collection do not extend past 1939.
Quakers have worked for humanitarian causes since their establishment in seventeenth century England from Christian origins. In 1933, the Quakers in London established a committee to assist the persecuted. In 1938, the German Emergency Fellowship Committee (GEFC) was established in Sydney. Initially aimed at helping German ‘non-Aryan Christians’, they quickly expanded their remit.
Correspondence with Camilla Wedgwood, the President and Chairperson of the committee in Sydney, forms the core of the Quaker Collection. At the time Camilla was an anthropologist and Principal of the Sydney University Women’s College. She told a friend that she was Chair ‘because my name is so English that no one however prejudiced could pretend that I was either a Jew or a scheming German, and I have a certain aura of respectability’. The volume of correspondence to and from the GEFC was enormous. Swamped with work, Camilla admitted, ‘to work like this, one has to develop the hide of a rhinoceros.’
The collection encompasses a diverse cross-section of people, including stateless people making direct appeals, English and American Quakers working in Europe on their behalf, Australian governmental responses, and ordinary Australians offering help. Letters request assistance with visas, seek contacts for work, thank Camilla for her help or provide references. Many also close the door on hope; the numerous letters of rejection providing a good indication of the limitations and conditions of immigration to Australia. Having a guaranteed offer of employment and the £200 landing fee gave people their best chance. Agricultural experience and domestic work were amongst the best pathways to acceptance by Canberra.
The GEFC worked cooperatively with international organisations, with the Australian Jewish Welfare Society and with various church committees. When war broke out though, military shipping gained priority over passengers. There was little more the Society of Friends could do, and the documents in this collection do not extend past 1939.
[nb-NO]Date[nb-NO] 1938 - 1939
[nb-NO]Production period[nb-NO]pre-World War II
[nb-NO]Subject[nb-NO]immigration, escape attempts, escape pre-war, Australian link to Holocaust, non-Jewish victims, aid giving
[nb-NO]Object name[nb-NO]official correspondence
[nb-NO]Material[nb-NO]paper
[nb-NO]Language[nb-NO]
- English
[nb-NO]Credit line[nb-NO]Sydney Jewish Museum Collection, donated by the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers)