Exhibit tells the story of Jewish and Black history

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A docent has her first look at "Beyond Swastika and Jim Crow: Jewish Refugee Scholars in Black Colleges" at the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center Tuesday. |Suzanne Tennant~Sun-Times Media

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Scholar Ernst Borinski and many just like him led two very different and distinguished lives by the time their careers ended.

Before 1939, German-born Borinski studied law, the humanities and arts at multiple universities. He clerked in the Prussian High Court, served as a judicial officer and worked for a private company on labor law issues.

But Borinski was Jewish, and when the Nazis marched into Austria in 1938, he left his homeland and found himself in America trying to create a new life.

The Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center's newest traveling exhibition isn't simply about the exodus of a few dozen German-Jewish scholars like Borinski.

The under-reported story, told in an extraordinarily dense and cohesive manner, is about what happened to these scholars once they arrived here. Many were unable to find jobs in larger metropolitan cities so they accepted teaching positions at historically black colleges and universities in the Jim Crow South.

Using photographs, journals, memoirs, films, books and other resources, "Beyond Swastika and Jim Crow: Jewish Refugee Scholars at Black Colleges" documents the bond forged between these educators and their unlikely students -- the empathy shared between the two groups and how the refugee scholars helped change the lives of the students they came to teach.

The reverse was certainly true, too.

"The roofs were leaking, the floors were slanted and the salary was barely existent," wrote Lore Rasmussen who became a pioneer in mathematics education and a civil rights activist after finding work at Alabama's Talladega College.

"The faculty has just taken a salary cut, and the white community would not associate with us. But Talladega was an experience where you could live out your ideals."

During last week's docent training for the museum's latest addition, Director of Education Noreen Brand described how the exhibition was compiled.

"There's a nice mixture of artifacts, a nice mix of objects and a nice mix of photographs," she said. "You'll find it to be a very user-friendly exhibit."

In a film clip that caps off the exhibition, one refugee scholar explains what he experienced when getting a job at a college in the Jim Crow South.

"I found I had so much in common with the students," he said.

No doubt, the most moving aspect of "Beyond Swastika and Jim Crow" are first-hand accounts of these relationships, which in many cases lasted for the remainder of teachers' lifetimes. African-American students, now in successful and important positions, passionately recount the impact the scholars had in shaping their future.

One interviewee in the film calls the story one of most remarkable in the annals of education.

"They found a place where they could make contributions, they found a place where they could pursue intellectual life and they found a place where they could make a difference in American society," a pundit states.

Like the permanent exhibit on the floor above, "Beyond Swastika and Jim Crow" takes visitors through winding hallways of artifacts enhanced by striking photos and insightful quotes and written summary elaborating on the displays.

The exhibit begins with introduction and background on some of the scholars, providing a sense of what pre-war life was like for them.

Scholars are quoted about their future plans in Germany and where they would have liked their distinguished careers to have progressed.

"You're seeing interruption -- the constant interruption of their careers and how they move on and make the best out of a horrible situation," Brand said. "It ends up not being such a horrible situation."

That section gives way to the students' world, the Jim Crow South where the two groups would ultimately and improbably be united. In one striking image just after the exhibition takes its turn both literally and figuratively, children jump rope and play in front of homes in their poor community in Houston's Fourth Ward.

"We know these kinds of homes and these kinds of neighborhoods exist today," Brand said. "You're looking at poverty-stricken communities who made the best of what they had. You see children happy outside playing. It's not about what you have. It's about who you are."

The educational component of "Beyond Swastika and Jim Crow" is not confined to the experiences of the Jewish scholars. Equally important are facts about local segregation laws -- the "Jim Crow" laws -- that made discrimination against African-Americans legal.

Brand made special note to the docents that the suffering of the Jewish citizens of Nazi Germany and the African-Americans in the Jim Crow South should never be compared.

Rather, it's important to understand the circumstances that forced expelled Jewish scholars to leave their homelands and start new lives just as it's important to understand the conditions under which their future students had to live.

The exhibit for the most part purposefully shies away from emphasizing famous scholars and students from this period although there is one memorable photo of Albert Einstein lecturing in a classroom filled with African-Americans.

Instead, the exhibit highlights "everyday professors" as Brand said.

They taught in southern states far away from Chicago, but there are Chicago connections throughout "Beyond Swastika and Jim Crow."

Borinski, for example, earned his master's degree at the University of Chicago. Ernst Manasse tried to come to Chicago and find a job but was unsuccessful. Rasmussen attended the University of Illinois with her husband before they went to teach at Talladega College.

In fact, 20 of the original 350 professors who came to the United States were originally sent to Chicago to look for work. Nine went to the University of Chicago.

Collection and Exhibitions Curator Arielle Weininger has added a fascinating Chicago-only piece to the exhibition's collection as well.

A small section on local real estate focuses on the covenance and laws in effect until 1968 in places like Skokie, Evanston, Northfield and Hyde Park. Many will find it particularly interesting that discriminatory housing laws were on the books in this area for so long.

Weininger said that she thought it was important to show that Jim Crow-flavored laws were not only relegated to the south.

"When we select these exhibitions," said Weininger, "we're trying to bring in information not necessarily covered in the main exhibit. This one also has an important American connection, of course, and there are even local connections throughout it."

Visitors will also benefit from taking time to sit and read in a section in the exhibit that opens up to a table with books and pamphlets. Here, one can learn even more about the scholars and their relationships that were forged with students.

The pamphlet is filled with intimate newspaper articles, personal letters and ruminations that give credence to Brand's summary: "They formed symbiotic, long-term very fruitful relationships. They found a home, they found a passion for the teaching that they were doing."

She echoes the sentiments of Borinski.

"I shared my life, my insights and my knowledge with students," he said. "It made my life joyful and meaningful."

This in the end is really what "Beyond Swastika and Jim Crow" finally comes down to -- scholars in the worst of conditions finding meaningful careers in places they could never have imagined.

"This show is really about education," Brand said, "and about how these professors influence the lives and the futures of these African-American students. It's not a story that's been told often but it's sure one that deserves to be told."

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