Copy of affidavit from Herman Stern to the United States Department of State, Stuttgart Consulate, 1937. (Original document in Herman Stern Papers, University of North Dakota)
In this document, Stern promised to act as a sponsor for his second cousin Seigfried Goldschmidt, of Niedertiefenbach, Germany. In other words, if Goldschmidt came to America to live, and could not find employment, Stern would provide him with financial assistance. In this way, as the document states, Mr. Goldschmidt would "at no time become a public charge upon any community" in the United States.
The State Department insisted on such documents before granting a visa that would permit someone to leave Germany and live in the United States. From the mid-1930s on, thousands of German Jews tried to find someone -- a relative or friend, a total stranger in many cases, to provide them with an affidavit.