Letters of loss and urgency: Jewish refugee industrialists, business networks and pathways of rescue

ABSTRACT

By exploring a collection of business correspondence between Jewish industrialists and their global networks following the expropriation of a large hat factory in Czechoslovakia in 1938, this article sheds light on the complicated and unpredictable nature of human responses to an unfolding moment when Jewish business colleagues faced ruinous economic persecution. Within these letters, these industrialists compose identities that reflect their business selves shaped by their experience of becoming refugees. They also draw out the mechanisms of decision-making in a crisis situation and highlight the concepts of strategy and agency that were crucial to navigating a new social and economic reality.

KEYWORDS:

• Letters
• refugees
• economy
• dispossession
• identity
• networks
• marketplace

On 1 December 1938, Monsieur Boigeaud, living in a small French town, received an ultimatum from Anton Czerny, the newly appointed Trustee of Brüder Böhm, a substantial hat factory in Neutitschein, a small city in the Sudetenland that had been annexed into the Third Reich in early October 1938. Brüder Böhm, was one of the largest hat manufacturers in Europe, employing over 2000 workers, with a global customer base.¹ Czerny, a former key employee at the factory, was now in charge following its expropriation by Nazi authorities.² In his letter, Czerny, a beneficiary of expropriation, reminded Boigeaud of his responsibilities following the change of management:

We are very surprised that you are taking up your case for Messieurs Böhm. They are gone but the factory is still here and must work. We currently employ over 1000 workers and you should understand that we need money to pay the wages and raw materials. You, as our representative, certainly have a duty to look after the interests of the factory. If you want to stay in touch with us and continue to place orders, we ask you to explain the situation to your clients and to dissolve any relationship with the refugee owners. It is only under this condition that our future relations will develop in a friendly and sincere manner. In any case, please discourage clients from depositing funds at the deposit and consignment office and assure them that by paying us directly they will be indemnified against all possible claims on the part of Messieurs Böhm.

Please accept, Sir, our sincere greetings. Brüder Böhm, The Trustee.³

Boigeaud, who had enjoyed a fruitful career as one of a number of regional trade representatives in France for Brüder Böhm hats, now faced a difficult decision: should he yield to the pressures of the Trustee, Anton Czerny, and dissolve his working relationship with the Böhm owners whom he greatly respected? This was not the first intimidating letter he had received from Czerny. Indeed, following the take-over of the factory in October, Boigeaud had been placed in a delicate situation both professionally and personally. The forced sale of the Viennese Brüder Böhm factory in September 1938 had already closed one avenue of income.⁴ Now his livelihood was dependent on his representative role for Neutitschein, which as Czerny pointed out, was threatened by his continued relationship with the refugee owners. Moreover, Boigeaud was reminded of his responsibility to ensure the new financial arrangements were adhered to: all payments were now to be sent directly to Neutitschein. While Boigeaud was a small cog in a global operation, the fact that he continued to be in touch with the Böhm owners was an annoyance to Czerny. As a Nazi appointed Trustee, Czerny was responsible for a smooth transition of ownership.⁵ His immediate task was to ensure that the factory’s large export-driven production output continued to keep its market share in a global economy, so as to secure the inflow of foreign assets that were key to funding Nazi armament policy.⁶ Thus, all payments from Brüder Böhm’s world-wide customer base were vital. Czerny’s offer to indemnify customers against claims by ‘Messieurs Böhm’ reflected a growing irritation that the collection of funds was facing some challenges. The following response from Boigeaud may have added to this concern:

Gentlemen, It is not without great astonishment that I learn of your instructions. I have to take sides neither for one nor the other, especially in this unfortunate situation. I know the first victims. However, I will never take orders for my private conduct from anyone. In France, there is nothing and no one who can make us abdicate our pride and our dignity. This is so personal that I would be very unhappy if I had to lose this freedom which is very dear to me. Why do you want me to cease all relations with Messieurs Böhm? When they write to me, I make a point of answering them. What do I have to reproach them with? Here are the bosses who have helped me to earn my living for eight years, who have always been heads of a house with whom I enjoyed working with. Our relations have always been the best relations of which I can only praise myself. I can only pity them for the present situation.⁷

This note of defiance offers a glimpse into the small ways ordinary people responded to the economic persecution of Jews in the expanding Third Reich. Boigeaud used this moment to express loyalty to his trusted colleagues and his sorrow for their situation. Asserting his French identity, he highlighted the virtues of pride and dignity that shaped his actions and motivations.

Boigeaud’s stance was emboldened by his active role in helping the Böhm owners. After losing their livelihoods and wealth, Josef, Viktor and Richard Böhm and their management team comprising Otto Wolf and Egon Pollak (also family members) had reached out to all their agents and representatives asking for help to recoup some assets through the collection of their foreign credits.⁸ Between the loss of their factories in Vienna and Neutitschein and their arrival in the United States in 1940, the Böhm owners worked tirelessly to secure the only means of a livelihood left open to them: payments from foreign customers for goods manufactured and distributed before the take-over of their Neutitschein factory. Desperate to salvage their livelihoods, they replaced the bricks and mortar of their factories with contours of paper and ink. Josef, Viktor and Richard wrote their way to rescue their business and find safe settlement, via their most important assets – their global business networks, of which Boigeaud was an important player.

Through their correspondence, they generated a vast collection of written material including letters, both professional and personal, telegrams, notebooks, production notes and blueprints that is now held at the Center of Jewish History, New York.⁹ I first came across the Brüder Böhm Company Collection via a handwritten letter from Viktor Böhm to a former Brüder Böhm worker, Thea Dziwietnik, (3 December 1938) who was then living in Galway, Ireland. Thea had been fortunate to obtain an employment permit to work at a new hat factory established by Henri Orbach, a French hat manufacturer with trade connections to Brüder Böhm.¹⁰ Thea was not the only former Brüder Böhm worker in Galway, and their presence in Ireland reveals how Brüder Böhm business networks came into play to create pathways of rescue during the 1930s. Viktor, Josef and Richard used their global business networks to request help for colleagues, former workers and extended family arriving in unfamiliar landscapes. Having lost their livelihoods, homes and communities, these refugee businessmen knew well the impact of loss and dislocation.

This collection informs a growing literature on the economic persecution of Jews under the Nazis. Following the ground-breaking work of Raul Hilberg and Avraham Barkai, a greater focus on the plunder and dispossession of Jews in the historiography has deepened our understanding of the complex economic systems in place to despoil Jews.¹¹ Brüder Böhm was identified as a ‘Jewish business’, according to Nazi racial laws, and therefore deemed a danger to the economic life of the Third Reich. S. Jonathan Wiesen argues how Nazi ideology and practice was premised on a broad definition of the economy as a site of social, political and cultural virtue.¹² According to Nazi ideology, Jews were responsible for the failures and excesses of liberal capitalism having enriched themselves at the expense of non-Jews. Their presence had polluted the economy and, therefore, from a Nazi perspective, the plunder of Jewish livelihoods was seen as an act of liberation for the German nation.¹³ Antisemitism provided the ideological underpinnings for the dispossession of and theft from Jews.¹⁴ Expropriation of Jewish livelihoods was not solely driven by Nazi policy ‘from above’, but was also eagerly taken up by communities on the ground, which reveal the scale of this persecution.¹⁵ A recent collection of essays, edited by Christoph Kreutzmüller and Jonathan R. Zaitlin, reveals how dispossession required accomplices from a wide range of actors in the economy, whether from the private sector, financial institutions, service industries or former business colleagues. These essays highlight the profoundly personal and emotional impact of this persecution and show how the process of economic dispossession was integral to the Nazi policy of dehumanising Jews.¹⁶

Adopting a microhistory approach, this paper explores the Brüder Böhm collection to understand the impact of Nazi expropriation on one Jewish family business. It highlights Claire Zalc and Tal Bruttman’s argument that microhistory can ask different questions and adopt different orientations to explore vast and complex histories.¹⁷ For example, Christoph Kreutzmüller’s work on Berlin shows how a microhistory approach can deepen our understanding of the destruction of the economic existence of Jews.¹⁸ This paper shifts the focus from the economic persecution of Jews living in Germany and the expanding Third Reich to explore the experiences of five businessmen between 1938 and 1940, each living an insecure and peripatetic refugee life in exile. In these letters, Viktor, Josef, Richard, Otto and Egon document their particular experience of a new economic and social reality as they strive to recoup payments that were vital to business renewal and securing visas. Through communication with their global customer base, these businessmen record the unfolding impact of economic and personal loss. For as these letters communicate, the complex and systematic Nazi policy of the despoliation of Jews continued to have ruinous consequences on these businessmen following the immediate loss of their factories. The Böhm owners had to negotiate a devastating rupture in a marketplace that was shaped by longstanding business relationships that were often interwoven with personal friendships. As Gideon Reuveni argues, the marketplace had once been a place of encounter and exchange in which free economic competition and consumerism had facilitated Jewish integration and assimilation, and generated notions of rights and citizenship.¹⁹ In stark contrast, Nazi ideology created a racist economy that stripped Jews of their rights to ownership and abrogated their rights of citizenship.²⁰ The financial and legal consequences of this had a global reach.²¹ The expropriation of the Brüder Böhm business reverberated across the financial and commercial networks that were intricately connected to this successful hat brand.

This paper enters an epistolary space to examine in microcosm how these Jewish businessmen experienced economic and personal loss as it played out in real time. Adopting a methodology within epistolary studies, it approaches the sources in a two-fold way: contextually and textually. It foregrounds Rebecca Earle’s argument that letters should be considered as both texts and concrete historical artefacts, displaying the signs of the distinct environments in which they are conceived.²² Following Lindsey Earner-Byrne’s approach in her work on letters of the Irish Catholic poor, the Böhm letters are considered as texts that are embedded in a particular world and time that they explain and that also helps to explain them.²³ Firstly, this correspondence is considered as a witness statement to the unfolding processes of Nazi expropriation and their global reach. A close reading of these letters offers an insight into how expropriation was perceived and negotiated by those struggling within its clutches. Shirli Gilbert argues that letters have significant historical value for understanding the experiences of Jews living under Nazism and the horrors of the Holocaust.²⁴ Letters offer a contemporary account of life as it was lived at the time, unlike post-war testimonies that are by definition retrospective accounts.²⁵ Crucially, as Dalia Ofer argues, the use of letters creates a space in which the voices of the historical actors, victims and others can be heard.²⁶ Thus, as a historical source, the Böhm correspondence allow us an insight into the uncertainties and complexities of the lives of these businessmen as they chronicle their attempts to secure assets in a fast-changing and unstable economic space that is increasingly weighted against them.

The correspondence also allows new voices to enter the historical record. In this paper we hear those of ordinary businesspeople in multiple countries who were called upon to make commercial decisions shaped by ethical, human, and corporate behaviour. Operating within a global economy, they were drawn into processes of expropriation as they navigated a changing economic landscape. In many ways, notes Gilbert, letters survive in a form of a dialogue, and it is in this correspondence that we glimpse the concerns that occupied these Jewish businessmen, their business colleagues and customers.²⁷ It brings to the fore the dilemmas they faced and their responses to a marketplace that is recalibrating following the expulsion of Jews from the German economy. As Gilbert suggests, within these interactive spaces, letters draw out the complexities and mechanisms of decision-making in a crisis situation and highlight the concepts of strategy and agency that were crucial to navigating this new reality. Letters remind us that people are complicated and unpredictable ”exposing a landscapeof responses that are unexpected and unlikely, and also entirely human.”²⁸

The second approach this research undertakes is to treat the letters, circulars, telegrams and notebooks as textual environments, to allow an exploration of materials, inflexion, language and the writing style that give meaning to the documents. Earner-Byrne argues that by treating letters as textual environments, the tone and diction are considered inseparable from the quest to reach a better understanding of the history they convey.²⁹ In these letters, each businessman constructs an understanding of self that is shaped by his new economic and social reality. Toby Ditz’s work on the letters of eighteenth-century merchants shows how business correspondence and impersonal letters can unfold complex narratives about identity. For example, letters of credit functioned as narratives of loss and redemption, representing the merchant as credible and therefore a trustworthy trader.³⁰ Similarly, as this paper will explore, it is within this epistolary space that the Böhm businessmen construct identities that reflect the delicate relationship between their entrepreneurial business selves and the reality of negotiating fractured lives, economic loss and diminishing rights. To highlight their legitimacy and credibility that are quickly being undermined, the businessmen must allow their personal experiences to enter the correspondence. As they call upon and appeal to their customers to pay their debts to them, a neutral and objective tone, long considered markers of a good business letter, no longer suffices.³¹ Loss and dislocation play out in the very materials used, whether it be ordinary plain paper or hotel letterheads, to write hourly, daily, and often hurriedly to their customers and colleagues from multiple locations.

By exploring this collection, this research raises some interesting questions. It considers the idea of leverage and how the businessmen navigated their networks to garner support and secure their assets. It is evident that some debtors paid and others did not. Did this differ by country, and if so, what factors were at play to influence these decisions? Is it possible to understand how concepts of decency, charity and self-interest carried weight in these decisions and how did personal relationships shape the decision-making process regarding payments? Given the enormity of the archive that is still to be translated and researched, this paper attempts to draw out some of these questions while acknowledging that there is still much work to be done.

The Brüder Böhm hat factories, Vienna and Neutitschein: dispossession and exile

After the Anschluss in March 1938, it became clear to Viktor and Josef Böhm that their livelihoods were at risk. They soon lost control of their Viennese factory that employed 400 workers after an employee, a minor travelling salesperson, was appointed commissar.³² With urgency, Viktor and Josef looked to sell their properties including the factory, a requisite for obtaining exit visas. They searched for a buyer who would have sufficient connections with the Nazi party to process their exit visas promptly. According to Josef’s memoir, this proved to be a challenge in Austria, partly because some of their competitors were reluctant to enter such an unethical financial agreement (the cost of the forced factory sale was much reduced) but also because few of their potential buyers had significant Nazi connections needed to fast track their visas.³³ Eventually, it was sold to Bavarian hat manufacturer, Ottmar Reich, who had political connections with their commissar.³⁴ In reality, the Böhm owners received little from the sale because of the exploitative financial measures to strip Jews of all their assets before emigration.³⁵ After a long six months, during which they negotiated the complex layers of Nazi bureaucracy, Josef and Viktor with their families fled to Czechoslovakia to join their cousins Richard and Otto Wolf, directors of Brüder Böhm Neutitschein.³⁶ However, with Sudetenland also under threat, Victor and Josef managed to arrange visas to enter Belgium via a trade contact in Brussels who had some political influence.³⁷

In a handwritten letter from Josef (24 September 1938) to Mr. C Hallam, a Brüder Böhm trade representative in Australia, Josef noted that ‘three weeks ago we had to sell our Vienna Factory at a ridiculous price, which even did not suffice to pay the taxes imposed by the Nazi-authorities for the permission to leave the country’.³⁸ Hallam was also warned that all correspondence between their factory in Neutitschein and their customer base was under surveillance by the ‘German Nazi-Party [sic] which is very strong’.³⁹ Josef suggested that Hallam should refrain from writing to Otto who was still in Neutitschein for it was hard at that stage to know who could be trusted.⁴⁰ Josef was troubled that former colleagues were now actively working with the Nazis to wrest control of the factory. Throughout the correspondence, the betrayal of work colleagues was described as profoundly challenging and bewildering. As the Böhm owners regrouped in exile, the question of trust was paramount and formed the basis of a new strategy to create a hierarchy of trusted colleagues, of which Hallam was key. Not only was he supportive of Böhm family members and friends who found passage to Australia and helped them to find employment and accommodation, but he also agreed to send payments directly to the Böhm owners. In a letter to Josef (16 November 1938), Hallam expressed the hope that this situation was reversible, suggesting, ‘I will keep striving to sell Böhm hats, as there is always a chance that the factory might swing back to the original owners’.⁴¹ At this stage, it was unclear how the situation in Neutitschein would play out and the hope that this could be a temporary situation was also voiced by other customers. However, the Böhm owners’ experience in Vienna and Neutitschein had convinced them that other pathways to business survival and refuge were needed.

Communicating loss and urgency

By mid-October 1938, the Brüder Böhm management team, comprising Richard, Victor and Josef Böhm, Otto Wolf and Egon Pollok, had gathered in Brussels. Their priority was to accrue assets and secure visas to Great Britain or the United States. The urgency of their situation required the Böhm owners to contact all their customers immediately. Although their greatest export markets were Central Europe, Scandinavia, Great Britain and the United States, their customer base was global.⁴² For example, in South America, they had over 100 customers alone.⁴³ The task ahead was enormous, made more difficult by no longer having access to their full company records in Neutitschein.⁴⁴ Consequently, the Böhm owners were reliant on the intricate business knowledge of each trade representative on the ground. Because the customer base was vast, it was decided to contact each customer using circulars to be distributed by their representatives. While the Böhm owners realised this approach lacked the personal touch, which was a hallmark of their business success, the sheer urgency of their situation dictated this decision.⁴⁵ Already, some of their major customers had received a letter from the Nazi appointed Trustee, Anton Czerny, informing them of a change of management in Neutitschein and a demand that all payments should be sent directly to the factory or via the Bohemian Union Bank Neutitschein.⁴⁶ Harold James shows how the two German Banks, Deutsche Bank and Dresdner Bank, had already identified ways to exploit the potential financial rewards of the ‘Aryanisation’ and expropriation of Jewish assets before the annexation of the Sudetenland.⁴⁷ The Bohemian Union Bank, considered to be a Jewish bank with its German-Jewish history, was allocated to Deutsche Bank, which soon took over sixteen branches including Neutitschein.⁴⁸ The Böhm owners realised that they were in danger of losing their only available assets via foreign credits and that Czerny was going to make an already difficult situation even worse. Of paramount importance was the clarity of communication between Viktor, Josef, Richard and their customers. It was vital that each customer was aware of the situation and of the importance of paying their debts to the rightful owners: Viktor, Josef and Richard Böhm.

On 25 October 1938, the following typewritten circular was sent to their English-speaking clients. Similar circulars were sent to all customers in Europe, Scandinavia, South and Central America:

We the undersigned Viktor, Richard and Josef Böhm, now all residing at Brussels, 155 rue de la Loi, are the only partners and exclusive proprietors of the firm Brüder Böhm, Neu-Titschein, a private company. The signatures of the two directors, Mr Ostrischek and Mr Freikus, still being in Neu-Titschein, have been cancelled and are no more valid: hence there is no one left in Neu-Titschein, who could rightfully sign for, draw on, or cash its foreign credits or accept or receipt payments pertaining thereon. No document (receipt etc) holds good for the firm unless it bears one of our signatures, as shown hereunder. We are desirous of giving you a friendly warning, not to follow possible demands or instructions for payments issued under whatever pretext by any persons in Neu-Titschein on behalf of the firm … Such payments could not be recognised by us and would not constitute a discharge of your debt.

We are your dear Sirs, yours very truly (followed by a signature of each owner)

One each signature holds good for the firm! ⁴⁹

Four days later on 29 October, a further circular was issued under the typed heading, ‘BRUDER BOHM, Neu-Titschein – Propriétaires: Victor Böhm, Richard Böhm, Josef Böhm’. In this circular, customers were offered a two per cent discount on all debts paid immediately, with an attached draft to ease the process. Again, the circular was undersigned by Viktor, Richard and Josef.⁵⁰

To rescue their business and ensure their own financial stability, the Böhm owners had to communicate a professional identity that was now shaped by their lived experience. Their business correspondence was no longer solely defined by neutral or impartial language associated with a long history of business etiquette – it had to communicate loss and urgency.⁵¹ The expropriation of their factory and its inherent illegality shaped the narrative. Each customer had to know that although their factory had been taken from them, they continued to be the rightful owners and that all payments for goods already manufactured were rightfully theirs. The question of legitimacy was key. Throughout this extensive business correspondence, it is noticeable that the materials used by the Böhm owners to communicate this new reality also conveyed their displacement and loss. Customers and trade representatives received letters, daily or weekly, written from hotel rooms, temporary offices, on trains and boats, revealing the peripatetic nature of their existence. Stamped envelopes arrived from Brussels, Paris, London, Lancashire, and later South America and New York. It is particularly striking that most of this correspondence made use of ordinary shop-bought paper or sometimes scraps of paper if written in a hurry. The lack of an official letterhead is striking.⁵² As Ingrid Jeacle and Tom Brown note, in the epistolary tradition of business correspondence, the signed and headed letterhead is part of the apparatus of power in the business world: a credible document inherently invested with the professional status of the sender.⁵³ Thus, without the letterhead, how did the Böhm owners construct credibility and legitimacy within the business community? It is clear from the correspondence that they placed great weight on their signature imprint as a marker of their legitimacy. Although telegrams were used regularly as a means of communicating decisions to their wide customer base, when it came to issuing authoritative financial instructions, the full signature of either Viktor, Josef or Richard was required. The question of whether this would be enough in a commercial world that valued letterheads as economic and social capital was a risk. Anton Czerny continued to use the official Brüder Böhm letterhead, which doubtless carried substantial weight in communicating his authority and legitimacy.⁵⁴ With the loss of their factories, could Viktor, Josef and Richard bring their customers with them at this crucial time? Would their business reputation hold out? At this moment of crisis, the Böhm owners hoped their established business relationships that had been built on hard work, fair practice and trust, could navigate the challenges ahead.

In reality, the process of collecting their foreign credits was complicated. While customers across the globe were alerted to the changing situation in Neutitschein, they were also being asked to make commercial decisions regarding payments that touched on both business and ethical parameters. From the perspective of Viktor, Josef and Richard, the takeover of their factory was illegal and all materials, machinery and manufactured goods belonged to them. While many of their customers sympathised with the Böhm owners and recognised the injustice of the situation, there were other considerations. Firstly, if they paid the Böhm family, would they still be liable to pay Neutitschein, as Anton Czerny’s correspondence implied? Moreover, Czerny indicated a failure to do could impact future business relations. Hence, a further concern was the impact of payments to the Böhm owners on their forthcoming spring deliveries on which their livelihoods depended. Responding to the first concern, Viktor, Josef and Richard promised to indemnify against customers paying twice, which reassured some customers who duly paid them. However, many customers also wrote to explain that they were struggling to distinguish between the monies the Böhm owners saw as legally theirs and payments for new goods under the new management.

It was no surprise that customers were not only confused as to whom to pay but also understandably concerned that they would be paying twice over. Thus, many customers wrote to say that they were seeking legal advice regarding payments. For example, Hart, Jones & Company, Luton, contacted Viktor, Richard and Josef (7 November 1938) to say that they had not paid their account ‘because we are not clear to whom we should pay this debt in law.’⁵⁵ They assured the Böhm owners that although they would like to discharge the debt, correspondence from Neutitschein confused the issue. With their letter, they attached correspondence from the Department of Overseas Trade from whom they had sought some advice. Ostensibly, the Department noted that they could not advise because the issue was extremely complicated and required judicial considerations.⁵⁶ David Fraser highlights how the British Courts grappled with the question of what differentiated Nazi law from German law and its consequences for court judgements.⁵⁷ For example, the many discriminatory financial measures used by the Nazis to plunder Jews, including the Reich tax, blocked accounts and foreign currency restrictions, had been introduced under the Weimar Government to prevent capital outflow during the depression.⁵⁸ Therefore, in the eyes of the British courts, these regulations were accepted as German law. However, the courts did recognise that ‘Aryanisation’ decrees were confiscatory and, according to English private international law, were not recognised in relation to property in the UK. Thus, if Jewish refugees had property and business holdings in the UK before their businesses in the Third Reich were expropriated, their UK interests were protected.⁵⁹ Yet, many of these judgements were given either in 1940 or after the war and consequently, the legal authority of appointed German administrators in November 1938 was still unclear.⁶⁰ In his response to Hart, Jones & Company, Viktor suggested the firm could either pay the Böhm family, who would indemnify them against any action by the Trustee of the Neutitschein factory, or they could obtain a ruling of a ‘competent English court.’⁶¹ Viktor stressed that while they did not want to be a counter-party to the firm ‘with whom we have enjoyed so pleasant business relations’, he was anxious to collect their credits after ‘having lost more or less everything’.⁶² This was the last letter on file, so it is not clear if Hart, Jones & Company paid them. However, this brief correspondence highlights the immediate challenges Viktor, Josef and Richard faced in recouping monies from customers who, under pressure from Anton Czerny, sought legal clarification.

The emotional and financial cost of being forced to take a legal route with many of their customers had an impact on the Böhm owners. Longstanding friendly business relationships that reflected the professional and personal values of the Böhm family in the commercial world were marred by the hesitancy of many customers to pay. In these moments, the injustice of their situation was writ large. Letters to certain customers noted their disappointment with a repeated plea to pay the open invoices as soon as possible. Consequently, increased pressure was placed on their trade representatives to encourage each customer to pay. In November 1938, Monsieur Boigeaud wrote to the Böhm owners to say that he ‘spends all his days writing to clients and that he cannot wait for them to be in possession of all the receivables because this is becoming a crazy job.’⁶³ The delays in securing payments persuaded the Böhm owners to test a legal judgment in Belgium before the Commercial Courts. In mid-November 1938, they received good news that the ruling had gone in their favour. The court judgment was immediately sent to all customers as a circular, which noted that a Belgium Court had ‘ordered our client to pay ourselves and not the Neu-Titschein factory. You will thus find that if you pay to the firm of Neu-Titschein you expose yourself to having to pay your debt twice.’⁶⁴ Its impact on customers in Belgium was immediate. For example, hat retailer Maison O. Capitaine wrote: ‘From this judgment, we think we can conclude that the payments for goods manufactured in your factory before it was taken over are rightly yours.’⁶⁵ In reality, the judgment had a limited impact outside of Belgium because customers sought legal clarification within their own country, but the ruling was a tremendous boost to Viktor, Josef and Richard. At last, there was an authoritative and conclusive recognition of their legal rights to call in their credits. Its significance cannot be underestimated given the enormous challenges these refugee businessmen faced in asserting their legitimate claims to their former factory. While the Commercial Court decision was celebrated in 1938 as a victory for the Böhm owners, David Fraser details how, from March 1942 onwards, these courts processed the expulsion of Jews from the Belgian economy. By decree from the German military administration, all Jewish business entries had to be removed from the commercial register held at the Commercial Court office.⁶⁶ Over time, the Böhm owners made increasing use of lawyers to take over the collection of credits, although this was costly. Bank statements show monthly outgoings to lawyers in countries across the globe. Circulars in July 1939 also reveal that the Böhm owners continued to struggle to call in their credits.⁶⁷

It is difficult to gain a clear picture of the total financial sums involved and the amounts the Böhm owners actually secured. The correspondence is filled with letters and scraps of paper filled with numbers and calculations, many crossed out with constant adjustments. This was the coalface: how many hats had been distributed; how many had been sold; how much was owed, and how much had been recovered. The fluctuating calculations of the Böhm owners, trade representatives and customers in small towns and larger cities across the globe were of vital importance to the Böhms’ hopes of rescuing their business and finding refuge. In order to protect their finances in a rapidly changing situation, Viktor, Josef and Richard had to reorganise their existing bank accounts. In early October, the signatures of former directors, Messrs Osterich and Feikus, still in Neutitschein, were cancelled and new accounts were created in the Böhm names only. Instructions were given to transfer all monies from the Neutitschein account, bar the minimum amount required to keep the Neutitschein account open.⁶⁸ Crucially, future deposits into the Neutitschien accounts were to be transferred immediately. These agreements worked well for just under a month. In early November, following notification from Anton Czerny that the Government had appointed him Trustee for the firm, their Neutitschein accounts in New York (Chase Bank), Paris and Brussels (Comptoir National D’ Escompte de Paris) could no longer accept deposits or permit any further withdrawals.⁶⁹ The question of the legal title was to be determined by the courts.⁷⁰ Fortunately, Richard Böhm had managed to transfer some of their funds from Paris, with the help of a trade representative in Paris, to Barclay’s Bank, London the day before the accounts were blocked.⁷¹ Further research into the collection is needed to fully assess the extensive reach of these blocked accounts across the globe and their impact on payments. However, the correspondence shows that by blocking these accounts, it was more difficult for the Böhm owners to persuade customers to pay their credits into new accounts. It also reveals the extensive confiscatory reach of Nazi measures against Jews that were packaged in legal terms.⁷²

Narratives of expectation, disappointment and sorrow: correspondence between Aktiebolaget C. Th. Ericson, Sweden and the Böhm Management Team

The correspondence between Josef Böhm and Egon Pollak with Mr Gustav Ericson consists of twenty-six letters, including a few telegrams, sent between October 1938 and February 1939.⁷³ These letters, sometimes running to three pages in length, written in both German and Swedish, reveal the close business and personal bonds developed during a long-standing business relationship. They provide an insight into the challenges both the Böhm owners and the customer, Mr Ericson, faced in the immediate aftermath of the expropriation of the Neutitschein factory. The letters document the impact of a sudden rupture in the marketplace on business relationships that had to negotiate the fallout of economic and personal loss. They also reveal the strain and trauma experienced by these exiled businessmen as they faced the erosion of their rights in civil society.

Sweden was a large export market for Brüder Böhm hats and consequently, Aktiebolaget C. Th. Ericson, a family firm founded in 1885, was a significant customer.⁷⁴ In early October, Ericson received a hand-written letter, written in confidence, from Josef Böhm, who informed him that he was now in Brussels having finally left Vienna. He asked Ericson to hold off payments to Neutitschein because it was unclear whether it would remain in Czechoslovakia or be incorporated into Germany, which could affect the method of payments.⁷⁵ In response, the Swedish company agreed to hold back payments, although it was noted that many of the autumn invoices had already been processed. Given the circumstances, Ericson raised the question of future business relations, an issue that also occupied many other customers. Of particular concern was the impact of the factory takeover on his forthcoming spring deliveries. Ericson, who had placed a large order of hats from Brüder Böhm, writes, ‘can you tell us what is happening?’⁷⁶ Reassuringly, Ericson noted, ‘we understand the tremendous difficulties you are currently struggling with and do not want to fail to be of assistance as far as possible.’⁷⁷ Therefore, Ericson wondered if they would consider establishing a factory in Sweden, mentioning several Czech industrialists attempting something similar. Ericson also enquired about Brüder Böhm, Vienna and whether he should become their Swedish trade representative now that the factory was trading as a separate entity.⁷⁸ Finally, Ericson noted that he had tried to contact Neutitschein by phone, but communication was prohibited, and so he wondered if it was wise to visit the factory. He signed off with the wish to have Egon Pollak’s address in Czechoslovakia and his wife’s address in Belgium so that he could be in contact with them both.⁷⁹ The letter was assuring and friendly, reflective of a business relationship interwoven with personal friendships, particularly with the Pollak family.

Before responding, Josef Böhm numbered each paragraph to ensure that even though he was ‘in a hurry to answer your questions as best I can’, he did not leave anything out.⁸⁰ Noting the situation in Neutitschein, Josef explained that because they had withdrawn the power of attorney of fellow business directors Messrs Osterich and Feikus, the factory could now only dispose the domestic business funds. This was followed by a plea for Ericson ‘to pay the open invoices as soon as possible.’⁸¹ Regarding establishing a factory in Sweden, Josef thanked him for this suggestion but expressed concern about the impact of Sweden’s policy of neutrality on new business and his need to research this further. Although Josef, Viktor and Richard had already invested in a hat factory in Belgium, which may have helped them obtain their Belgium visas, it was clear from the correspondence that their long-term plan was to look to Great Britain or the United States for refuge and business renewal.⁸² However, it was difficult to obtain visas for both countries without showing some means of financial independence, hence the urgency of calling in their foreign credits.⁸³ Letters between Viktor and his British lawyer in December 1938 reveal their difficulties in negotiating the process of securing visas. For example, not only did they have to show that their business proposition was of use to Britain, but they also had to prove their business credentials in Vienna and Czechoslovakia.⁸⁴ Eventually, Viktor, Josef, Richard and Otto Wolf were given British visas in January 1939 and purchased a small hat factory in Preston, Lancashire, renamed Böhm Bros. Ltd.⁸⁵

Ericson’s question about their former factory in Vienna prompted Josef to give further details about the sale. Although they had received very little for their factory because of the increasingly harsh financial penalties imposed on Jews emigrating from the Third Reich, they had managed to negotiate with the new owner, Ottmar Reich, that the Böhm hat brand could only be used for domestic sales, not for export.⁸⁶ Moreover, they had agreed that the new owner would add ‘formerly Brüder Böhm Vienna’ on all business papers. Indeed, as the correspondence shows, Reich had a new stamp made with the agreed wording and it was used to superimpose the existing letterhead.⁸⁷ However, post-war letters reveal that Reich had reverted to using the original Brüder Böhm brand.⁸⁸ This complied with an agreement that these changes were only valid until the end of 1940, a decision made in early September 1938that reflected the hope of the Böhm owners that their exportbusiness would continue via their factory in Neutitschein.

Questions regarding the spring deliveries brought home the reality to Josef that his connection with the factory had been severed. While Josef assured Ericson that his orders were being processed before they had to leave, he also noted, with regret, that ‘their connection with Neutitschein had been completely interrupted since 10 October, the day of the German occupation and neither letters, nor airmail, telegrams or telephone have come through; so that we are completely disoriented about what is going on in Neutitschein.’⁸⁹ The complete breakdown in communications with the factory was difficult for Viktor, Richard, Josef, Otto and Egon. In a letter to their representative in Australia, Mr C. Hallam (9 November 1938), Josef wrote ‘you will certainly find it funny, but I must inform you, that we have no communication with the factory. Our employees at the factory are forbidden to send us reports. Therefore, you may be better informed about further business than we are.’⁹⁰

Pollak took over correspondence with Ericson because of a breakdown in communication between Josef and Ericson over unpaid invoices. In mid-October, Ericson wrote to Josef to say that he had been notified by his bank, Svenska Handelsbanken, that the payment of 6000 Krona to the Brüder Böhm Neutitschein account had been declined because the account no longer existed.⁹¹ Ostensibly, their account had been blocked. As a result, the bank informed Ericson there could be no payments until further notice.⁹² Ericson faced a particular difficulty because a clearing agreement between Germany and Sweden in 1934 stipulated rules regarding the movement of money between each country.⁹³ The clearing agreement was a response by the Swedish state to the introduction in Germany of currency restrictions in 1931 following the economic crash of the late 1920s. Trade and foreign exchange movements were controlled and licences had to be applied for foreign trade. Clearing offices and clearing boards were introduced to ensure that all foreign payments were centralised and controlled.⁹⁴ This may explain why the Böhm account in Sweden was blocked earlier than those accounts in New York, Paris and Belgium. This made it difficult for Ericson to transfer money via a different route, even though Josef suggested payment via their bank accounts in London or Belgium.⁹⁵ Ericson assured Josef that ‘we would like to accommodate you as much as possible but at the same time we do not want to risk that the factory finds out that we are directing the payment according to your wishes.’⁹⁶ Ericson, like other customers, not only worried about paying twice for large orders but was also concerned about such payments on forthcoming deliveries, which were crucial to his business. In conclusion, Ericson felt the only option open to him was to pay neither the factory nor Josef until it was clearer who had the right to dispose of the money.⁹⁷ By the end of the month, Josef had handed over the responsibility of securing payments to a lawyer in Stockholm.⁹⁸

In a letter to Pollak (19 November 1938), Ericson again apologised for the difficult situation and while he agreed that ‘Messrs Böhm are the right payees, we simply cannot pay them.’⁹⁹ He also mentioned that the Clearing Board in Sweden had contacted him to clarify that ‘everything must be paid through clearing regardless of when the product has been delivered.’¹⁰⁰ This reflects the decision to extend the Swedish-German clearing procedure to include the Sudetenland on 15 November 1938. Ericson was not the only customer in Sweden who, because of the clearing agreement, could not pay the Böhm owners. Anna Wallerman argues the Swedish-German clearing procedure was a key issue in the nine Aryanisation cases that came before the Swedish Supreme Court during the early 1940s, including the Böhm-Czerny case in 1942. Ostensibly, apart from one case, payments to blocked accounts via the clearing agreement were upheld. In the Böhm-Czerny case, which involved a different customer, not Ericson, the Böhm brothers argued that their ‘rights would be entirely illusionary’ if the debt was settled through the clearing procedure because the monies, nominally in their names, were inaccessible to exiled Jews.¹⁰¹ They lost their case to have their debts settled.¹⁰² Further research on the correspondence will allow a more comparative discussion of the legal decisions affecting the Böhm owners in different countries.

Throughout the correspondence between Josef, Egon and Ericson the injustice of their situation was writ large. Ericson knew that the factory had been expropriated by the Nazis and that the Böhm owners hadn’t received any recompense. He was also aware of the wider persecution of Jews throughout the Third Reich. Following the November pogrom, known as Kristallnacht, Ericson wrote to Pollak (19 November 1938) to say that there was a wave of antipathy towards Germans and German goods in Sweden particularly, among his Jewish customers who refused to purchase German-made hats.¹⁰³ Therefore, Ericson wondered if the factory in Belgium could deliver hats for these customers, or if not, could he recommend some hat factories in France.¹⁰⁴ With the political situation so volatile, Ericson, like other Böhm customers, was anxious to ensure that future hat supplies were secure. Ericson was under pressure from consumer demand and dependent on a supply chain that was now potentially disrupted by the expropriation of the Brüder Böhm factory in Neutitschein. Therefore, it was perhaps no surprise, that Ericson wrote to Pollak to inform him of his plan to visit Neutitschein in early December to look at samples for the next season.¹⁰⁵

Ericson’s trip raises an interesting ethical question about continuing business dealings with Neutitschein. Indeed, this question was considered in a Commission on ‘Jewish Assets in Sweden at the time of the Second World War’ authorised by the Swedish government in February 1997.¹⁰⁶ Under a section entitled ‘Code of Conduct,’ the Commission explored whether there was any evidence that Swedish businessmen took an ethical line, which they termed an ‘ethical norm’, in their economic dealings with Aryanised businesses.¹⁰⁷ For example, how did the Swedish business community respond to the economic persecution of Jews in Germany? It was a situation about which they were well informed through wide press coverage, official notifications from government sources, lawyers, banks, business associations and of course, correspondence with business colleagues, as in the case of Gustav Ericson.¹⁰⁸ It concluded that there was little evidence to show that Swedish businessmen adopted an ethical approach in this situation, i.e., that they refused to work with Nazi appointed Trustees. Equally, the Commission also noted that there was little evidence of any code of conduct operating in the business communities of other countries during this period.¹⁰⁹ Indeed, the Böhm correspondence indicates that from October 1938 until the outbreak of war, many of their customers continued to work with Anton Czerny in Neutitschein. Given that the Commission was addressing these questions in a post-Holocaust world, in which the economic persecution of Jews is now understood to be integral to a complex Nazi policy that led to the annihilation of Jews, what can the correspondence between Egon Pollak and Gustav Ericson tell us about the experience of these businessmen immediately following the expropriation of the Neutitschein factory?

By December 1938, when Ericson visited Neutitschein, the confiscation of the Brüder Böhm factory was still a difficult and raw experience for Viktor, Josef, Richard, Otto and Egon. The question of ownership and legality was very much a live issue and had huge implications on the collection of credits, which was the economic lifeline for finding permanent refuge and business renewal. On 27 November, Pollak wrote again to Ericson to ask him to pay his invoices via Brussels, for the Böhm owners ‘need it more than ever, since they had to leave the country without any means.’¹¹⁰ Pollak explained that if Ericson paid through clearing then the money would go into a blocked account and much of his money (ninety per cent) would be confiscated by the German state.¹¹¹ Therefore, ‘the Böhm owners would get nothing for the goods which had been produced from their materials, on their machines and in their buildings’.¹¹² Pollak, frustrated that the invoices were still unpaid, wanted his business colleague and friend to understand the enormity of their situation. Pollak wrote of his regret that although Sweden was one of Brüder Böhm’s largest export markets, they had paid nothing, unlike other customers. He compared Sweden to Belgium:

Belgium has taken in thousands of refugees and the real socialist Sweden with its extremely sparse population doesn’t let anyone in. Where is human solidarity? Please excuse me for whining - I know very well that you personally mean well by us and we will be happy if you want to continue to be our friend. But don’t be surprised that we are all sad and bitter now because of so much misery around us.¹¹³

On the question of Eriscon’s visit to Neutitschein, Pollak asked Ericson to send his regards to his two former colleagues, Mr Feikus and Mr Hofmann. In particular, Pollak asked Ericson to relay to Feikus the desperate situation of his mother in Vienna who not only had ‘all her cash, securities and savings bank books stolen by an SA gang on 7 November’ but ‘she was driven out of her apartment’.¹¹⁴ Pollak’s request to inform Feikus of his mother’s situation highlights the close-knit relationships, business and personal, that had been generated by the factory and within the wider Neutischein community. Pollak wrote to Ericson that he was ‘now very poor and struggling to support his mother financially,’ and in desperation, he had written to Feikus asking him to transfer some of his credits held in Neutitschein to his mother in Vienna. It was a blow to Pollak that Feikus could not do this because Pollak’s account was blocked.¹¹⁵

Ericson’s account of his visit to Neutitschein to Pollak (19 December 1938), isn’t clear if he delivered Pollak’s message to Feikus:

I have just recently returned from Neutitschein - a lot has changed. A depressing mood prevailed, swastika flags and photographs of Hitler were everywhere even in the factory workrooms. An incredible enthusiasm for Hitler prevailed and everyone was chanting ‘Heil Hitler’. The military is now housed in Mr Eger’s home – I did not want to mention that we exchanged letters with you, but everyone in the meeting we met pointed out that on a personal level they still cared for you and Mr Böhm. Two young gentlemen praised you, especially for they had learnt everything they could from you.¹¹⁶

Ericson’s report conveyed a picture of dramatic change. While he did not mention that he was in contact with Pollak, perhaps a decision dictated by business interests, he also joined in conversations with workers about their former owners and managers. Ericson wanted Pollak to know that he had not been forgotten. Of course, Pollak sent this report to Josef who, in response, sent a formal letter to Ericson conveying his surprise and disappointment that given Ericson’s knowledge of the whole situation, he continued to pay Neutitschein through the clearing process. Josef cited the court judgment in Belgium and hoped that Ericson would now pay the pending amount of 7, 217.95 krona.¹¹⁷ This did not happen because Ericson was still waiting for a legal judgment in Sweden.

Pollak’s response to Ericson’s visit to Neutitschein (9 February 1939) was his last communication on file before the war. In fact, Pollak wrote two letters to Ericson that day, although one was left unfinished. Both letters had similar content, which suggests that he was concerned to construct a letter that accurately reflected his experience.

I read your letter of 19 December with much interest. We have always known that nothing bad can be said against us in Neutitschein because after all we – i.e. Messrs Richard, Viktor and Josef Böhm, as well as Mr Wolf and myself – have built the company up to be one of the most important and respected in the world in just a few years and have provided 2000 people with bread and work. If we happened to be Aryans, we might have been given a medal, but because we were not, we were thrown out and now have to start all over again … all my savings are blocked and now I only have a heap of debts as a reward for my 10 years of diligent effort to build up the company. Thank God I have health and freedom and that is a lot when I consider, for example, that my cousin engineer Bass (about whom I wrote to you last year) has been in Dachau concentration camp for 9 months, even though he and his wife and children have entry permits and tickets for Australia. Two of my Viennese relatives committed suicide in autumn and the rest are scattered all over the world.¹¹⁸

Pollak signs off with ‘Farewell, dear Mr. Ericson, give my warmest regards to Mr. Nils and Mr. Bergström, and best regards to your dear lady, from me and my wife.’¹¹⁹

In this epistolary space, the realities of Pollak’s economic and personal loss are framed by the complexities of a business relationship that is interwoven with a personal friendship. Threads of frustration, anger and honesty complicate a relationship that becomes increasingly more fragile under the strain of expectation, hope and disappointment. Both men experienced different and discernibly unequal consequences following the expropriation of the Neutitschein factory. Post-war correspondence reveals that their business relationship had continued during the war with Ericson placing orders with the Belgium factory. In February 1946, Ericson wrote to enquire if Pollak would be interested in collaborating with him on a new factory, but few details were given.¹²⁰ Pollak declined and eventually left for the US, sponsored by Viktor, Josef and Richard.¹²¹

Conclusion

The economic persecution of Viktor, Josef and Richard Böhm, the forced sale of their factory in Vienna and the expropriation of their factory in Neutitschein had repercussions on colleagues, workers, exporters, wholesalers and retailers who were woven into a global consumer economy. This correspondence reveals how a marketplace that was dictated by commerce and exchange, but also shaped by close business and personal relationships, had to negotiate an economic juncture of uncertainty and complexity. In their urgent bid to call in their foreign credits, Viktor, Josef, Richard Böhm, Otto and Egon wrote thousands of letters that voiced the strains of their new economic, social and personal reality. Threads of anguish, loss, expectation and hope were woven into letters written on paper without letterheads from disparate locations. Within these letters, these businessmen compose identities that reflect their business selves shaped by an experience of becoming refugees. We see the new mechanisms the businessmen had to put in place to navigate a changing economic landscape, one that was rapidly effacing their financial and legal rights. While they strove to assert agency through their business networks, this became increasingly harder as processes of expropriation found a global reach.

Through these letters, we witness a dialogue between these businessmen and their colleagues and customers that illuminate the dilemmas faced by, and responses to, this crisis moment. New voices enter the historical record that nuance our understanding of the wider impact of the economic fallout of the dispossession of Jews driven by a Nazi ideology underpinned by antisemitism. Across the world, men and women connected to the economic life of this successful hat brand were called upon to make decisions that exposed the limits of trust, decency, self-interest, friendship, legal rights and the dictates of the marketplace. The examination of these letters sheds light on the complicated and unpredictable nature of human responses to an unfolding moment when Jewish business colleagues faced ruinous economic persecution.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Trisha Oakley Kessler

Trisha Oakley Kessler is a Research Associate at the Woolf Institute, Cambridge. Her doctoral thesis from University College Dublin examined political, social and economic change in 1930s Ireland through the prism of Jewish refugee factories. More broadly, she explores the Irish economy through a socio-cultural lens to understand everyday life, racism, nationalism and gender in Irish history. She has published several articles on Jewish-non-Jewish encounters in Ireland and is presently working on a monograph of her doctoral research. She is currently a Teaching Research Fellow at the Herzog Centre, Trinity College Dublin (2022). Trisha supervises modern Irish history and British political history at Cambridge University and is a Co-Convenor of the Cambridge Modern Irish History Seminar.

Notes

1. Sue Course, Lost Letters from Vienna (Melbourne: Wild Dingo Press, 2019), 31-36.

2. Josef Böhm’s short memoir (1969) uploaded to their family genealogy site (2011). http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~prohel/genealogy/stories/jbohm.html#st (accessed 24 January 2022).

3. Trustee Anton Czerny to Monsieur Boigeaud, (1 December 1938); Brüder Böhm Company Collection; AR 25122: box 4; folder 15; Leo Baeck Institute, (hereafter, BBCC, AR25122, LBI). https://archives.cjh.org/repositories/5/resources/12073 (accessed 24 October 2021).

4. Following the Anschluss in March 1938, the Böhm owners were forced to sell their Viennese factory at a much reduced value in order to obtain exit visas for emigration. Böhm memoir, http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~prohel/genealogy/stories/jbohm.html#st (accessed 24 January 2022).

5. We know little about Czerny from Josef Böhm’s memoir. Post-war letters in the collection reveal that he continued in his position throughout the war and was expulsed in 1946, moving to Upper Bavaria.

6. Martin Dean, Robbing the Jews: The Confiscation of Jewish Property in the Holocaust, 1933-1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 84-130.

7. Monsieur Boigeaud to Anton Czerny, (10 December 1938); BBCC, AR25122; 4;15; LBI4, https://archives.cjh.org/repositories/5/resources/12073 (accessed 21 October 2021).

8. Otto Wolf was a cousin to Viktor, Josef and Richard via their mother’s family and Egon Pollak was a relation through the Böhm family.

9. The Brüder Böhm Company Collection, https://archives.cjh.org/repositories/5/resources/12073.

10. Trisha Oakley Kessler, ‘Rethinking Irish Protectionism: Jewish refugee factories and the pursuit of an Irish Ireland for industry’ in Irish Questions and Jewish Questions: Crossovers in Culture eds. Aidan Beatty and Dan O’Brien (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2018), 107-123.

11. Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews (New York, Holmes & Meier,1985), 53-56; Abraham Barkai, From Boycott to Annihilation (Hanover, University Press of New England, 1989); Dean, Robbing the Jews; Frank Bajohr, Aryanisation in Hamburg: The economic exclusion of Jews and the confiscation of their property in Nazi Germany (Oxford, Berghahn Books, 2002); Martin Dean, Constantin Goschler and Philipp Ther, Robbery and restitution: the conflict over Jewish property in Europe (New York: Berghahn Books, 2007);

Hartmut Berghoff, Jürgen Kocha and Dieter Ziegler, Business in the Age of Extremes: Essays in Modern German and Austrian Economic History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013); Christophe Kreutzmüller, Final Sale in Berlin: The Destruction of Jewish Commercial Activity, 1930-1945 (New York: Berghahn Books, 2015), 1-29; Benno Nietzel, ‘Nazi Economic Policy, Middle-Class Protection and the Liquidation of Jewish Businesses 1933-1939’ in National Economies: Volks-Wirtschaft, Racism and Economy in Europe between the Wars (1918-1939/45), eds. Christophe Kreutzmüller, Michael Wildt and Moshe Zinnermann (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars, 2015), 108-120; Christoph Kreutzmüller and Jonathan R. Zatlin, Dispossession: Plundering German Jewry, 1933-1953 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2020).

12. S. Jonathan Wiesen, Creating the Nazi Marketplace: Commerce and Consumption in the Third Reich (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 1-11.

13. S. Jonathan Wiesen, “A Jew-Free Marketplace: The Ideologies and Economics of Thievery” in Dispossession: Plundering German Jewry, 1933-1953 eds. Christoph Kreutzmüller and Jonathan R. Zatlin, (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2020), 30-50; Kreutzmüller and Zatlin, Dispossession, 1-30.

14. Wiesen, “A Jew-Free Marketplace”, 33-50.

15. Frank Bajohr, Aryanisation in Hamburg: The economic exclusion of Jews and the confiscation of their property in Nazi Germany (Oxford, Berghahn Books, 2002); Frank Bajohr, ‘Expropriation and Expulsion,’ in The Historiography of the Holocaust, ed. Dan Snow (Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), 52-64; Frank Bajohr, ‘No “Volksgenossen”: Jewish Entrepreneurs in the Third Reich’ in Social Outsiders in Nazi Germany, ed. Robert Gellately and Nathan Stoltzfus (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, (2018), 45-65; Kreutzmüller and Zatlin, Dispossession; Christophe Kreutzmüller, Final Sale in Berlin: The Destruction of Jewish Commercial Activity, 1930-1945 (New York: Berghahn Books, 2015).

16. Kreutzmüller and Zatlin, Dispossession.

17. Claire Zalc and Tal Bruttman, Microhistories of the Holocaust (New York: Berghahn Books, 2016), 1-12.

18. Kreutzmüller, Final Sale in Berlin.

19. Gideon Reuveni, “Emancipation through Consumption: Moses Mendelssohn and the Idea of Marketplace Citizenship,” The Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 59, no. 1 (2014): 7-22; Reuveni, Consumer Culture and the Making of Modern Jewish Identity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017).

20. Kreutzmüller and Zatlin, Dispossession, 1-30; Wiesen, “A Jew-Free Marketplace”, 33-50.

21. Kreutzmüller, Final Sale in Berlin.

22. Rebecca Earle, “Introduction: letters, writers and the historian” in Epistolary Selves: Letters and Letter-Writers, 1600-1945 (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 1999), 1-12.

23. Lindsey Earner-Byrne, Letters of the Catholic Poor: poverty in independent Ireland, 1920-1940 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 1-19.

24. Shirli Gilbert, From things lost: forgotten letters and the legacy of the Holocaust (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2017), 1-12.

25. Ibid.

26. Dalia Ofer, “Personal letters in research and education on the Holocaust” in Holocaust and Genocide Studies, 4, no. 3 (1989): 341-355.

27. Gilbert, From things lost, 1-12.

28. Ibid, 162.

29. Earner-Byrne, Letters of the Catholic Poor, 1-12.

30. Toby Ditz, “Formative ventures: eighteenth-century commercial letters and the articulation of experience” in Epistolary Selves: Letters and Letter-Writers, 1600-1945 ed. Rebecca Earles (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 1999), 59-78.

31. Ingrid Jeacle and Tom Brown, “The construction of the credible: Epistolary transformations and the origins of the business letter.” Accounting, Business & Financial History, 16, no. 1: 27-43.

32. Böhm memoir, http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~prohel/genealogy/stories/jbohm.html#st (accessed 24 January 2022).

33. Ibid.

34. Ibid.

35. Barkai, From Boycott to Annihilation; Dean, Robbing the Jews; Albrecht Ritschl, “Fiscal Destruction’: Confiscatory Taxation of Jewish Property and Income in Nazi Germany,” in Dispossession: Plundering German Jewry, 1933-1953 eds. Christoph Kreutzmüller and Jonathan R. Zatlin, (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2020), 51-70.

36. Böhm memoir, http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~prohel/genealogy/stories/jbohm.html#st (accessed 24 January 2022).

37. A colleague and good friend, Mr Fritz Feldheim, co-owner of a large hat leather business in Brussels arranged their visas. Richard delayed his departure to Brussels in a desperate bid to organise things in Prague, which placed him in some danger. He was rescued by their Dutch agent, Booby van Veen from Rotterdam, also a good friend, who piloted his own plane to Prague to bring Richard back to Brussels.

38. Josef Böhm to Mr C. Hallam (24 September 1938), BBCC, AR25122;5;12; LBI, https://archives.cjh.org/repositories/5/resources/12073 (accessed 21 March 2022).

39. Ibid.

40. Mr C. Hallam to Josef Böhm (16 November 1938), BBCC, AR25122;5;12; LBI, https://archives.cjh.org/repositories/5/resources/12073 (accessed 21 March 2022).

41. Ibid.

42. The global reach of the Brüder Böhm business is evident from the customer list found in the file marked ‘Circular Letters’, BBCC, AR25122;4;24; LBI, https://archives.cjh.org/repositories/5/resources/12073 (accessed 27 March 2022).

43. Ibid.

44. Böhm memoir, http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~prohel/genealogy/stories/jbohm.html#st (accessed January, 24 2022).

45. The correspondence reveals that at times the Böhm owners were hesitant about the overuse of circulars. For example, in a letter from Josef Böhm to their French trade representative, Monsieur Peleraud, Böhm asked Peleraud to only use the circular if there is absolutely no other way to get payment, (29 November 1938), BBCC, AR25122;4;24; LBI, https://archives.cjh.org/repositories/5/resources/12073 (accessed 27 March 2022).

46. Anton Czerny immediately contacted Brüder Böhm’s most important customers including their New York agent, Frank Allaire. Anton Czerny to Frank Allaire, New York, (22 October 1938), BBCC, AR 25122: 4;43; LBI, https://archives.cjh.org/repositories/5/resources/12073 (accessed 14 January 2022).

47. Harold James, The Deutsche Bank and the Nazi Economic War against the Jews: The Expropriation of Jewish-Owned Property (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 127-184; Dieter Ziegler, ‘ “Aryanisation” and the role of the German great banks, 1933-1938’ in Networks of Nazi Persecution: Bureaucracy, Business and the Organisation of the Holocaust eds. Gerald D. Feldman and Wolfgang Seibel (New York: Berghahn Books, 2004), 44-68.

48. Ibid.

49. Circular Letters (25 October 1938), BBCC, AR25122;4;24; LBI, https://archives.cjh.org/repositories/5/resources/12073 (accessed 27 March 2022).

50. Ibid., (29 October 1938).

51. Ingrid Jeacle and Tom Brown, “The Construction of the Credible: Epistolary Transformations and the Origins of the Business Letter,” Accounting, Business and Financial History 16 (2006): 27-43.

52. A less formal letterhead does appear in some letters, although it is not the main company letterhead used by Anton Czerny. No doubt, the Böhm owners managed to bring some with them.

53. Karin McGinnis, “Minnesota Letterheads: The Evolution of Business Style,” Minnesota History Magazine 61, no. 4 (2008-09): 132-147.

54. Anton Czerny to Frank Allaire, (22 October 1938), BBCC, AR 25122: 4;43; LBI, https://archives.cjh.org/repositories/5/resources/12073 (accessed 26 March 2022).

55. Hart, Jones & Company, Luton to Viktor, Josef and Richard Böhm, (7 November 1938), BBCC; AR 25122: 5; 13; LBI, https://archives.cjh.org/repositories/5/resources/12073 (accessed 15 February 2022).

56. Ibid.

57. David Fraser, “This is not like any other legal question”: A brief history of Nazi law before U.K. and U.S. courts,’ Connecticut Journal of International Law 19, no. 1 (2003): 59-125.

58. Ibid. See also, Barkai, From Boycott to Annihilation; Martin Dean, Robbing the Jews; Ritschl, ‘Fiscal Destruction’, 51-70; Christine Schoenmakers, “The ‘Legal’ Theft of Jewish Assets: The German Gold Discount Bank (Dego) in Dispossession: Plundering German Jewry, 1933-1953 eds. Christoph Kreutzmüller and Jonathan R. Zatlin, (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2020), 71-103.

59. Fraser, This is not like any other legal question: 93-100.

60. Ibid.

61. Viktor Böhm to Hart, Jones & Company, (11 November 1938), BBCC; AR 25122: 5;13; LBI, https://archives.cjh.org/repositories/5/resources/12073 (accessed 15 February 2022).

62. Ibid.

63. Monsieur Boigeaud to Messieurs Böhm, (20 November 1938), BBCC; AR 25122: 4; 15; LBI, https://archives.cjh.org/repositories/5/resources/12073 (accessed 24 October 2021).

64. Circular, (20 November 1938), BBCC; AR 25122: 4; 24; LBI, https://archives.cjh.org/repositories/5/resources/12073 (accessed 28 February 2022).

65. Maison O. Capitaine to Messieurs Böhm, (21 January 1939), BBCC; AR 25122: 4; 20; LBI https://archives.cjh.org/repositories/5/resources/12073 (accessed 15 January 2022).

66. David Fraser, The fragility of law: constitutional patriotism and the Jews of Belgium (Abingdon: Routledge-Cavendish, 2009), 63-73.

67. Circular, (19 July November 1938), BBCC; AR 25122: 4; 24; LBI, https://archives.cjh.org/repositories/5/resources/12073 (accessed 28 February 2022).

68. Viktor Böhm to Chase Bank, New York (19 October 1938), BBCC; AR 25122: 4; 22; LBI, https://archives.cjh.org/repositories/5/resources/12073 (accessed 7 November 2021).

69. Comptoir National D’Escompte de Paris to Messieurs Brüder Böhm (10 November 1938), BBCC; AR 25122: 4; 27; LBI, https://archives.cjh.org/repositories/5/resources/12073 (accessed 25 February 2022).

70. Chase Bank to Viktor Böhm, (15 November 1938), BBCC; AR 25122: 4; 24; LBI, https://archives.cjh.org/repositories/5/resources/12073 (accessed 7 November 2021).

71. Monsieur J. Musson to Richard Böhm, (9 November 1938), BBCC; AR 25122: 5; 19; LBI, https://archives.cjh.org/repositories/5/resources/12073 (accessed 26 November 2022).

72. Wiesen, “A Jew-Free Marketplace”, 33-50.

73. Correspondence between Josef Böhm, Egon Pollak and Gustav Ericson, BBCC; AR 25122: 4; 2; LBI https://archives.cjh.org/repositories/5/resources/12073 (accessed 1 December 2021).

74. Germany was Sweden’s most important trading partner both before and during the Second World War. See the report of the Commission on Jewish Assets in Sweden at the time of the Second World War, http://www.commartrecovery.org/docs/final-report-sweden-and-jewish-assets.pdf (accessed 20 January 2022). See also, Stig Ekman, Klas Amark and John Toler, Sweden’s relations with Nazism, Nazi Germany and the Holocaust (Stockholm, Almqvist & Wiksell International, 2003).

75. Josef Böhm to Gustav Ericson, (7 October 1938), BBCC; AR 25122: 4; 2; LBI, https://archives.cjh.org/repositories/5/resources/12073 (accessed 26 November 2021).Letter from.

76. Gustav Ericson to Josef Böhm, (13 October 1938), BBCC; AR 25122: 4;2; LBI https://archives.cjh.org/repositories/5/resources/12073 (accessed 26 November 2021).

77. Ibid.

78. All customers had been informed of the sale of Brüder Böhm, Vienna and that it now traded as a separate business. The new owner Ottmar Reich was also in touch with customers, see Ottmar Reich to A Bottu, Belgium, (13 September 1938), BBCC; AR 25122: 4; 19; LBI, https://archives.cjh.org/repositories/5/resources/12073 (accessed 27 January 2022).

79. Gustav Ericson to Josef Böhm, (BBCC; AR 25122: 4; 2; LBI, https://archives.cjh.org/repositories/5/resources/12073 (accessed 26 November 2021).

80. Josef Böhm to Gustav Ericson, (17 October 1938), BBCC; AR 25122: 4; 2; LBI, https://archives.cjh.org/repositories/5/resources/12073 (accessed 26 November 2021).

81. Ibid.

82. Viktor, Josef and Richard invested in a small factory owned by their trade representative, A Bottu. Egon Pollak stayed in Belgium to manage the factory during the war. See A. Bottu file, BBCC; AR 25122: 4; 19; LBI, https://archives.cjh.org/repositories/5/resources/12073 (accessed 27 January 2022).

83. Restrictive immigration policies in the US meant that any potential immigrant had to prove that they would not be a burden on the government. See Henry L. Feingold, The Politics of Rescue; the Roosevelt administration and the Holocaust, 1938-1945 (New Brunswick, N.J: Rutgers University Press, 1970); Deborah Dwork and Robert Jan Van Pelt, Flight from The Reich: Refugee Jews 1933-1946 (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2012), 141-148.

84. Elkin, Henriques & Harford to Viktor Böhm, (7 December 1938) BBCC; AR 25122: 4; 36; LBI, https://archives.cjh.org/repositories/5/resources/12073 (accessed 15 December 2021).

85. Oxney Mills, Preston was purchased from Harold Ashworth, an introduction helped by trade networks. BBCC; AR 25122: 4; 7; LBI, https://archives.cjh.org/repositories/5/resources/12073 (accessed 4 February 2022).

86. Josef Böhm to Gustav Ericson, (17 October 1938) BBCC; AR 25122: 4; 2; LBI, https://archives.cjh.org/repositories/5/resources/12073 (accessed 27 November 2021).

87. Ottmar Reich to A. Bottu, (13 September 1938) BBCC; AR 25122: 4; 19; LBI, https://archives.cjh.org/repositories/5/resources/12073 (accessed 27 January 2022).

88. Ottmar Reich to Richard Böhm, (28 July 1950) BBCC; AR 25122: 4; 7; https://archives.cjh.org/repositories/5/resources/12073 (accessed 1 February 2022).

89. Josef Böhm to Gustav Ericson, (17 October 1938) BBCC; AR 25122: 4; 2; https://archives.cjh.org/repositories/5/resources/12073 (accessed 27 November 2021).

90. Josef Böhm to Mr C. Hallam, (9 November 1938) BBCC; AR 25122: 5; 12; LBI, https://archives.cjh.org/repositories/5/resources/12073 (accessed 12 March 2022).

91. Gustav Ericson to Josef Böhm, (20 October 1938) BBCC; AR 25122: 4; 2; LBI, https://archives.cjh.org/repositories/5/resources/12073 (accessed 27 November 2021.

92. Ibid.

93. Report of the Commission on Jewish Assets in Sweden at the time of the Second World War, http://www.commartrecovery.org/docs/final-report-sweden-and-jewish-assets.pdf (accessed 20 January 2022). See also, Ekman, Amark and Toler, Sweden’s relations with Nazism, Nazi Germany and the Holocaust.

94. Ekman, Amark and Toler, Sweden’s relations with Nazism. Report of the Commission on Jewish Assets in Sweden at the time of the Second World War, section 2.4.3, 57-65. http://www.commartrecovery.org/docs/final-report-sweden-and-jewish-assets.pdf.

95. Josef Böhm to Gustav Ericson, (22 October 1938) BBCC; AR 25122: 4; 2; LBI, https://archives.cjh.org/repositories/5/resources/12073 (accessed 27 November 2021).

96. Gustav Ericson to Josef Bohm, (24 October 1938) BBCC; AR 25122: 4; 2; LBI, https://archives.cjh.org/repositories/5/resources/12073 (accessed 27 November 2021).

97. Ibid.

98. Josef Bohm to Gustav Ericson (29 October 1938) BBCC; AR 25122: 4; 2; LBI, https://archives.cjh.org/repositories/5/resources/12073 (accessed 27 November 2021).

99. Gustav Ericson to Egon Pollak, 19 November 1938, BBCC; AR 25122: 4; 2; LBI, https://archives.cjh.org/repositories/5/resources/12073 (accessed 27 November 2021).

100. Ibid.

101. Anna Wallerman, “A Day in the Life: Aryanization before the Swedish Supreme Court 1941-42,” Law and History Review 36, no. 3 (2018): 593-617.

102. Ibid, 612-613.

103. Gustav Ericson to Egon Pollak, (19 November 1938) BBCC; AR 25122: 4; 2; LBI, https://archives.cjh.org/repositories/5/resources/12073 (accessed 28 November 2021).

104. Ibid.

105. Ibid.

106. Report on the Commission on Jewish Assets in Sweden at the time of the Second World War, http://www.commartrecovery.org/docs/final-report-sweden-and-jewish-assets.pdf (accessed 20 January 2022).

107. Ibid., 49-55.

108. Ibid., 50.

109. Ibid., 55.

110. Egon Pollak to Gustav Ericson, (27 November 1938) BBCC; AR 25122: 4; 2; LBI, https://archives.cjh.org/repositories/5/resources/12073 (accessed 28 November 2021).

111. Ibid.

112. Ibid.

113. Ibid.

114. Ibid.

115. Ibid.

116. Gustav Ericson to Egon Pollak, (19 December 1938) BBCC; AR 25122: 4; 2; LBI, https://archives.cjh.org/repositories/5/resources/12073 (accessed 28 November 2021).

117. Josef Böhm to Gustav Ericson, (27 December 1938) BBCC; AR 25122: 4; 2; LBI, https://archives.cjh.org/repositories/5/resources/12073 (accessed 28 November 2021).

118. Egon Pollak to Gustav Ericson, (9 February 1939) BBCC; AR 25122: 4; 2; LBI, https://archives.cjh.org/repositories/5/resources/12073 (accessed 28 November 2021).

119. Ibid.

120. Egon Pollak to Viktor, Josef, Richard Böhm & Otto Wolf (19 March 1946) BBCC; AR 25122: 9; 39 (1945-1948), LBI.

121. Correspondence between Viktor, Josef and Richard Böhm and Egon Pollak, BBCC; AR 25122: 9; 39 (1945-1948), LBI.