American Jewish army chaplains attend a meeting called by Judge Louis Levinthal, Advisor on Jewish Affairs to the U.S. Army in Germany.
Overview
- Caption
- American Jewish army chaplains attend a meeting called by Judge Louis Levinthal, Advisor on Jewish Affairs to the U.S. Army in Germany.
Among those pictured are Judge Louis Levinthal (with bow tie); Mayer Abramowitz (second from the right, in front of the door); Abraham Klausner (far right); and Oscar Lifschutz (front left in the arm chair). - Date
-
November 1945
- Locale
- Frankfurt-am-Main, [Hesse-Nassau; Hesse] Germany
- Variant Locale
- Frankfort
- Photo Credit
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Mayer & Rachel Abramowitz
- Event History
- The adviser on Jewish affairs to the commander of the US forces in Europe was a position established in August 1945 in the wake of the publication of the Harrison Report on the situation of Jewish displaced persons in the Allied zones of occupation. Seven American Jews served in this position in the four and a half years of its existence between 1945 and 1949: Rabbi Judah Nadich (August-September 1945); Judge Simon Rifkind (October 1945-March 1946); Rabbi Philip Bernstein (May 1946-August 1947); Judge Louis E. Levinthal (June-December 1947); William Haber (January 1948-January 1949); Harry Greenstein (February-October 1949); and Abraham Hyman (October-December 1949). The role of the adviser on Jewish affairs was to interpret US army regulations to the Jewish DPs and advise American commanders concerning the special problems of the survivors. President Truman insisted that candidates for this position be acceptable to the major Jewish organizations, but not partisan to any one of them. This directive led to the formation of the Five Jewish Cooperating Organizations, a new body that consisted of the American Jewish Committee, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, the American Jewish Conference, the World Jewish Congress, and the Jewish Agency for Palestine. The Five Jewish Cooperating Organizations selected the advisers on Jewish affairs and financed their expenses. The position was a politically sensitive one, fraught as it was with issues of dual loyalty. Since the adviser was nominated by the US Secretary of War and reported to the European theater commander, he represented the interests of the American army of occupation, but because he was selected and financially supported by the world Jewish organizations, he was also expected to serve the interests of the Jewish DPs. Though many of their policy initiatives and diplomatic efforts never bore fruit, the advisers on Jewish affairs achieved many notable successes. They established positive relationships with the American military leadership in Germany. They made sure that the instructions of the theater commanders to improve the living standards of Jewish survivors in the DP camps were implemented. They conducted effective educational programs to sensitize the American military to the plight of the Jewish DPs. They lent crucial assistance to the Jewish infiltrees from Eastern Europe and prevented the closing of the borders to the American zones of occupation. They were influential in their call for a more liberal DP immigration policy to the US and Palestine. They secured American recognition for the Central Committee of Liberated Jews in the US zone of Germany, and they facilitated the symbolically important publication of the first postwar edition of the Talmud in Germany. Finally, they handled with dignity and sensitivity the massive resettlement of Jewish DPs once the borders to America and Israel were opened, as well as the final closing of the DP camps.
[Sources: Geniizi, Haim, "Philip S. Bernstein: Adviser on Jewish Affairs, May 1946-August 1947," Simon Wiesenthal Center Annual 3 (1997)]
https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005367.
Rights & Restrictions
- Photo Source
-
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Copyright: United States Holocaust Memorial MuseumProvenance: Mayer & Rachel Abramowitz
Keywords & Subjects
Administrative Notes
- Biography
- Mayer Abramowitz is the son of Chaim Yitzhak and Rachel Lea Abramowitz. He was born December 12, 1919, in Jerusalem, where his father was a rabbi and kosher butcher. When Mayer was nine years old his family came to the U.S. to escape the escalating violence in Jerusalem. They lived first in Hartford, Connecticut, and then in New York City. In 1935 Mayer's parents returned to Palestine but left him in New York, where he studied and boarded at the Talmudic Academy, an orthodox yeshiva. Later he attended Yeshiva College and rabbinical school at the Jewish Theological Seminary. In 1944 Mayer received his rabbinical ordination and the following year became a chaplain in the U.S. Army. From 1945 to 1947 he was stationed in Germany, first in Bad Wildungen, where he replaced Rabbi Ernst Lorge, and then in Berlin, where he succeeded Rabbi Herbert Friedman as chaplain of headquarters, Berlin District. Like his predecessor, Abramowitz was deeply involved in efforts to assist Jewish DPs then streaming into Berlin from Eastern Europe. Among his many activities was establishing one of the largest schools for DP children in the American zone at the Schlachtensee displaced persons camp and running a weekly teachers' seminar for Jewish instructors in the district's DP camps and centers. He also was instrumental in setting up a summer camp for Jewish DP children in the Grunewald Forest. In July 1946 Abramowitz was on duty at the Wittenau DP camp in the French zone of Berlin to greet the last truck of Jewish DPs from Eastern Europe who were arriving along the Stettin route. Among the members of this transport was Rachel Kosowski, a Jewish woman from Janov who had been deported with her family to the Soviet interior and lived out the war there. Mayer became acquainted with Rachel at his weekly teachers' seminar and the two were married in Berlin on November 23, 1947. Shortly before their wedding Abramowitz was ordered to Salzburg, Austria, to deal with the new wave of Jewish DPs, who were fleeing over the border from Romania. The American military sought to prevent their entry into Germany and hoped the chaplain could prevail upon the Bricha to cooperate. Between September 1947 and his discharge in April 1948, Abramowitz served in the Austrian DP camps of Linz, Bindermichl, Hallein and Bialik. Mayer and Rachel returned to the U.S. in the spring but were back in Europe by September 1948, after he accepted a position with the Joint Distribution Committee to be their chief immigration officer in Italy. For the next two-and-a-half years Abramowitz worked in Rome and Naples, helping to bring about an orderly closing of the displaced persons camps. In the spring of 1951, after the birth of their daughter, Dahlia, the Abramowitz' moved back to the United States and settled in Miami Beach, Florida, where Mayer became rabbi of Temple Menorah.
- Record last modified:
- 2000-06-08 00:00:00
- This page:
- https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1122101
