Advanced Search Filters

In addition to or instead of a keyword search, use one or more of the following filters when you search.

Skip to main content
Bookmark this Item

Correspondence between Franz Blumenstein and the American Friends Service Committee

During the Holocaust, several institutions tried to help Jewish refugees flee German-occupied Europe. These included Jewish and non-Jewish groups—both religious and secular. The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) served as one such effort. The AFSC was established in 1917 during World War I as a way for the largely pacifist Quakers to respond to the war effort. By the end of World War II, the organization had six offices that employed over two hundred workers. Indeed, throughout the war, the AFSC ran an active Refugee Section that attempted to secure and negotiate affidavits for refugees, many of them Jewish.1 

During this time, the AFSC also aided in the resettlement efforts of children through the United States Committee for the Care of European Children (USCOM). Established in the summer of 1940, USCOM relocated eight hundred children from war-torn Europe to the United States. When transports to Great Britain were halted in 1940, USCOM shifted its efforts to southern France, Spain, and Lisbon in order to find homes for Jewish refugee children. The AFSC aided in this mission until 1953, when USCOM was shut down.2

The correspondence featured here between Franz Blumenstein and AFSC caseworkers demonstrates the tireless work of this partnership. It also reveals the very real frustrations of a family caught up in the bureaucratic web of search and immigration procedures. Franz Blumenstein spent his childhood and early career in Vienna. He and his wife, Else, had one son, Heinz-Georg (born September 22, 1935). During the November Pogrom (Kristallnacht) on November 9–10, 1938, Franz was arrested and sent to Dachau, where he was held until January 1939. In early 1939, he successfully immigrated to Cuba and awaited entrance visas to the United States.3 

Blumenstein's family was slated to join him in Havana after their voyage on the ill-fated St. Louis, which left Hamburg on May 13, 1939. After the ship was turned back to Europe, Blumenstein's wife and son disembarked in the Netherlands. Blumenstein then left Havana for Sosúa, in the Dominican Republic, where he lived out the rest of the war, frantically attempting to secure visas for his family. Blumenstein's wife and mother were probably killed in Auschwitz. His son survived in hiding in the Dutch countryside.4

Blumenstein's AFSC file—containing over one hundred pages of correspondence—chronicles his wartime and postwar efforts to locate his wife, mother, and son and bring them to his new home in the Dominican Republic. In 1945 the letters and documents shift towards the complex web of documentation required for Blumenstein to reunite with his son—first in the Dominican Republic and then in the United States.

For more information about the wartime activities of the AFSC, see William E. Nawyn, American Protestantism's Response to Germany’s Jews and Refugees, 1933–1941 (Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Research Press, 1981), 107–36.

For more information about the efforts of the AFSC together with USCOM, see Howard Wriggins, Picking Up the Pieces from Portugal to Palestine: Quaker Refugee Relief in World War II (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2004), 45–55.

Blumenstein finally managed to reach US shores in April 1946. He settled in New York and became a citizen.

His wife Else or Elsa (née Frankenstein; b. 1905), a Vienna native, was arrested in Amsterdam in September 1943 and was probably killed in Auschwitz. Blumenstein's mother, Regina (Regi; b. 1866; née Frank), was sent to the Westerbork camp, then Ravensbrück and Auschwitz, where she was killed. USHMM ITS Collection Database Central Names Index.

Close Window Expand Source Viewer

This browser does not support PDFs. Please download the PDF to view it: .

Archival Information for This Item

Source (Credit)
US Holocaust Memorial Museum
Accession Number 2002.296
Date Created
1940 to 1946
Author / Creator
Franz Blumenstein
Language(s)
English
Location
Sosua, Dominican Republic
Philadelphia, USA
New York, USA
Document Type Letter
How to Cite Museum Materials

Thank You for Supporting Our Work

We would like to thank The Alexander Grass Foundation for supporting the ongoing work to create content and resources for Experiencing History. View the list of all donors and contributors.

Feedback

Learn more about sources for your classroom