Jerome Ney papers

Jerome Ney (1906-1988) was born in Fort Smith, Arkansas in 1906 to Rudolph (1860-1936) and Marie (nee Baer) Ney and was the youngest of their five children. Ney's father, who had emigrated from Germany in 1876, initially lived in Leadville, Colorado, before settling in Fort Smith, where he married Marie Baer and went to work at the Boston Store, which had been founded in 1879 by his brothers-in-law, Julius and Sigmund Baer. Jerome Ney attended high school in Indiana, but he returned to Fort Smith after graduation to work in the Boston Store. He spent his entire career in the retail business, rising to become president of the Boston Store and helping the chain expand into several states in the Southwest. During World War II, he went first to Atlanta and then to Washington, DC to work in the Office of Price Administration (OPA). He married Ione Sternberg in 1936, and they had two sons, Randolph J. Ney and Jerome M. Ney, Jr. Copyright Holder: Mr. Randolph Ney Correspondence, documents, telegrams, and related materials concerning the efforts of Jerome Ney, of Fort Smith, Arkansas, to help relatives emigrate from Germany between 1938 and 1941. Relatives included his second cousin, Herbert Neu, and Neu’s parents and sister, Sigmund, Carola, and Ellinor, who were able to immigrate to the United States, due to Ney’s efforts; as well as Jerome Ney’s paternal aunt, Emma David, and her four daughters, who were unable to leave Germany and perished in the Holocaust. Includes correspondence with relatives, government agencies, aid organizations, immigration authorities, and financial institutions, among others. Correspondence begins in late summer 1938, with the initial efforts of Herbert Ney to contact political figures in Arkansas, including the governor of the state, the mayor of Fort Smith, and the representative for his district in the U.S. Congress, to write letters in support of his affidavit for Herbert Neu. Although Herbert had contacted Ernestine Rodgers earlier that year, it was only later in 1938 that Ney felt he had enough papers in order to proceed with his efforts to secure a visa and ship’s passage for Herbert, who at the time was living in Portugal. In addition to political leaders, Ney was also in contact with the National Coordinating Committee of German Jewish Refugees, and with Carl Baer and Julius Baer, the latter of whom (founder of the branch of the Boston Store in Fort Smith) arranged to meet Neu when he arrived in New York in early 1939. Once Herbert Neu had safely arrived in the United States, Jerome Ney increased his efforts to obtain visas for Neu’s parents, Sigmund and Carola, who were still in Munich, Germany, and Neu’s sister, Ellinor, who by this time was in Britain. Ney contacted the U.S. Senator representing Arkansas, John Miller, who sought to intercede on his behalf with the State Department. When the visas for Neu’s parents were initially declined because of Sigmund Neu’s poor health, Jerome Ney renewed his attempts with the help of Senator Miller, and eventually visas were granted in June 1940, enabling Neu’s parents to leave Germany for the United States. The extensive correspondence between Jerome Ney and Herbert Neu during 1939-1940 also details how the two worked together following Neu’s arrival in New York to obtain the visas for Neu’s parents successfully in June 1940, and for his sister, Ellinor, toward the end of that same year. Further correspondence between Ney and Neu details how Neu’s parents arrived in the U.S. via Japan in August 1940, and how Neu’s sister, Ellinor, had to travel to Portugal, and then Uruguay, before she was able to join the family in the United States in 1941. Additional correspondence relates to unsuccessful efforts to help the family of Paula David, of Frankfurt am Main, to leave Germany. This includes correspondence with the German Jewish Aid Committee and with Jerome Ney’s sister, Gladys Greenebaum in mid-1939, and extending through correspondence with Sigmund and Carola Neu, after their arrival in the United States.