In 1936, at the behest of Paul Baerwald and Felix Warburg and the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), David Glick, a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania attorney, traveled to Germany to act as an independent liaison between Nazi officials and Jewish organizations. His primary objective in this capacity was to assist German Jews in leaving the country, through whatever legal means possible. He met with Heinrich Himmler (Head of the Secret State Police), Reinhard Heydrich (head of Security Services), Dr. Karl Haselbacher (Deputy in Charge of the 'Jewish Problem'), and Dr. Werner Best (Deputy Leader of the Secret State Police). From 1936-38, David Glick, as the unofficial representative of the JDC in Germany, criss-crossed the country meeting with leaders of major Jewish organizations and members of various congregations. Much of his work was conducted at great risk to his own personal safety. He worked with the Reichsvertretung der Juden in Deutschland (The Council for the Representation of Jews in the Third Reich), and the U.S. and British governments to assist thousands of German Jews in emigrating to Palestine and South America. In 1937 he successfully negotiated the release and emigration of 120 of the 300 Jews who were then prisoners in the Dachau concentration camp. In 1939, David Glick visited every country in South America on behalf of the JDC to survey the needs of the German and Austrian refugees who had settled there. He brought with him a 16mm camera, and he filmed his experiences with the new refugees in many of these countries. The films in this collection are the only photographic documentation known to exist of David Glick's journeys. They are a testament to the work that a private American citizen was carrying out on behalf of the Jews of Germany when the official U.S. government policy had yet to acknowledge the extent of Adolf Hitler's plans to eradicate European Jewry.
A report titled"Rescue and Resettlemen" that was prepared by the donor, Mr. Allen Hepner contains copies of JDC letters, David Glick's letters while in Germany, and David Glick's country reports back to the JDC while traveling across South America. Please contact Film and Video Archive to access these materials.
Mixed on reel: 16mm, Kodachrome camera reversal original, film date coded 1939; black and white camera reversal original, film dated coded 1938.
Begins in color: A hydroplane is docked on the water in Trinidad."Pan American Airline" logo and lettering, crew members work on propellers and engine, walking along the wing, in the FG a young boy looks at the camera and watches the men on the"dec" of the plane. Several passengers board the plane, both men and women, all seem to be American or European. INT of plane: the cargo hold. MCU, camera pans interior of plane and passengers, some are working, writing notes on a tablet, others look out the window, and still others recline over several seats and go to sleep. EXT, MS, a young local boy stands looking at the camera, wearing only a shirt, no trousers. Pan left to another young boy also clothed only in a shirt, holding a sign on a wooden stick. The letters are not legible on the sign. The boys stand along a dirt road, the camera follows them as they turn and walk away. LS, the young boy with the sign stands on a dirt road in a residential area. Several houses look somewhat downtrodden. Local Trinidadian women, all wearing head scarves. VS, scenes of daily life on the streets of Trinidad, women carry bundles on their heads, children run about in the streets, cars, horse drawn carts and bicycles pass by. LS of a field where men and boys are playing soccer. 01:02:34 EXT, MS, good downtown and market scenes featuring the following shops:"Islamia S.A.Wahid & Co" selling silks, curios, art work, brassware and jewelry."Shanghai Bazaa" owned by Moses Tzafaty,"Hindoo Bazaa", also visible are signs advertising photo processing services. INT, MS two of the men seen inside the Pan Am plane are sitting at a table talking (JDC representatives?). EXT, MS an Indian beggar in the market in Trinidad. LS, waterfall cascading from a hilltop, male and female bathers at the bottom. EXT, Venezuela. LS, several men in straw hats and women (a mix of locals and Europeans) mill about in the BG, in the FG there are piles of steamer trunks that belong to the German Jews who are immigrating to the country to escape Nazi persecution. Camera pans the area to reveal several more trunks and people. There is a kitchen set up outdoors, under a tent, women are washing pots and pans; a portly European Jewish? man walks about in shirt, bowtie, sunglasses and straw hat. He jokes with one of the younger local boys. The portly man is seen again, without his sunglasses, hat in hand and arm in arm with a woman, presumably his wife, they walk toward the camera smiling. Camera cuts to a Venezuelan Red Cross truck and some of the newly arrived female immigrants from Europe talking to the local women all wear brightly flowered dresses. VS, images of the city (presumably Caracas, but this has not been verified) and surrounding countryside. Bull fight in an outdoor arena, there are four matadors in the ring and a few different bulls; the camera captures much of the action in the ring and pans the crowd of spectators in the stands. 01:06:31 In black and white, most likely in the Andes in Columbia, Ecuador, or Peru (Glick traveled in all three of these countries for the JDC). MLS, a statue of the Virgin Mary on a rock, perched above the rapids of a river. CU of graffiti on a rock above the rapids reading:"Prefier" which means"prefe" in Spanish. EXT, image of rail tracks shot from inside a funicular car going up a steep incline, another car passes going in the opposite direction. VS, locals in what seems to be Peru, the first shots are in the countryside, and then in the city. 08:30. Large cathedral in Ecuador, Iglesia La Compania. 01:08:44 In color, EXT, MS of a man and a teenage girl sitting on stone steps at the base of"La Mitad del Mund" monument in Ecuador. They smile at the camera. He sits one step above her with his hands on her shoulders, she wears a large straw hat that looks like a sombrero. Camera pans the surrounding landscape: mountains, sand, cacti, etc. MS of David Glick sitting on the steps of the monument talking to the girl in a sombrero. MS, the teenage girl with her mother and father (they are German Jewish émigrés) in front of a large, impressive hacienda style house, they play with their three dogs. More shots of the garden and the home, the girl feeding pigeons on a terrace, a peacock walking past the camera, etc. The scene switches to a crowded city street shot from inside a moving vehicle (unsteadiness of image), probably a train station in Ecuador. Street is revealed to be across from the train depot, there are many local peasants (Andean), with all of their belongings. EXT, MS, train station and train tracks, the sign above the tracks is not entirely legible, but the location"Guamot" is legible. People in European and traditional dress wait with their luggage along the track. Guamote is still a bustling market town today. VS of a young boy carrying a sack of twigs on his back, and smiling for the camera, possibly in Bolivia. Another young boy in MCU smiles as he plays a wooden flute. Cut back to the first boy also playing a flute. EXT, HAS of street where a woman walks barefoot carrying her child in a papoose on her back. The woman and several other workers sort potatoes in the dirt, harvest potatoes in a field, in a village close to the Titicaca Sea, possibly Tiquina Bolivia. MS of two local fishermen by the side of the Titicaca Sea with a rickety wooden boat. 01:10:47 In black and white, a large plaza and the Cathedral of Lima in Peru. VS, establishing shots/travelogue shots of Lima and its architecture, avenues, people, daily activity, etc. Scenes of Inca Ruins - Huaca Pucllana in the countryside of Peru. Scenes shot from the window of a plane flying over the Andes, jerky images. 01:12:46 In color, mountainous landscape viewed from the ground. MS, David Glick in beige raincoat and gray fedora standing along a rocky shoreline of the Titicaca Sea in Bolivia. Images of locals in Tiquina, a village at the Titicaca Sea, working in fields. Bolivian people at the local market in La Paz, probably the San Pedro neighborhood. 01:13:49 Two of the men accompanying Glick on this JDC sponsored journey,(this footage is very washed out and overexposed) smoking cigars and talking to the cameraman - Moritz Hochschild is the man with a hat – profile. They are at the airport of La Paz El Alto, in BG is the Pan American Grace Airlines plane seen much earlier in this reel. The plane is parked in an open field/air strip. Images of the South Pacific Ocean, and rocky cliffs along the shoreline. Market scenes, women selling produce, mostly locals in the scene but there are some European-looking customers and sailors in uniform (unidentified country). VS, city streets, mule carts. Woman dressed in black, including head scarf, walks along the side of the road with her son, both carry bundles on their heads. This area is flat and very green, different from the rocky vistas seen earlier. A mule walks about the street unharnessed, an ox-drawn cart passes down the street, a woman rides atop a mule, also wearing black and a black headscarf. 15:00 The airport in Arequipa, Peru. This town is known for its mix of Spanish and Indian heritage. VS of mechanics working on the Pan American plane, the pilot can be seen getting off the plane in one shot. Flight from Arequipa over the snow-capped peaks of the Andes, Titicaca Sea, La Paz City, approaching the airport of La Paz El Alto. Back on the ground, llamas being herded through the street by a local woman. 16:39 La Paz Calacoto at the Humbold breach. Thatched roof house in valley. 16:47 Shots of valley, Valle de la Luna Rio Abajo in La Paz, Bolivia. locals walking along the streets of Andean town.17:02 Sopocachi in La Paz Bolivia.
David Glick's JDC mission to South America in the late 1930s