Records of Jewish Youth Organization "Ring," Berlin Bund deutsch-jüdischer Jugend-Ring (Fond 1207)

The German-Jewish Youth Community (Deutsch-Jüdische Jugendgemeinschaft, DJJG), in December 1933 joined with other non-Zionist groups—the Hamburg German-Jewish Youth, the Jewish Youth and Children’s Groups of Berlin, the Jewish Liberal Youth Association, and the CV youth groups—to form the Ring, Federation of German-Jewish Youth (Ring, Bund deutsch-jüdischer Jugend, BDJJ). The BDJJ was a national organization for Jewish children and teenagers, who came together for socialization, hikes, retreats and to learn about Jewish culture. In early 1936, the BDJJ was required to call itself the Ring, Federation of Jewish Youth (Ring, Bund der jüdischen Jugend) because the use of the word “German” in its name had been prohibited by the Gestapo. In the spring of 1936, the Reichsvertretung der Juden in Deutschland formed the Jüdisches Auswanderungslehrgut (Jewish Emigration Training Farm) in Silesia. Members of the Ring participated in this training. The goal of the institution was to provide young Jews agricultural skills in order to ease their emigration to other countries. The curriculum was a mix of agriculture, Judaism, and German culture, and emphatically (and controversially) not Zionist. Here, young people were to be prepared for immigration to countries other than Palestine. Preparation for immigration to Palestine was severely limited by the restrictive policy of the British Mandate Authority. From Gross-Breesen, young Jews later were able to immigrate to Australia, South America, Kenya, and the United States. Gross-Breesen existed until late 1941; the last head of the training facility, Walter Bernstein, was later deported to the Buna/Monowitz concentration camp and murdered there in November/December 1943. The Ring, Federation of Jewish Youth was banned in early 1937, but activities of the youth movement continued secretly as private meetings.

Rossiĭskiĭ gosudarstvennyĭ voennyĭ arkhiv

Forms part of the Claims Conference International Holocaust Documentation Archive at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. This archive consists of documentation whose reproduction and/or acquisition was made possible with funding from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.

Source of acquisition is the Russian State Military Archive (Rossiĭskiĭ gosudarstvennyĭ voennyĭ arkhiv), Osobyi Archive, Fond 1207. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives received the filmed collection via the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum International Archival Programs Division in 1993.