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Jacob and Malka

On March 17th 1939 Jacob Kalman Linder received a route map authorizing him to stay for one week on Belgian territory. Presumed to have been released from Dachau concentration camp after nine weeks of internement he asked for permission to stay for a while with his family.
On March 24th he was forced to leave the territory and headed for Ostende in order to cross the channel.
According to documents at the Matteotti Fund, Jacob held a visa for Great Britain and had been freed from Dachau at the request of Clement Attlee.
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He spent the war period in London in the district of Kensington where Malka, his wife, joined him in May 1940.

An unclear past

Jacob claimed to be a former socialist deputy, whilst Bertold said that he was an elected public official of the city of Vienna. We have found no trace of the election of Jacob Kalman Linder to a public post in Vienna before the Anschluss.
According to his declarations, he received zealous assistance from the Matteotti Fund and on his return to Belgium he obtained the right to settle there. He worked for his son Bertold in a brush factory and earned a salary of 2500 Belgian Francs per month. Business was bad and debts mounted up.
When Bertold hastily left Belgium to settle in Salzburg, Jacob and Malka followed. The Linder parents took up Austrian nationality again in 1948.

From an appeal of a HIAS committee in Munich challenging the American justice department’s decision in 1951 to refuse immigration to Jacob Linder, we learn that on his arrival in Great Britain Jacob was registered as a ‘foreign enemy’ and then classified as a refugee and victim of Nazi persecution.
He was authorized to work as a barber, his work and residence permits being renewed after six months.
The American authorities refused him immigration on the basis of the following three arguments:

  • Jacob was considered to have already been granted leave to settle in Belgium and then in Austria
  • He suffered from physical infirmity that was liable to prevent him from working.
  • He was liable to be a burden on the community

Ultimately the HIAS appeal was successful and Jacob and his wife emigrated in February 1952.
Aged 69, he received refugee benefits (Bond Case) and as the Justice Department had feared, remained financially dependent on the administration until his death in California in 1957. Malka died in 1962.

We have little information on Jacob’s stay in Great Britain during the war other than the testimony in 1946 of Rabbi Sidney Black of Bayswater Synagogue.
The Linders do not appear on lists of interns and we are trying to reconstruct the movements of the couple during this period.


Jacob Kalman Linder

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Date of birth: November, 24 1883

Place of birth: Lemberg, Poland

Location before 1938: Hannovergasse,13 Vienne (20), Autriche

Steps in exile: Brussels - London

Status in 1945: Survivor

 

Deceased on June, 17 1957 in California

 

 

Malka-Blume Farber Linder

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Date of birth: October, 31 1887

Place of birth: Brody, Poland

Location before 1938: Hannovergasse,13 Vienne (20), Autriche

Steps in exile: Brussels - London

Status in 1945: Survivor

 

Deceased on October, 11 1962 in California


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