February 18, 2011
100 Years Ago in the Forward
The bodies of two girls were found in a tenement on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Both had been asphyxiated by gas. It is unknown how this tragedy transpired. The girls, 16-year-old cousins Clara and Toyve Gershovitch, shared a room in a boarding house. They had apparently gone to a friend’s house for Friday night dinner and returned at 11p.m. In the morning, the landlord noticed that the girls hadn’t gone to work, so he knocked on the door. After not getting a response, he opened the door to find both girls lying dead in their beds. Recent immigrants from Podolsk, Russia, they had been in the country for two months.
75 Years Ago in the Forward
In the wake of the assassination of Swiss Nazi leader Wilhelm Gustloff by a Jewish student, the Swiss government has banned the Nazi Party and all related organizations in Switzerland. The move was well received by both the Swiss press and public, as the Nazis and the Italian fascists have provoked much trouble there over the past few years. In Germany, the reaction to the assassination was harsh, with Hitler threatening to punish the entire Jewish community. As a result, panicked German Jews have flooded the immigration offices, doing whatever they can to get out of Germany.
50 Years Ago in the Forward
Jewish organizations based in Algiers, Algeria, are formulating plans to help poor Jews immigrate to countries other than Israel. The political and social status of Algerian Jews is currently quite shaky, and since the burning down of one of Algiers’s largest synagogues in January, the situation has worsened. Among the countries being discussed as possible locales for immigration are Canada, Australia and a number of Latin American countries.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
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