by Pippa Rogak

I. Introduction

Discussion of women and the Holocaust often converges on two major themes: women as perpetrators, and women as victims. While both of these topics are unquestionably important and merit further research, a third category remains more obscure and overlooked: women as agents of political change and activists. Since the end of the 19th century, women’s organizations such as the Women’s League for Peace and Freedom (WLPF) and suffrage movements, emerged across Europe and the world.[1] The membership and ideologies of these groups was diverse, but a large contingent of these women activists – including many Jewish women – were active political speakers, educators, and organizers for refugee rights in prewar, wartime, and postwar Europe.[2]  In her memoir My Recollections – nearly 600 pages of reflections spanning from her childhood in the late 1890s all the way to WWII – Anna Helen Mahler Askanazy gives a profound political and philosophical discussion of the work of these women activists.[3] Her memoir brings to light not only her own work as part of multiple Austrian and international feminist organizations, but also the work of countless other women in her circles, and highlights the victories and challenges these activists faced. Furthermore, her accounts of statelessness and immigration, both as an advocate and as a refugee herself, provide a valuable perspective on the refugee crisis that came out of Europe during the Second World War. Much of the academic discourse on Holocaust survivors focuses on concentration camps or survivors in hiding, and Askanazy’s story adds to this body of research and literature by highlighting the experiences of Jewish refugees. Hannah Arendt writes in her 1943 essay “We Refugees,” “a refugee used to be a person driven to seek refuge because of some act committed or some political opinion held . . . now [during the Holocaust] ‘refugees’ are those of us who have been so unfortunate as to arrive in a new country without means and have to be helped by refugee committees.”[4] As Arendt here argues, the Holocaust impacted not only what occurred within Germany and German-occupied Europe, but also shaped the lives of those who fled, and it led to a distinct kind of refugee crisis overseas and internationally. Askanazy’s work on individual all the way to intercontinental levels demonstrates that women were influential political advocates and aid-givers for refugees in WWII Europe. Their efforts and impact must be recognized despite the erasure of their presence by publishers and peers, both in their time and today.

II. Anna Helen Mahler Askanazy (1893-1970)

Anna Helen Askanazy (née Mahler) was a writer and activist from Austria, who fled to Canada after Hitler’s occupation of Austria. Her life and memoir are characterized by a persistent pursuit of feminist philosophy and activism. Raised by her widowed mother, she grew up in Vienna with four brothers. Her childhood was steeped in politics, as her mother and brothers had lively discussions about current politics of the time – including the Dreyfus Affair and Hilsner Trial – and her family avidly read the political newspaper Die Fackel.[5] Askanazy quickly learned to be critical of her family’s views, notably resenting their criticisms of feminists like Marianne Hainisch and Rosa Mayreder, whom they frequently referred to as “furies.”[6] A quick-learning student, Askanazy did well in school, but her mother did not allow her to pursue higher education. During World War I, Askanazy worked as a language teacher for soldiers at war hospitals, and she later received a military metal for teaching and creating her own educational materials which the military ended up adopting for wider use.[7]

After WWI, she married Simon Askanazy, a Polish businessman. The couple lived in Hungary for a short time, before fleeing back to Austria in a cattle car to escape the White Terror.[8] During the interwar years, both Simon and Anna travelled extensively, he for business, and she for research, writing, and activism. Her trips included a stay in Amsterdam to research a historical-biographical play she was writing about Spinoza,[9] and a long trip to New York where she met with American feminists and Jewish aid groups.[10]

Askanazy’s memoir describes various conflicts between her and husband, especially relating to her desire for more independence. One such disagreement arose around her desire to learn how to drive: Simon insisted that she should not, but she attended driving school and took her test anyway.[11] At her driving test, the medical examiner required her to strip naked, which she describes as a humiliating experience, and in protest Askanazy went to the police, reported this, and demanded that they hire female doctors to do medical examinations for women.[12] Her personal stand led to the Viennese police hiring their first female doctor. Askanazy relates how her friend Rudolf Golscheid said to her, “You are a martyr! You allowed yourself to be crucified for the sake of other women!”[13] The pushback which she faced from men and institutions and her rejection of patriarchal norms are a central theme in Askanazy’s memoir’s depiction of her everyday life in Vienna.

III. Grassroots Aid and Women in Refugee Communities

Askanazy not only stood up for herself, but she also applied her commitment and energy to providing grassroots aid to the stateless people during the interwar period and to refugees during the Holocaust. After the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian empire, many Europeans who lived in countries that had been part of Austria-Hungary were left without citizenship or passports and were not permitted to work.[14] Minority groups, including many Jews, were hardest hit by the statelessness crisis, as countries’ decisions about whom to grant citizenship to were arbitrary and prejudiced.[15] After making connections with many influential feminists at the WLPF convention in Prague in 1928, Askanazy was inspired to find further ways of supporting others. In her memoir, Askanazy recounts how she used her own allowance money to help support stateless individuals. She reflects, “Since the time I had started to work for the stateless people in 1928 the fear remained latent in me that one day I would belong to them.”[16] With this empathetic mindset, Askanazy continued to give grassroots private aid throughout her life.

In 1938, days after the annexation of Austria by Germany, Anna and her two daughters Lori and Lisl escaped Austria by train to Switzerland. Simon Askanazy planned to follow behind and join the family later but was arrested in Vienna and murdered in jail.[17] However, Askanazy describes herself as being fortunate to have financial resources because of her husband’s successful business and their foresight in saving money, and she used this money to support fellow refugees, even as she and her family were refugees themselves.[18] In London, she fostered community by starting a weekly social and support group for Jewish European refugees, which she hosted at her own apartment.[19] Her memoir also relates an anecdote of five communist refugees showing up on her doorstep in Switzerland asking for help securing tickets to France, apparently having been given her address by a mutual friend.[20] She bought the tickets for them, and writes about the experience, “If a house burns, one does not ask when people rush out of it who is who. One helps. Period.”[21] Askanazy’s ideal of unconditional support during her time in Switzerland and England exemplifies how women were pillars of social supports and solidarity in their refugee communities.

Indeed, Jewish refugee women, particularly in Britain, were mainstays in their communities. Askanazy, in her memoir, alludes to the fact that most of her London acquaintances were refugee women who worked as servants and maids.[22] About a third, of Britain’s Jewish Holocaust refugees were women who were allowed to enter the country with a work permit to become domestic workers.[23] Despite the large numbers of such refugees, this group of women is often overlooked, as Jennifer Craig-Norton argues, because of classist and sexist marginalization.[24] Jewish women in Europe also heavily influenced and enabled internal migration in the late 1930s, as they were often responsible for children, guests, food management, and social work, all of which was put under increasing pressure by the boom of internal refugees.[25] Marion Kaplan also argues that Jewish women often took initiative to flee Germany and Europe, as they were less tied to jobs and public life in their hometowns, while men tended to be more likely to stay behind or deny that flight would be necessary.[26] Though Kaplan cites little quantitative evidence for her argument, testimony from women like Askanazy, the thousands of refugee domestics in Britain, and internal welfare aid givers demonstrate that women must be recognized as central economic and social agents in Holocaust refugee communities.

IIV. Organized International Women’s Advocacy

Askanazy’s work supporting stateless people and refugees was part of a much larger network of women activists. The end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century saw a boom in women’s movements internationally.[27] These movements included suffrage movements, birth control and sexual autonomy movements, and activist and pacifist organizations including the International Council of Women (ICW), the International Alliance of Women (IAW), and the Women’s League for Peace and Freedom (WLPF).[28] The ICW and IAW began as primarily suffrage movements, while the WLPF was founded in 1915 (originally under the name “International Committee of Women for Permanent Peace”) to strive “for peaceful solutions to global conflict and equality for women.”[29] The WLPF held international conferences every four years, and in 1928 this conference was held in Prague.[30] Askanazy’s memoir includes a first-hand account of the conference, which she herself attended.[31]

Shortly after the Prague conference, the WLPF appointed Askanazy to head an inquiry into the treatment of stateless people in Europe. After having worked with stateless people at a grassroots level for over a year, she spoke at the League of Nations in Geneva in 1930 and published a pamphlet on rights for the stateless.[32] During her time living in London, Askanazy also used her connections with members of the WLPF and of the Women’s Organization for World Order (WOWO) to advocate for refugees; her friend and colleague Irene Harand, for example, spoke at Evian to present a memorandum co-written by Askanazy and her acquaintances.[33] The WLPF also continued its citizenship advocacy during and after the Holocaust, working closely with the League of Jewish Women (JFB).[34] After the Nuremberg Laws were passed, the JFB encouraged Jews to emigrate from Germany, and it created programs and resources to help prepare them for life in Shanghai, New York, and other emigration destinations.[35]

Inspired by the women she heard speak in Prague and by her advocacy against statelessness in Geneva, and maintaining a personal philosophy that all women should have access to political education to become informed voters and activists, Askanazy and four of her friends founded the Women’s School for Public Speaking (later called the Call Club) in Vienna in 1931.[36] The school held lecture series, debates, and focus groups to teach women about political issues of the time while also developing their skills and confidence with public speaking. It began primarily as a public speaking school, but moved further into politics over the years: it developed a platform for 50/50 gender representation in government and published writings against the Anschluss in 1938.[37] The Call Club was not the only women’s school of its kind but rather part of a growing movement for political education for women. Askanazy describes how, for example, she received guidance from Katharina Von Khardorff-Oheimb, who had founded an analogous school in Germany.

V. Overseas Advocacy for Refugees and Vancouver Legacy

The Call Club closed in 1938 when Askanazy fled Austria, but Askanazy’s political work did not end there. After a brief stay in Switzerland, Askanazy and her two daughters moved to London and eventually to Vancouver. When first deciding whether or not to move from London to Canada, Askanazy resolved that she “would be only interested to come if Canada would open her door for a mass immigration of the hundred of thousands homeless refugees.”[38] While Askanazy did end up immigrating to Canada and her goal to increase the admittance of wartime refugees into Canada was never realized,[39] this ideal remained important to her and she continued her advocacy work until she passed away in 1970. She was a founding member of the Vancouver Women’s School for Citizenship (VWSC). The VWSC, founded in 1941, had a similar mission to the Vienna Call Club: educating women and pushing them to be more engaged in civil and political life through lectures, debates, conferences, and field trips.[40] Askanazy used her platform as a member of the VWSC to encourage Canadian women to take a stand on the European refugee crisis. A 1943 news article reports on a speech she gave at a VWSC conference, speaking as a delegate on German politics: “Women of the world, you have been sound asleep . . . you did not lift a finger to help us German women when the terrible pest struck our country.”[41] Despite Askanazy’s criticisms of inaction, the VWSC’s pro-immigration stance demonstrates how women organized to become politically active and advocate for refugee rights.

VI. Exclusion of Women from Political Activism

Anti-fascist and refugee activism was accompanied by inherent risks and challenges. Askanazy recounts, for example, her family being blacklisted by the Italian border agency because of Anna’s association with Ellen Hørup.[42] Askanazy’s memoirs particularly highlight the ways in which women were excluded from activism and the additional barriers to their participation. She recounts being laughed out of politicians’ offices, sexually harassed by male peers, and accused by friends and others in politics of being a communist extremist simply for being a feminist.[43] Such experiences were common amongst her female peers.[44] Askanazy aspired to start a women’s publishing house in Vienna to help combat these challenges but had to give up this plan when the Christian Socialist dictatorship took power in Austria.[45] Indeed, the idea of women-centered and feminist publishing houses did not gain traction until the Second Wave feminist movement in the 1970s, and so while many women worked in journalism, writing, and activism in the WWII era, they were disadvantaged by the male-dominated publishing industry.[46]

VII. Conclusion

Askanazy’s memoir centers the experiences of WWII refugees. She advocated for justice and equality on personal, interpersonal, and international levels, and her efforts are an example of the work of countless women who powered international political change. Since the statelessness crisis of WWI, many women spoke up as advocates for citizenship and refugee aid, helping to save lives and build communities in the face of apathetic international communities, red tape, and misogyny.

Bibliography

A.H.B., “The Tragedy of the ‘Stateless’.” Woman’s Leader and the Common Cause 22, no. 47 (1930):354. https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?p=NCCO&u=ubcolumbia&id=GALE%7CXWCDUY096134904&v=2.1&it=r&sid=summon.

Arendt, Hannah. “We Refugees.” The Menorah Journal (January 1943): 69-77. https://www.jus.uio.no/smr/om/aktuelt/arrangementer/2015/arendt-we-refugees.pdf.

Askanazy, Anna. “Book IV [of My Recollections, by Anna Helen (née Mahler) Aszkanazy].” Vancouver Holocaust Educations Centre Collections, Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre, 2021. https://collections.vhec.org/Detail/objects/9348.

Askanazy, Anna. My Recollections. Translated by Dr. Uma Kumar and Anushka Elkei, Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre, 2021. https://collections.vhec.org/Detail/objects/9347.

Aszkanazy, Anna. The Problem of Statelessness (People Deprived of Nationality): Some Facts, Arguments and Proposals Presented to an International Conference Called by the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. Geneva, Geneva Canton: Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, 1930. https://search.alexanderstreet.com/view/work/bibliographic_entity%7Cbibliographic_details%7C1647291. 

Chanco, Christopher. “Refugees, Humanitarian Internationalism, and the Jewish Labour Committee of Canada 1945–1952”. Canadian Jewish Studies / Études Juives Canadiennes 30 (2020):12-40. https://doi.org/10.25071/1916-0925.40182.

Craig-Norton, Jennifer. “Refugees at the Margins: Jewish Domestics in Britain 1938–1945.” Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies 37, no. 3 (2019): 295-330. doi:10.1353/sho.2019.0039.

Grossmann, Atina. Reforming Sex: The German Movement for Birth Control and Abortion Reform, 1920-1950. E-book, New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb.04503.

Handbuch österreichischer Autorinnen und Autoren jüdischer Herkunft: 18. bis 20. Jahrhundert. Germany, De Gruyter, 2011. https://books.google.ca/books?id=QnrPXZ_eT44C&dq=anna+mahler+askanazy+vien&source=gbs_navlinks_s.

Kaplan, Marion. “Jewish Women in Nazi Germany: Daily Life, Daily Struggles, 1933-1939.” Feminist Studies 16, no. 3 (1990): 579-606. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3178020.

Kaplan, Marion. “Sisterhood Under Siege.” In The Nazi Holocaust. Part 6: The Victims of the Holocaust vol. 2, edited by Michael Rober Marrus, 608-630. Germany: De Gruyter, 2011.

Kirchhoff, Auguste. “Der Prager Kongreß Der Internationalen Frauenliga Für Frieden Und Freiheit.” Die Friedens-Warte 29, no. 10/11, Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag (1929):329–32. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23798410.

“Photograph of Anna Helen (née Mahler) Aszkanazy.” Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre Collections, VHEC, 1941. https://collections.vhec.org/Detail/objects/9349.

“The Postwar ‘Stateless.’” Social Service Review 20, no. 3 (1946): 403–6. http://www.jstor.org/stable/30014945.

Riley, Catherine. “The Intersections between Early Feminist Polemic and Publishing: How Books Changed Lives in the Second Wave.” Women: a Cultural Review 26, no. 4 (2015): 384-401. doi: 10.1080/09574042.2015.1106258

Rogak, Pippa. Photo of February 1943 News Column “Heated Opinions Voiced at Women’s Peace Parley” from the Vancouver Archives. 29 March 2022. Author’s personal collection.

Rogak, Pippa. Photo of September 1953 News Column “Women Study About World at School of Citizenship” from the Vancouver Archives. 29 March 2022. Author’s personal collection.

Roosma, Jennifer. “‘The Problem of Statelessness (People deprived of Nationality)’ Geneva – September 1930.” TreeFrogBlog, 9 July 2017. https://jroosma.wordpress.com/2017/07/09/the-problem-of-statelessness-people-deprived-of-nationality-geneva-september-1930/.

Rupp, Leila J. “Constructing Internationalism: The Case of Transnational Women’s Organizations, 1888-1945.” The American Historical Review 99, no. 5, (1994): 1571–600. https://doi.org/10.2307/2168389.

Summers, Anne. “Refuge and Asylum.” In Christian and Jewish Women in Britain, 1880-1940. London, Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-42150-6_10.

“Vancouver Novelist Talks.” The Globe and Mail (1936-), Dec 13 (1952): 11. https://www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/vancouver-novelist-talks/docview/1287305806/se-2?accountid=14656.

“Vancouver Women’s School for Citizenship.” City of Vancouver Archives, City of Vancouver, https://searcharchives.vancouver.ca/vancouver-womens-school-for-citizenship.

[1] Leila J. Rupp, “Constructing Internationalism: The Case of Transnational Women’s Organizations, 1888-1945,” The American Historical Review 99, no. 5, (1994): 1571-73

[2] Marion Kaplan, “Jewish Women in Nazi Germany: Daily Life, Daily Struggles, 1933-1939.” Feminist Studies 16, no. 3 (1990): 598-602; Anne Summers, “Refuge and Asylum,” in Christian and Jewish Women in Britain, 1880-1940 (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017): 175-197.

[3] The memoir is not available in print, but a digital translation is accessible through the Vancouver Holocaust Memorial Museum.

[4] Hannah Arendt, “We Refugees,” The Menorah Journal (January 1943): 69

[5] Anna Askanazy, My Recollections, trans. Dr. Uma Kumar and Anushka Elkei, Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre, 2021: 68; Die Fackel was a liberal Austrian political newspaper by Karl Kraus. Editions of Die Fackel can now be read digitally at https://fackel.oeaw.ac.at/. Note that all page numbers from My Recollections correspond to the pages of the PDF document of the translation.

[6] My Recollections 43.

[7] Ibid. 151-167.

[8] My Recollections 86-91.

[9] Ibid. 305-06; “Vancouver Novelist Talks.” The Globe and Mail (1936-), Dec 13 (1952): 11. Askanazy’s approach to playwriting was highly philosophical and academic, and she describes her highly-researched Spinoza as intended more to be read than to actually be performed on stage. Her other works include a feminist play Neue Frauen and a novel, Empress of Byzantium, which she wrote after coming to Canada.

[10] My Recollections 500-34. In New York, Askanazy met with feminists including Kitty Marion, Mary Knight Beard, and Edith Wynner. She also relates her meeting with a rabbi and his wife who ran a Jewish refugee organization and was struck by the unjust treatment of newcomers in New York.

[11] Ibid. 322

[12] Ibid. 323

[13] Ibid. 324

[14] A.H.B., “The Tragedy of the ‘Stateless’,” Woman’s Leader and the Common Cause 22, no. 47 (1930): 354; “The Postwar ‘Stateless,’” Social Service Review 20, no. 3 (1946): 403–6.

[15] Anna Askanazy, The Problem of Statelessness (People Deprived of Nationality): Some Facts, Arguments and Proposals Presented to an International Conference Called by the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (Geneva Canton: Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, 1930).

[16] Anna Askanazy, “Book IV [of My Recollections, by Anna Helen (née Mahler) Aszkanazy],” Vancouver Holocaust Educations Centre Collections, Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre, 2021: 41.

[17] My Recollections 587; “Book IV” 4-5. While in Zürich, Askanazy received a telegram from Vienna telling her only, “husband deceased.” Only later through investigation through her brother Fritz (who was also Simon Askanazy’s business partner) did she learn that he was arrested and died in jail, and the circumstances of his death remained very unclear.

[18] “Book IV” 46

[19] Ibid.17-18.

[20] Ibid. 3

[21] Ibid.

[22] Ibid. 17

[23] Jennifer Craig-Norton, “Refugees at the Margins: Jewish Domestics in Britain 1938–1945,” Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies 37, no. 3 (2019): 295

[24] Ibid.

[25] “Jewish Women in Nazi Germany,” 589-90

[26] “Jewish Women in Nazi Germany,” 593

[27] Rupp 1573

[28] Ibid.; Atina Grossman, Reforming Sex: The German Movement for Birth Control and Abortion Reform, 1920-1950, E-book (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997).

[29] Rupp 1575

[30] Auguste Kirchhoff, “Der Prager Kongreß Der Internationalen Frauenliga Für Frieden Und Freiheit,” Die Friedens-Warte 29, no. 10/11, Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag (1929): 329

[31] My Recollections 326-31

[32] Jennifer Roosma, “‘The Problem of Statelessness (People deprived of Nationality)’ Geneva – September 1930.” TreeFrogBlog, 9 July 2017. Roosma’s blog includes photos of the full script of Askanazy’s speech in Geneva (from the Harvard Archives) here.

[33] “Book IV” 23

[34]Marion Kaplan, “Sisterhood Under Siege,” in The Nazi Holocaust. Part 6: The Victims of the Holocaust vol. 2, ed. by Michael Rober Marrus, (Germany: De Gruyter, 2011), 619

[35] “Jewish Women in Nazi Germany,” 601

[36] Handbuch österreichischer Autorinnen und Autoren jüdischer Herkunft: 18. bis 20. Jahrhundert ; My Recollections 347; In 1934, during the Austrian Civil War, the group received an injunction to register the club and allow police to attend meetings in, and so the school chose to close rather than continue with those restrictions. Askanazy then reopened the school under the name the “Call Club.” Askanazy credits an unnamed Englishwoman whom she met in Geneva, who allowed her to use the name and address of the women’s newspaper that she was trying to start up, “the Call” (My Recollections 416-427).

[37] My Recollections 358,570

[38] “Book IV” 36-37

[39] Christopher Chanco, “Refugees, Humanitarian Internationalism, and the Jewish Labour Committee of Canada 1945–1952,” Canadian Jewish Studies / Études Juives Canadiennes 30 (2020):13; Canada’s antisemitism and failure to accept Jewish refugees is also thoroughly treated in Harold Troper and Irving Abella’s None is Too Many.

[40] “Vancouver Women’s School for Citizenship.” City of Vancouver Archives, City of Vancouver.

[41] Pippa Rogak, Photo of February 1943 News Column “Heated Opinions Voiced at Women’s Peace Parley” from the Vancouver Archives, 29 March 2022, Author’s personal collection.

[42] My Recollections 479

[43] My Recollections 283, 370, 515-16

[44] Ibid. 358

[45] Ibid. 414

[46] Catherine Riley, “The Intersections between Early Feminist Polemic and Publishing: How Books Changed Lives in the Second Wave,” Women: a Cultural Review 26, no. 4 (2015): 384-401.