Part X

Dell Topasky and Reed Robinson: US Consuls in Stuttgart

The two consuls loved to embarrass the Vaad and deny their applications. When Rabbi Meyer Gruenwald, assistant head of Agudas Harabbonim and a rabbi in Czechoslovakia before the war, filled out an application when he arrived in the American Zone of occupation, he unwittingly gave an erroneous home address in Munich. Though Rabbi Gruenwald was Rabbi Samuel Abba Snieg’s deputy, the consuls hired Germans to do a background check, and they found the building at the address he gave them was totally obliterated during the war. It is important to note that Rabbi Snieg was the chief rabbi of the Rabbinical Council in the American Zone.

They asked Baruch why the leaders of the Jewish people were such liars. He told them in wartime, American officers and the OSS forged passports and documents and did everything they could to save lives. Given all the Jewish survivors had experienced, they would do almost anything to leave Germany. The consuls disqualified Rabbi Gruenwald, despite his stellar reputation. To circumvent them, [Rabbi Nathan] Baruch, [director of the Vaad Hatzala in Germany] applied to the Canadian consulate to get the rabbi a visa to Canada.

When the Spinka Rebbe presented his papers to the consulate, he was rejected on medical grounds when they determined he had tuberculosis. The rabbi was subsequently examined by a German professor who found no trace of the disease. With a set of X-rays and the medical report, [Rabbi] Baruch presented the information to the consul, who exclaimed, “And now you’re a doctor, too?” Nevertheless, they finally granted the rabbi and his family a visa.

[Dell] Topasky [another consul in Stuttgart] once asked [Rabbi] Baruch if he liked the idea of allowing Nazis into the U.S. to help counterbalance the threat of communism, by which he meant the influx of Jews into America. They also asked him why he worked so diligently to get Jewish scholars and students into America, instead of sending them to Palestine to be leaders. They always wanted answers, and Baruch told them, again and again, that the DPs wanted to go to America where there was an established Jewish community. Once the State of Israel was formally declared, they would move and establish communities there.

Rabbi Elya Meir Bloch of the Telshe Yeshiva in Cleveland, Ohio asked Baruch’s help with a relative and her affianced. When [Reed] Robinson [consul in Stuttgart] saw that her fiancé had been offered a faculty position at the yeshiva, he asked him who had suffered the most in Jewish history. After he said, “Moses,” the consul disagreed with him, and he summoned Baruch to break the impasse by coming to Stuttgart.

Robinson told Baruch that Job suffered the most, so the application was denied. Baruch explained how Moses came from a royal family and when he saw the suffering of the Hebrews, he was so distressed he tried to help them. Subsequently, Moses suffered with each individual from the time of the Exodus from Egypt through the 40 years wandering in the desert. Therefore, the rabbi was not wrong when he replied, “Moses.” Robinson retorted, “If Nat Baruch suffered the most, you would find some Midrash for that.” The couple eventually received their visas.

Vaad Office in Paris

Samuel Schmidt, who managed the Vaad office in Paris, eventually returned to the U.S., leaving Baruch responsible for its management. France had a relatively open-door policy for refugees, the most liberal one in the world. Anyone could come to France, go to the local prefect of police (an agency of the French Government under the administration of the Ministry of the Interior), and declare his intent to be a temporary resident, thereby making it easier to immigrate to the U.S. On a typical day, Baruch said 400 people would pass through the Vaad office at 7 Rue de la Paix in Vincennes, a suburb of Paris, where members of the Vaad staff would explain immigration procedures in 10 different languages.

In addition to the extensive paperwork required to prepare each immigrant, sleeping quarters had to be found, kosher food procured, and children placed in Jewish schools. Although the Paris office obtained visas for rabbis and yeshiva students, there was “hardly a human problem” that did not become an obligation of the office. Children who became ill, pregnant women with special needs, people requiring dentists, all had to be attended to while their documents were being processed.

It generally took three months to process a rabbi to immigrate and six weeks for a student. Proper documents had to be secured, and the refugees had to be taken to the appropriate consuls, physicians, the French police for fingerprinting and myriad places to file dozens of different papers.

*These are excerpts from Alex Grobman, “Battling For Souls: The Vaad Hatzala Rescue Committee in Post-War Europe” (Jersey City, New Jersey: KTAV, 2004).

Dr. Alex Grobman is senior resident scholar at the John C. Danforth Society, member of the Council of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East.