This ca. one pagelong memorandum written by the Hamburg school administration authority and dated November 24, 1938 records a statement by Arthur Spier, director of the Talmud Torah School and the Israelitischer Gemeindeverband Hamburg's Association of Israelite Communities in Hamburg delegate for educational matters, on the Talmud Torah School’s admission policy. This memorandum belongs to a series of memoranda written by the school administration authority documenting their conversations with Arthur Spier and the situation of the Talmud Torah School.
With regard to the school’s admission policy, Spier states that the Talmud Torah School only admitted students of the Jewish faith according to its by-laws. The decisive factor was a student’s belonging to the Jewish faith, not membership in the Association of Israelite Communities Israelitischer Gemeindeverband. He gives several examples to illustrate this point. Under the circumstances at the time, however, the school was willing to admit all students – including those who did not identify as Jewish – who were excluded from the public schools based on the Nuremberg Laws. Children who belonged to another religion, such as Christianity for example, were excluded from admission. The last paragraph of the memorandum states that Spier had subsequently revoked this restriction and that the school was now willing to admit Christians – baptized “Jews” – while excusing them from religious education classes. The memorandum is signed with the abbreviation “Sch.” Most likely it stands for Studienrat Schallehn of the school administration authority.
Memorandum by the Superior School Authority – School Administration, November 24, 1938 (translated by Insa Kummer), edited in: Key Documents of German-Jewish History, <https://dx.doi.org/10.23691/jgo:source-141.en.v1> [March 29, 2025].
