Fritz Buff papers

Fritz (now Fred) Buff (1921-2017) was the son of Julius and Emma Buff. He was born on July 26, 1921 in Krumbach, Germany, a small Bavarian town where his family had lived for several generations. There, his parents ran an upholstery supply business. Fritz has one sister, Anni (now Anne), two years younger. At the age of ten, Fritz left home to attend a secondary school in Ulm, where he also went to Hebrew school and belonged to a Jewish club and sports organization. He graduated in 1936 and returned to Krumbach where he worked briefly in a local bank, the town's only surviving Jewish business. After six months Fritz left for Munich to study mechanics at a Jewish vocational school. In the summer of 1938 the student body was forced to participate in the dismantling of the city's main synagogue. On the day before Kristallnacht, Fritz and a group of his classmates fled the city by bicycle to evade the annual Beer Hall Putsch commemoration. They spent the day playing soccer, during which Fritz injured his leg and had to be removed by ambulance to the Jewish hospital in town. When the pogrom began that evening, a group of Nazis searched the hospital and began seizing Jewish men. Though Fritz's injury was not serious, the doctor told the Nazis that Fritz needed to stay in the hospital for a full month and therefore he was left alone. Fritz's father, a diabetic, was arrested that same evening and sent to Dachau. Though he was released four weeks later, he never fully recovered his health. In the wake of Kristallnacht, the Jewish vocational school was closed, and Fritz returned to Krumbach, where his family focused their efforts on emigration. Relatives in the United States arranged for Fritz to receive a Cuban visa with the understanding that his parents and sister would follow shortly. Fritz sailed on the MS St. Louis. On board he spent most of his time in the company of Fritz Hilb, a friend from Ulm, and Georg and Werner Lenneberg from Cologne. When the ship was forced to return to Europe, the four were granted asylum in Belgium. Four several months they shared an apartment in Brussels. Meanwhile, Fritz's parents and sister managed to reach the United States by way of Italy in late 1939. A few months later, Fritz secured papers and set sail for America. He arrived in New York on January 13, 1940, seven months after the St. Louis returned to Europe. In 1945 he married Lotte Neuberger, another German-Jewish refugee, originally from Ichenhausen. The Fritz Buff papers consist of biographical materials, letters, and a travel diary documenting Fritz Buff from Krumbach, Germany, his voyage aboard the MS St. Louis to Cuba in 1939, the ship’s forced return to Europe, his life as a refugee in Brussels, Belgium, and his immigration to the United States in 1940. Biographical materials include identification, registration, and immigration papers and a ration card documenting Buff’s status as a German Jew, his relocation to Belgium following the return of the St. Louis in June 1939, and his immigration to the United States in 1940. Two letters from Fritz Buff describe his voyage aboard the St. Louis. One documents his optimistic perspective during the voyage to Havana while he still believed he would be permitted to disembark. The other describes his disappointment and anxiety upon learning he would not be allowed into Cuba, wondering what his fate would be, and learning he would be allowed into Belgium. Buff’s travel diary documents his experiences aboard the St. Louis on route to Havana and then back to Europe. He describes the ship, his fellow passengers, the food and entertainment on board, the optimism about a new life in Cuba, reaching Havana, growing anxiety that the passengers were not being disembarked, the agony and despair of being turned around and sent back to Europe, and the relief at learning the Netherlands, Belgium, France, and England would welcome the refugees on board.