Fromms: How Julis Fromm's Condom Empire Fell to the Nazis (16 page)

The British did not welcome the German Jews with open arms. For one thing, resentment of Jews ran deep in all social classes. “No doubt,” Neville Chamberlain, Conservative Party prime minister, wrote to his sister Hilda in 1938, “Jews arent [sic] a lovable people.”
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For another, politicians were united in their belief that
Great Britain was not a country of immigration. The Conservatives aimed at achieving an ethnically and culturally homogeneous nation; Labour politicians and trade unionists did not wish to put their members in the position of having to compete with immigrants for the few available jobs.

The Aliens Act of 1905 had been put in place decades earlier to exercise greater control over the immigration of Eastern European Jews. Just a few days after the National Socialists came to power in Germany, officials noted a rapid increase in Jewish refugees. Since the visa requirement had been abolished for Germans and Austrians in 1927, the British border police had to stand by and watch as more and more newcomers masquerading as tourists or business travelers soon asked to be recognized as victims of religious and racial persecution so that they could apply for residence permits.

The officials in the Home Office Aliens Department quickly hit upon a pragmatic solution that would not cost the British taxpayers a single penny. The refugees would be permitted to extend their stay “provided that the Jewish community in Great Britain was prepared to guarantee, so far as might be necessary, adequate means of maintenance for the refugees concerned.”

Apart from this, the British considered England a temporary stopping point for Jews, who needed to move on as soon as possible to the United States, or at least to a remote part of the extensive British Empire. However, Lord Bledisloe, the governor-general of New Zealand, was one of many who were concerned that “immigrants from Germany might be at heart, if not openly, Communists, and spread revolutionary propaganda to the social unsettlement of the local community.” The Australian government chimed in with blatantly anti-Semitic arguments.

Julius Fromm entered the United Kingdom just as the political situation was coming to a head. After the Anschluss (annexation)
of Austria and the ensuing smear campaigns against the Jews, thousands sought to escape to England, where the Jewish organizations were unable to meet the full financial needs of all the destitute refugees—many of them rendered destitute by the Germans. On May 2, 1938, the Home Office therefore reintroduced a visa requirement for Austrians; nineteen days later, this requirement was extended to Germans as well.

Julius and Selma Fromm had no difficulty obtaining visas. They could easily prove to the British Aliens Department that they were able to support themselves. At first the couple stayed at the Hotel Esplanade in London near Paddington Station. Sigmund Freud had also lived in this hotel, which was run by Austrian
émigrés, after fleeing Vienna in June 1938. Later the Fromms rented a luxury apartment near Regent’s Park.

Julius and Selma Fromm in their apartment
in London, ca. 1940

No matter how comfortable their situation was, the Fromms were aware right from the time of their arrival in England that they were more tolerated than welcome. Like everyone else who had sought refuge in the British Isles, they were handed a card in German that read: “You are guests of Great Britain. Politeness and good behavior will ensure a kind reception and sympathy for you everywhere. Do not speak loudly in the streets, particularly at night. Be considerate about the comfort of other people, and avoid damaging the property and furniture of others. Never forget that England’s opinion of German refugees depends upon your behavior.”

The reverse side of this “welcome” card reminded them that “German refugees are urgently advised to exercise the utmost caution when speaking to others. For your own good, you are urgently advised not to accept any offers of employment without prior permission from the English government.”

Julius Fromm tried to obtain permission to build a condom factory, but the plan went up in smoke when the war began, so he had to bide his time. The resulting forced idleness was very hard on this indefatigable man of action. In Berlin he had been in charge of more than five hundred employees and a worldwide sales network. Now he was reduced to ruling a small household with the same iron fist that had brought him success in Germany. Soup was set out on the table for lunch at precisely 12:30. Anyone who came late went away hungry.

Possessions tie you down. The more the German Jews had worked their way up and gained recognition, the harder it was for them to relinquish what they had earned and leave their homeland. Although Julius and Selma Fromm had fled Berlin, Julius’s brothers and sisters hesitated to do the same.

Alexander had obtained a pro forma divorce from his non-Jewish wife and transferred ownership of the optician’s shop to her. Even so, he was required to designate his big, beautifully equipped shop at Memhardstrasse 4, designed by Korn and Weitzmann, a Jewish place of business. The exterior had black marble and bronze panels with two curved cut-glass display windows leading to the entrance. Two film vending machines were installed outside. Glass sliding doors, built-in leather sofas, mirrored walls, and recessed ceiling lighting made for an inviting atmosphere for customers.

Alexander Fromm wrote up a report of the events surrounding Kristallnacht and the damage to his store: “As it was marked as a Jewish business in 1938, it was subject to the night of pogroms against Jews on November 9.” All the store windows were broken, the inside décor—“optical instruments, all mirrors, glass cases, and cabinets”—destroyed, and “a large part of the goods” smashed or looted. In the later restitution proceeding, he estimated
that the “damage during the expulsion of the Jews on November 9” had amounted to twenty thousand Reichsmarks. “Right after Kristallnacht, the Gestapo came to the shop to take me into custody; I was saved only because I had already gone into hiding.”
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Alexander Fromm, ca. 1950

Salomon Fromm’s optician’s shop was also ransacked and demolished on that infamous night. Siegmund, who, like Alexander, was married to an “Aryan,” was taken away for a month to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp on the outskirts of Oranienburg, after which he was released, and required to report to the police on a daily basis for a full year.

By now, it must have been quite clear to Julius Fromm’s brothers and sisters that they had to get out of Germany as quickly as possible. The now-Aryanized Fromms Act was interested in acquiring Fromms Cosmetics Associates, which belonged in equal parts to Siegmund, Bernhard, and Else’s husband, Willy Brandenburg. On January 17, 1939, the three owners of Fromms Cosmetics had to appear before the notary Dr. Carl vom Berg on Bendlerstrasse, where Julius had been forced to sell his company. Fromms Act, owned by Göring’s godmother Elisabeth Epenstein, and represented by Julius Fromm’s longstanding directors, Berthold Viert and Karl Lewis, took over Fromms Cosmetics for a pittance: 16,700 Reichsmarks. The company’s estimated market value was 100,000 Reichsmarks. The annual sales, as a former employee later attested, amounted to approximately 300,000 Reichsmarks, and the annual profit was 35,000 Reichsmarks.

The purchase price was to be paid out by the notary once the sellers had initiated the new owners into the production process. To this end, the three of them had to “make their workforce available to the buyer.” The “sellers are obligated,” the contract further stated, to dismiss without severance pay “the remaining two non-Aryan members at the earliest possible time.” Since the cosmetics
company was not deemed “strategically important for the war effort,” it closed down in October 1942.

In early 1940—one year after the sale—the time for Siegmund Fromm and Willy Brandenburg to receive their money had finally arrived. (Because Bernhard had been expelled, he was deemed ineligible for any payment.) They were each given 5,075 Reichsmarks, but did not have unrestricted use of this money. The chief of police had issued an order for the purchase price to be reduced from 16,700 to 15,225 Reichsmarks, and the buyers were told to send an “equalization payment” of 1,035 Reichsmarks to the state treasury. Although the chief of police had dragged his feet on enforcing the payment of this reduced sum of money, he was much speedier when it came to enforcing punitive measures against the family. Since Bernhard, his wife, Lucie, and their son Frank did not have German citizenship, a
“prohibition on residence in the territory of the German Reich” was placed on the family a mere seven days after the compulsory sale, and their bank accounts were frozen.
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Fortunately for Bernhard and his family, Julius Fromm, who had arrived in London three months earlier, could vouch for them, and their visas were expedited. They lost all their possessions, however. “We had to leave behind even our clothing and linens,” Bernhard Fromm recalled after the war. “We could bring only a toothbrush and the clothes on our backs.”

Alexander Fromm’s shop in Berlin-Mitte, 1927

Soon Alexander and his family and Ruth also left for London. Friends had found Ruth a job as a domestic servant with a Jewish family. On April 19, 1939, she boarded an airplane in Berlin’s Tempelhof airport. During the first week of September, her father, Sally, and his sister Helene flew out of Berlin. Julius had already financed Rudi Fromm’s escape to South Africa as well. Rudi was the son of his brother Max, who had died in 1930.