Efforts on Refugees’ Behalf

Irene Harand, ca. 1935

Irene Harand, “His Struggle: An Answer to Hitler,“ Vienna 1935

In 1933, the Viennese conservative Catholic Irene Harand founds the World Movement Against Racial Hatred and Human Suffering to counter antisemitism. It becomes known as the “Harand movement.” She protests the same issues in her 1935 book „Sein Kampf – Antwort an Hitler“ (His Struggle: An Answer to Hitler), which is immediately banned in the German Reich. After giving a lecture in London in spring 1938, Harand is therefore unable to return to Vienna. She emigrates to the US in September 1938.

List of individuals giving statements before the subcommittee, July 8, 1938, p. 1

The individuals represent a wide range of refugee aid associations. Alongside testimony from representatives of numerous Jewish organizations, short statements are given by Christians such as Irene Harand and Pater Odo (who are Catholic) and Quakers (Society of Friends), political exiles such as Georg Bernhard, and the professional Society for the Protection of Science and Learning, which advocates for persecuted and refugee scientists and academics. These groups are only permitted to attend sessions of the conference, even public ones, upon the invitation of one of the national delegations.

List of individuals giving statements before the subcommittee, July 8, 1938, p. 2

The individuals represent a wide range of refugee aid associations. Alongside testimony from representatives of numerous Jewish organizations, short statements are given by Christians such as Irene Harand and Pater Odo (who are Catholic) and Quakers (Society of Friends), political exiles such as Georg Bernhard, and the professional Society for the Protection of Science and Learning, which advocates for persecuted and refugee scientists and academics. These groups are only permitted to attend sessions of the conference, even public ones, upon the invitation of one of the national delegations.

Pater Odo to the Director of the Swiss Immigration Police, August 6, 1938

Pater Odo (Carl Alexander, Duke of Württemberg), the Catholic youth leader for his home region, is expelled to Switzerland in April 1934 after repeated Gestapo interrogations. In Switzerland, he runs an aid organization for Catholic refugees.

Pater Odo arriving in the United States, October 8, 1940 

Because of his ongoing advocacy for refugees, he is forced to leave Switzerland as well in August 1940. After a temporary stay in Portugal, he moves to the United States in October 1940.

Mary Ormerod, ca. 1960

Memorandum by the International Christian Committee for German Refugees, July 6, 1938, p. 1/9

Mary Ormerod – a civil servant at the British Ministry of Health and Labour and a Labour politician – and her husband, the physician Frank Cunliffe Ormerod, host numerous refugees from Germany at their home in London’s Hampstead district. In Évian, Mary Ormerod represents the Quakers (the Society of Friends) and the International Christian Committee for German Refugees, which especially advocates on behalf of “non-Aryan” Christians.

Memorandum by the International Christian Committee for German Refugees, July 6, 1938, p. 2/9

Mary Ormerod – a civil servant at the British Ministry of Health and Labour and a Labour politician – and her husband, the physician Frank Cunliffe Ormerod, host numerous refugees from Germany at their home in London’s Hampstead district. In Évian, Mary Ormerod represents the Quakers (the Society of Friends) and the International Christian Committee for German Refugees, which especially advocates on behalf of “non-Aryan” Christians.

Memorandum by the International Christian Committee for German Refugees, July 6, 1938, p. 3/9

Mary Ormerod – a civil servant at the British Ministry of Health and Labour and a Labour politician – and her husband, the physician Frank Cunliffe Ormerod, host numerous refugees from Germany at their home in London’s Hampstead district. In Évian, Mary Ormerod represents the Quakers (the Society of Friends) and the International Christian Committee for German Refugees, which especially advocates on behalf of “non-Aryan” Christians.

Memorandum by the International Christian Committee for German Refugees, July 6, 1938, p. 4/9

Mary Ormerod – a civil servant at the British Ministry of Health and Labour and a Labour politician – and her husband, the physician Frank Cunliffe Ormerod, host numerous refugees from Germany at their home in London’s Hampstead district. In Évian, Mary Ormerod represents the Quakers (the Society of Friends) and the International Christian Committee for German Refugees, which especially advocates on behalf of “non-Aryan” Christians.

Memorandum by the International Christian Committee for German Refugees, July 6, 1938, p. 5/9

Mary Ormerod – a civil servant at the British Ministry of Health and Labour and a Labour politician – and her husband, the physician Frank Cunliffe Ormerod, host numerous refugees from Germany at their home in London’s Hampstead district. In Évian, Mary Ormerod represents the Quakers (the Society of Friends) and the International Christian Committee for German Refugees, which especially advocates on behalf of “non-Aryan” Christians.

Memorandum by the International Christian Committee for German Refugees, July 6, 1938, p. 6/9

Mary Ormerod – a civil servant at the British Ministry of Health and Labour and a Labour politician – and her husband, the physician Frank Cunliffe Ormerod, host numerous refugees from Germany at their home in London’s Hampstead district. In Évian, Mary Ormerod represents the Quakers (the Society of Friends) and the International Christian Committee for German Refugees, which especially advocates on behalf of “non-Aryan” Christians.

Memorandum by the International Christian Committee for German Refugees, July 6, 1938, p. 7/9

Mary Ormerod – a civil servant at the British Ministry of Health and Labour and a Labour politician – and her husband, the physician Frank Cunliffe Ormerod, host numerous refugees from Germany at their home in London’s Hampstead district. In Évian, Mary Ormerod represents the Quakers (the Society of Friends) and the International Christian Committee for German Refugees, which especially advocates on behalf of “non-Aryan” Christians.

Memorandum by the International Christian Committee for German Refugees, July 6, 1938, p. 8/9

Mary Ormerod – a civil servant at the British Ministry of Health and Labour and a Labour politician – and her husband, the physician Frank Cunliffe Ormerod, host numerous refugees from Germany at their home in London’s Hampstead district. In Évian, Mary Ormerod represents the Quakers (the Society of Friends) and the International Christian Committee for German Refugees, which especially advocates on behalf of “non-Aryan” Christians.

Memorandum by the International Christian Committee for German Refugees, July 6, 1938, p. 9/9

Mary Ormerod – a civil servant at the British Ministry of Health and Labour and a Labour politician – and her husband, the physician Frank Cunliffe Ormerod, host numerous refugees from Germany at their home in London’s Hampstead district. In Évian, Mary Ormerod represents the Quakers (the Society of Friends) and the International Christian Committee for German Refugees, which especially advocates on behalf of “non-Aryan” Christians.

“The German refugees in Evian,” special report for the Deutsche Mitteilungen, July 15, 1938 

Georg Bernhard, a journalist of Jewish descent, former editor in chief of the Vossische Zeitung newspaper and a parliamentary representative for the German Democractic Party, emigrates to France in 1933. There, he runs the newsrooms of two German-language newspapers, the Pariser Tageblatt and the Pariser Tageszeitung. As a representative of the German political émigrés in Évian, he stresses the urgency of taking in people persecuted for political reasons.

Georg Bernhard (2nd from r.) in conversation with Nahum Goldmann (r.), Évian, July 1938