Red Cross Volunteers

New Home Club/Red Cross, taken December 21, 1943. My mother is seventh from the right side.

Forty Jewish refugees from Germany founded the “Society of Friends” (Gesellschaft der Freunde) in Milwaukee on 8 September 1935 to aid Jews fleeing the Nazis by helping them assimilate into American society. The group changed its name to the “New Home Club” in 1941. After the U.S. entered World War II, the Club worked with the Red Cross on blood drives and on the production of surgical dressings, and assisted members in changing their “enemy alien” status.

After the war, the Club helped displaced Jews, and created a relief fund to help Jews in Austria and Germany. The Club provided financial assistance for Israel, and purchased an ambulance for use in the 1967 Six-Day War. Throughout its existence, the New Home Club actively promoted social events such as dances, dinners, and lectures. The Club’s membership, which was never very large, gradually declined as fewer persons required its assistance. The organization ceased operations in 1985, although it came together for a 50th anniversary celebration in 1987.

New Home Club Seder

This photograph was taken at the New Home Club’s Passover Seder, April 16, 1957. From left to right: Rick Florsheim, my brother Dennis Samenfeld, my cousin Sandy Baer, and me Gary Samenfeld. Standing behind us is Dr. Herman Weil who led the Seders every year. This photo was in the Milwaukee Sentinel and there was also an article about the New Home Club, whose members were primarily the families of Jews who had escaped from Nazi Germany and found their new freedom in the United States. My father was interviewed in this article: Commented Erich Samenfeld of 1729 E. Cumberland Blvd. a livestock dealer, who emigrated from northern Germany in 1938: “Those who have desperately needed a helping hand know best the needs of others in similar situations.” My Uncle Walter Jacobsohn was President of The New Home Club for 20 years.
I would like to add that in Germany, at a very young age, and at the request of Martin Buber(Central Office For Jewish adult education), Dr. Weil was in charge of a university for Jewish students, as they were no longer allowed to attend public universities. In Milwaukee, when Dr. Weil was not teaching, he was at the Federal Court House vouching for the members of The New Home Club, that they would be good citizens, so that they could get jobs. Even though all of these people had escaped from the persecution of the Nazis, being born in Germany, in America they were considered to be, “enemy aliens.”