She helped organize the Kindertransports from Austria, and continued to work to save children throughout World War II in Nazi-occupied Holland, at considerable risk to herself.
The Kindertransport begins from Austria. The first train from Vienna left with 600 children. This was the result of the work of Mrs. Geertruida Wijsmuller-Meijer, a Dutch organizer of Kindertransports, who had been active in this field since 1933. She went to Vienna with the purpose of negotiating with Adolf Eichmann directly, but was initially turned away. She persevered however, until finally, as she wrote in her biography, Eichmann suddenly “gave” her 600 children with the clear intent of overloading her and making a transport on such short notice impossible. Nevertheless, Wijsmuller-Meijer managed to send 500 of the children to Harwich, where they were accommodated in a nearby holiday camp at Dovercourt, while the remaining 100 found refuge in the Netherlands.
Wijsmuller continued to work to save Jewish children throughout the war. In May 1942 Wijsmuller was arrested and put in custody in the prison on the Amstelveenseweg in Amsterdam. The Gestapo suspected she was helping Jewish refugees to flee the Netherlands to France and Switzerland. A group of Jews and their hiding people were arrested at their hiding place in Nispen. Wijsmuller had provided them with false identity papers and escape routes, which she smuggled from Brussels to the Netherlands. But the refugees only knew her pseudonym “Madame Odi”. Her husband came to plead her innocence with the Nazis. Wijsmuller was released after a few days due to a lack of evidence. She went right back to work saving children.
In September 1944 Wijsmuller discovered that 50 “orphans” (Jewish children taken up without their parents) from Westerbork would be deported. She regularly had brought food to a number of these children in the Amsterdam Huis van Bewaring (house of detention). Alarmed by this news, she went to the Nazis. She claimed that she knew these children were not Jewish, but born out of Dutch non-Jewish mothers and German soldiers. According to the law these children were Dutch. To prove her point she showed a Dutch bill which she had manufactured herself. She insisted on “special treatment” for the children. The children traveled on to Theresienstadt, stayed together as a group and returned after the war.
On 7 April 1945 the Amsterdam police informed Wijsmuller that 120 Allied soldiers were being held in a monastery in Aalsmeer. They were in a bad way. Wanting to help, Wijsmuller cycled to Aalsmeer, the first time with medication, and managed to get in. She threatened the Germans that they could be charged after the war. Immediately after the capitulation of Germany Wijsmuller sought contact with the Germans in Utrecht, who knew her by her nickname “die verrückte Frau Wijsmuller” (“the crazy Mrs. Wijsmuller”) due to her help to Jews. They referred her to the Canadians in Hilversum. The latter sent cars and Wijsmuller delivered the soldiers to them.
After the war, Geertruida Wijsmuller-Meijer was honored as Righteous among the Nations by Yad Vashem. She later served on the Amsterdam city council. She died in Amsterdam in 1978.
Willy Bertuleit, deputy leader of the Memel German party, tonight said the question of returning Memel to Germany can be postponed only if the Lithuanian government will satisfy the demands of Memel’s German inhabitants. Memel was annexed by Lithuania fifteen years ago. Bertuleit said that unless Lithuania grants the German inhabitants complete cultural and economic autonomy, nothing can prevent this territory from rejoining Germany. He recalled Reichsführer Hitler’s statement that “peoples’ rights destroy government rights.”
The Memel territory will elect a new diet tomorrow. The election will be the first to be held under complete control of the local population. Embittered by Lithuania’s unsuccessful attempt to assimilate them, the German citizens of Memel have taken the matter into their own hands. The Nazis expect to win all but two seats in the 29-member diet. In the 1935 election the Germans won 24 seats to five for the Lithuanians, but the veto of numerous bills since then by the Lithuanian governor — who recently was replaced by a Memel native — blocked much legislation. The election campaign closed tonight with an enthusiastic Nazi mass meeting in Silute, second largest town in the Memel district. Dr. Ernst Neumann, leader of the German party, declared that Lithuanian domination is ended. Dr. Neumann, who is a veterinarian, is known as “the horse doctor Führer.” At one time he served a four-year term in a Lithuanian prison.
France’s Chamber of Deputies votes in favor of Prime Minister Daladier and his policies. Communists and Socialists voted as a block against him.
French ship workers in Le Havre end their strike.
While not officially sanctioned, anti-Semitic activities in Czechoslovakia involve firing of Jewish workers, and exclusion of Jewish artists in exhibitions and societies.
French planes, ships, submarines, and troops arrive to reinforce Tunis, Tunisia, where anti-Italian demonstrations continue.
The 1938 Nobel Prizes were awarded in Stockholm. The recipients were Enrico Fermi of Italy for Physics, Richard Kuhn of Germany (Chemistry), Corneille Heymans of Belgium (Physiology or Medicine) and Pearl S. Buck of the United States (Literature). In Oslo, the Nansen International Office for Refugees was given the Peace Prize. Richard Kuhn was unable to claim his award at the time due to Nazi Germany’s policy of not allowing its citizens to accept Nobel Prizes after the Carl von Ossietzky controversy. Kuhn finally received his medal and diploma in 1949.
Fermi received the Nobel prize for Physics in Stockholm, Sweden for his work on radioactive elements. Instead of returning home he then fled to the United States with his family (his wife was Jewish) and would later contribute to the Manhattan Project.
Senator Harry F. Byrd (D-Virginia) today demanded an end to what he described as nine years of fiscal insanity. He declared he was convinced that the Roosevelt administration could not be looked to for leadership toward economy, despite the tragic failure of its spending program. Just before outlining a five-point retrenchment program, which would include a thorough going government reorganization and a purge of relief rolls, Senator Byrd declared in an address delivered before the Massachusetts Federation of Taxpayers’ association: “We are facing a perilous situation, and what can be done about it? Can we expect any leadership from the present administration for economy and retrenchment? As one who has fought for five years for prudent spending at Washington, I say no. As a Democrat I say it with sorrow, as my party is in power, but the Republican party cannot escape responsibility for its share in the present orgy of spending. Mr. Hoover added the first 5 billions to the public debt, and a majority of the Republican members in the senate have voted for the huge appropriation bills.”
Byrd leveled a caustic attack upon the Roosevelt administration. “Good business,” he said, “would be vastly promoted if the brain-trusters from Tugwell to Corcoran would go home, and if congress resumed its constitutional duty. A modern liberal is tested and judged in proportion as to how liberal he is willing to be with other people’s money.” Senator Byrd also flayed the economic philosophy of Marriner S. Eccles, chairman of the federal reserve board. He said that Eccles’ speech in New York last week on promoting prosperity by spending borrowed money “indicated to what depths of false reasoning we have sunk in the crackpot legislative ideas of those holding important public positions.”
The President announces that all papers connected with his presidency will be kept in an archive at his Hyde Park estate, which in turn will be given to the government on his death.
Cotton farmers vote to continue crop market quotas through 1939; tobacco farmers vote against such quotas.
The Lockheed Hudson took flight for the first time. The Hudson would later become the first American-built aircraft to be used operationally by the RAF in World War II. Based on the Electra civil airliner, it was ordered by the British Purchasing Commission as early as in Jun 1938 and deliveries began arriving in the UK in Jan 1939. Pressed into service for Maritime Patrol and Anti-Shipping missions, the type saw wide-spread service around the world and was also operated by the RCAF, RAAF, RNZAF, and both the USAAF and US Navy.
The Trapp Family Choir performs in New York for the first time, at the Town Hall.
The burning of Atlanta is filmed for “Gone with the Wind.” David O. Selznick meets Vivien Leigh for the first time; he has been considering her for the role of Scarlett for months.
The Toronto Argonauts beat the Winnipeg Blue Bombers 30—7 to win the 26th Grey Cup of Canadian football.
U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull of the United States counseled nations of the new world today to seek unity and insure adequate defense in the face of an “ominous shadow athwart our own hemisphere.” In a keynote address before the first full session of the eighth Pan-American conference, the secretary warned that “there must not be a shadow of a doubt anywhere as to the determination of the American nations not to permit the invasion of this hemisphere by the armed forces of any power or any possible combination of powers.” Though neither Germany nor Italy — nor any nation — was accused by name, it was obvious that Hull and the other speakers today were warning against the ideologies of dictator nations. Referring to the United States’ attitude, Hull told the diplomats, representing twenty-one nations: “Let no one doubt for a moment that so long as the possibility of armed challenge exists, the United States will maintain adequate defensive military, naval, and air establishments.”
Brazil promises asylum to any refugee, legal or illegal, who files an application by December 21.
Thirty-two foreigners isolated at Kuling brave storms to descend the mountain and board a Japanese ship bound for Shanghai. Over 150 people remain at Kuling.
Japan increases military spending as tensions with the Soviet Union in Manchuria, on Sakhalin Island, and over Japanese fishing off the Siberian coastline continue to mount.
In Sydney, Australia, 75 mile-per-hour winds fan brush fires, knock out communication lines, and beach boats in the harbor.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 148.31 (+0.92).
Born:
Grady Alderman, NFL tackle and guard (Pro Bowl, 1963-1967, 1969; Detroit Lions, Minnesota Vikings), in Detroit, Michigan (d. 2018).
Bill Mathis, AFL halfback and fullback (AFL Pro Bowl, 1961, 1963; New York Titans-Jets), in Rocky Mount, North Carolina (d. 2020).
Bobby Bethune, AFL safety (San Diego Chargers), in Leeds, Alabama.
Naval Construction:
The Kriegsmarine (German Navy) Type IX U-boat U-39 is commissioned. Her first commanding officer is Kapitänleutnant Gerhard Glattes.
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