Looking Back at the Creation of JSL (by Raphaela Neihausen)
On Wednesday April 17, 2024, I had the privilege of visiting Dr. George Schwab in his Upper West Side apartment. Entering his home was like stepping into another world – one filled with beautiful art, endless books, and personal photographs spanning decades of meetings with world leaders and dignitaries.
As a new Board Member of the Jewish Survivors of Latvia (JSL), I was looking to learn more about the history of the organization and was hoping our organization’s patriarch and co-founder, Dr. George Schwab, might illuminate what those early years looked like. After all, George – at 92 years young – has the most institutional memory of us all.
Sitting at George’s beautiful dining room table, while indulging in some delicious tea and pastries, George shared his recollections of JSL. The original organizer of these annual meetings was Max Kaufmann, someone George remembers as a “lovely, lovely man” who would often visit George’s family in Libau before the war. The purpose of the gatherings was two-fold: remembering those who had been killed in the Holocaust and trying to find out more information about those who were still missing.
George attended one of these meetings for the first time with his mother Klara shortly after his arrival in New York in February 1947. In attendance were many Latvian Jews who were living in the New York region and had luckily immigrated before the war, as well as survivors who had recently arrived. The first meeting George remembers took place at the Roxy Theater on West 50th Street, between 6th and 7th Avenues. His mother recognized friends from before the war – like the Rosovskys. George was happy to see Max Kaufmann – of whom he still has a vivid memory of running into during the war in Kaiserwald. George remembers how he had been starving at that time, and had asked Max whether he had any bread to share with him. Max had answered, “George, you know I would give it to you, but I don’t have a slice of bread myself”.
After the war, Max wrote the powerful book “The Destruction of the Jews in Latvia: An Eyewitness Account” which provides extensive details about those horrific war years, while also becoming the main organizer of the Jewish Survivors of Latvia. George calls Max the “shoresh” (hebrew for “root”) and brain of the organization.
The annual meetings shifted to the Park East Synagogue some time in the 1950s (same place we hold these gatherings today) and the format was also similar to our current one – speeches, prayers, and Yizkor, followed by a social gathering over lunch. The language was a mix of imperfect English, German-Yiddish, and Baltic-Yiddish. Meetings were about remembering the murdered and helping to find and connect the living.
Years later, JSL filed to become a registered non-profit in New York on Feb. 16, 1984. The members who signed the original paperwork included Steven Springfield, Leo Kram, Gertrude Schneider, Howard L. Adelson, George Schwab, and Peter Springfield. George knew Howard Adelson since he was a fellow colleague at City College and they were both teaching in the History Department. Howard’s family had come to America before the war, but they had lost many people in the Holocaust. Gertrude Schneider (who was deported to Riga from Vienna in 1941) was also teaching at City College and was writing / editing many books and articles about the Holocaust in Latvia. She became the first editor of The Courier, a position she held for many years. George met the Springfields and Leo Kram only in the context of JSL (he did not know either of them before or during the war). Max Kaufmann was unable to sign the paperwork since he was unfortunately in the hospital at that time.
When I asked George what his current hope is for the organization, he answered “to memorialize memory and create continuity – hopefully we can interest the younger generation.” As the grandaughter of Latvian Jewish Holocaust survivors, I will do my best to uphold his wish.
