American Federation of Jews from Central Europe Collection: Meetings, Correspondence, By-Laws

The American Federation of Jews from Central Europe (AFJCE) was an organization that helped German-Jewish immigrants acclimate to life in the United States and advocated on their behalf. Activities included supporting restitution efforts, guarding the American civil rights of new immigrants, and providing educational and other social services. An earlier organization, called the German Jewish Center, that was founded in New York City in 1926, served many of the same needs as the AFJCE, providing help with immigration, legal matters, health care, and job referrals. In February 1939, leadership in the German Jewish Club suggested a federation of German Jews in America, which was duly organized and then reorganized in summer 1941. Incorporation paperwork for the American Federation of Jews from Central Europe was signed on November 19, 1941, and the paperwork filed a few weeks later, on December 5.

During World War II, the AFJCE focused its work on immigration for German and other central European Jewish immigrants fleeing the war. The Federation fought against immigration quotas and the assignment of German Jewish refugees with enemy alien status, which affected where they could live, what jobs they could pursue, enforced a curfew, curtailed their freedom of movement, barred them from owning weapons, cameras, binoculars, and short-wave radios, and excluded them from volunteering with or donating blood to the Red Cross. The Federation also filed legal affidavits for Jews who had become stateless after their German citizenship was revoked, worked to accelerate the naturalization process for German Jewish immigrants, fought a planned evacuation of German Jewish immigrants from the West Coast, aided German medical doctors who were barred from practicing in the United States, and proposed opening free ports that would offer temporary protection to Jewish refugees, although this did not come to pass. The Federation began its work on restitution and indemnification almost immediately after it was founded. Their fundraising campaigns to help Jewish survivors of Nazi persecution started in 1942 and their work lobbying for the passage of restitution laws began as soon as the war had ended. The Federation conducted a widespread survey consisting of thousands of questionnaires in 1944-1945 to determine the scope of Jewish communal property in Germany prior to Kristallnacht, including bank accounts, securities, jewelry, and household goods. This information aided greatly in postwar restitution claims. The Federation was also active in helping to enact legislation in Germany related to restitution and indemnification, starting in the late 1940s and 1950s.

The United Restitution Organization was formed in 1948 as a legal aid society for claimants living outside of Germany who had restitution and indemnification claims against West Germany and Austria. Lawyers in Germany and in countries where Jews had fled for refuge who specialized in indemnification law provided low-cost legal representation. The branch in New York City, located within the AFJCE office and sometimes called the United Restitution Office, handled about 300,000 individual cases. The Federation’s URO office helped survivors access their German pensions, worked on restitution claims for former and present individual and communal or collective Jewish property holders in Germany, aided Jews who remained in Germany by providing clothes, food, and shelter, and fought for indemnification legislation to compensate, as much as possible, for incarceration in concentration camps and prisons. A special Indemnification Section was later established to handle indemnification claims based on the same model as the URO office. The work of the URO eventually expanded to such a degree that the AFJCE began helping other victims of Nazi persecution, not only German Jews.

In 1945, the Council of Jews from Germany (Council for the Protection of the Rights and Interests of Jews from Germany) was founded in London as an umbrella organization to represent German Jewish survivors of Nazi persecution in restitution efforts. The Federation was one of the founding member organizations, along with the Association of Jewish Refugees in Great Britain and the Irgun Olej Merkas Europa in Palestine. The Federation, along with these other organizations, was also involved in the founding of the Jewish Restitution Successor Organization (JRSO) in 1946, which helped distribute heirless property, and the Jewish Trust Organization in 1950, both founded in the United States zone of Western Germany; the Conference on Jewish Material Claims against Germany in 1951; and the Research Foundation for Jewish Immigration (RFJI) in 1971. The RFJI conducted oral histories and published several works on German Jewish immigration to the United States, including the multi-volume International Biographical Dictionary of Central European Émigrés, 1933-1945. Through cooperation with the Leo Baeck Institute (1955), United Help (1955), Inc., the Jewish Philanthropic Fund of 1933 (1958), and other aid and cultural organizations, AFJCE provided legal, social, and cultural support for German Jewish immigrants in the U.S., including through day-long academic symposia called Lerntage as well as other public lectures and discussions. The Federation was also instrumental in the founding of old age and nursing homes and acted as the central representative and coordinating body for local and national member organizations, including congregations, fraternities, clubs, and welfare agencies.