A Wreath of Laurel
by Hasia Diner | Professor Emerita of American Jewish History at NYU
As in our own day, the late 1930s and early 1940s, saw the world awash with refugees, women, men and children, desperately trying to flee their homes in search of places of safety. In October, 1940, Jews were overrepresented among those seeking to escape starvation, imprisonment, and death, in the face of the onslaught of Germany’s Third Reich. As Hitler’s troops overtook Austria and Czechoslovakia, even before the beginning of the war in September, 1939, and then moved with lightning speed into the western half of Poland, France, Belgium and the Netherlands, Jews, among others sought to escape, with precious few places open to them. Wherever they wanted to go, administrative barriers, severely limited them. To get out took money, and to get in, particularly to the United States, took money as well.
The Call bestowed its symbolic “wreath of laurel,” a mark of great achievement once placed upon the heads of Olympic champions, on the Jewish Labor Committee with which the Workmen’s Circle worked in close alliance. The JLC, the article, declared, “is acknowledged to be the expression of the progressive sector of Jewish life in America.” In “The Wreath of Laurel,” the editors reminded its readers that its September issue had carried a “plea for aid” for the refugees, reprising the details of the dire situation facing, those “swept from their native shores.”
The Workmen’s Circle, along with leaders of some unions, particularly the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union and the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union, all, “simple people,” had met in emergency session the month before and committed themselves to raising the money to essentially buy the freedom and safety of those whom they could aid. The Call’s first article had implored its readers to give what they could, and the second, “Wreath of Laurel,” praised them, along with the leaders of the JLC for responding.
The Jewish Labor Committee could not address the needs of all the millions of refugees, but it found a way to act for some. The numbers might have been sadly small in the face of the enormity of the larger problem, but it did what it could, focusing its efforts on the rescue of labor and socialist activists from Europe, many of them members of the Bund. With the money it collected in just one month, it financed the safe passage to the United States of about 1,500.
“The Wreath of Laurel” comes down to us today as a tribute to those who tried. They understood too painfully that they could only do a little, but doing even a little constituted significantly more than doing nothing. Sitting back and sighing helps no one. Standing up and giving what one can, helps some.