The Scientists History Abandoned: The Cruel Reality of Being a Scholarly Woman or Refugee Fleeing the Holocaust to America

The Scientists History Abandoned: The Cruel Reality of Being a Scholarly Woman or Refugee Fleeing the Holocaust to America

Natasha sheldon - February 6, 2018

The USA has often been celebrated as a refuge for the displaced. The period before and during the Second World War is one particularly noted for this- especially regarding intellectuals of Jewish descent. Scientists such as Albert Einstein, Hans Bethe, and James Franck were all given refugee in America. Also, in 1933, the Emergency Committee in Aid of Displaced Foreign Scholars was established in response to the rise of Jewish persecution under the fledgling Nazi government.

The Rediscovering the Refugee Scholars Project, set up by a team from Northeastern University recently began to analyze the files of over 5000 scholars who applied to the Committee for aid. Astonishingly, they found that only 330 were successful- and of these only 4 were women. While many female scientists managed to reach America without the Committee’s help, many others did not. Was the low number of women helped by the Committee deliberate discrimination? Or are the Northeastern team’s findings a sobering lesson on what can happen to foreigners in general?

The Scientists History Abandoned: The Cruel Reality of Being a Scholarly Woman or Refugee Fleeing the Holocaust to America
Edward R Murrow, who headed the Emergency Committee in Aid of Displaced Foreign Scholars. Google Images

The Emergency Committee in Aid of Displaced Foreign Scholars

The Nazi Party came to power in January 1933. By April of that year, “The Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service” had been passed. This legislation blocked Jews or those with Jewish grandparents from working in a variety of state-run institutions in Germany- including universities. This policy led to the sacking of 1/3 of the staff of some faculties- a total of 12,000 people in Germany alone. As the 1930’s progressed and the war began, the policy spread to other countries as the Nazi’s dominated them. Soon, there was no refuge in mainland Europe for Jews of any line of work.

There was, however, hope- for Jewish scholars at least. In 1933, The Emergency Committee in Aid of Displaced Foreign Scholars was established in the US. Funded privately by the Rockefeller and Carnegie foundations, and run by journalist Edward R Murrow, the committee aimed to find placements for European Jewish intellectuals- particularly in science and mathematics- in American universities. Almost immediately, letters began to flood in. From 1933 onwards, the Committee received between 5000-6000 applications, from which they had to sift through and make their selections.

The Scientists History Abandoned: The Cruel Reality of Being a Scholarly Woman or Refugee Fleeing the Holocaust to America
Jewish Immigrants in New York. Google Images.

“The general assumption about these scholars is that everyone who wanted to come came,” explained Laurel Leff, Associate Director of the Jewish Studies Program in Northeastern’s College of Social Sciences and Humanities and part of the Rediscovering the refugee’s project team. The truth was very different, for out of the thousands that applied, the Committee only granted aid to 330. For those who were turned down, there were other avenues into America. A written affidavit from friends or relatives already in the US was one way to enter, as was a regular visa. However, neither guaranteed work- or a smooth passage into American society.

Many female scientists had academic records equal to or exceeding their male counterparts. The fact that the Committee only supported four women suggests that for females the odds were even higher than the men. To gain a fuller picture of precisely what these female intellectuals were up against when trying to enter America, it is worth considering the stories of a handful of them: those who made it, those who didn’t and one of the few the Committee in Aid of Displaced Foreign Scholars, actually helped.

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The Scientists History Abandoned: The Cruel Reality of Being a Scholarly Woman or Refugee Fleeing the Holocaust to America
Hilda Geiringer. Google Images

The Women’s Stories

Hilda Geiringer was one of the four lucky women who was granted aid by the Committee in 1938. Dr. Geiringer was a highly prestigious Mathematician in Austria and Germany. She had just been proposed for the position of extraordinary professor at her university when the Nazi’s came to power. The offer was withdrawn, and Geiringer was dismissed. However, she became Professor of Mathematics in Istanbul where she began pioneering work later applied to the field of Genetics.

Once in America, Dr. Geiringer helped with war work and eventually settled in Harvard. However, before this, she faced discrimination. “I am sure that our President would not approve of a woman. We have some women on our staff, so it is not merely prejudice against women, yet it is partly that, for we do not want to bring in more if we can get men,” explained one reply to Geiringer’s failed job application.

On the other hand, the committee refused nuclear scientist, Elizabeth Rona. A Doctor of Chemistry, Geochemistry, and Physics, she was the first woman to teach chemistry at university level in Hungary and a pioneer in nuclear science. In 1933, she was jointly awarded the Haitinger prize for her work on uranium, thorium, and actinium. In 1941, after being refused a Committee grant, she fled to America using an ordinary visitor’s permit. Rona spent three months unemployed and suspected of being a spy before securing work at Trinity College Washington. In 1942, she was recruited to work on the Manhattan Project, as the government wanted to use her method of Polonium extraction.

The Scientists History Abandoned: The Cruel Reality of Being a Scholarly Woman or Refugee Fleeing the Holocaust to America
Leonore Brecher. Google Images

Rona remained in the US and carved out a notable career. However, the states did not work out for everyone. Eugenia Bassani, an Italian chemist, was another female scientist who made it to America without the help of the committee. Bassani worked in hospital clinical laboratories across the USA until in 1948 she returned to Italy and became the director of her own lab.

Other promising women never made it to the USA. Assistant professor of mathematics, Nedda Friberti was refused aid by the committee. Although she did manage to escape Italy, it was to become a refugee in Switzerland. Some women were denied even that. In 1934 and 1938-1940, the committee rejected Austrian biologist Leonore Brecher. Finally, she settled as a schoolteacher in a Jewish community- only to be deported in 1942 to Maly Trostinez extermination camp, where she was murdered four days after her arrival.

On the face of it, these women could be seen to be the victims of their sex. However, their experience was a symptom of a more comprehensive problem- that affected and came from attitudes in the US itself.

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The Scientists History Abandoned: The Cruel Reality of Being a Scholarly Woman or Refugee Fleeing the Holocaust to America
German Jews seeking to emigrate in the office of the Relief Organization of German Jews. Google Images

The Reasons for Refusal

It was impossible for the Committee for Aid to make offers to everyone-because US immigration tied their hands. By the 1930’s America was in the grip of its worst-ever downturn. The 1924 Immigration Act set an annual quota of 150,000 immigrants to reduce the burden on the country. However, there was a loophole that the Committee could work with- for ministers and Professors were exempt from the quota. This loophole also limited them as it meant they could only help anyone of professorial rank- male or female. This explains why Hilda Geiringer was selected but not others.

So, the Committee was not discriminating against women. However, the prevailing attitudes of the 1930’s and 40’s were. It was still a significant achievement for women to achieve doctorates let alone be awarded professorships. It was this attitude that limited the number of female professors and so the numbers of women eligible for consideration by the Committee.

However, inherent prejudice did limit the number of Jewish academics of either sex -indeed Jews in general -who could enter America. For despite the crisis in Europe, the American government did not raise its immigration quota to account for the sheer number of people looking for a haven. This was because the American people were against such a move. In July 1938, a poll ascertained that less than 5% of the American people believed the immigration quota should be raised to take into account German and Austrian Jewish refugees.

The Scientists History Abandoned: The Cruel Reality of Being a Scholarly Woman or Refugee Fleeing the Holocaust to America
German Jews on the MS St Lewis in 1939. Th passengers were turned away due to strict immigration quotas. Google Images

This attitude did not change as the situation worsened. In January 1939, two-thirds of Americans polled said they would not take in any of the 10,000 German Jewish children looking for refuge. It was an attitude that achieved actuality that same year when America turned away the MS St Louis, which was carrying 900 German Jewish refugees. The ship was forced to return to Europe where 254 of the passengers later died in the holocaust.

Why such a hard attitude? Simply put, it was because the Jewish refugees represented competition in an America hard pressed to offer opportunities to its own people. In 1938, Bernard Flexner, an executive member on the Committee in Aid warned other members that “various fields of academic life, particularly the disciplines of mathematics are saturated and to continue to introduce foreign scholars will mean lack of opportunity for Young Americans.” If that was the attitude towards academics, what chance did the less well-qualified stand?

The findings of the Rediscovering, the Refugee Scholars Project, may have illustrated a disparity in attitudes towards the sexes in academia that cost many women their lives. However, it also demonstrates a disturbing prejudice towards the refugees-an attitude that is still prevalent today. This attitude is not just an American one but commonplace across the Western World as nations balk at the prospect of offering homes to those displaced by war- especially those whose culture is very different. Hopefully, society will heed the consequence of such past prejudices – and reconsider their own for the future.

 

Where do we find this stuff? Here are our sources:

Smithsonian Mag.com: The Forgotten Women Scientists Who Fled the Holocaust for the United States

Alessandra Gissi: “I should like very much to settle down in the US, and I will come alone”. Italian women in the “Intellectual Wave” (1938-1943)

News@Northeastern: Professors Uncover Lost stories of WWII Refugee Scholars

Marilyn Bailey Ogilvie and Joy Dorothy Harvey: The Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science

University Women’s International Networks Database: Dr. Leonore Brecher

Eugenia L. Bassani: Biofisica e Pulsologia

New York Public Library Archives and Manuscripts: Emergency Committee in Aid of Displaced Foreign Scholars Records, 1933-1945

The Independent: What Americans Though About Jewish Refugees on the Eve of World War II

The Atlantic.com: A Twitter Tribute to Holocaust Victims

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