Care and Welfare

The approach taken by the strictly Orthodox association Agudas Yisroel (also Agudat Yisrael, “Union of Israel”), founded in Poland in 1912, was that it would not be the political movement of Zionism that would lead the “Jewish people to salvation,” but only the strict observance of the commandments in the Torah. After the Shoah, the organization relativized this position and participated in building up the Jewish national community, while strongly maintaining that halakhah, the Jewish religious law, should decide the affairs of the State of Israel.

The American army rabbi Abraham Klausner (1915–2007) arrived at Dachau concentration camp in May 1945 shortly after it had been liberated and began to work for the interests of Jewish former concentration camp prisoners. By as early as June 21, 1945, he had compiled the first printed search lists with the heading Sh'erit ha-Pletah (The Surviving Remnant) which were then published by the Central Committee of Liberated Jews in Bavaria. They included the names of several thousand survivors.

The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (AJDC / Joint) was founded in 1914 as a Jewish-American welfare organization with the aim of providing economic support to Jews in Eastern Europe and Palestine. During World War II the organization helped Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany. After the Shoah, the Joint initiated an extensive aid program for survivors in the German, Austrian, and Italian DP camps. In addition, the Joint organized and financed emigration to Israel and other countries overseas.

The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) was an aid organization founded in 1902 in the USA to assist Jewish immigrants fleeing pogroms in Russia and Eastern Europe. Its predecessor had already been active since 1880. After World War II, HIAS assisted Jewish survivors in their search for relatives and facilitated the emigration of Jewish DPs, primarily to North America.

Apart from the autonomous Jewish criminal courts which dealt with everyday offenses, so-called Courts of Honor also existed. These passed judgment on collaborators and so-called “Kapos,” in particular, who had worked with the Nazis during the era of persecution or had mistreated fellow prisoners. A verdict of guilty could result in social ostracism, a reduction of the food allowance, imprisonment, or even expulsion from the DP community.

Rescue committee founded in 1939 by Orthodox rabbis in the USA and Canada with the aim of rescuing Eastern European rabbis and religious students. After 1945, the Vaad Hatzala provided spiritual and material support to the DPs in the DP camps. In Munich, the organization ran an office at Bachmairstraße 12, where the Deputy Director for Germany, Rabbi Aviezer Bustin, also lived.

The building at Theobald-Christ-Straße 21 (formerly Theobaldstraße) was home to the Israelite Women's Association girls' orphanage founded in 1852. The institution was run by women's rights activist Bertha Pappenheim (1859-1936) for ten years from 1895. Around 1900, there were around 25 to 30 young women living there who were either half or full orphans; in some cases, their parents were unable to look after their children.

The buildings in Hölderlinstraße, which included house number 10, were erected in 1903; the architect Carl Runkwitz was responsible for the plans and the construction company commissioned was Cohn & Kreh. From around 1906/07, the building housed an auxiliary school. From the 1930s at the latest, the address was linked to the history of the neighboring Samson-Raphael-Hirsch-Realschule. Due to increasing persecution in the Frankfurt area and far beyond, many families now sought shelter there for their children.

In 1873, the banker Isaac Königswarter and his wife Elisabeth donated 215,000 guilders for the construction of a modern hospital in memory of their father and father-in-law Marcus Königswarter and their older brother and brother-in-law Zacharias Königswarter; the Israelite community acquired four plots of land for this purpose. On June 27, 1875, the Königswarter Hospital of the Jewish community with more than 50 beds and a synagogue was officially opened; the architect Johann Christian Gramm was responsible for the building plans.

In the postwar period, headquarters of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee