In 1934, the first refugees from National Socialism founded a Jewish aid association [“Jüdischer Hilfsverein”] in Bombay in cooperation with former Jewish emigrants. It was later converted into the Jewish Relief Association (JRA) to assist refugees in financial and other difficulties. First as an association, later as a society, the JRA tried to create a social and economic safety net for Jewish refugees in India, with later branches opening in Calcutta and Madras. Oscar Gans, an exiled university professor of dermatology from Frankfurt/Main was one of the first secretaries of the Jewish Relief Association. Later, Alfred W. Rosenfeld (1908–1946) and Ernst Alexander Lomnitz in particular became involved as managing directors, together with many volunteer helpers. Major Indo-Jewish entrepreneurs like Sir Alywn Ezra were elected as presidents in Bombay in 1939. Central European exiles and emigrants did the day-to-day work and Indian Jewish entrepreneurs donated generously to aid projects. In 1942, the Jewish Relief Association had 300 paying members and 424 in 1945, some of whom were commercial enterprises, Jewish charities and wealthy private individuals such as Sir Victor Sassoon and Sir Alwyn Ezra.
By 1938 the workload and the required commitment of the refugee helpers had multiplied due to the increasing number of refugees. Aid initially simply included assistance on arrival, such as finding accommodation and employment, but now the JRA began lobbying for the right to act as an official agency for Jewish refugees with the British-Indian authorities.
After the occupation of Austria and Czechoslovakia by Nazi Germany (1938−1939) and the further increase in refugees arriving in India, political lobbying in London was intensified and, from 1939, the JRA was allowed to act as sponsor and official guarantor for refugees. The JRA’s financial guarantee was made a prerequisite for the granting of a visa by the Indian Government.
Financial support for refugees in the form of loans, subsidies and donations until they were able to support themselves, along with assistance with finding accommodation and work, were the focus of the JRA’s interventions.
A dense network of economic contacts made it possible for the refugees to find work with small Jewish businesses, some of which had been founded by former exiles. Large Jewish companies, such as the industrial conglomerate E.D. Sassoon & Co Ltd. which owned many textile factories, like the India United Mills in Bombay, also employed refugees. Sassoon also ran a training centre for textile engineers in Bombay. In addition, the JRA arranged apprenticeships as well as schools, including boarding schools, for refugee children.
Accommodation was initially organised informally, in the private homes of the members of the JRA or their friends. Later, probably from 1939, the JRA operated two hostels in Bombay, the first in Byculla district. “This was a big apartment on a several-storeyed building facing the main road. The large room I was assigned had four beds [...] Fortunately all the rooms had stone floors so the bugs as well as large cockroaches and gekkos could easily be seen. [...] Mrs. Bergwerk was in charge. She saw to it that we were fed and she supervised the housekeeping. There were maybe about twenty people living in the home. A few were very old and there was also a family with a 14 year-old daughter.” (Kahn 2005, 40.) The second dormitory was managed by her husband Markus Bergwerk from Vienna, his son Walter Bergwerk remembered: “At the same time, the demand for places at the hostel was increasing as refugees continued to arrive during the war by an overland route. After some discussion, my father was employed to open a second hostel some distance away and my mother accepted the post of managing the existing hostel. The hostels were rather spartan and people tried to leave as soon as they were able to make their own way. There were inevitably some residents who never left, but on the whole the pressure on places eased as the years passed.” (Bergwerk 2011, 3).
After the internments of Central European refugees (as they were regarded ‘enemy aliens’ after the outbreak of war) in September 1939 and May 1940, the JRA took over the political representation of the Jewish internees. When the British government in India forged plans at the beginning of 1946 to close the internment camps and repatriate the remaining internees, it was suggested that the remaining Jewish internees would be repatriated to Germany. This was met with a storm of protest in the Jewish refugee community and a committee of the JRA travelled to New Delhi for successful negotiations with the Government of India.
During and after the Second World War, the Jewish Relief Association took over international communication services. It served as a contact point for the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, the International Red Cross and international tracing services, and also operated an information bulletin. Cultural and social services were also offered and existing synagogues were invited to provide religious services.