A Community under Siege: The Jews of Breslau under Nazism 9781503626270

Citation preview

A Community under Siege

Stanford Studies in Jewish History and Culture edi ted by

Aron Rodrigue and Steven J. Zipperstein

A Community under Siege The Jews of Breslau under Nazism

Abraham Ascher

stanford universi t y press stanford, california

To Henry, Max, and Esther

Stanford University Press Stanford, California ©2007 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system without the prior written permission of Stanford University Press. Printed in the United States of America on acid-free, archival-quality paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Ascher, Abraham, 1928 – A community under siege : the Jews of Breslau under Nazism / Abraham Ascher. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 978-0-8047-5518-4 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Jews—Poland—Wroclaw—History—20th century. 2. Antisemitism—Poland—Wroclaw—History—20th century. 3. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)—Poland—Wroclaw. 4. Wroclaw (Poland)—History—20th century. 5. National socialism—Poland—Wroclaw. 6. Germany—Politics and government—1933 –1945. I. Title. ds134.66.w76a83 2007 940.53180943852 — dc22 2007006754 Typeset by Newgen in 10.5/14 ITC Galliard

Contents

Acknowledgments Introduction

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1.

Jews Settle in Breslau

27

2.

“Creeping Persecution,” 1933 –1934

69

3.

Calm Before the Storm

112

4.

Kristallnacht

166

5.

Tightening the Screws, 1939 –1941

204

6.

The End

230

Conclusion

275

Reference Matter Notes Glossary Bibliography Index Photographs follow page 148

283 301 303 312

Acknowledgments

Although this book deals with events during a relatively short period, a mere ten years, the search for information has been extraordinarily complicated and difficult. My focus, after all, was a community of some 23,000 Jews in the German city of Breslau that had disappeared as a result of Nazi persecution. True, over half them had managed to escape, but the refugees were scattered all over the world and most of them left few traces of their recollections about their lives in their hometown. I knew that the Jewish community in Breslau had maintained a substantial archive, but I did not know what had happened to it during the last months of the Second World War, when much of the city was destroyed. When I began the research for this book it seemed at times that I was engaged in a futile task. After a few weeks of inquiries and reading I discovered that the prospects for fruitful research were much brighter. For one thing, I learned that the archives of the Jewish community had survived the war and were now deposited at the Z˙ydowski Instytut Historyczny (Jewish Institute of History) in Warsaw, which offered me full access to their holdings. In Wrociaw (formerly Breslau) the state archive has a huge collection of Nazi documents on the treatment of Jews from 1933 to 1943, and, again, I want to thank the staff for allowing me to examine and to photocopy large quantities of material relevant to my topic. The following archives gave me access to testimonies, autobiographies, and correspondence of several Breslau Jews as well as documents of Jewish institutions in Breslau and of foreign diplomats: Deutsches Institut für Internationale Bildungsgeschichtliche Forschung in Berlin; the Central Archives of the History of the Jewish People in Jerusalem; the Cen-

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tral Zionist Archive in Jerusalem; the Leo Baeck Institute in New York City; the National Archives in Washington, DC, and Hyattsville, Maryland; the Public Record Office in London; the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC; the Wiener Library in London; the Yad Vashem Archives in Jerusalem. I am grateful to the Earhart Foundation for a grant that made possible visits to these archives. I am also grateful to a number of Breslauer who helped me in various ways. My brother, Henry Ascher, and my sister, Esther Adler, recalled several family incidents of the 1930s and confirmed my own recollection of several others. Ralph Preiss shared his reminiscences of Breslau with me and kindly made available a collection of family letters and memorabilia. The interviews with Moshe Chalamish (formerly Moritz Bomstein), Ernst Fraenkel, Gabriel Holzer, Yitzhak (Kurt) Janower, Walter Laqueur, Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, Guenter Lewy, Ruth Tuckman, and Karla Wolf provided me not only with valuable information about conditions in Breslau in the 1930s but also with interesting insights into the response of the Jews to the Nazi persecution. Joanna Helander de domo Koszyk and Bo Persson sent me several very interesting documents of family members in Breslau. Janet Hadda gave me an unpublished manuscript by her grandfather. And Frank Ephraim, the author of a fine study of German refugees in the Philippines, kindly sent me his latest findings on the refugees in Manila. Walter Laqueur and Guenter Lewy, both Breslauer themselves, read the manuscript with much care; their suggestions saved me from some mistakes and encouraged me to do further work on the manuscript and thus to strengthen it. Julian H. Franklin and Marc Raeff read a draft as “outsiders” and also made comments that led to its improvement. In his capacity as copy editor, Richard Gunde not only handled all the technical aspects of turning the manuscript into a publishable book with great skill but also made valuable suggestions on style and content. Finally, my wife, Anna S. Ascher, a professional editor, read the work and made numerous suggestions that made it better stylistically and substantively. The remaining shortcomings of the book, needless to say, are my responsibility.

Introduction

One day after I arrived in my hometown, Breslau (now Wrociaw), in April 2004, I attended Sabbath services at the only functioning synagogue in a room in a run-down building near the majestic Storch Synagogue, which the Nazis devastated on Kristallnacht in November 1938. Services at the Storch Synagogue, modern Orthodox in ritual, used to attract hundreds of people and were led by an accomplished cantor and the highly regarded Rabbi Moses Hoffmann. The exquisite chanting of the all-male choir made attendance something of an event for those of us who normally prayed at one of the smaller synagogues. By contrast, about thirty people attended the service on the day I visited in the spring of 2004; it was conducted by a man in his early eighties who told me that he planned to continue for as long as he could, but he was not sure that anyone would be able to replace him. The Wrociaw Jewish community, numbering perhaps three hundred families, cannot afford a rabbi and the sexton is not sufficiently knowledgeable to lead the service; thus, the congregants, all of them eastern European, face a bleak future in seeking to retain their identity as Jews. It was a traditional service conducted entirely in Ashkenazic Hebrew, and men and women were seated separately. But I was told that only one person could be considered religiously observant, and he had converted from Catholicism. A highly cultivated man and gifted in foreign languages, he had learned Hebrew and Jewish rituals but is thinking of emigrating because in Wrociaw, or anywhere else in Poland, he cannot provide his children with the kind of Jewish upbringing he considers desirable.

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Introduction

One other Polish person in the synagogue that morning was well versed in Jewish ritual and theology, and she, too, had acquired this knowledge as an adult. As an infant, she had been placed with a Christian family to protect her from the Nazis. Raised as a Catholic, she discovered her origins only in her twenties and then decided to return to Judaism. After years of study, she was sufficiently familiar with the texts and traditions of Judaism to deliver a “dvar Torah” (Torah commentary) during the service. She spoke for about ten to fifteen minutes, and although I could not follow her presentation—she spoke in Polish— the attentiveness of the congregation and what I learned about her afterwards testified to her intellectual stature. After the service refreshments were served and an engaging couple from Israel led the singing of Hebrew songs. The Israelis had come to Wrociaw for the year to teach in the Jewish school and to help the community observe various holidays and master the readings from the Torah during services. The congregants very much appreciated their efforts, but no one knew for sure whether they would be replaced by other Israelis when they left. One of the most vocal participants in the singing was a short, portly, bearded man who appeared to be in the wrong place: he was oddly dressed in a smock and a hat resembling a fez, and unlike all the other men he did not put on a prayer shawl (tallit). I was told that he was not Jewish but had learned all the prayers and songs, and regularly attends the synagogue on Saturdays. At one time he had hoped to wear a prayer shawl until he was advised that this would be inappropriate for a nonJew. A congregant asked why he did not convert since he seemed to feel at home in the synagogue. He replied that he did not wish to do that, even though he did want to continue attending services. I have noticed that elsewhere in Europe, especially in Germany, a few non-Jews regularly participate in synagogue services. I first became aware of this in 1986, when I attended services at the small synagogue in Bonn. When I entered the hall I had difficulty at first in making out the words of the cantor and asked a man what page in the prayer book I should turn to. The man became visibly agitated and mumbled something to the effect that he didn’t know. I was surprised, but I quickly managed to find the right place in the book on my own. After the services ended, the congregation went to another room for refreshments and at the end of a

Introduction

long table there was a group of several men, including the one who had been unable to answer my query. The group participated in all the festivities and had memorized some of the songs and prayers, but other than that they remained apart from the Jews. For them, participation in Jewish rituals is a form of repentance for the Holocaust. Before entering the synagogue in Wrociaw, I walked along the Wallstrasse, now Ulica Wiodkowica, which had been the center of the offices of Jewish religious and charitable organizations in prewar Breslau. I remembered that the renowned Jewish Theological Seminary stood almost directly across from the Storch Synagogue. Now there was a big hole; not a trace of the building remained. As I stood there looking at the wasteland, a man on the other side of the street began ranting at me. I could not understand him, but he clearly suspected that I was up to no good. Later a Polish friend explained that he probably thought I was a German interested in buying property in Wrociaw; one of the great fears of local citizens is that the Germans will come back and reclaim the city, which had been inhabited overwhelmingly by Germans until 1945. Although I was a boy of ten when I left Breslau in 1939, I remembered a city with a sizable and affluent Jewish population—about twenty-three thousand, the third largest in Germany—many of them educated Germans who identified fully as Jews, had some grounding in Hebrew and religious ritual, and supported an array of institutions widely known for their excellence: the Jewish Theological Seminary, the fountainhead of Conservative Judaism; a modern hospital that treated Jews and Gentiles alike; a rigorous school with courses in religious and secular subjects; and a welfare program that offered extensive help to the needy. Now there was virtually no trace of that community, and even many of the streets where Jews used to live had been reduced to rubble during the Second World War and were no longer recognizable, making me all the more curious about that community’s fate. In 1933, most Jews in Breslau believed that they would outlive Nazism, and for some ten years a fair number of them did somehow persevere. I wanted to find out how they had managed that. How had they coped with the persecution inflicted upon them? Were they able to preserve their institutions? Did they take all the necessary measures to protect

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their interests? When, if ever, did they give up their hopes for survival under Nazism, and how did they then conduct their affairs? The experiences of my immediate family—my parents, two brothers, and sister—made me all the more curious about the fate of the roughly one-half of the Breslau Jewish community that still lived in the city at the outbreak of World War II and that was almost completely exterminated. We managed to leave the country just in the nick of time, and I attribute our good fortune partly to our position as outsiders in German society. I think it was easier for us than for many other Jews to pack our bags. My parents had moved to Breslau from Galicia, Poland, in 1920 and never regarded themselves as Germans, and as highly traditional and Orthodox Jews they were never surprised by new outbursts of anti-Semitism. On the contrary, they accepted them as almost a force of nature, about which little could be done except escape. They retained Polish passports and I don’t think that they ever contemplated seeking German citizenship, which in any case was extremely difficult to obtain. Still, it was not easy for them to give up their modest business, which was mainly managed by my mother and which enabled us to live comfortably. We had a roomy apartment on a pleasant street with a telephone, something of a luxury at the time, and until 1935 we even employed a maid. During the summertime we frequently traveled to Poland for several weeks to see our grandparents and close relatives, and on one occasion I spent a few weeks in the popular resort town of Zakopane at the foot of the Tatra Mountains along the Slovak border. We had relatively few expenses, since the business was in our apartment. My parents sold a wide range of household goods on the installment plan to ordinary workers, who would pay one or two marks each Sunday morning when either my father or mother appeared at their homes. By the late 1930s some customers refused to honor their debts to Jews, but most continued to make the payments. My parents would take along my sister, Esther, then twelve or thirteen years old, and wait downstairs while she went to various apartments to collect the money. They sent her into the building because she did not “look Jewish” and would therefore not arouse the curiosity or perhaps anger of the customer’s neighbors. Several greeted her with “You poor Jewish child!”

Introduction

Once, when she appeared just before Easter, a customer, bemoaning the fact that she would not get any chocolate Easter eggs, gave her some. Esther liked chocolate, but since it was a day or so before Passover the chocolate would not be kosher for eight days. She hid the sweets until after the Jewish holidays and then ate them. During the early Hitler years we rarely experienced any personal anti-Semitic incidents. We had never socialized with Gentiles and my siblings and I attended a Jewish school, which further sheltered us from encounters with non-Jews. After the mid-1930s I was occasionally molested in the street by youngsters who taunted me as a Jew and threw a few punches at me, but when I was accompanied by my sister I felt safe. She was not very big but she was fearless, and would threaten to beat up anyone who dared to touch me. My clearest recollection of an antiSemitic incident was actually of my own making. Late in March 1936, Hitler came to Breslau, and I, as a boy of seven and a half, decided it would be “fun” to see him when he appeared on the balcony or at the window of the Monopol Hotel, and I persuaded one of my cousins to accompany me. It turned out to have been a far more dangerous and foolish venture than I could have known at the time. Jewish families who lived on the route of Hitler’s motorcade were warned to keep their windows closed. Whether the order was designed as a safety measure or simply to prevent Jews from viewing the Führer is not known.1 But we did take one precaution. As we approached the crowd we took off our hats, which, as children from religiously Orthodox families, we always wore. We thought that we would thus be able to conceal our heritage, and for a while we succeeded. As soon as Hitler appeared on the balcony, a German picked me up to get a better view of the Leader, but when I did not cheer—I knew that he was not our friend—the man looked at my face and threw me down, yelling “Verdammter Jude” (damn Jew). My cousin and I ran for our lives. By the summer of 1938, my mother, who made the most crucial decisions in our family, decided that it was time to leave the country. Ever since the fall of 1937 the government had engaged in a new and particularly savage campaign against Jews, prompting our extended family to devote most of our social gatherings to the questions of emigration and the possibility of making a living in a foreign country. Two of my

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uncles went to Palestine, where they bought some property. On their return, they spoke favorably about the country but warned that anyone who moved there would face great difficulties for the first two or three years. My mother, who was not only enterprising and headstrong but also witty, remarked that if that was the case she would go to Palestine the “fourth year.” She was far from hostile to Zionism, but she was not prepared to begin a struggle for existence all over again. She was fortyseven years old and suffered terribly from diabetes. She wanted to go to the United States, but it was very difficult to obtain a visa for the entire family. She therefore decided to try for a visitor visa for my father, who, according to the family plan, would change his status to that of a permanent resident and then bring all of us to New York. But even a visitor visa was not easily attainable. The United States consul in Breslau did not encourage my mother to believe that he would give one to my father, but she refused to be put off. She returned to his office several times and made clear— exactly what she told him I don’t know—that it would be worth his while to give my father a visitor visa. Finally, he relented and told her to be at his office on a Saturday morning with the promised gift, 500 marks, a substantial sum of money at the time. My father refused to go to the consulate that day because he would not touch money or carry anything, not even a handkerchief, on the Sabbath. I was chosen as the emissary because at the age of ten, not yet having celebrated the Bar Mitzvah, I would not be guilty of a sin. I carried out the mission and have never been troubled by the illegality or the potential sinfulness of my action. My father was scheduled to leave from Holland early in November, but some frightening and dramatic events would take place before then. Early in October 1938, on Succoth (the Jewish harvest festival) our family celebrated a holiday together for the last time. We gathered with other families at our synagogue to take the evening meal in the succah (or booth). According to tradition, the succah had a roof made of cut vegetation and was festively decorated with tree branches and fruit. We were all standing while the introductory prayer (kiddush) was recited, when suddenly a brick came crashing through the roof, grazing both my brother Max and me on the arm. The head of another family quickly

Introduction

restored calm by reciting from memory Psalm 124; it contains the following words: Blessed be the Lord, Who hath not given us as prey to their teeth. Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers; The snare is broken, and we are escaped.

Fearing further attacks by Nazis, we immediately left and ate our dinner at home. Two and a half weeks later, at about 7 pm on Thursday, October 27, just as we were about to sit down to supper, we heard someone whistling a Zionist melody in the street in front of our house. We looked out the window and saw Alice Friedländer, a friend of my sister, waving wildly. Strangers could not get into our building without ringing the bell of the superintendent, but since he was a Nazi whom we did not trust we had an arrangement with friends to whistle a song we would recognize as a signal to come down and open the door. When we saw Alice in her agitated state, my sister ran down to let her in. Alice’s father had been a police officer who, as a Jew, had been discharged in 1933, but he was much liked by the men in the precinct and every Thursday he went to the station house to play cards. This time he was informed that the police were about to round up Polish Jews, though he apparently did not know for what purpose. Suspecting the worst, he told his daughter about the impending action. Immediately on receiving Alice’s warning, we left the apartment, our dinner uneaten, and began to walk the streets. After a few hours we decided to go to the Polish consulate, which enjoyed the rights of extraterritoriality and where, as Polish citizens, we expected to be granted asylum.2 We stayed there, together with perhaps two hundred other Jews, until midday on Friday, when the consul informed us that if we did not leave within a few hours he would waive the rights of extraterritoriality and permit the police to take us into custody. My sister got in touch with Mr. and Mrs. Hadda, two art teachers at her school, to ask them to let her stay at their apartment. They agreed and also offered to put up two of our cousins. “We were warmly received, made comfortable,”

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my sister recalled, “and bedding was prepared for us.” It was a courageous act by the Haddas, relatives of the famous Dr. Hadda, who will loom large in this study. The rest of our family walked to the home of some German Jews, friends of ours, who graciously allowed us to stay at their home. We remained in hiding there until the following Monday, when the crisis had blown over. We learned from neighbors that over the weekend the police had come to our apartment, clearly to arrest us. Had we been apprehended, we would have been shipped over the border to Poland, where we would almost certainly have been murdered by the Nazis after they occupied the country in 1939, or, if we had been lucky, we would have managed to escape to the Soviet Union, as did a number of other refugees from Germany, and would probably have spent several years in Siberia. Early in November 1938, days after the roundup ended, my father left for the United States, just in time to miss the horrors of Kristallnacht. Polish Jews were not apprehended at that time, but my mother still concluded that we could not wait until my father became a permanent U.S. resident, and could then reunite the remaining five members of the family. She decided that my three older siblings (eighteen, sixteen, and fourteen years old) should try to emigrate on their own. They had all been active in the Zionist movement, which proved to be a boon. My older brother, Henry, obtained a temporary visa to “go on hachschara” (training camp) in Great Britain, and he left in March 1939. My second brother, Max, secured a certificate for Palestine and left at about the same time. My sister, just turned fifteen, also went to Palestine (on April 1, 1939). I vividly remember the tearful scenes at the railway station as one after another member of our family left for a different place (my brother and sister in Palestine were not together). But my mother remained resolute and even then, before Nazi policies toward the Jews turned to mass murder, she never regretted her decision to split the family. One of her sisters, who also lived in Breslau, had permitted her older children to leave on their own, but she would not be separated from her husband or her youngest child, who was about my age. All three remained in the city and were murdered by the Nazis. But who can blame a mother for not wanting to be separated from her youngest child and her husband?

Introduction

By May 1939, the prospects for my mother and me were bleak. All our efforts to secure a visa had failed; we had moved from a fairly spacious, four-room apartment into one room in a large apartment with one of my aunts; our funds were drying up, and we were in danger of exhausting the few thousand marks my parents had put “under the mattress.” My father made every effort to get us out, but nothing worked. And he had not been able to find a job. Desperate, he considered moving to Palestine, where he thought he would be in a better position to help us emigrate and where, most probably, he really wanted to be. But my mother was dead set against the move, convinced that in Palestine it would be even more difficult for him to help us. An emotional and very outspoken woman, she did not conceal her views from me, even though I was only ten years old. On May 3, 1939, I sent the following postcard to my father: Dearest Father: Dear Mama is so agitated because you wrote that you want to go to a Kibbutz [in Palestine] that she doesn’t write to you. It is of course not right, but what can I do? She yells all the time: just as one cannot reach 7th Heaven, so one cannot get into the USA. Please remain there. Dear Father, you must not give up so quickly. A religious man must have hope. Go to Cuba [necessary at the time to become a permanent resident], take care of everything. Reflect on what Mama and I are facing. We are also not giving up, [and] we have more reason than you to do so. Mama has to take a job. She has really worked enough. Don’t go to a Kibbutz. Mama does not know anything about this postcard; I saved money so I could write this card to you. Well, hold out and be clever. Greetings and kisses, Isi [the name I used at the time].3

My father remained in New York City, where at the age of forty-eight he learned to polish and repair furniture, enabling him to open a second-hand furniture store. Eventually, he managed to eke out a living, but it took him almost four years to acquire resident status. In the meantime, he could not get us out of Germany. Fortunately, my brother Henry, who had settled in London, found a way to bring us to England. He went from one office to another seeking information on how to obtain a visa for us. One requirement was to persuade a well-to-do person

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in England to serve as a sponsor by making a formal commitment to support us if necessary. Henry found out where affluent Jews lived, knocked at doors, and asked for help. One charming, elderly lady, the owner of a liquor store, agreed to sign the necessary papers but only on the understanding that we would fend for ourselves once we were in England. Even then it was possible to obtain a visa for us only under very restrictive conditions: we could stay in England for only one year, my mother would have to work as a domestic servant, and she would have to place me in a boys’ home to free her for work. The idea that my mother, a woman in her late forties who was seriously ill with diabetes, would be able to run a household was not very plausible. Henry was full of doubts about the arrangement, but a friend, also from Germany, argued that once she set foot in England no one would be able to force her to take up work as a domestic servant. Wisely, Henry and my mother agreed to all the conditions. Sometime in mid-June 1939, the doorbell rang when I was alone in the apartment in Breslau. Two tall Gestapo agents were at the door and, on learning that no adult was home, informed me that they had come to deliver an Ausweisungsbefehl (Order of Expulsion) to the Aschers. Too young to be intimidated, I told them proudly that my mother was in Berlin to pick up a visa for us. The two men left without another word, and about four weeks later my mother and I traveled by train to Hamburg, where we boarded a boat for Southampton. Once we were settled in a small apartment in Stamford Hill, London, we paid a visit to the lady who had acted as our sponsor. I was impressed by her spacious home and even more by her graciousness in serving us tea. I don’t remember how we communicated; I assume she knew some Yiddish, or perhaps Henry by now knew enough English to serve as our interpreter. About two weeks later, my mother accompanied me to the boys’ home in Croydon, then a suburb of London. The director of the home turned out to be someone we had known in Breslau, and that made my initiation into my new life a bit easier, but not much. The director, a gentle man, took me to my bed in a large room that housed several other Jewish boys from Germany. I rarely cried as a child, but that first night when I went to bed I put my head

Introduction

into the pillow and wept. I had never before been permanently separated from every member of my family. My mother returned to London, where she lived for the next four years. It quickly became clear to the authorities that she could not take up a post as a domestic servant or, in fact, do any kind of work. The Jewish Board of Guardians agreed to support her and sent her a weekly check—I believe it amounted to 25 shillings, just enough to cover the most basic expenses. I was immediately enrolled in a neighborhood school and as I knew virtually no English I could not communicate with local children, but this was not a serious drawback since I could converse with the other boys from Germany and Austria. But my ignorance of English was a problem when, on one of the first Sundays at the home, I traveled to Stamford Hill to visit my mother. I had to take three different buses to get there and I had no idea how to find the bus stops or ask for directions. The director noted my mother’s address and all the buses I had to board on a piece of cardboard that he hung around my neck. The drivers were all very helpful and told me when to get off to make the necessary connections, but once I was on the street I was at a loss as how to proceed. I would turn to a pedestrian, who would read the sign on my chest and then take me to the next stop. Almost invariably, each pedestrian I approached, realizing that I was a refugee from Nazi Germany, would give me a penny or twopence. The same happened on my way back, and by the time I returned to the boys’ home I had amassed quite a few pennies, more than enough to buy all the candy I could consume till my next trip. Though linguistically challenging, the journeys to Stamford Hill and back began to appeal to me, but the weekly excursions soon came to an end. Within days after the outbreak of World War II, on September 3, the boys at the home, along with other children from the school we attended, were evacuated to areas considered safe from German bombers. We were sent to Southwick, then a small, sleepy town on the coast in West Sussex, a couple of miles from Brighton. The authorities in Croydon, implementing a plan devised by the government, asked families in Southwick to accommodate children as a patriotic duty in re-

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turn for which they received a weekly allowance to cover basic expenses. Teachers from our school accompanied us and resumed classes in makeshift facilities soon after we were settled in our new homes. The families who agreed to the arrangement had no idea whom to expect and we did not know where we would end up. I and another boy, Peter, who had recently come to Britain from Vienna, were billeted on an elderly couple who owned a small, attractive house with an empty bedroom. The couple received us with great warmth, but it was clear from the beginning that relations between us would be strained. The couple had no children of their own, they had never met anyone from the continent, and they certainly had never laid eyes on a Jew. The head of the household, a railway conductor, seemed delighted to have children in the house, and he and his wife went out of their way to make us feel comfortable. But on the very first day of our stay in our new home there were some awkward moments. As we sat down for the main meal, I began to tell our hosts in my broken English that I would not eat any nonkosher food. They had never heard of the Jewish dietary restrictions and I knew too little English to offer a coherent explanation for observing them. Actually, I was not particularly religious anymore, having lost my faith because of the example set by my brother Max, whom I greatly admired. Max, six years older than I, was an extraordinarily gifted student, especially in foreign languages. For his Bar Mitzvah in 1935 he delivered a twenty-minute talk in modern Hebrew that he had composed on his own and that made a strong impression on the guests, and soon he was something of a celebrity in the Breslau Jewish community. Max also had a fine voice and after his Bar Mitzvah he regularly chanted the weekly portion of the Old Testament at two small synagogues, for which he was paid. Perhaps his greatest achievement was the discovery of a small error in a new German translation of the Old Testament by the renowned scholar Martin Buber. My brother wrote to Buber to point out the error and received a gracious response promising to correct the mistake in future editions. One morning—this was probably in 1938 —while Max was wearing his phylacteries and reading his prayers, I noticed that he held two books in his hands. On examining them, I discovered that one was a

Introduction

prayer book and the other a work by Karl Marx. He would read Marx, but as soon as he heard my father’s footsteps he would replace the revolutionary treatise with the sacred volume. My discovery of Max’s impiety strongly influenced me and ever since the age of ten my religious convictions have been shaky, but like him I always retained a strong attachment to our Jewish heritage. When I was evacuated and billeted on Gentiles, I made the decision that I would not eat nonkosher food, and for the four years I lived in Britain I never broke that resolve. I am now convinced that my decision was an act of defiance: if the anti-Semites were out to destroy us I would cling all the more to Jewish traditions. I would do my bit to preserve the essentials of Judaism. I doubt that I was fully aware of my motives early in September 1939 when I tried to explain to the kind but puzzled railway conductor and his wife why I would not eat their meat. Still, they readily accepted my decision and agreed to serve me only vegetables. But then there was another awkward moment: the hostess had put gravy from the meat on the potatoes that she placed in front of me. I would not eat that either and, once again, my English was too rudimentary to explain why. I tried to point out that the gravy was also not kosher; but they could not understand me, shook their heads, and simply resolved not to make an issue of my food preferences. It may be that after a few days they consulted someone—perhaps their minister—who enlightened them about the elementary principles of Judaism. In any case, I stayed at their home in Southwick for about ten months, and our relations became increasingly cordial, especially once I learned to speak English and could tell them about my family background. However, Peter did not stay for more than a few weeks because the couple could not handle him. Peter was a rather nervous and moody youngster, terribly pained by the fact that both his parents were stuck in Vienna, and his unhappiness made it difficult for him to control his bladder while he was asleep. Our hosts were totally incapable of understanding the problem and sought to shame him into overcoming it. Every time he wet his bed they put a large sign on the wall near his dining room chair proclaiming in large letters that he had had an accident. Of course, this treatment did not cure Peter, and after a few weeks the

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headmaster of our school, who supervised the assignment of students to English families, moved him to another home. Late in June 1940, shortly after France capitulated to the Germans, Southwick, right across from the French coast, ceased to be a safe area, and our headmaster was ordered to move all the Croydon children to Guildford, Surrey. The move was to be completed within a matter of days even though the headmaster could not find homes for us ahead of time. We arrived in Guildford in buses at midday and somewhere between two and three hundred children with their teachers began to knock on doors to ask for a home. Many local residents responded positively to the request but they looked over the crop of youngsters and almost invariably picked English children. Towards evening, most of the English pupils had found a home, leaving the German and Austrian boys to wonder what their fate would be. Finally, a man in the uniform of an officer in the fire department came out from a house on Ashenden Road and announced in a gruff voice that he would take three foreign children, including me. I immediately took a dislike to the man, but I could hardly refuse the assignment. As soon as we had unpacked, he ordered us to help him with his chores, mow the lawn, pick up debris around the house, clean the shed, and polish the furniture. The next day, as soon as we returned from school, he found other chores for us and expressed impatience if we did not work fast enough. This was not what we were supposed to be doing and we immediately complained to the headmaster, Mr. Powell. Mr. Powell, taller than any man I had ever seen—well over six and a half feet—was a wonderful man full of kindness, especially for the refugees. After one week under the thumb of the fireman we were placed down the street with a family that was much more gentle and spoke freely about the dictatorial behavior of the fireman, whom they knew all too well. But our new hosts had three of their own children and the mother was totally incapable of running the enlarged household. After two weeks I was moved once again, to the third home in three weeks. I and one other refugee moved in with Mr. and Mrs. Ing, who also lived on Ashenden Road. The Ings were in their early middle age, quite successful—he was a butcher who ran his own business—but like the first couple who accommodated us in Southwick, they, too, had no

Introduction

children of their own and had no idea how to deal with teenagers. They thought that the best approach to us was to be very demanding and very strict. We didn’t like the food at their home, even the vegetables and bread of my limited diet were not tasty, and one day we bought some candy that we planned to eat while in bed. I don’t know whether Mrs. Ing suspected us of having candy, but that evening she came to our room before we had fallen asleep on the pretext of looking for some linen. She lingered for a long time and heard us sucking on the candy. She asked us what we were eating and when we told her, she flew into a rage. How dare we buy candy without telling her? Relations between us deteriorated very quickly and on one occasion Mr. Ing, angry at us for some alleged misdeed, called us “Jew, Jew, Jew.” We complained to Mr. Powell, who immediately arranged to visit the Ings and in our presence asked them about the incident. They categorically denied the charge and Mr. Powell simply listened to them, giving the impression that he believed them. But within a few weeks we were moved yet again. I was billeted with the Holcombes, a simple and very decent family who treated me with great kindness. I stayed at their home, my fourth one in eight months, for about two and a half years. By this time I was an easy and inexpensive guest because I ate few major meals at home. A number of Jewish families from London had moved to Guildford and the ever thoughtful Mr. Powell asked them to give me kosher meals. The Jewish families did not have enough space to put me up, but almost every day of the week a different one took me in for dinner. I believe that on Thursdays I was always invited by a family that kept some sewing machines in their home for their business as tailors. While doing his work, the head of the household would watch me with a smile as I ate the kosher food. He was obviously delighted to be helping a refugee, and pleased that I still observed an important Jewish tradition. On Saturdays I was often received by the affluent owner of several movie houses in London. There I was given a more lavish meal and a bit of pocket money, which came in handy as my mother was in no position to send me any. I stayed in touch with my mother and occasionally heard from my father; the mail from New York during wartime took weeks to reach England. I learned from them that my sister and brother had joined

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Introduction

kibbutzim in Palestine and that Henry would soon move from his hachschara camp in Ireland to London to work at a factory and live with my mother. In 1941 a major concern of my father was my upcoming Bar Mitzvah, which, amazingly, I was able to celebrate in Guildford, although it was a rather modest affair. Every so often a reverend wearing a clerical collar—the title and attire of ministers other than that of the Chief Rabbi— came to Guildford to prepare me for the event. I had had rigorous training in Hebrew in Breslau until the age of ten, so it was relatively easy for me to learn the various prayers and how to deliver parts of the weekly portion of the Torah. About twentyfive local Jews attended the service in a makeshift synagogue, but the only member of my family who was present was my mother. My brother could not afford to attend—he was still living in Ireland—and the only present my father could afford was a postcard on which he wrote some commentaries on the weekly Torah portion. Every few months I managed a trip to London to visit my mother and invariably there would be a bombing blitz during which we spent the night in the underground (subway) for safety. An essential piece of equipment we were instructed to carry everywhere once the war began was a gas mask. I never needed one, but I did see the rubble to which many private homes had been reduced by Nazi bombers. As I write these lines, I am saddened by my “missed childhood,” but I don’t believe that I was terribly unhappy at the time. I liked the school I attended, the teachers were all very kind, and I made good progress in my studies. In January 1942 I was promoted from the lower school in which I had been enrolled to the Elliott Central School for Girls and Boys, where I would receive the training necessary to compete for entrance to a university. In a testimonial that the headmistress, Ms. Emily M. Hewetson, wrote for me before I left for the United States in 1943, she praised my accomplishments, and noted that I had “gradually worked . . . [my] way up to the top of . . . [my] class (a IIIrd Form just beginning IVth Form work this term).” In one English class we planned to read The Merchant of Venice out loud and the teacher suggested that I take the role of Shylock. I studied the assignment at home and at first was rather dismayed by the play and by the part I had been picked to perform. But then I decided to defend Shylock

Introduction

and read the famous lines “If you prick us, do we not bleed” with such fervor that the class would be persuaded that his cause was just. The teacher, a Mr. Drakes—known to us as Drakesy—smiled as I read that speech and then made some comments in defense of Shylock’s argument. Twenty-two years later, in 1964, during my first visit to London since the war, I telephoned Mr. Drakes; he immediately invited me to his house, served me a meal—no non-kosher food, he noted with satisfaction—and reminded me of my reading of Shylock’s famous speech. On Saturday afternoon, July 17, 1943, while watching a movie at a theater in central Guildford, I suddenly heard someone paging me in an agitated tone. I looked up and was summoned from my seat immediately. Word had reached the Holcombes that my mother and I had been assigned to a boat that would leave for the United States within days and that I would have to depart for London as soon as possible. I had known for several weeks that we had been granted an immigrant’s visa but because of wartime conditions and the German U-boat attacks we were not told when we could expect places on a ship. Even now, we were simply informed that we would leave within a few days, and only shortly before our departure were we told that we would embark in Avonmouth, a port near Bristol on the southwest coast. We did not know where or when we would arrive in the United States. The ship we boarded on July 22 was a merchant marine vessel making a return trip after unloading war materiel in England, and it had room for seven or eight passengers. Hours before our departure we learned that we would be part of a large convoy— of perhaps thirty or more ships—guarded at all times by several destroyers that moved rapidly between the lines of cargo ships. I was miserable from seasickness almost the entire fifteen-day journey. The agony ended when we landed in Halifax, Canada, a city I had never heard of. To reach New York we had to take a train, but during wartime the railway schedule was very unpredictable and we were forced to wait for three days before beginning the last leg of our journey. The Canadian authorities considered my mother and me to be enemy aliens because Poland was under Nazi occupation, a ruling that struck me as absurd then and that I still cannot understand. To prevent us from spying for the Germans, we were held in a detention camp to-

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Introduction

gether with deserters from the British Navy, but the three days of confinement were not unbearable. The local Jewish community got wind of our arrival and within hours brought us reading material and an ample supply of food. (Fifty-six years later I served on the doctoral defense of Jeffrey Veidlinger, then a very able student at Georgetown University and now a professor at the University of Indiana, who was from Canada. I told him about my experience in Halifax, to which he replied that the rabbi there who, among other things, supervised charitable activities and helped incoming refugees, was his grandfather.) On August 9 my mother and I, accompanied by a Canadian Mounted Policeman, boarded a train for New York City. The police officer sat next to us, and never let us out of his sight. When we reached St. Albans in Vermont he politely bade us goodbye and left us to our own devices. The reunion with my father was emotional but restrained. Not having lived with him for almost five years, I was not quite sure what to expect. I remembered him as a kind, somewhat reserved person who was very proud of his children and saw to our needs, but allowed us to find our own way in the world. Despite his deep religious convictions, he was not intolerant, and as long as we appeared to be observing the essential rules of Judaism he was satisfied, especially since he was confident that we were all ambitious and would do our best to succeed. By the late 1940s he knew that Max had completely abandoned religious practices, but he never held that against him because he was helping to build the state of Israel. During my four years in Britain, I, too, had strayed far from the fold, but I knew that so long as I lived at home I would have to follow my father’s lifestyle: I would have to wear a hat at all times, say my daily prayers, attend synagogue regularly, and resume my religious studies. Since I had not continued my Jewish studies in Southwick or Guildford, I had fallen far behind Orthodox boys of my age who came from religious backgrounds, which ruled out attendance at a yeshiva. My father understood that and allowed me to enroll in George Washington High School in Washington Heights. There I received a solid education that prepared me for City College, known as a poor man’s college with high standards, the Harvard of the working class. Even though my father could not really afford it,

Introduction

he insisted on my having a private tutor once a week in Jewish subjects. I found the new lifestyle a bit confining, but at school and later at college I found a group of friends whose backgrounds were similar to mine, and with them I was able to pursue more secular interests, such as literature, politics, movies, and sports. During my second year at City College, my father’s secondhand furniture business, never very robust, declined precipitately and I began to think of leaving college to work full-time, although I had no particular skills that would enable me to get a job with good prospects for a career. True, we did not have to pay any tuition at City College and every summer I worked as a waiter in the Catskills, but my earnings covered only the cost of books and my spending money. I spoke to an administrator at the college and discussed my predicament with him; I asked whether I could take a leave of absence, but he strongly advised against it. He warned me that I would regret not completing my education, that without a college degree I would not be able to pursue a rewarding and satisfying profession. Fortunately, I took his advice and with my father’s encouragement I continued my undergraduate education; for a couple of years it was a hand to mouth existence, but somehow we persevered. There were other reasons for the restrained reunion. By this time, my mother’s health had taken a dangerous turn and, in fact, she lived in the United States for only five years—she died at the age of fiftyseven. We were also concerned about the twenty-two close relatives who had remained in Breslau or Poland—my father’s parents, one of his sisters and one of his brothers, and my mother’s two sisters and brother, as well as several nieces, nephews, and cousins. All contact with them had ceased and although in 1943 we did not know the full extent of the Nazi atrocities, we knew enough to fear the worst. Then there were the three children in our family who remained separated from us. Henry was in England and did not join us until 1948. Esther, whom none of us had seen in nine years, came to the United States in 1947. Max remained in Palestine, later Israel, and, much to our chagrin, my parents, Henry, and I could not afford to visit him. Only in 1956, seventeen years after he left Breslau, did we see him again; his kibbutz somehow scraped together enough money to finance a short visit by him to the United States. He never did see our mother again.

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Introduction

All four of us became teachers, which I attribute to my father’s reverence for learning. His formal education was not extensive, and certainly not in secular subjects. But he knew biblical Hebrew, he had studied various talmudic texts, and nothing gave him greater pleasure than to attend study groups led by his rabbi on Saturdays. Henry taught at various Jewish schools and ended up as an executive director of a large synagogue in Fairlawn, New Jersey. Esther became a highly successful teacher of Hebrew in Plainview, Long Island, and then held various important positions in Jewish educational institutions. Max, by dint of remarkable resourcefulness and unusual ability, attended the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, where he was awarded a doctorate in Hebrew language. He became professor of that subject at Haifa University and published several scholarly studies on Hebrew grammar and a number of translations into Hebrew of works by Hegel and Marx. He died in 1976 at the age of fifty-four. I attended the Graduate School at Columbia University, where I was awarded a doctorate in European history. I began my teaching career at Brooklyn College and eventually became a professor of history at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. For some fifty years, I concentrated on the history of late imperial Russia (roughly from the 1870s to 1917), but I often wondered about the fate of the Jewish community in Breslau after 1939, whose plight was far more afflictive than that of our immediate family. When I retired from teaching in January 2003, I read widely on the history of Breslau and soon made my first prolonged visit to Poland, which had annexed Breslau after World War II. Fortunately, various archives in Poland contained information that answered many of the questions I had pondered over the past six decades. The triumph of Nazism in 1933 came as a terrible shock to all the Jews of Germany, but the shock may have hit the Jewish community of Breslau especially hard. As residents of one of the more liberal cities in Germany, many considered a resurgence of intense hostility, let alone violence, toward Jews inconceivable. For over half a century, from roughly the 1860s to 1933, Breslau Jews had made enormous progress in integrating into German society. A large number had achieved notable success as businessmen, lawyers, physicians, and, to a lesser extent, politi-

Introduction

cal leaders; they also played a critical role in maintaining such cultural institutions as the opera, the orchestra, and the theater, and many of their children attended the best public schools. True, they still faced formidable barriers in gaining entry into the civil service, the army, and higher education, and social relations with Gentiles were correct rather than close. Yet to many Jews these obstacles were vestiges of the past and bound to be erased in time. If the Jews of Breslau could not be said to have been full “insiders” in society; if, as the historian Manfred Hettling has suggested, they did not quite feel “at home” in Breslau, they could also not be called “outsiders” anymore.4 By several measures, they were indistinguishable from the rest of society; the vast majority dressed like the others, spoke their language, fully identified with German and local culture, and were patriotic to the core, as they had amply demonstrated in supporting their country during the First World War. Once the Nazis took over, Breslau, to the surprise of many, turned into one of the more ardent centers of Nazi power. In 1933, it gave the Nazis a higher percentage of its votes than any other large city, and its leading officials pursued Hitler’s policies so avidly that during the first year of Nazi rule even some party leaders in Berlin worried that Breslau was moving too fast in implementing government policies, especially those designed to rid the economy of Jews. These concerns did not faze the Gauleiters and police chiefs in Breslau, who over the next ten years often took the lead in introducing anti-Jewish measures, although the overall pattern in the city was similar to that in the rest of the country. To understand the reaction of the Jews to the policies of exclusion directed at them, it must be kept in mind that there was noone antiJewish campaign that pointed from the beginning to the ultimate Nazi goal, and it is not at all certain that in 1933 the Nazis themselves had settled on a long-range plan of action. They were determined to isolate and impoverish the Jewish community and they encouraged Jews to leave the country. Beyond that, the Nazi campaign against the Jews proceeded in stages: beginning in 1933 they were excluded from the professions and on April 1 their businesses were boycotted; in 1935 the government enacted the racial laws designed to eliminate contacts between Jews and so-called Aryans, and seized Jewish properties, a

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process that stretched over several years; from 1938 to 1943, Jews were evicted from their apartments and suffered endless humiliations; in 1941 Breslau Jews were deported to three camps near the city; and, finally, late in 1941 and thereafter they were sent to the east to be exterminated. Although from the beginning of the Nazi era German Jews were subjected to physical attacks and at times groups of them were incarcerated, they were not killed en masse until 1941. For a while, from 1934 to 1938, the anti-Jewish campaign actually abated somewhat, and even in 1938 relatively few of the large number sent to concentration camps (compared to those murdered in 1942 and thereafter) were killed. Most were released and those who had visas were freed as soon as they could prove that they would soon leave the country. By then it had become clear that the Nazis planned, in one way or another, to drive the Jews out of Germany, and the majority tried to emigrate. But once the Second World War broke out in September 1939, the opportunities for emigration dwindled to a trickle and close to half of the Jewish population of Breslau was trapped. There can be no doubt that Nazi policies toward the Jews were motivated in large measure by racial ideology, by the conviction that the Jews were an inferior race who were corroding German culture and the economy at every turn. The decrees and memoranda on the Jews written by Nazi officials in Breslau, many of them confidential, confirmed their deep loathing for the minority in their midst. They tirelessly debated the amount of Jewish blood that would make a person an enemy of the Aryan race, and I am convinced that in purging the country of Jews they believed they were engaged in a worthy and morally as well as intellectually legitimate enterprise. But the more I read the Nazi documents, the more convinced I became that ideological fanaticism does not tell the whole story, and certainly does not explain the growing support for, or indifference toward, Nazi policies among the people of Breslau. I was struck by the sheer thuggery and sadism of Nazi leaders, who in their memoranda made no effort to conceal their determination to seize Jewish wealth for the state, and often for themselves. More than a few of them had long histories of criminality. In addition, Nazi officials openly insisted that the wealth seized from Jews should be widely distributed among the Ger-

Introduction

man people—several of them going so far in 1942 as to argue that some of that wealth should be reserved until after the war for soldiers at the front. In deciding how to dispose of Jewish wealth or what economic activities Jews should be allowed to pursue, Nazi leaders regularly consulted such organizations as the local chamber of commerce and guilds, whose opinions invariably protected the interests of their members. Greed and envy of the Jews played a critical role in shaping Nazi policies toward them, which helps explain why so many Germans tended to look the other way when the government undertook measures that they might otherwise have frowned upon. Rather than characterizing Nazism in purely ideological terms, I think it would be more accurate to characterize it as bestiality in the service of ideology. This is not to say that all Breslauer applauded the conduct of the Nazis. In reading the memoirs of Breslau Jews, I came across many references to acts of kindness and expressions of disapproval by Germans, and I have made a point of recording these. Such acts involved great risks, but I mention them not simply because they are intrinsically interesting and often quite dramatic. They reveal an important complexity of life in Nazi Germany and they shed light on the response to Nazism of many Jews in Breslau. Understandably stunned by the hatred they encountered so widely after 1933, the Jews also knew from their own experiences that by no means all their Christian neighbors applauded the conduct of the new regime. Despair was widespread among the Jews, but for a few years at least that despair was tempered by hope that Nazism was a passing phase, that Germany might yet return to “normalcy.” From the moment Hitler came to power, the Jews of Breslau adopted a two-pronged response to the new order, maintenance and strengthening of their own institutions and transformation of the “Jewish economy,” a necessity in view of the Nazi decrees that severely limited Jews in the professions. Physical resistance or disobedience of Nazi decrees was out of the question, as Jews constituted about 3.5 percent of the population of Breslau—and less than 1 percent of the population of Germany as a whole. But I would argue that in strengthening their institutions the Jews of Breslau adopted a stance of defiance, which was a form of resistance. They categorically denied the Nazi claim that they

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Introduction

were not genuine Germans and they also refused to abandon their Jewish heritage. They created a new Jewish school for children evicted from the public schools; established a variety of cultural organizations so that Jews could continue to attend musical and theatrical events; sponsored lectures on subjects of Jewish concern; placed new emphasis on religious observance; maintained the Jewish Hospital against all odds; and, perhaps most remarkably, increased the range of welfare services, which were desperately needed as more and more of their number lost their livelihood. In short, the Jews of Breslau refused to abandon either the institutions or the values that they had nurtured for decades and that had been the mainstay and distinctive features of their community. Within one month of the Nazi takeover, local Jewish officials established new offices to deal with long-range structural changes in the community: one dispensed advice on retraining for various types of manual labor, for work either in Germany or abroad; another specialized in the intricate issues of emigration and helped those—a growing number among the younger generation—who believed that there was no future for them in Germany. These ambitious programs required careful planning, extensive negotiations between groups with different approaches to difficult and painful challenges, and large expenditures. The achievements were not derisory, in large measure because affluent members of the community generously supported the programs. By the outbreak of hostilities in 1939, over one half of the Jewish population of Breslau had emigrated, and many of those who remained survived as long as they did only because of the help they received from Jewish institutions. Although I have included the experiences of my immediate family during the Nazi period, this book is based mainly on research in published and unpublished sources, of which there is an abundance: autobiographies, diaries, letters, newspapers, statements by survivors collected by various archives after the war, a huge number of documents by Nazi officials in Breslau, and, finally, the archive of the Jewish community of Breslau, which, to my surprise, remained intact. Thanks to the efforts of an enterprising rabbi, Dr. Aron Heppner, the Jews of Breslau maintained one of the best-organized collections of

Introduction

documents in all of Germany. Heppner went to Breslau in the early 1920s and was greatly impressed by the large number of documents in the community building. Some dated back to the eighteenth century and all were kept in boxes, but no one knew what they contained. Heppner persuaded community leaders to finance the cataloguing of the materials, and on August 1, 1924, the project was officially launched. With the later help of Rabbi Bernhard Brilling, the work was largely completed by the early 1930s, but during the Nazi period archivists continued to collect and file documents, which bear directly on my study. The Nazis wanted the documents preserved because they believed they would be useful in their studies of racial differences between Jews and Aryans. Dr. Arlt, the chief of the Office of Racial Studies in Breslau, actually planned to establish an institute in Breslau devoted to the investigation of the Jewish question on the basis of Nazi racial doctrines. In 1943, when the Jewish community was dissolved, the entire archive was transferred for safekeeping to the main building of the Cosel Jewish Cemetery near Breslau, at that time still in use for burials. Whether the Nazis did not know that it had been relocated to the cemetery or had simply forgotten about it is unclear, but it remained there until Russian troops found it in 1945 and shipped it, first to Lodz and then to Warsaw, where it is now housed and available to scholars.5 Rich as they are, these sources do not answer all the historian’s questions, but they do contain enough information to enable us to describe and analyze the conduct of a major center of German Jewry during a period of unparalleled persecution that ended in its destruction.

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Jews Settle in Breslau

The Jews of Breslau emerged as a vibrant and affluent community, numbering some 23,000 souls in 1925, after centuries of intermittent persecution and struggles for survival. The Jews made their first appearance in the town, then known as Wrotizla, in the first half of the twelfth century, when the region was ruled by Poles who had taken it from the Bohemians late in the tenth century. In the mid-thirteenth century additional Jews escaping persecution in Germany went to Wrotizla and by 1346 had established various institutions. The town could now boast at least one and perhaps two synagogues, a Jewish cemetery, and a community official with the title of Bishop of the Jews (Judenbischof ) who served as rabbi, cantor, ritual slaughterer, and teacher. The Jews made their living primarily in financial transactions (Geldgeschäfte), most probably as money lenders, but only a few could be said to have been rich. In times of crisis, the Jewish community was invariably accused of responsibility for local catastrophes and severely punished. Thus, during the famine of 1319 the authorities expelled the Jews, but two years later allowed them to return, although they now forced them to pay an annual tax of 60 marks for the strengthening of the town wall. On May 18, 1349, during the Black Death, a crowd randomly attacked Jews, who were accused of arson. Of sixty-eight families, only eight survived; their property was seized by the Czech king John of Luxemburg, who had inherited the town in 1335. One year after the massacre, in 1350, Jews began to return and by 1360 about 140 Jewish families had reestablished the synagogue and reacquired their cemetery. This pattern of Jewish settlement, persecution, and expulsion, followed by the reestablishment of the Jewish community, continued for

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several centuries, and only the most dramatic and perhaps most shocking of the many incidents of violence needs to be mentioned. In 1453, the Franciscan priest Johann von Capistrano, who had just arrived in Bohemia to serve as “inquisitor general,” delivered fiery sermons against the Jews, accusing them of poisoning the water and stealing the Host. His oratory led to the arrest of many Jews and to the burning of fortyone of them on July 4 at the Salt Market in the center of the city. To escape this fate, the rabbi and several other Jews committed suicide hours before the massacre. Today a monument commemorates the atrocity at the Rynok, or Market, now the most interesting and attractive section of Wrociaw. The remaining Jews were expelled and all children under the age of seven were converted to Christianity. In 1455, King Ladislaus of Bohemia decreed that no Jews should be allowed in Breslau, although there is evidence that a small number lived there in the sixteenth century and that a few others received permission to visit for short periods. Beginning in 1577, all Jews who appeared in public places in Breslau had to be clearly identified as such by wearing a yellow disc. In the meantime, the city had come under the authority of the Austrian Habsburgs, who inherited it in 1526. Not until 1630 did Jews again receive formal permission to reside in the environs of the city, and initially only five families made the move. Soon others followed and by the end of the century 130 Jewish families had settled in the city itself. They earned their living as interpreters, servants, and drivers for Jewish merchants from Poland, who controlled two-thirds of the raw materials (principally wool and cotton) brought into the city and who also played a major role in the export of German finished goods to the east. The number of Jews in Breslau continued to grow in the eighteenth century, reaching 3,000 by 1786. By this time, the community supported a rabbi and several synagogues, and in 1724 it established (without official permission) a chevra kadisha, a sacred society charged with securing an adequate supply of kosher food, caring for the sick who lacked any other source of help, and providing ritual burying for the dead, who until 1761 had to be sent to a cemetery in one of four nearby towns since the one in Breslau was filled to capacity. In 1760, the community also opened a hospital in a tiny building;

Jews Settle in Breslau

in 1791, it established the Royal Wilhelm School for Jewish Youth, which immediately enrolled 120 students, and in 1803 it founded the Industrial School for Israelite Girls. The creation of these schools reflected the inroads of the Jewish Enlightenment (Haskalah) in Breslau, where a group of writers had made their mark by producing works in Hebrew. Only in Berlin and Königsberg did the Jewish Enlightenment in Germany have a greater impact on the community’s cultural life. Some Christian businessmen objected to the presence of Jews in Breslau, but the monarchy, eager for the benefits of trade, ignored them. This was also true of Frederick II, the Prussian king, who annexed Silesia, a region rich in minerals and a thriving trading nexus, in 1740 after a brazen attack on the Habsburg empire. Frederick did not like Jews and in 1744 he set a limit of twelve Jewish families who might live in Breslau, but at the same time encouraged individual Jews to pursue their business interests, from which the national treasury was bound to benefit. He also employed Jewish bankers to handle some of his and the state’s financial affairs. The limits on Jewish settlement in Breslau did not remain in effect very long, and by the 1840s the community numbered 6,000, large and prosperous enough for a wide range of religious and social institutions.1 The Jews of Breslau made their first major contribution to Judaism in the late 1830s and 1840s after a long and bitter controversy over religious practices between the city’s two community rabbis, Salomon Tiktin (the Oberrabbiner or Senior Rabbi) and Abraham Geiger, the “second rabbi.” Geiger, a learned man and an original thinker as well as a powerful speaker, initiated what came to be known as the Reform movement in Judaism, which deeply influenced the evolution of Reform Judaism in the United States. Geiger’s central argument was that although Judaism must preserve its essential principles, its rituals should be subject to change in response to changing historical circumstances and modern philosophical thinking. He himself moved slowly in introducing reforms, but they were sufficiently innovative to arouse a storm of opposition. He was openly ambivalent on the use of Hebrew in the synagogue service, but most of the prayers at which he officiated were still recited in Hebrew. However, the prayers that referred to the return to Zion and to animal sacrifice were abandoned. He himself

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continued to observe dietary regulations even though he was not convinced that they were fundamental to Judaism. Privately, he referred to circumcision as a “barbaric, bloody act, which fills the father with fear.” Geiger also did not consider the Jews to be a national group and during the Damascus Affair of 1840, when Jews in many parts of the world were deeply distressed over the charge that their coreligionists in Damascus had murdered a Christian child to use his blood to make matzos, he “remained surprisingly unperturbed.” 2 Rabbi Tiktin, on the other hand, insisted on the retention of all traditional rituals, and as a result the community split into two separate associations, with 935 clinging to Orthodoxy and 648 joining the Reform organization. Differences over religious issues were not the only cause of the conflict. At the funeral in 1842 of one of the community’s dignitaries, Tiktin, who resented the fact that the second rabbi, a brilliant orator, was beginning to outshine him, made some unflattering and wholly inappropriate allusions to Geiger. Tempers flared and supporters of the two clergymen came to blows. The Board of Governors (Vorstand) of the community held Tiktin responsible for the clash and suspended him from his duties, but a few months later the government, responding to an appeal by the general membership of the community to intervene in the unseemly squabble, reversed the decision. Tiktin died shortly thereafter (in 1843); his successor, his son, was more conciliatory, and relations between the warring factions became more civil. In 1856, the leaders of the Reform and Orthodox associations reached a compromise solution that received the blessing of the Prussian government in Berlin. They established one umbrella community and agreed that both wings of Judaism would be recognized as equal. There would be two “community rabbis” (Gemeinderabbiner) and both denominations would be funded by the umbrella organization. The Board of Governors of the umbrella organization, elected by adult male Jews until the extension of the suffrage in 1919, administered the affairs of the community, deciding on such matters as the nature and scope of various charitable and cultural activities and on the collection and distribution of funds. The compromise became a model for many cities in Germany, and in Breslau the arrangement remained intact until the destruction of the community in 1943.3

Jews Settle in Breslau

By the end of the nineteenth century, Breslau, the capital of Silesia, had developed into one of the major cities of the German empire. Situated on the Oder River, a waterway that stretches some 530 miles from the Oder Mountains in Moravia to the Baltic Sea, the city became a widely used transport route for raw materials and finished goods, as well as for sugar and cereals. The rich mines of Upper Silesia, not far from the city, yielded about 40 percent of the country’s total supply of coal and 25 percent of its zinc. Enterprises within the city turned out machinery, furniture, carpets, furs, musical instruments, and leather goods, to mention only the most important products, and over eighty financial institutions motored the economy. Breslau was also a city of considerable charm, known for its numerous medieval streets and attractive monuments and churches, as well as a university whose handsome buildings date back to the eighteenth century. By 1910, Breslau was the seventh largest city in Germany with a population of about 512,000, of whom roughly 60 percent were Protestant, 35 percent Roman Catholic, and 5 percent Jewish (slightly over 20,000). Thus, Breslau’s Jewish population was proportionately a good deal higher than that of Germany as a whole, where it numbered some 550,000, or 0.77 percent of the total. Most German Jews had settled in large cities, although a fair number could still be found in rural areas and smaller towns.4 As a result of the economic upsurge of Germany after its unification in 1871 and the emancipation of the Jews, first enacted by the North German Confederation in 1869 and then adopted by the empire, the economic, social, and political status of the Breslau Jewish community changed quickly and dramatically, for the most part for the better. True, Jews still could not normally aspire to positions in the civil service and the army officers’ corps and only rarely did they succeed in securing appointments as university professors, but otherwise there were extensive opportunities for economic advancement, which they seized upon with great energy and zeal. To Vera London-Rosenbaum, a resident of Breslau in the 1920s and 1930s, it was evident that Jews played a major role in the life of the city because on the High Holy Days “most large stores and factories were closed.” 5 Ms. Rosenbaum may have exaggerated a bit, but unquestionably Jews owned many small businesses

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(particularly in textiles) and some very large ones as well. In addition, many Jews entered prestigious professions; in 1907, they constituted 29 percent of all physicians and 20 percent of the lawyers in private practice. In part, Jews entered these fields because as independent businessmen and professionals they would not be exposed to the antiSemitism of superiors or colleagues. Observant Jews had the added advantage of being able to close their shops on the Sabbath and religious holidays. But these fields also proved to be lucrative. It has been estimated that by 1906 one-third of the Jewish community enjoyed a “bourgeois existence,” meaning that their income amounted to at least 3,000 marks a year. About 16 percent earned more than 10,000 marks; and a small minority, owners of department stores and factories, was very rich. Of course, there were numerous poor Jews, but as a group the Jews fared much better than Protestants, only 10 percent of whom had an income that reached 3,000 marks a year, and Catholics, only 6.5 percent of whom earned that much. One scholar has concluded that the average income of Jews in 1906 was three and a half times as large as that of Protestants and five times as much as that of Catholics. Werner Sombart, the widely acclaimed but also distinctly anti-Semitic economist, estimated that in 1905 the combined income of the Jews of Breslau, then numbering 4.3 percent of the population, amounted to 20.3 percent of the total income of the city.6 If as a group the Jews lived comfortably, they also spent generously on a wide range of religious, cultural, and charitable institutions. They built two imposing synagogues, the Neue Synagoge, a magnificent building that was completed in 1872 and, at the time, was considered the second largest (after the Berlin Synagogue) and the second most beautiful in Germany, and the Storch Synagogue, which opened in 1829. The first served the Reform congregation, and its rabbi during the 1920s and 1930s, Hermann Vogelstein, was a learned and highly respected community leader. The second can best be described as modern Orthodox in its ritual and operated under the spiritual leadership of Rabbi Moses Hoffmann, also a learned and well-regarded clergyman. The two Gemeinderabbiner officially guided the community not only in religious and educational affairs but also in other matters of concern to the Jews of Breslau.

Jews Settle in Breslau

By the early 1930s seven other places of Jewish worship had been established in the city, one in the Jewish Theological Seminary, one in the Jewish Hospital, and the remaining ones in separate structures serving mainly Orthodox Jews. Altogether, about 30 percent of the community attended Orthodox synagogues, two or three of which had a predominantly east European membership. How many others practiced their religion in a more relaxed manner, that is, by occasionally attending services and observing some of the regulations, such as eating kosher food at home and lighting candles to usher in the Sabbath, is difficult to say. Probably another 30 to 40 percent would fall into this category. According to one not very scientific survey in the late 1920s, 58 percent of the Jewish population of Breslau attended one or another synagogue on the High Holy Days, which was a greater proportion than in other large cities (49 percent in Berlin and 41 percent in Frankfurt-am-Main).7 As in the imperial period (1871–1918), during the Weimar era (1919 – 33) residents of the city paid a special tax to the Office of the Lord Mayor (Oberbürgermeister der Stadt Breslau), which then distributed the funds to Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish institutions. These taxes sufficed for basic services, but the Jewish community imposed further charges to cover additional expenses for welfare and contributions to other Jewish institutions. Citizens could choose to separate themselves from the community and thus avoid the taxes. Some strictly observant Jews did so, as did some who did not wish to identify as Jews in any formal way. The Jewish Theological Seminary was the city’s most renowned Jewish institution, in the words of one scholar “the most important institution for the training of rabbis in Europe.” 8 The idea for its establishment as well as its funding issued from a remarkable person, Jonas Fraenckel (1773 –1846), who rose from extreme poverty to become one of Breslau’s leading bankers. An astute and progressive businessman, Fraenckel built a large company that had dealings outside Silesia and Prussia, especially with firms in Poland and Russia. He was also a highly engaging and principled person who made generous donations to a variety of charitable causes. In 1841, the King of Prussia, Frederick William IV, presented him with the honorary title of Königlicher

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Kommerzienrat (Royal Councilor of Commerce) in recognition of his many achievements as a businessman. Although personally observant, Fraenckel appreciated the need for religious reform, and in the controversy between Rabbis Geiger and Tiktin he took a middle position. It was Geiger who persuaded him to donate 100,000 thalers to found a seminary to train rabbis and teachers. The institution opened in 1854 under the leadership of the Senior Rabbi of Saxony, Zacharias Frankel (not related to Jonas), the first rabbi with a secular as well as a religious education and the first to deliver sermons in German. By temperament and conviction a moderate, Frankel adopted a position midway between extreme Orthodoxy and extreme Reform, and thus sought to create a synthesis of the two wings of Judaism. His views came to dominate the curriculum of the seminary and eventually were incorporated into the guiding principles of Conservative Judaism, which today has about one million adherents in the United States. Until the creation of the seminary, there were no established standards for the ordination of rabbis, who received their titles from individual rabbis. Rejecting the notion of “Torah lishma” (study of the Torah for its own sake), Frankel advocated the preparation of students for professional service as rabbis and as teachers. The Bible and the Talmud remained central to the seminary’s curriculum, but its teachers also paid considerable attention to the study of history and philosophy in accordance with the most modern principles of scholarship. All of the students were expected to have a university education and by the late nineteenth century it was unthinkable for a community to employ as rabbi a person who had not also earned a doctorate, usually in philosophy or history. Frankel’s innovations marked the professionalization of the rabbinate, and by 1939 over 700 students had attended the seminary’s courses; of these 249 were ordained as rabbis, some of whom occupied major positions in Budapest, Cincinnati, Florence, Jerusalem, London, New York, and Vienna. The Jewish Theological Seminary, established in New York City in 1886 and now the intellectual center of American Conservative Judaism, essentially adopted the theology and curriculum of the seminary in Breslau. So did the seminary in Budapest, which was founded in 1877.9

Jews Settle in Breslau

The Breslau Seminary attracted numerous outstanding scholars, in part because Jews aspiring to a scholarly career had little hope of being appointed to German universities. Heinrich Graetz (1817–91), the most widely known scholar at the seminary, is generally regarded as the first modern historian of the Jews. His major work, the eleven-volume Geschichte der Juden, was translated into several languages and is still held in high esteem despite its undisguised antipathy toward any form of mysticism, especially Hasidism. In 1869, he received the unusual distinction, for a Jew, of being named Honorary Professor at the University of Breslau, where he lectured with some regularity. In the field of religious studies the seminary could boast of many scholars of worldwide renown, several of whom became professors at seminaries in other countries, including the United States. The list is long, but it is worth singling out Israel Lewy, the director of the seminary from 1883 to 1917, who is widely regarded as one of the greatest Talmudists of modern times.10 The atmosphere at the seminary was conducive to scholarship of the highest quality. The number of students training for the rabbinate was actually small—twenty-one in 1854, fifty-eight in 1865, and not many more thereafter—but they were gifted and highly motivated. They also had diverse backgrounds, some of them having been raised in one or another of the German states and others in Galicia, Hungary, and Bohemia. For a few years until 1867, a small group of students, never more than twelve in any one year, received training as teachers but were also capable of substituting for rabbis.11 The education was completely free; initially, students were the guests of local Jews for their meals, but eventually they received a stipend to cover all costs. The library of the seminary expanded rapidly, making rare and valuable sources readily available to the faculty and students. During its first forty years it amassed close to 17,000 published works, a number that rose to almost 20,000 by 1919. In addition, the library owned 212 handwritten manuscripts preserved in 248 bound volumes. Finally, the seminary was home to the Monatsschrift für Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judentums, the journal that played a central role in the dissemination of the movement known asWissenschaft des Judentums (science of Judaism); it focused on the scientific study of the Jewish religion and the

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Jewish people, an approach to these fields still quite new at the time. The journal appeared in 1851, even before the seminary opened, and over the next eighty-eight years eighty-three volumes were published, covering such fields as classical Jewish theology, history, and philosophy. From time to time, articles appeared that bore directly on issues of current concern to world Jewry. The maintenance of a first-rate hospital was another notable achievement of the Jewish community of Breslau. In 1926, some two thousand people, including dignitaries from various government agencies as well as Protestant and Catholic institutions, attended the celebration of the two hundredth anniversary of organized Jewish care for the the sick. A clear sign of the importance attached to the hospital by residents of the city, it also seemed to indicate that Jews could be integrated into German society without losing their identity. The Board of Governors referred with pride to the “effectiveness of our hospital as a successful weapon against anti-Semitism and religious hatred.” 12 The board’s pride and optimism seemed justified. The hospital had evolved in the course of the 170 years since its founding in 1760. From a small institution that treated only Jews (about sixty in 1841) and also housed an industrial school for Jewish girls and a Beth-ha-Midrash (house of study), it had become a large, modern building with the most up-to-date equipment, treating 522 patients in 1902 and 4,503 in 1930. By the early 1930s it was one of the most modern hospitals in the city and the first in Breslau to establish a special department devoted to diagnosis and therapy by x-ray. Virtually all the funding came from affluent Jews. Jonas Fraenckel, who had left an endowment for the seminary, also donated 85,000 thalers for the new hospital in 1841. In 1897, when those premises had been outgrown, a new building was again funded, this time with donations of 250,000 marks by Markus Fuchs and 300,000 by Clara Hirsch von Gereuth. Although the hospital maintained a synagogue on the premises and served only kosher food, by the early twentieth century it had opened its medical services to people of all denominations. Indeed, by the second half of the 1920s non-Jews formed a substantial majority of the patients. In 1913, about 28 percent of the patients were non-Jews; by 1927, that number had risen to roughly 67 percent.13

Jews Settle in Breslau

Jewish welfare activities in Breslau were not limited to caring for the sick. According to official documents, in September 1938, twenty-eight Jewish foundations established between 1835 and 1919 remained solvent. The largest one had been set up by the family of Löbel and Henrietta Schottländer in 1880 and was worth the considerable sum of nearly 525,000 marks in March 1933. The funds were to be spent on general support for descendants of the family or on guarantees, free of charge or at low cost, for the acquisition of homes by descendants of the family or “other people.” A board of trustees set the policies of the foundation and decided on all expenditures. From April 1, 1933, to March 31, 1934, the foundation dispensed a total of 16,978 marks, mostly in modest sums to needy individuals.14 Most of the other people who established foundations stipulated that the moneys be distributed to indigent relatives, but several explicitly noted, as did the Schottländers, that others could be recipients as well. Josef Dyhrenruth set up a fund in 1829 for dowries for poor Jewish girls and specified only that preference should be given to relatives or friends of his family. In 1847, the ever-beneficent Jonas Fraenckel created a special fund to support daughters of his relatives and male relations who devoted themselves to “study, business and trade, [or] agriculture.” Joseph and Friederike Goldenring left a legacy whose interest was to be used to buy wedding presents for both male and female descendants. Part of the bequest of Toni Landsberg was destined to help pay the rent of “poor residents of Breslau regardless of their religion.” Eva Tiktin stipulated that her legacy be used “as a dowry for one young lady or as support for a twenty-year-old man for the purpose of establishing himself [in business or a profession].” 15 These were not the only charitable undertakings of Breslau Jews. The community maintained a Welfare Office, financed by taxes and voluntary contributions, that provided aid to indigent people whose income from public relief agencies was considered inadequate. In 1930, during the height of the Depression, about 30 percent of the Jewish community received such aid. After 1934, the community also contributed to the upkeep of the Jewish school. Until then most parents had been perfectly content, and actually preferred, to send their children to public schools, several of which provided a first-class education,

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but a fair number of observant parents wanted a rigorous religious course of study for their children. In 1920, a small group of adherents of Mizrachi (religious Zionists), Agudah (ultra-religious opponents to Zionism), “community conservatives,” and a few secular Zionists founded a new school on the Rehdigerstrasse, which is how it came to be identified. Initially, it was a Volksschule, which educated children from the ages of six to fourteen. In 1923, the school added an excellent Reformgymnasium, which prepared students until they were eighteen or nineteen for the Abitur (final examination), a prerequisite for study at a university. The Board of Governors of the Jewish community, known in German as the Synagogengemeinde, opposed the establishment of the new school. For eleven years the board refused to subsidize it in any way, and for three years after 1931 it offered only minimal financial support. The school therefore relied on fund-raising and fees, which had to be modest since the families of many students could not afford tuition. The Rehdigerstrasse school quickly became known for its academic excellence and demanding curriculum. It was modern Orthodox in orientation and focused on the study of Hebrew, Jewish religion, and Jewish history, but it also emphasized secular subjects in the humanities and sciences, as well as music, art, and sports. Gymnasium students were required to study two foreign languages, Latin and either French or English, in addition to Hebrew. Statistics on the school’s registration during its first eleven years are not available, but we know that in 1932, 118 adolescents attended the gymnasium and that probably another 300 attended the Volksschule. Thus, about 15 percent of all Jewish children of school age in Breslau were enrolled in a Jewish school.16 Many Jews considered the public schools to be conservative, authoritarian, and even a bit antiquated, but they acknowledged that they provided a superior education and a solid grounding in German culture, which was deemed very important. At the beginning of the imperial period, in the early 1870s, when Jews made up about 7 percent of the city’s total population, 21 percent of all students in “higher schools” were Jewish, as were 28 percent of all students in gymnasiums. Jewish girls represented an even higher percentage at these schools.17

Jews Settle in Breslau

The educational authorities did not discriminate against Jews, who flocked to the most prestigious institutions. This open-minded approach was most notable at the Johannesgymnasium, an especially fine school that opened its doors in 1872 and attracted many gifted youngsters who went on to achieve distinction in various fields. By 1900, 30 percent of the students at the Johannesgymnasium were Jewish and, according to one estimate, by 1928 the percentage had risen to slightly over 50.18 Gabriel Holzer, now a citizen of Israel, enrolled in the Johannesgymnasium in 1932 and recalled that the principal had encouraged him not to leave the school after Hitler’s rise to power, pointing out that even in Palestine it would be advantageous to have the Abitur.19 By this time, anti-Semites referred to the school, often known in the abbreviated form Johanneum, as the Judanneum. In part, the large presence of Jews in gymnasiums reflected their numbers in the middle class, but it probably also reflected the high value they placed on education. In any case, the administration of the Johannesgymnasium went out of its way to accommodate Jews. True, there were not many Jewish teachers—according to one estimate, five, perhaps one or two more—but in the final examination for the Abitur, which had to be passed before graduation, Jewish students were examined in “Jewish religion,” not Christianity.20 Before 1933, the experiences of Jewish children in public schools, so critical to the formation of social and political views, were generally positive. When he was in his eighties, Norbert Elias, the eminent sociologist, recalled that his years at the Johanneum “still appear to me as a time of great significance for my intellectual orientation.” 21 The school was “wholly imbued with the classical pedagogical ideal of the German educated middle class. At its centre were still the classics of Graeco-Roman antiquity and the German classicists of the age of Schiller and Goethe.” Not surprisingly, this challenging and exciting intellectual atmosphere—not only at the Johanneum—was the breeding ground for numerous scholars and scientists of distinction. By the mid-twentieth century no fewer than four men of Jewish descent from Breslau had been awarded the Nobel Prize: Paul Ehrlich in medicine in 1908; Fritz Haber in chemistry in 1918; Otto Stern in physics in 1943;

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and Max Born in physics in 1954. During the same period, five nonJews from Breslau won the award, a reflection of the high value the middle class as a whole in Breslau placed on education.22 Elias could remember only one anti-Semitic incident from his school days, and he did not consider it particularly nasty. When he was fifteen or sixteen, students in his class discussed their plans for a career. I said I wanted to be a professor at the university, and a classmate interjected, “That career was cut off for you at birth.” There was a lot of laughter, from the teacher and, of course, the whole class. And it wasn’t really meant maliciously, it was a very astute remark. It wounded me so much because I had probably never realized that under the Emperor such a career was practically closed to Jews.23

Walter Laqueur, the eminent writer, did not recall any anti-Semitic incidents at the school, which he attended until graduation in 1938.24 Nor did Ernst Marcus, a successful lawyer who had attended a different gymnasium. “Personally, I did not suffer from anti-Semitism before 1933. I was the only Jewish student in my class. I had good and friendly relations with other students,” and they remained his friends after graduation.25 Fritz Goldschmidt, a student at the Magdalengymnasium from 1904 to 1912, detected a “certain current” of hostility in the upper classes, but this did not prevent the formation of friendships between Jewish and Christian students that often continued even after 1933.26 Some Gentile students who were prejudiced against Jews made an exception for individuals. Heinz Hartmann, who attended the König Wilhelms Gymnasium, was told, as were other Jewish students, “If only every Jew were like you, there would be no anti-Semitism.” 27 Hartmann had no such problems in medical school at the University of Breslau and recalled that “there were American students there in 1931 (some of them Jewish), who could not get into American medical schools because of the ‘numerus clausus’ and the quota system.” 28 Other Breslau Jews who attended public schools before 1933 also did not remember being subjected to much nasty intolerance. On the contrary, on occasion teachers went out of their way to show kindness to their Jewish students. Late in 1932, the music teacher at the Johannes-

Jews Settle in Breslau

gymnasium organized a Christmas party, but during the festival of Chanukah he made a point of playing the Hebrew holiday song “Moas Tsur” in class. In 1933, this teacher was abruptly dismissed.29 On the other hand, very few Breslau Jews recalled having had nonJewish friends in school, and visits by non-Jews to their homes for social occasions also seem to have been rare. To be sure, much of the socializing consisted of family gatherings, which were held frequently, but there were other events and they, too, were largely limited to Jewish friends and acquaintances. Although many doors had been opened to them, and although most of them led comfortable lives, most Jews nevertheless remained socially cut off from Gentile society. It could be said that by the early twentieth century the Jews of Breslau were tolerated and even accepted by Gentiles, but that they were still regarded as different and not quite equal to the rest of the population. As Elias put it in the 1980s, “In cities like Breslau the German Jews formed, sociologically speaking, a second-rank society,” although they “did not see themselves as second-class people.” 30 Nor did they see themselves as other than patriotic Germans, thoroughly committed to German culture, who happened to be of the Mosaic faith. When Elias was asked which was the more fervent feeling of German Jews, being a German or a Jew, he emphatically responded that this was an “entirely wrong question. . . . Because the two things were not competing in any way. Of course, I was both, as one would say existentially, in a completely unreflecting way.” 31 The attachment of Breslau Jews to German culture, both those who were secular in their outlook and most of those who were observant, manifested itself in numerous ways. “I am proud of being in that tradition,” wrote Elias. “I identified very much with German classicism— Goethe, Schiller, Kant: they were the great men in my life. My first printed essay was full of allusions to them.” 32 Elias was not a nationalist and had misgivings about Germany’s role in the First World War, but he served loyally in the army; many other Breslau Jews served enthusiastically and always spoke with a certain nostalgia about their military service. The reverence of Breslau Jews for German culture was most strikingly evident in their support of the theater, opera, and local orchestra. This attitude seems to have been a Jewish tradition in Germany that

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dates back at least to 1774, when a traveler through Prussia reported that on Saturday nights most of the seats in the Berlin theater were occupied by Jews.33 By the late nineteenth century, Breslau had developed into a major cultural center and it is generally accepted that without Jewish patronage that could not have happened. Neither the theaters nor the orchestra could have survived financially had there been no Jewish audience. For Jews, subscribing to both the theater and the symphony was simply routine. “It was the done thing,” Elias’s mother would say.34 It was, in a real sense, an anomalous situation. “Politically,” to quote Norbert Elias once again, “the Jews were outsiders, yet at the same time they were carriers of German cultural life.” 35 Yet the points of contact between Jews and Gentiles should not be overlooked, nor the distance between them exaggerated. For one thing, by the turn of the century many of the sports clubs, cultural associations, and other social societies were open to Jews. Ever since the 1850s a fair number of Jewish physicians had belonged to the Silesian Society for National Culture, and several of them held leading positions in the organization and even founded new branches representing new fields of study. One of the most prominent Jewish members of the society was the highly respected Augenarzt (eye specialist) Hermann Ludwig Cohn (1838 –1906), so beloved for his good work that he acquired the nickname of Augencohn. The philosopher Richard Hönigswald, who had converted from Judaism to Protestantism and was a professor at the University of Breslau, served as director of the philosophy-psychology section of the society from 1914 to 1930, a period during which he was also the Spiritus Rector (Moving Spirit) of the young Zionists in Breslau. Hönigswald was the teacher with the greatest influence on Elias.36 Intermarriage between Jews and Gentiles of course played a critical role in increasing the contacts between the two groups. As in Germany generally, the number of mixed marriages in Breslau rose sharply after the founding of the German empire in 1871. Between 1876 and 1880 there were 100 marriages between Jews and only 9 between a Jew and a Gentile, but between 1890 and the early 1920s the frequency of mixed marriages quadrupled. The number of Jewish men and women who chose non-Jewish partners was roughly the same. The high rate of in-

Jews Settle in Breslau

termarriage continued in the 1920s and demonstrates, in the words of Till van Rahden, “that the friendly and intimate contacts between Jews and other residents of Breslau became more natural.” 37 The offspring of these unions for the most part were brought up as Christians and thus intermarriage frequently marked the last step before complete assimilation. Still, it was not uncommon for the families to celebrate both Christian and Jewish traditions and holidays. Admittedly, within the Jewish community there was considerable distress over this development, but there was also a high degree of acceptance or indifference regarding a trend that seemed to be irreversible. Occasionally, the Christian partner in a mixed marriage converted to Judaism, and in the 1930s, after the enactment of the Nazi racial laws, these families faced decisions of special poignancy. On the professional level, Jews and Gentiles often maintained cordial relations. Ernst Marcus, a prominent lawyer, was on good terms with several Gentile colleagues, quite a few of whom voted for him when he ran, successfully, for the Executive Board of the Verein Landgerichtsanwälte (Association of County Court Lawyers). Only after 1933 did relations begin to sour.38 Physicians had similar experiences. Siegmund Hadda, renowned not only as a surgeon but also as a warm-hearted human being, never encountered anti-Semitism in his youth, and once he was in practice most of his patients, at least before 1933, belonged to “one of the two large Christian religions.” 39 It was not uncommon for Jews of distinction to receive public recognition. Breslau was the third city in Germany (after Erfurt and Schwerin) to bestow the title of “Honorary Citizen” on Jews. In 1897, the authorities conferred the honor on Ferdinand Julius Cohn, a botanist, placing him in an elite of nineteen people, and in 1901 the title of King’s Counsel (Justizrat) was accorded to Wilhelm Salomon Freund.40 In April 1924, on the occasion of the ninetieth birthday of Eduard Sachs, for many years the president of the Jewish community, the city fathers sent him their congratulations and the newspapers devoted long articles to him.41 In local politics as well, Jews achieved a fairly high level of integration. During the imperial era the Jews of Breslau overwhelmingly supported the two liberal parties, the National Liberals, who derived much

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of their strength from industrial interests, and the more left-leaning Progressives. One historian has even referred to the Jews as the “nucleus” of liberalism in the city. The Jews’ attraction to liberalism was almost natural, since the movement stood for civil rights for all and religious toleration. But in 1879 Jewish political allegiances began to change because in that year’s election to the Landtag, the local parliament, a sizable number of National Liberals refused to vote for a Jew, Eduard Lasker. The incident became something of a cause célèbre when the historian Heinrich von Treitschke publicly expressed his approval of the voters’ categorical refusal to allow a Jew to serve in the legislature. Henceforth, the National Liberal Party in Breslau was dominated by the right wing of the movement and by Christian liberals. Jews almost to a man now voted for the left liberals, the Progressives.42 This marked an important shift. Elections in pre-1918 Prussia were conducted on the basis of a three-class system: the voting population was divided into three groups, each of which paid the same amount of total taxes and each of which elected an identical number of representatives to the city and provincial legislatures. The first two groups included a relatively small number of the most affluent citizens, and since Jews made up a proportionately large number of the well-to-do, they formed a sizable part of both. In the election of 1874, Jews constituted almost 37 percent of the first class of voters, and in the 1888 election to the Prussian legislature, 26 percent of the first class and 19 percent of the second class were Jews, even though they amounted to only 5 percent of the population of Breslau. Without the Jewish vote in the first two classes, the liberals would have been much weaker than they were in the Prussian legislatures, and they would not have enjoyed a dominant position in Breslau’s city government.43 Beginning in the 1880s, when the Social Democratic Party (SPD) grew in size and influence, Jews also became active in the socialist movement. It has been estimated that in the SPD conferences of the Weimar period about 10 percent of the participants were Jews.44 A fair number of Jews in Breslau were elected to various legislatures. As early as 1841, Hermann Lassal, the father of one of the founders of German socialism, Ferdinand Lassalle, won election to the city council, and five years later Löbel Milch, a respected member of the Jewish

Jews Settle in Breslau

community, followed suit. From 1887 till 1933, three Jews, Wilhelm Salomon Freund (1831–1915), Adolf Heilberg (1858 –1936), and Eugen Bandmann (1884 –1948), served, successively, as chairman of the Breslau City Council. Eduard Bernstein (born in Berlin), the founder of the Revisionist wing of the Social Democratic Party, represented Breslau in the Reichstag (parliament) from 1911 to 1918. After his conversion from Judaism to Protestantism, Karl Rudolf Friedenthal (1827–90), the founder of the Free Conservative Party, was elected to the Reichstag from the Upper Silesian region of Neisse, an industrial and agrarian region with a predominantly Catholic population.45 Jews who lived in Breslau in the pre-Nazi period remembered the city with great fondness, in good measure because of the friendly relations between different groups of residents. The physician Siegmund Hadda, for example, was filled with emotion on being forced to leave his “beloved home town” in 1943. Although born elsewhere, during the forty-three years he lived in Breslau he became deeply attached to the city. It was, as he put it, an “undeveloped large city” that, despite its many beautiful old buildings, attracted few tourists. As a consequence, when he walked in the center along the main street he would run into many acquaintances. “Above all, those who belonged to the so-called educated circles as well as those who had common professional interests or who attended the theater, concerts and also those with business links, knew each other.” Close to the Jewish community, Hadda also knew Jews in all walks of life, artisans, merchants, respected university professors, and senior judges. Some of the more successful Jewish merchants, Hadda noted, brought great prestige to the city. When, shortly before the Nazis came to power, the textile business of the Bielschowsky family celebrated its fiftieth anniversary, even the highly conservativeSchlesische Zeitung ran an article on the head of the firm with the following title in large letters: “A Royal Merchant.” 46 But the many signs of acceptance of Jews by the general population of Breslau do not tell the whole story of Jewish integration into German society. “Despite far-reaching coexistence and good friendships [between Jews and Gentiles],” the historian Olaf Blaschke recently noted, “even in these friendships there was ‘a residue of social dis-

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tance.’” 47 In large measure, this social distance can be attributed to changes in public attitudes toward the so-called Jewish question. Early in the nineteenth century, when intellectuals debated that question, reformers such as Wilhelm von Dohm hoped that it would be possible to “dejudaize” the Jews. They wanted Jews to abandon the “commercial spirit” and adjust to the “norms, customs, pattern of conduct and the kinds of occupations” that defined “bourgeois society.” 48 Many German Jews were willing, and even eager, to respond favorably to what they considered to be a call to accept the principles of modernization, although it was clear to them that so far-ranging a shift by the Jewish community could not be achieved easily or quickly. However, later in the nineteenth century the political and intellectual climate changed unexpectedly, and now Jews were asked to do more than that. In 1879, the highly regarded historian Treitschke, distressed at the possibility that a Jew might be elected to public office, unleashed an attack on Jews that immediately provided anti-Semitism with an aura of respectability, enabling it to develop into a mass movement. Treitschke concentrated on what he considered to be the moral flaws of eastern European, mainly Polish, Jews, but he suggested more than once that even other Jews could not be assimilated into German society. His provocative conclusion that “the Jews are our misfortune” became the battle cry of anti-Semites for decades to come.49 Thirtytwo years later, Werner Sombart, a prominent economist and for a time a professor at the University of Breslau, contended in a widely read book that “perhaps a section of the Jews lived the Ghetto life because they were by nature inclined that way.” He also warned that “amicable relations” between Germans and Jews were possible only so long as the Jews did not constitute more than 1 percent of the total population.50 The most thoughtful response to Treitschke’s attack on Jews came from Theodor Mommsen, the great historian of Rome and champion of liberalism and religious tolerance. Profoundly patriotic, Mommsen took great pride in Germany’s unification, but he warned that the emergence of a fully integrated nation would inevitably be a gradual process. This was not a matter of concern to him, since there were groups other than the Jews—the Saxons and the Pomeranians, for example—that also had their own cultural traditions that would have to

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be integrated into German society. He also pointed to the significant contribution to world history and German culture of such prominent Jews as the Rothschilds and the poet Heinrich Heine, to mention only two, and he cautioned, with remarkable foresight, that hostility of the majority toward a minority (particularly the Jews) could lead to a “calamity.” For Mommsen, it was beyond question that Jews should enjoy full legal equality, but at the same time he believed that they themselves had an obligation to help remove the “feelings of foreignness (Fremdheit) and inequality with which the Christian German even today still regards the Jews.” The nation-state, according to Mommsen, deplored nonconformity, and Christianity “is still the only word that sums up the character of today’s international civilization.” He granted that it was possible to be part of the nation without sharing all its values and traditions, but he considered such an option “difficult and perilous.” The best course for Jews, in Mommsen’s view, was to convert to Christianity.51 Most Jews, however, did not favor the kind of assimilation that Mommsen advocated. They were not prepared to abandon their traditions completely, nor did they wish to renounce their faith. By and large, German Jews favored integration, or acculturation, that is, the adoption of German culture, language, literature, art, and music, and the Germans’ reverence for refinement. But they were not prepared to go beyond that.52 Mommsen’s appeal to Jews to convert to Christianity reflected a deep current in German political culture. German nationalism, which emerged in the first decades of the nineteenth century, early on acquired an anti-Western cast, primarily because it was in rebellion against the French occupation of Prussia. It also tended to adopt a defensive and highly romantic posture, predisposing it to emphasize internal cohesion and distrust of the outsider and to be indifferent or even hostile to the concern of Western European liberals for the “rights and value of the individual.” These attitudes influenced the legislation of July 3, 1869 —never rescinded after creation of the German empire in 1871—that proclaimed “freedom and equality of religion” for the North German Confederation, but at the same time contained ambiguities that did not bode well for Jews. Although the law of 1869 explicitly

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guaranteed freedom of religion and prohibited discrimination, one article referred to the “Christian character of state schools,” and for Jews this provision inevitably raised questions about their status within the emerging German nation-state. It seemed to many that if they were not entirely excluded from it, they were to be treated with suspicion, as outsiders who could not be fully accepted as German citizens.53 One consequence of the economic and cultural developments in Germany after the country’s unification in 1871 was a discernible growth in hostility toward Jews among certain social groups who resented the sudden rise to prominence of what had long been a despised minority. Excluded from several prestigious professions and filled with uncommon energy and drive after achieving emancipation, Jews endeavored to succeed quickly in those walks of life open to them. I have already noted their success in commerce and the law as well as medicine. By the turn of the century they had also achieved an astonishing degree of success in such cultural fields as the theater, music, literature, and journalism. Joseph Roth was not far off the mark when he wrote, in 1933, that “It would be true to say that, from about 1900, German cultural life was largely defined, if not dominated by . . . [the] top class of German Jews.” To support his assertion, Roth listed thirty-seven prominent writers who were “Jews, half Jews and quarter Jews.” 54 To many Germans, the rise to success and influence of a “despised and stigmatized outsider group” was galling. This feeling was not simply the result of envy on the part of German Gentiles; it also grew out of a profound sense of insecurity, as the Germans, who had only recently witnessed their country’s emergence from a position of weakness and disrespect to the status of a great power, were still unsure of its acceptance as such. What seemed to make matters worse for Gentiles who looked upon the Jews with suspicion was the Jews’ refusal to accept their assigned status of inferiority. On the contrary, as they succeeded in establishing themselves in the economy and in professions they “took their legal equality seriously and behaved as if they were Germans” fully equal to other citizens.55 This was certainly true of the Jews of Breslau, as Elias emphasized in his autobiography.56 *

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The various waves of anti-Semitism that spread across Germany from 1871 to 1933 left their mark on Breslau, although it is probably fair to say that until the early 1920s the city was less affected by them than many other regions of the country. During the three-year period from 1878 to 1881, when hostility toward Jews was on the rise in large measure because of Chancellor Bismarck’s bitter conflict with the Progressives, many of whose leaders were Jews, the Schlesische Volkszeitung carried numerous vitriolic anti-Semitic attacks. One of the first such articles, early in 1878, approvingly claimed that “hatred toward Talmud Judaism here in Breslau has for about three years become very intense in all strata of the population.” The paper quickly followed with a series of attacks on “Jewish journalists,” “Judaism in the field of justice,” “Jewish academic associations,” “Jewish medical specialists,” and “Jewish religious schools.” In November 1879, the paper carried an article that asked who was responsible for the “domination of the Jews” and placed the blame on three factors: Jewish aggressiveness, the good nature or ladylike behavior of Christians, and the liberal laws. The Jews were able to score great successes because the rest of the population offered no resistance.57 In 1880, a petition circulated in Germany calling on the authorities to exclude Jews from teaching positions and government service was signed by 200,000 people, among them 50,000 in Silesia and 5,000 in Breslau.58 At about the same time, anti-Semitism began to assume a racial tinge. The behavior of the Jews, some now contended, had not resulted simply from their values or social structure, which could be modified if they adopted the ways of Gentiles. Wilhelm Marr was the leading spokesman for this line of thinking. In his pamphletThe Victory of Judaism over Teutonism, which appeared in 1873 and was reissued in twelve editions within six years, Marr argued that the Jews were a race, not a religious group, and that they posed a grave danger to the German economy and German culture in general. He coined the term “anti-Semitism” and warned that the conflict between Germans and Jews was a life-and-death struggle that could be resolved only by the total defeat of one or the other.59 The anti-Semitic movement with its racist coloration received a political boost in December 1892, when the rabble-rouser Hermann Ahlwardt was elected to the Reichstag despite

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his well-publicized criminal record. Four months later, he gave an address on the theme “Why Anti-Semitism Must Succeed” to an overflow audience in one of the largest halls in Breslau.60 In the meantime, the city had undergone a political realignment with ominous implications for the Jewish community. A portion of the Protestant middle class abandoned liberalism in favor of the Conservative Party, and the Center Party, which enjoyed the support of about one-third of Breslau’s Catholics, went on the offensive against Jews in the Catholic press.61 An especially virulent wave of anti-Semitism took place during the First World War. The hopes of many Jews that the experiences of the war, when they fought side by side with Gentiles, would promote comradeship and lead to better relations between them, proved to be, in many instances, totally unfounded. To the contrary, the wartime experience often had the exact opposite effect. The proximity of Jews and Gentiles only brought into sharper relief the differences in “mentality” between them, differences that many had not been aware of before. But the most shattering event in stoking anti-Semitism was the “counting of Jews” in 1916, which struck the official leadership of German Jewry and the Jewish population as a whole “as one of the most traumatic events since emancipation.” 62 When it became clear that the expected quick victory of Germany would not be realized and domestic conditions were deteriorating sharply, people began to look for scapegoats. One of the most frequent claims was that the Jews were shirking their duty by avoiding military service, and, it was asserted, many of those who were in uniform managed to avoid being sent to the front. To dispel these suspicions, the Prussian minister of war, Adolf Wild von Hohenborn, ordered the army to conduct a census of the Jews in the military services. The census was administered in a thoroughly amateurish, even primitive way, and the results were never officially revealed. But even before the work had been concluded, the entire project came under attack as a clear violation of the “civil truce” (Burgfrieden) that had been declared on the outbreak of hostilities in order to unify the population for the upcoming struggle. Gustav Stresemann, a Reichstag deputy who belonged to the conservative National Liberal Party, warned in January 1917 that

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the army’s census would trigger an “anti-Semitic movement . . . such as has never before existed.” Leaders of Jewish organizations protested strongly against the count, and the Ministry of War issued a statement claiming that the census was not prompted by a desire to discover how Jewish soldiers had acquitted themselves during the war or on the battlefield. No one lent credence to the statement and the army’s failure to release the study only fueled the wild claims of the anti-Semites. For Jews, the entire episode was a crushing blow to their hopes of being recognized as patriotic citizens who had significantly enhanced the war effort. Some 100,000 Jews, about one-sixth of the total population, had been enlisted in the armed forces, and 78,000 of them served on the battlefront. Twelve thousand Jews lost their lives, 30,000 had received medals for bravery in battle, and 19,000 had been promoted, 2,000 to the rank of officer. These figures compared favorably to those of other social groups. Nevertheless, the Stahlhelm, Bund der Frontsoldaten (Steel Helmet, Association of War Veterans), formed after the war, refused to accept Jews as members. Jewish veterans then formed their own Reichsbund jüdischer Frontsoldaten (Association of Jewish War Veterans). It was another sign of the distance between Jews and Gentiles.63 For six years following the census, from 1916 to 1923, relations between Jews and non-Jews in Breslau deteriorated steadily. Although still a clear minority in the city, anti-Semites launched a variety of campaigns to exclude Jews from teaching positions, medical associations, and even the boy scouts. Vera London-Rosenbaum recalled that “already in 1919 there began a mean anti-Semitic agitation on small anonymous posters” in support of these demands.64 Then, at the time of the Kapp Putsch in 1920, when right-wingers sought to seize power, several Jewish students in Breslau who had removed some anti-Semitic posters were locked in a cellar and roughed up. Six months later, antiSemites staged a pogrom during which they demolished a Jewish department store and stormed a hotel that catered mainly to Jews from eastern Europe. The police arrived just in time to prevent a serious outbreak of violence, but one twenty-two-year-old student, Bernhard Schottländer, a leader of the Independent Socialists in Breslau, was murdered by a group of Nazis. After a pause of three years, another

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pogrom erupted (on July 20, 1923) that turned out to be more deadly. During a protest march against unemployment and hyperinflation, some 500 people, mainly young men, plundered more than 100 shops, almost all of them owned by Jews. In the scuffles several Jews were killed and many were wounded.65 The anger directed at Jews after the First World War was part of a nationwide rise in right-wing sentiment, linked directly to the humiliation of an unexpected and painful military defeat. In Breslau, the sense of humiliation was especially sharp, because a significant portion of Upper Silesia, the economic hinterland of the city, was severed from Germany in the final settlement imposed upon Germany by the victorious Allies. According to the Treaty of Versailles, Upper Silesia was to decide by plebiscite on whether to remain part of Germany or be assigned to the new Polish state. In the vote in March 1920, some 706,000 favored the German side and approximately 479,000 voted for the Polish side. But in the southeastern region of Silesia, the richest area, which contained three-fourths of the province’s coal and almost two-thirds of the steelworks, people voted for unification with Poland. To bolster their case for acquisition of this area, the Poles launched an armed uprising in May 1921. It became a bloody affair involving the notorious Free Corps (Freikorps), who, with the public endorsement of the prime minister of England and the tacit approval of the German government, defended German interests. The Free Corps, many of them later recruits to the Nazi Party, defeated the Poles, but the Allied Powers nevertheless assigned this rich area of Silesia to Poland.66 It was a decision that rankled the residents of Breslau and helps to explain their shift to the right a decade later. Given the continuing distance between Jews and Gentiles in Breslau, it is not surprising that Jewish communal life in the city remained strong. Unwelcome, at least until late in the nineteenth century, in many of the voluntary associations, Jews formed their own parallel clubs, and for those with a strong appetite for meetings, the range and number could be daunting. Indeed, it was probably in Germany that middle-class Jews acquired the reputation of endless wanderers from one function

Jews Settle in Breslau

to another. What was true of Bernhard Petuchowski, who complained in 1927 about his busy schedule in Berlin, could have applied to many Jews in Breslau, where there were eighty Jewish associations. Petuchowski noted that if one was a member of several associations that feature lectures then at the time of the high tide of lectures one would attend a lecture at the Association for Jewish History on Thursday, [then] on Friday a scholarly lecture at the radio station, on Saturday a religious lecture in the form of a sermon, on Monday, depending on one’s political views, a lecture in the Central Association . . . or at a Zionist club, and if on Tuesday one has attended a one-and-a-half hour meeting at the lodge, . . . then one could finally enjoy an hour of quiet.67

After 1933, when the divide between Gentile and Jew became wider than ever, the Jewish voluntary associations served as a haven for their members. The Jewish youth movement, formative in the lives of many youngsters, deserves special attention. Unwelcome in the most prominent youth movement, the Wandervögel, which tended to be sympathetic to right-wing nationalism, Jewish young people (mainly from middleclass backgrounds) who were moved by a yearning for comradeship and engagement in high culture as well as by a spirit of rebellion against the older generation, created their own organizations.68 It has been estimated that at least 25 percent of all youngsters in the upper classes of the top secondary schools belonged to one or another of the nine different youth groups in Breslau, and invariably they spoke nostalgically about their experiences. Guenter Lewy, who as a nine-year-old joined Die Greifen, a German-Jewish scouts organization that was politically nonpartisan, recalled with great warmth the goals and activities of the movement. He could not, he thought, exaggerate the degree to which its “quasi-Romantic” ideas shaped his own development, his values, and his professional aspirations. At their meetings, the members would wear uniforms (until forbidden by the Nazis), discuss German writers such as Reiner Maria Rilke, Hermann Hesse, and Stefan George, listen to music and poetry, sing songs of mercenaries (Landsknechtlieder), and, of course, go on exhilarating hiking trips in the countryside. What

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bound the youngsters in Die Greifen to each other was not their Jewishness, to which little attention was paid, but their conviction that they must lead special lives and at all costs avoid living likeSpiessbürger (philistines). Lewy, a highly respected scholar, believes that his own choice of an academic career was an attempt to realize the goals of Die Greifen.69 Walter Laqueur, who belonged to the Werkleute (toilers), which gradually turned to Zionism, also acknowledged the deep influence the youth movement had on his own adolescence. Comradeship was important to him and he was especially attracted to the Werkleute because the other members were “nice people.” 70 In addition, Jewish youth could choose to join the so-called Jewish Bünde (roughly translated as unions), which placed strong emphasis on Jewishness and, to one degree or another, favored the study of Judaic traditions.71 Some Bünde insisted that they were both German and Jewish, and spoke approvingly of what has come to be known as the symbiosis between the two identities. Others placed paramount importance on the religious and national values of Judaism, though they nevertheless clung to a positive view of the Diaspora. And still others were fully committed to the establishment of a Jewish state in the Holy Land and advocated Aliyah, that is, a move to Palestine and the creation of communal settlements (kibbutzim) there.72 Many of these youth movements assumed greater importance after 1933, when the Jewish community was increasingly cut off from the rest of society, and we will encounter them again when the discussion turns to the Nazi period. Politically, the Jewish community of Breslau was not monolithic. A solid majority continued to support the liberals after the collapse of the monarchy and the formation of the Weimar Republic, and voted for the moderate German Democratic Party. But because the three-class system of voting had been abolished, Jews were less influential than they had been in imperial Germany. Thus, ironically, under the democratic system of the 1920s Jews no longer had the same leverage they had enjoyed for several decades before 1914 in defending the rights of their coreligionists. In the 1920s a growing number of Jews voted for the Social Democrats, who were among the most ardent supporters of Weimar democracy.

Jews Settle in Breslau

Zionism came to Breslau as early as 1898, when Salo Translateur, a resident of the city, enlisted the support of slightly over one hundred people, among them several rabbinical students at the Theological Seminary. A year later, the group formed the Breslau Zionist Association and secured financial contributions from 212 people; the funds were partly used to plant trees in Palestine. The list of contributors consisted primarily of businessmen, but it also included eleven doctors or dentists, and two Ph.D.s. Most of their meetings were devoted to issues of current interest, and they frequently featured lectures by intellectuals such as Martin Buber, Alfred Klee, and Heinrich Loewe. The Breslau Zionists constituted the second largest local Zionist group in Germany, but, as in the rest of the country, they were not a major force in the community.73 The overwhelming majority of local Jews regarded themselves, first and foremost, as German citizens; they showed little interest in leaving their country, and many of them feared that support of Zionism would open them to the charge of disloyalty to Germany. But very few Jews sympathized with the right-wing movement led by Max Naumann, an ardent patriot for whom rejection of Zionism became something of a personal mission. His biography was atypical of German Jews. Born in 1875 into an affluent family in West Prussia, he studied law at the University of Berlin and in 1897 enlisted in the army, where he was one of a very small number of unbaptised Jews— somewhere between fifty and one hundred—to be commissioned as a reserve officer.74 He was activated during the First World War, fought with great bravery, and was awarded an Iron Cross, First and Second Class. Naumann achieved a degree of prominence in 1920 when he published an article in the Kölnische Zeitung setting forth in some detail his rather novel views on the Jewish question. Naumann contended that German Jewry could be divided into three categories: the National German Jews, who were unquestionably loyal to Germany; the Zionists, whose primary loyalty was to the Jewish nation; and, finally, those who were “in-between.” Naumann hoped to win over this last group to his cause and, more specifically, to support for the German People’s Party or other right-wing parties. In his view, descent (Stamm) and not religion was the essential factor in Jewish identity, although he did not

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advocate conversion and, in fact, belonged to a Reform synagogue in Berlin. He considered the Jews from eastern Europe (Ostjuden) an entirely different breed of human being and had no fraternal feelings for them. In 1921 Naumann and eighty-eight other Jews announced the formation of the League of National-German Jews (Verband nationaldeutscher Juden), whose aims would be “to integrate itself completely within a nationalist German people’s community [Volksgemeinschaft] and to battle against all ‘unassimilable’ elements within the Jewish community.” More specifically, the league called for the expulsion from Germany of the Ostjuden, the “revocation of citizenship for all German Zionists, and the public rejection of Jewish left-wing intellectuals and politicians.” In 1932, the league was the only Jewish organization that contemplated endorsing a “Nazi-led National Revolution.” Only Hitler, Naumann declared at this time, could bring about a “rebirth of Germandom.” 75 The official Jewish leadership firmly repudiated Naumann and his influence in the community was minimal. In 1930, in the election for the Jewish community’s representative assembly in Berlin the Naumannites received less than 2 percent of the vote. The league had to content itself with such minor victories as persuading the owner of a movie house in Breslau in 1924 not to continue showing a film about Palestine on the grounds that the money the Zionists would raise would be sent out of the country and would enrich a region dominated by the English.76 But Naumann did touch on a sensitive issue, the relations between German and eastern European Jews. By the 1920s, close to 20 percent of the Jews in Germany were east European or of east European descent, about a third of whom had moved to the West after the First World War. There were marked differences between native and eastern European Jews. The latter tended to be religiously more observant, their children were more likely to attend Jewish schools, they were less secular in their outlook and less well educated, and some continued to wear the customary garb of the East and to speak Yiddish or German with an accent. Well over half of the foreign Jews had Polish passports and a sizable number were “stateless,” having lost their former citizenship. By 1933, about 40 percent of the foreign Jews had actually been

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born in Germany, but because of the stringent regulations governing naturalization they bore the citizenship of their parents. On average, the standard of living of the foreigners was considerably lower than that of German Jews.77 Relations between the two groups were uneasy: the Germans looked down upon the Ostjuden as socially and culturally inferior, coarse, and loud; and the latter, in turn, showed a certain disdain for the more formal buttoned-down, humorless “Jekkes,” a word that probably derived from Jackett (jacket), which German Jews wore more regularly than easterners. But it would be a mistake to harp on the mutual dislike between them to the exclusion of all other sentiments. The German Jews devoted considerable efforts and funds to helping their coreligionists from the East, and once the Nazi persecutions began in 1933 relations between them became markedly less strained.78 In Breslau, about 10 percent of the Jewish community was of eastern European origin. Most of the Ostjuden, but by no means all, attended their own synagogues and they socialized primarily among themselves, although the social life of the younger generation was much less restricted. My own siblings, who were several years older than I, had German Jewish friends, and after attending our synagogue on the Sabbath, they often went to the more imposing German synagogue to meet friends. True, German emigrants from Breslau whom I interviewed recalled that their parents would urge them not to behave like Ostjuden—above all, not to speak like them. “Don’t gesticulate,” mothers would tell their children.79 Yet I remember that in 1938, when my family, regarded as Ostjuden, was in danger, German Jews readily came to our aid. Naumann’s rants notwithstanding, many German Jews did feel a real kinship for their brethren from the East. The rise to power of Adolf Hitler and his National Socialist Party can be linked directly to the economic and political turbulence of the Weimar period. From the moment the republic was established after the Revolution of 1918 –19, it faced a series of severe crises that undermined its stability, dramatically demonstrated by the following statistics: in 1919 over three-fourths of the participants in the election for the Reichstag voted for the republic, but within a year the middle classes

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began to turn away from democracy, and by 1932 support for it had dwindled to slightly more than 40 percent. Another sign of the republic’s instability was that during its fourteen years no fewer than twelve different persons held the post of chancellor (prime minister). A drift to the right also took place in Breslau, where the transfer of power during the Revolution of 1918 –19 proceeded with relatively little violence, probably because the Social Democrats had occupied some important posts even during the years before 1914. In 1918 the mayor and the school supervisor were Social Democrats, and in the elections to the city council in 1919, the Social Democrats, the most stalwart supporters of the republic, received 50.9 percent of the vote. But as early as 1924 public sentiment had shifted: Social Democratic support dwindled to 30.12 percent and in 1932 that number declined even further.80 A principal reason for the republic’s instability was that several major institutions—the army, the civil service, the judiciary, and the educational system—remained in the hands of individuals who despised the new political order. Furthermore, the peace treaty imposed on Germany at Versailles, perceived as inordinately harsh by the German people, humiliated and embittered many of them. They deeply resented not only the loss of territories in Upper Silesia and the occupation of parts of the Ruhr, but also the formal declaration that Germany was responsible for the outbreak of hostilities in 1914. In the years from 1921 to 1923, the country endured a crushing inflation, which impoverished a large sector of the middle class. During that early period of the republic, right-wing extremists twice attempted to overthrow the government, in 1920 when Wolfgang Kapp and some military officers sought to stage a putsch, and again in 1923 when Hitler attempted to seize power. The extremists also carried out a series of assassinations of politicians they dubbed “knaves of the victors” for seeking to reach an agreement with the Allies. Invariably, the criminals received light sentences or were not punished at all. The economy began to recover in 1924 and for a short period, the “golden years of the republic,” Germany enjoyed relative stability, only to be struck by the devastating depression of 1929. Early in 1933, close to seven and a half million people, about one out of three in the workforce, were unemployed. The country was now “full of private armies” and political violence was a regular occurrence, mostly in-

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volving street fights between Nazis and Communists. During the last two weeks of June 1932, seventeen people lost their lives in politically motivated clashes, and in July the number rose to eighty-six. In addition, hundreds were wounded. The government did little to stem the violence, and to many it seemed that the country was undergoing a breakdown of authority, that it faced a slide into anarchy.81 There were other signs of the republic’s fragility. In the elections to the Reichstag in 1930, the National Socialists registered 18 percent of the vote (as against 2.6 percent two years earlier), earning 107 seats in parliament out of a total of 584. Two years later they became the largest party in the legislature, having captured 37.2 percent of the vote and 230 seats. The Nationalists were supported by 6.1 percent, which meant that 43.3 percent of the electorate now supported right-wing parties hostile to the republic. The moderate and liberal parties were almost wiped out, and the Social Democrats, the one major party still committed to democracy, received only 21.6 percent of the vote. The Communists, who also opposed democracy, gained 14.3 percent of the vote. True, in a new election in November 1932 the Nazis declined to 33.1 percent, but the Nationalists’ support rose to 8.3 percent, which gave the right wing a total of 41.4 percent, still not a majority. Their strength was sufficient, however, to persuade the aged President Paul von Hindenburg—then eighty-five years old and quite feeble—to succumb to the endless intrigues of his advisers and appoint Adolf Hitler as chancellor. Hindenburg was not enamored of Hitler, whom he considered to be an uncultivated upstart, a “Bohemian corporal” with a penchant for long monologues. But the reigning assumption in the Presidential Palace was that in a coalition government consisting of nine conservatives and three National Socialists the former would be able to rein in the latter.82 Better to tame the Nazis by bringing them into the political system than to let them cause national havoc as an opposition movement without any responsibility for their actions. For the Jews of Breslau, the years immediately preceding Hitler’s assumption of power were a period of bewilderment and apprehension. Ever since 1920, Hitler and his National Socialist Party had been promoting a curious amalgam of political ideas: ultranationalism, social-

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ism, and anti-Semitism. They called for the abrogation of the Versailles Treaty, the abolition of unearned income, the “communalization” of department stores, extensive changes in agricultural policies to favor the farmers, and the exclusion of Jews from citizenship. Hitler was less than firm in his commitment to his economic program and, depending on which group he was addressing, changed his views with ease. It was difficult to know what to make of his pronouncements, which generally were delivered in a demagogic style. In any case, until 1930 his popular support was minimal and in the electoral campaigns of the early 1930s, when his party suddenly catapulted into prominence, he tended to pay less attention to anti-Semitism than he had before. Some historians now believe that Hitler had concluded that hostility toward Jews may not have been the best card to play in his quest for votes.83 Still, the Jews of Breslau had reason to be alarmed. A city whose populace had voted strongly for liberals until 1918, Breslau now (in 1932) greeted Hitler with substantially larger crowds than Berlin. More important, Breslau gave a higher percentage of its votes, 43.5, to the Nazis than any other large city in the country, and more than the 37.4 percent that the Nazis received nationwide.84 At the same time, the incidents of anti-Semitism in the city grew in frequency and intensity. Hans Tramer, a graduate of the Jewish Theological Seminary, recalled that toward the end of 1931 or at the beginning of 1932 he experienced the “raging national soul” (kochende Volksseele) of the Nazi movement in Breslau. From eight to twelve o’clock at night the city was terrorized by rampaging hordes who were protesting what appeared to many to be a just judicial sentence against a Nazi murderer. The streets were crowded with people who beat up anyone who appeared to be Jewish. Tramer escaped the violence by jumping on a streetcar, but the mob prevented it from proceeding. Tramer jumped off and reached a group of on-duty policemen. He asked them to accompany him to his residence, but they politely informed him that they could do nothing since a Nazi officer, later the police chief in Breslau (Edmund Heines), was “in charge.” Tramer remained with the policemen till 1 AM, when two of them finally shepherded him to his home.85 A few months later, on August 23, 1932, Nazis in Breslau staged street demonstrations against the death sentence handed down by a court in

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Beuthen against five of their comrades who had been found guilty of murder. The demonstrators marched along several streets denouncing the Papen government and shouting “Bread and Work, Death to the Jews!” (Arbeit und Brot, den Juden Tod!), “Drive the Jews finally out of Germany!” “Down with the Jewish Criminal Judges!” A Jewish pedestrian was beaten to the ground and another was seriously injured. Both were robbed. It took the police two days to restore calm.86 There were also rumblings of anti-Semitism in Breslau intellectual circles. Axel Freiherr von Freytagh-Loringhoven, a member of the conservative German National movement, a representative to the Reichstag, and a professor of law at the University of Breslau, came up with his own solution to the Jewish question. The Jews, according to Loringhoven, constituted a separate stock (Stamm) and in saying this he claimed that he did not intend to make any value judgment about them. “Whether Jews are better or worse is a matter that can be left undecided,” he asserted. “They are different from us, feel and think differently, and for this reason we simply cannot permit them a decisive influence in our public life.” Loringhoven proposed that Jews be declared a “foreign nation” (Fremdvolk) who would retain the right, under the supervision of the state, to maintain and run their own cultural institutions such as synagogues, schools, and welfare organizations, all of which would receive state subsidies. At the same time, they would not take part in any aspect of German cultural or political life, although Loringhoven held out the possibility of one concession: it might be possible to grant Jews the right to occupy a number of public positions that corresponded to their proportion of the entire German people. In an editorial of May 19, 1933, the Jüdische Zeitung expressed approval of his ideas, but only because they were an improvement over the aims of the Nazis, who wanted to exclude Jews entirely from German society.87 The Nazis, however, were not pleased, because Loringhoven’s scheme was far too moderate. The anti-Semitic incident that received the most public notice at the time took place at the University of Breslau. In the summer of 1932 the faculty of law sent the minister of education a list of scholars for possible appointment to a chair in civil law that had recently become va-

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cant. The leading candidate was Ernst Cohn (1904 –76), a Jew who had been born in Breslau and had held teaching posts at the Universities of Frankfurt and Kiel. The minister of education, impressed with Cohn’s credentials, decided to appoint him. Nazi students and the Nazi newspaper, theSchlesische Nationalsozialistische Beobachter, immediately launched a campaign against Cohn. In an article entitled “A Jew-German Professor of Law” the paper declared that students found the minister’s action profoundly provocative. If the decision were not revoked, “then there is only one recourse: Battle with all means (Kampf bis zum Aeussersten).” Students in Breslau, the article continued, could not tolerate having “Herr Cohn dish out his Talmudic wisdom,” and if the “scandal” became so “great” that the university would have to be closed for a semester, then “better to lose one semester than to let Mr. Cohn speak for one hour. The time for written protests has passed. There are other methods.” Nevertheless, most of the faculty, the rector, and the Senate went to Cohn’s defense and insisted that the principle of academic freedom required that he be permitted to take up his position. Almost every official at the university was convinced that most students would accept his appointment and that the controversy would soon end. But on November 10, 1932, when Cohn appeared at the university for his first class, he was greeted by a large group of students who had filled the room and immediately began to whistle and “scratch loudly,” making it impossible for him to deliver his lecture. He tried to reason with the students, but was met with shouts of “We don’t want any Jews, out with the Jews!” Cohn left, but the noise continued. The police had to be called to restore order and clear the lecture hall. A couple of hours later, when Cohn tried to deliver his second lecture, the commotion was even worse. To eyewitnesses who heard students sing the Nazi “Horst Wessel Lied” and the national anthem “Deutschland, Deutschland über alles,” it seemed as though the lecture hall had been converted into a center for political rallies. When the rector appeared and tried to calm the students, he was shouted down and once again the police had to restore order. As Cohn left the university, he was met by a large crowd of students who insulted him and contemptuously sang: “Haven’t you seen the little Cohn?” Cohn, accompanied by two

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policemen, managed to reach a car and was driven home. A week later, on November 17, 1932, he again attempted to lecture but did not get very far because students threw tear gas into the room. Edmund Heines, a senior Nazi officer, could be seen among the crowd of protesters. Cohn’s other attempts to teach also had to be aborted. The dean of the Law Faculty, Dr. Waldecker, closed the school and a group of law professors issued a public statement defending academic freedom and urging that Cohn be permitted to teach his courses. On December 3, the administration finally took action against thirteen of the student demonstrators by bringing charges against them before a university disciplinary committee; three professors testified in support of the agitators. After deliberating for ten hours, the committee came up with the following mild punishments: one student was expelled for the semester, three received a reprimand, and nine were threatened with expulsion. The student agitators were neither chastened nor deterred. On December 22, 1932, several of them threw a stink bomb through the window of the rector’s private residence. But by this time the resolve of the administration and faculty to resist the pressure to act against Cohn had begun to wane. Cohn’s opponents had brought up a new charge, that he was a Communist and sympathetic to Leon Trotsky. Actually, Cohn had not been involved in politics at all but had merely given an opinion on whether Trotsky, who had been expelled from the Soviet Union, should be granted asylum. He had made the following, rather general, statement: “A person engaged in intellectual work would also appear to be worthy of protection; we truly have no shortage of agitators . . . [or] of people who are merely politicians.” The rector and Senate considered this innocuous statement on a controversial political issue to be “unfortunate” and concluded that Cohn “is no longer acceptable.” It was an easy way for them to extricate themselves from a difficult situation.88 The Cohn incident came as a shock to several members of the Jewish community, and the reactions to it of some prominent Jews provide insight into their state of mind in the days before Hitler assumed power. The conventional view is that in the early thirties and for a short time thereafter the Jews were concerned about the drift of political de-

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velopments but did not believe that they faced a major danger. However, at a meeting of the elected representatives of the Breslau Jewish community on January 26, 1933, four days before the Nazis assumed power, the mood seemed to be quite different. B. P. Meyer delivered a long speech on the Cohn affair in which he strongly criticized the Board of Governors of the community for concerning itself only with the administrative aspects of the affair and not “with what was happening out there.” Jewish institutions must take firm positions on political questions, for “the Cohn incident is not about the person of Prof. Cohn, but about vital Jewish interests. It is a question of what they dare to offer us Jews in Breslau, and how we will respond to that.” The Board of Governors, he insisted, had been much too passive. Formal protests about the violation of legal rights were insufficient. “We German Jews need a concordat just as the Catholics [have with the state]; under no circumstances must we allow things to remain as they have been. We need energetic Jewish leadership, and the Board of Governors has the mandate to represent Jewish rights energetically and with dignity.” Several speakers supported Meyer. One of them, M. P. Foerder, proposed that Jews suspend their financial donations to the university so long as it discriminated against them. Mr. Wolff asserted that both “law and morality” were on “our side” during the Cohn case and that if the Board of Governors had acted forcefully the incident would have ended differently. This is not an isolated case but a general attack against the rights of the Jews. What was also missing was a general outcry of the German people against such an injustice. Things would perhaps have turned out differently if the Board of Governors had not been so passive. The Jews of Breslau had the duty to be the first to step in [against the injustice].

Wolff then proposed the formation of a “presidential committee” that in future crises would decide, in consultation with the Board of Governors, on measures to be taken when Jewish rights were violated. Several governors defended the board, which had filed formal protests in the Cohn case, and warned that a presidential committee would inter-

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fere with the authority of the board. Nevertheless, Wolff ’s motion was adopted.89 It was a modest step, important more for what it reveals about the apprehensions of Breslau Jews than for what it was likely to achieve. Before taking leave of the Cohn case, it is worth noting that soon after the uproar at the university Cohn emigrated to England, where he became a barrister-at-law, Lincoln’s Inn, a prestigious position. He also pursued a scholarly career, published several well-regarded books on international and comparative law, and from 1967 to 1975 served as Visiting Professor of European Law at King’s College, London. Although the Cohn incident and the lawlessness in the streets of many cities aroused concern among Jews in Breslau, it is probably true that most of them, like the Jews elsewhere in Germany, did not, as Saul Friedländer put it, experience any “apparent sense of panic or even of urgency” in the days after Hitler took office as chancellor.90 His program struck people as so extreme and even bizarre that very few believed it could be implemented. Hitler’s accession to power, it was thought, was only one more in the long procession of governmental changes that had taken place in the previous two years. “Let them [the Nazis] into the government for six months, [and] then they themselves will run away from it.” 91 Ernst Marcus, who left Breslau in 1938, noted that on January 30, 1933, “the world had been changed with one blow,” but few realized it at the time. After all, the period immediately following that change was relatively calm. Broad circles of the middle class, including us and our Jewish friends, believed that things “will not be so bad.” These hopes rested on two considerations: first, outside of Hitler only two Nazis were in the cabinet and the German Nationalists controlled the government (even the Nationalists themselves believed that); and, in addition, there was a big difference between waging unscrupulous, demagogic propaganda and governing the German state.

Marcus, a lawyer, had heard Nazi lawyers speak of excluding Jews from the executive committee of the lawyers’ association, and thought that that would be the most extreme anti-Semitic action the Nazis would take. In mid-February 1933, his wife was so unconcerned about the

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general situation that she took a winter vacation in Johannesbad, Bavaria.92 These views, widely shared by the leadership of German Jewry, should not be interpreted as simply a reflection of naiveté or timidity. They reflected at least as much the uncertainty and confusion about the best course to follow. The situation was entirely unprecedented as no one had ever faced the kind of fanaticism represented by the Nazis. Would open hostility to the Nazis provoke them into carrying out their most extreme threats against the Jews? Or would quiescence by Jews lead the Nazis to conclude that they could do as they wished with impunity? These were questions no one could answer with confidence.93 In fact, in 1933 very few people appreciated the fanaticism and potential ruthlessness of Hitler, and those who did failed to impress persons in positions of authority. In September that year, Jay Pierrepont Moffat, the chief of the Division of Western European Affairs in the U.S. Department of State, met for an hour with the historian Professor John Firman Coar, who had just returned from Germany where he had had two conversations with Hitler. Professor Coar wanted to convey his impressions to the president or to the secretary of state, but got no further than Moffat, even though his insights were very astute. Coar found Hitler to be so emotional that at times he appeared to be “partially abnormal.” Hitler, Coar reported, “would work himself up into such a towering rage that his eyes would focus behind the person he was talking to and even a film appeared across them. He would start talking on a subject and gradually pass from talking to rage, working himself up until at times he almost choked.” He was especially incensed about the Jews and America’s adverse reaction to his anti-Jewish policies. At one point during the meeting, Coar expressed doubt that Hitler could really be serious about all the things he had said; Hitler smiled as if to suggest that he was not serious. But Coar was convinced that Hitler was entirely serious in his loathing of the Jews. It seemed to him that the chancellor “was ruled by two complexes: a passionate love for Germany and a slightly less passionate hatred of the Jews.” Coar also met Rudolf Hess, then widely regarded as Hitler’s “most trusted adviser,” and believed by many to be a moderate on the Jewish question. Hess asked Coar whether American public opinion might be

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assuaged if Germany drew “a sharp distinction between the East [European] Jews and the German-born Jews, taking away from the former all their civil rights while restoring them to the latter.” Coar did not think this approach would suffice, at which point Hess warned that further pressure on Germany “in favor of the Jews would result in their mass expulsion,” a policy that Coar accurately predicted would “mean confiscation of their property.” Before Coar left Europe, Hitler sent him word that he would order his followers to tone down their antiSemitic rhetoric and that he would moderate his anti-Jewish policies. He also implied that in return he would expect the United States publicly to support a revision of the Treaty of Versailles. Coar told Moffat that he would be prepared to return to Germany “as a private individual and at his own expense if he could gain an inkling into what the Administration was after,” even though he conceded that his chances of success in persuading the Nazis to change their views on the Jewish question were small. Nevertheless, he believed it might be worthwhile to talk to leading Nazis again if the president or the secretary of state considered it advisable. Moffat did not encourage him, and pointed out that in view of the rapidly changing circumstances the administration was not in a position to “define, at least in its own mind, certain policies.” Moffat sent a summary of his conversation with Coar to the secretary of state, but other than that there is no further information on Coar’s personal diplomacy.94 Not all the Jews of Breslau remained unmoved by the political situation, as is evident from the way some leaders of the Jewish community reacted to the Cohn affair. Most notably, Willy Cohn (no relation to legal scholar Ernst Cohn), a teacher, scholar, and public intellectual, feared the worst. The Nazis, he recorded in his diary on the day Hitler took power, would soon place SA (Sturmabteilung or Storm Section) and SS (Schutzstaffel or Protective Echelon) people in many government positions and that they, too, would not be able to handle the economic crisis. Cohn predicted a revolution from the left that would provoke a civil war and the ultimate triumph of Communism. For Jews, a victory of either the Communists or the Nazis portended “bleak times.” Cohn still mustered some optimism by concluding that perhaps one could console oneself with the thought that often things do

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not work out as expected. In the meantime, one must “grit one’s teeth and get through these times.” But two months later, on March 31, by which time the Nazis were firmly in power and had already demonstrated that they took their anti-Semitic rhetoric seriously, Cohn was more alarmed. Referring to the Nazis’ hostility toward the Jews, he wrote that “All this is only a pretext for our destruction.” 95 Ominous predictions about the future of Germany had appeared in the Jewish press for some time. For example, during the electoral campaign for president early in 1932, when Hitler ran against Hindenburg, the Jüdische Zeitung warned that although the Nazis might not be able to implement their anti-Semitic program in its entirety, they could enact enough measures “to shake the foundations of Jewish existence in Germany.” 96 On many other occasions, the paper stressed that the Nazis were not directing their fire merely against one group, the Ostjuden, but against all Jews. The paper stated time and again that the Nazis were racists who despised and denigrated every single Jew, and that each one must understand that only a unified stand could enable German Jewry to offer effective resistance to the impending onslaught.97 These appeals did not evoke much of a response at the time, in large part because the Jüdische Zeitung was a Zionist paper with a special interest in emphasizing the danger to Jews and thus promoting its goal of creating a Jewish state in Palestine. In any case, the pessimists within the Jewish community made up a small minority, as Hans Tramer, who maintained close links with the Jewish community in Breslau, discovered when he tried to promote the cause of unity at a meeting in Berlin on the very day Hitler was appointed chancellor. I . . . [was] the second speaker and said: a historic change has taken place, two hours ago Hitler became Chancellor. All differences between Jews have now become senseless. We are all in danger. The entire audience considered this a prophesy of doom; my speech did not make any impression and I failed completely. There was no echo at all.98

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“Creeping Persecution,” 1933 –1934

On March 31, 1933, theNeue Breslauer Zeitung carried a brief article describing a report in theNew York Times on an interview that the recently departed U.S. ambassador to Germany, Frederic Sackett, had given in Vichy, France. Sackett had urged caution in passing judgment on recent events in Germany, for he believed that the demonstrations and unrest, which in any case were only sporadic, had come to an end and that the violent phase of the Nazi “Revolution” was over. The few incidents in which American citizens had been molested were isolated cases that the German government had done its best to contain quickly, and in Sackett’s view, it would be regrettable if the German authorities were now held responsible for them. A blanket condemnation of the Nazi government might well provoke “a real anti-Semitic movement” in Germany. The ambassador was convinced that future developments there would depend on how the country was received at an upcoming world economic conference in London. If, as he hoped, Germany were treated as an equal partner in the discussions, if it were given “freedom and voice,” and the conference came up with solutions to Germany’s economic problems, peace in Europe would be assured.1 Ambassador Sackett was not an admirer of Hitler. In fact, during his stay in Berlin, from 1930 to 1933, he had become increasingly alarmed at the growing popularity of Hitler, whom he regarded as a demagogue unfit to govern the country, and he worked closely with Chancellor Heinrich Brüning to shore up the Weimar Republic.2 But what Sackett, and many others at the time, failed to grasp was the ideological fervor of Hitler and his followers, their determination to implement their program, and their ruthlessness. Even as late as 1942, Franz Neumann, the

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outstanding scholar of National Socialism, argued that “racism and Anti-Semitism [in Germany] are substitutes for the class struggle.” He was convinced that the Jews were an extremely valuable scapegoat for all the “evils” and troubles besetting Germany and that therefore the Nazis would not embark on a policy of “complete extermination of all the Jews.” 3 It took time for even thoughtful and knowledgeable people to realize that Hitler and his closest associates were fully committed to certain goals that they clung to with fanatical tenacity. They always remained unshaken in their hostility toward democracy, their belief in Germany’s destiny to reestablish itself as a major world power, and their conviction that humanity was divided into a hierarchy of races with the Aryans at the top. At the bottom were the Jews, whose presence in Germany they regarded as a great menace to Germany’s economy and culture. This is not to say that Hitler and his followers assumed office in 1933 with a master plan on dealing with the menace, much less with a plan for the physical extermination of the Jews. In fact, the proclamation to the German nation that the new government issued on February 1, 1933, did not even mention the Jews, which some interpreted as a good omen. Most probably, the reason for this silence was that the new rulers had not yet had time to settle on a course of action. But within a few weeks they enacted a whole series of decrees aimed at depriving Jews of rights they had enjoyed for at least a century, thus setting them apart from the rest of German society. However, even before those policies were announced a new wave of violence, aimed mainly at Communists, swept the country, hitting Breslau with special force and creating the impression that law and order no longer existed. On January 31, 1933, only one day after the change in regimes, the Communists held a demonstration in the center of the city and when the marchers began to sing songs “with criminal content,” the police ordered them to disperse. The demonstrators ignored the order and sang with greater gusto, whereupon the police pounced on the marchers with their clubs. Infuriated, some in the crowd broke the windows of a store selling Nazi uniforms and removed merchandise. The police responded with what they claimed were warning shots but one worker was killed and four others were wounded.

“Creeping Persecution”

The city authorities, warning that “public security” was endangered, now prohibited all demonstrations by the Communist Party and other left-wing organizations.4 The prohibition did not end the violence. During a demonstration on a major thoroughfare on February 5, a student who belonged to the Social Democratic paramilitary organization, the Reichsbanner, was stabbed to death in broad daylight by a man in an SA uniform. Together with several colleagues, the SA man then proceeded to attack other demonstrators, wounding several of them. The police arrested a few Nazis, but one of them was forcibly freed by a group of civilians. Elsewhere in the city there were also clashes between Social Democrats and Nazis. “In this report,” a newspaper indicated, “it should be noted that the National Socialists frequently acted in an extraordinarily provocative way [toward the Social Democratic demonstrators], which explains the fury of the participants in the march and the ensuing clashes.” 5 On March 30, the residents of Breslau were treated to a public display of the power the Nazis now enjoyed in the city. On that day, the recently elected city council, in which the Nazis held a majority, met for the first time. “The meeting hall was decorated with chlorophyll and flowers, and the Presidential stand was flanked by a banner with the swastika on the black-white-red flag and by a red-white flag of the city of Breslau. Punctually at 5 o’clock the new city fathers appeared in the hall, the National Socialists in their SA uniforms.” The provincial prefect (Oberpräsident) of Lower Silesia, Helmuth Brückner, a staunch Nazi implicated in the murders of the Weimar politicians Walter Rathenau and Matthias Erzberger, gave the opening address, in which he lauded the “Chancellor of the German people” for having shown that “where there is a will, there is also a way to extricate a nation of 60 million people out of its gloomy despair and to show them the way to rise up again.” 6 A few days earlier, Vice-Chancellor Franz von Papen had announced the appointment of Edmund Heines, the Group Leader of the SA in Silesia, as chief of police (Polizeipräsident) in Breslau, which meant that the city was now fully under Nazi control. The thirty-six-year-old Heines was a man with a dark past, having been involved in several so-called Feme murders when he was a member of the Free Corps in the postwar period. The Free Corps consisted

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of former soldiers and some civilians recruited, with the blessing of the Social Democratic military expert Gustav Noske, for the purpose of putting down Polish insurrectionists in Upper Silesia in 1921, although they were also used in other parts of Germany to restore order during the Revolution of 1918 –19 and in the Baltic lands to establish German dominance. The Free Corps revived the medieval institution of Feme courts (Femgericht), which dispensed a primitive form of “folkish justice,” what we would now call mob justice. Like their medieval forebears, the courts of the Free Corps imposed only one sentence, the death penalty.7 It was clearly a form of murder, and in one of his speeches Heines boasted about how often the death penalty had been proposed for him for such murders “in the courts of the Republic.” One resident of Breslau referred to him as a “psychopath . . . a homosexual, an instigator of murders, a born criminal, but loyal to Hitler.” 8 Even as police chief, Heines retained his position as the Obergruppenführer (a rank equivalent to that of a general in the army) of the Silesian SA group and it soon became evident that he was far more interested in promoting the cause of Nazism than in protecting the citizens of Breslau. After 1933 the police department in Breslau, as elsewhere in the country, was transformed into an arm of the political authorities, who were determined to reshape national institutions. Heines demonstrated his contempt for the traditional role of the police when he created, shortly after assuming office, the so-called Stabswache, a bodyguard of forty SA men who behaved like common thugs. According to William W. Heard, the American consul in Breslau, who had access to “confidential sources emanating from the [Nazi] Party itself,” the conduct of the bodyguards “has been condemned even by the most rabid and fanatical members of the Party.” Easily recognizable because their hats were circled by a wide red band, the members of the Stabswache would cruise the city in a red police truck, attacking people at will. But their main targets were Jews, especially owners of restaurants and night clubs. “Members of this ‘Choice’ group,” the consul noted, “after gorging themselves with food and drink and upon smashing glass and other property, would customarily leave the victim’s place without paying for the food consumed or making any compensation for the damage done.” After a few months, Heines felt obliged to rein in his body-

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guards, but he did so only because they had beaten up several policemen, who, it seems, disapproved of their conduct. Heines dismissed thirty-nine of the guards, but the one man who was spared, a twentyyear-old named Schmidt, became his “adjutant,” and in that position continued to behave as badly as before. Accompanied by “two husky uniformed SA men of the ‘Bruiser’ type,” the adjutant for several months frequented the city’s night clubs, where he would act like a bully. “To order the proprietor [of a night club] to eject an Aryan or non-Aryan (generally the latter) or otherwise to insult customers, to drink freely of the drinks the proprietor was obliged to pass out gratis, et cetera, was a regular nightly event for Schmidt.” A Jewish club owner personally protested to Heines about the behavior of Schmidt, who often appeared exactly when police regulations required that the club be closed for the night and demanded that it be kept open. Heines took no action and simply advised the owner to summon a policeman. In the meantime, the proprietor of the club was fined 100 marks each time he failed to close on time. But several months later, in December 1933, Schmidt’s conduct became intolerable even to the SA. While in uniform, he instigated a “small riot” in a restaurant, which prompted the SA Watch (comparable to military police) to take him into custody. After this incident Schmidt no longer appeared at any restaurant in Breslau and rumors circulated that he would be tried by a special SA tribunal. The police force had done little to curb Heines’s men, and it was now evident that it no longer discharged its obligations; in the words of the American consul, the Jews of Breslau had reached the conclusion that “to appeal to the Breslau police for protection is just so much waste of effort and time.” Uninterested in the day-to-day running of the police department, Heines left the administrative work to the thirty-five-year-old deputy police chief, Dr. Patschowsky, who before 1933 had worked as a prosecuting attorney in the Chamber of Prosecution in Breslau. He had labored in “total obscurity” until he joined the Nazi Party, where he rose to the rank of captain (Sturmhauptführer) in the SS and distinguished himself for his fanaticism, especially on the Jewish question. He was a prime mover of the attacks on Jews (with the full support of Heines), which became so intense that Nazi leaders in Berlin expressed

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concern. “Even in Party circles,” the American consul reported on the basis of his Nazi informants, “it is admitted that the Jews were more severely dealt with in Breslau than anywhere else in the Reich, especially during the early days following the rise of the present Government.” Early in November 1933, the local press made the surprise announcement that Dr. Patschowsky had been promoted to a new position in Berlin, although no one knew what he would do in the capital. Soon rumors circulated that he had fallen out with Heines, but then other rumors suggested that the authorities in Berlin considered his anti-Semitic outbursts excessive, or at least not fully in line with party directives from the capital. Patschowsky’s successor, Regierungsrat (counselor to a governing board) Louis-Werner Engels, was less ebullient and less domineering but equally committed to the Nazi cause. Prior to 1933, he had worked for the Silesian press group of the party and now held the rank of lieutenant colonel (Obersturmbannführer) in the SA. According to still other rumors, Heines himself was beginning to displease Nazi leaders, who had misgivings about his “arbitrary assumption of authority.” Some party officials in Breslau speculated that Heines might not be permitted to hold on to both of the positions he occupied, chief of the police and leader of the SA in Silesia. If that was the case, it would have placed Heines in a dilemma: the police post was lucrative but he cherished his role in the Nazi movement, which, at least theoretically, did not include any remuneration.9 Heines did manage to hold on to the two positions, but not for very long. Hitler and his closest associates came to have doubts about Heines’s political reliability and on June 30, 1934, during the Night of the Long Knives, he was assassinated together with at least fifty-seven of the “first soldiers of the Third Reich,” including, most notably, Ernst Röhm, the leader of the SA, on suspicion that they were plotting against the Führer. Not much is known about Heines’s political maneuvers within the party, but we do know that he was the lover of Röhm, who had become very popular and was seen as a potential rival to Hitler.10 During his fifteen-month tenure as police chief in Breslau, Heines had done much to change the political climate in the city. On May 10, he incited—as did Nazi leaders in nineteen university cities and

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towns—a huge burning of some 10,000 books by Jews and left-wing authors that the Nazis had designated as “harmful and trashy literature” because they were imbued with the “Jewish-Marxist spirit.” Before the fire was lit in the city’s Schlossplatz (palace yard), a “solemn demonstration” took place at Breslau University to show support for the government’s campaign “against the un-German Spirit” that was poisoning the culture of the country at every turn. Every seat in the Aula Leopoldina (Leopold Auditorium) was occupied, and among the audience could be seen many dignitaries, including the rector of the university, Geheimrat Professor Dr. Helfritz. To accommodate the large crowd of students and other citizens who had gathered around the building, loudspeakers were placed in the hall’s windows. After an SS band played stirring marches and various Nazi student groups entered the auditorium, representatives from the students and faculty delivered tirades against the “un-German spirit” that had allegedly engulfed Germany. Max Offig, the leader of the students, led off with an attack on the “November system of 1918” (a reference to the Weimar Republic), which, he declared, had ruined not only the economy but the culture of the country, its literature, theater, movies, and even music, in which “the peculiar music of the Negroes” was becoming increasingly popular. All these pernicious influences must be eradicated. Only German art is worthy of being disseminated among the German nation. Only the works of German poets and writers, who with their art want to serve the German nation and fatherland, should from now on be kept in our libraries [and] bookstores. . . . The German people want only poets and writers who represent our glorious Aryan racial community and who want their art to serve the German fatherland. As our Führer and People’s Chancellor Adolf Hitler has consecrated all his strength and abilities to Germany, so in the future the fundamental principle for our German literature must be: Everything for Germany!

These words were met with “stormy applause lasting several minutes.” Several speakers continued in a similar vein and the indoor proceedings ended with a quotation from Martin Luther by Professor Bornhausen: “Because your books have afflicted the sacred spirit of Germany, therefore the fires of hell will burn you.” Soon thereafter, according to

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the reporter who described the meeting, “the flames of the huge pyre of the un-German poison that has ruined the nation” lit up the dark night.11 Police Chief Heines also established a “private” concentration camp in Breslau-Dürrgoy (now Tarnogai) where he jailed “enemies of the people” such as Communists, socialists, and other “politically unreliable elements.” 12 Officials interpreted “enemy of the people” very broadly to include foreign students enrolled at the University of Breslau. On March 29, 1933, two American students, Charles Mudgen and Arthur Isquith, decided to visit Reinerz, a health resort near the Czechoslovak border, but soon after they began a tour of the town they were accosted by a “Nazi in uniform,” who questioned them about their intentions and took them to a police station for further interrogation. The entire process was conducted in a “very severe and harsh tone” and after impounding their passports the police searched their luggage. In the end, they were released, but they were kept under surveillance during their stay in Reinerz. The only explanation the two students were given by the police for their detention was that “this is a revolution and you understand that we must do our duty.” 13 It was also early in Heines’s tenure as Obergruppenführer of the Silesian SA that Breslau was the scene of the first large-scale attack by Nazis on the country’s legal order, an attack that signaled broader Nazi intentions with regard to the Jews. At 11 AM on Saturday, March 11, 1933, Ludwig Foerder, a Jewish lawyer who was speaking with some colleagues in a large room at the courthouse, suddenly heard a “roaring, as if from wild animals.” Two dozen SA men in their brown shirts and caps rushed through the door and yelled “‘Jews, get out.’ . . . Immediately everyone, Jews and Christians, stood as though paralyzed.” Most Jewish lawyers left, but a seventy-year-old counsel (Justizrat), Siegmund Cohn, a member of the Executive Committee of the Board of Attorneys, was so stunned that he could not get up from his chair. When the SA men approached Cohn, several Christian lawyers, among them some who belonged to the conservative Stahlhelm, Bund der Frontsoldaten, surrounded the elderly man to protect him. Foerder himself refused to budge, but a Nazi took him by the arm and hit him on the head with a metal weapon right where he had suffered a wound during

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the First World War, causing him to bleed profusely. As he walked out of the room, Foerder saw judges and lawyers, some in their official garb, being chased into the street. The Nazis went from room to room screaming at Jews to get out. “Two hooligans yelled at one [Jewish] junior barrister: ‘Are there any Jews here?’ Completely calm, he answered: ‘I don’t see any’—at which they slammed the door and moved on.” Foerder appealed to several officials to stop the SA action and the chief of police agreed to send twenty policemen, who, however, marched toward the courthouse at a distinctly “leisurely pace.” Heines himself had clearly helped plan the “pogrom.” Foerder then observed the following scene at the office of the supervisory judge (Aufsichtsrichter): one of the Nazis entered the room and peremptorily declared: “Heil Hitler, Command from above, the court must be purged of Jews.” The judge, an old reserve officer, at first could not utter a word, but when the SA man saw Foerder, he asked: “Is he a Jew?” and, to Foerder’s astonishment, the judge replied: “Yes, he is a Jewish lawyer.” Two Nazis approached Foerder, who asked them not to touch him and offered to leave on his own. As he left the building, another Nazi kicked him. Outside, Foerder met another Jewish lawyer, Geldfeld, who was chairman of the Board of Governors of the Jewish community. Geldfeld, shaking with anger, asked Foerder: “Just tell me, to whom will it be possible to complain about this outrage?” “Distinguished Privy Councilor,” Foerder answered, “I fear that there is no longer any such place.” Foerder understood that Germany was no longer a state based on law. Later that day, Foerder learned that several employees of the courthouse had guided the SA men into the building and had pointed out where the Jewish lawyers could be found. When the “libertines” (Wüstlinge) approached the office of a Jewish director of the district court, who had lost a leg in the First World War, they found the door locked. “Wait, you Jewish rascal, we will see to it that you will also get rid of your second leg.” Another lawyer, Maximilian Weiss, was hit on the head so sharply that he needed stitches. A fair number of lawyers, among them many Christians, were appalled by the attack and within hours decided to protest the action by refusing to enter any courthouse; they declared what was called a “stoppage in the administration of justice.” Foerder raised an unan-

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swerable but interesting question: “If this course of action had been adopted in all the many courts that within the next few weeks endured similar unworthy scenes, who knows how the ‘national revolt’ would have developed?” Friends and colleagues advised Foerder to leave Breslau at least temporarily because it seemed very likely that the Nazis would arrest him. Over the preceding fourteen years he had been the lawyer in some 200 trials of Nazis accused of illegal actions against Jewish organizations as well as against the Association of Republican War Veterans, some of them involving Joseph Goebbels and other high Nazi officials. Foerder fled to Czechoslovakia, and when he heard that Heines had issued a warrant for his arrest, he decided never to return to Germany. Over the next few months, two Gestapo agents appeared at his home several times and thoroughly searched every room. When the police realized that he would not return, they seized all his belongings and auctioned them off. Foerder had managed to have his wife sent to Holland for treatment of a serious eye illness. He went on to Palestine, where he lived until 1954. His wife was taken into custody when the Germans overran Holland and was eventually murdered.14 The work stoppage of the lawyers and judges in Breslau lasted a week, but it did not alter the reality that a mortal blow had been struck against the legal system. As a Jewish newspaper noted, the occupation of the courthouse was an event that ranked among “the worst that the Breslau Jews had experienced within the memory of man.” All the protests achieved only minor concessions: the SA was ordered to vacate the courthouse, the building was to be guarded by the regular police, and seventeen out of a total of 218 Jewish lawyers were granted special police passes that allowed them to appear in court and to continue their legal work. None of the others would be permitted into the building, although they could still practice law. Special instructions would be issued to the seventeen spelling out their privileges.15 Still, a few Jewish judges remained in office and many Christian judges continued to be honest and fair in their legal decisions. Some of them demonstrated their disdain for the new order. Thus, District Judge Becker observed the rule that judges must raise their arms in the Nazi salute by propping his arm on the table, stretching out two fin-

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gers, and then quickly pulling them back. Becker was soon forced to retire. On the other hand, it was not uncommon for Nazi lawyers to argue in court that “all Jews are perjurers and that therefore no Jew should be allowed to give testimony.” Fairly often, judges ignored these calumnies, but with equal frequency Nazis would simply close down the business of a Jew who had won a case in court against a non-Jew.16 Some judges persuaded themselves that misguided individuals, not state authorities, were responsible for the restrictions imposed on Jews. “Believe me,” one judge told Ernst Marcus, “the Führer does not want this.” In time, the judge discovered that he had misjudged Hitler and he became an opponent of the regime.17 Even the Jüdische Zeitung remained optimistic in the aftermath of the pogrom. The editors chose to believe that the government did not intend to make the exclusion of Jews from the legal profession permanent: “Not only the interests of the Jewish lawyers, but much more the interests of the public seeking justice make such a regulation unfeasible.” 18 The paper also assured its readers that there would be no more forced closing of shops, such as had occurred on the day of the attack on the courthouse, when SA units had invaded Jewish department stores and other businesses; Nazi authorities claimed that violence had been avoided because the owners had “volunteered” to shut down their enterprises for a couple of days. TheJüdische Zeitung buttressed its optimism with the assertion that the government “knows that disturbances within the economy must be avoided under all circumstances because they would produce an increase in unemployment. That is why the Jewish merchant does not have to fear such coercive measures in the future.” 19 Today, this notion strikes us as wishful thinking, but we now know that at the time some officials raised precisely this argument in opposing anti-Jewish rampages. Joachim Friedrich von Alt-Stutterheim, who was still the Breslau police chief early in March 1933 and a Nazi sympathizer, believed that it was his responsibility not to permit the growth of unemployment that would result from attacking Jewish businesses. He did his best to persuade Heines to restrain the SA, only to have his appeal dismissed out of hand. Heines “referred to discussions between him and the Herr Minister [Göring], and said that he must drive the National wave forward” regardless of the cost.20

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In mid-March the government unleashed a press campaign against Jews in the legal and medical professions, claiming that in Germany there had taken place a “Judaization of justice” (Verjudung der Justiz). The Jewish press duly noted that in fact there had not been a marked increase since 1919 in the proportion of Jewish judges, although it was true that the proportion of Jews who practiced law was high, about 18 percent of the total in Germany.21 The statistics were immaterial to the Nazis. Shortly after the attack on lawyers and judges in Breslau, several cities— Gleiwitz (Silesia), Oels (Silesia), Chemnitz (Southern Saxony)—witnessed similar incidents.22 But during the first two months of Nazi rule there were no such incidents in Berlin, which had the largest concentration of Jewish lawyers. However, on April 11, the government issued a decree that affected Jewish lawyers throughout the country: it stipulated that except for veterans and their relatives, Jews were to be excluded from the law. Close to 70 percent of the Jewish lawyers and close to 50 percent of Jewish judges could still practice their profession, but debilitating restrictions—such as exclusion from national associations of lawyers— were placed on them. Over the next ten weeks or so, the government issued a stream of decrees excluding Jews from a wide range of institutions. As early as March 24, the various physicians’ associations were “integrated,” that is, were placed under Nazi control and Jews removed from all committees. A month later, the government ordered hospitals not to grant access to Jewish doctors. Increasingly, the workmen’s sick-funds excluded Jews from employment, depriving many of them of a sizable portion of their income. The impact of these measures was enormous: by the end of 1936 the number of Jewish physicians in Germany had declined from 9,000 to 3,300. On April 7, 1933, the government enacted the Law for the Reestablishment of the Professional Civil Service, which stipulated that all “non-Aryans,” that is, anyone with one non-Aryan grandparent, were to leave their government positions immediately. The law exempted only those who had entered the civil service before the First World War, were veterans of that war, or whose sons had died in the conflict. Early in May, the law was extended to non-Aryan judges and teachers at gymnasiums and universities. It has been estimated that about 2,000 people

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with academic training required for civil service employment and 700 teachers at the secondary and university levels lost their jobs.23 The most dramatic and in some ways the most frightening antiJewish action in the early period of Nazi rule was the boycott of April 1. The idea of a boycott of Jewish businesses was not new. During the late 1920s a movement sprang up among right-wing circles that called for such action, not to achieve better conditions for workers or to protect employers from what they considered to be unfair union practices, but rather to eliminate Jewish businesses. Then, immediately after the elections of March 5, 1933, the campaign was revived and Nazis in several cities, including Breslau, stationed themselves in front of Jewish stores and urged passers-by not to patronize them. Many Jews in Breslau and elsewhere temporarily closed their shops out of fear of violence. But on March 10 and 12, Hitler intervened in this campaign, calling on his followers to exercise restraint. He was then eager to appease conservative critics, and for a few days there was a “certain calm” throughout most of the country.24 But within days the Nazi leadership changed its mind and called for the formation of “action committees” to organize a boycott of Jewish businesses to begin on April 1. The ostensible reason for the new policy was that Jews abroad were conducting an anti-German campaign and accusing the new government of atrocities against Jews. Hermann Göring, president of the Reichstag and Prussian minister of the interior, claimed to be so annoyed that on March 25 he held a meeting with Jewish leaders, including Max Naumann, the leader of the Jewish rightwing movement, and Kurt Blumenfeld, who headed the Zionist Association of Germany, to bully them into helping him counteract the alleged campaign. In a one-and-a-half-hour tirade, Göring blamed the Jews for the low esteem in which Germany was held abroad, referred to reports of “alleged anti-Jewish excesses” in the country, and demanded that his guests travel to foreign countries to urge the cessation of antiGerman propaganda. He warned that if they refused, he could not guarantee the safety of German Jews. Several Jews insisted that their influence in foreign countries was negligible, but Göring was not persuaded. Only Blumenfeld offered to travel to various countries, but he warned that he could succeed only if he could report honestly on the

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situation of German Jews. Göring flew into a rage, claiming that he did not know what there was to report on that subject. At this point, the ultra right-wing Naumann expressed surprise and asked in a “sharp tone” whether Göring was really unaware of the mistreatment of the Jews. Four days after this meeting, Hitler himself denounced the “atrocity propaganda” against Germany and issued the following warning: “Jewry (Judentum) must realize that a Jewish war against Germany would have a severe effect on Jewry itself in Germany.” 25 Leaders of the Jewish community made two last-ditch efforts to prevent the boycott. On March 29 they sent a “Proclamation to Mr. Reich Chancellor Adolf Hitler” declaring that “The German Jews are deeply shaken by the call for a boycott by the German National Socialist Workers’ Party.” They then pointed out that the Jews were patriots and had made enormous sacrifices, including the loss of 12,000 lives during the First World War. “At this hour we repeat our avowal of belonging to the German nation (Volk), [and that our commitment to] work for its renewal and restoration is our most sacred duty, our right and our most passionate wish.” The plea, reprinted in the monthly news report of the Jewish community in Breslau and in Jewish papers throughout the country, was disregarded by the government.26 During a private audience on March 31 with Adolf Johannes Cardinal Bertram of Breslau, the Jewish banker Oskar Wassermann asked the prelate to speak out against the boycott. Cardinal Bertram had voiced reservations about strident nationalism and Nazism and as chairman of the Bishops’ Conference at Fulda he carried great weight among Catholics, which is why Provost Bernhard Lichtenberg of Berlin, an outspoken and courageous critic of Hitler’s policies, had arranged a meeting between the cardinal and Wassermann. But Bertram refused to intervene in this matter, contending, among other things, that the Church should not take a stand on purely economic conflicts and that, in any case, its intervention would not be successful. His final reason, offered as an afterthought, revealed perhaps the most about his thinking: “In passing it may be mentioned that the press, which is predominantly in Jewish hands, has been totally silent in view of the persecution of Catholics in various countries.” 27

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Overall, the boycott of April 1 was not a great success, although Nazis stationed outside Jewish stores did their best to persuade Germans not to enter them. The Nazis generally obeyed orders to eschew violence and confined themselves to parading with placards that featured the words “Germans, don’t buy from Jews.” But in some localities they also used harsher tactics. In Annaberg, Saxony, for example, SS men stamped the following words on the faces of people who had shopped in Jewish stores: “We traitors bought from Jews.” 28 In Breslau police chief Heines invited editors of local newspapers to his office on March 31 to inform them about plans for the upcoming boycott and also to establish a relationship of “mutual trust” with the press. He vowed to maintain “calm and order” in the city and passed out a “police order” that warned Communists not to carry out their plans to plunder stores on the day of the boycott. Then Captain Hohn announced that the boycott would begin at 10 AM, that the action would be directed mainly at sixty large Jewish stores in the center of the city, that there would be no attempt to close down the shops, and that foreign stores such as Woolworth’s would not be affected. “The action will be implemented under the strictest discipline.” 29 The “action” in Breslau did proceed peacefully. “The outward manifestations of yesterday’s boycott,” one newspaper reported, were the large number of people in the main streets, many of them in brown uniforms, [and] a huge number of bicycles that slowed down traffic. The Jewish stores had to put up with a regular blockade in their streets, the store windows were painted over [with appeals not to enter] and all sorts of leaflets were pasted on them. Men were posted in front of the entrances and they warned people not to enter; many owners had understandably preferred to close their stores. There were no serious disturbances.30

A sizable number of Germans in Breslau, as elsewhere in Germany, refused to enter the Jewish stores, but quite a few ignored the warnings and did their shopping as usual. Some Christians also ignored the Nazi admonition not to patronize Jewish physicians. In Breslau, it was not uncommon for people, including senior government officials, to forgo the free treatment they

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could obtain under the social security system and seek out Jewish doctors whom they believed to be especially talented and whom they paid out of pocket for their services. This practice continued even after the summer of 1938, when Nazi authorities issued a law that made treatment by Jewish doctors of “German Volksgenossen” (literally, German people’s comrades) a punishable misdemeanor. One night the dermatologist Martin Fischer received an emergency call from a police official for an immediate appointment for his wife. Fischer warned the official that he was Jewish, but that did not deter the policeman, who claimed that his wife had first tried to reach three “Aryan” doctors but that none of them was available. She had then contacted the police commissioner to inquire whether under the circumstances she might consult a Jewish doctor. “The Commissioner answered that it was now nighttime and at night it doesn’t make any difference.” In another instance in Breslau, a janitor who had fallen from a tree and had been severely injured was sent for treatment to the Evangelical Wenzel Hancke Hospital, where he died from his wounds. A female janitor in a nearby building was puzzled, telling a Jewish woman: “I don’t understand people; the man has money. The man could have gone to the Jewish hospital.” She was convinced that Jewish doctors would have restored his health.31 Recognizing the limited popularity of the boycott, the Nazis called it off during the night of April 1 without, however, issuing an official statement to that effect. A few days later the government claimed that the action had been successful because the “atrocity propaganda” abroad had been “completely stopped.” It then warned that the “boycott organization” was intact and could resume its action against the Jews at a moment’s notice.32 Be that as it may, it would be a mistake to minimize the boycott’s significance. For one thing, a fair number of Christian businessmen dismissed their Jewish employees for fear that they would otherwise lose customers.33 More important, April 1 marked a turning point for German Jews, as it was now clear beyond any doubt that the government had made anti-Jewish policies an essential part of its program. For the Nazi leadership, the boycott was a success because, as Avraham Barkai noted, “It set the stage for tightening the screw of economic discrimination and the ousting of the Jews from the economy.” 34

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Hitler himself affirmed at the time that this was his goal. In a meeting on April 5 with Dr. Stauder, a representative of the Association of Physicians, which had recently been taken over by Nazis, Hitler stated unequivocally that he intended to cleanse the “intellectual stratum of foreign and of racially alien influences.” The great intellectual achievements, Hitler asserted, were not the work of racially alien groups but of “Aryan Germans.” Even the United States, he continued, had realized that it must protect itself against foreign racial elements, and had therefore shut its doors to Jews wishing to flee from Germany, although “no one has touched a hair on their heads.” Interestingly, the Neue Breslauer Zeitung, which reported Hitler’s views, still dared to criticize his comments. It pointed out that the United States had closed its doors not to keep out any specific racial groups but out of fear that large-scale immigration would increase unemployment. The paper then disputed Hitler’s claim that Jews had not made a significant contribution to German culture by listing seventeen Jews—and the writer insisted that the list could be much longer—who had been leaders in German science, philosophy, and sociology. The article ended with a quotation from Wilhelm Schäfer’s Der deutsche Gott: “Without . . . [the Jews] it would hardly be possible, early in the twentieth century, to speak of intellectual life in Germany.” 35 Jews in Breslau may not have immediately sensed all the ramifications of the boycott of April 1, but many understood that their situation had changed in a fundamental way. John J. Baer, a student in the city at the time, recalled that “my world, our world, the world of German Jewry founded upon the belief that we had acquired an inalienable right to German citizenship, collapsed overnight.” Several of his family’s friends were in such despair that they committed suicide.36 Robert Weltsch, the wise editor of the Jüdische Rundschau, published in Berlin, wrote a powerful article urging Jews not to succumb to despair and uttered words that were to be the trademark of German Jewry for a decade: “Wear it with pride, the yellow patch.” 37 It was advice that underlay the efforts of the Jewish community in Breslau to refashion their institutions and personal lives under new and agonizing circumstances. Indeed, what the Jews of Breslau, and of Germany as a whole, are most

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likely to be remembered for is not so much their heroism or their shortsightedness, but their resolve, despite all the obstacles, to preserve decent living conditions for the community. In this endeavor, they demonstrated remarkable ingenuity and resourcefulness.38 The first detailed statement in Breslau on how Jews should respond to the raft of exclusionary measures appeared in theBreslauer Jüdisches Gemeindeblatt in May 1933. It was a reprint of an article first published by Dr. Hans Herzfeld inSchild, the organ of the Association of Jewish War Veterans, and amounted to nothing less than a bold challenge to Jews not to surrender to despair but to launch a “new battle for emancipation” such as had been fought a hundred years earlier. Herzfeld acknowledged the obvious, that the situation of the Jews had “changed completely,” but he asserted that there was no point in dwelling on how that had happened or how it might have been avoided. Even though the future looked bleak, Jews must persevere in insisting that “by birth, desire, culture, and fate we are Germans.” If people “say to us 1,000 times: ‘You are ineligible to be German Volksgenossen because you belong to an alien race,’ we will respond just as often and steadfastly: ‘and nevertheless we are and will remain Germans.’” Jews, Herzfeld argued, should continue to maintain tactful relations with Christians without surrendering their pride. Above all, Jews must protect “our youth, who will mature under extraordinarily difficult conditions. . . . We must see to it that their pride, their self-confidence, and their humanity are not damaged. We have to continue to shape their convictions in the spirit of German culture through continuing enlightenment, upbringing, and encouragement.” Herzfeld then listed several specific measures Jews should take to adjust to the new circumstances. The most urgent was a change in the occupational structure, a concession to the charge that Jews were too heavily represented in the professions and business. He realized that this goal could not be achieved without help from the government, which would have to understand that it could not be done quickly. Jews must also learn to avoid “un-German conduct” that offends non-Jews. “We must in general adopt a plain, simple way of life” and denounce all who violate the “laws of straightforwardness, simplicity, honesty, cleanliness, and tact.” To pursue these goals the Jews must have a “unified

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leadership” to guide the community along the chosen path. Herzfeld claimed that he had no illusions about the difficulty of attaining the transformation that he was advocating, but “we do not want to succumb to an enervating pessimism,” because that would rob the Jews of the “will to resist” the new state of affairs. This was no time for faintheartedness or defeatism.39 Herzfeld’s article was greeted with a larger positive response than any article previously published in theBreslauer Jüdisches Gemeindeblatt, but one group in the community contended that it paid too little attention to the “positive ideals of Judaism.” Consequently, the editors decided to reprint portions of an article that had appeared on a similar subject in the ZionistJüdische Rundschau. The author of that article insisted that the “national revolution” in Germany was not yet complete and that the National Socialists were bent on excluding the Jews from German society. The tone was far more pessimistic than Herzfeld’s about the possibility of reversing the tide, although the author did not reject any of the specific recommendations that Herzfeld had made; in fact, he did not address them at all. Rather, he urged Jews to adopt a more positive attitude toward the teachings and values of Judaism. Beyond that, he made one specific recommendation, that the Jewish community devote itself to educating the younger generation in Judaism. “God knows, a genuine Jewish upbringing is today not a ‘party issue’ among Jews, but an elementary necessity of all of German Jewry.” Only after German Jews had an adequate appreciation of Judaism and of being part of a community with common interests and a common fate would they “be able to live in concord and with respect with the other Germans.” 40 The two articles on the future of German Jewry presented different, if not conflicting, views on how to cope with its growing isolation and persecution. But they both grappled with an issue that was to be the central concern of the Breslau community for the next ten years, how to respond to the restrictions the Nazis were imposing on the Jews. Few could doubt any longer that a painful and complicated reordering of social institutions would be necessary and that Jews would have to make fundamental changes in how they earned their living. Even the most optimistic acknowledged that success would depend on an extraordinary display of skill, tact, and patience.

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Pride is the key word that appeared time and again in the speeches and articles devoted to the future of Breslau Jewry.* The leaders of the community were prepared to make far-reaching adjustments to the new circumstances; they were willing to accept extensive changes in how Jews ran their affairs and arranged their lives, but they were not prepared to demean themselves. This point was made with special force by Rabbi Ignaz Maybaum in a speech he gave early in 1935 at the Jewish school in Breslau and that was featured on the front page of the Breslau community paper. Maybaum, who after emigrating to England in 1939 became a leading theologian of the post-Holocaust period, argued that although some change in the occupational structure of German Jews was desirable, it would be a mistake to attempt a total change, which would mean “an end to German Jewry.” In any case, the claim of “primitive sociology” that the businessman was simply a trader or haggler who contributed little to society was utterly mistaken. “In reality, the distribution of goods is as important as the production of goods.” And the abandonment by Jews of trade and all “intellectual work” and their total transformation into artisans and farmers would be a regressive move that would have a decisive impact on Jewish existence. Jewish contributions to culture, which had been very substantial, would be greatly reduced. Maybaum summed up his recommendation for German Jewry in a pithy formula that could serve as the title of this book: “Change and not surrender is the order of the day.” In offering this advice, Maybaum was both defiant and moderately optimistic. German Jews, he argued, should accept the need for change but at the same time attempt to hold on to “all positions.” In his view, German Jewry faced two alternatives: the first he called the “Ninth of Av,” the day that marked the destruction of the Temple, or, in this case, the destruction of German Jewry; the second involved a “turning point,” which meant a radical change in the lives of the Jews without involving the abandonment of their religious and cultural values.41 Early *At times, that pride had a wide reach. On October 31, 1935, the Breslauer Jüdisches Gemeindeblatt reported that the Baseball Wrighters (sic) Association of America had named Henry (“Hank”) Greenberg of the Detroit Tigers the most valuable player of the year. The paper also noted that Greenberg had refused to play on Yom Kippur even though the game that day was “decisive.”

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in 1935 Maybaum voiced optimism about the second alternative. But in 1939 he himself felt that he had no choice but to emigrate. In April 1933, Guido Neustadt undertook the formidable task of establishing and administering the Counseling Service of the Breslau Synagogue Community even though, as was revealed five years later, he had doubts from the very beginning whether the new office would be able to overcome the difficulties it would face.42 The Counseling Service’s main function was to advise young Jews, in Breslau and elsewhere in Silesia, on occupational opportunities that were different from those to which Jews were generally attracted and that might be open to them. Instead of seeking careers as professionals or academics, young adults would be urged to prepare themselves to earn their living as artisans, manual workers, or farmers, fields that would require considerable training, some of it more “theoretical” and challenging than was generally recognized. The initiative for this program emanated from the Central Association of German Citizens of the Jewish Faith (Centralverein deutscher Staatsbürger jüdischen Glaubens), the predecessor of the Reich Representation of German Jews or RV (Reichsvertretung der deutschen Juden), which was established on September 17, 1933, as an umbrella organization for virtually all religious tendencies and communities of German Jewry. Only the ultra-Orthodox Agudas Israel remained aloof, but it too joined the central movement in June 1938. Headed by the charismatic and wise Rabbi Leo Baeck, the RV undertook to coordinate a wide range of activities that required immediate attention in view of the Nazi persecutions. It supervised what came to be known as “Jewish selfhelp,” that is, support for the growing number who were impoverished; it also supported Jewish schools, which now had to accommodate students who left the public schools, as well as specialized training schools in manual crafts; it gave advice on emigration, maintained contact with Jewish organizations abroad, and dealt with broader religious issues such as ritual slaughter, which the Nazis had prohibited in April 1933; finally, it represented Jewish interests vis-à-vis the national government.43 Articles in theBreslauer Jüdisches Gemeindeblatt sought to reassure the community that changes in occupation by Jews need not be disastrous. On July 30, 1934, Dr. Alfred Hirschfeld conceded that the dis-

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missals from Gentile firms and universities, hospitals, and so forth, were bound to be painful, especially in smaller provincial towns. But he thought that the chances for Jews to maintain a decent standard of living, to remain in the middle class, were quite good. Jews, Hirschfeld argued, had “special aptitudes . . . for occupations of the middle class, for handicraft, business, and trade.” He also warned against exaggerating the ill effects of the “regrouping” that the Jewish community would have to undergo. “One should not allow oneself to be influenced by too many ‘complaints’ about how bad things are. . . . Too much pessimism . . . hinders the spirit of enterprise.” 44 Early in December 1934, the Counseling Service sent a memorandum to the Association of Synagogue Communities in Lower Silesia requesting information about independent “trade, industrial, and artisan enterprises” that might be able to hire additional apprentices by the spring of 1935.45 The Counseling Service also instituted courses in such fields as accounting, the administration of banks, and the workings of international exchange rates, as well as some specialized courses on the qualities of materials used in various trades and how these materials could best be employed. For young women, the service offered training for work as domestic servants, nurses of various kinds, and dieticians. “We must persuade our girls, mothers and housewives that the occupation of a Jewish domestic servant should be recognized as one of the most valuable; yes, we must see clearly that this occupation is a constructive factor in our families, be it in Germany, in Palestine, or anywhere else in the world.” Trained persons were needed in hygienic gymnastics and massage, two fields that offered the “possibility of making a living by setting up one’s own business. . . . This vocation is an important aid to modern medicine. It is not easy and requires total devotion.” The Counseling Service promised to make every effort to find positions for manual and domestic workers, but it repeatedly made the point that the kind of training in practical work it provided would also be useful to those who intended to emigrate.46 The leadership of the Jewish community called directly on Jewish businessmen and industrialists who had openings in their enterprises to register them at the community office and to give every consideration to Jews in need of work. “We appeal to the sense of duty of those members of the Com-

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munity who are able to help to do so and perhaps also to those who could help more than they have so far.” 47 In short order, a system of sponsorship was set up in Breslau: each participating “sponsor” was asked to find work for at least one unemployed Jew.48 By the fall of 1934, the Counseling Service in Breslau had handled a huge volume of work. It had received some 11,500 requests for advice and in 2,300 cases it gave “effective help . . . and . . . [met] the wishes of applicants.” It made loans to 550 individuals who needed aid in making the transition from one kind of work to another. The Counseling Service was especially helpful in giving advice to those who contemplated emigration.49 In the cultural sphere, which the Jews of Breslau greatly valued, conditions quickly became acute by mid-1933. For one thing, the government had ordered the dismissal of all non-Aryan performers, creating a large pool of unemployed. But in addition, Jews increasingly felt uncomfortable attending theatrical or musical events where they were not welcome even though until 1938 they were not officially banned from them. Ernst Marcus and his wife, regular theatergoers, stopped after several SA men, early in March 1933, arrested and badly beat Paul Bernay (1884 –1960), the Jewish director of the Breslau Theater, who immediately thereafter fled to Vienna. The Marcuses also stopped going to “wine restaurants,” where they used to meet friends after the theater. “Under the circumstances, we did not consider it appropriate. If it was unavoidable to eat a meal out, there was a series of Jewish places or the restaurant at the department store Wertheim [which we could frequent].” 50 Some restaurants such as the elegant Gartenschönheit carried large neon signs with the inscription: “Jews Unwelcome.” On seeing it in 1935, Willy Cohn commented that “in Germany we will soon be welcome only at the cemetery.” 51 The separation between Jews and others quickly touched on all walks of life. As early as April 1, 1933, Dr. Kurt Singer, a Berlin neurologist who loved music, floated the idea of founding a “Jewish Cultural Association,” and on June 16 the government gave its approval. The plan called for two permanent troupes, one for opera and one for plays, to perform before Jewish audiences in different cities. Within weeks, community

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officials in Breslau announced that on June 26 there would be a concert at the Neue Synagoge, the handsome home of the Reform congregation, and that the proceeds would be distributed to needy Jewish artists. The announcement included a defiant statement about the community’s determination to continue nurturing cultural events and the synagogue’s central role in helping to achieve that goal. “During the times of distress that we are experiencing the Synagogue again assumes a central place.” It is a place not only for prayer and preaching, but also for cultural events and discussion of vital issues. “That is the meaning of the concept that religion penetrates our entire lives, that nothing in life is foreign to religion.” Although it was now difficult to attend cultural events and Jewish artists had been excluded from participating in them, “we cannot give up culture. . . . We do not want to return to the ghetto, and even in the ghetto art was not unknown. Thus, the synagogue will again become the place for lofty enjoyment of art by the community.” The first concert was a huge success; the hall was filled to capacity and “many hundreds” had to be turned away.52 In early May 1934, a committee of twelve under the chairmanship of the businessman and art collector Max Silberberg (and including Rabbi Hermann Vogelstein) founded the Cultural Circle—Society of Friends of Jewish Culture for the purpose of sponsoring events in three broad areas—music, literature and science—and theater and the fine arts.53 A year later it adopted the name Jewish Cultural Association and joined the National Association of Jewish Culture in Germany, with headquarters in Berlin. In 1936, the second year of its existence, the membership of the Breslau Cultural Association rose to 4,000 despite a decline in the total Jewish population of the city to 18,200 from 20,200 in 1933. It was not only that Jews craved entertainment and companionship. It was, as the official paper of the Jewish community put it in 1937— elaborating a point already made in 1933 —“the duty of a Jew, insofar as it is somehow possible, for him to belong to the Cultural Association because in doing so he asserts the link between the Jewish world in Germany with Western culture [and] helps to preserve Western culture, and, above all, he [thus] contributes to disseminating and deepening the spiritual and emotional values of Judaism.” The association sought to stage cultural

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events that had a distinctly Jewish content, but it did not limit itself to them. Some of the productions are worth mentioning: Offenbach’s Das Mädchen von Elizondo, Franz von Suppé’s operetta Die schöne Galathee, Calderón’s Dame Kobold. The association also sponsored musical recitals, sixteen in all during the season 1936 –37, and a series of lectures. Ludwig Feuchtwanger spoke on “Jewish Culture in the Past and Present,” and Rahel Wischnitzer-Bernstein on “Messianic Thoughts in Jewish Art.” Many of the events, held in a hall that could accommodate 1,500 people, were sold out. To add to the variety of performances and to keep down costs, the Breslau Association collaborated on productions with the Cultural Association in Hamburg.54 On October 21, 1934, the association in Breslau opened a Jewish Museum in several rooms of the Jewish Home for Orphans. It was the first-ever exhibit of the works of Jewish artists in Germany and a large number of visitors, including many leading citizens of the Jewish community, attended the opening, at which Max Silberberg delivered words of welcome. The show consisted of well over a hundred works by more than thirty-six artists, including three by Marc Chagall, and scheduled guided tours were offered. “This exhibition,” the report in the community paper noted with understandable pride, “is one of the few opportunities that Jewish artists have to present their work to wider circles. The creative person often derives encouragement and incentive to develop his abilities from contacts with the public.” The museum itself did not sell the items on display but provided the artists’ addresses to anyone interested in purchasing them.55 The government prohibited Jewish companies from performing German classics, but it did not object to, and actually encouraged these cultural events— even after the persecution of Jews had been greatly intensified.56 The Nazis wanted Jews to believe that a modicum of normalcy was still possible, and thus to lull them into a false sense of security, which, in turn, would discourage Jews from acts of disobedience, let alone resistance. For the religiously observant, probably up to a third of the Jews in Breslau, the decision by the authorities on April 5, 1933, to prohibit the ritual slaughter of animals—incidentally, the first explicitly anti-Jewish

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law in a religious sense—posed a serious problem and challenged the ingenuity of community leaders. Somehow, kosher meat made its way into Germany, but the risks were great and so were the costs. Much of this meat originated in Upper Silesia, which in 1921 was placed under the jurisdiction of a “special regime” administered by the League of Nations that was designed to protect the rights of minorities (including the right of ritual slaughter). An elaborate scheme evolved to spirit the contraband past German officials at the border. All the meat from Upper Silesia was sent to one company in Hannover, but the kosher portions were distinguished by a secret mark. An official who was trusted by the rabbis recognized the mark and allowed that meat to be shipped to kosher butcher stores. Whether the official acted out of good will or other considerations is not mentioned in the documents. In addition, in some cities, in Silesia and elsewhere, ritual slaughterers secretly plied their trade. In Berlin, illegal slaughtering was widespread and continued for several years after 1933 because several Nazi officials overlooked the breach of law in return for hefty bribes. But ritual slaughterers were occasionally caught by uncorrupted policemen, and one of them in Hamburg was prosecuted and imprisoned for several months.57 Inevitably, the price of kosher meat rose sharply, prompting community leaders in Breslau to devise an elaborate plan to reduce the cost for lower-income people by 35 pfennig a pound, a significant discount. The plan worked as follows: butchers agreed to take 10 pfennig a pound less from needy families and the community gave the butchers 25 pfennig for each pound sold to such families. To assure that the plan would function smoothly, the community printed “credit notes,” colored differently for the two kosher butchers in the city, for distribution to indigent families, who, each time they bought meat, would present them to the butchers for submission to the community office for its donation. The decision on who was to receive the credit notes was made not by the Welfare Office of the community “but by a smaller commission of the Committee on Rituals, because the . . . [latter] has a better knowledge of the families who are observant and because the decision on need should not be made on the strict criteria applied by the Welfare Office.” It was an innovative scheme that attracted attention in

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other regions of Germany; on April 30, 1935, the officials of the Jewish community in Hamburg asked their colleagues in Breslau for information on how it worked.58 This sensitivity regarding religious observance seems to have been part of a more general drift toward religiosity by Breslau Jews. True, even as late as the first half of 1936 nine Jews “seceded from Judaism,” although it is not known whether they did so to reduce their taxes or in the mistaken belief that they could thus avoid the increasingly harsh measures against Jews.59 On the other hand, a few Jews formally reestablished their membership in the Jewish community and the number who attended religious services and community events increased noticeably; some now attended Jewish functions with greater frequency than in the pre-Hitler era.60 Also, Jews who were not particularly observant turned to rabbis for rulings on delicate and complicated personal issues involving the return to Judaism of individuals who had severed their ties with the community. On September 4, 1934, Rabbi Vogelstein was approached by the husband of a woman whose parents had been Jewish but some years earlier had decided to convert to Christianity and had had their daughter baptized. The husband had remained a member of the Jewish community and his wife had recently given birth to a boy, who was not baptized. His wife now wanted to return to Judaism and to bring up the boy as a Jew. His question: Was it necessary to convert the boy? The man had been told by a “jurist” in another town that the boy was Jewish because his father was. That jurist also claimed that circumcision was not a precondition to being recognized as Jewish. On September 12, Rabbi Vogelstein offered the following opinion: (1) The boy was not considered Jewish simply because his father was Jewish. (2) He would need more information before deciding whether the mother needed instruction in Jewish religious beliefs and practices. In the meantime, he would recommend that she go to amikveh (ritual bath) since she had converted to Christianity. (3) As for the boy, circumcision was definitely required. “We have no interest at all in the conversion of human beings to Judaism if they demand preferential treatment before conversion.” 61 What is especially interesting about this decision

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is that it conforms rather strictly to traditional Jewish law and that it was rendered by a Reform rabbi, who might have been expected to be lax in interpreting it. Some inquiries by lapsed Jews about returning to the fold seem to have been motivated by sentiments other than spiritual. In February 1935, the Board of Governors of the Breslau community received a request for advice on a rather sensitive issue from the Board of Governors of the Jewish community of Cologne. Several persons, a number of them the offspring of mixed marriages, had recently indicated an interest in returning to Judaism. The officials in Cologne suspected the petitioners of really wanting to benefit from welfare programs administered by the Jewish community. The officials also feared that some of the applicants belonged to “asocial elements that would not redound to the honor of the community.” It was hard to reject them out of hand, but before taking any action they wanted to know how Breslau Jews, who were looked upon as spiritual guides, would handle such cases. The Board of Governors responded that in Breslau applicants for readmission to Judaism would be invited for a consultation with one of the two rabbis. The board further noted that according to Jewish religious law children of Jewish mothers could not be rejected. Nevertheless, one can set conditions on readmission so that there is evidence of genuine repentance for the previous departure [from Judaism]. The applicants are given to understand in all appropriate cases that support by the Jewish Welfare Office is not to be expected. We have often made an explicit statement to this effect in the formal decision to accept a person [into the community].62

In one cultural institution, the archive of the Jewish community, activity increased dramatically after 1933. Archivists received a “rush” of inquiries, mostly from Nazi officials, aspirants to high governmental positions, and senior army officers, all eager to demonstrate that they were authentic Aryans of long standing or, if that was not possible, that they had the least permissible amount of Jewish blood in their heritage. The visitors to the archive provided detailed information about their families and insisted on as much proof as possible for their claims to purity. Some of the inquiries were quite bizarre and deserve attention be-

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cause many Germans took them seriously, highlighting once again the centrality of ideology in National Socialism. A Jewish doctor eager to improve his racial stock told the archivist, Rabbi Bernhard Brilling, that he seemed to recall that his grandmother had been guilty of one “lapse” with an Aryan and wanted to know whether it could be confirmed by a search of the documents in the archive. To bolster his case, the doctor revealed that a lock of hair from the “Count in question” was in the family’s possession. If he really was the offspring of this “lapse” he would be able to claim that he was half an Aryan. A person named Töplitz told Brilling that emigrants from Soviet Georgia had told him that his name was Georgian. “But,” Brilling noted, “I could show him from the records that his ancestors were Jews.” Another case involved a woman who “by mistake” had allowed her husband to be buried in a Christian cemetery, which was next to the Jewish one. The authorities in Breslau had certified the man’s resting place, which meant that his “sons had one less Jewish parent.” However, Brilling pointed out that in fact the woman’s husband “had been on the Board of Governors of the Jewish community.” One day, General von Klausewitz (sic) appeared at the archive and was told by Rabbi Heppner: “General, your grandmother is buried in the Jewish cemetery.” Klausewitz answered: “I thought so, but it is fairly immaterial to me; I am 65 years old and am about to retire anyway.” And then there was the family Kuh, who had lived near Breslau early in the nineteenth century and one of whose members had converted to Christianity in 1802. A great-grandson on the female side asked Brilling to change the date to 1798 because he would then qualify for acceptance into the SS, an elite guard that accepted only men who could demonstrate that none of their forebears had been tainted by Jewish blood since 1800.63 The cultural and professional services, initiated at a time when the economy was deteriorating for Jews, took a toll on the community’s financial position. In February 1935, Dr. Conrad Cohn, one of the financial officers of the community, reported that although taxes had been raised and many members had made generous contributions, the “means to fulfill” all the community’s obligations were still inadequate. For one thing, the total number of members had dwindled by one-fifth to about 5,000. For another, the proportion of community

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members needing welfare support had risen from 30 percent in 1929 to a staggering 45 percent in 1935. Indigent Jews still received public welfare, but the amounts, generally considered inadequate, were supplemented by modest payments from the Jewish community. The Board of Governors had reduced administrative costs by more than 28 percent between 1929 and 1934, even though the workload had expanded substantially during that five-year period. Cohn ended his report with a plea to affluent members of the community to increase their donations to cover the budget deficit.64 It would be hard to think of an issue that filled Jewish adults in Breslau with more anguish in 1933 than the education of their children. As already noted, in the 1930s most Jewish children attended public schools, in many instances the most prestigious gymnasiums, and once they had completed their education they could hope for satisfying careers in the professions or in businesses, which were owned by their parents. Within weeks of the Nazi assumption of power, fundamental changes in the educational system forced Jews to make agonizing decisions about their children, decisions that they knew would indelibly shape their lives. The first blow was struck on April 25, 1933, when the Nazi government decreed that no more than 1.5 percent of all students in public schools could be non-Aryan, and in any one school no more than 5 percent could be non-Aryan. In Breslau there were three “higher schools” in which Jewish children made up more than 10 percent of the enrollment. Even though the law allowed children of veterans of World War I and of mixed marriages to remain in the public schools beyond the quotas, many, for one reason or another, felt obliged to leave.65 Jewish children who could remain in the public schools often faced open hostility, although the atmosphere varied from school to school. Older teachers tended to be fairly liberal and tolerant, especially at schools such as the Johannesgymnasium, where Jews had formed a large percentage of the student population for some years. Gabriel Holzer attended this school until 1938 and he had a special reason for remaining there after 1933. His Orthodox parents would normally have sent their children to the Jewish school, but Gabriel’s father wanted his son to become a rabbi, which meant in Germany that he had to study Greek and

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Latin. The Jewish gymnasium did not offer Greek, so Gabriel remained at the Johannesgymnasium, a decision he did not regret. Because his hair was blond and he did not “look Jewish” he was permitted to play in the school orchestra. Until 1936, he even had a few non-Jewish friends, but that year Christian students stopped speaking to him in public. Secretly, Gabriel continued to meet one Christian student who needed help with Greek. Gabriel also recalled that as late as 1938 a teacher, who was discreetly anti-Nazi, made a point of giving him a chance to shine. The subject of Marxism came up, and when no one in the class had anything to say, the teacher declared, ironically, “I have to ask a Jew” and turned to Gabriel, who proceeded to talk at some length.66 Many Jewish children in the public schools, however, were very unhappy. They were obliged to attend courses on “racial studies,” which had been introduced in the fall of 1933 and which depicted Jews as racially inferior. Teachers attempted to prove the correctness of the racial theory, according to John J. Baer, “by displaying pictures and photos of outstanding Germans, including Goethe and Beethoven (whose features were anything but typically German), and contrasting them with caricatures of ‘typical Jews.’” 67 In addition, teachers often made insulting remarks about Jews, and gave Jewish students lower grades than they deserved. Aryan students added to the misery by frequently molesting them. TheStürmer, a Nazi newspaper that specialized in the most scurrilous articles about Jews and printed derisory photographs of them, was prominently displayed near the Johannesgymnasium. “It is simply impossible,” one historian has noted, “to describe individually the innumerable examples of the daily terror against Jewish pupils.” 68 Not surprisingly, even parents who could keep their children in public schools and were indifferent or hostile to religion often chose to enroll them in Jewish schools.69 To provide schooling for students leaving public institutions soon became a key issue in the Jewish community that touched on the future not only of Jewish youth in Breslau but also on the community itself. The only Jewish school had a distinctly religious orientation, which most students leaving the public schools would find uncongenial. In any case, it could not easily accommodate the large influx of newcomers, all the more so because they would be unprepared for the

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required courses in Hebrew and other Jewish subjects. An intense and occasionally rancorous debate erupted on how to educate the city’s Jewish children, but in the end community leaders found a solution that worked reasonably well. At the time, between 1,100 and 1,200 Jewish youngsters were enrolled in a publicVolksschule and perhaps as many as 900 in a higher school (including the gymnasiums), and although the exodus from them was expected to be gradual, it soon became clear that a considerable number would opt for places in the Jewish school, which at the time enrolled about 500 students (in the lower and upper schools). To accommodate the newcomers would require a quick and vast expansion of space and financial expenditures as well as the hiring of new teachers. In all of Germany, there were about 1,200 trained Jewish teachers; of these 600 were already teaching in Jewish schools and 300 were employed at various non-Jewish schools. This left about 300 who could fill the many more slots that would now open up.70 In the entire country, only one institution, the Institut des Volksschulseminar in Würzburg, trained Jewish teachers, and the cost of its maintenance fell to local Jewish communities. Now there would be an additional expense, the education of students leaving the public schools. The Jewish leadership in Berlin proposed a plan that would assign one-third of the educational budget in each locality to the Reich Representation of German Jews, one-third to local Jewish communities, and one-third to parents able to afford tuition. It was a reasonable arrangement, but it greatly increased the financial burden on Jews at a time of sharp economic decline. But there was one more critical issue that would have to be resolved: what kind of education was to be provided to the students attending a Jewish school for the first time? The vast majority of them—probably 90 percent—would come from a secular background and could not be easily integrated into the religious school. Within days of the Nazi decrees on the exclusion of Jewish children from state schools, in May 1933, Rabbi Vogelstein initiated informal discussions with Dr. Max Feuchtwanger, the director of the Rehdigerstrasse school, and proposed the creation of two different tracks in the religious education of students at the existing school; one would be guided as heretofore by traditional, Orthodox principles, and the other

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by the principles of the Reform movement and be much less stringent on questions of observance. Vogelstein’s proposal received considerable support. In a letter to the Board of Governors, two parents of the community, who believed they were speaking for many, pleaded for understanding of the “quandary of parents whose children were being pushed away from the public schools.” They had no choice but to register their children in a Jewish school, but they did not want them to receive religious instruction that would run counter to their beliefs and “create deep contrasts between the school and the home.” They urged the Board of Governors to see that their children received instruction that conformed with their views on Judaism.71 These considerations did not move Feuchtwanger. In very polite and stiff language, he informed Vogelstein that the maintenance “of a unified representation of the Jewish spirit in one school could not be dispensed with.” Vogelstein regretted the rejection of his proposal because, as he put it in replying to Feuchtwanger, he had hoped “in this time of trouble” to find a “fairly satisfactory solution” to the educational problem.72 Instead, it had become clear that an unpleasant conflict was inevitable. The differences emerged into the open at the first sizable meeting on the subject, on September 6, 1933, which was attended by twentythree people, including the two community rabbis and several teachers. The urgency of the meeting was stressed by Rabbi Vogelstein, who stated that the questions relating to education are the most important questions of the Jewish community. . . . Everything relating to the education of our youth is of the most urgent concern to us. The question of education has entered a new phase; this is about the future of German Jewry, and in the education . . . [of our youth] Jewish subjects [as well as secular subjects] must be equally stressed. We must not allow our children to be thrown back into a cultural ghetto.

But Vogelstein also urged caution in devising a response to the restrictions that were being imposed on Jews: it was difficult to make plans, he said, “because today we do not know what will happen.” Decrees had been issued by the government, but it was not yet clear how they

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would be carried out. Mr. Maschler was more pessimistic or perhaps more realistic: “Even if the details about implementation have not yet appeared, it is nevertheless clear that Jewish students will have to leave their schools.” A month later, on October 10, at a spirited public meeting at the Lessingloge (meeting facility named for the eighteenth-century playwright Gotthold Ephraim Lessing), the first speaker, R. A. Spitz, formally proposed that a new school with a “liberal point of view” be established. Spitz declared that the aim was not to create a competitor to the religious school and emphasized that all Jews ought to be grateful to the founders of the Rehdigerstrasse school for having established an institution for Jewish children. Rabbi Vogelstein, one of the organizers of the meeting, argued that there was no other choice because the religious school could not possibly accommodate all the children who would be leaving the public schools. In any case, the new school would be different from the old one in that it would continue to emphasize the study of German culture, to which the children had been exposed in the state schools, although they would also receive instruction in Jewish subjects, including Hebrew. An entirely different approach was taken by Dr. Rudolf Cohn, a supporter of the right-wing Max Naumann. He argued that no Jewish child should leave the public schools, advice that struck many in the audience as utterly unrealistic. Dr. Franz Meyer advanced yet another position. He opposed the formation of a new school because it would promote disunity within the Jewish community, which must at all costs be avoided at this dangerous time. In the end, the meeting voted strongly in favor of Spitz’s proposal to establish a new school.73 In the spring of 1934, the Schule Am Anger (School on Anger Street) opened its doors as a Volksschule in a building owned by the community. The project was placed under the imaginative leadership of Rudolf Schaeffer with the aid of a professional staff of sixteen and an annual budget of 61,000 marks. To provide the school with muchneeded space, Rabbi Vogelstein vacated his apartment on the second floor. But even before the first academic year ended, the financial future of the new institution looked bleak. The administrators of the school had hoped for a subsidy from the Reich Representation of German Jews in Berlin, but its resources were limited and it appeared that the

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Jewish community in Breslau alone would have to cover the anticipated deficit of 28,000 marks. In fact, Schaeffer had foreseen this at the very moment the school began to operate and had warned that it faced a serious crisis and might not survive beyond the first year. To maintain the unity of the Jewish community, the Am Anger school was immediately designated as a “branch institution” of the existing Jewish school, although it maintained its own staff and its own curriculum. It focused on training for careers in business, crafts, and industrial enterprises, and by all accounts the level of instruction was rigorous. In addition to traditional subjects, it offered specialized courses in carpentry, metalworking, electrical repairs, typing, and shorthand. In its first year, the Am Anger school enrolled 185 students and by the fall of 1936 the number had risen to 389 in the main program; an additional 51 students attended theOberkurs, special classes for those who wished to go beyond the lower school. At the older religious school, 509 students now attended the Volksschule and 466 the gymnasium, many more than in 1933.74 Enrollment at the traditional Rehdigerstrasse school increased so rapidly in part because it alone was authorized to run a gymnasium for Jewish students, and in the three-month period from March 1 to June 1, 1933, the number of students at this branch of the school rose sharply, from 118 to 291. But enrollment in its Volksschule increased at a similar pace. A fair number of parents with a secular orientation chose to send their children to the traditional school, apparently because they now viewed religious instruction more positively and regretted their previous indifference to the religious school. “I do not want to end this letter without expressing my thanks,” one mother wrote to the director of the school on August 9, 1933. My thanks to you for having prepared a shelter for our child, a shelter to which we contributed nothing and which we mindlessly opposed— until we were harshly awakened from our not ignoble dreams. Even we in liberal circles consider the existence of this institution a great [source of ] comfort and as the only source of calm for the intellectual and spiritual development of our children. Now fate has something else in store for us, but we have deep gratitude for those who created this school.75

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In his annual report for the year 1933 –34, Director Feuchtwanger cited this letter as evidence that members of the community had changed their attitude toward the Rehdigerstrasse school. Parents with a liberal orientation “expect a Jewish upbringing for their children . . . because . . . [they believe] that the times now demand a thorough Jewish upbringing . . . and they are grateful for the opportunity of a Jewish education in the Jewish school.” Feuchtwanger also noted that the fears of many parents about friction at home because their children would demand greater observance of the religious practices they had studied at school had proved to be groundless. Not a single child had been removed from the school for this reason. Moreover, “Never have any parents come [to us] . . . to complain that their child suffers spiritually from teachings at the school or has become alienated from the family, or has received too much Jewish education.” Students who had entered the school without any knowledge of Hebrew were easily integrated into Hebrew studies because classes in that subject were arranged not on the basis of age but of knowledge and ability. Feuchtwanger insisted that despite these accommodations to students without previous preparation in Jewish studies the highest academic standards would be maintained.76 These were not the only adjustments that the school had to make to new circumstances after 1933. It also had to adapt to the political demands of the new regime, not an easy matter for a Jewish school. For example, the Nazi government ordered all schools to organize “Schlageter” celebrations in honor of one of the major heroes of the Nazi movement. A member of the notorious Free Corps in Upper Silesia immediately after the war, Albert Leo Schlageter became active in 1923 in the campaign of sabotage against the French occupation of the Ruhr. He was betrayed by some of his comrades after blowing up a bridge, captured and tried by the French, and executed on May 26, 1923. Even though he had betrayed some of his colleagues during his trial, he was lionized by the Nazis.77 The school’s Chronicle of the Institution for 1933 –34, which listed all the extracurricular activities such as lectures by various rabbis, special events in celebration of Jewish holidays, a puppet show for the students, and an exhibition of drawings by the students, also contains the following surprising notation for May 26, 1934: “Schlageter Memorial Celebration: address by

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Mr. Czollak, Student Assistant.” Even more surprising, the Chronicle reported that on November 10, 1933, a speech by the Reichskanzler (Hitler) was broadcast to the school; and in theChronicle for the following year, an entry for January 30, 1934, reads as follows: “Celebration on the occasion of Reich Chancellor Hitler’s assumption of power. Address by the Director of the School.” Perhaps most astonishing of all, on April 20, 1934, theChronicle listed a “Birthday celebration for the Führer and Reich Chancellor. Address by the Director of the School.” In 1935, there was no mention of Hitler’s birthday, no doubt because that year it fell on a Saturday. But in 1936 the notice was repeated, but now in a slightly abbreviated form: “Birthday of the Führer and Reich Chancellor,” with no reference to a celebration or address. A similar notation appeared in theChronicle for 1937, but not in 1938.78 It is understandable that a Jewish school, even a religious one, might want to placate the Nazi authorities by holding celebratory events for national heroes. But what exactly would the director have said in honor of the Führer and how did the students react to the Leader’s radio broadcast? I asked my sister, Esther Adler, four years older than I and then a student at the school, whether she remembered any of these occasions. She did not. Then I discovered that the minutes of the trustees’ meetings, which thoroughly recorded all the activities in the school, revealed that the trustees had never even discussed these nationalistic and political occasions, which suggests that they never took place. The announcements appear to have been put into theChronicle just to satisfy the Nazi Ministry for Science, Upbringing, and National Education.79 The Jewish community also faced a dilemma over the choice of flags to fly on its property. Such symbols were taken very seriously and after 1918 “the conflict over the flag was to prove one of the worst divisive issues in the Weimar Republic”; in 1926 it actually caused the fall of a government. Conservatives favored the black, white, and red colors of the Second Empire (1871–1918), whereas the democrats insisted on the black, red, and gold flag that had been adopted by the liberals at the Frankfurt Assembly in 1848 – 49. The conflict was resolved by the Nazis in 1933 when they began to use a new national flag on which the swastika was emblazoned, hardly appropriate for premises owned by Jews. The Board of Governors of the community asked the Office of

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the Chief of Police for guidance, indicating that it would order that the new flag be raised only if directed to do so. Apparently at a loss on how to respond, the police simply ignored the request. The board opted for the black, white, and red colors for their buildings but hoisted no flag on their synagogues, and advised their colleagues in Liegnitz, who had sought its advice on the issue, to follow its example. The Breslau authorities looked the other way.80 Both Jewish schools offered rigorous academic programs, and each, in its own way, was quite progressive. In both schools boys and girls attended the same classes and in the Rehdigerstrasse school girls were taught the Bible in Hebrew, though only boys in the gymnasium studied the Talmud, the collection of ancient Jewish laws and traditions. No distinctions were made between children whose parents had been born in eastern Europe and in Germany; nor were any distinctions made between children whose parents paid tuition and those who did not. Wherever possible, teachers focused on Jewish themes. Thus, in courses on housekeeping, girls were taught how to maintain the customs of traditional Jewish homes. In music courses, teachers introduced students to Jewish melodies and at the approach of festivals they made a point of discussing the rituals of the holiday. The schools also took pains to provide proper medical care; a doctor and dentist regularly examined every student.81 Am Anger did not place the same emphasis as the traditional school on Jewish themes, but it did require students to take courses in Hebrew as well as Jewish religion, and in its music classes teachers taught Hebrew songs. But, as the principal, R. Schaeffer, put it, students were to be “rooted equally in Jewish and in German culture. Thus, for example, special attention is given to the cultivation of German national songs.” 82 Despite the different emphases of the two schools, it would be a mistake to minimize the commitment of the more traditional school to German culture. In the spring of 1938, when the Nazis’ intention to exclude Jews from German society could no longer be in doubt, teachers at the gymnasium posed the following as one of the questions on the decisive examination for the Abitur, the final degree before entering a university: “Which works of German literature do I want to take with me when I emigrate?” 83

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The adjustment of the school system within one year to accommodate hundreds of children was surely one of the community’s most remarkable achievements. The differences between the Orthodox and Zionists, on the one hand, and the Reform Jews and secularists, on the other, did not disappear. In fact, early in 1937 a sharp conflict arose between them when the Board of Directors of the Am Anger school dismissed three teachers who were ardent Zionists and who allegedly sought to indoctrinate students in the classroom.84 But for four years the two Jewish schools performed a vital service, and their importance in the lives of Breslau youth is hard to exaggerate. Separated to an increasing extent from the larger society, Jews proceeded to form, through “an abundance of creative achievements,” their own social and cultural milieu, centered to a considerable degree on the school. If one could still speak of a “normal” existence, it was because the schools made every effort to provide an environment where children could continue to pursue the interests that had engaged them prior to 1933. Of the children who attended the Rehdigerstrasse school, 72 percent belonged to Jewish youth clubs, which sponsored hikes, and to groups devoted to music, (Jewish) national games, and discussions of books and political issues. At the Am Anger youngsters were also encouraged to pursue such interests. In 1935, 300 students, a majority of those enrolled in the school, were taken to the Mendelssohn estate in Hennigsdorf near Breslau to celebrate L’ag Ba’Omer (a festive holiday in the spring) and five upper classes spent several days hiking in the mountains. To reach their destination, the Jewish groups often passed villages that prominently displayed signs proclaiming that they were Judenrein (free of Jews) or that Jews were not welcome, but the teachers and their charges refused to allow these signs to spoil their outings. In many ways, the extracurricular activities and the youth movements provided the students without a religious upbringing with “a second spiritual home.” 85 The Jewish schools also offered students some relief from the tensions in their homes, where parents frequently voiced concern about their straitened economic circumstances and the dwindling possibilities for emigration. Equally important, Jewish schools became one of the few public places in which youngsters did not have to fear insults, or worse, violence simply because of their “racial” origins. As Schaeffer put

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it, the Jewish school was the “one constant factor, the focus of a harmonious community existence,” and in the late 1930s, when conditions had greatly deteriorated for Jews, it became the “place of refuge—for students and teachers.”86 If in the early period of Nazi rule economic security and the education of children were the most pressing concerns of Jews, emigration was not far behind. The Jews of Germany have often been criticized for not having left the country immediately after Hitler came to power, a criticism that is based on the assumption that most of the 525,000 Jews in Germany could have been saved had greater efforts been made to find havens in foreign countries.87 German Jews have also been criticized, most notably by Hannah Arendt, for having been politically passive, a characteristic she attributed to their not having been involved in political affairs during the two thousand years of exile. This passivity, she claimed, blinded them to the dangers of political anti-Semitism; hence they shared some responsibility for their fate.88 At first some Jews and Jewish organizations did reject the view that “emigration constituted a solution to the Jewish question” and believed that Jewish citizens would still be able to regain the rights that they had enjoyed for several decades. In mid-February 1934, the noted jurist and writer Dr. Bruno Weil spoke in this vein to an overflow audience at a meeting in the Mozarthalle in Breslau organized by the Reich Representation of German Jews. Weil conceded that about 50,000 Jews had already left Germany but, he claimed, in the words of the newspaper report on his lecture, “most Jewish emigrants have turned their backs on Germany because they feared that they no longer have any possibility to earn a living here. But for every one of them, it has become clear during the past year that the German homeland and German culture are an eternal aspect of their personality.” As a consequence, of those who had left the country some 600 had already returned (from Holland) and more could be expected to follow suit. “Emigration is no solution to the Jewish question in Germany.” Weil confidently predicted that the German government would not press for the expulsion of the Jews, an opinion he supported by referring to a recent report submitted by an important government authority to the

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Ministry of Finance, which stated that “for economic reasons the emigration of non-Aryans from Germany cannot be considered to be in the interest of Germany.” 89 Nevertheless, the blanket criticism of German Jews for failing to emigrate more quickly and in larger numbers is undeserved. It does not take into account the unwillingness of foreign countries to admit Jews, it displays insensitivity toward those who faced the wrenching decision of having to pull up stakes and start life all over again in countries with different languages, cultures, and traditions, and, most important, it overlooks the large number of Jews who actually did leave before the outbreak of World War II. The claim that the long-standing political passivity of the Jews hampered them from taking decisive action to defend themselves against the Nazi attacks also seems dubious. German Jews, and the Jews of Breslau, had for some time been very active in politics, as I pointed out in Chapter 1. The overall difficulty of emigrating was trenchantly described at a meeting at the New Synagogue on December 14, 1935, by Dr. Mark Wischnitzer, a member of the Board of Governors of the Relief Organization of Jews in Germany. According to Wischnitzer, the year 1933 marked the third time in recent centuries that Jews found themselves under pressure to move from their homeland on a mass scale, but this time conditions were radically different. In 1492, when Jews were expelled from Spain they could go to the Balkans, Holland, Belgium, and some overseas countries. In 1881, when Jews began to leave the Russian empire en masse, either to escape persecution or to improve their economic circumstances, they were welcomed in the United States and, to a lesser extent, in Great Britain and some other countries. Now, however, “almost all lands of the world,” many of them plagued by economic depression, refused to admit foreigners in large numbers, and those that they did admit could hardly hope to earn their livelihood unless they were trained in certain specialized fields.90 Emigration to Palestine, which appealed to a growing number of German Jews who had become more sympathetic to Zionism after 1933, was also restricted as a result of the opposition of Arab governments. The Jews faced many other difficulties if they opted to emigrate. In 1931, even before the Nazi assumption of power, the government had

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enacted measures that severely limited the export of capital, and in 1933 the authorities placed further restrictions on such exports. For a while, the government did ease these restrictions for Jews in the hope of encouraging them to leave, but early in 1936 the measures were reimposed. The idea of emigrating stirred special fears in the elderly: Would they be able to learn a new language, secure some kind of work, find new friends? “Repeatedly,” Theodor Rosenthal recalled, “we said to ourselves and our friends: We are too old for emigration and we will have enough to eat in Germany even if our jobs yield less or no income at all.” 91 And the children of these older people, particularly if they were not yet married, faced an equally painful decision: Should they leave parents who soon might no longer be able to care for themselves? It must also be kept in mind that in the 1930s and even the early 1940s, no one thought that the fanaticism of the Nazis would culminate in the systematic murder of millions of peaceful citizens. To remain in Germany under “ghetto conditions” was certainly a horrendous prospect, but at least until the fall of 1938, some Jews thought it preferable to uprooting themselves and moving to another country.92 The Gestapo (secret police), which was charged with pressuring Jews to leave Germany, actually pursued contradictory policies. On the one hand, it made conditions unbearable for the victims, but on the other, it increasingly deprived them of the wherewithal to cover the costs of moving elsewhere. In addition, the Gestapo engaged in vitriolic propaganda against Jews, depicting them as parasites and vermin, which had the effect of hardening the opposition to admitting Jews in foreign countries.93 In view of these considerations, what is striking is not the failure of German Jews to emigrate but, rather, their extensive efforts to leave and the success of so many. The exodus began early in 1933 and by the end of that year some 37,000 had left, a fair number for political reasons. By the end of 1935, the total number of emigrants had reached 90,000, and Jewish organizations took various measures to facilitate escape. The Reich Representation of Jews in Germany decided in the fall of 1935 to openly support emigration, and it devoted itself energetically to helping those who wished to leave. Together with the Society for Aid to German Jews (Hilfsverein der deutschen Juden) it extended advice and

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financial support. In 1934 a branch of the aid society in Breslau gave 13,000 marks to 157 people and, perhaps no less important, provided them with “moral support” and advice. That same year the society also helped 609 Jews on their way from eastern Europe to various destinations overseas: the transients were given food, medical aid when needed, and advice on their dealings with consulates and shipping companies, among other things. All told, by 1935 Jews from Germany had gone to no fewer than fifty-two countries, including Palestine, the United States, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, and South Africa. “The adaptation [in foreign countries],” according to the Breslauer Jüdisches Gemeindeblatt, “is often exceedingly difficult, the new living conditions are extraordinarily hard, but the will to persevere is strong. Jewish life arises in places where it has long been presumed dead, for example in Central America and Persia, and in newly formed countries such as Kenya.” 94 In Breslau the pattern of emigration resembled that in the rest of the country. As early as May 24, 1933, Willy Cohn noted in his diary that the daughter of a friend was seriously thinking of moving to Palestine and he frequently touched on the issue of emigration in the entries for that year. In 1934 and 1935 both the office of the Jewish community and the Silesian Board of Advisors on Emigration reported a rapidly increasing number of inquiries about economic opportunities in a wide range of countries.95 At a meeting of the representatives of the Jewish community in Breslau on June 29, 1933, the chairman, Mr. Peiser, announced that three leading members of the community, Dr. Jacobsohn, Dr. Boss, and Dr. Schachtel, were leaving for Palestine. Over the succeeding four years, Jewish emigration from Breslau continued at a steady pace, although precise figures for each year are hard to come by. We do know that in 1937, 720 Breslau Jews left the country and that the number of Jews remaining there had dropped to 16,600, a decline of about 17 percent since 1933. At the June 29 meeting that year the leadership, referring to the decline, announced that the salaries of the community’s employees would be cut by 10 to 25 percent, the first of several stringent measures that would be taken over the next ten years.96

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From 1934 to 1937 it seemed as though the Jews of Germany might survive the Nazi onslaught, albeit as a self-contained and isolated group. The violence against them abated somewhat and although their economic circumstances in Breslau and throughout the country continued to decline, many managed to eke out a reasonably decent living. As noted in the preceding chapter, in the summer of 1934 the Breslau economist Alfred Hirschfeld urged his coreligionists not to succumb to despair over their economic prospects, which he believed were “not bad” for the urban Jewish middle class (Mittelstand ), a group that included all those earning between 300 and 600 marks a month.1 Albert Hadda, a prominent architect in Breslau, summed up the quandary of the Jews from 1934 to 1938 by describing their uncertainty as follows: “Conflicts in the Community: To emigrate—Not to emigrate.” 2 The situation seemed not so bleak as to make the decision obvious. As it turned out, even this cautious optimism was misplaced, although some evidence could be marshaled in its support. As late as September 1938, Jews still owned 1,600 enterprises in Breslau itself and another 200 in the suburbs, many of which continued to cater to Gentiles. According to a report from the American embassy in Berlin, the authorities in Breslau published a list of all the Jewish shops shortly before Christmas 1936 to discourage Aryans from patronizing them. But many Breslauer found the publication useful in guiding them where to shop, and “the Jewish merchants did a fine business.” Until the summer of 1937, moreover, 255 Jewish physicians and a smaller number of lawyers remained in practice, the latter in part by resorting to various ruses to conceal their role in legal proceedings. In 1937, for

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example, Ernst Marcus drew up a brief for a major businessman involved in a court case, and then had an Aryan lawyer sign the document. Thus Marcus did not have to appear in court, always risky for a Jew.3 Even though Jews had been banished from performing in theaters, early in 1936 the Breslau Gestapo reported with more than a little dismay that several of them were working as announcers and comedians in cabarets and vaudeville houses, where they made political jokes that sometimes openly and sometimes in veiled form disparaged “the measures of the government of national revival [as well as of measures of ] the Führer himself.” The Gestapo declared that surveillance of these entertainment halls, then in progress, was “urgently necessary.” 4 Lotte Lewin, a keen observer of conditions in Breslau, accurately gauged the mood of many coreligionists when she said that in 1936 “business continued and thus relatively few Jews emigrated. People were more distressed than anxious.” 5 The Nazis also made some gestures, small ones to be sure, that seemed to indicate that they might moderate their hostility toward Jews. During the Olympic Games in the summer of 1936 the Nazis suspended the campaign against Jews and removed anti-Semitic signs at the entrances to towns and villages, although we now know that these measures were adopted merely to impress foreign visitors.6 There were other reasons why some Jews were reluctant to give up on Germany. Those who had retired could still count on their pensions, and the government continued to raise them whenever a general increase was mandated. Even as late as February 1940 the senior financial president (Oberfinanzpräsident) in Silesia informed Hermann Hans Israel Berg that his military pension would be increased by 17.20 marks a month.7 Most surprising of all, Jewish veterans continued to receive honors from a very high source. On November 5, 1935, the Honorary Cross for Participants was sent to Conrad Kasriel “in the name of the Führer and Reich Chancellor.” That same year, on January 29, Georg Janower received an Honorary Cross for Veterans, also in the name of the Führer and Reich Chancellor.8 As if to signal their belief that all might not be lost, Breslau Jews went out of their way to demonstrate their patriotism. On August 15, 1934, the Breslauer Jüdisches Gemeindeblatt carried a front page article on the

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passing of Reich President Hindenburg with the headline: “The Sorrow for Hindenburg.” It ended with the words: “His image will forever remain in the consciousness of German Jews.” 9 A few months later, in January 1935, the paper reprinted a statement signed by Leo Baeck hailing Germany’s victory in the plebiscite in the Saar district, ensuring German repossession of the area. “The outcome of the [vote on January 13] signifies a victory for justice over force. That German land returns after years of separation to the German Reich also fills us German Jews with great satisfaction.” In addition, the paper expressed delight at the return of 4,000 Jews who lived in the Saar district to the fatherland.10 However, on occasion, Breslau Jews also publicly expressed views that were risky and that demonstrate that they were by no means completely cowed by the Nazis. On the occasion of the 125th anniversary of the founding of the University of Breslau in November 1936, Kurt Schwerin, a historian of Silesian Jewry, published an article listing all the Jews who had held academic positions, for the most part as lecturers, at that institution. He mentioned no fewer than forty-one persons, indicated their fields of specialization, and briefly described their impressive scholarly attainments. Several, Schwerin noted, had achieved worldwide reputations. For good measure, he added that another sixteen prominent men associated with the university were of Jewish descent. The article was purely factual, but Schwerin seemed to be sending a message to the authorities that the exclusion of Jews from the academy would hurt not only the Jews but the entire country.11 Perhaps even more daring was the correction in the community paper of some disparaging remarks that Gauleiter Julius Streicher, the leading propagandist of anti-Semitism, had made about a certain Max Braun, who had campaigned against the return of the Saar district to Germany. Streicher had asserted that Braun was a Jew, which was not true; he was “neither a Jew nor of Jewish descent. . . . Even the overwhelming result of the vote in the Saar region has been used, to our painful regret, by Gauleiter Julius Streicher for the purpose of defaming the Jews.” In the same speech, Streicher also claimed that the Jewish statesman Walter Rathenau had written the following: “Three hundred men who know each other and are related by blood, control the fate of the world.” In fact, the newspaper explained that Rathenau had

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said something quite different: “Three hundred men, who know each other, control the economic fate of the continent and are looking for successors in their surroundings.” The account ended as follows: “For the protection of our honor there is no other recourse but to issue a solemn protest!” 12 The Nazis were not impressed. Nor were they impressed by the right-wing outpourings of Max Naumann, who held a meeting in Breslau on January 9, 1934, at which he made some offensive remarks about many Jews and presented his views on how to solve the “German Jewish question.” It was a closed meeting to which only “selected guests” were invited, and the police asked several people suspected of Zionist sympathies to leave even though they had tickets. The hall was decorated with the black, white, and red flag, the national standard of the Second Empire. Before Naumann delivered his speech, a band played military marches and the audience joined in the singing of the Deutschlandlied, which begins with the words “Deutschland, Deutschland über alles.” Some fanciful accounts of this occasion and other meetings at which Naumann spoke circulated widely. The Jüdische Zeitung, for example, reported that some National Socialists in SA uniform had attended the Breslau meeting and that the Nazi flag had been raised there. In other reports, journalists ridiculed Naumann by suggesting that members of his movement appeared at meetings with signs proclaiming: “Raus mit uns!” (Out with us!) and “Nieder mit uns!” (Down with us!). Naumann began his speech by drawing his usual distinction between Jews who were decent and those who were not. “No one has anything against the decent ones.” In his view, the distinction had nothing to do with racial attributes but rather with the “disposition” (Gesinnung) and “character” of individuals. “There is a difference,” he repeated several times, “between a Jew who comes from a family that has been in Germany for many decades and is rooted in German culture and anOstjude who has just come here from Tarnopol, who has only just cut off his side locks but retains his Asiatic character.” Naumann declared his support for the “national revolution” and said that he and his followers would do their utmost to persuade the National Socialist state to recognize “our disposition” and not to apply its “Jewish

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policies” to Jews who have a “German disposition” because “there is no reason to do so.” 13 Not many Jews in Breslau responded favorably to Naumann’s speeches. His organization claimed to have recruited about 3,500 Jews throughout Germany, although Matthias Hambrock, author of the most authoritative study of Naumann’s movement, could find biographical data on only 310, and of these only 17 lived in Breslau.14 Moreover, his Breslau speech attracted very little attention; aside from the Jewish press, only two newspapers with Nazi sympathies reported on it. A third Nazi paper, the Nationalsozialistische Schlesische Tageszeitung, refused even to run an announcement of the meeting because it would not accept advertisements from any Jewish business or organization.15 If outright anti-Jewish violence subsided in 1934, the Nazis did not let up in their efforts to isolate the Jews and to exclude them from German society. The most notorious measures along these lines were the so-called Nuremberg Laws enacted in September of 1935. These consisted of three parts, the last two of which were directly applicable to Jews: the first made the swastika the obligatory symbol on the national flag; the second drew a distinction between citizens who “were entitled to full political and civic rights” and subjects, most notably Jews, who were not; and the third, the Law for the Defense of German Blood and Honor, prohibited sexual contact (including marriage) between Aryans and Jews. In addition, Jews were henceforth prohibited from employing any Aryan woman under the age of forty-five as a domestic servant.16 Eventually, in February 1939, the Nazis sought to drive home the point that Jews were no longer citizens by forcing the Reich Representation of German Jews to change its name to Reich Association of Jews in Germany. Violators of the Nuremberg Laws faced harsh punishment. In the spring of 1937, a former housekeeper of the Cassels in Breslau returned briefly to their home to help out with some household chores. A neighbor who had seen her informed the police, who immediately arrested Mr. Cassel. He remained in jail for several weeks, until April 20, Hitler’s birthday, in honor of which the government declared a general amnesty.17

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For anti-Semites, sexual contact between Christians and Jews was especially repulsive, and even before the adoption of the Nuremberg Laws, Nazis in Breslau staged a barbaric ceremony to humiliate women suspected of having violated National Socialist ideals on this score. It took place for the first time on a Sunday, April 7, 1935, when a group of SA men led by a bugler and followed by several townspeople marched through the streets with a sign designating the “transgressors.” The group proceeded to the home of each one “while, to the accompaniment of bugle calls and shouts of ‘Germany Awake,’ her name was chalked on the sidewalk.” A local Nazi newspaper, the Nationalsozialistische Schlesische Tageszeitung, regularly printed a list of the suspects in its columns.18 In short order, the procession became a weekly ritual in a slightly changed form. Each Sunday, right-wingers staged “spontaneous” demonstrations in front of the houses where the despised women lived, shouted out their names “together with insults,” and then dragged a tablet on which one could read that X. Y. had had relations with the Jew Z. to the Ring [in the old center of the city] where the tablet was placed on the public pillory. The public pillory in front of the city hall (one of the most beautiful Gothic secular buildings in Germany) is a medieval monument: in the Middle Ages criminals were publicly whipped there.

According to an official report of May 5, 1935, “the Aryan population in general welcomes these measures,” but a month later another report held that while a part of the population approved of them, others did not.19 In July 1935, the authorities in Breslau applied even harsher punishments to transgressors of Nazi mores: they detained twenty young Jewish men and twenty Aryan women suspected of personal intimacy. “Thus,” a Nazi police account noted, “action has finally been taken against the scandalous practices of German women who are oblivious to their breeding, and against their Jewish lovers.” On July 30, by which time the public had allegedly become enraged over the issue, some 35,000 Volksgenossen are said to have gathered in the streets of Breslau to witness the deportation to a concentration camp of these “defilers of the race.” 20 Five months later, early in 1936, four Jewish prostitutes, “the only ones in Breslau,” were sent to the concentration

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camp in Moringen, Lower Saxony. “It is under no circumstances tolerable,” declared the local Gestapo Office, “that they engage in sexual relations with Aryan men for money.” 21 Municipalities had a certain amount of leeway in introducing antiSemitic measures, and officials in Breslau took advantage of this prerogative. In July 1935, the lord mayor (Oberbürgermeister) of the city, Dr. Friedrich, issued a decree forbidding Jews to enter various forests and public bathing facilities.22 Interestingly, one official, the director of the Hallenschwimmbad, refused to enforce the rule on the grounds that Jews had never misbehaved there, and it remained open to them for another two years.23 The law outlawing Aryan women under fortyfive from working in Jewish households also encountered some resistance, as many who had done so for years were happy in their positions and wanted to stay. Kurt (Yitzhak) Janower recalled that their cook was so strict about maintaining all the rules of Kashruth that she would not allow Mrs. Janower into the kitchen for fear that she would mix the dairy and meat cutlery.24 Early in January 1936, a group of domestic servants in high dudgeon at having to leave their posts went to police headquarters and demanded to speak to the chief. When he refused to see them, they flew into a rage and several were taken into custody.25 By the mid-1930s Jews lived in constant fear of the Gestapo, which would seize on any pretext to crack down on them. An incautious remark critical of the regime could lead to arrest, and consequently even the presence of a telephone in one’s home became a “source of fear,” since it was known that the secret police had bugged the lines. “Many did not dare to speak loudly in rooms with a telephone,” one Jewish resident of Breslau reported. Jews also had to be careful about their conduct abroad. Some who had returned from France were accused of having read the anti-German paperPariser Tageblatt. If they protested their “innocence,” the police would produce photographs that German agents had taken of them reading that newspaper. When Ernst Marcus read a brochure on the Reichstag fire in Karlsbad, Czechoslovakia, he took the precaution of sequestering himself in a locked room.26 An innocent misstep, as Lotte Lewin discovered, could be calamitous. Lewin worked in her family’s textile business, which for many years had employed a Christian man whose decency and loyalty to the

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family were beyond doubt. But unintentionally he caused great harm to Lewin early in 1936. At the time, newspapers had announced that Joseph Goebbels, the minister of propaganda, was about to visit Breslau and in an off-handed manner Lewin referred to the Nazi leader, in the presence of the employee, as the “monstrous product of filth and fire,” an expression from Goethe’sFaust. Amused by the expression, the employee repeated it to his lady friend, whose brother, a member of the SA, immediately informed the Gestapo. Six weeks later, Lewin was summoned to the Gestapo office, where the officials “all wore black eyeglasses . . . no doubt in order to inspire more fear in the public.” The agents did not ask her any questions in a normal tone; they shouted. Lewin tried to persuade them that it was all a misunderstanding, that she had merely repeated words that Goebbels himself had used to describe Jews, but to no avail. She was taken to a prison for further questioning. On the second day, she was interrogated in the presence of the young man, who was “timid and insecure” when the police berated him for engaging in political discussions with a Jew, but he did not support the charges against Lewin. The agents then tried to convince both the employee and Lewin separately that they had been overheard by people who had independently reported their conversation, but the ruse did not work. On the third day, Lewin was released after signing a statement that she would not undertake any actions against the government or participate in any political activities. Still, a few months later, on October 1, 1936, she was summoned to reappear in court. This time, the employee, speaking under oath, testified that Lewin had made the unflattering comments about Goebbels. Lewin continued to claim that she had only quoted words that Goebbels himself had used, but the judge was not persuaded. He sentenced her to nine months in prison for using “inflammatory” language. For six weeks, she was kept in a small cell “similar to the one that Rosa Luxemburg” had occupied in 1917. She asked to be assigned to work in the library but was told that “political criminals” were not allowed to go there because they would come into contact with other prisoners. During her daily walks she was not permitted to speak to any other inmates. Toward the end of her imprisonment, a Gestapo agent warned her that she must leave the country immediately on her release: “If your pass-

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port [with a visa] does not arrive within a week, something will happen.” Lewin left prison on July 14, 1937, and, as she recalled a few years later, was allowed to take only 200 English pounds and her jewelry when she departed for England.27 During the years of relative calm, the Nazis maintained steady economic pressure on Jews. Some of the measures were fairly minor, such as the following one announced by the Breslauer Jüdisches Gemeindeblatt in mid-April 1935: as of April 1, recipients of public welfare and persons whose income was no larger than theirs no longer had to pay the special tax imposed on owners of radios, but the exemption was explicitly not extended to non-Aryans.28 Much more damaging were the Gestapo’s pressures on Jews who were emigrating to sell their businesses to Aryans at substantially below the market price, a process that was labeled aryanization. Aryanization continued and steadily became more punitive for as long as Jews held on to assets, and it is no exaggeration to characterize the entire process as massive thievery by state officials. Ernst Marcus, a lawyer with first-hand knowledge of the negotiations between the Gestapo and Jewish businessmen, described some of these transactions in Breslau. After a Jewish owner of a large Silesian mill sold his enterprise to a Christian, the Gestapo refused to approve the arrangement and then “directed” the Jewish businessman to sell his enterprise at a lower price to a stranger from distant Bavaria. Another Jewish businessman, Mr. Scholl, who owned a quarry, was held in custody by the Gestapo until he agreed to sell his enterprise to an Aryan at the price set by the police. Louis Lewy, the owner of a large factory producing ladies’ coats and an imposing shop on the fashionable Ring, suffered an even worse fate. When a “notorious swindler” named Hünert showed interest in buying the business, Lewy hired an Aryan lawyer on the assumption that he would be able to get him a better deal than a Jewish lawyer. After some initial negotiations, Lewy refused Hünert’s offer. At this point, the “Commissar of Aryanization,” Herr von Streitschwert, appeared in Lewy’s office and informed him that the National Socialist Party “could no longer tolerate having so large a Jewish shop in the center of the city.” Streitschwert asserted that only Hünert would receive permission to buy the business, and produced a contract

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very unfavorable to Lewy. When Lewy demurred he was threatened with imprisonment. He suffered a nervous breakdown and within days committed suicide, not the only Jewish businessman to take his own life on being robbed of his assets. To many Christians, Marcus wrote, “every means was justified to enrich themselves at the expense of Jews,” and it was not simply hostility toward Jews that explains their behavior; plain greed played at least as important a role in the widespread seizure of Jewish assets. Ironically, in more than one instance the new owners proved to be incompetent, with the result that both the enterprise and the German economy were damaged. It is also ironic that soon after Hünert acquired Lewy’s holdings he was arrested, apparently for shady business practices, and then he, too, committed suicide.29 Occasionally, Jews threatened with aryanization of their property protested the strong-arm methods used against them. Late in 1938, the attorney Georg Fröhlich informed the commissioner of Aryanization that he had already made arrangements to hand over to “Aryans” three properties that belonged to him and his wife, and that he could therefore not understand why several “gentlemen” from the Deutsche Arbeitsfront (Labor Front—the Nazi organization of trade unions) had badgered his wife, during his absence, for “urgent explanations” and had forced her to appear at their office. In a tone of defiance, Fröhlich declared that “if I do not receive information to the contrary I believe that I would be justified in assuming that I can proceed with the aryanization of the properties in the manner already initiated by me without the cooperation of the gentlemen from the Arbeitsfront.” Fröhlich ended with a request for a quick decision on the arrangements he had made. The archive does not contain a reply from the commissioner, but we can assume that he did not take kindly to Fröhlich’s letter.30 It is not known exactly how many Jewish businesses in Breslau were liquidated or sold to Aryans in the years from 1934 to early 1937. Avraham Barkai, the leading authority on Nazi economic pressures on Jews, has estimated that for Germany as a whole “some 20 to 25 percent” of their businesses were no longer in Jewish hands by mid-1935.31 Most of the early aryanization apparently occurred in smaller towns

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and villages, and it may be that the transfers in Breslau proceeded at a slower pace, although a substantial number of Jewish businesses were surrendered in one way or another before the more violent phase of anti-Jewish measures was initiated in 1938. Economic adversity did not deter leaders of the Jewish community from making considerable financial outlays for the upkeep of religious institutions or from maintaining cultural and religious programs. In June 1935, they decided temporarily to close the New Synagogue for extensive renovation. Not surprisingly, members of the community questioned the advisability of undertaking the expensive project “at this time.” In two articles, the architect Moritz Hadda offered a spirited defense of the plans, interesting because it focused not only on the technical aspects of the renovation but on its larger cultural meaning. Built in the years from 1866 to 1872, the entire synagogue was in a state of disrepair; there were cracks in the walls, bricks had fallen onto the street, the lighting was bad, the paint inside was so old that it was unsightly, and the acoustics were so poor that in many parts of the sanctuary the rabbi’s sermons could not be heard. Considerations of safety alone made the renovation necessary, but for Hadda there was another factor: “German Jewry faces the task of creating its own culture, that is, of forming its own life, ideas, and economy in accordance with its own precepts, and of bringing forth spiritual and artistic values that stem from its own individuality. . . . Inevitably, a specific Jewish art will develop.” Fortunately, Hadda concluded, a large number of Jews were willing to participate in “this difficult, taxing work.” 32 On September 20, 1935, the work was completed, just in time for the High Holy Days. In a stirring, defiant, and mildly optimistic tone, Rabbi Vogelstein addressed the community. We celebrate our holidays in the midst of the most difficult experiences. In happy times we were never so burdened with the realization that we would have to look for refuge from the confusion of these times in eternal [religious] truths that provide us with inner freedom and that permit us to remain upright, despite all the oppression and humiliations. We do not want to be, and will not be, destroyed so long as we preserve and renew this inner independence.33

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A year later, in June 1936, the community assumed another major financial expense by establishing a second old-age home, which could accommodate twenty people, and every care was taken to make it comfortable. “The bedrooms had high ceilings and were spacious and contained suitable and simple furniture.” The elderly residents were served their meals in a large, nicely appointed room, and the home had hygienic facilities for bathing and laundry, as well as a sizable balcony for the enjoyment of fresh air. The Jewish Welfare Committee, in founding the home, stated its conviction that “next to securing the future of our youth we must care for our older people.” 34 An increasingly difficult problem for observant Jews was the procurement of kosher food. During the first four years of Nazi rule it had been possible to import kosher meat into Breslau from western Upper Silesia, where minorities were protected under the Geneva Minorities Agreement of 1922. But the agreement expired on July 15, 1937, placing the region under Nazi racial laws and cutting off that source of kosher meat for Breslau Jews. On November 23, Willy Cohn wrote to Guido Kisch, formerly a teacher at the Theological Seminary in Breslau and now at the seminary in New York, to ask for help for a student, Bileski, who was in poor health and needed “special nourishment.” “Do you think that someone in the Jewish community in New York might be in a position to spend one pound [English money] in accordance with the enclosed leaflet and to transfer the money to the bank named therein?” Cohn suggested that Kisch consult “Mrs. Professor [Salo] Baron,” whom he had recently met in Palestine, for names of people to contact for the contribution. “It is a question of helping a very talented young man, whom you may perhaps remember, and it would be a pity if his health were harmed.” Cohn regretted imposing on Kisch, “but one must do everything possible to help.” The leaflet mentioned in the letter referred to the Jewish Friends’ Food Fund, established in February 1937 in London to send, “with the permission of the German Government,” strictly kosher meat to individual families and Jewish hospitals, orphanages, homes for the aged, soup kitchens, and the “general poor.” The organization had seen to it that “nearly every observant Jewish family in Germany had kosher meat for Passover [in 1937],” but it did not have enough funds to supply meat

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to Jewish institutions. Donors were asked to send contributions to its account at the Midland Bank Ltd and to indicate the name and address of the beneficiary. The fund then ascertained from the latter “whether he desires fresh or frozen meat, the name of the butcher and in what rations the meat should be delivered to him.” Kisch found a donor, Anna Kleban, who lived on West 111 Street in New York City and donated $5.00 for the purchase of meat for Bileski.35 The shortage of kosher meat was so acute that sometimes understanding rabbis bent the rules governing food that could be eaten. On one such occasion, a woman discovered what she feared was a defect inside a chicken she had bought at a high price. As required by religious law, she immediately took the chicken to a local rabbi, who looked at the bird and offered the following judgment: “It was very expensive, so it is kosher.” 36 In many other ways also, the Jews of Breslau sought to carry on with their lives and to adjust to the restrictions imposed on them by relying more than ever for their socializing and entertainment on the facilities of the Jewish community. Leo Baeck had provided the underlying rationale for this new path by insisting that Judaism did not recognize a distinction between religion and life, arguing that the task of “our community” was to turn itself into a “community of life . . . [embracing] upbringing, education, culture and, yes, also recreation, relaxation, [and] exultation through culture.” 37 In effect, Baeck was urging his coreligionists to create their own self-sufficient community within Germany. He did not use the word ghetto in describing the new arrangement, and in many ways this environment was not a ghetto, but what he was proposing—not because he favored it, but because he saw no alternative in the near future—amounted to a step toward the medieval form of Jewish existence. One aspect of this increasing cohesiveness of Jewish communities was their sensitivity to the withdrawal of Jews, either through conversion or simple non-payment of taxes. On December 14, 1934, the Board of Governors of the Synagogue Community in Cologne asked the executive of the Breslau community for advice on whether such withdrawals should be publicized in its newspaper. The reasons for withdrawal varied, but a frequently cited factor was the desire to reduce the

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tax burden. It had now come to the attention of the Cologne board that some owners of businesses who had withdrawn from the community did not want their names to be publicized in Cologne or elsewhere for fear that they would lose Jewish customers. The board acknowledged that publicizing the names was a dubious practice but seemed to consider it advisable. The Breslau board responded that while it had not and would not publicize withdrawals from other communities, it did, and would continue to, publicize those from Breslau. It could see no objection to that.38 The numbers involved were not large, but for as long as the paper appeared (until late 1938), it listed Jews who had abandoned the Breslau community. The board offered no explanation for the practice; perhaps it was simply designed to keep members informed about internal developments, or perhaps there was a more devious motive, to deter others from following suit. The Jewish Cultural Association continued to stage various events, almost always to full houses and deeply appreciative audiences. Late in December 1935 it produced an adaptation of Calderón’sDavid’s Crown (its original title was Absalom’s Crown), which touches on the relations between European civilization and Judaism. A few weeks later, Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest was shown, and during the 1937–38 season four plays, including one by Sholem Aleichem and one by Mendele Mocher Seforim, were staged. In addition, the Music Club put on an operetta and numerous concerts.39 The Jewish schools urged students to participate in sports of various kinds, and, starting in the summer of 1935, each year they sponsored a national Sports Festival of Jewish Students. Over 800 youngsters participated in the festival in 1937, and the last one took place in September 1938.40 On May 6, 1936, the Board of Governors of the Breslau Jewish community voted to extend an interest-free loan of 1,500 marks to Bar Kochba, the main Jewish organization devoted to gymnastics.41 Leo Baeck’s concept of a Jewish community catering to the members’ social, spiritual, and cultural interests was close to being realized. It has often been contended that in two respects the violent attacks on Jews on Kristallnacht (November 9 –10, 1938)—to be discussed in the next chapter—marked a turning point in the history of German

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Jewry.42 They demonstrated, once and for all, that the Nazis intended to rid the country of Jews, who only now concluded that they had no future there. These contentions are only partially correct. For one thing, Jews tried in fairly large numbers to emigrate even before November 1938, although they certainly made greater efforts after that date. Second, and more important, the Nazis had engaged in massive persecution of Jews for about a year before Kristallnacht, which suggests that they had been moving toward a more violent anti-Jewish campaign at least since late 1937. Kristallnacht was not so much a turning point in Nazi policy as a high point in a process that had started a year earlier. Exactly why Hitler and his associates decided to move more forcefully against Jews in late 1937 and early 1938 is not clear. Several explanations, not mutually exclusive, seem plausible. First, war appeared increasingly likely to break out, making the seizure of Jewish assets all the more desirable from a purely economic standpoint. Second, after the annexation of Austria in March 1938 the Jewish population in the country increased by about fifty percent, which the rabid anti-Semites found unbearable. Third, emigration had declined rapidly, in part because more and more countries had shut their doors. The Institute for the Study of the Jewish Question, established by the Nazi government, concluded that Jews were leaving so slowly that it would take thirty years before Germany was rid of its last “full-blooded Jew.” The pace had quickened after the passage of the Nuremberg racial laws in September 1935, but then it dropped off markedly, and researchers at the institute attributed the slowdown to the lack of any “outstanding antiSemitic action” for most of 1936 and 1937. These considerations probably encouraged the Nazis to put more pressure on Jews in hopes of forcing them to leave for the few countries, which they did not find appealing, that would still accept refugees.43 Whatever the reason, in the fall of 1937 the Nazis stepped up their campaign to seize Jewish assets. The first major business now targeted for expropriation in Breslau was that of the tugboat owners Sylvius Schalscha and his brother, a large Jewish enterprise involved in transporting goods along the Oder River. Breslau’s location on the river made it a natural link between the east and the harbors of Stettin

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and Hamburg, and hence the hub of extensive commercial traffic. Schalscha’s company shipped ore, pyrites, timber, and, above all, the coal and raw materials found in abundance in Upper Silesia. Founded by Josef Schalscha in 1889, the firm had enjoyed substantial success for over forty years, owning some thirty ships by the early 1930s and employing several thousand people. Sylvius had been elected chairman of the Association of Shippers on the Oder, but in 1933 he quit after being threatened with a gun by another member who could not bear to have a Jew occupy so high a position. Shortly thereafter, the association expelled Sylvius from the executive committee and several other shipping associations expelled him altogether. In March that year, the Gestapo conducted an illegal search of his apartment for weapons, but did not otherwise molest him since they did not find anything incriminating. For the next four years the firm pursued its business interests without interference. A decisive change took place in the fall of 1937, when a new transportation official, Drews, began to harass the firm. A fanatical Nazi who lived on the same street as Sylvius, Drews found it intolerable having a Jew, a highly successful one at that, as his virtual neighbor. At Drews’s prodding, Nazi Party members “tyrannized, insulted and even mishandled [the firm’s workers] on a daily basis so that orderly business relations [with workers on boats working for Schalscha] ceased.” Sylvius now concluded that he could no longer seek protection from the authorities. “The party and the mob ruled,” he noted, “and the Jews were defenseless [and] fair game.” In the summer of 1938, the Schalschas sold the business at a huge loss, but even then the proceeds were placed in a “blocked account.” They left Germany in early 1939 after having spent several weeks in the Buchenwald concentration camp. When they arrived in England, they were “literally as poor as beggars.” 44 Other businessmen were intimidated in more subtle ways. For example, in February 1938 an official from the Tax Department appeared at the Holzer textile store, a moderately successful enterprise, to inspect the books. After examining the pertinent papers for a week, the official made the following statement: “Mr. Holzer, I did not find anything untoward, but you should leave as soon as possible. It will be very

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dangerous for you.” Holzer took the warning to heart and applied for a certificate of admission to Palestine. Fortunately, he had two close relatives there who helped him obtain the necessary papers. He left Breslau in January 1939.45 The most far-reaching and in certain respects the most ominous economic measure against German Jewry was the decree of April 27, 1938, which ordered all Jews with assets worth at least 5,000 marks to fill out forms listing their possessions in great detail. The decree contained twenty-three paragraphs of small print that filled two large pages. Little was left to the imagination. First it specified the persons who, in addition to “full Jews,” were to be regarded as Jews and therefore required to register their wealth: all who were descended “from at least three Jewish” grandparents; all Mischlinge (“half-breeds”) who were descended from two Jewish grandparents and belonged to a Jewish community as of September 16, 1935; all such Mischlinge who were married to a Jew as of September 16, 1935; all offspring of mixed marriages entered into after September 17, 1936; all offspring of illicit relationships between Aryans and Jews born after July 31, 1936; and all non-Jewish spouses of Jews, if the marriage was valid on April 27, 1938. The decree then named the items to be declared: property, cash, securities, insurance policies, pension plans, mortgages, material assets such as coal, electric power, or supplies of rye (for bread), jewelry and all other luxuries. The completed forms were due on June 30, although the authorities granted extensions and some came in as late as February 1939.46 The paperwork of the Breslau authorities became so burdensome that they assigned a small contingent of bureaucrats to keep track of the reports, check whether those submitting forms had fully paid their taxes, and explain which items to include in the declarations. The bureaucrats were very diligent. On March 30, 1939, they informed several doctors that they had to pay back taxes ranging from 279.33 to 1,321.40 marks. On August 9, 1938, customs officials searched the premises of the Jewish manufacturer Julius Beer and discovered that he had failed to declare some of his stocks (worth 4,800 marks) and gold coins worth 2 marks. Beer was arrested and became so distraught that on November 18 he committed suicide “by hanging himself.” 47

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But the bureaucrats also made some mistakes. On December 2, 1938, Vera Bruegman wrote to the president of the Governing Board (Regierungspräsident) that she had been sent the forms erroneously since according to the Nuremberg Laws she was a “half-breed” (Mischling) of the “First Grade.” “I have two Aryan and two Jewish grandparents and was converted to Catholicism at birth and brought up as a Catholic. I was married to a full Aryan. I therefore assume that the form about the assets of Jews was sent to me by mistake and am sending it back to you.” She ended her letter with the Nazi salute “Mit deutschem Gruss!” On December 9 she was told that she did not have to submit the declaration on assets.48 In fact, despite the elaborate instructions in the decree of April 27, the racial categories remained murky, and on May 17, 1938, the senior financial president (Oberfinanzpräsident) in Silesia confessed that it was not always easy to decide questions of racial identity. “The identification of Jews in terms of their racial origins is relatively difficult because [in the past] Jews did not fill out the income tax declarations accurately; many Jews [probably converts] . . . [claimed to be members of ] the . . . Christian community to which they paid taxes. The racial origins cannot be determined from the tax returns.” He asked for more precise information on these individuals, which in many instances was not readily available.49 Then there was the question of the liability of Jews who had already emigrated. Bureaucrats in Breslau sent the forms to at least some of the émigrés, and German newspapers, in New York for example, informed readers that they were expected to complete them. It may seem surprising that any refugee would take this requirement seriously, but there was good reason for them to do so. In mid-1939, the authorities in Berlin sent letters to Jews who had moved to Kenya demanding payment of a fine (to be discussed in the next chapter) that had been imposed on German Jews. Wallace Murray, of the Division of Near Eastern Affairs in the Department of State, noted in a memorandum of June 9, 1939, that “our Consul in Nairobi reports that he has seen several such official demands addressed to Jewish refugees in Kenya by Berlin authorities. Accompanying these demands are threats that if the fines are not promptly paid, and in full, action will be taken against

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relatives in Germany.” 50 The danger of reprisals against family members still in Germany weighed on the consciences of émigrés as they examined the questionnaires. Nonetheless, some of them could not resist the temptation to respond caustically and, on occasion, with a dash of humor. Eugen Bandmann, who identified himself as a “former attorney and Notary in Breslau” and gave his new address as 344 Fort Washington Avenue, New York City, informed the board president on June 18, 1938, that he had left Breslau in March 1933 and after a five-year stay in Czechoslovakia had moved to the United States. “I am no longer a German citizen since I was deprived of citizenship on February 1, 1937; my wife Linda Bandmann, born Perls, was also deprived of her citizenship. We are Jews.” Bandmann further noted that he had “voluntarily” paid the “emigration tax” even though it seemed to him “very doubtful” that he was under any obligation to do so. He tried to find out from the German consulate in New York whether he was required to fill out the declaration on assets, but could not get an answer. However, he decided to list his assets in Breslau anyway: several properties, a bank account of almost 3,000 marks, two insurance policies worth about 1,600 marks, and some fees for legal work he had never received. For example, the attorney Dr. Weisstein owed him at least 150 marks and the former attorney Paul Richter, who had moved to South America, owed him about 300 marks, which he had deposited in Bandmann’s “blocked account.” Several clients still owed him fees, whose precise amounts he could not determine because he did not have his records. In any case, Bandmann thought that the sums involved were not significant and that a portion of the money could not be collected because the statute of limitations had run out. “I make this declaration,” Bandmann concluded, “without acknowledging that I am obliged to do so.” 51 It is not known whether German officials were amused by this letter. Another recent arrival in New York City, Georg Stoppelmann, adopted a more compliant tone, which was more characteristic of the responses I have seen. On July 2, 1938, he wrote to the Financial Office in Breslau that the German newspapers in New York had indicated that German Jews were obliged to report their assets to German authorities, but he could not obtain a ruling on the matter from the German

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consulate. Since he had no forms to fill out, he had decided to write a letter listing his holdings, apparently on the assumption that his assets would somehow be protected. Stoppelmann mentioned a mortgage worth 11,000 marks, which was to have been deposited in his “blocked account” at the Dresdner Bank, and a small account of 50 marks at a municipal savings bank. He did not at present have anyone to represent his interests in Breslau, but he was trying to find someone. He ended the letter very politely: “This is submitted hereby for your information. Yours faithfully.”52 For the Nazis and the Germans in Breslau who wished to profit from the seizure of Jewish assets, the survey initiated on April 27 was a signal success, for it yielded information that served them in good stead when they later took the decision to strip Jews of their possessions. By early September 1938 the authorities had analyzed the declarations and had divided them into two regional categories: those of residents of Breslau itself (Regierungsbezirk Breslau) and those of Jews who lived in the neighboring areas of the Breslau district authority. These were then subdivided as follows: native Jews, non-Jewish spouses married to Jews; foreign Jews, non-Jewish spouses married to foreign Jews; stateless Jews, and non-Jewish spouses married to stateless Jews. All in all, 4,891 declarations had been submitted, 4,324 in Breslau itself and 567 in the neighboring districts. The assets were divided into four categories: land and forests, landed property, businesses, and other items of value. The total net assets of the Jews and Gentile spouses of Jews within Breslau amounted to 195,065,715.00 marks (worth today about 2.6 billion dollars); the net assets of Jews and the Gentile spouses of Jews in the neighboring districts amounted to 31,336,557.00 marks.53 Initially, the Board of Governors of the Synagogue Community did not report the assets of Jewish foundations on the grounds that the law seemed to apply only to “physical persons” and that therefore “Jewish cultural associations, Jewish foundations, Jewish cooperative societies were exempt.” But the Office of the President of the Governing Board ruled against this interpretation and a list of twenty-eight foundations, with their assets penciled in, was submitted on July 22, 1938. Not all the penciled-in figures can now be read clearly, but they add up to several million marks.54 The roughly 232 million marks of assets belonging to Jews and

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Jewish foundations, a large sum at the time—worth today roughly three billion dollars—were a tempting target. At about the same time, the authorities compiled a forty-page list of 1,280 properties owned by Jews in Breslau. The list contained the address of each property and the owner’s name (a private person or a Jewish institution or foundation) and address.55 This list was used subsequently when officials began to force Jews to vacate their homes. On October 24, 1938, two weeks before Kristallnacht, the president of the Governing Board informed the Financial Office that forty-four Jewish businesses, ranging in value from 3,000 to over 1,000,000 marks, were in the process of being “aryanized.” The prices were to be set as low as possible, considerably below market value, but even then officials sought to prevent the owners from having easy access to their money. On October 25, 1938, an official asked the Office of the Senior Financial President of Silesia whether it would be possible to require the buyer to deposit the purchase price in a blocked account in an Aryan bank, which the Jewish seller would be allowed to draw on only with special permission.56 Increasingly, funds belonging to Jews were placed in such blocked accounts. Associations of non-Jewish businessmen, eager to reduce competition from Jewish firms, became increasingly involved in the various campaigns to squeeze Jews out of the economy. The experience of Leopold Lippmann is a case in point. In mid-July 1938, Lippmann decided to shut down his tailoring business in Grosswartenberg (Syców), a small town with few Jews, and move to Breslau, where he intended to reestablish his business. When he registered at the Tax Office, he was told that the ordinance of April 26 required that he obtain permission from the Office of the President of the Governing Board, which, in turn, asked the Chamber of Commerce for its opinion. The chamber replied that there were already too many tailors in Breslau and that thirty of them were Jews. In any case, Lippmann had a job with the Schlesinger firm in the city and was not too old to work for someone else. “If this does not please him,” the chamber held, “his children will support him. We certainly cannot support the application.” The Office of the Board President turned down Lippmann’s request.57

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The British Foreign Office was well informed about the plight of Jews in Breslau and in Silesia generally, even though reliable data were hard to come by. In a report of May 6, 1938, to Consul General Lyall, R. F. O’N. Bashford, the British vice-consul in Breslau, noted regretfully that the “spirit of apathy on the part of the Jews themselves, thriving as it does on a substructure of faint-hearted timidity, tends to aggravate the collection of reliable information. The Jews are afraid to talk, the Nazis will not talk and the press publishes nothing.” But he did not doubt that the stories of persecution were generally correct: “It appears that the Jews themselves prefer to make the [facts] known through their own channels to their own organizations, rather than run the risk of being suspected of even thinking about them, their theory, based on experience, being that it is unsafe for them to discuss anything inside this country with even the friendliest of Gentiles.” Nevertheless, Bashford succeeded in ferreting out a great deal of information. Jews, he reported, suffered from boycotts, especially in the textile business where they were prominent, and they tried in various ways to circumvent the restrictions; a fair number formed partnerships with Gentiles, hoping thus to avoid losing their businesses. But the pressure on Jews to sell their businesses outright was mounting. “Jewish enterprises are no longer allowed to capitalise on the registered name of their firm or on its reputation, and the only value assessed to the firm is the stock in hand.” In addition, a growing number of Aryans now refused to sell goods to Jews, further reducing the value of Jewish enterprises. Even “wealthier Jews are giving up their hesitation to sacrifice their businesses.” Jews were also finding it hard to hold on to their real estate. “In the majority of cases, mortgages falling due on Jewish properties are no longer extended or, very rarely, they are extended for a short period not exceeding one year and at a higher rate of interest. No actual foreclosures have become known, but several cases are known where the threat of foreclosure resulted in [Nazi] party members being able to acquire property for next to nothing.” Moreover the Baupolizei (municipal building-inspection authorities) were applying pressure on Jews to sell their property. One way this was done was to induce Jewish landlords to employ Aryan superintendents (Verwalter), who com-

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pelled owners to make repairs, undertake improvements, or provide a fresh coat of paint, all designed to make the property unprofitable. Bashford also noted the increasing number of suicides among Jews, and he gave one “outstanding” example: Max Michaelis, one of the wealthiest Jews of Breslau, a partner in a large clothing manufacturing firm . . . had been detained for a week, because a former female acquaintance of his, long since married and living in Berlin, had telephoned him from Berlin. While being questioned in the second floor of police headquarters, he was asked to step outside for a moment into a corridor, with his lawyer accompanying him. He lost his nerves, made a dash for an open window at the far end of the passage and jumped into the court below.

Bashford concluded his report on a somber note: The persecution “continues, and even the most tenacious, optimistic and stubborn among the Jews, of whom there have been quite a few in this district, have come to realise that only the complete and total destruction of Jewish life and enterprise will satisfy the National Socialist programme.” 58 Bashford’s account was astonishingly perceptive, not only because it predicted the fate of the Jewish community in Breslau (and in Germany generally), but also because it showed understanding of the involvement of wider circles of the German population in the state-sponsored campaign of thievery. The Nazis did not confine themselves to economic pressure or occasional physical violence to intimidate Jews into leaving the country. On June 15, 1938, they unleashed a Gross-Aktion (large-scale action) that amounted to the greatest onslaught of violence against Jews since the attacks of 1933. Throughout the country the authorities engaged in a wave of arrests of persons accused of being “asocial and lazy (arbeitsscheu),” all of whom were sent to the concentration camps of Buchenwald or Sachsenhausen. Among the incarcerated were Aryans, but a larger number were Jews. In Berlin, the Nazis ordered Jewish shopkeepers to post their names in white letters on their doors, making it easier for members of the Labor Front, who took the lead in this action, to paint “Jude” on the shop windows. Considerable looting fol-

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lowed and owners were beaten, making this “the first attempt since 1933 to revive organized picketing of Jewish shops.” The authorities took dozens of Jews into custody on the pretext of protecting them from “popular indignation caused by the influx of Jews to the capital.” Many Jews who had lived in rural regions did in fact move to cities, especially to Berlin, in the hope of more easily avoiding detection as Jews. According to one German newspaper, in a four-week period late in the spring of 1938, more than 3,000 Jews arrived in the capital. And the authorities feared that even more would soon come from Vienna, where the persecution at that time was especially virulent.59 On June 25, 1938, the SA in Breslau “took into custody . . . [several hundred unsuspecting Jews] and brought them to a concentration camp, mainly to Buchenwald, where they had to remain about four weeks.” 60 Ernst Marcus tried to deliver some medicine to an inmate who was seriously ill, but the police refused to accept the package. The wife of one of Marcus’s clients who had been arrested and sent to Buchenwald came to him for help; she was deeply concerned because she had heard that her husband was suffering from a “nervous disease.” A few days later, the police informed her that her husband had been shot trying to escape. Another client who showed up at Marcus’s office after being detained in a camp for three months had undergone such changes in his appearance that at first the lawyer did not recognize him. And several clients who had escaped arrest were so intimidated that they would call him for help at all hours of the day and night. Some of Marcus’s acquaintances became desperate, abandoned all their possessions, and suddenly left the country, often by illegal means. Marcus himself had somehow managed to maintain his law practice, but by mid-1938 conditions were unbearable even on a simple existential level. One day he and his wife wanted to buy a cup of coffee but could not find a restaurant within a reasonable distance. Jewish restaurants had been aryanized and non-Jewish ones prominently displayed signs that “Jews are not welcome.” 61 By the summer of 1938, my mother had decided that we must leave the country and managed to secure a visitor visa to the United States for my

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father by bribing the American consul in Breslau. I have often told the story, to relatives and friends, about my role in picking up my father’s visa and I never doubted having recalled the details of the affair accurately. But certain questions lingered in my mind. Who was the American consul who held in his hands the fate of many Breslau Jews who wished to leave the country and who had saved my father’s life and probably that of several other members of our family? Certainly, my mother and I would never have reached the United States had my father not preceded us. Moreover, if my father had not left in November 1938, my parents and I would probably not have been able to emigrate at all and would have been murdered by the Nazis, as were twenty-two members of our extended family. Was the American consul in Breslau motivated solely by mercenary considerations? Did he sell visas to other Jews? What happened to him? I had heard rumors about the way he ran the consulate in Breslau and about his fate, but I had never been able to verify any of them. One of my aims when I decided to write a history of the Jews of Breslau during the Hitler period was to find answers to these questions. It was not an easy quest. My initial inquiries led nowhere because several scholars and archivists told me that there was no American consulate in Breslau during the 1930s, and when I found proof that the United States did have such an office until 1939, I was informed that all the records had been lost, probably during their transfer to Berlin at the beginning of the Second World War. That also seemed unlikely to me, because I knew that consular dispatches from the provinces were sent not only to embassies but also to the State Department in Washington. In the end, an archivist told me that some documents just might be somewhere in Washington but that it would require extensive effort to find them “if indeed they were available.” During the last week of March 2005, I decided to undertake my own search in the National Archives in Washington. By that time I had located the name of a person who had headed the consular office in Breslau, and that was a helpful lead. Still, the pursuit turned out to be tedious, at times frustrating, and certainly time-consuming, but in the end I found a few items of value: some dispatches from Breslau that revealed much about conditions in the city, and, of special interest to me personally, an extensive file on the man who, I am now certain, handed

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me the visa for my father in 1938. He was a certain Stephen Bernard Vaughan, whose interesting and colorful personal history, in my view, sheds light on his motives. Stephen Vaughan was born in Pennsylvania in 1899, briefly attended business school, and in 1916 worked for a year as a clerk in the Department of War. From 1917 to 1920 he served in the United States Army and on his discharge was appointed clerk at the United States embassy in Budapest. Five years later, despite his meager educational background he was promoted to the rank of vice-consul, a position that gave him authority to issue visitor visas, technically known as nonimmigrant visas. Toward the end of his six-year tour of duty in Budapest Vaughan began to attract the attention of senior officials in the Foreign Service and the Department of State owing to charges of irregularities in his handling of visa applications. On August 21, 1929, the department received the following letter signed “A citizen,” clearly a Hungarian whose English was far from perfect: My relative whose parent is in the States is waiting since several years for visa but it is impossible to get it because others who have money and pay are coming always before. Visas in Budapest are sold for 200 – 600 dollars. . . . A whole gang works to catch people to go and it is included lawyers, agents of steamer companys and also Vice-Consul Vaughan. Only they can see the vice-consul who are recommended with other people he and clerk Szecsi are rough and people are talked that it is shameful. It is surprised that nobody complains but people is afraid and if somebody arrives in the States is happy to be there and wants no trouble. I can not say who I am but I say is truth and you can find out.62

An official with the initials “CMR” conducted an investigation of Vaughan’s service in Budapest, and his report, composed on November 23, 1931, was distinctly mixed. CMR quoted the evaluation of Vaughan, submitted by the vice-consul in charge of the American consulate in Budapest: Vigorous and assertive personality. Drinks heavily, but ordinarily not sufficiently to affect his work. In major official matters his integrity is absolute, but in small matters he frequently seeks to avoid responsibil-

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ity or blame by resorting to petty falsehoods. Neat, courteous, alert and very interested in work, but unadaptable and reluctant to cooperate. Naturally good and keen mind, but education defective. Very diligent and willing and has an excellent capacity for work. Rating: Very good as a clerk, fair as an officer.

But, of course, Vaughan was now working as an officer and CMR’s investigation of him in that role revealed that in a two-year period (1929 – 30) he had issued twenty-six visitor visas to women who very shortly after arriving in the United States got married. The implication is that the women married Americans so that they could obtain permission to remain in the United States permanently. Judging by their names, at least twenty of the “visitors” were Jewish, which suggests that even before Hitler’s rise to power Vaughan showed an interest in helping Jews. CMR also specifically noted several alleged irregularities in the way Vaughan dealt with visa applications, but he did not reach a distinctly unfavorable conclusion about Vaughan’s work. On the contrary, he pointed out that in his new post in Breslau, which he had assumed in January 1931, Vaughan had demonstrated, according to the American consul general in Berlin, “very commendable activity, industry, uniformly good judgment and discretion. The Consul General believes that a favorable notation should appear on Mr. Vaughan’s record for the way he carried on alone in Breslau during the period he was in charge.” Nevertheless, Vaughan was clearly transferred to Breslau because of the “alleged irregularities, although the charge has not been proved.” 63 Wilbur J. Carr, the assistant secretary of state, was not happy with this decision. On February 18, 1932, he informed Robert R. Bradford, the American consul in Breslau, that “there is grave suspicion of irregularity [on Vaughan’s part] in the granting of a certain immigration visa.” Carr indicated that “for the moment” the department did not intend to take any drastic action, but he warned that if further evidence of irregularity came to light or if Vaughan “should show any signs of other than circumspect performance of his duties in Breslau, his immediate dismissal will result.” Carr asked Bradford to tell Vaughan about his letter.64 Vaughan expressed surprise, explaining that he thought that an investigation in 1930 of his actions in Budapest had cleared him of all

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wrongdoing. Vaughan intended to go to the Department of State to clear his name once and for all during his upcoming visit to the United States, which must have taken place sometime in the summer of 1932.65 There is no report on his meeting there, but on May 2, 1933, someone in the Visa Division sent a memorandum to a certain Mr. Ravndal detailing at some length “the inefficiency in visa work of Vice-Consul Stephen B. Vaughan” during his period of service in Budapest.66 Senior officials in Washington were obviously not persuaded by Vaughan’s declarations of innocence. And in May 1933 William W. Heard, who had replaced Bradford as consul in Breslau, asked the Department of State to send him a copy of the Consular Regulations, which were to be given to Mr. Vaughan “for his personal use.” 67 By this time, Vaughan had been a vice-consul for some eight years and presumably would have been familiar with the regulations or, at the least, would have had a copy of them. In September 1935, the staff of the Breslau consulate was reduced and Vaughan took charge of the office, although his title was still “viceconsul,” which meant that he was the only American official in Breslau and in all of Silesia with the authority to issue visitor visas. He remained in Breslau for a total of eight years, until July 1939, when he was transferred to Berlin.68 I found only a few of his dispatches, and they reveal nothing untoward. In 1933, he described the experiences of two American students interrogated by Nazi officials and his presentation of the case suggests distaste for the way the Germans behaved.69 In 1935 he wrote a report on the coal industry in Germany that his superiors rated as “excellent.” In the fall of 1938, a young American assistant professor of philosophy (John O. Riedl) and his wife spent some time at the University of Breslau and made a point of writing to the American Consular Service in Washington to compliment Vaughan for “an overwhelming amount of kindness and assistance.” Without the help of the vice-consul and his wife, Riedl would not have remained in Breslau. The professor had not had a favorable view of American consuls but was now “completely converted to the work of your department.” 70 Finally, in November 1938, when he was asked by the consul general in Berlin to reply to a request from Congressman Donald L. O’Toole

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for information about the fate of Jacob Moses, a Jew from the Breslau region whose brother apparently lived in the United States, Vaughan showed considerable sensitivity regarding the plight of the Jews in Breslau. He quickly established that Moses had been taken into custody by the police, almost certainly during the roundup at the time of Kristallnacht. Vaughan made careful and discreet inquiries with “certain local official quarters” and decided that since Moses was a German citizen, direct intervention on his part would do more harm than good. But he promised to keep an eye on the case and to “undertake further oral inquiries . . . as soon as the local situation over these recent events clarifies.” 71 On the whole, Vaughan seems to have worked diligently as an official in Breslau, but he did take a surprisingly large number of leaves of absence. In his eight years in the city he went on leave at least twelve times, usually for thirty days, and sometimes without pay. He seems to have been prone to illness and on one occasion, in February 1937, he wrote that his “malady, apart from a general nervous lassitude also left complications (even to date the complete loss of the senses of taste and smell) necessitating the taking of subsequent ambulatory medical treatment twice weekly.” 72 However, late in September 1938, which is when I picked up my father’s visa, Vaughan was definitely at work. His signature appears on the visa, which was issued on Friday, September 23, almost certainly one day before he gave it to me.73 In any case, Vaughan had assured the Department of State that during a leave he was taking from August 17, 1938, until September 15, 1938, he would remain “within the boundaries of the Breslau consular district” because of the “political tension and rapidly moving events, possibly involving this district too . . . [and that he would be] prepared to return to duty in the event of emergency.” 74 In April 1939, only a few months after my father received his visa, the Department of State again suspected Vaughan of “irregularities” and this time Cordell Hull, the secretary of state, sent a note to the American embassy in Berlin marked “Strictly confidential for [Raymond] Geist” (the consul general), directing him to undertake a “thorough

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investigation” not only of one special case of corruption but of a “general allegation of bribery.” Attached to the note by Hull is a memorandum by a senior official, whose signature is illegible, that refers to a Mr. Herbert Cadiel, who claimed to have obtained “a non-immigrant passport visa at Breslau on September 22, 1938 through the payment of a gratuity of 100 Marks to some person at the Consulate.” The author of the memorandum believed that “there may be something to the story” because of the “recent laxity of Breslau in issuing so many nonimmigrant visas.” Since there was only one consular officer in Breslau, there could be no doubt about the identity of the accused. Washington wanted the embassy in Berlin to send someone to Breslau “as soon as possible” without giving the staff there advance notice about the purpose of his visit. The records suggest that Geist himself undertook the investigation, but I could not locate his report.75 The report, however, could not have been very damning, for Vaughan continued to work for the Department of State. He served in a variety of posts, most of them consular, until he retired sometime in the mid-1950s. He died in New York on May 23, 1977.76 It is difficult to believe that Geist, an intelligent and highly regarded official, did not find proof of widespread irregularities at the Breslau consulate. In fact, Vaughan issued visitor visas not only to the United States, but also to the Philippines, then an American commonwealth whose foreign policy was under the authority of the United States. I have not been able to determine exactly how many such visas the viceconsul issued, but according to a list of German Jewish émigrés to the Philippines compiled by Frank Ephraim, the author of an interesting book on the Jews of Manila,77 of the more than 1,000 German Jews who reached the Philippines in the 1930s at least 106 came from Breslau or nearby Silesian towns, and all of them almost certainly obtained their visas from the American consulate in Breslau. By comparison, 177 had received visas for the Philippines in Berlin, whose Jewish population in 1933 was about eight times that of Breslau; 180 in Vienna, whose Jewish population was roughly the same as that of Berlin; 58 in Frankfurt, whose Jewish population was about 20 percent larger than that of Breslau; and 15 in Cologne, whose Jewish population was slightly

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smaller than that of Breslau. Apparently, Vaughan issued quite a few visas to Jews claiming to be agricultural experts, much-needed specialists in the Philippines. After the war, most of the Breslau Jews, as well as most of the Jews who went to the Philippines from other German cities, moved to the East Coast of the United States.78 It seems plausible that Geist looked the other way in his report on the alleged corruption in the Breslau consulate. He was known to be appalled by developments in Germany and especially by the Nazi regime’s anti-Jewish policies. Moreover, while in Berlin he did his best in various ways to facilitate the granting of American visas to German Jews and, according to Richard Breitman and Alan M. Kraut, Geist “could perform wonders” in getting Jews released from the clutches of the Gestapo. “On occasion,” Breitman and Kraut write, “Geist himself went into the camps to get the people out.” 79 But there remains the question of Vaughan’s motives. On his meager salary of $2,400 a year in the 1930s, he would have found it difficult to assuage his thirst for alcohol. If he took 100 marks for each or most of the 106 visas he apparently granted for the Philippines, he would have more than doubled his income in 1938 –39. Yet the few reports he drafted that touched on conditions in Breslau show that he also disapproved of Nazism and sympathized with the plight of the Jews. It would not be the first time that an individual acted from mixed motives, and whatever his personal shortcomings, Stephen B. Vaughan could claim to have saved well over one hundred lives. I was told that some of the Jews who escaped to the Philippines tried to persuade Yad Vashem in Jerusalem to honor him as a “Righteous Gentile,” but very little hard evidence about his activities on behalf of Jews could be found and the effort therefore failed. It seems to me that if the conduct of a Nazi official such as Adolf Eichmann, who played a leading role in the murder of millions of Jews, demonstrated, in the now famous words of Hannah Arendt, the “banality of evil,” because he allegedly carried out his assignment without personal hatred of the victims, perhaps the conduct of Vaughan may be said to demonstrate the “banality of virtue.” 80 Apparently, Vaughan issued visas to Jews not only because he wanted to save lives but to enhance his income. In any case, I am grateful to him whatever his inten-

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tions, although I confess to having been mildly irritated to learn that he had issued some visas for 80 percent less than he had demanded from us. But then we reached the United States sooner than the Breslau Jews who went to the Philippines. I am also grateful to the officials of the State Department who were too lax— or perhaps incompetent—in disciplining Vaughan for his transgressions of the regulations concerning the granting of visas, in Budapest and in Breslau. By 1938 — even before Kristallnacht— emigration, a major topic of conversation in Jewish circles for five years, became virtually the only topic. Jews now petitioned various foreign consulates in desperate attempts to secure a visa. “The scenes in these [consulate] offices,” Walter Laqueur wrote in his autobiography, “are the most harrowing that I can remember. No one was shouting or weeping; there was only deep, unrelieved gloom.” 81 During the summer of 1938, theBreslauer Jüdisches Gemeindeblatt devoted an increasing amount of space to what it called the “most burning question for every Jew in Germany.” In its July issue the paper summarized a survey of émigrés conducted by the Society for Aid to Jews in Germany (Hilfsverein der Juden in Deutschland) that pointed to the “reassuring certainty” that most who had left had managed to become “productive” residents abroad. Although the report did not minimize the problems encountered by émigrés, it was optimistic, on the whole, and described the fortunes of several examples of German Jews in their new surroundings. Hans Bloch, a bachelor in his early thirties who had worked for a carpet business in Germany, had been employed since January 1937 as a winder (Spuler) in a silk factory in Buenos Aires. He earned 50 centavos an hour, worked eight hours a day, and had no time for socializing because he spent all his free time studying Spanish. The experience of Mr. Wertheimer, a forty-eight-year-old also living in Buenos Aires, was somewhat different. Socially, he had no trouble making contact with people from a wide range of backgrounds. He had spent five months studying Spanish, which he found difficult because of his “advanced age.” Although he had been trying to earn a living as a representative of various companies, his monthly income thus far was “uncertain.” Fritz Bergmann, fifty-eight years old, had owned a business selling

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men’s clothing and furs before he moved to New Zealand, where he bought a farm with funds he was able to take out of Germany. He and his twenty-eight-year-old son worked twelve hours a day and made a fairly decent living, although they had not been able to save any money. Hans Hamburger went with his wife and two children to the United States and settled in Kansas City, where he used the capital he had brought from Germany to become a partner in a transport business. He earned $450 a month, a “relatively high” income. When asked which mistakes émigrés should avoid, he mentioned two: first, they should not be afraid of taking some risks; and second, they should not avoid settling in smaller cities in the United States. “I consider the settlement in the large cities of the East Coast by large numbers of Jews from Germany without vocational training both dangerous and precarious, for immigrants as well as for emigration in general.” Grete Berliner, a single woman thirty-seven years old who had worked as a typist in Germany, had moved to Johannesburg, South Africa, early in 1937, and now had a decent job. Asked to name any mistakes she had made, Berliner replied, “That I did not come here sooner.” 82 In addition to giving advice on which trades potential émigrés should learn, the paper now, in 1938, added a suggestion: young émigrés would do well to get married before leaving because “the job opportunities for women are in some respects a bit more favorable than for men,” apparently a reference to openings as domestic servants.83 Overall, the paper was sanguine about life abroad, but it warned its readers that it would not be easy and wanted to impart a dose of realism: “All our people who begin a new life in distant places must each day take up anew the struggle for existence. Setbacks and disappointments are possible. But the questionnaires of the aid society demonstrate that our people have the will to master their fate, [and] the readiness to take action, so that they will not be shocked by failures.” 84 To prepare youngsters for emigration to Palestine, the Reich Representation of German Jews supported some ninety-four training camps that emphasized the study of agriculture, but also taught other manual occupations. Late in 1937, twenty-six trainees from Breslau (seven young women and nineteen males, including my older brother, Henry)

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went on hachschara (Hebrew for “preparation”) to ten different places. The cost per person ranged from about 34 to 70 marks a month. About one-third of the total monthly charges of 1,220 marks was covered by the parents of the participants, and the rest by equal contributions by the local community and the Reich Representation of German Jews in Berlin.85 A large proportion of these young people and of other Breslauer— slightly over 18 percent of the émigrés in 1937— ended up in Palestine.86 Many of them, especially the young men, were the first in their families to leave, partly because it was somewhat easier for them to obtain visas and partly because parents were eager to save their children. It was also hoped that the children would be able to acquire visas for their parents once they were abroad, and many did make heroic efforts, all too often unsuccessfully. One consequence of the exodus of young people was the aging of the Jewish community. By the end of 1938, almost half of the Jews in Breslau were over fifty years old.87 The debate over Zionism was by now pretty much a thing of the past. Relatively few Jews remained opposed to emigration to Palestine, and the community’s staff went out of its way to provide information about that country and to depict life there in a favorable light. Every so often, a “Palestine Week” would be held that featured lectures on the past and future of the Land of Israel (Eretz Israel). As early as February 1935, Dr. Traub delivered a talk to a large audience entitled “Palestine— 1935 –1950,” predicting that by 1950 the country would be inhabited by 1,100,000 people engaged to a large extent in agriculture, trade, manual labor, and industry. “But not only in the economic sphere but also in spiritual and cultural spheres the Jews, in accordance with tradition, serve as mediators between the West and the Orient. There will also be a settlement with the Arabs, for whom, as for the Jews, there is enough space in Palestine.” The audience responded enthusiastically to these remarks, only some of which proved to be prophetic.88 It is a tribute to their commitment to public welfare that the Jews of Breslau supported all these expanding activities, which was increasingly difficult in view of the decline in both the Jewish population after 1933 and its economic resources. In the year 1936 –37 the community

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bought a building that it transformed into twenty-two residences for Jews forced to leave their apartments. The total expenses for the community for the year 1938 –39 were estimated at 1,182,000 marks, a rise of 132,000 marks over the previous year. About 37 percent, or 435,000 marks, was assigned for welfare, an increase of 264,000 marks over the year 1934 –35. Of the overall increase of 132,000 marks, 64,000 were assigned to welfare, an indication of the deterioration in the economic circumstances of many Jews. The two schools received 151,000 marks, an increase of 19,400 marks for the traditional school and 3,800 marks for the Am Anger school. To cover these increased expenses, taxes on members with an annual income exceeding 6,250 marks a year were raised by about 12 percent. The community representatives unanimously approved the budget.89 In late 1937 or early 1938, Ernst Marcus, whose memoirs have frequently been cited in these pages, decided to leave Germany. It was not an easy decision. Born into a well-established and highly patriotic family—his parents owned a ladies’ hat store—Marcus had led a charmed life in many ways. He had attended the Gymnasium und Realschule zum Heiligen Geist from 1895 to 1908, where he had been especially interested in ancient history and the history of Brandenburg-Prussia. He was also steeped in the German classics, works by Goethe, Theodor Körner, and Ernst Moritz Arndt, among others. He passed the Abitur examination in 1908 and enrolled a year later in the law faculty at Breslau University, receiving his degree in 1911. After three years in various prestigious positions he was on track for a successful career in the law. In 1914 he strongly supported Germany’s war effort and was drafted into the army in 1915, serving with distinction. In 1917 he was awarded the Iron Cross Second Class. Ernst came by his patriotism honestly. When he brought home a newspaper on November 9, 1918, announcing the abdication of Emperor William II, his mother cried. After two more years in government service as a lawyer, he set up his own practice, which employed twelve people. After the horrendous inflation in 1923, it became highly successful and was, in fact, “one of the best [law firms] in Breslau.”

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Somehow, Marcus managed to maintain his practice even after the Nazis expelled most Jewish lawyers from the courts in 1933; but by late 1937, he and his wife found the atmosphere in the city unbearable. “My wife,” Marcus recalled, “was at that time always nervous; if I came home half an hour later than usual, she thought that I had been arrested.” They began to prepare themselves for emigration. He studied English and although she had studied art before their marriage she now took up tailoring, an occupation that offered better chances of employment abroad. Arranging the emigration proved to be something of a nightmare. The Marcuses were forced to obtain a visa, pay all sorts of special taxes, and prepare a detailed list of their possessions, indicating which had been acquired before and which after 1933. They had recently bought new clothing and furniture and for permission to take these with them they were taxed an extra 2,000 marks. Finally, Marcus had to go to the Gestapo to pick up their passports. Marcus knew the official he would have to deal with, a Mr. Ertelt, and considered him to be “one of the most evil creatures I have ever encountered in a government office.” Ertelt asked Marcus to appear in his office at 7 AM and then kept him waiting for an hour. When Marcus finally entered his office, Ertelt threw the passports at him with the comment that he could now proceed to the American consulate to obtain the visas but that he would then have to deposit them with the Gestapo until the day before the Marcuses’ departure. “And in a roaring voice he added: ‘Otherwise Dachau,’” one of the largest concentration camps. In mid-September 1938, the Marcuses left Breslau; the taxi driver who took them to the railway station made the following comment, which expressed the sentiments of the decent part of the German population: “I don’t know where you are going, but I wish you all the best in your new homeland and I would like to tell you that the German people do not favor this.” 90 How Marcus adjusted to his new life in New York City is not known, but given his resourcefulness and abilities he probably managed reasonably well. What we do know is that within two years he had composed memoirs of his forty-eight years in Germany, which he submitted to a competition administered at Harvard University for the best

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“German life-history.” Marcus did not win the prize, but Professor Sidney Fay, an eminent historian of Europe and a judge of the competition, wrote the following to Marcus on December 18, 1940: As a reader of your manuscript I would like to add a word of personal appreciation to the enclosed letter to express my real sense of pleasure in your interesting and valuable narrative. . . . May I urge that you seriously consider leaving the manuscript with us? . . . By thus granting us continued access to the manuscript you will be making a substantial contribution to the better understanding of Germany, both now and in the future.91

Fortunately, readers have access to the manuscript at the Leo Baeck Institute in New York City.

Ascher family, 1938. Center: Mother and Father; top left: Henry; below Henry: Esther; top right: Max; below Max: Abraham.

Jewish school on Rehdigerstrasse, which I and my siblings attended. Courtesy Esther Adler.

New Synagogue. House of prayer of liberal wing of Judaism, widely regarded as the second most beautiful synagogue in Germany. Courtesy Ruth Tuckman.

Interior of New Synagogue. Courtesy Ruth Tuckman.

Storch Synagogue, 1933. Largest Orthodox house of worship in Breslau. Courtesy Herder-Institut, Marburg, Inv. No. 130817.

Interior of Storch Synagogue, 1937. Courtesy Herder-Institut, Marburg Inv. No. 130819.

Storch Synagogue, 1997, 59 years after Kristallnacht. Still in disrepair. Courtesy Herder-Institut, Marburg, Inv. No. 132929.

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Jewish Hospital; water tower. A major institution that until the Nazi era accommodated Jews and Christians. Courtesy United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

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My father’s visitor visa to USA signed by Vice-Consul Stephen B. Vaughan, Sept. 23, 1938. Courtesy Esther Adler.

First part of my postcard to my father from Breslau, May 3, 1939, urging him to remain in the United States.

Second part of my postcard to my father from Breslau, May 3, 1939.

Professor Ernst Cohn. Law professor at Breslau University, prevented by Nazis from lecturing in 1932. Courtesy North Western Reform Synagogue, London.

Rabbi Hermann Vogelstein, spiritual leader of New Synagogue. Courtesy Leo Baeck Institute, New York.

Rabbi Leo Baeck, head of the Reich Representation of German Jews, a national organization of Jews in Germany. Courtesy North Western Reform Synagogue, London.

Ernst Marcus with two friends. Marcus was a prominent Jewish lawyer in Breslau who wrote valuable memoirs. Courtesy Leo Baeck Institute, New York.

Max Naumann on horseback with unidentified soldiers, August 1915. Leader of right-wing Jews; fervent nationalist and hostile to east European Jews. Courtesy Leo Baeck Institute, New York.

Edmund Heines, police chief in Breslau, 1933 –34. Ardent Nazi who took lead in persecuting Jews. Courtesy Wiener Library, London.

Front row (r to l): Victor Lutze (chief of staff, SA, 1934 – 43); Wilhelm Scheppmann (chief of staff, SA, 1943 – 45); Hitler; Josef Wagner (provincial prefect of Lower Silesia and Gauleiter of Silesia, 1934 – 40). Courtesy Yad Vashem, Jerusalem.

Helmuth Brückner, provincial prefect of Lower Silesia and Gauleiter of Silesia, 1933 –34. Passionate Nazi. Courtesy Yad Vashem, Jerusalem.

Karl Hanke, provincial prefect of Lower Silesia and Gauleiter of Silesia, 1941– 45. Fanatical Nazi who supervised persecution of Jews during last two years of the community’s existence. Courtesy Wiener Library, London.

Sign posted on door of lighting fixture store in Breslau: “Jewish [sales] representatives not welcome.” Courtesy Stadtarchiv, Nürnberg, Inv. No. E39 no. 2.246/35.

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Article in Schlesische Volkszeitung, May 11, 1933, “Against the German Spirit,” describing demonstration at Breslau University before the book burning of Jewish and left-wing literature. Courtesy Institut für Zeitungsforschung der Stadt Dortmund.

SA men before homes in Breslau of German women married to Jews. The men carry signs listing the names of the women and addresses of the couples. Names of the women are also written on the sidewalk in front of buildings where they lived. Courtesy Bundesarchiv, Koblenz.

Breslau Jews gathered at assembly point for deportation, autumn 1941. Courtesy Beit Lohamei Hagetaot, Israel.

Leopold Schiftan. Wrote postcard in Breslau on April 29, 1942, that has survived; was shipped to ghetto in Izbica on May 3, 1942. Did not survive the war. Courtesy Joanna Helander de domo Koszyk.

Willy Cohn, teacher and intellectual in Breslau who kept diary until his murder in Kovno late in November 1941. Courtesy Professor Norbert Conrads.

Anita Lasker as music student in Berlin, 1939. Survived Auschwitz and BergenBelsen; emigrated to the UK, where she became a prominent cellist. Courtesy Anita Lasker-Wallfisch.

Anita Lasker in Israel, 1949. Courtesy Anita Lasker-Wallfisch.

Dr. Siegmund Hadda and staff when he was running the Jewish Hospital (1939?). Courtesy Geoffrey Laurence.

Dr. Hadda and family, early 1920s. Courtesy Geoffrey Laurence.

Karla Grabowsky (later Wolf ), 5 years old, in family garden in Breslau, 1933. Karla survived the war in Breslau, emigrated to Palestine in 1947. Courtesy Karla Wolf.

Karla Grabowsky with parents, 1947. Courtesy Karla Wolf.

Four

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For the student of history, the background to Kristallnacht (Night of Crystals or Night of Broken Glass) holds special interest and significance, not because of the light it sheds on the causes of that night of horror but, rather, because it reveals much about the modus operandi of the Nazi leadership. The increasingly harsh measures taken against Jews beginning in late 1937 and continuing in the first ten months of 1938 suggest that the Nazi leadership was moving toward some sort of action or series of actions that would make life unbearable for them. The immediate circumstances preceding that action merely provided a pretext for the authorities to unleash a new wave of violence against Jews, unprecedented in scope in Central Europe since the fifteenth century.1 Shortly after Hitler’s annexation of Austria on March 13, 1938, the Polish government feared that the roughly 20,000 Jews there who had Polish passports might seek to return to their homeland, where official anti-Semitism, though intense, was not as virulent as in Germany. To stem the tide, the Poles on March 31 enacted a law stating that all those with a Polish passport who had lived abroad for five years without interruption would lose their citizenship and, in effect, become stateless. For several months the law was not implemented, but immediately after the Munich Agreement of late September 1938 the government declared that as of October 31 persons holding a Polish passport would be allowed to return to Poland only with the approval of local Polish consuls. This new measure was designed to keep out the approximately 50,000 Polish Jews in Germany proper, many of whom had lived in the country for years (as had my parents), or even decades. Eager to shrink

Kristallnacht

the Jewish community, the Nazis decided on October 26 forcibly to ship the Polish Jews to Poland before the new law took effect.2 In Breslau, the Gestapo arrested about 1,500 Polish Jews, and, together with some 15,000 compatriots from other parts of the country, they were literally dumped at the border. It was the largest roundup of Jews by the Nazis to date, and their plight was horrific and uncertain. “Heartrending scenes were witnessed as the prisoners—unaware of their destination—were snatched from their families with only their clothes and a parcel of food.” On October 28, 7,000 of the Jews, including “a number of small children, cut adrift from their parents, who had been taken from their schools without warning and put aboard the trains” were pushed across the border into Poland. Then another train with about 5,000 deportees arrived at the frontier post of Zbaszyn in Posen. They were ordered off the train four miles from the border and forced by armed Storm Troopers to walk across the border, where Polish soldiers interned them. During the first days of the forced expulsion several deportees died from starvation or exposure to the cold weather. At another crossing point at Radzionka, 2,000 people were held at bay by Polish guards, but when the Germans “began mercilessly to push the hapless refugees,” the Poles relented and placed the refugees in “empty barracks near the village.” To stop the expulsions, the Polish authorities threatened to expel Germans from their country, and, according to reports received by the American embassy in Warsaw, the Poles had actually arrested about 1,000 Germans, most of them in Lodz. On October 30, four days after the roundup began, the Nazis ended the action and allowed some of the Jews they had arrested to return to their homes in Germany.3 In the meantime, the 7,000 Jews who had crossed the border into Zbaszyn endured miserable conditions. “The deportees, many of them women and children,” one eyewitness reported, are located in stables and pigsties, overrun by rats and mice, and are compelled to sleep on the bare stone floors or on rotten straw. About 2,000 of the victims occupy the small local railway station, sleeping on the floors and stairs, or anywhere they can get a few feet of space. . . . The insanitary conditions are already having their effect, and about 200 men, women, and children have fallen ill and have been taken to

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hospitals in Poznan and elsewhere. Several people have gone mad. I myself saw one of them—a woman. Eye-witnesses told me that near the frontier she started screaming and weeping and would not move any farther. Two Gestapo agents dragged her for about two miles until Polish territory was reached. Aged Jews were kicked and beaten by Gestapo agents because they could not run as fast towards the frontier as ordered. One Jew of about seventy showed me the bruises he had received. . . . I visited the temporary hospital in Zbaszyn. This was worse than any war hospital. The patients, men, women, and children, lay on straw without any blankets. Their only covers were meagre straw mattresses. Among the patients I saw an old woman of about ninety and a baby of eleven months.

The American Joint Distribution Committee and other Jewish organizations sent supplies as well as doctors and nurses, but the “difficulties are overwhelming.” The police stationed a large force in the area to prevent Jews from leaving the camps.4 On November 3, Herschel Grünspan (Grynszpan), a seventeen-yearold boy living without permission in Paris, received a letter from his sister in Germany informing him that their middle-aged parents, who in 1914 had emigrated to Hannover, where they owned a small tailoring shop, had been dumped in Zbaszyn. Herschel, already in despair because his own illegal status prevented him from obtaining work, was beside himself. “It is not a crime to be a Jew,” he declared, “We are not dogs. . . . I was baited like a beast.” 5 He bought a gun and went to the German embassy, where he was received by the third secretary, Ernst vom Rath. Grünspan hit him with five shots and then made no effort to escape. He was imprisoned and, miraculously, survived the war. Rath, who turned out not to have been a Nazi, remained in serious condition for two days but died on November 9. The shooting triggered a rash of attacks on Jews in the German press, which the Nazis characterized as a spontaneous reaction to the crime. The Zwölf-Uhr Blatt declared that “international Jews will have themselves to thank if the thousands of Jews who stay and enjoy German hospitality now have to answer for the deed of the Jew Grynszpan. The Jews have challenged us and they shall have a fight without mercy.” Another paper, Der Angriff, carried the following headline: “The Work

Kristallnacht

of the Instigator-International. A Straight Line from Churchill to Grynszpan.” The article went on to claim that the assassin had taken “the same line as is pursued by Messrs. Churchill, Eden, Duff Cooper, and their associates, indefatigably and in the most varied fashion, in association with the international [cabal] of Jews and Freemasons.” 6 Lower-level Nazis passionately committed to the cause may have persuaded themselves that the vast majority of the German people demanded some punitive action against the Jews, but few foreign observers of the political scene shared that view. On November 12, 1939, the American embassy in Berlin informed the State Department that despite the insistence of Joseph Goebbels, the minister of propaganda, that the attacks on the Jews were spontaneous, “the evidence here leads to the contrary conclusion.” 7 We now know that the top ranks of the Nazi Party took the initiative in unleashing the violence. The news of Rath’s death reached the Nazi leaders in the Old Town Hall of Munich, where they were celebrating the fifteenth anniversary of their attempt to seize power on November 9, 1923. Hitler was heard to say that “the S.A. should be allowed to have a fling.” Although he thus took the initiative in inspiring the attacks on the Jews, he left their implementation to Goebbels, which enabled the Führer, the head of state, to maintain a certain distance from the violence. Actually, violence against Jews and Jewish institutions had already taken place on November 7 and 8 in Hessen and Kassel, but these incidents were relatively minor.8 Our family learned of the violence in the middle of the night of November 9 when my mother and three siblings (by then my father was on his way to the United States) were awakened by a huge commotion. We rushed to the window and saw a large, agitated group of SS men and ordinary Germans in front of our building, whose ground floor was occupied by a small Jewish store that sold housewares and hardware. We heard the crash of glass and saw people leaving the premises carrying goods of various kinds. In the morning we discovered that the store had been thoroughly pillaged, and within hours we learned that attacks on Jewish businesses had erupted throughout the city and that private dwellings had also been ransacked. We looked out the window and saw policemen taking men into custody. During the day, several

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young German Jews, friends of my brothers, came to stay with us to avoid arrest. During the pogrom of November 9, only German Jews were arrested; now it was our turn to help them as they had helped us during the deportations of Polish Jews two weeks earlier. The anti-Jewish “protest action” in Breslau began punctually during the night of November 9, 1938, at 1:30 AM, in keeping with orders by Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, and at 3 PM the next afternoon SS-Oberführer Fritz Katzmann sent a terse report to his superiors on the provisional results: 1 synagogue burnt. 2 synagogues demolished. 2 Jewish social halls (Gesellschaftsräume) demolished, 1 building of the “Society of Friends” (SA Street) demolished, at least 500 Jewish shops completely demolished, at least 10 Jewish inns demolished; [SS men] together with the police took into custody about 600 men; about another 35 Jewish businesses destroyed. Additional Comments: 150 SS men have been employed as relief policemen until 8 PM. As of 8 PM another 150 will be assigned to serve as Hipo [relief policemen]. Of the last mentioned 150 SS men, 50, together with 50 police officials, will serve, in accordance with the request from the Gestapo and regular police, as accompanying units for the transport to the KZ [concentration camp] Buchenwald.9

This was only a preliminary account of the devastation in Breslau, and once again the Nazis there were especially diligent in hounding Jews. Officials of the American embassy in Berlin, which closely monitored developments throughout the country, reported at 2 PM on November 10 that although they knew of no one who had been taken into custody in Berlin, news had reached them that Jews in Breslau had been arrested in the morning.10 All in all, 2,471 men were rounded up (somewhere between a fifth and a sixth of the total Jewish population of the city), including six out of nine on the Board of Governors of the Breslau Jewish community, all of whom were sent to Buchenwald.11 “Jews walking in the streets,” according to one eyewitness account, “were arrested; it was clear that the Gestapo was rounding up the whole male Jewish population, it was a real pogrom.” 12

Kristallnacht

The beautiful New Synagogue was totally destroyed by fire except for the outer walls, which were left standing for fear that the fire would spread to neighboring apartment houses, where a sizable number of non-Jews lived. The Nazi gangs did not set fire to the large traditional synagogue, the Storch Synagogue—again they feared that it would spread to neighboring buildings—but they thoroughly vandalized the building. They smashed everything they could lay their hands on, including the Torah scrolls, and they dragged away the thirty-four valuable Torah curtains, which were kept in a concealed wall closet —“only someone intimately familiar with the setup in the synagogue could have known where they were.” They ripped open the closet containing silver ritual items and confiscated these as well. Only two synagogues, the one in the Jewish Hospital and the one in the Jewish school on Rehdigerstrasse, remained intact. The Theological Seminary was extensively damaged and much of its library destroyed or looted.13 A week or so later it reopened its doors, but closed down permanently once the last examinations had been given on February 21, 1939.14 The shock to the Jews of Breslau was overwhelming. Alexander Walk, a physician who had recently moved to the city because he could no longer treat Aryans in his native Nimkau, recalled that “As I saw the [Reform] temple in flames, I was convinced that the final downfall of Germany would follow.”15 The events in Breslau formed part of a national pattern. All told, the Nazis arrested about 30,000 males between the ages of eighteen and eighty and sent them to one of three concentration camps, Dachau, Buchenwald, or Sachsenhausen. Over one hundred people died, either from beatings or shock, and about 400 synagogues were destroyed. The initiative for the attacks came from Nazi officials, in most cities from the SA, but in Breslau from the SS. The public at large was split between those who approved of the violence, those who remained indifferent to it, and those who found it disgusting.16 A numerical breakdown of the three groups is, of course, impossible, but many Germans almost certainly belonged to the third category. On November 16, the American embassy in Berlin noted that “this being a totalitarian state a surprising characteristic of the situation here is the intensity and scope among German citizens of a condemnation of the recent happenings against the Jews.” Many Germans were

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simply ashamed of their government’s conduct, but they also feared that the violence would harm Germany’s standing in the rest of the world. Not only members of the educated classes but also ordinary people such as taxi drivers voiced their disapproval. The American embassy had also learned that ten generals had submitted an “oral protest” to General Walter von Brauchitsch, commander in chief of the army. It seemed that many officers in the army and navy agreed with the protest, and some members of the British embassy thought it likely that the unfavorable reaction to the pogrom “will have an effect on Government policy.” However, an American official named Wilson doubted that it would have any “immediate effect . . . on Government policy or action.” 17 How the pogrom came to be known as “the Night of Crystals” is not known; apparently, the name refers to the broken glass that littered the streets after the attacks. Avraham Barkai has suggested that the term be abandoned because the damage was much more serious than the word suggests. He is right, but it is too well established in the historical literature to be jettisoned.18 The full extent of the looting in Breslau that day can be gleaned from a document prepared three months later. In a memorandum of February 17, 1939, that the Gestapo sent to the senior financial president (Oberfinanzpräsident), the police urged the return of certain items taken at the time of the “Jew Action on 10. and 11. 11. 1938.” The Gestapo proposed the following guidelines: Securities, cash, jewelry, and very valuable articles for daily use are to be taken into custody and lists are to be made of them. Securities, cash and jewelry worth less than 1,000 marks are to be returned to the owners in exchange for a written receipt. But before [returning anything] officials should secure the approval of the relevant office of the Senior Financial President.

The memorandum also advised officials not to return automobiles because it had come to the attention of the Gestapo that “the Jewish owners, in part by phony gifts to third parties (usually Aryan acquaintances . . . [often] related by marriage)” had divested themselves of the vehicles so that they would not have to declare them as part of their assets.

Kristallnacht

An attachment to the memorandum listed 101 separate seizures of valuables, and a few examples will demonstrate their amplitude. The Gestapo had in its possession 2,000 marks taken from Erich Berger, 506 marks from David Perle, and 249.72 marks from the Association of Senior Gentlemen. In addition, the SS and the regular police had confiscated thirty-five items belonging to Erich Berger, including a gold watch valued at 80 marks, a tie clip at 10 marks, a lady’s ring at 50 marks, earrings at 6.50 marks, and two alarm clocks at 6 marks—the Gestapo estimated the total value of the SS haul from Berger at 397.22 marks. What portion of the items worth less than 1,000 marks the authorities actually returned to their owners is not known. Even with the best of intentions this would not have been easy. In a memorandum dated March 8, 1939, an official of the Currency Office acknowledged that in some cases the owners of items could not be determined, and he ordered the police to turn these over to the local Office of Finance. But funds returned to their owners were often not made available to them. Thus, money belonging to David Perle was placed in his account at the Dresdner Bank, but he could draw on it “only with the permission” of the Office of the Senior Financial President of Silesia. As for “the Jew Erich Berger,” he had emigrated; the 2,000 marks to which he was entitled were to be deposited in a blocked account at the Deutsche Bank in Breslau. Berger’s jewelry and other valuables were to be auctioned off at the official pawnshop and the money added to his “blocked account.” 19 Officially, the attacks on Jews ended late on November 10, although some arrests continued after that date. Their impact on the Jewish community in Breslau (and elsewhere) was staggering and permanent. On November 15, the Gestapo informed the three remaining members of the Board of Governors of the Jewish community— Georg Less, Willi Gluskinos, and Ludwig Korett—that the community’s work should be resumed and that they were now in charge of funds and the archive. But now they were also made accountable to the state authorities, meaning the Gestapo. Any transgression of official ordinances would result in immediate banishment to a concentration camp. At the same time, one Gestapo agent sought to appear compassionate. He told the three that the two synagogues that were still serviceable could

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be used for prayer, adding that “he was taking a great risk, since religious services were not permitted in any other community.” On November 18, the office of the Jewish community in Breslau was the first in Germany to resume its functions, albeit hemmed in by all sorts of new restrictions.20 With relentless regularity, the Nazis imposed new financial burdens on the Jewish community. First, they demanded 180,000 marks to cover the cost of cleaning up the debris from the attacks on Jews on November 9 –10. On December 30, 1938, the authorities informed the community that as of January 1, 1939, the city would no longer make any contributions to the Jewish welfare fund, which, according to Gluskinos, now had to support some 8,000 needy people. The ordinance on welfare payments had actually been enacted on November 19, 1938; it applied not simply to Jews who were members of the Jewish community but to all “racial Jews” as defined by the Nuremberg Laws of November 14, 1935. The Board of Governors appealed to the Reich Representation of German Jews in Berlin for financial assistance, but that organization, itself overextended, was in no position to provide additional support. Gluskinos then turned to an official of the city council for relief and was told that the ordinance “was enacted by a man in Berlin who earns more than I do; therefore he must be cleverer than I am.” 21 On February 15, 1939, an officer of the Financial Office in Silesia insisted, in a letter to the lord mayor, that “in my opinion the Breslau Jews are at this time still able to support about 1,400 needy racial comrades.” (This figure apparently referred to the number of families who were destitute, but even then it was probably on the low side.) Referring to the survey of Jewish wealth, conducted in accordance with the decree of April 27, the official noted that total assets of the Jews amounted to “at most 120,000,000 marks and at least to 70,000,000 marks.” On the other hand, he acknowledged that the steady flow of emigration, especially of the more affluent, had depleted the wealth of the community, which would create “difficulties” for the Jewish Welfare Office charged with providing support to Jews “without means.” Unless emigration of the poorer Jews could be expedited, “a larger welfare fund” would have to be created, but he did not say how that

Kristallnacht

should be done. The Breslau Gestapo proposed the imposition of a special tax ranging from 1 to 10 percent on the wealthier Jews to pay for welfare costs. This project remained in the planning stage.22 In the meantime, the office of the Jewish community took measures on its own to increase funds for the destitute. It sold some of the securities of the chevra kadisha (Sacred Society) and the funeral home and thus managed to cover expenses for at least a few months. But welfare payments had to be reduced, forcing many people to go hungry.23 Perhaps the most bizarre demand for money came from the owner of a well-known café situated near the New Synagogue that also served as a cabaret and had formerly been frequented by many Jews. Toward the end of December the owner demanded 5,600 marks from the community as compensation for the loss of customers on the night of the pogrom. He claimed that misconduct by Jews had caused the devastation, which forced the cancellation of a performance by a famous ballerina. The letter with the owner’s demand, drafted by a “clever and well-known lawyer,” insisted that the payment be made within three days. After extensive consultation with lawyers, the Board of Governors refused to take responsibility for the devastation and indicated that, if necessary, it would take the matter to court. The owner of the cabaret dropped the case. “Thus even people who had until then made 50% of their living off Jews tried to exploit the situation through pressure.” 24 On November 12, only two days after the pogrom had ended, the government announced the most brazen plan yet to seize Jewish assets: an “atonement penalty” of one billion marks would be levied on the Jews. In using the word “atonement” the Nazis explicitly placed the blame on the Jews as a group for both the assassination of Rath and the destruction that followed. According to an estimate at the time, a billion marks amounted to “at least a quarter of realizable Jewish wealth.” Actually, the declarations of Jewish wealth submitted in accordance with the decree of April 27 had indicated that the total assets of the German Jews amounted to eight and a half billion marks, but for reasons discussed below this was not a realistic figure.25 An Ordinance of Implementation, issued on November 21 over the signature of Count Schwerin von Krosigk, the minister of finance, spelled out the procedures for collecting the penalty. Jews with assets

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valued at more than 5,000 marks were to surrender 20 percent of their wealth, the precise amount to be determined by officials after reexamination of the declarations submitted to the authorities in compliance with the ordinance of April 27, 1938. The payments were due in four installments, on December 15, 1938, and February 15, May 15, and August 15, 1939. In October the government raised the percentage to 25, and in the end the amount collected exceeded the one billion goal by 127,000 marks.26 On December 14, 1938, the prime minister (Ministerpräsident) and general field marshal Hermann Göring sent a thirteen-and-a-half page memorandum to the “Highest Reich Authorities” that amounted to one of the more explicit statements on Nazi aims with regard to the Jewish question. A central point of the memorandum was that the government attached the greatest importance to the seizure of Jewish assets then underway. The seizure, Göring stated, “affects most powerfully the general economic interests” of the country, and he also made clear that the program of “dejudaization both of business enterprises and of Jewish properties and other valuable possessions may be implemented by force.” Göring directed officials to “refrain from any independent action” on this issue, and he referred to the ordinance of November 12 as a call for the “exclusion of the Jews from the German economy.” One of the highest priorities, Göring added, must be to get Jews to emigrate, and officials should take every possible measure to speed up their departure. Indeed, “dejudaization” was not to apply, at least at this time, to institutions that promoted emigration, since their work must not be hindered in any way. Nor was dejudaization to be applied to Jewish welfare institutions such as hospitals, children’s or old age homes, insane asylums, and homes for the blind, apparently to prevent their inmates from becoming charges of the state. The memorandum went on to provide detailed guidelines on how the exclusion of Jews from the economy was to be expedited, and it spelled out the conditions that would require officials to appoint a trustee of Jewish firms in the event that no agreement could be reached on their aryanization. Finally, the memorandum noted that party officials, and specifically the Gauleiter, referred to as the “Führer’s deputy,” were to be consulted

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on the implementation of “dejudaization,” although it added—almost as an afterthought—that final responsibility rested with civil servants.27 The regulations on the atonement penalty specified that only Jews who were German citizens or stateless were to be assessed and that in mixed marriages only the Jewish spouse would be liable. Moreover, spouses would not be responsible for each other’s obligations. But it soon became evident that there were many questions that the drafters of the regulations had not anticipated. The Financial Office in BreslauSüd (Breslau-South), an upscale district where some 3,400 “cases” had to be examined, created a special office (Dienststelle Judenvermögensangabe, also known as Dienststelle J or Office J), consisting of three mid-level and four lower-level civil servants, just to keep track of the lists of possessions and to respond to the numerous inquiries by Jews about their obligations. The archives in Wrociaw contain four huge volumes of correspondence filled with references to Nazi ordinances and decrees on the atonement penalty. The officials took part in what they must have known was large-scale, state-sponsored thievery of property and assets owned by people long regarded as German citizens. Yet they discussed the implementation of the policy of seizing private possessions as though they were still acting within the framework of a state based on law. Most of the responses to inquiries were routine and reveal a determination to squeeze every pfennig out of the Jews. But from time to time an official demonstrated that even under Nazism the quality of mercy was not strained. Office J in Breslau-Süd was besieged with work. On some days over one hundred Jews appeared with their forms and with numerous questions about their possessions, and by December 31, 1938, the value of their assets amounted to 5,342,859 marks. But only 530 declarations, submitted by individuals about to emigrate, had been fully examined. Checking the declarations took time because some Jews had distributed part of their assets to Aryan spouses or children who were Mischlinge, and officials had to pass on the legality of these gifts. Then there arose the question of the actual value of the assets owned by Jews. The initial decree requiring them to declare their assets had been issued on April 27, but the atonement fine was imposed six months later, on November 12. Not only had Jews overstated the value of their holdings

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out of fear that they would be accused of underestimating them, they also had been obliged to list all their household furniture and fixtures “at the original cost without allowance for depreciation.” Moreover, Jews listed properties that had little “sale value,” and were forced to declare their pensions at a capitalized value and their insurance policies at face value. Finally, their assets had declined substantially as a result of the destruction of their properties during Kristallnacht and the stepped-up “aryanization” of Jewish businesses since the spring of 1938. According to a very conservative estimate, Jewish assets had declined in value by about 5 percent, but in many cases the decline had been as much as 15 to 20 percent. Which figures were to be used in determining the fine? Another difficulty officials encountered was the absence of some persons who had the knowledge and authority to complete the necessary forms. For example, a man who had drafted the original declaration was now in a concentration camp and the inquiries that were sent to him were returned unanswered because the commandant of the camp would not allow inmates to receive mail. The banks where the man kept his accounts would not let his wife see them because her signature did not appear on the original forms.28 A sizable portion of the correspondence between Jews and officials in Office J dealt with requests for a reduction in the penalty by elderly people who could no longer work or by Jewish widows whose total assets amounted to little more than 5,000 marks. The person in charge of Office J favored rejecting all these requests. The applicants’ contention that payment of the fine would force them to go on welfare, he contended, “does not . . . justify a remission,” since none of the relevant ordinances made provision for reductions on those grounds.29 As a rule, even the most heartrending appeals were rejected. In a letter of March 15, 1939, to the authorities in Breslau, Hedwig Sara Malachowski repeated an appeal she had already submitted to the minister of economics in Berlin, that she be permitted to hold on to her jewelry. She indicated that she had voluntarily surrendered most of it in the years from 1914 to 1918 in support of the war effort. But she would like to keep a ring “in memory of my only son, Leo Malachowski, born 16.X, 98, killed in Flanders 26.X. 17.” She also wanted to keep a pin “in

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memory of my daughter Rose Malachowski, born 15. IV, 1895, who died in 1925.” She added that she and her husband, who had died in 1934, had both been awarded the Medal for Distinguished War Service in April 1918. Within two weeks, the president of the Governing Board replied that the minister in Berlin had not yet reached a decision on her request. He therefore urged Mrs. Malachowski to make her request at the Public Pawnshop, at which the jewelry taken from Jews was auctioned off to secure cash used to pay the atonement fine.30 On March 13, 1939, Leo Israel Bernstein made an equally moving appeal to the authorities for the retention of several silver items: two candlesticks weighing about 500 grams; one spice box, 115 grams; one cup, 90 grams; one box for etrog (citrus fruit used for ritual on the Feast of the Tabernacles), 190 grams. I was given these objects [Bernstein wrote] by my parents at the time of my wedding on August 5, 1889, and have used them during religious rituals. My wife is 77 years old, I am 80. I am attached to these objects not because of their relatively small value, but because they belonged to my parents, who also used them. Since my wife and I, if we live that long, will celebrate our golden wedding anniversary this year, I would especially miss these objects. For these reasons, I very much hope that you will honor my request.

Within days, Bernstein received a reply from the Office of the Provincial Prefect informing him that he should turn to the Breslau Public Pawnshop, which would respond to his request. We do not know the outcome of Malachowski’s or Bernstein’s appeal, but we do know that the pawnshop did not generally honor such requests.31 One more appeal is worth mentioning. On March 20, 1939, Roza Sara Feige asked the governing president for permission to follow the instructions with regard to several pieces of jewelry in the will of her son, Dr. Willybrand Heinrich Feige, who had died on November 10, 1938 —she did not say how he had died, but the date suggests that he may have been a victim of the Nazis during Kristallnacht. Willybrand wanted the jewelry to be given to a friend, Zoltan von Ruttkay, an Aryan who lived in Budapest. Roza very much wanted to honor her son’s wishes, but the Office of Foreign Exchange had rejected her re-

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quest and directed her to sell the jewelry at an official pawnshop. The proceeds, the office said, would then be placed in a “blocked account” in von Ruttkay’s name, that is, the money would remain in Germany. When Roza then appealed to the governing president, he responded immediately that he could not reverse the decision.32 Most Jews, understandably fearful, maintained a polite and even deferential demeanor in their dealings with the authorities. But occasionally annoyance or impatience showed through in responses to the repeated requests for information on financial matters. On January 25, 1939, Cäcile Rosenbaum wrote the Financial Office that she could not answer questions sent to her the previous December about a loan to a business in which her husband held an interest because, as she had already pointed out in a previous letter, “from 10/11/38 [Kristallnacht] until early this month” he was held in “preventive custody,” and he was the only one who knew about the family’s financial holdings. In any case, her total holdings amounted to 326 marks and hence she was not obliged to submit a declaration of assets. “I therefore ask that in view of my complaint . . . you will release me from the declaration.” She also indicated that she was sending a copy of her letter to a higher official, the governing president.33 Although the overwhelming majority of Jews in Breslau faithfully and accurately reported their assets, there were exceptions, and anyone discovered to have given false information was severely punished. After an elaborate and lengthy investigation the police established that the cattle dealer Heinrich Preiss had hidden 3,000 marks in his garage and had failed to declare assets worth 7,000 marks. He was indicted, found guilty, fined 7,000 marks, and sentenced to seven months in prison.34 Jenny Prager, found guilty of having failed to declare 6,850 marks on her form, received a sentence of three months’ imprisonment and a fine of 1,000 marks. In addition, the police confiscated the 6,850 marks.35 Interestingly, the police, who helped enforce the “legal” looting of Jewish wealth, waxed indignant when German citizens sought on their own to profit from the plight of the Jews. On December 17, 1938, the police chief of Breslau informed the governing president that some Jews who planned to emigrate had exchanged their apartments for smaller ones, but before moving they sold some of their possessions, in-

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cluding valuable items such as cars, to Aryans, many of them secondhand dealers. The dealers quickly sold the items at a huge profit, frequently several times as much as they had paid. “This profiteering,” the chief noted, “arouses a considerable amount of agitation among the public. The general public does not understand why certain untrustworthy dealers should be able to enrich themselves in this unfair manner.” In view of its “great political significance,” this profiteering should be stopped immediately.36 At times, officials showed a softer side, even toward Jews. On April 6, 1939, Toni Sara Prager informed the governing president that she had mistakenly declared her husband’s stamp collection on her statement of assets. But she asked leave to make an amendment: her husband had recently died and in compliance with his wishes she had given the collection to his friend Richard Schönfeld, and she therefore wanted to remove this item from her declaration. Within two weeks, the Office of the Governing President agreed to the amendment.37 At about the same time, Edith Sara Margolies asked the same office for permission to keep her “silver cutlery,” which she needed to run her boardinghouse, at which she also served lunches. She had no cash to buy new cutlery. “I commit myself to placing the silver cutlery at your disposal when I give up my business.” She was allowed to keep her silverware, but only for as long as she ran the boardinghouse.38 One official in the Finance Office in Breslau, a certain R. R. Brückner, showed unusual sensitivity to such requests. Of a batch of eighteen requests that I located in one file, thirteen were approved and of these six were signed by Brückner. His reasons for leniency betrayed a streak of humanitarianism not often found in German government documents of the late 1930s. Brückner wrote the following in justifying a request for leniency by Isidor Altman: The applicant has to support his wife and a mentally ill son. Neither has any assets. There is only one property, which has an encumbrance of 56,543 marks, [and] it is valued at 78,000 marks. Keeping in mind that there is only one highly encumbered property and that the applicant has documents proving that he served in the war and is the owner of the Cross of Honor for Veterans, I propose that he be released from the 5th installment of 700 marks.39

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In another case, Brückner recommended that Fritz Israel Arens also be relieved from the fifth payment of 900 marks because he had been seriously wounded while serving in the armed forces during the war and was supporting his mother-in-law, who had recently lost all her assets.40 In justifying the seizure of Jewish assets, the authorities emphasized the desirability, for ideological reasons, of the “aryanization” of Jewish holdings. But in a circular of March 15, 1939, the Nazi Gauleiter in Breslau, Josef Wagner, made clear that the goal was broader than that. It was equally important that the aryanized properties “reach the hands of trustworthy buyers, who fully subscribe to the National Socialist Weltanschauung and can be counted upon to support the . . . [Nazi] state.” Jewish wealth, in other words, was to be used to shore up popular support for the Nazi regime. After urging officials to speed up Jewish emigration, Wagner gave expression to his contempt for Jews: “Finally, I want to point out that it is not permissible to refer Jews to my office and to suggest that they call on me, since Jews on principle will be received in my office only if they are summoned.” 41 The provincial prefect of Breslau had different concerns. On July 14, 1939, he voiced alarm over reports that in various districts of Silesia, especially those bordering on Poland, Jews (and some Poles) were taking out very high mortgages on their properties. “The parties involved are apparently trying in this way to change a portion of their assets, which they believe are at risk, into liquid capital in a manner that is not desirable for the national economy.” The provincial prefect asked for an investigation into this matter in short order. The president of the Governing Board responded within six days, having concluded that Jews had not been trying to obtain large mortgages. Whenever they did secure any mortgage at all, the arrangements were such that they favored the German state. In any case, he was sure that it “would be very hard to find any German who would give money to a Jew for an unsecured mortgage.” He also assured the provincial prefect that the transfer of Jewish property to Aryans was moving along swiftly. By July 1939, about 1,700 permits had been granted for transfers and in provincial regions very few properties remained in the hands of Jews. “In the city of Breslau, there are still roughly 1,000 properties under Jewish ownership. This ownership is continuously being alienated, so that in about

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a year most of these properties will have been passed on to German hands.” 42 Kristallnacht brought the Jewish schools to a halt. For ten days, beginning on November 10, there were no classes at all, and when they resumed conditions had changed drastically. The Am Anger school never reopened and enrollment at the Rehdigerstrasse school declined dramatically. At the beginning of the academic year of 1938, 377 students had attended the gymnasium and even before the pogrom that number had dwindled to 298. On March 15, 1939, only 181 students remained. Most of the decline resulted from emigration, but some must be attributed to economic hardship. As the school’s annual report for 1938 –39 pointed out, “Jews—with very few exceptions—are not permitted to pursue any kind of business or industrial activities and could therefore no longer afford school fees.” The number of classes declined in one year from fifteen to ten. Fifteen teachers had left the country in the course of the year, and the school could afford to replace only three. Moreover, the imprisonment of “almost all the male teachers” as well as the superintendent of the school building—all sent to the camp in Buchenwald—forced the administration to make frequent changes in class schedules. And after teachers were released (by mid-January 1939) from the camps, they were required to report to the secret police at short intervals “so that changes in the schedules are often necessary.” Nevertheless, the school completed the academic year and in the spring of 1939 fifteen students (among them one of my brothers) passed the examination for the Abitur.43 Of all the horrors visited upon the Jewish community of Breslau— economic deprivation, the destruction of synagogues, interruption of education, endless humiliations in the streets—none was as terrifying as the disappearance of over 2,400 men during the pogrom. No one knew where they had been taken or what their fate would be. Relatives made desperate and courageous attempts to obtain information about the whereabouts and circumstances of their loved ones, but at first they had little success. “The most capable people on the Jewish side at this time,” wrote Rabbi Bernhard Brilling, then still in Breslau, “were not

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the men, but the women. I have great admiration for what the Jewish women achieved during this week. They went on their own to the authorities and did not mince any words.” 44 They soon learned that the men had been taken to the concentration camp at Buchenwald and that the fastest way to secure their release was to obtain a visa for emigration, which now became the most pressing goal of an increasing number of Jews. Within a few weeks, the Nazis began to release some of the prisoners, but it was still not easy to learn what had happened to them. Before their release, the inmates had to sign a statement that they had not been mistreated and had not observed mistreatment of anyone else. Some were too shaken to break the commitment, but others talked about their experiences. I remember an evening gathering at an apartment where the curtains were drawn and one of the former inmates spoke freely. I have no precise recollection of what he said, but we now have the written recollections of several Breslau Jews who spent several weeks in Buchenwald. P. Rosten was picked up at his home in Breslau at 6 AM on November 11 by three SS men, who took him, first, to the district police station and a few hours later to the city police headquarters, where, together with other prisoners he had to remain on his feet the entire day with nothing more to eat than a bowl of thin rice soup. In the evening, the captives—between 1,000 and 1,500 men—were marched to the railway station under the watchful eyes of armed policemen who kicked anyone they judged to be moving too slowly. At 10 PM they boarded a special train that arrived the next morning at Weimar, where the prisoners proceeded through a tunnel to reach another platform for the next leg of the journey to Buchenwald. “We were ordered to hurry into . . . [the] tunnel,” Rosten recalled, in English, “and had to run along a row of SS men kicking and beating with the but[t]-ends [of rifles] people who, in their opinion, did not walk quickly enough. I remember how they threw away the stick of a man who for some years after a serious illness had to use a walking stick.” Then the guards whipped us and poured cold water into the crowd [of prisoners] and threatened us with their guns, shouting and ordering us to get closer together though we were pressed to the walls like sardines

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in a tin. . . . Never in my whole life—and I was in the last war for nearly 41⁄2 years, 21⁄2 years in the front line with an Infantry-Regiment— have I seen such a terrible scene.

Rosten learned that the “very first victim was a man who committed suicide the night before on the train. Not the only one who did it. A former judge from Breslau committed suicide in the first night in the camp with a pocket knife he had hidden from the Nazis.” A central theme of Rosten’s account of his stay in Buchenwald is the sadism of the guards, their delight in humiliating the prisoners. One guard, according to Rosten, asked an inmate what his profession was. “Answer: Formerly I was a banker. The SS man (laughing): What? You are a rogue.—Well, what are you? Answer? (Of course, regarding the whip): A rogue!” During the night, when prisoners needed to use the toilet facilities—which consisted of pits in the open air—they had to go in groups of ten and ask the guards for permission. “For fun they made conditions, for instance, they ordered the men to lie down at first, in a rainy night, of course; in another night a man had to sing a song before getting the permission. When a man left the hut alone not aware that he had to wait for the others the sentry shot [him]. Washing accommodations did not exist.” One day, when a man collapsed on the parade ground he was placed under a tree. He moaned a great deal but no one was permitted to help or to give him “even a drop of water. He was lying there till he was dead.” The ten thousand Jews from all over Germany who had been sent to Buchenwald after Kristallnacht were housed in “5 large wooden sheds, quickly and roughly built.” The prisoners slept on “base boards” arranged like bookcases, each with five “beds.” Only the men on the top storeys had enough space above them to sit up. Uncomfortable on his bench, Rosten rarely slept more than two hours. Shortage of water was a constant source of agony, exacerbated by the fact that on arrival at Buchenwald inmates were given salted herring to stimulate their thirst.45 To supplement the insufficient water supply, inmates would collect drops in their mugs whenever it rained. Numerous prisoners fell ill and many of them—perhaps thirty a day— died. The experience drove some men insane, and “in a vain attempt to escape [they] ran

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against the electric wire and died at once. . . . They were [then] cremated and not before some weeks later the relatives got the ashes.” A few men who could prove they had the necessary papers to emigrate were released after one week; two weeks later, over sixty prisoners left, and a week after that, those with medals for war service could go home. Fortunately for Rosten, he always kept the certificate attesting to his “valorous” service in World War I with him. But before “we left the Camp they had the impudence to collect money for the Winter Relief Fund for the German People (Winterhilfe des Deutschen Volkes) and I am still glad that I managed to give no more than 10 Pf[ennig] . . . to these brutes.” 46 Theodor Rosenthal, a physician in Breslau, was also at home when a Gestapo agent came to arrest him. In response to his question why he was being taken into custody, the agent replied: “You murdered vom Rath.” Rosenthal asked if he might call the hospital, where several of his patients were seriously ill and expected to see him that day. The officer turned him down with the words that “it didn’t matter whether a few Jews, more or less, croak.” After spending some time at the police station Rosenthal and a group of other Jewish prisoners were brought to the railway station, where the footpath was filled with people, many of them women, who shouted “Hepp Hepp,” and “Beat the Jew pigs dead,” “throw them into the Oder,” “a bullet is too good for them.” Rosenthal’s description of Buchenwald and the suffering of the inmates is similar to Rosten’s. Rosenthal also commented on the large number of prisoners who went insane and the many who died either from blows inflicted by guards or undernourishment, thirst, or, in the case of older people, inability to endure the stress. Rosenthal owed his release to the persistent efforts of his wife, who went from one office to another and allowed herself to be “screamed at as a Jew wife (Judenweib)” until she finally garnered a ticket for Shanghai, which sufficed to persuade the officials at Buchenwald that Rosenthal really intended to leave the country. On his return to Breslau, he discovered that the Nazis had seized most of his assets. Of the “Doctor’s Insurance” of 10,000 marks, he received a mere 300.47 Harvey P. Newton (formerly Hermann Neustadt), an eighteen-yearold from Breslau, was at the Agricultural Emigration Training Center in

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Gross-Breesen, Silesia, at the time of the pogrom. The center accommodated about 120 young people, including 30 women, who received training in a vocation that would make it easier for them to find work once they emigrated. In the afternoon of November 9 — earlier than in most places—a group of SS men appeared and ordered everyone into the yard for a roll call. The Nazis locked a group of younger boys, Newton among them, in the stable and when, after a few hours, they were set free they were startled by the sight of their rooms: “to a large extent devastated— our personal belongings thrown out of the closet, chairs and tables broken, and also many window panes. . . . Also many plates and cups were in pieces.” The director of the center had asked Newton to go to Breslau the next day to ask officials of the Jewish community whether the center should now be closed, but during the night the SS men returned and arrested him. It was only then that Newton learned that the pogrom at the center was part of a nationwide attack on Jews. The SS sent Newton, together with several other young men, to Buchenwald accompanied by a policeman, a fervent Nazi who would not allow them to talk to each other. A second guard, an SS man, was more humane and appeared not to be pleased with his assignment. “When the policeman was not watching, he slipped us small bars of chocolate.” Other than that, Newton encountered only hostile guards. When the truck arrived in Buchenwald, he and the other prisoners were forced to jump off and jog along a road of coarse gravel. “On both sides there were SS-men who beat us.” Newton, too, commented on the numerous deaths at the camp—in his view twenty to thirty a day—as well as on the shortage of water and the constant humiliations. He was released after four weeks, on December 5.48 Emigration from Breslau, as from other regions of Germany, had increased throughout 1938, but after Kristallnacht the pace accelerated rapidly, and by the time World War II broke out in September 1939 somewhat over half of the city’s Jewish population had left. Even then, some Jews could not bring themselves to pull up stakes, but most who remained did not do so by choice. Increasingly, departure from Germany involved splitting up families and some parents simply were not prepared for so harsh and painful a step.

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About ten thousand Jews in Breslau were not as fortunate as my immediate family, all of whom left before the war, although the leaders of the community stepped up efforts to promote emigration. The office of the aid society, now open twenty-four hours a day, tried its best to “reduce the number of Jews in Breslau,” but the impediments were greater than ever. And so was the authorities’ pressure on the city’s Jews to leave. One Saturday in June 1939, the Gestapo ordered two hundred Jews to appear at its office the following Monday, causing deep consternation among the rest of the Jewish population. Early that Monday, the Gestapo also summoned the Board of Governors of the community to headquarters, to let it know why the meeting with the two hundred had been called. The chief of the Gestapo explained that he had informed the two hundred that they must surrender 20 percent of their assets to facilitate the departure from Germany of Jews too poor to afford the cost themselves. When the Board of Governors protested that this was an unreasonable demand, a compromise was reached: Those who had assets worth 200,000 marks would surrender 10 percent, and those with fewer assets 6 percent. The board was then asked to inform the wealthy Jews, who were still in the building, of the decision. “But we refused—at that time one could still do this—and thus the government official (Regierungsrat) in charge of Jewish affairs, under orders from the Chief, undertook the task [of informing the Jews].” Under the arrangement, a million marks were collected and deposited in the Dresdner Bank, to be used only for expenses related to emigration. Every withdrawal required permission from the Gestapo. In a subsequent ruling, the Gestapo indicated that it would approve withdrawals only if one-third of the emigration costs were covered by the Reich Association of Jews in Germany (the successor, as of February 1939, to the Reich Representation of German Jews), and onethird by the community, which was forced to raise additional funds through the sale of one of its larger properties. “The need [for funds] constantly increased,” wrote Gluskinos, one of the members of the Board of Governors, “and every day there was an increase in the number of people whose financial reserves had been used up and needed welfare assistance.” 49

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The experiences of the remaining Jews in Breslau during the period after 1938 when it was theoretically still possible to leave the country differed widely and were invariably complicated. We have archival and other information about how several families dealt with the issue, and I am confident that their stories accurately reflect the experiences of the Jewish community at large. Norbert Elias’s parents visited him in London late in 1938, after Kristallnacht, and despite Norbert’s begging them “with all my power” to stay, they insisted on returning to Breslau. “Why should we go away?” his father asked. “All our friends are in Breslau, and in London we don’t know anyone.” He was also afraid that in London he would not be able to earn a living and he refused to be swayed when Norbert offered to “try to earn more” so that he could help them. But his father’s most telling argument against leaving Germany betrayed his failure, even at this late date, to grasp the nature of National Socialism. “Ich habe nie etwas Unrechtes getan, was können sie mir tuen?” (“I have never done anything wrong. What can they do to me?”) Fifty years later, Norbert still blamed himself for not having had the “power to convince them.” But he also understood that “you cannot uproot such people.” His father died a natural death in 1940, and his mother “disappeared, to Auschwitz.” 50 The experiences of family X (no last name in the documents) were similar to those of the Eliases. The son, Martin, left Breslau for Montevideo soon after the Nazis came to power and immediately after his mother died early in 1934 he pleaded with his father, affectionately called Vatel, in numerous letters to join him. But Vatel refused and he always used arguments that on the surface seemed reasonable. In Breslau he had a good pension and the medical services were excellent; in Montevideo he would be lost because he did not know Spanish. Time and again, Martin tried to reassure him on all counts and did so with a touching display of love. He had a room in his house that Vatel could occupy by himself, all his other needs would be met, and he, Martin, would take care of all expenses. “True,” Martin wrote, “nowhere will it be as at home. And if you want to emigrate, you, dear Vatel, will have to accustom yourself to many things. A different country, different cus-

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toms, different food, partly the result of a different climate.” Martin mildly reproached Vatel for being ill-informed about Montevideo. “Here we have a great surgeon from Breslau and two other general practitioners. Besides, there are good local doctors and hospitals and clinics. A completely new, modern hospital with more than 20 floors is being built.” As for knowledge of the language, that was necessary only if one wanted to earn a living. “For us, it is even difficult to understand people, for they all speak very fast. But there are so many foreigners here that you can manage very well without knowing the language. That should be your and our last worry.” It was all to no avail. Vatel was too old and set in his ways to move to another country. His fate is not known.51 In some instances, chance events determined a family’s decision on emigration. Friedel Leipziger, who had made a large fortune in the lumber business, had no intention of leaving and at a family gathering, in 1936 or 1937, became very angry when his nephew, Guenter Lewy, a thirteen- or fourteen-year-old boy, said that Jews should get out of the country. Leipziger shook Guenter back and forth, asking him: “What do you understand of this?” Leipziger was an ardent patriot and believed that Nazism was a passing phase, but he nevertheless hedged his bets. He illegally sent money to accounts he held abroad with a courier who, unwisely, carried a list of his clients. In late 1937 or early 1938, Leipziger received a phone call from the police chief, still a friend from their days as fellow officers in World War I, warning him that the list with Leipziger’s name on it had fallen into the hands of the police and that in five hours at most he would be arrested. Leipziger, accompanied by his wife and daughter, rushed to the railway station and boarded the night train to Paris. From there he moved to Brazil, where he was even more successful in business than in Breslau. It was an ironic twist of history. Had the police not nabbed the courier, Leipziger would not have fled and would probably have perished in the Holocaust.52 John J. Baer, a young man of twenty-one, devised an ingenious plan when he decided, in the summer of 1938, to leave Germany. After failing to secure a visa from several embassies in Berlin, he learned that the Peruvian consul issued visas in return for “compensation” of U.S.$280 to be paid in cash. He could not readily take advantage of this oppor-

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tunity because German Jews were not allowed to hold any foreign currency. Baer decided to write to every Baer abroad whose address he could find in telephone directories available in Breslau in hopes of locating someone who was a relative. In each case, he explained his situation and asked for a loan that he promised to repay once he had a new home. Many did not reply at all and almost all the others turned him down. The one positive reply came from a very distant cousin who lived in Gastonia, North Carolina, and he had good reason to be interested in working out an arrangement with John Baer: his mother lived in Breslau and needed cash. The two Baers decided that the one in North Carolina would send $280 to the Peruvian consul in Paris, who would inform his colleague in Berlin that the money had arrived, and in exchange John’s mother in Breslau would give the other Mrs. Baer the equivalent in German marks. “All these plans,” John Baer wrote in his autobiography, “took months to work out, and the arrangements were not completed until early November 1938, when the tragic events of Kristallnacht burst upon us.” On December 20, Baer and his wife left for Peru.53 For people with elderly parents, the decision to leave was especially agonizing and complex. Early in January 1939, for example, Walter and Hans Epstein, who were about to emigrate, wished to place their parents, Felix (seventy-one years old) and Rosa (sixty-six), both of whom were ill, in the Jewish Home for the Sick. No room was available until the end of April, and to assure admission for their parents at that time the two sons had to make a payment of 1,000 marks in cash and commit themselves to paying 100 marks a month to cover basic expenses, which could increase over time, placing an additional financial burden on them. To guarantee future payments, the home required assets worth at least 30,000 marks, the income from which would be used to pay the fees.54 These were large sums of money. Walter and Hans still had the requisite assets, but many others did not. Still, the main impediment to emigration was the difficulty of obtaining a visa. As Otto Eisenberg wrote to his brother-in-law in Sa˜o Paulo in May 1940, “You are aware of the fact that I do not want to leave any stone unturned in seeking to emigrate.” 55 Only a part of Eisenberg’s correspondence has survived, but his diligence on behalf of

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himself, his wife, and his mother-in-law cannot be questioned. Early in November 1939, the Hanseatic Travel Bureau in Vienna offered them passage to Palestine “with an illegal landing.” The three were to leave Germany legally, and travel to a “neighboring state,” where they would have to wait for ten days for the next part of the journey. For obvious reasons, the Travel Bureau revealed no further details except to advise Eisenberg to travel with very little luggage. “For such emigration, one is permitted to bring only 15 kilos in a backpack; and of course it should contain only used clothing and underwear as well as necessary toilet articles. But it is absolutely necessary to bring a blanket and cutlery (knife, fork, spoon.)” The cost, however, was high: 1,200 marks per person in addition—so they were advised—to enough cash to buy food until the boat left.56 It is not known whether the costs were prohibitive for them, but the Eisenbergs did not board the boat to Palestine. Over the next year and a half, Eisenberg tried to emigrate to Chile, Brazil, Paraguay, and the United States, all without success.57 In October 1941, he was transported to the camp at Grüssau; 58 most of the Jews at this camp were later sent to Auschwitz. A similar fate befell Ludwig and Elly Kroch, but in their case the information on their last three years in Breslau, from 1938 to 1941, is surprisingly abundant. Thirty-nine of their letters to their son Ernst (known as Ully) in Montevideo have survived and are on deposit at the Archives of Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. Ludwig and Elly took care not to touch on political subjects and for good reason; each one of the envelopes has two stamps on it: “Opened” and the seal of the Supreme Command of the Defense Forces (Wehrmacht). Nevertheless, the letters tell us much about their efforts to leave Germany, the deteriorating conditions in Breslau, and, perhaps most interestingly, their stoicism in the face of mounting repression. They were determined not to alarm Ernst or their other two children, who were also abroad. The letters also serve as striking testimony of the love of the two parents for their children. The Krochs were a lower-middle-class family with strong secular inclinations, although they did not deny their Jewish roots—they celebrated Christmas as well as Chanukah. The father worked as a traveling salesman for a store that sold ready-made clothing, and when the chil-

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dren were growing up he spent much of the time on the road. Their eldest child, Heinz, born in 1910, studied law and was employed at the lower court in 1933 when the Nazis attacked the courthouse and drove out all the Jewish lawyers. Heinz then took up the trade of tiling in preparation for emigration to Palestine in the mid-1930s. A few years later, Suse, born in 1922, also moved to Palestine. We know the most about Ernst, born in 1917, because he left an autobiography. Of the three, Ernst was the most interested in public affairs, and he was also the most rebellious. He attended the Ober-Realgymnasium am Zwinger, but because of the Depression he could not attend a university. Instead, he was trained as a locksmith and began to work at a large factory at the age of fifteen. It was there that he first became acquainted with workers, whom he would soon idealize, although he had displayed visionary proclivities even earlier. At the age of twelve, he had joined the Kameraden, a youth group devoted to hiking, bicycle tours, and “evenings at home” (Heimabende), when boys and girls would listen to music and discuss literature. Their guiding principle was “back to nature.” A romantic lad, Ernst treasured his association with the circle. “There I found the vitality that was missing in the monotonous regularity and constraints of family life and the established school system. There I found freedom from customary subordination, equality of like-minded boys and girls, the secret of a community that we ourselves had chosen.” 59 Ernst began to read Marx and Engels in 1932 and adopted radical socialism. When the Kameraden split into three groups—Zionist, rightwing nationalist, and leftist—he joined the last and soon became active in the youth section of the German Communist Party / Opposition (KPO). At that time, the KPO believed that the Soviet Union was the “land of the realization of socialism” but took issue with the Communist Party for opposing a united struggle with the Social Democratic Party against fascism. In 1936, during the show trials in the Soviet Union, the KPO turned against Stalinism. At the age of fifteen, in 1933, Ernst covertly sold radical newspapers, which was illegal since the Nazis had outlawed the Communist and socialist parties. He was caught by the police and after being held in custody for six months, he was tried for engaging in “preparations of high treason.” Finding him guilty, the judge sentenced him to prison for eighteen months, but immediately after his

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release he was rearrested. Shortly after his second release, on February 10, 1937, Ernst departed for Yugoslavia, where he lived for a time on a kibbutz in preparation for residence in Palestine. But he was committed to socialism, not Zionism. By bribing a consul in Zagreb he managed to get papers to go to South America. He left Yugoslavia in December 1938 and never saw his parents again. But he regularly received letters from them and these are the ones that are now in Jerusalem. Despite the pain of separation from all three children, Elly, the mother, remained cheerful and sought at every opportunity to encourage Ernst in his work. “Of course, everything that you tell us is of extraordinary interest to us,” she wrote him on February 22, 1939, in the second extant letter. When the parents received letters from their two children in Palestine and one from Ully all on one day, they were overjoyed. “You can imagine, my son, that this was a fine day for us.” The receipt of letters from the three children indicating that they were doing well “is the greatest joy for Father and for me . . . and is a small compensation for the physical separation.” When packages of coffee beans arrived from Ully, she described in some detail how wonderful it was to drink the coffee, how pleasant it was to smell the aroma. On his twentythird birthday she congratulated him warmly and on this occasion she expressed herself with some emotion: Whether and when we will be granted the possibility to congratulate you personally on your birthday only the Gods know. But in our thoughts we are nevertheless with you despite the physical separation. Your detailed and instructive letters provide us with the possibility of envisioning what your way of life is like. For the time being, we must be satisfied with this and that is why your letters, sent regularly, give us great pleasure. . . . Now I think very often about the pleasure and excitement you children displayed on your birthdays. Do you still remember how you would get up at 5 in the morning to run to the birthday table in order to look at your presents?

She showed the usual motherly interest in his social life and was pleased to learn that he was taking dancing lessons. On April 1, 1941, she wrote to him that “We laughed a lot when we read that you got home only at 5 AM. I don’t want to be indiscreet, but I would very much like to

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know if one of the dance partners made an impression on you.” She was delighted that he had found a job in his specialty. “Of course, I know, my little Ully, that you will never lack in diligence and efficiency in your field.” Mrs. Kroch never complained about their economic situation, but certain references to changes in their lives convey a sharp deterioration in their circumstances. On March 15, 1939, she mentioned, almost as an aside, that the previous week they had sold their dining room furniture, and to fill up the empty space she and her husband had moved some of their other furniture into the dining room, “and now it looks livable and comfortable again.” Two months later they were forced to take other Jews into their apartment, but still she did not complain: “Communal living and housekeeping,” she writes, “works out very well.” In September 1941 the authorities forced them to move to another apartment, where they occupied one room. “It is really very cozy and livable in our place. All our friends who visit us also think so.” In November 1941 she again spoke positively of their living quarters, which was probably her way of telling her son what they had been reduced to without voicing any complaints that the censor would find objectionable: Now we are fully accustomed to our new residence. We are not at all upset about Hohenzollernstrasse [where they used to live]. First of all, it is very convenient for me to have less work since I have to take care of only one room, and then we are very comfortable to be together with so many nice people. Mutual help is for all of us a matter of course. During the illness of one of the tenants—the gentleman has undergone an operation—Father made himself very useful in doing the shopping and in helping with the housekeeping.

These were the living conditions of most Jews in Breslau at this time, and Mrs. Kroch’s attitude was not unique. Even then there were moments of levity. On October 28, 1940, Mrs. Kroch noted that she and her husband had seen Molière’s The Imaginary Invalid with vocal interludes at the Theater of the Cultural Association, the one hall still at the disposal of the Jewish community. “It was extremely nice. It was superbly acted, and we laughed a lot.” In May 1941 the Krochs saw an “exceptionally nice film,” Operette, which

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featured melodies from the classical Operette played by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. “It was wonderful because the acting and singing were excellent.” Mrs. Kroch frequently referred to their active social life: “We are in good health and often get together with our friends.” Only occasionally did she reveal any psychological stress. She wanted to study Spanish in preparation for a possible move to South America, but it did not go well. “I have difficulty concentrating, but I will nevertheless not give up on my studies, so that I won’t completely forget the little that I have learned.” The topic most frequently mentioned in the letters was emigration, and once again we learn of the difficulties Jews encountered in finding a country that would let them in. The Krochs were eager to leave and were prepared to go anywhere. Both studied English and Mrs. Kroch was willing to learn a new trade to earn a living in the new country. “Do you think, little Ully, that it would be a good idea for me to study massage?” In March 1941, she reminded her son “that I can bake and cook, and I can do other housework. I always fear that this is too little. My knowledge of English stenography and the typing of English letters will probably not be useful in Uruguay. Write and let me know your opinion on this.” Their preferred destination was Palestine, where two of their children lived. Their son Heinz did his best to secure a “certificate for parents,” but in December 1939 they learned that “there are no certificates” to be had. They were prepared to go to Chile, though it held less appeal because none of their children lived there. In any case, a move to Chile was prohibitive. The visas alone would cost 50 pounds sterling and then they would have to pay for transportation “in Devisen” (foreign currency). In another letter she noted that transportation to Chile would cost 600 marks plus U.S.$100 per person. Thus, “emigration to Chile is completely out of the question for us.” Shortage of funds was a constant concern for the Krochs. Early in March 1940, Ernst, who was barely getting by on his salary, indicated that he could contribute $20 for their travel expenses, which moved Mrs. Kroch to express her gratitude. We realize that you are concerned about our emigration and that you are trying to be helpful. We fully understand that it is not possible for you to offer a large sum of money. After all, you have been in Monte-

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video for only one year and you have many necessary expenses. The $20 that you want to put at our disposal is a large amount of money. We are very grateful for that.”

Mrs. Kroch then asked relatives in Amsterdam, New York, and Sa˜o Paulo for financial help. Several offered modest sums but it was never enough. In any case, the Krochs could not get visas to any of the countries to which they applied, five in all. But in her letters to her son, Mrs. Kroch continued to exude hope, if not optimism. “We are sorry that the prospects for emigration to Uruguay are nil as a result of the more stringent conditions,” she wrote on December 1, 1941, by which time the deportation of Breslau Jews had begun. “But there is nothing that can be done about it and we must continue to be patient.” Two weeks earlier, she had bemoaned the fact that they had no rich relatives who could help, but was pleased that Ully was doing his best. “Well, nevertheless we will not lose heart; at some point we will succeed in seeing each other again.” In another letter, Mrs. Kroch told her son that she understood that it would be a slow process for them to obtain the papers for emigration. “But you are right that even snails ultimately reach their goal, and thus we hope that we will see each other again.” It was not to be. Ernst thinks that his parents were sent to Theresienstadt in 1942 and from there either to Maidanek, Auschwitz, or Treblinka, where they perished.60 Obtaining a visa was a great relief, but it did not end the anxieties about emigration. The Nazis placed numerous restrictions on the assets and personal belongings that emigrants might take abroad, forcing Jews to make difficult decisions and to plead with the authorities for permission to ship items that would enable them to make a start in their new home. A case in point is the physician Harry Preiss, who lived in Rosenberg (now Olesno), a town about seventy miles from Breslau, where much of his family resided and which he often visited. He was granted a visa for the Philippines by the United States consulate in Breslau after winning a place there in a stiff competition run by the Philippine authorities for a few openings for physicians. On December 12, 1938, Preiss sent a formal request to the provincial prefect of the Foreign Exchange Office in Breslau to take various items he would need in the Philippines, a country about which the Preiss

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family knew very little. In fact, as soon as they got their visas Harry and his wife rushed to the encyclopedia, and, discovering that the country had been a Spanish colony, they began to study Spanish. Later, they learned that English was the official language and made the appropriate switch in their studies. Dr. Preiss also found out that the Philippine climate was tropical. Fearful that much of his wooden furniture would be quickly destroyed by termites, he bought new steel pieces, but he assured the authorities that he had limited his purchases to the “most necessary” items. Preiss also wanted to take with him some medical equipment that he would need for his new practice, and he again gave assurances that he had bought “the smallest and cheapest” available. Without it he would be unable to detect “bone fractures, etc.” in the small town hospital where he expected to work. “Since I have not transferred [any money] I will be completely dependent on my work [for a living] and I will never be in a position to acquire such an instrument at a later time. Therefore, I ask you to grant permission to add the instrument [to my luggage].” In addition, Preiss wanted to take along a new refrigerator and a new sewing machine, which his wife would need for her work as a tailor and corsetiere, a trade she had recently learned. He estimated that he would need a year to prepare for his medical examination before he could open a practice, and during that time the family (they had an eight-year-old son) expected to live on Mrs. Preiss’s earnings. Preiss also listed an old Stower typewriter, a few inexpensive jewels, and a “small collection of coins from my deceased father, a keepsake, not valuable.” All these items, Preiss informed the officials, were in his apartment and could be inspected before they were packed by the end of January. Other than that, he was retaining enough cash for living expenses until the family’s departure, 4,000 marks for the fare, and over 4,000 marks for an insurance policy to pay for the upkeep of his seventy-five-year-old mother, “whom I have to leave here.” 61 A month later, shortly before his departure, Preiss asked for permission to take with him one more object: a Torah scroll from the synagogue in Rosenberg, which had somehow survived the razing of the entire building on Kristallnacht. Preiss pointed out that this was a “roll for prayer” (Gebetsrolle) that “of course has no objective value, . . . has

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no precious ornaments and serves only a religious purpose.” The Office of the Provincial Prefect notified him that it did not object to the shipment of the Torah, which was eventually installed in the Manila synagogue.62 Preiss also received permission to transfer the other items he had requested, which helped him to get established in the Philippines. Once Jews emigrated, they faced other anxieties: learning a new language, finding employment, locating good schools for their children, and adjusting to the local climate and customs. They constantly worried about the family and friends they had left behind, and they tried hard to fill a deep void, the absence of a circle of loved ones. In Silesia, Harry Preiss’s family was part of a large, close-knit clan, many of whom had lived in Breslau. They all seem to have been successful in business or the professions (mainly as physicians) and they had enjoyed life to the fullest. Most of the clan succeeded in emigrating, but they were scattered all over the world: in Bolivia, Canada, Cuba, Ecuador, England, Palestine, the Philippines, South Africa, the United States, and Uruguay. In Germany, the family had stayed in touch by mail; they kept one another informed about their achievements and sometimes about their failures, of which there were not many; and they frequently met on festive occasions such as weddings, births, B’nei Mitzvah, or even elegant dinner parties. The family archive contains many of the printed invitations, dinner menus, and copies of the speeches and innumerable occasional poems delivered at these functions. After leaving Breslau and other parts of Germany and Europe, the clan remained in contact by means of “circular letters”— one of which refers to 111 such letters having been written during the six years of the war. Family members would reply to them or simply write to individual relatives, and about 175 of these missives are extant. For the most part, they deal with personal matters and indicate the remarkable degree to which the refugees from Breslau succeeded in launching new businesses or professional careers and forming new friendships. But they also reveal the deep wounds that Nazism had inflicted on them. Of course, all the refugees avidly followed the news from Germany and the events on the various battlefields, and they were well informed about the drift of affairs in their hometowns even if they did not know all the details about Nazi atrocities. On April 30, 1942, Elly Cohn

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(Harry Preiss’s sister) wrote from Pretoria that she had just learned that their seventy-six-year-old mother had been deported from Breslau, but beyond that she knew nothing about her fate. “Sometimes, when I sit at home and am busy sewing I am suddenly overcome with such anxiety that I think I am going absolutely insane.” She was forty-nine years old and during the past year her hair had turned completely gray.63 Also in April 1942, news reached the family in La Paz, Bolivia, that in one day almost fifty Jews had been buried in Breslau. Nine months later, in early January 1943, they learned that all Breslau Jews except those in occupations needed for the war effort had been deported and that the Nazis were murdering Jews with intravenous injections.64 Fritz, who lived in Pretoria, could not understand “how a nation such as the Germans could be capable of such outrageous bestialities. I am overcome with shame and outrage when I think of the fact that for 48 years I was a member of such a nation of bandits.” 65 As the war in Europe neared its end at the beginning of 1945, a certain B. K. wrote from La Paz that “today I cherish the hope that [Marshal] Koniev’s brave Ukrainian soldiers will leave nothing standing in all of Silesia.” 66 Public welfare continued to be one of the highest priorities for the leaders of the Breslau Jewish community, who in mid-1939 had to cope not only with the growing impoverishment of its members but also with an acute shortage of living space. An increasing number of Jews were being forced to vacate their apartments and many had no place to go. The Board of Governors of the Jewish community therefore decided to fashion private dwellings out of a part of the synagogue of the House of Refuge, which was owned jointly by the community and the Fraenkel Foundation and which had been built in the late 1840s as an asylum for Jewish businessmen who had fallen on hard times through no fault of their own. On the recommendation of an architect, they settled on the creation of eight one-room apartments, four on the first floor and four on the second, with bathroom facilities on each floor. Even though each tenant would be assessed 1,500 marks to cover the cost of the renovation, there was no shortage of applicants. The apartments were to be ready by January 1, 1940, but before any work began the Board of Governors asked the two community rabbis, Dr. Lewin

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and Dr. Hamburger, for their opinion on the project, which would eliminate the synagogue. Both were realists and ruled that there were no “religious reasons” to object to the creation of the apartments. The rabbis merely added that so long as the synagogue remained and was usable as a house of prayer, “it definitely retains the sanctity of a community synagogue.” 67 Elected officials of the community were not the only ones to extend a helping hand to the destitute. In the archives of the Breslau Jewish community I came across a thick folder entitled “Grünmandel” that contained information about one person’s distribution of cash to several hundred Breslau Jews. I had never encountered the name. I asked the archivists as well as scholars well versed in the history both of Breslau and its Jewish community about Grünmandel, and no one had heard of him. The contents of the folder are remarkable: 732 letters addressed to him, all written between June and September 1939, and all appealing for financial help. Each letter was heartrending. Hildegard Sara Tuny told Grünmandel that “My husband died in the camp Buchenwald and since December 22 I have been a widow. . . . The Jewish community gives me a monthly allowance of 30 M. and I am therefore totally without means and in distress. And therefore I ask that you kindly approve of my request.” Frieda Hollaender wrote as follows on August 17, 1939: “I am a 76-year-old sick woman, I have to live on the monthly welfare allowance of 30 marks, and have no other income. Since I have so little welfare support and am in great distress because of my illness, I would like to ask you, honored sir, to help an old, sick woman.” M. Kohn Heinz pleaded with Grünmandel on September 12 for “a small amount of assistance” before the upcoming High Holy Days. “My husband works in Blankenburg, [but] unfortunately he earns very little since he often has to stay home [to take care of me]. . . . I was operated on only a few weeks ago and need very good care and unfortunately I cannot afford it. It would please me very much to receive a positive reply from you.” At the end of most of these letters Grünmandel would write “Erledigt” (settled) and he generally jotted down the number of marks the person had received, ranging from two to ten. Occasionally, on the letters of people he apparently knew he would write “sehr bekowet,” a mixture of German and Yiddish mean-

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ing “very honorable.” His use of these words suggests that he was religiously Orthodox. Also, non-religious Jews would almost certainly have made their charitable contributions through existing institutions and not directly to individuals. In any case, in the summer of 1939 Grünmandel must have spent several thousand marks in an extraordinary display of private charity.68 In Wrociaw I consulted the Breslauer Addressbuch (a telephone book) and discovered that Grünmandel had lived in Breslau at least since 1911 and that he owned a liquor business. His name did not appear in the 1939 directory and I could not find any further information about him.69 Christian spouses of Jews found themselves in an especially precarious position with regard to welfare benefits. They did not qualify for support from the Jewish Welfare Agency and after 1939 the Nazis excluded them from state benefits as punishment for having a non-Aryan partner. Because of this policy, Georg Geppert, a resident of Breslau, faced a dismal retirement, and on March 29, 1939, he appealed to the government in Berlin to make an exception in his case. “Since 1903 I have been married to my wife, who, however, is of the Jewish faith. She will be 68 years old this year. I myself am 63 and a Catholic.” He had made his living selling scouring cloth, brushes, and various other items, but now he was too ill to work and he had no choice but to close his business. He had applied to several offices in Silesia for welfare support, but had been turned down because his wife was Jewish. I’ve been married for 36 years and my wife, who has reached old age, has very bad eyesight, and I would not like to leave her during the last few years we could still live together. I therefore want courteously to ask the Reich Chancellor’s Office (Reichskanzlei) whether it would not be possible for me to continue to live with my wife and still receive assistance.

He would, he said, be pleased to forgo the assistance if he could continue to maintain his business, but that was very unlikely. Geppert asked for an early reply. “Perhaps,” he concluded, “there is the possibility for me to remain with my wife. Of course, I will abide by the [government’s] orders if that is necessary. I should add that there are

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no offspring from this marriage.” Eleven months after submitting this request Geppert withdrew it, because in the meantime the authorities in Breslau had relented and entered him on the welfare rolls.70 As a central feature of the campaign against the Jews after Kristallnacht, the Nazis unleashed a series of decrees designed simply to humiliate their victims. In November 1938, the authorities prohibited Jews from attending performances in legitimate theaters, movie houses, or concert halls open to Gentiles; they were also not to be admitted to museums, public libraries, zoos, swimming or sports facilities, or parks. Public benches in Breslau carried signs “Für Juden verboten.” The signs, in black, were posted in the middle of the upright part of the benches and the print was small, 5 by 35 centimeters. Older people or nearsighted people often did not see them and would sit down. If the police spotted them, they immediately carried them away. After August 20, 1938, Jews were not allowed to walk together in groups of more than two. Nor were they allowed to remain standing on street corners. Beginning in January 1939, Jews were required to adopt the additional middle name of “Israel” or “Sara.” A Law on Tenancy with Jews enacted on April 30, 1939, permitted Aryans to evict their Jewish tenants so long as the Jews could find somewhere else to live. Their new residences had to be with Jews, and Jewish homeowners were obliged to take in those who had been expelled from their dwellings. The Nazis aimed at concentrating all Jews in “Jews’ houses” to separate them from Aryans, but at the same time they did not want the evicted Jews to become charges of the state.71 For the overwhelming majority of Jews in Breslau, and in Germany, the events of Kristallnacht and the anti-Jewish measures of the succeeding ten months removed any lingering hopes that they might have had about their chances of surviving as an organized community under Nazism. There was no place for them in Nazi Germany. During the next four years that would be made ever more evident, with a brutality no one could have foreseen even in 1939.

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Tightening the Screws, 1939 –1941

Historians generally agree that until 1941 the Nazis had not committed themselves to the physical destruction of the Jews. True, on January 30, 1939, Hitler prophesied that “if Jewry succeeded again in provoking a world war, it would end in the destruction of the Jews,” and after the war began the Nazis indiscriminately killed a large number of Jews as well as others in occupied Poland.1 But the Nazis had not made a decision on the systematic liquidation of Jews, and in Germany itself the avowed goal remained expulsion of the despised minority. By September 1939, when World War II broke out, much of that goal had been achieved: between 50 and 60 percent of Germany’s Jews, and about the same percentage of Breslau’s Jews, had left the country.2 However, the war, blamed by Hitler on the Jews, radicalized the Nazis; the twopronged policy of deprivation and humiliation that they had followed for six years they now pursued more vigorously than ever. By the time they decided on the infinitely more drastic “final solution of the Jewish question,” sometime after the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, many Germans had become inured to seeing Jews brutalized. The implementation of the anti-Jewish policies in Breslau, as elsewhere in the country, was in the hands of Gauleiters (District Leaders of the Nazi Party), whose appointment required Hitler’s approval and who came to be regarded as the “most trusted Party Viceroys.” 3 Each Gauleiter exercised authority over one of the forty-three provinces in the Reich and normally also carried the state title of provincial prefect (Oberpräsident). Known as the Oberpräsident of Lower Silesia, the Gauleiter of Breslau took orders from Berlin on overall policies but retained some leeway in implementing them on the local level. In carry-

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ing out the anti-Jewish measures, as in the maintenance of order, he relied heavily on the local chief of police and the chief of the Gestapo. None of the officials who held the highest positions in Breslau bore any similarity in their commitment to Nazi ideology, intelligence, and, above all, their willingness to take initiatives, to the Adolf Eichmann depicted by Hannah Arendt in her famous and controversial book Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. Arendt portrayed Eichmann as a rather slow-witted person, by no means a “hater of Jews,” and certainly not a “monster.” In her view, “he was genuinely incapable of uttering a single sentence that was not a cliché.” 4 Nor had he entered the Nazi Party out of conviction. His primary concern was to advance his career, and it galled him that he had not risen above the rank of lieutenant colonel. According to Arendt, Eichmann played a conspicuous role in the extermination of the Jews because he was ordered to do so and that was the only way he could move ahead. The notion that a human being in a senior political position who was not deranged could supervise the murder of millions of innocent people without believing that he was engaged in a just cause strikes me as implausible, but Arendt’s interpretation has attracted a wide following in the scholarly community. In any case, as we have already seen, the men at the center of power in Breslau in the year and a half immediately following the Nazi takeover, Helmuth Brückner and Edmund Heines, believed passionately that Jews had no place in German society, and in persecuting them they were among the trailblazers within the Nazi Party. The two Gauleiters of Lower Silesia from 1934 to 1945, Josef Wagner until 1940 and then Karl Hanke, were equally dedicated to the regime’s anti-Jewish policies, but there were some significant and interesting differences between them. Despite his Nazi philosophy, which he embraced in 1922 when he joined Hitler’s movement as a young man of twenty-three, Wagner was a practicing Catholic at the time he assumed the position of Gauleiter and provincial prefect twelve years later and remained openly religious thereafter. His wife was an even more devout Catholic. By late 1940, Wagner’s position in the party had weakened because of intrigues against him related to power struggles within the movement. He was now accused of having passed confidential information in 1931 to a man

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who had split with the Nazi movement, and he was sharply criticized for having sent his children to Catholic schools. When his wife objected to the marriage of their already pregnant daughter to an SS man because he was not an observant Christian, Wagner fell into total disfavor. He retired to Bochum, ceased to play any role in party affairs, and shortly thereafter was publicly disgraced. The press never mentioned him, and the authorities removed his name from all buildings and streets on which it had appeared. As far as is known, Wagner took no part in the anti-Hitler plot of July 20, 1944, but the Gestapo claimed that he had joined the conspiracy. He was arrested and is believed to have been murdered by the secret police in April 1945.5 In February 1941, at just about the time when the persecution of the Jews of Breslau entered its most afflictive phase, Karl Hanke took over as Gauleiter. Hanke, a fanatic among fanatics, had enjoyed a rapid rise in the Nazi Party that nevertheless did not lack for bizarre moments and occasional setbacks. Born in 1903 in Lauban, Silesia, he studied mechanical engineering at a technical institute and in 1928 became a teacher at a vocational school in Berlin. He also belonged to various right-wing national associations and in 1928 joined the Nazi Party. Elected to the Reichstag in 1932, he began to work for Goebbels a year later in the newly established Ministry of Propaganda. In 1937, Goebbels appointed him vice president of the Ministry of Culture. When the war broke out, Hanke volunteered to serve as a lieutenant in a tank unit and then participated, in the same capacity, in the western campaign. In the meantime, Hanke had lost the support of his protector, Goebbels, because of a messy family complication. A notorious womanizer, Goebbels had taken up with the beautiful Czech actress Lida Baarova and wanted to divorce his wife and the mother of his five children, Magda, even at the price of giving up his ministerial post. Hanke had befriended Magda and was rumored to have been her lover, but now he sympathized with her plight and appealed to Hitler to bring Goebbels to his senses. Hitler ordered Goebbels to stay with Magda and then promoted Hanke to the top position in Lower Silesia. Hanke quickly established himself as an exemplary Gauleiter by supervising the destruction of the Jewish community in Breslau with amazing efficiency and ruthlessness. In the eyes of Hitler, his stature

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grew enormously and in early 1945, when the Russians were approaching Berlin and the war was all but over, he put Hanke in charge of defending Breslau, now declared a Fortress. Hanke put up a fierce and totally useless resistance, which cost the lives of thousands of Germans and led to the destruction of vast stretches of the city. He threatened to imprison anyone who so much as suggested surrender. On May 6, 1945, shortly before he committed suicide, Hitler, distraught at what he considered the betrayal of many of his leading subordinates, dismissed Himmler as Reichsführer-SS and minister of internal affairs, and in his testament designated Hanke, one of the few he believed to have remained loyal, in his place. Hanke did not occupy the new post very long. Nor did he prove in the end to be all that courageous. At about the time of his last promotion, Hanke removed the insignia from his uniform and secretly flew out of Breslau. A day later he was apparently captured by Czech partisans near the town of Komotau (Chomutov) and a few weeks after that, in early June, he is believed to have been shot when he attempted to escape.6 On Hanke’s arrival in Lower Silesia at the beginning of February 1941, the plight of the Breslau Jews was horrendous. The last survey of overall conditions within the Jewish community made by a foreigner reached the West in June 1939, after an English Jew, M. Mitzman, completed a tour of several German cities, including Breslau, “where the state of affairs is particularly bad.” His friends had tried to make a reservation for him at one of the better hotels, but even though he had an English passport, clerks asked whether the visitor was an Aryan. On learning that he was Jewish, they refused to rent him a room. Finally, Mitzman had to settle for a “tenth rate place” owned by a Jew whose wife was Christian and now ran the hotel. One of his first contacts in the Jewish community was with the mother of a refugee who had moved to England, and from her he “obtained some idea of living conditions . . . [in Breslau]. She herself had been very wealthy and had had a beautiful home; the apartment house in which she had her flat belonged to her, but there were three vacant flats; she was not allowed to advertise these or to take aryans, and Jews could not afford to pay.” The Aryan caretaker constantly pressured her

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to make unnecessary renovations and warned her that if she refused, she would be arrested. As for the Jewish community, Mitzman reported that it is absolutely poverty stricken; visiting the communal building was like going to the offices of the Jewish Board of Guardians here [in London], except that there were hundreds of people there—we were run after in the streets by people begging us to take their children away, and the leaders of the community there implored us to do all we possibly could to get their children out. The children of the Statenlos [stateless] were being arrested daily in the streets and boys of 13 and 14 being sent over the frontier [to Poland]. I cannot describe the terror in the people’s faces and their absolute despair at not knowing where to go and to whom to turn.

Mitzman visited the Jewish school, where there was some “sort of celebration” during which the children sang Hebrew songs. Teachers kept the windows closed so that no one would hear. In their despair, leaders of the community asked Mitzman to send representatives of English Jewry “to stay . . . [in Breslau] for a while and see with their own eyes the conditions under which they had to live.” 7 A year later, according to another report by a person who managed to emigrate in 1941, most Jews were “pale, lean, and shabbily dressed,” and some of them were not easily recognizable anymore.8 This report also indicated that some rich Jews remained in Breslau, perhaps 150 to 200, people with assets worth more than 100,000 marks, but much of their wealth was deposited in blocked accounts controlled by officials whose approval was needed for every withdrawal. Six to eight Jewish lawyers, now officially known as “legal advisers” (Consulenten), remained in the city, as did between forty and fifty Jewish doctors, now referred to as “people who treat the sick” (Krankenbehändler), as well as about fifteen Jewish dentists. The authorities permitted between fifty and one hundred Jews to work as tailors, barbers, and cobblers, and in bathing establishments. The number of employees in the administrative offices of the Jewish community, including social welfare organizations, had been reduced by 40 percent from a high of some 1,400.9

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The author of the 1941 report, who unfortunately is not named, also noted certain tensions within the Jewish community. Some people sharply criticized the leaders for having mismanaged their applications to emigrate, although the evidence of ineptitude, according to the report, was not convincing. Moreover, there was “no harmony” between the Orthodox and the liberals: some of the latter went so far as to advocate the elimination of Orthodox religious services altogether. The discord seemed “highly unnecessary at this time,” no doubt a consequence of “disappointed hopes” that must be attributed to the “unfavorable conditions.” 10 Conditions for other Germans in Breslau also deteriorated quickly after hostilities broke out. By September 18, 1939, the city, although not in any danger of attack, appeared to be under siege. People began to hoard cans of fish and chocolates, which could be bought only in small quantities, one eighth of a pound at a time. Nothing besides salt herring and “wretched kippers” was still plentiful.11 But Jews fared much worse. They received far smaller rations, and some Germans in Breslau thought even these were too generous. On September 11, 1939, demonstrators appeared outside the shop of the butcher Kokozynski with the following signs: “‘ Jews do not need any meat,’ ‘Jews do not need to eat pork,’ ‘Chazer (the . . . [Yiddish] term for pork) meat is not for Jews—it is only for GermanVolksgenossen.’” 12 At the same time, once the war began the Nazis stepped up the persecutions and humiliations of Jews. As of early September, Jews were forbidden to leave their apartments from 8 pm until 6 am, although this particular restriction may have been imposed as a protective measure in response to a suggestion by the Reich Association of Jews in Germany; thugs were stealing money and ration cards from pedestrians in the streets, which were pitch dark because of the fear of air raids. Nevertheless, the restriction made it difficult for Jews to socialize with friends and family members. Certainly, most hardships the Nazis imposed on the Jews had no purpose other than to make their lives miserable. Jews were ordered to bring their radios to the Gestapo on Yom Kippur in 1939, a day of fasting. Some older persons could not carry the radios, which were quite heavy at that time, and collapsed in the street. On the eve of the holiday, Jews who lived in the residence run by the

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Schottländer Foundation, mostly elderly people, were told to vacate their dwellings the next day. Several members of the community spent the night cleaning the building in compliance with the Gestapo’s directive that it be in perfect condition. In the summer of 1940, Jews were ordered to surrender all telephones in their homes; only the Jewish Hospital and Jewish organizations were permitted to have one. In December 1941, Jews were even denied access to public telephones. At about this time, Jews also had to surrender their bicycles, cameras, and vacuum cleaners. They could shop only at designated hours and their ration cards, stamped “Jude,” limited the amounts and kinds of food they could buy; shopkeepers were not to sell them any fish or eggs. In addition, Jewish use of electricity was restricted to 40 kilowatts per month. “It was difficult to cook or to read,” one survivor recalled.13 As of late 1941, streetcars could be used by Jews only to get to work and then only if the distance was more than four kilometers. They were not entitled to sit down in the cars or on the platform, where they were obliged to display “special yellow identity cards.” All men between sixteen and sixty and all women between sixteen and fifty-five had to register for work, and if a Jewish doctor pronounced them fit they were assigned the most menial tasks, such as sorting papers, rags, fragments, and garbage. Most of these jobs were located in the suburbs or outskirts of the city, forcing the workers to spend 30 percent of their daily wage of one mark on transportation. Many, especially the elderly, took sick because of overexertion. Beginning in September 1941, all Jews above the age of six were required to wear a six-cornered yellow star inscribed with the word “Jude” in black letters that parodied Hebrew writing, on the left side of the chest of their outer garment. For Victor Klemperer, September 19, 1941, the day that the law on the star went into effect, was “the worst day for the Jews during the twelve years of hell.” *

*

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Wearing the star provoked insults, which he found unbearable.14 From 1939 until 1942, Nazi officials in Breslau devoted an inordinate amount of time and energy to seizing Jewish residences, ostensibly to cope with

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the shortage of living space.15 Even before 1939 it was not easy to find an apartment, but new dwellings were being built and many were in the planning stage. However, construction of residences ended with the outbreak of hostilities, precisely at a time when an increasing number of people were moving to Breslau to take advantage of the jobs created by new war industries and the expansion of old ones. Moreover, until 1944 Breslau’s location in eastern Germany appeared to make it safe from bombing, adding to its appeal in other parts of the country. But it would be misleading to ascribe the Nazi seizures of Jewish dwellings simply to the need for living space. Envy, greed, and racist obsessions also counted as important motives. Months before the war broke out, the authorities had begun to drive Jews into so-called Jews’ houses (Judenhäuser), buildings scattered throughout the city in which only Jews lived. Ironically, this policy, in effect for about two years, was designed to prevent the formation of a Jewish ghetto. The Gestapo believed that dispersing the Jews facilitated the “surveillance of Jewry” by enabling citizens and the police to keep an eye on them, to make sure that they did not violate the growing number of regulations imposed on them. Spying on Jews was not uncommon. For example, one Aryan citizen informed the Gestapo that a Jewish neighbor, the widow of a retired bank director, had been given a few eggs, in defiance of the regulations, by a former domestic servant. The police “conducted a search of the apartment, found two remaining eggs, and immediately arrested the woman.” 16 In September 1940, the Nazis modified their policy on the distribution of Jews because they now wanted to keep them away from “prestigious streets and places” such as the “Street of the SA, the Ring, and so on.” 17 Jews on those streets were moved to other quarters. In the very same memorandum in which the board president (Regierungspräsident) initiated this change, he also directed officials to avoid placing Aryans in what he called the “worst apartments” while Jews continued to occupy fashionable ones.18 In support of this position, the lord mayor (Oberbürgermeister) conceded that he was deeply disturbed that even though living conditions for Jews were “no longer as grand” as they used to be, on average only a few Jews had less space than Volksgenossen. The police, he noted, had estimated that 7 square meters (10.75 square feet) of space per person would be adequate for

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Jews and would not lead to unsanitary conditions. If that criterion were applied, all the Jews of Breslau could be accommodated in Jews’ houses. He acknowledged that Jews might then endure some additional hardships, but their wishes, in particular “with regard to possible dispersals of families, cannot be decisive.” 19 The lord mayor also insisted that separation of the races—Jews and Aryans—must be a major consideration in the distribution of housing. He mentioned a complaint he had received from the German Labor Front (Deutsche Arbeitsfront, or DAF), which had replaced all previous labor unions, that in a building where both Jews and Aryans lived serious “dissension” had erupted. The lord mayor’s definition of “Jew” in this context was notably expansive. People in the same building live so close together that it was “totally irrelevant” whether only one or both partners of a couple there were Jewish. By law, he claimed, both count as Jewish. The lord mayor then raised a hypothetical issue, again demonstrating his fanatical preoccupation with race: In a mixed marriage the first children were brought up as non-Jews, [but] the youngest child was brought up as Jewish. In this case, it is clear that the parents feel themselves to be Jews and that they will exert corresponding influence not only on the youngest child but also on the older children. It is impossible and incompatible with the meaning of the law to regard such a couple, because of the existence of non-Jewish children, as non-Jewish. A different application [of the law] would open all the doors for camouflage by Jews, who would present themselves as non-Jews to the authorities and as Jews to their own people.

This thinking was too much for Dr. Ebel, an official in the Ministry of Labor, who pointed out that the lord mayor’s interpretation ran counter to the Nuremberg Laws of 1935 themselves, which defined Jewishness not on the basis of upbringing but of blood. Nevertheless, Dr. Ebel agreed with the lord mayor that it would be desirable to provide separate housing for “German Volksgenossen” and Jews. The campaign to drive Jews out of their apartments picked up steam in February 1941, by which time the housing shortage had become acute. The German Labor Front was a major participant in the cam-

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paign, warning officials that twenty to thirty new dwellings would be needed each month to accommodate the influx of new residents. On February 11, an official in the bureau in charge of rentals (Preisbehörde) referred to that estimate and concluded that the only solution was to confiscate Jewish apartments. “The further limitation of living space is a matter of course,” he declared. “In agreement with the DAF [German Labor Front] and the Gestapo, I have drawn up a list of Jewish properties that could be suitable for occupation solely by Jews. . . . I intend to resettle the German Volksgenossen now living in these apartments in other buildings and to put the Jewish properties at the disposal of the Jewish community,” which would then be authorized to distribute space to Jews evicted from their more spacious homes. The latter would be given to Aryans. He acknowledged that he was making this proposal “only because at this time the plan for a complete removal of the Jews from Breslau is not likely to be implemented.” 20 At times, professionals engaged in unseemly squabbles over apartments without any concern about those who would be dispossessed. In June 1941, Rudolf Weizmann, who had taken a senior administrative post in Breslau, informed the authorities that in Dresden, where he had previously worked, he lived in “a beautiful 7-room apartment in the best location,” and he expected no less now. He had located a “Jewish residence” of six rooms on the first floor of a building on a good street and he was satisfied that “after a thorough renovation” it would be “fine for me and my family.” Four Jewish tenants with their families, a total of nine persons, lived there, but Weizmann had been assured that “with the help of the Gestapo” it would be made available to him. To his chagrin, however, he had just learned from the Aryan owner of the building that the apartment had been promised to Herr Universitätsprofessor Dr. Henkel. Weizmann asserted that his claim was stronger. After all, the professor already lived in a spacious apartment in the best area of Breslau and merely wanted a bigger place. To bolster his claim, Weizmann emphasized that he occupied an important bureaucratic post and that he had been a civil servant for thirty years. The lord mayor ultimately ruled in favor Henkel, arguing that his current apartment of four-and-a-half rooms was too small for his family of six.21

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In the meantime, Gauleiter Hanke took a drastic decision that would put an end to all conflicts over Jewish dwellings. In a letter dated May 29, 1941, to the president of the Governing Board, he insisted that the functions of the police must be reassessed. Instead of viewing their tasks as primarily “negative,” that is, to protect citizens, they must now undertake the “positive” task of “maintaining [the well-being] of the community. The serious shortage of apartments can be considered [a problem] that threatens public order, and this imposes on the police the obligation of positive intervention.” In other words, the police must be more energetic than ever before in freeing up Jewish apartments for Aryan citizens.22 In a memorandum dated one day later, May 30, 1941, and marked “secret,” Gauleiter Hanke was quoted to the effect that he planned to “make Breslau free of Jews in the foreseeable future. 1800 apartments are still occupied by Jews.” The memorandum further indicated that Jews would be expelled from their living quarters in the following order: first, those who had no right to an apartment; second, those who lived in non-Jewish houses; third, those who lived in Jews’ houses.23 These were the critical decisions that preceded the deportations of Jews from Breslau, to be discussed in the next chapter. The lord mayor was well prepared to implement Hanke’s directive since he had in his possession four lists of Jewish dwellings drawn up by the Residence Office: the first consisted of fifty-eight properties owned by the Synagogue Community, the Jewish Cemetery, and three foundations (Beate-Guttmann, Schottländer, and Fraenkelsche); the second, of sixteen properties partly occupied by Jews, to be examined for possible homes for non-Jews; the third, of some thirty-four buildings whose residents had already received notices to vacate; and the fourth, of 301 apartments with the address, name of the resident, size, and number of people residing in each one. In the period before the new policy was implemented, from 1939 to mid-1941, Jews who were expelled from their dwellings were entitled to another one in Jewish apartments, many of which were already overcrowded. The Jewish Religious Association ( Jüdische Kultusvereinigung), as the community’s organization was now known, made the assignments.24

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The expulsions themselves were brutal, and one example will suffice to indicate how the process worked. In mid-May 1940, the Residence Office in Breslau informed five families that their apartments had been rented to other families as of July 1 and that they must vacate the premises by June 15, that is, within thirty days. When the Jewish Religious Association protested, the response from the authorities was brief: there was enough space in “Jewish residences” to accommodate the five families. The Reich Association of Jews in Germany, located in Berlin, then took up the cudgels and sent a letter of protest to the National Ministry of Labor, pointing out that the law did not permit such expulsions. The Reich Association also claimed that it was not the sole responsibility of the Jewish Religious Association to find space for evicted tenants. Although the protest was daring, it led nowhere. The lord mayor and other municipal officers simply refused to accept responsibility for assigning residences to Jews. When Josef Israel Schwarz, one of the people driven out of his apartment, was refused a room as a tenant in a Jewish apartment, he appealed to the Residence Office, which was in charge of rentals in the city. He received a curt reply: “It is not our function to settle disputes between Jews. You should turn to your representatives—the Jewish Religious Association.” 25 On August 8 and September 17, 1940, and again on February 21, 1941, Georg Israel Less, writing on behalf of the Board of Governors of the association, pleaded with the president of the Governing Board for consultation about the severe hardships imposed by the continuing expulsions. Less pointed out that hundreds of people had already been accommodated in Jewish residences and that there simply was no space left. Many rooms now housed at least two people and often as many as three or four. In September 1940, he wrote that “unless additional rooms become available as a result of deaths and emigration, there is no possibility of accommodating more people.” 26 The Nazi authorities remained adamant.27 The seizure of Jewish apartments continued intermittently until 1943, by which time most Jews had been deported from Breslau. The need for new residences had passed, and now rental agents began to complain that they were incurring financial losses, an ironic twist given the eagerness with which many of them had favored the removal of Jews

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from their homes. One such agent, Fritz Illmer, a devoted Nazi, complained to the lord mayor on May 14, 1943, that a “Jew apartment” consisting of five rooms had remained empty for months. Illmer pointed out that the rent had been significantly raised, which made it difficult to find a tenant. Moreover, he was planning to spend “several hundred marks” on renovations, and he wanted to know whether he was entitled to “compensation” for his losses and expenditures. Four weeks later, Illmer had still not received a reply, and on September 16 he submitted a statement of his losses, 675 marks—money, he said, that he urgently needed. The lord mayor agreed to reimburse Illmer for part of his expenses, but in the meantime the case had become complicated; it turned out that the owner of the apartment was Ninette Sara Schwarz, a British citizen who had moved to England in 1938. Normally, the assets of foreign Jews were not confiscated but simply held in escrow. After some hesitation Illmer accepted the proposed settlement in February 1944, although he insisted that Schwarz had no right to any of the money because she was a “Jewess.” 28 On December 5, 1939, the president of the Governing Board for Lower Silesia wrote a long memorandum to the Ministry of Economics that, even for a Nazi document, is astonishing in its audacity. He bemoaned the fact that previous edicts on aryanization had failed to include Jewish-owned works of art in the list of items that were to be turned over to the state. Jews in his district, the board president noted, still retained many treasures, such as paintings, antique furniture, fine rugs, pottery, silverware, and ivory miniatures. “The task of aryanization of nonaryan businesses assigned to me unfortunately does not provide me with the right handle to secure these valuable items in the interest of the state.” He was pleased to report, however, that he had taken steps on his own to prevent their shipment abroad, and now wanted formal authority to initiate appropriate action. Better still, he would like specific instructions on how to proceed. He then whetted the ministry’s appetite by forwarding a list of artworks already in his possession and took pains to point out their value. One expert had examined the objects in the possession of “the Jew Friedmann, Breslau, Ahornallee 27,” and he estimated their value at

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10,785 marks, but then another expert sent to Friedmann’s house valued them at ten to fifteen times as much. Friedmann owned works by the French painters Gustave Courbet, Camille Pissarro (who was also Jewish), Jean-François Raffaelli, and Henri (?) Rousseau, by the Norwegian painter Frits Thaulow, and by the German artists Adolf Oberländer and Walter Leistikow. His collection also included paintings by the German Jewish artist Max Liebermann and one by a Dutch Jew, Jozef Israels. In addition, Friedmann had amassed a valuable collection of Italian, German, and Dutch pottery “whose worth is in the thousands.” The board president proudly announced that “I have forbidden the owner to sell any of the artworks or otherwise to dispose of them before he receives permission from the authorities.” The valuable collections of other Breslau Jews—Saks, Smochewer, Schottländer, and Bergmüller—would also be confiscated very soon. The board president urged the ministry to move quickly to enact a law prohibiting the sale of these works, for their disposal would be “harmful to the state.” 29 A few months later, on September 7, 1940, the board president sent a memorandum to heads of administration and mayors in which he offered a more expansive justification for the seizures of Jewish art collections. These collections, he said, were “enemy assets” or were “indirectly or directly under decisive enemy influence.” 30 In the meantime, the Finance Office had taken possession of the major art collection belonging to the Jewish businessman Max Silberberg, on the grounds that Silberberg had underestimated his worth on his declaration of assets in 1938. According to an appraisal by the art and antique dealer Smendek, “the Jew” had valued his art at 41,170 marks, whereas it really was worth over 70,000 marks. Moreover, Silberberg admitted to having sold two pieces in 1938 —Honoré Daumier’s Heads and Edouard Manet’s Portrait of a Woman —for a total 36,680 marks, on which he had agreed to pay additional taxes of 300 marks.31 Smendek produced a list of seventy-four works of art that belonged to Silberberg, several of them, it turned out, painted by “non-Aryan” artists, but their identity did not trouble the board president. On the contrary, he told the Finance Office that “paintings or other artistic creations byJews are also very valuable for the state because by selling them abroad significant amounts of foreign currency can be realized.” The

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administrator of the foreign currency office, a certain Albrecht, was fully aware of this, the board president noted.32 Eventually, the director of the Silesian Museum of Art also expressed interest in Silberberg’s art. On July 5 and again on October 6, 1941, he asked the board president for eleven of the paintings owned by the “Jew Max Israel Silberberg,” but he wanted them, as he put it twice, “without cost.” The list included work by Georg Kolbe, Max Beckmann, August Gaul, Max Slevogt, A. W. Schirmer, Hans von Marées, and Wilhelm Leibl, valued at 4,350 marks in total. The board president approved the request, but then his superior, the provincial prefect, overruled him on the grounds that such a transfer would not accord with the law, a puzzling ruling since the works had been confiscated by the Nazi authorities in the first place without any attention to legal niceties.33 It is not known whether the paintings survived the war. Appraising art owned by Jews was lucrative, which is why Karl Stein, the proprietor of an art and carpet shop, complained to the board president that he had not been called upon to do so. Thus far, various small shopkeepers had been given the task and a number of them, Stein claimed, were unqualified. He, on the other hand, owned one of the leading art dealerships and was expert in every kind of appraisal. Moreover, “since the year 1931 I have been a [Nazi] Party comrade and am a member of the ‘National Culture Board’ as well as of the German Labor Front,” also a Nazi organization. He would be pleased, he made clear, to take part in the appraisals sponsored by the authorities. He ended his letter with the salute “Heil Hitler.” 34 The board president was tenacious in searching for additional Jewish art collections, and when he located one, he made sure that he did not lose track of it. In February 1940, he warned Martha Holländer that she must report all works of art in her possession. “You must be aware of the fact,” he warned, that “submission of a false affidavit will be severely punished.” A few weeks later, he informed her that an appraiser would come to her apartment to estimate the value of her holdings and cautioned her to let him know of any artworks she might have stored elsewhere. He also said she was not to sell any of them without his permission and that she would have to bear the cost of the appraisal.35

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On March 7, 1940, the board president sent letters to at least forty shipping firms asking if they had stored any artworks for Jews. None of them could answer the question because the objects, if there were any, had been stowed in sealed crates by Jews who had left Breslau or were planning to leave in the near future, making it difficult to ascertain what was in them. Virtually all the companies responded politely, ending their letters with the standard “Heil Hitler.” But the owner of one company, Tulag, sent a distinctly testy reply. Walter Przemeck told the board president that numerous crates were stored in his warehouse and that many of them had been transferred to his company by a non-Aryan firm. It would be a huge undertaking to open each one of them and he did not have enough employees to conduct such a search. He ended his letter, not with “Heil Hitler,” but with this request: “Therefore I ask for information on whether my answer suffices.” 36 Nazi control over every aspect of the Jewish economy served two purposes: to squeeze as much of value out of the Jews as possible for the benefit both of the German state and the German people, and to impoverish the Jews so as to encourage them to leave the country. But so long as some Jews remained in Breslau they had to be allowed to earn enough to survive and to pay the expenses entailed by emigration. At the same time, it was Nazi policy to involve various organizations, particularly the Chamber of Commerce but also various guilds, in decisions as to which economic activities Jews should be allowed to pursue. Thus, a fairly broad range of citizens was given the opportunity to take part in implementing Nazi policies and to benefit directly from the deprivations inflicted on the Jews. In mid-1940, there were still eight to nine thousand Jews in Breslau, and both the president of the Governing Board and the Chamber of Commerce conceded that some “business activity by Jews for Jews” must be preserved. At the time, the following Jewish establishments remained in Breslau: four women’s tailors, four hairdressers, four barbers, four men’s tailors, two cobblers, one laundry and ironing service, and one lingerie shop.37 All requests, usually by individual Jews with the support of the Jewish Religious Association, for the establishment of additional businesses were subjected to the strictest scrutiny. Even

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when the authorities wished to approve an application, they always sent it on to the Chamber of Commerce, which kept its own lists of Jewish businesses. In rejecting applications, the chamber would either claim that more enterprises in the specified field were not needed or refer to the decree of the Ministry of Economics of February 10, 1940, which stipulated that a few businesses requiring “bodily contact between the buyer and seller” should be run only by Jews if customers were likely to be Jews. There was to be no physical contact between Jews and Aryans. With this principle in mind, the chamber sent the board president a list of Jewish establishments that could be given permits to operate: one more ladies’ tailor shop, two more hairdressers, one more barber, six more cobblers, and one corset maker. The chamber strongly opposed the opening of a new laundry, claiming that the existing Jewish one had a monthly turnover of 1,500 marks and that its capacity was “entirely sufficient” to meet the needs of the Jewish community.38 The archive in Wrociaw contains a thick volume of requests by Jews during the period from June 1940 to October 1941 for permission to open shops catering only to other Jews, and usually the requests involved the kind of work that could be performed entirely at home. On June 2, 1940, Erna Sonszajn wrote as follows to the board president: I politely request that my husband, Lajb Israel Sonszajn, be allowed to work as an independent craftsman for Jewish customers. From October 1923 to January 1929 he worked as an independent tailor. I myself am an Aryan and we have two children who have been brought up as Christians. I politely beg for consideration of my application. My father was wounded in the war, and now my brother is again, since last August, in the military.

The Chamber of Commerce noted that the permissible number of tailors had not been exceeded and therefore recommended approval of this application.39 On September 9, 1940, Sara Heppner applied to the board president for permission to open a café (Mittagstisch) for Jews at which she would sell some food and coffee but no alcoholic beverages. “I am sixty years old, am alone and must earn my own keep. I am trying to emigrate to Palestine. My apartment is on 40 Freiburger Street. Many Jews live on

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this street and in the neighborhood there is no such enterprise. There is a spacious kitchen and suitable space for it in my apartment. I humbly beg again for permission and politely beg you to approve my application soon.” The Jewish Religious Association strongly supported Heppner’s application. The police and the Gestapo gave their approval but stressed that no liquor was to be sold.40 Heppner’s request was granted. But others were not so fortunate. On January 1, 1941, Max Israel Feinstein applied for permission to open a shop for the repair of sewing machines “within the Jewish Synagogue Community,” work for which he was well qualified. His parents-in-law had owned such a business for some thirty years, and there he had learned to repair all sorts of equipment. “I am especially qualified to repair machines that are considered a bit aged today but that nevertheless can have many years of use if they are properly reconstituted.” Many housewives owned older machines that they could not use because they had broken down. Once he fixed them, he assured the official, they could be used to repair old clothing, which would be a distinct service to the national economy. Feinstein also pointed out that he was fifty-six years old, had served in World War I, had been wounded four times, and had received several medals. Within five days he received the following terse decision from the president of the Governing Board: “I reject your application of the 15th of this month with regard to the repairing of sewing machines.” 41 David Israel Icyk submitted a request to engage in the redesign of fur clothing and the manufacture of men’s and boys’ hats. He also had earned excellent credentials, having worked in the field for almost thirty years, and having maintained his own business in Breslau for eighteen years. “At the moment I live on welfare, and since I have to support myself, my wife, and four underage children, I find myself in very needy circumstances. If I could again practice my trade I would no longer be dependent on welfare.” Icyk added that until 1938 he had been a member of the Furriers Guild, that he had no criminal record, and that he had always “conducted himself irreproachably.” The Board of Governors of the Jewish Religious Association strongly supported his application. Within three days, the Chamber of Handicrafts reminded the board president that the authorities had never envisioned

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a Jewish business in this field in Breslau, and, moreover, that the Furriers Guild did not think that Jews needed one. [The] guild fears that if a Jew were permitted to open a fur business there would be an unrealistic increase in goods, since in Leipzig a few foreign Jews are still active in raw materials. Until now Jews have satisfied their needs by purchasing from Aryan furriers, and this can also continue in the future. The same is true of producers of hats.

To protect non-Jews from competition, the board president turned down Icyk’s request.42 Jewish businessmen sought to protect at least some of their assets by consigning their enterprises to Aryan “trustees,” either when they were about to emigrate or, at the earliest moment, when they faced the prospect of aryanization, a process that had begun in 1933 but was stepped up sharply in 1938. The Jews would enter into formal, contractual agreements with Gentiles—in a few instances with their Christian spouses—who assumed full authority over the enterprise, which gave them control over significant amounts of money. In October 1938, forty-four applications for aryanization were under consideration in Breslau. (In Berlin, the comparable number was 500.) Some of the Jewish businesses were quite small, worth between 3,000 and 33,000 marks, but at least ten were large, ranging in value from 50,000 to one million marks. The director of the Financial Office in Breslau complained that by resorting to a trusteeship shortly before they emigrated, a fair number of Jewish businessmen had avoided paying some of the taxes imposed on them, especially the Reich Flight Tax and portions of the atonement fine. The director conceded that he himself had approved many such arrangements so as not to delay the “desired” Jewish emigration. “Unfortunately,” he continued, “it became increasingly evident that these trustees do not take into account, to the extent necessary, the interests of the state with regard to the settlement of taxes owed by their Jewish employers.” Moreover, Jews were paying the trustees very large fees, considerably more than was justified. “It is understandable,” the director noted ruefully, “that the Jew who is about to emigrate is very generous in this respect, since the assets that remain

Tightening the Screws

in the country are, as a result of the prohibition of the transfer [of money], for all practical purposes lost to him.” 43 No doubt, some Jewish businessmen entered into these arrangements in the hope that the trustees would run their enterprises temporarily and return them after Nazi rule ended. To put a halt to these practices, the Nazi authorities issued a decree early in December 1938, effective immediately, that detailed new procedures for aryanization. When a Jew decided to sell his business he was to negotiate with an Aryan buyer, and once they had reached agreement the approval of the appropriate local administrative authorities (Verwaltungsbehörde) was required. If for any reason no agreement could be reached, the authorities would step in and “urge” the Jewish owner— often with threats or acts of violence—to conclude the transaction, always with a view to enhancing “the interest of the state.” But if an agreement still eluded the parties, a trustee would be appointed to run the enterprise and the Jewish businessman would have no part in the selection. In fact, it was well known that the German Labor Front or other Nazi organizations were, in the words of the American embassy in Berlin, “the real administrators [of the aryanization process] and that sometimes the prescribed legal procedure is somewhat freely interpreted.” Moreover, the selected trustees were inevitably acceptable to the National Socialist Party. The purchase price was to be set by the “designated local authority” and it always amounted to a fraction of the business’s real value. In many instances, the buyers were required to pay an “aryanization tax,” usually about 20 percent of the sales price, which, a German official told an employee of the American embassy, “provides the Reich with a not inconsiderable addition to the revenues.” 44 The president of the Governing Board in Breslau was still not satisfied that the procedures produced sufficient revenues and on February 20, 1941, he enacted further limitations on the use of trustees.45 By this time, the number of Jewish enterprises had declined sharply, as will be seen in the next chapter. The Nuremberg Laws of 1935, it will be recalled, prohibited so-called Aryan women under forty-five from working in Jewish households. On April 18, 1941, the board president, after consulting other senior offi-

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cials, decided that a drive should be launched that would drastically curtail the number of older Aryans, men and women, still employed by Jews, on the ostensible grounds of an “ever-growing shortage of labor” in defense-related industries. Hanke, the Gauleiter and provincial prefect, had verbally agreed to the initiative, though no decision had been reached on whether “Aryan cleaning-women” should still be permitted to work for Jews. Six days later, the board president asked all district presidents (Landräte) and mayors to submit a report to him on how many Aryans remained in the employment of Jews as domestic servants.46 Thus, at a time when Germany was preparing to attack the Soviet Union, numerous bureaucrats in Lower Silesia were busy tracing the number of Aryans over the age of forty-five still earning their living in Jewish households. The chief of police of Breslau was the first to report and he regretted that it was “unfortunately” impossible to make the requested determination. Neither the police nor the Gestapo nor the Labor Office had any kind of information on the matter. All the Gestapo knew was that thirty-two Aryans were working for Jewish establishments such as cemeteries and foundations, or as nurses in the hospital. Some of these workers were in their sixties and one was seventy-six. The lord mayor of Breslau found it so difficult to come up with reliable information that he begged to be excused from submitting any list of Aryan employees at Jewish homes or establishments. The mayor of the city of Schweidnitz reported that no Jewish enterprises remained in the district under his authority, but he did locate three older ladies who occasionally worked in Jewish households for “negligible compensation.” However, since these women were too old to work in any other enterprises, the mayor thought it pointless to register them with the Labor Office. He still saw fit to advise them that “their work in Jewish households was undesirable and ran counter to healthy national sensitivities. They have therefore declared that they would give up their occasional employment.” 47 The mayor’s comment and the tiny number of Aryans in the employ of Jews suggest that in this campaign racial considerations figured at least as importantly as the concern about the shortage of labor. In any case, as the reports filtered into the office of the governing president, the pointlessness of the campaign became increasingly ap-

Tightening the Screws

parent. In Waldenburg only one Aryan worker could be located and so too in Frankenstein, and one of them worked only on Fridays. In Habelschwerdt there were three Aryan workers and one of them worked for a very ill seventy-seven-year-old woman; in Olbersdorf there was one, and in Reichenbach none. On June 28, 1941, the president of the Regional Labor Office reported that in all of Lower Silesia, 10 Aryan men and 409 Aryan women still worked for Jews. Two men and 126 Aryan women had recently been given other jobs, but it was difficult to move all of them to new positions. Some were simply too old, some were too sick, and some maintained their living quarters, including their furniture, in Jewish households.48 Two days later, the board president submitted a final report to Gauleiter Hanke summarizing the findings of the various inquiries in Lower Silesia. As an aside, he revealed that he had taken a decision on a special case that was not consistent with Nazi racial doctrine: in Reichenbach, Hermann Tietz, a Jew married to a “full Jewess” (Volljüdin), owned a factory that produced motor vehicles and employed six Aryans. In addition, Tietz was licensed to repair vehicles for the defense forces. “I am inclined in this case to the view that the preconditions do not exist for a different use of manpower and intend not to make any changes, unless I receive different instructions.” 49 “That there was any school instruction at all until 1942,” Ruth Röcher wrote in her study of Jewish education during the National Socialist period, “must be regarded as an extraordinary achievement of Jewish teachers and of the education department of the . . . Reich Association of Jews in Germany.” 50 Not only was Röcher right, the same could be said of other spheres of everyday life of the Jews of Breslau. Until late in 1940, the main Jewish school still functioned on Rehdigerstrasse, but the building was then seized by the Nazis and converted into a German youth house for use by the Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth Movement). The Nazis simply announced that they were taking over the premises and demanded that they be vacated and all the furniture removed in one day. Students were made to inventory the books and other possessions of the school and pack them up before their confiscation by the city’s education authorities.51

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Classes for Jewish children were shifted to the Hall of Friends (Freundesaal), which was still owned by the Jewish community and used by various clubs and lodges for meetings and social functions. The move required a major rearrangement of rooms, since in October 1941 the school still served 512 students in seventeen classes taught by twentyone teachers. The number of students was that large because there had been an influx of new arrivals from rural regions that could no longer support Jewish community organizations.52 According to one account, some children had to walk over half an hour to the new school, which consisted of two floors with large rooms divided into smaller classrooms. Behind the building was a small yard, where the children gathered during longer recesses and played games such as “Cops and Robbers.” But the outdoor activities did not last long because teachers feared that the students were easy targets for violent attacks. Instead, they were taken to play in some spaces at the Cosel Jewish Cemetery. During the summer, children still used the facilities at the Jewish swimming pool Kallenbach, situated on the Oder River, and during wintertime they occasionally skated on frozen ditches (Stadtgraben), even though they often came under attack by German children.53 In the spring of 1942, the Jewish school was closed, but somehow teachers continued to hand out assignments to students and also led groups of them to the Jewish cemetery on the Lohestrasse, where they cleaned the graves and paths. “It was beautiful work,” one participant recalled, “we were out in the open, no one bothered us, and while we were working teachers gave us some instruction.” On certain days, only English would be spoken and on others students would be quizzed in history or geography. However, they often found going to the cemetery unpleasant, since their yellow stars marked them as targets for stones thrown by hostile pedestrians.54 Despite all the obstacles and hardships, attendance at school from 1939 to 1942 was for the children “a very special experience,” Ken Arkwright (formerly Klaus Aufrichtig) recalled. “Friendships developed between students and teachers. I think that teachers not only imparted knowledge to us; they also wanted to restore a bit of our zest for life, and we wanted to study as much as possible before being subjected to forced labor and deportation.” 55 * * *

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The welfare system also continued to function. A Jewish Emergency Service provided help to the destitute, and especially to old, sick people who could no longer manage their affairs at home. The service recruited younger members of the community to lend a hand to the older ones when they were forced to change residences, and it administered a nursery for sixty-five children who had been driven out of two orphanages.56 In addition, the community ran three soup kitchens, one of which was strictly kosher, where free meals were served. In a directive to the staff of November 11, 1940, the administration emphasized that the concerns of the religiously observant must be respected and that every care must be taken to separate kosher dishes from nonkosher ones. The exact number of people who regularly took their meals at the kitchens is hard to determine, but we do know the monthly cost of operating them. In December 1940, the cost was 11,466 marks; by May 1941 it had gone up by almost 3,200 marks to 14,656 marks. Well over 1,000 people must have been served at least one hot meal a day. All the costs were borne by the Jewish community, and the outlays for meals amounted to only a part of the total expenditure, since many destitute people also received a monthly allowance for other expenses.57 The Jewish Hospital, too, went to extraordinary lengths to help those who needed medical care even though it was now very hard pressed. In July 1939, the hospital received an urgent and unusual message from the Reich Association in Berlin requesting that it admit a new patient, Mrs. Ella Zwillenberg, a resident of Königsberg, who suffered gravely from a heart ailment and was about to be left alone in Germany. Her husband, Erich, had received a visa for England and had been given to understand by the authorities that if he did not leave the country within two weeks he could face the most serious consequences. However, Ella, who was only forty-six years old, was too ill to accompany him. Erich had tried desperately to find a nursing home for her, but all the Jewish homes were filled to capacity. He then tried to place his wife temporarily in a hospital, and again could not find a bed for her. There were no other relatives who could take care of Ella; two sons of the Zwillenbergs had already emigrated and the third one, who was also ill, lived in a children’s home in Leipzig. The hospital committee in Breslau informed Berlin that under the circumstances it

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could not “assume the responsibility” of refusing to accept Zwillenberg despite the lack of facilities. The Jewish community of Königsberg agreed to cover the cost (135 marks a month), but after four months it complained that it could not carry the expense for very long. Ella Zwillenberg lived much longer than expected, and her upkeep was somehow covered by charitable institutions. In January 1941, she was transferred to a recently established old age home on Wallstrasse in Breslau. Her name appears on a document dated May 1941, when she was still alive, but no further records about her are known.58 Until October 1941, the Cultural Association continued to provide entertainment for the Jews of Breslau but with a sharply limited range of performances. For the most part, the fare consisted of movies and even these were shown only on Sundays during the day. The last concert was apparently given in September 1941.59 Jews could attend religious services at the Beate-Guttmann Home for the Aged, the Jewish Hospital, and the Rehdigerstrasse school (until late 1940), and in the room set aside for weekday services next to the large Storch Synagogue. It was in the latter facility that Hilde Neuberger, a relative of the Preiss family mentioned in the last chapter, took marriage vows on November 17, 1941. Even though the affair was a far cry from the elegant parties the family was accustomed to giving in earlier days, it was, as the seventysix-year-old Rosa Preiss related in a postcard to relatives, “very beautiful.” For the occasion, Hilde borrowed a wedding dress and the groom a dress-suit. Rabbi Lewin “spoke splendidly,” and the young couple “looked lovely.” The wedding party then walked to an apartment where the “table was beautifully set for 8 persons.” The young couple’s friends came later for a snack, “coffee and cake,” and joined in the dancing. Despite her own limited means, Mrs. Preiss gave the newlyweds thirty marks, various items, and shoes “that I bought for my departure. . . . Now I only have the dog left, I can’t part with Fuchse.” At eight o’clock “it was all over,” since Jews were not permitted in the streets beyond that hour. Mrs. Preiss ended her postcard with best wishes for the young couple, who planned to live in one room “at Lucy’s,” and with the hope “that we will always experience only festive occasions.” 60

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For some secular Jews, religion had become more important than ever in these troubled times, as is suggested in the recollections of Hermann Blumenthal. During Blumenthal’s last Passover in Breslau in 1941, a neighbor who normally took no interest in the event mildly berated him for not inviting her and her husband to his seder, a ritual observed on the first two days of the week-long holiday. When Blumenthal returned from services, the door to the neighbor’s apartment opened and after wishing him a pleasant holiday Mrs. Kaliski asked whether Blumenthal had held a seder the previous evening. “Why didn’t you invite us to it?” Somewhat embarrassed, Blumenthal replied that “My wife and I discussed this and came to the conclusion that you and your husband would not feel comfortable in our strictly traditional seder but would still out of politeness not refuse our invitation.” He then invited them to the second seder. It was a modest affair. The Blumenthals had enough matzo (unleavened bread) at least for the first few days, thanks to a shipment from Hungarian Jews. But they could not obtain kosher meat, the wine was a homemade brew, and the only authentic food was the maror, the bitter herb (horseradish). “The tears that both Kaliskis shed during the reading and discussion of the Hagadah [selection of biblical passages, rabbinic tales, and songs that tell the story of the Jewish exodus from Egypt] did not result from their eating of the maror.” The Blumenthals and Kaliskis became close friends, and after the Blumenthals left for the United States they managed to get a visa for the Kaliskis. But it was too late; the U.S. entry into the war prevented them from making the trip. “It was the Kaliskis’ last seder. And we will always remember this Passover of 1941 in Breslau.” 61

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Nazi planning for the expulsion of the Jews from Breslau, and thus the dissolution of the Jewish community, began shortly before Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941. As mentioned in the preceding chapter, on May 29 Gauleiter Hanke had announced his intention to purge Breslau of its remaining Jews. The first stage of the process took place early in July with the removal of the residents from the BeateGuttmann Home for the Aged, which was confiscated by the military and converted into a hospital. These elderly persons were the first ones to be shipped to Camp Zoar, at one time a home run by the Evangelical Brotherhood for retarded, epileptic, and generally unruly men and boys. Located in Tormersdorf, near Rothenburg, about seven kilometers north of Görlitz, it seemed to the Nazi authorities suitable as a place of residence, not only for older Jews but also for a sizable portion of the Jewish community, at least until a more permanent solution on how to deal with the Jewish question was decided upon. The Nazis changed the name of the camp to Martinshof because “Zoar” was Hebrew, the name of a city mentioned in the Old Testament. On July 26, 1941, the chief of police distributed a confidential memorandum on what he called the “Jew Residence Action in Breslau,” which spelled out how Jews would be “removed . . . serially” from their homes and deported to Camp Zoar, which, as it turned out, was actually a way station for those destined for other, more sinister, camps. The memorandum listed ten apartments with about fifty occupants that were to be vacated no later than 8 AM on July 31 for the second deportation to the camp. The Jews were told that the keys to their homes must be handed over to the superintendent of their building by that

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time, and each tenant must give the police a signed form that followed this model: “Residence Auenstrasse 15, occupant Kaiser, free of Jews and furniture, registration with police and delivery of key accomplished.” The deportees were to appear by 10 am “at the latest” in the yard of the police station, where after an inspection by the Gestapo, they would be handed over to the transport command that would handle the move to the camp. The cost of the transport, not only of the deportees but also of the furniture they would be allowed to take with them, would be borne by the Jews themselves.1 Not realizing that the action of July 26 marked the beginning of a new, draconian policy, the expulsion of virtually all Jews from Breslau, Jewish leaders sought legal redress. Georg Israel Kohn, speaking in the name of the Board of Governors of the Jewish Religious Association, formally protested the action on the grounds that it violated previous edicts and laws. On August 6, in one of a series of firm but politely worded letters to the lord mayor of Breslau, Kohn pointed out that according to Article 5 of the Realm Achievement Law of 1934 (Reichsleistungsgesetz), confiscations of dwellings were permissible only if “the most urgent needs for space . . . [of the persons deprived of their residence] can be satisfied.” That, Kohn stressed, was no longer the case, since the apartments currently occupied by Jews were so crowded that they could not accommodate anyone else. The lord mayor passed Kohn’s letter on to the president of the Governing Board, who rejected the protest with the argument that the “public notice” of August 30, 1939, made clear that in time of emergency the needs of the nation overrode all other considerations; hence the confiscation of Jewish apartments was legally justified. In any case, expulsions were not under his purview or that of the board president, a veiled reference to the fact that the order had been handed down by Gauleiter Hanke and his superiors in the Nazi Party.2 Not much is known about the deportations to Tormersdorf. After the initial shipment of the inmates of the nursing home and the second one on July 31, 1941, there was a third on August 16, of residents of thirty-one apartments, and a fourth, on September 6 of residents of thirty-two apartments. Jews from some other Silesian cities— Glogau, Görlitz, and Lauban—were also deported to Tormersdorf. The camp

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was placed under the overall authority of the Gestapo, which delegated the implementation of its directives to “elders” among the inmates. The best estimate is that between 550 and 600 people were sent to Tormersdorf in these deportations, though there may have been additional transports that raised the total number to 700.3 The shipments to Tormersdorf and subsequently to other camps were barbaric affairs. Groups of Jews ranging anywhere from 17 to 1,000, many of them elderly and sick, would be assembled either at the Schiesswerder (a city square) or on the premises of the Society of Friends. At the last moment before departure Gestapo agents would search the suitcases of the deportees and grab any item that struck their fancy. “Anyone who opposed . . . [them] received a brutal beating.” When one man was separated at the assembly point from his wife and young child, he “saw our little one . . . torn out of my wife’s hands and, together with other toddlers, thrown into a separate truck like a piece of coal.” One survivor, Mordekhai (Heinz) Masur, recalled that his group was forced to march from the Society of Friends to the railway station, where they were immediately loaded onto freight cars. “I saw Jews . . . whom the SS men beat with clubs as they herded them into the cars. About 100 people were crammed into one car.” Karol Jonca, who published accounts taken from testimony given at the trial of alleged Nazi war criminals at Bielefeld in 1966, pointedly notes that “the German residents of Breslau could not but notice the deportations of several thousand Jews from the city and several other towns in Lower Silesia.” 4 Conditions at the camp in Tormersdorf were primitive and generally dismal. “One could not open any windows [or] close doors, the toilets did not work, and one had to fetch water from the street.” There was not enough space either to divide the camp into separate rooms or to make use of the furniture brought from Breslau, much of which had to be stored in the chapel. Late in 1941, Ernesto and Charlotte Lindner, who had emigrated to La Paz, Bolivia, learned that their aging mother had been shipped to Tormersdorf, where she slept on a “wooden bunk on the second floor.” Beyond that, the space allotted to her sufficed for a chair and a night table, and “for this she still has to pay 125 marks every month.” 5

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Officials of the Jewish community in Breslau regarded the group in Tormersdorf as part of their “housing commune” (Wohngemeinschaft), as a sort of branch of the main community, and took measures to maintain their well-being in every possible way. They provided hospital services in Breslau for those who became seriously ill and went to the trouble of sending a barber, Joseph Friedland, to Tormersdorf to tend to the inmates’ personal grooming. A Breslau dentist, Dr. Heinz Rosenberg, lived in the camp and maintained a practice of sorts. Despite the gruesome conditions, people in Tormersdorf tried to create a new life for themselves with some semblance of normalcy. For the religiously observant, one room at the camp was set aside as a place of prayer. Those who were able would take walks in town, although they were limited to streets set aside for Jews; and they corresponded, via the Red Cross, with relatives and friends, but the letters were short and took from three to six months to reach their destinations in Latin America, the United States, and the Philippines. One such missive I have seen reads like a telegram, running to twenty-five words, and conveying little more than that “all are well.”6 At least one person who had held a high position in a Jewish institution continued some of his work while at Tormersdorf, and what he did throws further light on the meanness and greed of the bureaucracy under Nazism. Philipp Israel Levenbach, the administrator of the Jewish Hospital, maintained an active interest in the business affairs of Mrs. Olga Sara Aron, a woman in her seventies who lived in a nursing home. In the spring of 1939, when her son, Dr. Ernst Israel Aron, was about to emigrate, he asked Levenbach to handle his mother’s finances and for that purpose left 2,000 marks in a bank account, to be used for her expenses. But the Finance Office refused to unblock the account, claiming that Ernst had never been issued a certificate that he had paid all his taxes (Unbedenklichkeitsbescheinigung). The negotiations over the account dragged on for over a year without resolution, at which point Levenbach tried to sell some of Mrs. Aron’s other assets, but the authorities refused to grant permission for that, too. On January 4, 1942, Levenbach, by this time a resident of Tormersdorf, made further efforts to sell her assets, again without success, even though she no longer had sufficient funds for her upkeep at the nursing home. The

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final outcome of the negotiations is not known. Neither Levenbach nor Mrs. Aron survived the war.7 All the Jews who died in Tormersdorf except one were buried in a plot of land that belonged to the estate of H. von Martin, but the Nazis did not allow any gravestones to mark these resting places. When Georg Hirschberg, formerly principal of a country school (Landschule) in Breslau, died, the Nazi authorities allowed him to be buried next to his wife in the Jewish cemetery on Lohe Street in Breslau. One resident of Tormersdorf, Bella Carlebach-Rosenak, was fortunate enough to receive a visa to the United States, where she lived from 1941 to 1957.8 The remaining inmates were transported to Theresienstadt in two groups, on July 27 and August 31, 1942. Of the first group, two were freed in 1945, and of the second group, four survived.9 As soon as an inmate at Tormersdorf died, Gestapo officials in Breslau informed the senior president of the Office of Finance that the deceased’s assets had been “secured for the purpose of confiscation for the benefit of the Reich.” The sums ranged from 29 to 3,150 marks, and in one report an official indicated that three suitcases of clothing were also to be “secured.” 10 To find additional living space for Jews from Breslau, the Nazi authorities looked to Riebnig (now Rybna), a small village with a population of 366 in 1933 and 413 in 2004. Riebnig was located in the rural district of Brieg, some twenty-five miles southeast of Breslau, which in 1933 had given close to 60 percent of its votes to the Nazis. It is therefore surprising that the senior government inspector in Brieg voiced strong humanitarian opposition to the plan to bring four to five hundred Jews to the district, but it may be that he simply did not want any Jews in his region. “I . . . pointed out,” the inspector wrote about an official meeting he attended on August 29, “that the accommodation of Jews in the community of Riebnig and in the rural district is absolutely undesirable, and that I very much regret this for Riebnig itself and for the surrounding neighborhood. It was then pointed out that this [evacuation to Riebnig] is the explicit desire of the Gauleiter [Hanke].” The plan was to settle the Jews in a building situated on a tract of land that belonged to the Forest Office (Forstfiskus), which had agreed to make the space available to the city of Breslau, which, in turn,

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would make the necessary renovations. The inspector was not cowed and insisted that the building was unsuitable for habitation because it lacked cooking and heating facilities and plumbing. “With regard to sanitation,” he said, “it is urgently necessary to establish a purification plant,” and he advised that the state Health Department should be consulted on what other sanitary facilities were needed. The mayor of Riebnig supported the inspector by pointing out that the shops in the area were too small to supply the camp with adequate amounts of food and that the local government could not provide medical services or facilities for the burial of Jews who died. Nevertheless, Gauleiter Hanke disregarded the objections and ordered the transfer of Jews to begin in mid-September 1941, about two weeks after all these difficulties were pointed out. The Gestapo was to handle the arrangements.11 But local officials continued to argue against the establishment of a camp for Jews in Riebnig and warned the lord mayor of Breslau that in view of the limited shopping in Riebnig a “Jew Elder” would have to be authorized to visit other towns in the area to make the necessary purchases. It is not known how extensive the renovations were, but some were finally made and the deportation was carried out, though postponed until late October.12 Less is known about conditions in Riebnig than in Tormersdorf and even less about those in a third camp, which was established in Grüssau. We do know that about 500 Jews from Breslau, and roughly 1,500 from other parts of Silesia, were sent to Riebnig, most of them very old or very young, and that the camp lasted for about seventeen months, until March 20, 1943, by which time all the inmates had been shipped east for extermination.13 Some information about the camp at Riebnig can be gleaned from an anonymous, hand-written letter composed on April 3, 1943, and signed “Eure Muttel” (Your Mother) that somehow made its way to the archives of Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. The address of the author is given simply as “Breslau” but from internal evidence it is almost certain that the letter was actually written in Theresienstadt, which is consistent with our knowledge that some of the residents at Riebnig were shipped to that camp. The author—let us call her W—addressed the letter to her two sons, “My beloved, lovely boys,” who, it would seem, had emigrated

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(perhaps to Palestine?). W told her sons that of their seventeen closest relatives she was the only one still alive. She had been shipped to Riebnig from Breslau on October 21, 1942, and stayed there for five months. Obviously determined not to alarm her sons about her plight, she described her stay in Riebnig in surprisingly positive terms. “It was very beautiful, we were all very busy. For example, I spent four hours a day peeling potatoes, [and] in the afternoon I volunteered to repair sacks or to strip quills (Sackeflicken oder Federschleissen).” She also had time for “wonderful walks in the woods,” sometimes for three or four hours. She complained about her deteriorating eyesight but devoted more space to the illnesses of family members and friends. Then, in a change of tone, she acknowledged that she could not get herself to write in detail about Nazi atrocities. “Dearest boys, I cannot write about this; my heart is bleeding. . . . I do not believe that I will survive.” She hoped to see them again, in which case they would never have to read this letter. She ended with an expression of gratitude for having two such wonderful sons. “You, my lovely little Kurt and you, my sweet little Walter, I thank you for your love and kindness. May the Almighty keep you healthy and strong, you, your wives, and your children. And if we, God forbid, do not remain alive, do not lament and do not despair; we had to suffer the fate of millions of our coreligionists.”14 There is no information on what happened to W and we can assume that she did not survive the war. * * Several months after I had written this account, Yoram Epstein, a physiologist in Tel Aviv, sent me an email with interesting information on the provenance of W’s letter. The letter, it turns out, was written to his father, Kurt, and his uncle, Walter. Kurt, an assistant medical director (Oberarzt) at the Jewish Hospital in Breslau, had been arrested at the time of Kristallnacht, spent six weeks in the Buchenwald concentration camp, and was released on condition that he leave Germany immediately. He tried to get a visa to the United States and to several other countries for himself, his wife, and two-year-old child, as well as his mother, but all his efforts failed. Walter obtained a certificate for Palestine and left Breslau in the summer of 1939, and toward the end of July, Kurt finally managed to obtain a visa for a temporary stay in England; he left on the assumption that his wife and daughter would follow him shortly, but the outbreak of war made that impossible. Kurt spent two years in an internment camp in Tatura, Australia, before moving to Palestine. After the war, he learned that on November 24, 1941, his wife and daughter had been shipped to Kovno, where the Nazis murdered them five days later. Kurt’s

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The camp in the village of Grüssau, District of Landeshut (now Kamienna Gora) in Silesia, was established in a Cistercian monastery. Altogether, about 960 Jews, most of them from Breslau, lived there until their deportation to the east. With one exception, the few documents relating to Grüssau reveal very little about conditions at the camp. The exception is a memorandum, dated January 23, 1942, by the head of the District of Landeshut to the senior financial president in Breslau regretting the decision of the Gestapo in Breslau not to permit eight Jewish shoemakers in Grüssau to establish a small shoe factory. The district head enthusiastically favored such an enterprise in his region, partly to improve the local economy and probably also to enrich himself. He offered to buy the equipment seized from the Breslau shoe factory of Schindler and Jakubowicz and promised to place orders with the new business. Eight months after making this offer he had still not received permission and pleaded with the senior financial president “finally to respond to my request.” 15 It is plausible to assume that the Gestapo failed to act because it knew that the Jewish presence in Grüssau would soon end. Each report of an impending deportation spread quickly within the Jewish community, and on Saturday, October 18, 1941, there was “great lamentation” when it became known that an additional 200 Jews would have to vacate their apartments within a month and that they would be shipped to Riebnig. And yet among the 200 there were some who thought they might actually be “clever” in leaving, no doubt because they knew that Jews shipped elsewhere faced a worse fate. The diarist who reported on this reaction to the news thought that “in general, it is amazing how Jews bear everything.” 16 One of the few documents to have survived from the period of deportation bears out this observation. On April 29, 1942, Leopold Schifmother, Martha Epstein (born in Myslowitz in 1870), was sent first to Riebnig and then, on March 30, 1943, to Theresienstadt, where she died on October 15, 1943. Yoram Epstein does not know how his grandmother’s letter reached his father. I would assume that Martha left it with friends in Theresienstadt with instructions that if they survived the war they were to send it to her sons in Palestine. Email from Yoram Epstein, May 24, 2006.

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tan, a fifty-four-year-old innkeeper who had moved to Breslau in 1937, sent a postcard with a stamp featuring Hitler to his nephew, Gerhard Koschik (Koszyk) at 27 Hitlerstrasse in Ru˘ da near Kattowitz, in which he openly described his plight. Employees at the post office, perhaps because they felt reassured by the two tributes to the Führer, did not bother to censor it. Leopold told his nephew that he was “already in captivity” in his apartment, which he had been ordered not to leave. The next day he was to appear at Schiesswerder Square, one of the assembly points for Jews about to be deported, and he indicated that he knew full well what was in store for him. Leopold thanked Gerhard for his well-intentioned expression of solace, but he refused to engage in self-pity. “What happens to me,” he wrote, is, after all, not so important. Why should I be better off than Frieda, Minna [two of his sisters who had been sent to Kovno in November 1941] and the darling little children [also sent to Kovno]? It is simply our fate. Don’t grieve too much for me, for if it is at all possible I will try to save myself. If this is not possible, then. . . .

In a postscript, Leopold added that he would try to write again. “Perhaps you will then be able somehow to be of use to me.” On May 3, he was shipped to the transit ghetto in Izbica in the Lublin district of Poland, and some time later to the extermination camp at either Sobibor or Belzec. He did not survive.17 At the early stages of the deportations in 1941, many younger people were permitted to stay in Breslau, where they could be employed in industries necessary for the war effort. But this reprieve did not last long. On November 24, 1941, 1,000 Jews without regard to age were arrested in Breslau and sent to Kovno (now Kaunas, Lithuania), where an SS squad under Colonel Dr. Jaeger forced them to dig graves and undress before shooting them. Four and a half months later, on May 3, 1942, a group of Jews from Breslau as well as from several other parts of Lower Silesia were arrested, this time to be sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Slightly more than 2,900 Breslau Jews were sent to Theresienstadt, a camp widely regarded at the time as less oppressive than the others, although we now know that many of the inmates were eventually sent to Auschwitz, where they were gassed. These deportations began on

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July 27, 1942, and the last one, of only one person, took place on November 8, 1944. Twenty-four of the Breslau Jews sent to Theresienstadt survived the war.18 In addition, on March 5, 1943, 1,405 Jews were sent from Breslau to Auschwitz, of whom 809 were immediately gassed and the remaining 596 sent to work. That date, March 5, can be said to mark the end of the Jewish community of Breslau because it was now too small to function as an organized group. According to the best estimates, after mid-June 1943, not more than about 250 Jews remained in the city. By then Georg I. Kohn, a leading member of the last Board of Governors, had been deported, and the school had been closed in the spring of 1942, an important sign that community life had all but ceased. For Germany as a whole, June 10, 1943, is widely considered to mark the end of Jewish life. That day the Gestapo entered the Berlin Jewish Community Office and formally declared the dissolution of the Jewish Religious Community. Employees of the community, with the exception of those married to Aryans, were taken into custody; they were deported to Theresienstadt on June 16. Five hundred Jews (300 of them very ill) out of a prewar total of 160,000 were left, a small enough number to enable the Nazis to declare the capital as Judenrein. In Breslau, only 160 people who considered themselves Jewish were alive when the war ended.19 The Gestapo, which administered the deportations and supervised the work of the Board of Governors of the Jewish community, made certain that every Jew sent out of the city made the proper payments to cover the expenses of the move. The Nazis not only wanted to avoid the expense of resettlement; they also wanted to drive home to the Jews that they alone bore responsibility for their fate. On July 20, 1942, for example, the Gestapo directed the Bank E. Heimann to transfer funds from the accounts of 107 people who had been relocated to one of the camps to the account of the Synagogue Community at the Deutsche Bank in Breslau, which was controlled by the police. The amounts ranged from one to thirty-five marks and were used to pay the cost of maintaining the inmates at Tormersdorf, Riebnig, and Grüssau.20 Similarly, in what appears to have been the last major deportation, this one to Theresienstadt on March 16, 1943, the Gestapo asked the Bank Heinz, Tecklenburg & Co. to send to the Deutsche Bank in Breslau

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funds to cover the expenses for the transportation of twenty-two people at a cost of 120 marks per person and for the upkeep of each person, the amounts ranging from 2 marks to slightly over 600 marks.21 The audacity and thoroughness of Nazi plundering of Jewish belongings at the time of the deportations are shocking. Not only did the Nazis confiscate furniture, dishes, cutlery, and the remaining jewelry; they also forced the Jews, when they appeared for deportation at one of the three “collection locations” (the courtyard of the synagogue on Wall Street, the Freundesaal on Sadowa Street, or the Schiesswerder Square) to submit lists, in triplicate, of all the personal items they were surrendering. In the Warsaw archives of the Jewish community there is a box filled with 626 declarations of such items; three examples will suffice to indicate the kind of possessions the deportees handed over to the authorities. Leo Israel Ascher (not a relative of mine) submitted the following statement: “I have surrendered to the Collection Place: 2 sleeping blankets, 1 muff, 2 fur collars. The above mentioned items were delivered today. Breslau, 15. January, 1942.” Dr. Joseph Israel Bach signed a similar declaration: “I have delivered to the appropriate Collection Place: 1 man’s fur, 1 ladies’ coat with fur collar, 2 fur hats, 1 pair of sport socks; 3 pairs of socks, 2 pairs of gloves.” Julia Sara Bendix relinquished “1 fur coat (black), 1 fur hat (likewise); 1 pair of skis with binding and sticks; 1 pair of ski shoes (size 40); 1 ladies’ sweater; 2 ladies’ cardigan sweaters; 2 pairs panties; 1 pair woollen mittens; 2 woollen scarves; 1 pair woollen lady’s stockings; 1 woollen blanket.” 22 One can only speculate on the grief and humiliation endured by people having to surrender their most personal possessions. All these seizures of Jewish belongings were technically legal confiscations in the sense that the law of the state sanctioned them. But occasionally there were also illegal seizures that occurred in the following way. On the day that deportees were scheduled to leave their apartments, officials appeared to evaluate the items left behind, and as soon as they had completed their work, they locked the door and placed an official seal on it. Civilians with suitcases would appear the same evening, open the seal, fill their suitcases with items left behind, place a new seal on the door, and depart. Dr. Siegmund Hadda saw two such instances of robbery in the area where he lived.23

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Hadda also had a more personal encounter with official corruption. In the fall of 1942, a Gestapo agent conducted a search of Hadda’s house and found a small collection of old coins that Jews had been ordered to surrender along with their radios, cameras, etc. “What shall I do, Herr Doctor?” the agent asked. “I should report this discovery, but then you will land in a concentration camp.” Quick-wittedly, Hadda suggested that the agent put the coins in his pocket and then throw them into the river. The agent agreed and no doubt kept them; whenever he ran into Hadda at the hospital, which happened often, “he was never uncivil.” 24 For its part, the staff of the Office of the President of Finance of Lower Silesia was meticulous in filling out a form for each person who was deported and whose assets were confiscated. In most cases, the legal justification for the seizures was based on one or all of the three following measures: the law of May 26, 1933, authorizing the government to seize “Communist assets”; the law of July 14, 1933, authorizing the seizure of “assets belonging to enemies of the people and the state”; and a decree of the Führer and Reichskanzler of May 31, 1933, on the “use of the confiscated assets of enemies of the state.” Often, only Hitler’s directive appeared on the form together with the name of the Jew, his or her date of birth and address, and the title of the official who had ordered the action “for the benefit of the German state.” It was a stunningly simple form that made the entire process straightforward and gave not a hint of the true purpose of the deportations or the anguish they caused.25 There is no question that the Nazi leadership conceived of the Jewish assets as legitimate loot, although they did not use the word. Indeed, as already noted, on several occasions party officials stressed the importance of having Jewish wealth distributed as widely as possible among the population, which was a way of implicating large numbers of people in the confiscations. In the spring of 1942, the Party Chancellery, the central organ of decision-making and administration, took up a new, related issue: how to guarantee that soldiers at the front would not be deprived of a share of Jewish wealth. The chancellery was under the direction of the deputy leader of the party, Martin Bormann, who was generally regarded as the second most powerful man after

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Hitler. That the question had reached so high a level of the party structure indicated that it had become a matter of deep concern. The chancellery, with the approval of the minister of finance, decided to direct the minister of economics to stop the distribution of Jewish properties to private persons. “The purpose is to avoid a situation under whichVolksgenossen living at home have the possibility of acquiring properties while participants in the war are unable adequately to protect their private interests.” The chancellery also recommended that auctions of Jewish properties be halted until the end of the war. Only through the adoption of these measures would it be possible to “protect the interests of the soldiers at the front.” 26 In keeping with these directives from the Party Chancellery, Gauleiter Hanke in midMay 1942 informed the president of the Governing Board that, henceforth, properties taken from “enemies of the state” were to be “on principle sold only to soldiers wounded in the war or their surviving dependents” so as to “forestall” having other Volksgenossen benefit from “war profits” (Kriegsgewinne) while the troops were risking their lives at the front. Hanke also stipulated that these rules were to apply to assets of Jews “who had not yet been declared enemies of the Reich” or whose holdings were still under the administration of a trustee.27 As Hitler had warned in 1939, once war broke out the persecution of the Jews would be intensified and viewed as part of the war against the enemies of the state. This was the ideological premise underlying the Nazi claim that Jewish assets were a legitimate source for the enrichment of individual Germans, civilians as well as soldiers. * * * How did the non-Jewish population in Breslau react to the plight of the Jews? After all, only a decade earlier the Jews were, at the very least, an accepted and, in some influential circles, even a respected minority. After the Second World War, many Germans claimed not to have been aware of the fate of the Jews, a claim that is hard to accept. Certainly, most people in a city such as Breslau must have noticed, or heard about, the destruction of the synagogues, the looting of Jewish shops, the yellow star that Jews were required to wear, the expulsion of Jews from their apartments, and, finally, their deportation, which involved the assembling of hundreds of people in three public spaces and their

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dispatch to the railroad station. To be sure, the mass murder of Jews took place far from Germany, in Poland and further east, but even news of these atrocities trickled back to Germany and became rather widely known. Omer Bartov has shown that soldiers on the eastern front often sent letters to their relatives in which they mentioned the horrors they had witnessed, and others related their experiences when they were on furlough in Germany.28 We also know that word of especially barbaric atrocities was passed on to Jews in Breslau by non-Jews. For example, in mid-July 1941, Professor Hermann Hoffmann, a Catholic scholar who had published a fine work on the Jesuits in Schweidnitz, revealed to Willy Cohn that he had heard that 12,000 Jews, all innocent civilians, had recently been shot dead in Lemberg (L’viv).29 A leading figure in the Catholic hierarchy, Adolf Johannes Cardinal Bertram of Breslau, had come into detailed knowledge of Nazi brutalities about two years before the war ended. In August 1943, he received a long letter from an anonymous person (a man, according to the archivist) describing in considerable detail the agonies of the Jews. Why the author of the letter chose to send it to Cardinal Bertram is not known. Perhaps he did so simply because he believed that a man of the Church would be morally moved by his account. It is also possible that the writer—let us call him Y—was familiar with the cardinal’s record, which suggested that he had reservations about Nazi policies and had even expressed some of them. Actually, Bertram’s record was quite mixed, but he had shown a measure of courage in protesting certain Nazi policies. Born in 1859, Bertram had risen steadily through the Church hierarchy, having been appointed archbishop of Breslau in 1916 and promoted to cardinal shortly thereafter. A respected figure in the Church, he occupied various influential posts and from 1920 to 1945 served as chairman of the Fulda Conference of Catholic Bishops, one of the most prestigious positions in German Catholicism. For some thirteen years beginning in 1930, Bertram issued a series of statements that alternated between courageous, if cautious, criticisms of some Nazi policies and restrained praise of others. In 1930, he delivered a rebuke to the Nazis by criticizing extreme nationalism and the “glorification of the Nordic race,” and in 1933 he voiced unease over the Nazi penchant for terroriz-

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ing and intimidating potential or actual political opponents. But by March 1933, Cardinal Bertram seems to have had a change of heart. He now favored a more indulgent attitude toward the Nazis and suggested that the ban on Catholic membership in the Nazi Party be lifted. Yet he continued to reject many of the Nazis’ doctrines and policies. He did not approve of their laws on sterilization or the euthanasia program directed at the mentally ill. Although Bertram did not protest the treatment of Jews, at various times he did show concern for converts from Judaism, whom the Nazis considered to be Jews racially and whom they also persecuted. “The German Catholics, indeed numerous Christians in Germany,” Bertram warned, “would be deeply hurt if these fellow Christians now would have to meet a fate similar to that of the Jews.” As for the Jews themselves, he made clear that he did not underestimate “the harmful Jewish influences upon German culture and national interests.” 30 In March 1933, as noted earlier, he refused to speak out against the boycott of Jewish businesses. The letter on atrocities against the Jews that reached Cardinal Bertram in the summer of 1943 is a remarkable document. Y was almost certainly a Polish Jew and he was highly intelligent, well educated, and very well informed. His letter to the cardinal is probably the first comprehensive account of the early phases of what the Nazis called the “final solution of the Jewish question.” I have checked several of his claims in the best secondary literature on the Holocaust and found no serious mistakes. We do not know how Y obtained his information; he may have managed to go underground and either travel incognito to various Polish towns or somehow maintain contact with knowledgeable people in those towns. Y began by telling Bertram that his purpose in writing was to enlighten him and his colleagues in the Church, many of whom were scheduled to meet soon at a conference, about the crimes that the “German people” had perpetrated over the past four years against the Jews. “Since I am a Jew I want to limit myself,” he wrote, to atrocities inflicted upon his own people, and before going into specifics he made the general statement that so far “4,000,000 four million Jews [sic] have been murdered. . . . Are you aware of this?” Y assured Bertram that he

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would present only the “naked truth” and added: “I swear by God the Almighty that what I have set down here on paper rests on pure truth.” Y then listed several towns and cities where massacres had occurred: in Sosnowiec (Upper Silesia), 150 Jews were killed in one action; in Mielee, 100; in Dynov, 700. After the occupation of western parts of Poland in 1939, the Nazis initiated a period during which they “did everything according to law.” The first law stipulated the “confiscation of assets, and with that began the looting.” As in Breslau, Jews were driven out of their dwellings in Poland to make room for Germans, the invaders; in some localities, ten Jews were forced to live in a single room. Y described the roundup in one city of all the Jews in one public place where they were separated into two groups, children and old, sick people on one side, and the young men on the other. The first group was then led out of the city to a mass grave that had been dug by Polish workers. The Jews were forced to undress and lie down in the grave, whereupon the shooting began. In one day, the Germans exterminated 8,000 people in this “action” alone. After several more accounts of such brutalities, Y ended his letter with the following words: “May God Almighty not permit this [German] nation to remain unpunished. I am firmly convinced that the punishment will come. The Jewish people who gave the world the Revelation will survive in spite of the intended ruin. The German people who gave birth to a devil will perish through him.” The letter was signed in Hebrew: “Achad Ha’am” (One of the People).31 We do not know whether Cardinal Bertram was moved by the letter or whether he shared it with his associates. We do know that he did not issue a protest and did not make the letter public.

Four Portraits Four Jewish citizens of Breslau who lived in the city during the period covered in this book have left fascinating records of their experiences: Willy Cohn, teacher, scholar, and public intellectual, who kept a diary, only one part of which has been published, that reveals much about his

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own anxieties and hopes, and those of many other Jews, during one critical year, 1941; 32 Siegmund Hadda, an outstanding physician who more than anyone else deserves credit for keeping the Jewish Hospital functioning until 1943; Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, an accomplished young cellist whose survival borders on the miraculous; and Karla Wolf, offspring of a mixed marriage, who chose to cast her lot with the Jewish community, and was one of the few Jews able to remain in Breslau throughout the war and even for a few months afterward and therefore to shed light on otherwise obscure events. Willy Cohn perished in Kovno (Kaunas) late in 1941, but the others survived, left Germany, and pursued their careers and interests in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Israel, where they have led productive lives. The recollections of each one—in Cohn’s case, his diary—not only add to our understanding of how the Jews of Breslau coped with adversity, but also deepen our understanding of how the non-Jews—a much better word than “Aryans”— of Breslau viewed the persecution of their fellow residents. The behavior of the non-Jews cannot be reduced simply to whether they were for or against the Jews. There were gradations in between, which is one of the complexities of life in Nazi Germany that emerges with special force from the personal histories of these four residents of Breslau.

Willy Cohn Willy Cohn was born in Breslau in 1888 into a well-to-do family that owned a successful business selling gold and silver lace. Cohn attended the acclaimed Johannesgymnasium and after passing the Abitur examination studied first at the University of Heidelberg and then at the University of Breslau. In 1911 he was awarded a doctorate in history and Germanistics, having written a dissertation on the Norman-Sicilian fleet, which is regarded as an impressive work of scholarship. He passed the state examination that qualified him as a “trainee teacher,” but in 1914, before he could proceed very far in his quest for employment as a historian, he was drafted by the army in which he served for the duration of the war. A committed patriot, Cohn took pride in his military career, but it was also during the war years that he became conscious of

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his Jewish heritage. Although not strictly Orthodox, he was a believer and regularly attended religious services. But he followed the tradition of Orthodox Jews in one respect; he never wrote out the word “Gott,” using instead the abbreviated form “G’tt.” He also became a strong supporter of Zionism.33 Despite his misgivings about many aspects of the Nuremberg racial laws of 1935, he “strongly greeted” the prohibition against mixed marriage “from a Jewish standpoint.” 34 In 1922, Cohn began to teach at the Johannesgymnasium, where, by every account, he was liked and respected by his students. Cohn published several scholarly works and hoped for an appointment at the University of Breslau. When a position opened up in 1930, he thought that he might have been selected “had I not been a Jew and had I not carried the name Cohn.” 35 As it was, he was dismissed from the Johannesgymnasium in 1933 because he carried two burdens: he was Jewish and a Social Democrat. He now began to teach part-time at the Jewish Theological Seminary and continued his scholarly research, increasingly focusing on Jewish themes. Despite his dismissal from the state gymnasium, he continued to receive his pension, which was not a paltry sum and which enabled him to live in relative comfort during the difficult years after Kristallnacht. In 1937, he visited Palestine, where his older son now lived, having hurriedly left Breslau after receiving death threats in 1934. On his return to Breslau, Cohn gave a series of lectures on Palestine in which he spoke highly of the country as a haven for Jews, but, much to the regret of his older daughter who had also emigrated there, he himself did not make the move. Apparently, he considered such a move as “desertion” in the face of the enemy.36 In this he may have been influenced by the conduct of one of his heroes, Rabbi Leo Baeck of Berlin, who refused to abandon the Jewish community and remained in Germany (finally in Theresienstadt) until the end of the war. In 1941, Cohn seems to have changed his mind: he was delighted to learn that the Palestine Office (Palestinaamt) had decided to give him a certificate of entry from a neutral country. This award was in recognition of his services to Zionism, but now he could not get out of Germany.37 From early in the twentieth century until November 17, 1941, Cohn kept a diary that filled 112 notebooks, all of which survived as a result of his foresight. He sent the notebooks to a couple in Berlin who were

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distant relatives and, because they were in a “racially mixed” marriage, had a much better chance than he to survive Nazism. After the war, the couple’s son, who had moved to Great Britain and had served in the army, returned to Berlin and found his parents, who gave him the 112 notebooks. The son made contact with Cohn’s children in Israel, and they deposited the diary at the Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People at the Hebrew University. In 1971, a volume of diary entries covering the ten months from January 1 to November 17, 1941, a critical period in the decline of Breslau’s Jewry, was published in a limited run. Widely and favorably reviewed, it was corrected and reissued by Joseph Walk in 1984, and this is the version I used for Cohn’s personal story.38 Cohn’s mood alternated sharply between optimism and pessimism, hope and despair. Although his comments were generally quite brief, his knowledge of current affairs was surprisingly extensive and his judgments uncannily accurate. He was not allowed to listen to the radio or read newspapers, but he clearly did both. He had access to newspapers at the barber shop, but that stopped on May 16, 1941, when his barber, an old man and a “convinced Nazi,” told him that he had been summoned to the office of the local party organization and warned against continuing to “shave a Jew.” He was distressed by the Nazi directive since Cohn had been his customer for seven years; he went out of his way to recommend another barber. “I felt sorry for the old man,” Cohn wrote. “Now he will see for himself where the roguishness leads.” 39 But Cohn also received information from non-Jewish acquaintances, some of whom were only too eager to talk. Whatever his sources, Cohn knew about the Italian defeats in Abyssinia, English advances in Libya (both in January 1941), the German invasions of Yugoslavia and Greece in the spring of 1941, and the progress the Germans were making in the war against the Soviet Union.40 And he was extremely well-informed about Nazi atrocities against the Jews: on August 3, he noted that “from the reports about the East it is evident how much the fury [of the Nazis] is being directed at the Jews. In Bialystok especially it appears that they [the Nazis] have given vent in a terrible way [to their anger], [and] in Czernowitz the synagogue has also been burned to the ground.” 41 What is noteworthy about these comments

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is that already at the time Cohn sensed the link between the Nazi invasion of Russia and the massacres of Jews, a point that is stressed by historians of the Holocaust, and one to which I will return.42 Not surprisingly, news about Nazi attacks on Jews or new restrictions on them in Breslau traveled fast and was duly recorded by Cohn. On the night of August 28, 1941, at 11:30 PM, a mob of Hitler youth attacked the Jewish community building because the janitor had allegedly thrown a flower pot into the street. The rampaging Nazis smashed the windows of the janitor’s apartment and left. “Naturally, the sick and the children [housed in the building] were terrorized. The brutalities constantly continue.” 43 Food shortages were endemic by 1941, but they were a special hardship for Jews, who were permitted to shop only between the hours of 11 AM and 1 PM and who were not allowed to buy vegetables other than potatoes. By October, the Cohns obtained food by barter; for example, they exchanged a small cupboard for food.44 The hardships and indignities pained Cohn deeply, but he refused to cave in and frequently urged his coreligionists not to. When in September the Nazis forced Jews to wear the yellow star, he wrote, defiantly, that “we will not permit this to humiliate us, even if life becomes ever more difficult. One will nevertheless have to try to maintain one’s equilibrium.” He was determined to prove that he was not a coward. On the first day the order took effect, he put the star on his chest and ran all the way to the Storch Synagogue. People in the street behaved “splendidly [and] I was not molested at all; one had the impression that people were embarrassed [by the star].” 45 Cohn was also pleased by the dignified way the Jews were responding to the latest restriction, “even though there are some cowards.” 46 Throughout the first eight months or so of 1941, Cohn retained the hope that somehow the Jewish community of Breslau, or at least a significant portion of it, would survive the Nazi regime, which he believed to be militarily doomed. In January that year, when a Miss Passia informed him that many Jews had told her that they expected to be deported, Cohn responded that “the Jews make life much more difficult by thinking of such things,” though he immediately added that “it is really amazing that most people have held out for so long.” Cohn was probably sustained in his cautious optimism by information he had re-

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ceived during a meeting on August 15 in Breslau with Rabbi Leo Baeck. Baeck admitted that the Reich Association of Jews in Germany had very limited funds to distribute to local communities, in part because the Gestapo allowed it to spend only a specific amount each month. But there was another consideration: the organization wanted to save as much money as possible for the period immediately after the defeat of Nazism, when Jews would want to emigrate and would then need financial support.47 Somehow, Cohn continued to lead an active, even if not exactly normal, life, and in this regard his conduct was emblematic of the Breslau Jews’ determination to persevere. He devoted several hours a week to administering the Jewish archive, but he spent most of his working day on his research projects. He published numerous articles and by the end of 1941 his output totaled over 500 publications. True, a fair number were newspaper articles or short biographical sketches of leading socialists (Lassalle, Marx, Engels, and others), but many dealt with weighty subjects—most notably a series on Jewish communities during the Middle Ages—that required extensive archival research. On one day, October 20, he put the finishing touches to five articles for Germania Judaica, a multi-volume history of the Jews in Germanspeaking lands that continued to be published even under the Nazi regime and was considered the standard work in the field. For Cohn, it was clearly a great honor to contribute to this project. “For this,” he had written on January 28, 1941, “I will do my duty till the last moment.” Cohn also received a request to contribute an article to the Archiv für Schlesische Kirchengeschichte, a rather bold initiative by the editor. Cohn received honoraria for these writings, which eased his financial worries considerably. In fact, on June 9 he noted, sarcastically, that “early today I paid a quite respectable sum as income tax at the Revenue Office! At that place there was no sign: ‘Jews not served here.’” 48 Scholarly research and writing gave Cohn much pleasure in and of themselves, but he also enjoyed the contacts with non-Jewish scholars, archivists, and librarians. Cohn described these in some detail and his accounts make for interesting reading because they give a nuanced picture of Breslau’s educated class. Cohn did not play down the horrors of

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Nazism, but at the same time he referred frequently to the acts of friendship and decency by Germans. In one Catholic archive, he noted, “Mother [Mater] Innocentia is always amazed that despite everything I can concentrate on work.” 49 Other people at libraries gave him much-needed food: a pound of lentils from Mrs. Jilek; apples, oranges, and eggs on various occasions from the janitor of the Cathedral Library; two packages of powdered pudding from Mr. Hanke, an old acquaintance with whom Cohn regularly exchanged stamps.50 One afternoon, shortly after his nap, the bell to Cohn’s apartment rang, and when he opened it he saw an “unknown Aryan.” This was so unusual that Cohn was at a loss for words. The young man introduced himself as Richard Halm, a former student of Cohn’s at the gymnasium. Halm said that he had learned a great deal in the class years ago and now, as a farmer, he was pleased to bring him a gift of half a pound of butter. “A great act of loyalty after nine years!” Cohn wrote in his diary: “I was very moved.” Halm remained in the apartment for about an hour, telling Cohn that the conditions of farmers were dire and that he considered Germany’s situation in the war to be hopeless.51 Halm’s visit and words amounted to more than minor indiscretions. Goebbels, Cohn pointed out in his diary, had warned that “whoever speaks to a Jew will be treated like a Jew.” 52 Among the public at large, Cohn encountered only a few overt incidents of anti-Semitism. Once, when he was on a streetcar he heard a woman make the following comment about Jews: “Truly a murderous people; the time will come when we will not see any of them any more.” On another occasion, when he was walking on the street with a Jewish woman, a pedestrian remarked, “These damn Jews.” The first and only time his wife was insulted was on November 11, 1941. “In general,” Cohn concluded, “the behavior of the public is correct.” 53 Although Cohn admired the overall behavior of his fellow Jews, he did not hesitate to criticize them for what he perceived to be misconduct. Early in February 1941, he was distressed to learn that several Jews had been imprisoned for having engaged in illicit trade in butter. “I have always opposed such things; one must obey the state’s laws whether one likes them or not.” Late in April, he was even more incensed when he learned that two Jews had been found guilty of steal-

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ing twenty-five suits from the Jewish community’s wardrobe. “What vileness, to steal from one’s ownRassengenossen at such a time of distress.” 54 This comment is striking not only for Cohn’s even-handedness in his moral judgments but also for his use of a word—Rassengenosse— that was coined by the Nazis and that had connotations Cohn surely did not share. It is a graphic example of the corruption of the German language under Nazism.55 By the summer of 1941, Cohn’s entries began to demonstrate a growing unease and anxiety. When he first heard that deportations of Jews from Breslau and other German cities were in the offing, he remained calm and comforted himself with the thought that “none of us has precise information.” But soon the evidence began to mount that evacuations were being planned for the Jews of Munich and other cities, and that local authorities were also making plans for the expulsion of Jews from Breslau. Cohn now (on July 13, 1941) became fatalistic: “This is, after all, a catastrophic period,” he wrote in his diary, and “there is not much one can do except trust in G’d and prepare a few small pieces of luggage.” However, once the deportations actually began in Breslau, Cohn became more alarmed. On Saturday, July 26, while attending services he learned that in five days ten apartments would be emptied and that fifty-one Jews would be sent to Tormersdorf. The congregants were depressed.56 Then, on August 20, 21, and 28, several people inspected his apartment, a clear sign that he would soon be evicted. He desperately wanted to stay to protect his wife and two young daughters and to continue working “because intellectual work is a necessity of life for me and I would like to continue working till my last breath.” 57 By September 30, on the eve of Yom Kippur, Cohn had nearly reached the breaking point. He feared that he would not be able to remain at the services. “My nerves can no longer take it and in view of what we face I should have large reserves of nerves. Sometimes, I say to myself that it would be best if I no longer live, but if one has . . . young children one must not even have such thoughts.” 58 Professor Görlitz of Breslau University tried to intervene with officials to protect Cohn’s apartment, but he quickly discovered that the prospects were not promising. An official said that even a person as German in his outlook and predisposition as Cohn was bound to be an enemy of Germany after all

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that “had been done to him,” a position that Cohn himself acknowledged was reasonable.59 On November 1, Cohn learned that his apartment had been assigned to a “government inspector,” and two weeks later he was ordered to vacate it by November 30. For the first time in his memory he could not work, but he was determined to handle his affairs “with dignity” and not to appear to his family to be a weakling.60 In the meantime, Cohn had grown far more pessimistic about the fate of German Jewry. He was convinced that the Nazis were now, in October 1941, waging a “war of revenge against Judaism.” No one, he said, wanted to concede it, but it looked to him “as though the Germans at the present moment of the war have planned our total annihilation. One can only wish that this plan will fail.” 61 In his recent, comprehensive study The Origins of the Final Solution, Christopher Browning concluded that the “conception” of the Final Solution “had taken shape” by October 1941.62 On November 24, 1941, six days before they were to vacate their apartment, Willy and Gertrud Cohn and their two daughters, aged nine and three, were placed on a train headed for Kovno, where, together with 1,000 other Jews from Breslau, they were shot on arrival.63

Siegmund Hadda Had it not been for Siegmund Hadda, the Jewish Hospital of Breslau, one of the two most prized achievements of the Jewish community, would probably not have remained open as long as it did, until well into 1943. Passionately dedicated to his calling, Hadda overcame one obstacle after another to maintain medical services for the Jews of Breslau, and at times his success astonished even his closest associates. He was an outstanding surgeon who over the years operated on numerous residents of Breslau of all faiths. Even in 2004 people remembered him with great fondness as the doctor who had removed their appendix or had provided them with some other effective medical attention. In memoirs that Hadda wrote in the 1960s, he described the principles that had guided his conduct as a physician. By all accounts, he lived up to them, which goes far to explain his patients’ devotion to him. He always sought to place himself in the position of his patients

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and would take their complaints seriously, no matter how often they were voiced or how exaggerated they seemed to be. He tried to make his patients feel that each was his only one, or at least the most important one, and that he cared about him or her; “one cannot be a physician,” he wrote, “unless one loves the ill person.” Finally, Hadda never discussed fees with a patient unless he was asked. And he considered it his “sacred duty” not to treat poor patients or those who paid reduced fees in a way that would call attention to their poverty.64 Hadda greatly facilitated the task of future historians interested in portraying him. He left several informative autobiographical sketches, one of which remained unpublished, and all of them contain valuable material on the Jewish community of Breslau. Of course, historians view autobiographies with skepticism because authors often try to present themselves in the best possible light, producing works that tend not to be fully reliable. No doubt, Hadda, too, skipped over events that did not reflect well on him, but that possible flaw need not detain us in view of our interest in the Jewish community under Nazism. Hadda was a keen observer of political trends in the city and knew the Jewish community firsthand, as an active member. His achievements as a physician have been so widely acknowledged that his references to them can easily be checked. Most important of all for our purposes, Hadda had a sharp and retentive memory, and neither I nor others who have consulted his writings have found any glaring errors. Hadda was born in 1882 in the small garrison town of Cosel in Upper Silesia, where 40 percent of the 5,000 residents were soldiers. Siegmund’s father was a shopkeeper, ran an inn, and served as the sales representative of the Singer Sewing Machine Co. After the family moved to Laurahütte (now Siemianowice S´ la˛ skie) in 1893, Siegmund was enrolled in the gymnasium at Kattowitz, some seven and a half miles from home. He completed work for the Abitur in 1901 and immediately began to study medicine with several eminent scientists at the University of Breslau. In the winter of 1905, he passed the state examination with the highest grade and a year later accepted appointment as an assistant to Dr. Gottstein, a prominent urologist at the newly renovated Jewish Hospital of Breslau. It was a splendid opportunity for Hadda. He learned much from Gottstein, who was on his way to becoming world

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famous and was soon to be appointed as a university professor, a signal achievement for a Jew. The hospital itself was so well organized and well equipped that doctors came from afar to study its organization and procedures. Within two years, Hadda had been launched on a successful career; the hospital promoted him to assistant medical director, and he began to publish important scholarly papers, as well as to build a private practice as a surgeon.65 Hadda had fond memories of his first years in Breslau as a young man. The only anti-Semitism he ever heard of was the refusal of a merchants’ club to admit Jews. His private practice consisted for the most part of Christians of both denominations and many of them remained his patients for a few years after 1933; and when that became too risky they continued to treat him with respect. A senior military officer, whose kidney stone Hadda had successfully removed, always greeted him in a friendly way when they met on a streetcar. After the war started, contact between Christians and Jews was forbidden, but the officer did not let that stop him. When he spotted the doctor, the officer would disappear into a building and beckon Hadda to follow. Then, in a passageway where no one could see them, he would pass along news on the course of the war. Like most Jews in Breslau, Hadda considered himself a full citizen of his hometown. He was an active member of the Synagogue Community and at the same time fully identified, culturally, as a German. He was very much influenced by his mother, a cultivated woman who instilled in him a love of classical music and the great German writers, in particular Goethe, Schiller, and Heine.66 For a few years after 1933, Hadda continued to practice medicine “relatively unhindered” and to discharge his duties as chief surgeon of the Jewish Hospital, a position to which he was appointed in 1935. The turning point came on Kristallnacht, although on that day itself, November 10, 1938, the hospital was not subjected to violence. Two Gestapo agents appeared and without Hadda’s knowledge watched him operate. Apparently, they wanted to make sure that Hadda was engaged in medical work and not in nefarious activities. As it happened, the hospital staff spent most of that day treating patients who had attempted to commit suicide.

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The next day, however, the conduct of the Gestapo changed dramatically. It seems that an employee of the hospital had informed the police that on November 10 the director, Dr. Ludwig Guttmann, had instructed the staff to admit all males who claimed to be ill, no questions asked. The agents responded by searching the hospital and questioning sixty-four men who had been admitted the previous day. They then arrested four of those patients, as well as all the male employees, including the assistant doctors and one senior physician, Dr. Carl Fried, who had allegedly shown insufficient respect toward the police. By early January 1939, the employees had been allowed to return from the Buchenwald concentration camp and the hospital resumed functioning more or less normally. But Gestapo agents remained on the premises at all times and Hadda, who was appointed director after Guttmann’s departure for England in 1939, was frequently summoned for questioning, either about imprisoned patients or other matters the police considered important.67 The name of the person who informed the Gestapo about Guttmann’s sheltering of men seeking admission is not known, but the archives of the Breslau Jewish community reveal a strong candidate. In 1937, the head nurse of the hospital, Else Freund, had brought charges of “unfriendly conduct” against Lisbeth Legler, a nurse. The head nurse made the accusation not only in her own name but also on behalf of other employees and some patients. A committee formed to look into the matter asked Ms. Legler to explain her hostility toward the head nurse, but received no reply. “The discussion with Lisbeth Legler, who was very agitated,” the committee stated, “did not lead to the hoped-for clarification of the affair.” In the end, the committee informed Legler that the head nurse’s directives must be obeyed. In addition, Ms. Legler was admonished to conduct herself in a “friendly manner” and warned that if she did not mend her ways she would be dismissed despite her many years of service. The committee ended its report with the hope that in the future there would be no more complaints about Ms. Legler’s behavior. The case dragged on for two and a half years after the committee’s action, during which time Ms. Legler worked intermittently, but did not change her demeanor. Late in 1939, the hospital tried to dismiss

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her, but a Dr. Hl. Dziallas, a public accountant who served as arbitrator in the case, ruled that for sound medical reasons Ms. Legler was temporarily unable to work and could not be dismissed. What Dziallas did not tell the administration was that Ms. Legler had ended a letter to him explaining her medical indisposition with the greeting: “Heil Hitler.” If, as these words suggest, she was a Nazi, she was probably not comfortable working eight hours a day in the company of Jews. Under the circumstances, it is not far-fetched to suspect her of having informed the Nazis about the admission of sixty-four Jewish men into the hospital the day after Kristallnacht.68 In the meantime, Hadda had been appointed as the “Person responsible for Jewish Sanitary Matters in Silesia,” and in that capacity he had to report once a week to the chairman of the Board of Physicians on changes in the state of the Jewish medical profession. The chairman, who had been known as a man of the left prior to 1933, was now a member of the Nazi Party, which he had apparently joined solely for opportunistic reasons. Whenever Hadda reported to him, he tried to be accommodating and in mid-August 1939 even gave Hadda good personal advice, that he send his son out of the country. War was inevitable, the chairman said, and there was no telling what the Nazis would do with young people after that. Hadda secured a visa to England for his son, and his two daughters were also granted asylum there. Shortly after Kristallnacht, Hadda had gone to Berlin to apply for a visa to the United States, but his efforts failed because he refused to pay a bribe of 2,000 marks—to whom is not clear.69 The most trying period in Hadda’s career began on August 29, 1939, when the chief of the Breslau Gestapo ordered him to empty the Jewish Hospital within two days so that it could be transformed into a military facility for wounded soldiers. The official issued the order to Hadda with a smile, warning that if the hospital was not empty by the time the first shot was fired, Hadda and the chairman of the Board of Governors of the Jewish community would be sent to a concentration camp. To Hadda’s question about the disposition of the patients, many of whom were too ill to be discharged, the Gestapo chief responded that Jews owned some villas that could be used to house them. The incoming chief of the military hospital, long known as an anti-Semite,

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put Hadda under additional pressure by telling him that the “evacuation had to be completed by 5 o’clock in the afternoon. After five, no Jew may allow himself to be seen in the hospital.” 70 The Board of Governors decided to transfer all fifty or so bedridden patients to the Invalid Home (Siechenhaus), which was conveniently located on the same property as the hospital. The other patients, numbering about 100, were crestfallen at having to leave; they were placed in the two Jewish old age facilities or in private homes where they received appropriate medical care. Eleven mentally ill inmates were sent to a lunatic asylum in Leubas. “Several of the unfortunate people had to be forced into the horse-driven bus. We still heard their raving and shouting as the carriage moved outside the area of the hospital.” No sooner had the Jews left than the Nazis began to wreck the hospital’s synagogue. The Jews had removed the Torah scrolls, but the cabinet in which they had been kept and all the furniture were hacked to pieces: “all reminders of the structure’s past were to be wiped out.” 71 For Hadda and his nine remaining associates, a period of adjustment and improvisation now began. They could take only a few medicines and bandages with them to the Invalid Home but no instruments, and thus had to reestablish the facility virtually from scratch. The doctors literally scrounged for equipment; one of them, Dr. Schmoller, even found a small X-ray machine, which was much needed, as more and more people were fracturing their bones on the bumpy streets during the blackouts that protected the city against air raids. The Board of Governors received permission from the Gestapo to take over an old clinic that had facilities for surgery, and in the span of a month a new Jewish hospital had been established. But two months later, the Gestapo confiscated the Invalid Home, forcing the staff to move once again, this time to the administrative building of the Jewish community, where one floor was converted into a hospital. The Gestapo also permitted the hospital to take over a larger private clinic, which had facilities for forty patients and surgical operations. Only those who were seriously ill could now be accommodated. This, the third hospital in three months, functioned for almost three years, until November 1942. Many of the patients were actually non-Jews, Poles who had taken se-

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riously ill while in German captivity. All told, in 1941, 103 patients were treated in the hospital.72 Toward the end of 1942, the Nazis confiscated the clinic Hadda and his associates had used for surgery, the third such seizure of their facilities in three years. And once again Hadda set up a new “surgical station,” this one on the second floor of a building owned by the Jewish community. This “hospital” had fifty beds and provided medical services until the final large-scale deportation of Jews from Breslau in March 1943. Hadda and his wife had actually been scheduled for deportation in 1942, but leaders of the community persuaded the Gestapo to rescind the order because of Hadda’s important role at the hospital. That consideration did not extend to Siegmund’s father, who was deported to Theresienstadt in April 1943 after uttering these words to his son: “Stay healthy, I thank you for all your love.” 73 They never saw each other again; the eighty-four-year-old man died in his sleep on May 1. The few hundred Jews in Breslau after March 1943 lived in what appeared to them to be a ghetto, located on Wallstrasse, the street on which the traditional Storch Synagogue stood. They occupied a few buildings owned by the community and they shopped in a handful of stores in the neighborhood. Of these Jews, only physicians and other medical personnel were permitted to travel on the streetcar, and then only for so long as the surgical unit of the hospital, situated at some distance, remained in Jewish hands. On June 10, 1943, at about the same time that the Gestapo closed down the Reich Association of Jews in Germany in Berlin, the Gestapo ordered that all the patients in the hospital, some of them on stretchers, be put on a sealed train destined for Theresienstadt. Six days later, the Board of Governors of the community and of the hospital, as well as Hadda and four colleagues, were also sent there. Thus, the last eighteen Jews, aside from those who were married to Christians, were cleared out of Breslau.74 Gauleiter Hanke had almost achieved his goal, to rid Breslau of Jews. The journey to Theresienstadt was less uncomfortable than expected, mainly because the Gestapo official in charge of the train recognized Hadda as the doctor who had operated on his sister-in-law. He addressed the Jews politely, which was not done in other deportations,

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but once they arrived at the station in Bauschowitz their treatment deteriorated quickly. The deportees were forced to make the hour-long march to Theresienstadt under the watchful eye of gruff Czech gendarmes. As they passed the barbed wire to enter the camp their loss of freedom hit home. Even though their lives in Breslau had been severely circumscribed for several years, Hadda felt that he was still “a human being, an individual; but here I was only Number XIII/10, as the ribbon that stuck out of the buttonhole of my jacket indicated.” He was also separated from his wife, who was billeted with other women in another part of the camp.75 To deceive the Jews of Breslau, the Gestapo had distributed photographs of an elderly couple comfortably seated in front of an attractive house allegedly in Theresienstadt. The reality was quite different. For one thing, the entire town reeked of rotting potatoes, the inmates’ principal source of food, which were stored in various cellars. Hadda spent his first night in a large room where his every word resounded in a loud, disagreeable echo. Suddenly, a voice from the other end of the room told the newcomers: “You will have to get used to much worse.” In the morning, Hadda went out to look for his wife, whom he found lying on a sack of straw in a dark corner. Whenever she left her bed she had to climb over another woman to reach the door. Toilet facilities were primitive and totally inadequate; one had to be prepared for long waits each morning, and often at other times of the day as well. Many of the men’s shirts were spotted with blood, “the vestiges of the stings of hundreds of fleas that populated all parts of the camp.” 76 Most distressing of all were the frequent deportations, especially during the last months of 1944; by this time Hadda and many others knew that the deportees’ destination could only be an extermination camp. Hadda frequently saw Adolf Eichmann strut through the camp in his elegant uniform. “Whenever he was there, there soon was another transport [of inmates] who were killed in some bestial way.” When Hadda arrived in Theresienstadt in mid-1943, about 65,000 people lived in the camp; by early 1945, the number had dwindled to 13,000.77 For Hadda, life in Theresienstadt was less onerous than for most, and certainly less tedious. Within a few days of his arrival, a former assistant, Dr. Kaiser, invited him to work in the camp’s hospital, which

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accommodated some 200 patients and maintained a surgical ward. Hadda felt deeply honored, as there were no fewer than 1,000 physicians in Theresienstadt. Although the hospital lacked an adequate supply of medicines and disinfectants, and surgeons had to rest frequently because of undernourishment, the work gave Hadda great satisfaction. “Here I had the opportunity to help suffering companions who suffered from the burden of an undeserved fate.” 78 During the night of February 3, 1945, Hadda was awakened shortly after midnight by guards who asked him whether he would be interested in going to Switzerland. The provenance of this proposal was unknown and even now remains a mystery. Heinrich Himmler, one of the key architects of the Holocaust, had apparently decided to send 6,000 Jews to Switzerland, probably because he was already maneuvering to save his skin. In the fall of 1944, he had tried to make a deal with the Allies and in April 1945, Hitler sacked him as a traitor because he had made offers of surrender.79 Be that as it may, most Jews in Theresienstadt distrusted the offer to be moved to Switzerland. “Anxiety, uncertainty, hope were visible on the faces of different groups [of people].” Many feared that it was all a trick to persuade them to go peacefully to Auschwitz. Hadda urged them to take a chance, but only 1,600 were prepared to follow his advice. This group was transported to the railway station with a supply of food adequate for a journey that should have lasted twelve hours but instead took several days. As the train finally approached the Swiss border, the Jews heard the following words: “Remove the stars! What we felt like at this moment cannot be described. Now we really believed in our liberation.” 80 Hadda and his wife remained in Switzerland for one and a half years. He enjoyed his work at the Bern Hospital but was eager to be reunited with his family. To that end, in 1946, the Haddas joined their son and one of their daughters in England, and seven months later, they moved to New York, where their elder daughter had made her home since 1940. Because of his reputation as a first-rate physician, Hadda was excused from taking the examination normally required of doctors trained abroad, and in November 1947 he opened a practice in Queens, New York City. It was not easy for a man of sixty-four to start afresh, but he soon proved that he had not lost his skills as a surgeon. He

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remained in practice for fifteen years and died in 1978 at the age of ninety-six. Siegmund Hadda cannot be said to have led an easy life, certainly not during his last forty-five years. But it was in many ways a deeply satisfying life. Even in the healing profession not many have the opportunity to do so much good for so long. His resilience in the face of endless adversity and his ability to continue to work as a physician until his eightieth year were remarkable. But also admirable was the judiciousness of his comments on the conduct of the German people under Nazism. Hadda vowed never to return to Germany, but at the same time he never forgot that not all Germans were supporters of Hitler. His memoirs are replete with examples—many more than I could include in this brief sketch— of Germans who risked their lives to show kindness to Jews. The expulsion of a man of his caliber from Breslau is only one example of the irretrievable losses that the city endured as a result of Nazi crimes.

Anita Lasker-Wallfisch In certain respects, Anita Lasker-Wallfisch’s biography resembles that of the other three in this cluster of four. A person of unusual talents, in music and foreign languages, she demonstrated a high degree of resilience in the face of unspeakable horrors, as well as an unyielding determination to preserve her dignity. But her biography differs from the others in that she survived Auschwitz, the most notorious death camp, and lived to recount her experiences. Her book, which she published in English, includes absorbing letters that she, her mother, her father, and one of her sisters wrote to each other in the 1940s, and casts some new light on Breslau of the early part of that decade. It exudes the same good cheer, resourcefulness, and warmth that she showed during our interview at her home in London in January 2004, when she spoke not only with great feeling about her experiences but also with a strong commitment to getting the facts of her last years in Breslau just right. In addition, she has a fine appreciation of the many chance events that made it possible for her and her sister to survive. It was her personal traits, in my view, that enabled her, after she reached England in 1946,

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to fashion a new and highly successful life both as a mother and as a distinguished cellist. Anita Lasker was born in 1925 to an affluent family that in its values and lifestyle resembled many upper-middle-class Jewish families in Breslau. Her father was a successful lawyer, proud of his German heritage despite his being considered Polish by the United States because of his birth in Kempen (Posen), which after 1918 was placed under Polish control. Her mother was an accomplished violinist, and classical music as well as the study of French formed part of the education of the three Lasker daughters. For a time, the family employed a French governess and spoke only French at home on Sundays; by her early teens Anita was fluent in the language. She attended a private school, where she encountered some anti-Semitism. On the streets, children occasionally spit on her and called her “dirty Jew.” Still, her parents were not convinced that Nazism posed a long-range danger to them or to the country. Anita’s father belonged, as she put it, to the “overoptimistic” Jews of Breslau. He believed that the “nonsense” would soon end, “when the Germans come to their senses.” Her parents considered emigrating, but her father was understandably reluctant: having been trained in the German legal system, how would he be able to pursue his profession elsewhere? 81 The Laskers also knew from firsthand experience that there were decent Germans who despised Hitler and all he stood for. On Kristallnacht, Walter Mathias Mehne, a family friend who owned a violin factory, called for Anita’s father and drove him around the city for hours, enabling him to avoid arrest by the Gestapo. Another non-Jew, Count Künigl, found a way to retain Anita’s father to represent him in a complex lawsuit and did his best to protect the Laskers once the deportations began. His efforts were thwarted and on April 9, 1942, the parents were shipped to Izbica, near Lublin, where the Jews from Breslau were forced to dig their own graves and undress before being shot to death. By this time, the oldest daughter, Marianne, had settled in England, but for some reason the other two daughters, Anita and her older sister Renate (born in 1924), did not appear on the list of deportees. Both wanted to join their parents, who, wisely and courageously, would not hear of it. Her father’s last instructions to Anita were “Please

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watch your walk,” so that, being pigeon-toed, she would try to move gracefully.82 The two young ladies, who barely eked out a living by working horrendous hours at a paper factory, now lived with their eighty-two-yearold grandmother until she, too, was deported. Renate and Anita were then transferred to an orphanage, where they concocted a brash—and some might say harebrained—scheme to escape to France, hoping eventually to reach the unoccupied part of the country. The plan misfired completely but, ironically, may nevertheless have saved their lives. The two had managed to produce fake travel papers for France and proceeded to the railway station, but before they could board the train the Gestapo, which had been keeping them under surveillance, nabbed them. The captives decided to swallow the cyanide that, like many Jews, they carried with them for just this sort of emergency. It had been given to them by their friend Konrad, who had later asked for its return until they were ready to make their escape. Now, when they swallowed it, nothing happened. Konrad had replaced the poison with a harmless, sweet substance. After some amusing adventures during their interrogations by the Gestapo, Anita and Renate were placed in a “Jewish cell” until they could be brought to trial. Anita believes that they received this relatively lenient treatment because an ex-colleague of their father intervened on their behalf. They remained in prison for nine months, from September 16, 1942, to June 5, 1943. During the same period, most of the remaining Jews in Breslau were deported to the east, a fate certainly worse than a stay in jail, where conditions were bad but tolerable. The sisters were kept busy painting toy soldiers, demanding and tedious work. Yet, they found a sympathetic soul in Miss Neubert, who brought them their supplies and would secretly slip them some food, once even a cake her mother had baked.83 At last, Anita and Renate were put on trial before a Special Court and charged with three crimes, “forgery,” “aiding the enemy,” and “attempted escape.” It was not exactly a fair trial. The lawyer assigned to defend them did not even bother to show up for the judicial proceedings, perhaps out of fear of representing two Jews who had sought to escape from Germany. In any case, a verdict of guilty was a foregone

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conclusion: Renate was sentenced to eighteen months in prison in addition to the time she had already served, and Anita to three and a half years of hard labor. But these sentences, too, proved to be a blessing in disguise. Early in December 1943, Anita was deported to Auschwitz, where, after signing a statement that she had departed for the camp voluntarily, she was classified as a Karteihäftling (prisoner with a file), which meant that she was spared immediate gassing so that she could testify in court again if summoned by officials. “Clearly,” LaskerWallfisch wrote wryly, “it was better . . . to arrive in Auschwitz as a convicted criminal than as an innocent citizen.” 84 At Auschwitz, too, Anita Lasker benefited from some good fortune. After her head had been shaven and her left arm tattooed with the number 69388, she was questioned by prisoners eager for any bit of information from the outside world, and by chance she let it be known that she played the cello. “This is fantastic,” her interlocutor said, “Stand aside. You will be saved. You must just wait here.” The camp orchestra, a project considered very important by the Nazis in diverting attention from the “smoking chimneys,” did not have a single bass instrumentalist. After an interview with the orchestra leader, Alma Rosé, like her famous father (Arnold) a fine violinist, Anita was “hired,” although she still had to go through the formality of an audition. The orchestra played every morning at the main gate of the camp for the thousands of prisoners marching to local factories, always accompanied by “Kapos [inmates who served as policemen], SS and dogs,” and it played again in the evening when the workers returned. In addition, the orchestra frequently performed on Sundays for SS men who wanted some relaxation. “It was on such an occasion,” Lasker-Wallfisch wrote, “that I played Schumann’s Träumerei for Dr. Mengele,” one of the most brutal officials at Auschwitz. A physician who conducted ghastly experiments on twins and was known to have killed inmates with his own hands, Mengele loved music, especially Wagner.85 Anita had been separated from Renate after the trial in Breslau and it was only through yet another coincidence that they found each other. Shortly after her arrival at Auschwitz, Anita had been forced to surrender her clothing and had given her shoes, which stood out because of their red laces, to one of the girls. A week later an inmate ran

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up to her and said Anita must accompany her to the Reception Block. There was Renate, who had recognized the shoes and immediately began looking for her sister, not easily done in a camp of about 150,000 people. Because Anita occupied the privileged position of cellist and spoke German, she was able to persuade Mrs. Mandel, the camp commander, to appoint Renate as a messenger (Läuferin). Messengers ran errands from one block to another in return for somewhat better housing and larger rations—necessities for Renate, who had just barely recovered from festering typhus sores on her legs.86 In her book, Lasker-Wallfisch focuses on the sisters’ experiences at Auschwitz and the work of the orchestra, but she also paints a vivid picture of the grim reality of the camp: the constant hunger, the cramped living conditions, the frequent spread of disease, and, above all, the endless deaths of innocent human beings. Still, she clung to life, in good measure because she was able to pursue her great love, music. Having her head shaved and her arm tattooed dejected her, “but I was identifiable. I could be referred to. I was ‘the cellist.’ I had not melted away into the grey mass of nameless, indistinguishable people. I never gave the matter any thought when I was there, but today I am convinced that in a subtle way it helped me to maintain a shred of human dignity.” 87 It took enormous psychological strength to keep going, for, as she notes, she “could not forget that outside our little world the gas chambers were working non-stop.” On one day, in May or June 1944, shortly after many thousands of Hungarian Jews had arrived, “the SS managed to murder 24,000 people.” 88 Little reliable news about the progress of the war reached the inmates of Auschwitz, who toward the end of 1944 had no idea how far the Russians had advanced into Poland. It therefore came as a surprise to Anita, her sister, and thousands of other Jews when, in October of that year, they were packed into cattle cars and shipped westward, to another camp at Bergen-Belsen, in Lower Saxony. At one time BergenBelsen was reputed to be a “convalescent camp” where “privileged Jews” were to be housed, but in 1943 it was turned into a regular concentration camp and in 1945 large numbers of emaciated Jews were sent there to die of starvation or disease. It has been estimated that in the single month of March some 18,000 prisoners lost their lives. “Typhus

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was raging everywhere and it caught up with those of us who had not had it in Auschwitz. . . . Eventually there was no food at all, and I have a vivid memory of seeing somebody kneeling (as a punishment) with a human ear in his mouth. . . . Every day that one woke up and remained alive seemed a miracle.” On April 15, 1945, the British army liberated the camp. Anita Lasker was nineteen years old but “felt like ninety.” 89 It took Anita and Renate some eleven months to acquire a visa for England, a process that involved much paperwork, many traumas, some chicanery, and, again, lots of good luck. In the meantime, Anita kept busy working as an interpreter for the British, testifying cogently at the Lüneburg Trial of Nazi criminals in September 1945, one of the first of its kind. It ended in death sentences for eleven Nazis who had played key roles in the murder of inmates in Bergen-Belsen and Auschwitz; several of them had been identified by Anita Lasker.90 And, of course, she played the cello, which she continued to do soon after arriving in England, to good effect.

Karla Wolf Despite her gruesome experiences under Nazism from the age of five to seventeen, Karla Wolf, whom I met in Israel in May 2004, is an unusually vivacious and gracious lady. Her childhood in Breslau differs from those of all the other people mentioned in this book, for she was a Mischling, the offspring of a mixed marriage who chose to identify fully as a Jew, insisted on formal conversion, and after 1945 decided to live among Jews. Her account of her life in Breslau from 1933 to 1945 deserves special attention because it touches on the experiences of many Germans; estimates of the number of “part Jews” in 1933 range from roughly 100,000 to 300,000.91 Wolf was born in 1928 into a family with an unusual background. Her mother, Trude, was the black sheep in a solidly middle-class family whose father identified, politically, with the conservative and patriotic German National movement, although Karla does not think that he was anti-Semitic. Most of Trude’s school friends were Jewish and as a child she was “adopted” by a Jewish couple who lived in her building. She wanted to be an actress and while pursuing that career she fell

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in love with Karl Grabowsky, a Jew who earned his living as a Rezitator (a person who reads from literary works at festive or religious occasions to stimulate conversation among the guests) and whose family was religious. The two were engaged to be married, but a few months later, in 1915, he was killed at the Russian front, a devastating loss for Trude, who continued to visit the Grabowskys and often participated in their religious ceremonies. She was very much drawn to Jewish customs and soon fell in love with Karl’s younger brother, an aspiring actor who worked in an office to earn his living. They were married in 1923 in a civil ceremony. Although their home was secular, the young couple observed certain religious traditions; they celebrated Christmas and Chanukah, but, according to Karla, the atmosphere was decidedly Jewish. On Friday evenings Karla would accompany her father to services at the Neue Synagoge and he always recited the Kiddush prayer before beginning the evening meal that day. The food at their home was not kosher, but pork was never served.92 After the issuance of the Nuremberg Laws in 1935, Karla’s parents were at a loss as to how to raise her. The disadvantage of being Jewish was now all too obvious and Trude’s brother-in-law, Hans Teichmann, advised the Grabowskys in 1937 to have Karla converted to Christianity. In the end, the parents asked the nine-year-old to make the decision herself, and she opted for Judaism, probably, as she now believes, because she was very attached to her father. In April 1937, she and two other girls went to themikveh (ritual bath) for the traditional immersion in water and the recitation of prayers. Karla now received a Hebrew name, Tova, and never regretted her momentous decision. In 1938, Karla’s father lost his job and immediately embarked on a new career. He moved, by himself, to Berlin to train as a cantor, which he now saw as his true calling. Unfortunately, he reached this decision too late to have a fully successful career, but his residence in Berlin prevented the Nazis from arresting him on Kristallnacht, since, unaware of his whereabouts, they looked for him in Breslau. The mother, a trained speech therapist, now supported the family by giving private lessons. The family’s attempt to emigrate to the United States failed because they occupied a low position on a long waiting list.93

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As Karla’s mother was a “full Aryan,” the family enjoyed several privileges. They could remain in their apartment, they received a larger food allowance than full-fledged Jews, and the father was not in danger, at least until 1944, of being deported. But Karla threw in her lot with the Jewish community. She attended the Jewish school and when, late in September 1941, Jews were required to wear the yellow star, she was also obliged to do so. “I was very proud of it,” she wrote, “and I must say that I encountered relatively little hostility or abuse. One had the feeling that many Volksgenossen did not find this agreeable, at least at the beginning.” Moreover, her mother would not abandon her husband, who had returned to Breslau shortly after the outbreak of war in 1939, despite strong pressure from the Gestapo. Karla recalled that one evening her mother burned a large stack of papers without any explanation. Then she placed Karla with an old friend, Dr. Salzberger, and disappeared for three days. Only later did Karla learn that the Gestapo had detained her mother in an effort to persuade her to divorce her Jewish husband. Although the Gestapo agents applied considerable pressure, they did not resort to the harshest methods of persuasion. After all, her brother and nephew were serving in the army and the Nazi authorities still had some qualms about enraging German citizens. When it became clear that Trude would not give in, the Gestapo released her. “But many Christian women,” Karla notes, “capitulated to the pressure and deserted their Jewish spouses.” 94 Karla’s Christian grandparents remained on good terms with their daughter and granddaughter, but not all Mischlinge were as fortunate. Nelly Schuftan, who was Karla’s age, was among the unfortunate ones. Nelly’s Jewish father had been arrested on Kristallnacht and was released after a few months in the Buchenwald concentration camp on condition that he leave Germany within forty-eight hours. He secured a certificate for Palestine for himself and his wife but for some reason they could not take their daughter with them. They left Nelly with her Christian grandparents on the understanding that they would soon obtain the required emigration papers for her. But their efforts failed and once the anti-Jewish agitation intensified in the early 1940s the grandparents, fearful of harboring a non-Aryan, placed Nelly in the Jewish

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orphanage. When the Nazis began deporting children in February 1943, Karla’s mother pleaded with the grandparents to take Nelly back into their home, “but they banged the door closed in Mother’s face.” As the offspring of a mixed marriage, Nelly could have been saved. But “Nelly went—and did not return.” 95 Some time in late 1941 or early 1942, the police forbade Karla’s mother from continuing her work in speech therapy, forcing her to take up a new position as a medical secretary for a Dr. Kroll, a member of the SS. Ironically, the mother’s change of occupation made it possible to save her husband’s life. Kroll turned out to be a “very good and easy-going boss,” and when the Gestapo ordered him to dismiss Karla’s mother, he refused on the grounds that she was a “pure Aryan” and indispensable to him. Kroll also told Trude to let him know if she ever needed his help.96 Karla, while still in her early teens, engaged in various kinds of volunteer work. In 1942, she and several other children put on a highly successful theatrical performance at the one remaining Jewish old people’s home. She also helped care for the mentally handicapped, work that she especially enjoyed and that marked the beginning of her lifelong interest in becoming a nurse. During the deportations she helped Jews pack the one bag they were allowed for their journey; she also tried to calm the children and older people who were filled with anxiety about the future. At the time, Karla recalls, no one suspected that they would be subjected to “gassing and extermination.” Although they expected to face hard times, they envisaged nothing worse than “great distress, cold and hunger and heavy work.” Some found the uncertainty overwhelming and ended their lives by swallowing cyanide capsules. During the final deportation (in late February or early March, 1943), Rabbi Lewin, the successor to Rabbi Vogelstein, refused to remain behind and chose to accompany the last large group sent from Breslau to Theresienstadt. “As a model of unshakable courage he radiated a calm and dignity that seemed to soar over everything: he walked in front of all [the people] exuding comfort in this journey into the eternal night.” Mrs. Lewin tried to comfort Karla, who, she knew, felt guilty about remaining behind in safety.97 The only Jews still in Breslau, aside from

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those in mixed marriages, were a few hundred elderly people, among them men who had been wounded in the First World War or had been awarded the Iron Cross for military service, a few physicians, and a few ranking officials in the Jewish community. These persons, as already noted, were sent to Theresienstadt in June 1943. The Nazis made special provisions for Mischlinge and their parents—all told, about 200 people—to remain in Breslau. In July 1943, they set aside several residences for them. Karla’s parents were allowed to stay in their large apartment because the building belonged not only to Karla’s mother but also to her “fully Aryan” sisters, although their space was reduced from six rooms to one. A German couple, spies for the Gestapo, occupied the study. A committee under the leadership of a Mr. Ludnowsky was formed to administer the affairs of people in mixed marriages, but it operated under the close supervision of the Gestapo. There was even a hospital of sorts— orKrankenstation (station for the ill), as it was called—for the Jewish spouses, who were not allowed to occupy Aryan beds or be treated by Aryan physicians. The administration building in the Cosel Jewish Cemetery served as the “hospital,” which was staffed by five assistants (among them Karla, who swept the floors, did some of the shopping, and helped out during medical procedures), four doctors, two secretaries, and one laboratory technician. A room was even set aside for surgery in what was, in fact, the fifth Jewish hospital created in four years. Sometime in 1944, the Gestapo assigned many of the Jewish spouses of mixed marriages and a large number of their offspring to a labor camp in Grünthal, Silesia, to work on the defense lines being constructed against the advancing Red Army. The workers retained ties to their families in Breslau and “Aryan” partners could visit their spouses, but conditions at the camp were extremely harsh and they became increasingly difficult in Breslau. As Germany’s military situation deteriorated, the food supply dwindled and both the Gestapo and sizable groups within the population at large grew more hostile toward anyone even partly Jewish.98 Even at this late stage of the war, in the summer of 1944, when all seemed lost, the Gestapo, determined to prevent any increase in the Jewish population, strictly enforced a regulation prohibiting pregnancy among Jewish women. But against all odds the

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Jewish Hospital succeeded in protecting a woman who had “transgressed” by hiding her in a room where a patient with tuberculosis was sequestered under lock and key. The Gestapo chief, Hampel, who regularly inspected the hospital, would not enter that room for fear of infection. The woman and later the baby were saved.99 One day late in the summer of 1944, the authorities announced that all Jewish members of the small community would be deported within twenty-four hours. Although for some reason the order was quickly rescinded, the Grabowskys took no chances, especially since by then they had fairly reliable information about the fate of the deportees. Karla and her father went into hiding in a neighbor’s apartment and one day later Dr. Kroll, true to his word, found a home for them with two elderly ladies who despised the Nazis. Kroll visited frequently and brought food, as well as mail from Mrs. Grabowsky, who never tried to see her family for fear of being followed by the Gestapo. Karla remained underground for over four months and thus escaped being dragged by the Gestapo to the camp at Bergen-Belsen in January 1945. Most of the 100 to 150 people in this last expulsion of Jews from Breslau perished.100 Early in 1945, the three Grabowskys were reunited and lived precariously for several months, first in their old apartment and, then, after ejection by German troops, in an empty one they had found. Gauleiter Hanke was now putting up an utterly senseless, last-ditch defense of Breslau, whose population had been reduced to about 200,000 (less than a third of its prewar total), in part because of the enormous destruction caused by Russian artillery fire and in part because of the flight of many residents. Without water, electricity, or gas, the city finally surrendered on May 6. Several other Jews now surfaced from the underground and obtained permission from the Polish civilian authorities, who had taken charge of the city, to move into some rooms that had belonged to the Jewish community. As “victims of Fascism,” these survivors received food rations from the Russians. On Friday evenings and Saturdays, Karla’s father led the small, remaining community in worship, although the absence of Torah scrolls made a full service impossible. Still, as Karla noted, at last one was able to feel “normal and human” again.101

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In the fall, the three Grabowskys moved to Erfurt, which had not been heavily damaged and where some 150 Jews had settled. But all three wished to emigrate, only they could not agree on a destination, the parents favoring the United States and Karla Palestine. The family dispute was intense, but Karla stood her ground. The parents left for the United States and Karla went on hachschara (to a preparatory camp) in Gehringshof. In 1947 she entered Palestine illegally. She now lives on a lovely, private farm in Nahariya with her husband, a German Jew who had settled in Palestine in the 1930s. One of their sons is a successful artist and the other, who has two children, now runs the farm (with help from his father). In May 2004, when I went to interview Karla in Nahariya, she met me at the railroad station and immediately invited me for lunch with the assurance that her home was strictly kosher; I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I was no longer strict in my eating habits. Karla never succeeded, for reasons beyond her control, in her lifelong ambition to become a fully licensed nurse. But she never abandoned the calling of helping the sick. Even now she regularly does volunteer work in a local hospital. On January 8, 1946, Judith Sternberg, formerly a nurse at the Jewish Hospital in Breslau and a survivor of Auschwitz, sent a letter from Hannover to “Nurse Selma” and other former colleagues at the hospital that gives the most cogent summary of the fate of the hospital and, in a sense, of the entire community, that I have been able to find. Sternberg returned to Breslau shortly after the conclusion of hostilities and could barely recognize the city: “2⁄3 of the city is completely destroyed. Our hospital is also no longer recognizable.” Old memories thronged in her head as she walked in the streets, making her restless. “Without parents and without a home, I wander around and cannot find any peace of mind because I often believe that I cannot live any longer. Not only did they take material goods from us, no, they took from us all our loved ones and the belief in humanity, since we have seen and experienced brutality.” Her deepest wish was “to leave this land of murderers and blood” as quickly as possible.

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Sternberg had kept track of the people from Breslau that she knew and the deaths that she lists make for grim reading. She herself lost her husband, Dr. Tallert, to whom she was married at the assembly camp just before their deportation, as well as her mother and five siblings. As for the hospital staff, only a handful of nurses survived. Dr. Kaiser died in Theresienstadt of tuberculosis, his wife, Nurse Suse, and their child were deported to Auschwitz in ’44. Dr. Miodowski died in Th[eresienstadt]. Dr. Boehm died of typhus and Dr. Gruenthal was torn to bits by dogs in Auschwitz. Dr. Bucka likewise died of typhus [the last three were women] and Dr. Heidenfeld died of typhus. Dr. Schneider was gassed. Dr. Hirsch Kauffmann of the Children’s department is alive, since he lived in a mixed marriage and was not deported. Senior Nurse Toni committed suicide during her internment by taking Cynkali. Nurse Franze committed suicide by taking Veronal after she had been beaten into unconsciousness at Auschwitz. Nurse Mirjam was shot in Poland. Nurse Charlotte was married, [and then] she died of typhus; likewise Nurse Vera. . . . I myself had to lead Mrs. Dr. Lewin [the Rabbi’s wife] to be gassed.

The list continues, but this abbreviated version suffices to depict the catastrophe that had befallen the Jews of Breslau. All that Sternberg asked of Nurse Selma was some clothing and some photographs of the hospital, “for I do not have a single picture; the SS murderers and bandits tore them all up and burnt them. I do not have a single picture of my parents or my siblings.” 102

Conclusion

Could the Jews of Breslau—and by extension the Jews of Germany— have avoided the terrible fate that befell them? As a historian with grave misgivings about the doctrine of historical inevitability, I would instinctively respond that since human beings can affect their own futures, the German Jews in the 1930s could have made choices that would have averted the ultimate catastrophe. After all, over 50 percent of them did leave the country, and the Breslau Jews matched that percentage. Why did as many as 10,000 remain in the city in 1938, when the Nazis’ determination to rid the country of its Jews could no longer be doubted? An even more troubling question was raised by Hannah Arendt, whose work has been cited several times in this study. She argued that “without Jewish help in administrative and police work—the final rounding up of Jews in Berlin was . . . done entirely by Jewish police— there would have been either complete chaos or an impossibly severe drain on German manpower.” Basing herself on the work of the scholar Robert Pendorf,1 Arendt quotes him approvingly to the effect that had the Jews not cooperated, “it would hardly have been possible for a few thousand people, most of whom, moreover, worked in offices, to liquidate many hundreds of thousands of other people.” To clinch her argument, she referred to the surprise of Adolf Eichmann at the “truly extraordinary degree” of cooperation that he received from Jews in their own liquidation. Such compliance marked Jewish behavior in Western as well as in Eastern Europe. Jewish officials [in both regions] could be trusted to compile the lists of persons and of their property, to secure money from the deportees

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to defray the expenses of their deportation and extermination, to keep track of vacated apartments, to supply police forces to help seize Jews and get them on trains, until, as a last gesture, they handed over the assets of the Jewish community in good order for final confiscation.

For Jews, Arendt concluded, “this role of the Jewish leaders in the destruction of their own people is undoubtedly the darkest chapter of the whole dark story.” 2 This harsh indictment of Jewish conduct under Nazism does not withstand careful scrutiny, least of all with regard to Germany. A handful of what might be called “collaborators” operated in Berlin and Frankfurt, but the number was so small that their help to the Nazis can hardly be imagined to have been in any way decisive. Moreover, my study of the Jewish community in Breslau yielded no evidence at all to support Arendt’s conclusions. At most, the leadership there can be charged with having been misguided about Nazi intentions, but even that claim cannot be accepted without qualification. For about five years many Breslau Jews deluded themselves into believing that Nazism was a passing phase; very few thought that the Nazis would embark on the physical extermination of an entire people. Actually, the belief in Nazism’s fragility was widespread. Many Germans and well-informed foreigners were convinced, at least in the early years of the New Order, that so fanatical a regime could not last for long, and even more were convinced that in time the Nazis would be obliged to moderate their stated policies as they realized that implementing them would lead to Germany’s ruin. Certainly, to the Jews the threats and rhetoric of the Nazis seemed incredible. Over the centuries, Jews had frequently been subjected to persecution, at times involving mass murder, but never before had any government undertaken to eliminate them entirely. Even during the Spanish Inquisition in the fifteenth century, the darkest period in Jewish history before the 1930s and 1940s, Jews who converted to Christianity could generally expect to survive. That Breslau Jews reacted with disbelief to Nazi rhetoric is certainly understandable. For over half a century beginning in the 1870s, they had made steady progress, economically, socially, and politically, in in-

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tegrating themselves into the life of the city, one of the most liberal in Germany. They had thrived in business and the professions, had participated in all aspects of the city’s culture, and even had attained positions of prominence in politics. True, they were still to some extent “outsiders”: most kept to themselves socially and certain professions— the army, the civil service, higher education—still did not welcome them, but the force of these impediments seemed to be waning. It was reasonable, therefore, for many Breslau Jews in 1933 to adopt a wait-and-see attitude, all the more so since the Nazis enacted antiSemitic measures incrementally. In response, the Jews decided to reorder their institutions, draw back from Gentile society, and reinvigorate their own community. As I have suggested, their creation of new cultural institutions—in education, music, theater, and art— amounted, in a real sense, to a form of defiance. They insisted that despite Nazi assertions to the contrary, they were authentic Germans and that if the state excluded them from public life, they would continue, insofar as possible, to live as they had previously, honoring their own traditions and ideals. Far from abjectly bowing to the orders of the Nazi government, the leaders of the Jewish community lodged formal and vigorous protests with the authorities whenever the rights of Jews were violated. This overall policy of adjustment to the New Order was costly and painful, but for about four years it seemed that survival was possible, if under horrendous conditions. Some Breslau Jews continued to prosper and a fair number continued to maintain a middle-class existence, even though they had to make significant changes in their way of earning a living. Those who had lost their livelihood could rely for relief on the welfare system kept afloat by the more fortunate members of the community. In fact, the success of the Breslau Jews in preserving the welfare system for as long as the community existed was one of their most notable achievements. By 1937, when the Nazi persecution intensified, quite a few Jews (17 percent) had left Breslau, and many others tried to leave; but for reasons I have already mentioned, the obstacles were often insurmountable. A few—the elderly and those who were incorrigibly attached to Germany— chose to remain even after conditions became in-

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tolerable; but if emigration had been easier, by the summer of 1939 the city would have been emptied of the vast majority of its Jews. After that date, there was little they could do to fend off the onslaught. Nevertheless, I did not find a single incident in Breslau of what Arendt considered to have been collaboration by Jews in their own destruction. Although they obeyed Nazi orders by filling out the endless forms on their assets, moving out of their apartments when ordered to do so, and reporting to deportation centers, their acquiescence to these measures is hardly surprising or in any way shameful: after all, most of the initial deportations in the summer of 1941 were not to the east, where the extermination policy was in full swing after late 1941, but to three camps near Breslau that seemed to hold out promise of a continued Jewish communal existence. In any case, knowing what we now know, can anyone doubt that if the Breslau Jews, for the most part middle-aged or older and without weapons, had refused to carry out Nazi orders, they would have been dealt with violently on the spot? Would refusal by the Jews to report to collection centers have inhibited the Nazis from forcing compliance or, failing that, from liquidating them? It would not have required a large contingent of SS men with machine guns to dispose of a few hundred or even a few thousand recalcitrant Jews. We know that the Nazis preferred not to carry out public mass murders in Germany so as not to stimulate opposition among citizens who might be repelled by the bloodshed. But by 1941, eight years of anti-Semitic propaganda and two years of warfare had hardened the attitudes of many Germans and deepened the hostility toward Jews of those who were prejudiced against them in the first place. Their extensive participation in confiscating Jewish assets and sharing in them had also produced the desired effect of diluting doubts about Nazi policies. Many Germans would no doubt have been appalled by mass murders in apartment buildings or on the streets, but many others would have looked the other way. Willy Cohn correctly noted in October 1941, four months after Germany attacked the Soviet Union, that the Nazis now believed that they were engaged in a “war of revenge against Judaism,” which was held responsible for the conflict. Among the party faithful, hatred for the Jews had reached such levels of fanaticism that even in Germany the Nazis

Conclusion

would probably not have held back from shooting Jews who failed to comply with their orders. One is led to the conclusion that the leaders of the Breslau Jewish community coped with Nazi persecution better than could have been expected. It is hard to imagine how the Jews of Breslau—and those of Germany in general—who constituted a tiny minority of the population, who were totally unprepared for the unprecedented animus of the Nazis, and who never received sufficient support from the international community, could have achieved more than they did in protecting themselves and their institutions. The odds against them were insuperable.

279

Notes

The following abbreviations are used in the Notes. Complete authors’ names, titles, and publication data are given in the Bibliography. ALL

Alfred and Lina Lindner Collection. In possession of Ralph Preiss. Poughkeepsie. Bericht Bericht über das Schuljahr 1932 –33, 1933 –34, 1934 –35, 1935 –36, 1937– 38, 1938 –39. Private Jüdische Oberschule. Deutsches Institut für Internationale Bildungsgeschichtliche Forschung, Berlin. CAHJP Central Archives of the History of the Jewish People, Jerusalem. CZA Central Zionist Archive, Jerusalem. GZ Gmina z˙ ydowska we Wrociawiu. Z˙ ydowski Instytut Historyczny, Warsaw. LBI Leo Baeck Institute, New York. NA National Archives, Washington, DC, and Hyattsville, MD. PRO Public Record Office, London. RW Archiwum Pan´ stwowe we Wrociawiu, Rejencija Wrociawska, Wrociaw. Ur. Sk. Archiwum Pan´ stwowe we Wrociawiu, Urza˛ d Skarbowy. Prowincji Dolnos´la˛ skiej we Wrociawiu, Wrociaw. USHMM United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC. WL Wiener Library, London. YV Yad Vashem Archive, Jerusalem.

Introduction 1. Willy Cohn Diary, March 23, 1936, CAHJP, vol. 69, p. 42; Tausk, Breslau Tagebuch, p. 144. 2. For details on the roundup of Polish Jews, see Chapter 4. 3. Card in my possession. 4. This is the central theme of the interesting book by Hettling et al., In Breslau zu Hause? 5. Brilling, “Das Archiv der Breslauer jüdischen Gemeinde.”

284

Notes

Chapter 1 1. On the early period of Jewish settlement in Breslau, see Davies and Moorhouse, Microcosm , pp. 76, 91–93, 136 –38, 183 –84, 247– 48, and passim; Schwerin, “Die Juden in Schlesien”; Reinke, Wohlfahrtspflege, pp. 18 –31; Encyclopedia Judaica, vol. 1, pp. 1041– 48. 2. Meyer, Response to Modernity, pp. 95 –98; Frankel, Damascus Affair, pp. 280 –82. 3. Gotzmann, “Der Geiger-Tiktin-Streit”; Reinke,Wohlfahrtspflege, pp. 123 –24. 4. Davies and Moorhouse, Microcosm, pp. 281–83; Clapham, Economic Development, p. 152. 5. CAHJP, Joseph Walk Collection, P 227/33. 6. Rahden, Juden und andere Breslauer, pp. 88 –89; Hettling, “Sozialstruktur,” p. 115; Sombart,Wirtschaftsleben, p. 220. On Sombart, see Mendes-Flohr, “Ideological Premises.” 7. Niewyk, Jews in Weimar Germany, p. 102. 8. Schwerin, “Die Juden in Schlesien,” quoting Robert Gordis, p. 19. 9. On the early history of the seminary, see Rothschild, “Die Geschichte des Seminars”; Schwerin, “Die Juden in Schlesien,” pp. 18 –19; Brämer, “Die Anfangsjahre”; Kober, “The Jewish Theological Seminary of Breslau.” 10. For a partial list, see Schwerin, “Die Juden in Schlesien,” pp. 19 –21. 11. Brämer, “Die Anfangsjahre,” pp. 106 –7. 12. Reinke,Wohlfahrtspflege, pp. 205, 238. 13. Ibid., pp. 192, 203, 205. 14. GZ, 103/1099, nos. 122 –24. 15. RW, I/9975, pp. 133 –35. 16. Bericht, 1933 –34, p. 7. 17. Rahden, Juden und andere Breslauer, pp. 178 –80. 18. Ibid., p. 220; Schaeffer, “Das religiös-liberale Schulwerk,” p. 298. 19. Interview with Gabriel Holzer, May 24, 2004. 20. Rahden, Juden und andere Breslauer, pp. 211–12. 21. Elias, Reflections on a Life, pp. 84 –85. 22. Davies and Moorhouse, Microcosm, pp. 522 –23. 23. Elias, Reflections on a Life, p. 12. 24. Interview with Walter Laqueur, Nov. 5, 2004. 25. Marcus, Mein Leben, p. 106. 26. Goldschmidt, Mein Leben, p. 2. 27. Hartmann,Once a Doctor, p. 18. 28. Ibid., p. 19. 29. Interview with Gabriel Holzer, May 24, 2004. 30. Elias, Reflections on a Life, p. 127. 31. Ibid., p. 10.

Notes 32. Ibid., p. 18. 33. Schwerin, “Die Juden in Schlesien,” p. 9. 34. Laqueur,Thursday’s Child, p. 12; Elias, Reflections on a Life, p. 6. 35. Elias, Reflections on a Life, p. 19. 36. Rahden, Juden und andere Breslauer, pp. 34, 106ff. 37. Ibid., pp. 148, 172 –73. 38. Marcus, Mein Leben, p. 85. 39. Hadda, “Als Arzt,” p. 217. 40. Rahden, Juden und andere Breslauer, pp. 302 –3. 41. Hadda, “Als Arzt,” p. 217. 42. Hettling, “Sozialstruktur,” p. 127. 43. Rahden, Juden und andere Breslauer, pp. 248 – 49; Hettling, “Sozialstruktur,” pp. 115, 118 –19. 44. Niewyk, Jews in Weimar Germany, p. 26. 45. Schwerin, “Die Juden in Schlesien,” pp. 14 –15, 83. 46. Hadda, Theresienstadt, pp. 2 – 4. 47. Blaschke, “Das Judenthum,” p. 169. Words inside quotes are from Rahden, Juden und andere Breslauer, p. 30. 48. Hettling, “Sozialstruktur,” p. 113. 49. Aschheim, Brothers and Strangers, pp. 42 – 43, 68 –69; Stern,Gold and Iron, pp. 512 –13. 50. The quotation is from Aschheim, Brothers and Strangers, p. 48. On Sombart’s anti-Semitism, see Mendes-Flohr, “Ideological Premises.” 51. Mommsen,Reden und Aufsätze, pp. 410 –26. 52. On the distinction between integration or acculturation and assimilation, see Kaplan, Jewish Middle Class, p. 12. 53. This paragraph is based on the perceptive article by Peter Pulzer, “Jewish Question in Imperial Germany.” 54. Joseph Roth,What I Saw, pp. 211–14. 55. For a fuller discussion of this theme, see Elias, Reflections on a Life, pp. 122 –27. 56. Ibid., p. 127. 57. Blaschke, “Das Judenthum,” pp. 179 –80. 58. Ibid., p. 173. 59. Massing, Rehearsal for Destruction, pp. 6 –8. 60. Hettling, “Sozialstruktur,” pp. 113 –14. 61. Rahden, Juden und andere Breslauer, pp. 255 –56; Blaschke, “Das Judenthum,” p. 173. 62. Barkai,Wehr Dich, p. 60. 63. For succinct and reliable discussions of the count, see ibid., pp. 56ff; and Angress, “Judenzählung.”

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Notes 64. CAHJP, P227/33, p. 4; Rahden, Juden und andere Breslauer, p. 320. 65. Rahden, Juden und andere Breslauer, pp. 320 –21, 324 –25; Blaschke, “Das Judenthum,” p. 170; Barkai,Wehr Dich, p. 117; Vera London-Rosenbaum, CAHJP, P 227/33, p. 4. 66. Waite,Vanguard of Nazism, pp. 227–32. For more on the Free Corps, see Chapter 2. 67. Quoted in Reinke, “Gemeinde und Verein,” p. 145. 68. For an excellent study of the German youth movement, see Laqueur,Young Germany. 69. Interview with Guenter Lewy, Nov. 4, 2004. 70. Interview with Walter Laqueur, Nov. 5, 2004. 71. The names of these Bünde: Ezra (the most religious, it advocated two years of study at a yeshivah),Werkleute, Jung-Jüdischer Wanderbund, Kadimah, and BlauWeiss. See Rinott, “Major Trends,” p. 84; and Laqueur,German Youth Movement, p. 205. 72. See Rinott, “Major Trends.” 73. On the early history of the Zionist movement in Breslau, see Bericht der Zionistischen Vereinigung, CZA, f. A142/55/6; and Translateur, Erinnerungen. 74. Naumann received his commission in Bavaria, where restrictions on Jews aspiring to serve as reserve officers were somewhat less onerous than in his home state, Prussia. 75. On Naumann, see: Hambrock, Die Etablierung der Aussenseiter ; Rheins, “Der Verband”; Barkai,Wehr Dich, pp. 140 – 42, 235 –38, and passim; Niewyk, Jews in Weimar Germany, pp. 165 –77, 198 –99. 76. Barkai,Wehr Dich, pp. 138 – 42; Niewyk, Jews in Weimar Germany, pp. 170 – 71, 175. 77. For the statistics, see Maurer, “Abschiebung und Attentat,” pp. 54, 56, 62. 78. For more details on relations between German and east European Jews, see Aschheim, Brothers and Strangers; and Wertheimer,Unwelcome Strangers. 79. Interviews with Guenter Lewy, Nov. 4, 2004, and Walter Laqueur, Nov. 5, 2004. 80. Müller, Das Breslauer Schulwesen, p. 14. 81. Elias, Reflections on a Life, p. 43; Kershaw, Hitler, vol. 1, p. 368. 82. For an old but still reliable account of the intrigues, see Clark, Fall of the German Republic. 83. See, for example, Kershaw, Hitler, vol. 1, p. 330. 84. Ibid.; Rahden, Juden und andere Breslauer, p. 321; Davies and Moorhouse, Microcosm, p. 337. 85. YV, file 01/145. 86. Jüdische Zeitung, Aug. 26, 1932, p. 1. 87. Ibid., May 19, 1933, p. 1.

Notes 88. Fraenkel, “Die schweren Unruhen” and “Geht der Kampf.” 89. Breslauer Jüdisches Gemeindeblatt, Feb. 1933, pp. 3 – 4. The quotations in the preceding two paragraphs are also from this source. 90. Friedländer, Nazi Germany and the Jews, p. 15. 91. Richard Hahn, Testimony, GZ, 301/1306. 92. Marcus, Mein Leben, p. 28. 93. On this point, see the discussion in Barkai,Wehr Dich, pp. 286 –87. 94. NA, RG 59, FP 862.4016/1273. 95. Handwritten Diary of Cohn, CAHJP, vol. 51, pp. 140 – 41, 144; vol. 53, p. 23. 96. Jüdische Zeitung, Mar. 11, 1932, p. 1. 97. See, for example, ibid., June 5, 1931, p. 1; July 17, 1931, p. 1; July 31, 1931, p. 1; Oct. 30, 1931, p. 1. 98. YV, file 01/145.

Chapter 2 1. Neue Breslauer Zeitung, Mar. 31, 1933, p. 2; New York Times, Mar. 30, 1933, p. 12; Burke, Ambassador Frederic Sackett, pp. 296 –97. 2. Burke, Ambassador Frederic Sackett, pp. 53 –55, 60 –66, and passim. 3. Neumann, Behemoth, p. 125. 4. Neue Breslauer Zeitung, Feb. 1, 1933, p. 2. 5. Ibid., Feb. 6, 1933, p. 1. 6. Ibid., Mar. 31, 1932, p. 1. 7. On the Free Corps and the Feme courts, see Waite, Vanguard of Nazism, pp. 212 –27. 8. Tausk, Breslauer Tagebuch, p. 44; Marcus, Mein Leben, p. 29. 9. The preceding four paragraphs are based on Consul Heard’s report to Berlin, NA, RG 59, 862.105/33, dated Dec. 12, 1933. 10. Waite,Vanguard of Nazism, p. 289; Kershaw, Hitler, vol. 1, pp. 502ff. 11. Schlesische Volkszeitung, May 11, 1933. 12. Jonca, “Belle Epoque,” p. 11; Kershaw, Hitler, vol. 1, pp. 512 –22. 13. NA, RG 59, LM 93. 14. Most of the information in the preceding five paragraphs is based on Foerder’s testimony given in Jerusalem on September 22, 1953. See WL, P. II. b. Some of the information is from the Foerder Collection, CZA, 283/1. 15. Jüdische Rundschau, Mar. 21, 1933, p. 1; Mar. 22, 1933, p. 1. 16. Marcus, Mein Leben, pp. 62 –63, 64 –65, 66, 78. 17. Ibid., pp. 65 –66. 18. Jüdische Zeitung, Mar. 24, 1933, p. 2. 19. Ibid., Mar. 17, 1933, p. 1. 20. Kulka and Jäckel, NS-Stimmungsberichten, pp. 45 – 46.

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Notes 21. Jüdische Zeitung, Mar. 17, 1933, p. 1; for a full discussion of these early antiJewish measures, see Friedländer, Nazi Germany, pp. 9 – 40. 22. Benz, Die Juden in Deutschland, p. 274; Jüdische Zeitung, Mar. 17, 1933, p. 1. 23. Benz, Die Juden in Deutschland, pp. 286 –92; Reinke, Wohlfahrtspflege, pp. 243 – 45. 24. Barkai, From Boycott to Annihilation, pp. 13 –25; Benz, Die Juden in Deutschland, pp. 272 –74. 25. Hambrock, Die Etablierung der Aussenseiter, pp. 589 –91; Neue Breslauer Zeitung, Mar. 30, 1933, p. 1. 26. Adler-Rudel, Jüdische Selbsthilfe, p. 184; Breslauer Jüdisches Gemeindeblatt, April 1933, p. 1. 27. Spicer, “Choosing between God and Satan,” p. 415; Barkai, Wassermann, pp. 59, 131–32. 28. Benz, Die Juden in Deutschland, p. 277. 29. Neue Breslauer Zeitung, April 1, 1933, p. 1. 30. Ibid., April 2, 1933, p. 1. 31. Marcus, Mein Leben, p. 109. 32. Neue Breslauer Zeitung, April 5, 1933, p. 1. 33. Benz, Die Juden in Deutschland, p. 280. 34. Barkai, From Boycott to Annihilation, p. 22. 35. Neue Breslauer Zeitung, April 7, 1933, p. 2. 36. Baer, Witness, pp. 28 –29; on the increase in suicides at this time, see also Benz, Die Juden in Deutschland, p. 651. 37. Jüdische Rundschau, April 4, 1933, p. 1. 38. Gildea, Marianne, p. 16, makes this point about the French under German occupation. 39. Breslauer Jüdisches Gemeindeblatt, May 1933, pp. 1–2. 40. Ibid., June 1933, pp. 1–2. 41. Ibid., Feb. 15, 1935, pp. 1–2. 42. Glaser to Neustadt, Aug. 24, 1938, GZ, 103/961. 43. For a history of the organization, see Barkai,Wehr Dich. 44. Breslauer Jüdisches Gemeindeblatt, July 30, 1934, pp. 1–2. 45. GZ, 947, p. 16. 46. Breslauer Jüdisches Gemeindeblatt, Dec. 31, 1934, p. 2; Feb. 28, 1935, p. 5; Mar. 31, 1935, pp. 1, 2. 47. Ibid., Mar. 15, 1935, p. 2. 48. Barkai, From Boycott to Annihilation, p. 84. 49. Breslauer Jüdisches Gemeindeblatt, Oct. 15, 1934, pp. 1–2. 50. Marcus,Mein Leben, p. 40. 51. Willy Cohn Diary, Aug. 19, 1935, CAHJP, P88/58, vol. 65, p. 27. 52. Breslauer Jüdisches Gemeindeblatt, June 1933, p. 3; July 1933, p. 3.

Notes 53. Neue Breslauer Zeitung, May 9, 1934, p. 3. 54. Breslauer Jüdisches Gemeindeblatt, May 10, 1937, p. 3; Sept. 10, 1937, p. 1. 55. Ibid., Oct. 31, 1934, pp. 1–3. 56. WL, PIII, a. No. 619. 57. Maind, Aus der Arbeit, pp. 4 –5. 58. GZ, 128, p. 285. 59. Breslauer Jüdisches Gemeindeblatt, Sept. 16, 1936, p. 13. These secessions occurred during a six-week period from June 18 to August 2, 1936. 60. Laqueur, Thursday’s Child, p. 103. The “returnees” were listed periodically in the Breslauer Jüdisches Gemeindeblatt. 61. GZ, 128, pp. 183 –90. 62. GZ, 407/35, pp. 236 –38. 63. CAHJP, P231/40. 64. Breslauer Jüdisches Gemeindeblatt, Feb. 28, 1935, pp. 1–2. 65. Röcher,Die jüdische Schule, p. 53. 66. Interview with Gabriel Holzer, May 24, 2004. 67. Baer,Witness for a Generation, p. 30. 68. Röcher, Die jüdische Schule, p. 63; Marcus, Mein Leben, pp. 41– 42. 69. Schaeffer, “Das religiös-liberale Schulwerk,” p. 301. 70. Breslauer Jüdisches Gemeindeblatt, Sept. 15, 1934, pp. 1–2. The statistics on teachers are from Jüdische Zeitung, Mar. 27, 1931, p. 3; Oct. 20, 1933, p. 2. 71. For the letter of the two parents, see GZ, 1416/33, pp. 523 –24. 72. For the exchange of letters between Vogelstein and Feuchtwanger, see GZ, 1416/33, pp. 517–19. 73. GZ, 1416/33, pp. 555ff.; Jüdische Zeitung, Oct. 20, 1933, p. 2. 74. GZ, 1040, pp. 208 – 09; GZ, 103/1036, pp. 265 –67; Breslauer Jüdisches Gemeindeblatt, Sept. 30, 1935, pp. 4 –5; for somewhat different registration figures, see Schul-Chronik der jüdischen Volksschule, Zweiganstalt, Anger 8, CAHJP, HM2/ 6229. 75. Bericht, 1933 –34, p. 32. 76. Ibid., pp. 7–8. 77. Waite,Vanguard of Nazism, pp. 235 –38. 78. Bericht, 1933 –34, pp. 17–19; Bericht, 1934 –35, p. 13; Bericht, 1936, p. 24; Bericht, 1937, p. 30. 79. Ibid.; Röcher, Die jüdische Schule, pp. 107–8. 80. Holborn, Modern Germany, vol. 3, p. 558; GZ, 596/35, pp. 234 –35; the controversy over the flag was even more complicated than my summary suggests. For details, see Dorpalen, Hindenburg, pp. 104 –6. 81. Jüdische Zeitung, Mar. 27, 1931, p. 3. 82. Breslauer Jüdisches Gemeindeblatt, Nov. 29, 1934, p. 2. 83. Bericht, 1938 –39, p. 19.

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Notes 84. Breslauer Jüdisches Gemeindeblatt, Mar. 15, 1937, pp. 2 –3. 85. Bericht, 1933 –34, p. 12; Schaeffer, “Das religiös-liberale Schulwerk,” p. 306; Schul-Chronik der jüdischen Volksschule, Zweiganstalt Anger 8, CAHJP, HM2/6229. 86. Schaeffer, “Das religiös-liberale Schulwerk,” p. 306. 87. For a discussion of this question, see Hambrock, Die Etablierung der Aussenseiter, pp. 694 –96; for criticism of Jews for not emigrating in sufficient numbers, see Dippel, Die Grosse Illusion, pp. 33ff and passim. 88. Hambrock, Die Etablierung der Aussenseiter, p. 696; Arendt, The Origins, p. 8. 89. Neue Breslauer Zeitung, Feb. 17, 1934, p. 4. See also Benz, Die Juden in Deutschland, pp. 314 –15; Fritz Friedländer, “Trials and Tribulations,” p. 190. 90. Breslauer Jüdisches Gemeindeblatt, Dec. 31, 1935, p. 1. 91. Rosenthal, Tagebuch, p. 64. 92. Schaeffer, “Das religiös-liberale Schulwerk,” p. 305. 93. Benz, Die Juden in Deutschland, p. 427. 94. Breslauer Jüdisches Gemeindeblatt, Jan. 15, 1935, pp. 3 – 4. 95. Willy Cohn Diary, May 24, 1933, CAHJP, vol. 54, pp. 3 – 4; GZ, 1071/34, p. 70; 1071/35, pp. 68 –69; 950, pp. 345 –58. 96. Breslauer Jüdisches Gemeindeblatt, July 1933, p. 3; Jüdisches Gemeindeblatt für die Synagogen-Gemeinde Breslau (title had changed), April 25, 1938, p. 1.

Chapter 3 1. Breslauer Jüdisches Gemeindeblatt, July 30, 1934, p. 2. 2. YV, file 01/148, p. 2. 3. RW, f. I/1967, p. 24; Reinke, Wohlfahrtspflege, p. 261; Marcus, Mein Leben, pp. 51, 75; Breitman, “American Diplomatic Records,” pp. 508 –9. 4. Kulka and Jäckel, NS-Stimmungsberichten, p. 177. 5. WL, P. II. o. No. 1182. 6. Kershaw, Hitler, vol. 2, p. 5. 7. GZ, 947. 8. GZ, 1267; interview with Kurt (Yitzhak) Janower, May 31, 2004. Janower kindly sent me a copy of his father’s commendation. 9. Breslauer Jüdisches Gemeindeblatt, Aug. 15, 1934, p. 1. 10. Ibid., Jan. 31, 1935, p. 1. 11. Ibid., Nov. 15, 1936, pp. 13 –14. 12. Ibid., Feb. 15, 1935, p. 3. 13. Jüdische Zeitung, Jan. 19, 1934, p. 3. 14. Hambrock, Die Etablierung der Aussenseiter, p. 104. 15. Jüdische Zeitung, Jan. 19, 1934, p. 3. 16. On these measures, see Friedländer, Nazi Germany, pp. 142 – 44. 17. Private letter from Lotte Hershfield (Cassel), April 18, 2005.

Notes 18. NA, RG 59, LM 93, 862.4016/1453. 19. Marcus, Mein Leben, p. 45; Kulka and Jäckel, NS-Stimmungsberichten, pp. 129, 138. 20. Kulka and Jäckel, NS-Stimmungsberichten, pp. 142, 149; Willy Cohn Diary, July 16, 1935, CAHJP, vol. 64, p. 68. 21. Kulka and Jäckel, NS-Stimmungsberichten, p. 177. 22. Gruner, “Kommunen,” p. 94. 23. Marcus, Mein Leben, p. 45. 24. Interview with Kurt (Yitzhak) Janower, May 31, 2004. 25. Tausk, Breslauer Tagebuch, p. 138 26. Marcus, Mein Leben, p. 49. 27. WL, P. II. o. No. 1182. 28. Breslauer Jüdisches Gemeindeblatt, April 15, 1935, p. 20. 29. Marcus, Mein Leben, pp. 80 –85. 30. RW, I/9975, pp. 193 –95. 31. Barkai, From Boycott to Annihilation, p. 70. 32. Breslauer Jüdisches Gemeindeblatt, July 31, 1935, p. 2; Sept. 15, 1935, pp. 2 –3. 33. Ibid., Sept. 30, 1935, p. 1. 34. Ibid., July 31, 1936, p. 2. 35. WL, P/158, (1); RG 59, 862.00 P. R. /225. 36. Interview with Moshe Chalamish (Bomstein), Israel, May 31, 2004. 37. Breslauer Jüdisches Gemeindeblatt, Feb. 1934, p. 1. 38. GZ, 128, pp. 215 –16. 39. Breslauer Jüdisches Gemeindeblatt, Sept. 17, 1935, p. 1; Dec. 31, 1935, p. 5; Jan. 31, 1936, p. 5; Sept. 10, 1936, p. 2. 40. Adler-Rudel, Jüdische Selbsthilfe, p. 41. 41. Breslauer Jüdisches Gemeindeblatt, May 15, 1936, p. 3. 42. See, for example, Kochan, Pogrom, p. 11. For a nuanced critique of this position, see Barkai, “Schicksalsjahr 1938,” p. 94. 43. These factors are discussed in Gruner, “Kommunen,” p. 121; on the Institute’s study, see NA, RG 59, 862.00 –P.R. 247; on the government’s concern that emigration was proceeding too slowly, see also Kulka and Jäckel, NS-Stimmungsberichten, p. 254. 44. WL, 02/123. 45. Interview with Gabriel Holzer, May 24, 2004. 46. RW, I/966 (document not paginated); D. Blau, Das Ausnahmerecht für die Juden, pp. 43 – 45. 47. RW, I/9975, pp. 24 –27. 48. Ibid., pp. 39 – 40. 49. RW, I/966 (document not paginated). 50. NA, RG 59, 862.4016/2116. 51. RW, I/9975, pp. 15 –17.

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Notes 52. RW, I/9974, p. 95. 53. RW, I/9975, pp. 16, 34 –37. 54. Ibid., pp. 114 –35. 55. RW, I/9980, pp. 3 – 42. 56. RW, I/9967, pp. 16 –19. 57. RW, I/9986, pp. 561–68. 58. PRO, NA file FO408/68. 59. NA, RG 59, LM 93; RG 59, 862.4016/1772. 60. Hadda, “Als Arzt,” p. 219. 61. Marcus, Mein Leben, pp. 53 –55. On the national campaign of arrests, see Benz, Die Juden in Deutschland, p. 427. 62. NA, RG 59, 123 V 461/36; for biographical information on Vaughan, see RG 59, 123 V 461; and U.S. Department of State, Biographic Register, 1955, p. 572. 63. NA, RG 59, 123 V 461/36; RG 59, 123 V 461/38. 64. NA, RG 59, 123 V 461/41. 65. Ibid. 66. NA, RG 59, 123 V 461/50. 67. Ibid. 68. NA, RG 59, 123 V 461/56; and RG 59, 123 V 461/88. 69. The students’ run-in with the Nazis is discussed in Chapter 2. 70. NA, RG 59, 123 V 461/75. 71. NA, RG 59, 362.6215/55A. 72. NA, RG 59, 123 V 461/65. 73. The passport with the visa is in the possession of Esther Adler, my sister. 74. NA, RG 59, 123 V 461/76. 75. NA, RG 59, 125.2316/35A. 76. U.S. Department of State, Biographic Register, 1955, p. 572; New York Times, May 25, 1977. 77. Ephraim,Escape to Manila. 78. The statistics were sent to me by Frank Ephraim in a letter dated April 12, 2005; he has compiled a database of the Jews of Manila. 79. Breitman and Kraut, American Refugee Policy, pp. 64 –65. 80. On Arendt and Eichmann, see also Chapter 6. 81. Laqueur, Thursday’s Child, p. 131. 82. Jüdisches Gemeindeblatt für die Synagogen-Gemeinde Breslau, July 25, 1938, p. 9. 83. Ibid., May 25, 1938, p. 1. 84. Ibid., July 25, 1938, p. 9. 85. GZ, 119. 86. Jüdisches Gemeindeblatt für die Synagogen-Gemeinde Breslau, April 25, 1938, p. 1. 87. Reinke,Wohlfahrtspflege, p. 257.

Notes 88. Breslauer Jüdisches Gemeindeblatt, Feb. 18, 1935, p. 2. 89. Jüdisches Gemeindeblatt für die Synagogen-Gemeinde Breslau, April 25, 1938, pp. 1–2. 90. Marcus, Mein Leben, pp. 1–60. 91. Attached to Marcus manuscript.

Chapter 4 1. Benz, Die Juden in Deutschland, p. 499. 2. Ibid., pp. 499 –500. 3. Jewish Chronicle, Nov. 4, 1938, p. 25; NA, RG 59, 862.4016/1803; Milton, “The Expulsion of Polish Jews.” 4. Jewish Chronicle, Nov. 4, 1938, p. 26. 5. Quoted in Kochan, Pogrom, p. 41. 6. Quoted in Jewish Chronicle, Nov. 11, 1938, p. 29. 7. NA, RG 59, 862.4016/1816. 8. Kochan, Pogrom, pp. 50 –52; Benz,Die Juden in Deutschland, p. 508. 9. Pätzold and Runge,“Kristallnacht,” p. 118; Jonca, “Belle Epoque,” p. 11. 10. NA, 59, 862.4016/1813. 11. Ayalon, “Life in Breslau,” p. 323. 12. WL, 02/145, p. 1. P. Rosten was the eyewitness. 13. Some books survived the war and after 1945 were distributed to the libraries of the Jewish communities in Basel, Geneva, and Zurich. 14. CAHJP, P 231/23; Rothschild, “Die Geschichte des Seminars,” p. 165. 15. YV, file 033/1403. 16. Kochan, Pogrom, p. 61; Barkai, “Schicksalsjahr 1938,” p. 113. 17. NA, RG 59, 862.4016/1831. 18. Barkai, “Schicksalsjahr 1938,” p. 113. 19. Ur. Sk., 2852, pp. 394 – 401, 403 –6. 20. CAHJP, P 231/23, p. 1. 21. Ibid., p. 2. 22. Ibid.; Ur. Sk., 2852, pp. 52 –53. 23. CAHJP, P 231/23, p. 2. 24. Ibid. 25. NA, RG 59, 862.4016/1818. The official at the American embassy estimated the total of Jewish assets reported at almost 10 billion marks, but the correct figure seems to have been less, closer to 8.5 billion. 26. Barkai, From Boycott to Annihilation, pp. 136 –37; Ur. Sk., 2852, pp. 6 –8. 27. RW, I/9964, pp. 79 –86. 28. Ur. Sk., 2852, pp. 53 –60. 29. Ibid., p. 58. 30. RW, I/9975, pp. 183 –84.

293

294

Notes 31. Ibid., pp. 21–23. 32. Ibid., pp. 58 –60. 33. RW, I/9974, pp. 53 –54. 34. Ibid., pp. 32 –33, 34 –37, 45; GZ, 1159, pp. 30 –35. 35. RW, I/9974, pp. 28 –31. 36. Ur. Sk., 2852, p. 493. 37. RW, I/9974, pp. 22 –24. 38. RW, I/9975, pp. 185 –86. 39. Ur. Sk. 2853, p. 49. 40. Ibid., p. 54. 41. RW, I/9964, pp. 37–39. 42. Ibid., pp. 10 –12. 43. Bericht, 1938 –39, pp. 18 –20, 25. 44. CAHJP, P231/40, p. 2. 45. Letter from Guenter Lewy, Oct. 10, 2005, based on information from his father, who was a prisoner in Buchenwald. 46. WL, 02/145. 47. Rosenthal, Tagebuch, pp. 68 –71. 48. Newton, Erinnerungen. 49. CAHJP, P231/40. 50. Elias, Reflections on a Life, p. 52. 51. For the letters (only those by Martin have survived), see GZ, 103/1235, pp. 8 –19. 52. Interview with Guenter Lewy, Nov. 4, 2004. 53. Baer,Witness for a Generation, pp. 35 –37. 54. GZ, 1196, pp. 7–29. 55. GZ, 1194, p. 33. 56. Ibid., p. 54. 57. Ibid., pp. 25, 33, 50, 59, 61. 58. Konieczny, Tormersdorf, p. 156. 59. Kroch, Exil in der Heimat, p. 31. 60. Ibid., p. 11. The letters from the Krochs to their son can be found in the YV, file 075/430. 61. Preiss to Oberpräsident Schlesien, Devisenstelle, Dec. 29, 1938, ALL. 62. Preiss to Oberpräsident Schlesien, Devisenstelle, Jan. 26, 1939; reply to Preiss, Feb. 2, 1939, ALL. 63. Elly to “Meine geliebten Lindners!” April 30, 1942, ALL, p. 47. 64. Bertoldo and Gerda to “Meine Lieben,” April 17, 1942, and Jan. 10, 1943, ALL, pp. 37, 69. 65. Fritz to “Meine Lieben,” Dec. 30, 1942, ALL, p. 70. 66. B. K. to “Meine Lieben,” Jan. 22, 1945, ALL, p. 129. 67. GZ, 102/1160, pp. 1–11, 26.

Notes 68. GZ, 10T2. 69. In the recently published diaries of Willy Cohn, which appeared after my study had been completed, I found several references by Cohn to “der alte Grünmandel,” and I presume this is the same person I discuss, although there is no reference in the book to his charitable activities. The Grünmandel in Cohn’s diary was president of the Orthodox Abraham-Mugdan Synagogue, one of only two Jewish houses of worship in Breslau that survived Kristallnacht, and often led the services and gave talks on religious subjects. Early in April 1940 Grünmandel left Breslau for Pressburg/Bratislava, apparently under unseemly pressure from his daughter. See Willy Cohn, Kein Recht, passim. 70. RW, I/9986, pp. 389 –92. 71. Benz, Die Juden in Deutschland, pp. 601–2, 632 –33; Tausk, Breslauer Tagebuch, p. 232. For an interesting and persuasive article on the Nazis’ aim to humiliate Jews during and after Kristallnacht, see Loewenberg, “Kristallnacht.”

Chapter 5 1. Kershaw, Hitler, vol. 2, pp. 473 –74; Browning, The Origins, pp. 29 –35. 2. See Barkai, From Boycott to Annihilation, pp. 153 –54; and Kaplan, Between Dignity and Despair, p. 132. 3. Kershaw, Hitler, vol. 1, p. 278; vol. 2, p. 779. 4. Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem, pp. 26, 33, 41, 48, 54, and passim. 5. Wistrich,Wer war wer, pp. 286 –87. 6. Ibid., pp. 110 –11. 7. WL, 02/151, p. 9. 8. WL, P. III. a. No. 619, p. 2. 9. Ibid., pp. 1–2. See also the description of conditions in Breslau in Ayalon, “Life in Breslau,” p. 331. 10. WL, P. III. a. No. 619, p. 4. 11. Tausk, Breslauer Tagebuch, p. 233. 12. Ibid. 13. YV, 01/149, p. 3. 14. Klemperer, The Language of the Third Reich, p. 166; YV, 01/149; Benz, Die Juden in Deutschland, p. 614; Hadda, “Als Arzt,” p. 229. 15. Konieczny, The Transit Camp, pp. 318 –19; Ayalon, “Life in Breslau,” p. 337. 16. Hadda, “Als Arzt,” p. 229. 17. RW, I/9976, Memorandum dated Sept. 18, 1940 (document not paginated). 18. Ibid. 19. Ibid., pp. 62, 74 –75, 76. 20. Ibid., pp. 61–62. 21. RW, I/9979, pp. 16 –18. 22. Ibid., p. 1.

295

296

Notes 23. Ibid., p. 4. 24. RW, I/9976, pp. 63 –72. 25. Ibid., pp. 2 –25, 32. 26. Ibid., pp. 45, 51, 73. 27. Ibid., p. 26. 28. RW, I/9965, pp. 249 –58. 29. RW, I/9971, pp. 1–2. 30. RW, I/9970, p. 30. 31. RW, I/9972, pp. 4, 21. 32. Ibid., pp. 1, 4 –8. 33. Ibid., pp. 28 –35. 34. RW, I/9971, p. 39. 35. Ibid., pp. 8 –9. 36. RW, I/9971, p. 20; RW, I/9973, pp. 2, 11–21. 37. RW, I/9969, pp. 3, 7–9. 38. Ibid., pp. 4 –6. 39. Ibid., pp. 46 – 47. 40. Ibid., pp. 77–83. 41. Ibid., pp. 172, 175. 42. Ibid., pp. 89, 91–94. 43. RW, I/9967, pp. 16 –18; RW, I/9970, pp. 109, 90 –95. 44. The regulations on trusteeship run to thirteen single-spaced pages and can be found in RW, I/9964. For an analysis of the regulations on trustees by the American embassy, see NA, RG 59, 862.4016/2082. 45. RW, I/9970, p. 95. 46. RW, I/9984, pp. 1–2. 47. Ibid., pp. 5 –7, 10 –12, 16. 48. Ibid., pp. 17, 21, 25, 26, 41. 49. Ibid., p. 43. 50. Röcher, Die jüdische Schulen, p. 116. 51. Ayalon, “Life in Breslau,” p. 339; Arkwright, “Das Ende der jüdischen Schule.” 52. Ayalon, “Life in Breslau,” p. 339. 53. Wolf, Ich blieb zurück, p. 18; Cohn, Als Jude in Breslau, p. 76; Arkwright, “Das Ende der jüdischen Schule.” 54. Wolf, Ich blieb zurück, p. 24. 55. Arkwright, “Das Ende der jüdischen Schule.” 56. Tausk, Breslauer Tagebuch, pp. 247– 48. 57. GZ, 967, pp. 65, 74, 83 –85, 101–2, 220; Ayalon, “Life in Breslau,” p. 334. 58. GZ, 900C. 59. Ayalon, “Life in Breslau,” p. 342.

Notes 60. Rosa to “Meine Geliebten Alle!” Nov. 18, 1941, ALL, pp. 146 – 47. 61. Blumenthal, “Pessach in Breslau.”

Chapter 6 1. RW, I/9978, p. 30; Ayalon, “Life in Breslau,” pp. 342 – 45. 2. RW, I/9978, pp. 36 –37. 3. Konieczny, Tormersdorf, pp. 89 –110, 226; Brilling, “Die Evakuierung”; Jonca, “Deportation of German Jews,” p. 277. For the most authoritative and detailed research on the transit camps, see the publications of Karol Jonca and Alfred Konieczny, Polish scholars who have mined the available sources with admirable thoroughness and perceptiveness. 4. Jonca, “Deportation of German Jews,” pp. 287, 289, 295, 305. 5. Ernesto and Charlotte to “Meine lieben Verwandten,” Dec. 5, 1941, ALL, p. 14. 6. Absender: Dr. Heinz Israel Rosenberg, June 29, 1942, ALL, p. 58. 7. GZ, 2288, pp. 24 –29, 41– 49; file 1189, pp. 90, 107, 146, 208. 8. Carlebach-Rosenak, “Meine wunderbare Rettung.” 9. For the account of conditions in Tormersdorf, see Brilling, “Die Evakuierung der Breslauer Juden.” 10. Konieczny, Tormersdorf, pp. 181–85, where the relevant documents are printed. See also pp. 197–200 for similar confiscations of the assets of Jews deceased in Grüssau. 11. RW, I/9985, pp. 1–3. 12. Ibid., pp. 7–13. 13. Konieczny, “Transit Camp,” pp. 340 – 41; Konieczny, Tormersdorf, p. 227. 14. YV, file 033/2780. 15. Konieczny, Tormersdorf, pp. 191–92. 16. Cohn, Als Jude, p. 109. 17. Postcard in possession of Joanna Helander de domo Koszyk. Information on Leopold and his family in email letter from Joanna and Bo Persson, Nov. 15, 2005. 18. Jonca, “Deportation of German Jews,” p. 280; Konieczny, Tormersdorf, p. 227. 19. Jonca, “Deportation of German Jews,” p. 279; Jonca, “Belle Epoque,” p. 11; Wolf,Ich blieb zurück, p. 30; Davies and Moorhouse, Microcosm, p. 395; Benz, Die Juden in Deutschland, p. 691. 20. RW, I/9965, pp. 302 –5. 21. Ibid., pp. 299 –301. 22. GZ, 103/304, pp. 49, 58, 108. 23. Hadda, “Als Arzt,” p. 231. 24. Ibid.

297

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Notes 25. Ur. Sk., 1398, which contains hundreds of such forms. 26. RW, I/9965, p. 1. 27. RW, I/9981, p. 9. 28. Bartov, Hitler’s Army, pp. 157–78. 29. Cohn, Als Jude, p. 80. 30. On Bertram, I have relied on the excellent study by Lewy, The Catholic Church, pp. 8, 32, 33, 36 –38, 259, 264, 289, 290, 291 (the quote is from p. 291). 31. USHMM, RG-14.012. 32. Two additional volumes of Cohn’s diary, covering the period from 1933 to 1941, have just been published. The editor, Professor Norbert Conrads, is the leading authority on Cohn, whose works he has studied with great care and sensitivity. The two volumes, superbly edited, shed light on several themes touched on in my book, and I was fortunate to have had the opportunity to examine the unpublished diary at the Central Archive of the Jewish People in Jerusalem. For the published version, see Willy Cohn, Kein Recht. 33. Cohn,Verwehte Spuren, pp. 7–8; Cohn, Als Jude, pp. 8 –10. 34. Willy Cohn Diary, CAHJP, P88/66, vol. 65, p. 12. 35. Cohn,Verwehte Spuren, p. 7. 36. Ibid., p. 10. 37. Ibid., p. 70. 38. Cohn, Als Jude. 39. Ibid., pp. 60, 35. 40. Ibid., pp. 26, 52, 74. 41. Ibid., p. 33. 42. See especially Browning, The Origins. 43. Cohn, Als Jude, p. 92. 44. Ibid., pp. 8, 73, 107. 45. Ibid., pp. 95, 99. 46. Ibid., p. 99. 47. Ibid., pp. 22, 70 –71. 48. Ibid., pp. 6 –78, 25, 110. 49. Ibid., p. 58. 50. Ibid., pp. 20, 21, 27, 28, 51. 51. Ibid., pp. 117–18. 52. Ibid., p. 122. 53. Ibid., pp. 75, 83, 119. 54. Ibid., p. 53. 55. For a discussion of this corruption, see Klemperer, The Language of the Third Reich. 56. Cohn, Als Jude, pp. 75, 77, 80. 57. Ibid., p. 109.

Notes 58. Ibid., p. 103. 59. Ibid., p. 93. 60. Ibid., pp. 116, 122. 61. Ibid., pp. 106 –7. 62. Browning, The Origins, p. 374. 63. Cohn,Verwehte Spuren, p. 11. 64. Unpublished memoir, “Theresienstadt,” pp. 79 –79A. This manuscript was sent to me by Hadda’s granddaughter, Professor Janet Hadda of the University of California, Los Angeles, and I want to express my appreciation to her. 65. Genzow, Der Breslauer Arzt, pp. 13 –15; Hadda, “Als Arzt,” pp. 198 –200. 66. Hadda, “Als Arzt,” p. 217; Genzow, Der Breslauer Arzt, p. 14. 67. Hadda, “Als Arzt,” pp. 221–22; Reinke,Wohlfahrtspflege, p. 265. 68. GZ, 894, pp. 295 –96, 313, 316, 322, 326. 69. Hadda, “Als Arzt,” pp. 222 –23; Genzow, Der Breslauer Arzt, p. 71. 70. Hadda, “Als Arzt,” p. 225. 71. Ibid., p. 226. For more details on the last period of the hospital, see the excellent account in Reinke,Wohlfahrtspflege, pp. 273ff. 72. Reinke,Wohlfahrtspflege, p. 278; Hadda, “Als Arzt,” pp. 226 –27. 73. Hadda, “Als Arzt,” p. 232. 74. Ibid., pp. 233 –34. On the fate of the Jews in mixed marriages, see below. 75. Hadda, Theresienstadt, p. 8; Hadda, “Als Arzt,” pp. 233 –34. 76. Hadda, Theresienstadt, pp. 8 –13. 77. Hadda, “Als Arzt,” p. 237. 78. Ibid., p. 236. 79. Kershaw, Hitler, vol. 2, pp. 716 –17, 816 –17; Breitman, Architect of Genocide, p. 7. 80. Hadda, Theresienstadt, pp. 49 –51. 81. Lasker-Wallfisch, Inherit the Truth, pp. 17–19, 38, 47. 82. Ibid., p. 47. 83. Ibid., p. 59. 84. Ibid., pp. 69 –71. 85. Ibid., p. 79; on Mengele, see Posner and Ware, Mengele. 86. Lasker-Wallfisch, Inherit the Truth, pp. 79 –81. 87. Ibid., p. 76. 88. Ibid., pp. 77, 85. 89. Ibid., pp. 92, 96. 90. For her testimony, see ibid., pp. 157–63. 91. Hilberg, Destruction of the European Jews, p. 268; Kaplan, Between Dignity and Despair, p. 75. 92. Wolf, Ich blieb zurück, pp. 2 –7. 93. Ibid., pp. 15 –18.

299

300

Notes 94. Ibid., p. 20. 95. Ibid., p. 25. 96. Ibid., pp. 25 –26. 97. Ibid., pp. 25 –31. 98. RW, I/9965, p. 317; Wolf, Ich blieb zurück, pp. 32 –35. 99. Wolf, Ich blieb zurück, p. 33. 100. Ibid., pp. 36 –37. 101. Ibid., p. 40. 102. WL, P. III. a. No. 612.

Conclusion 1. Pendorf, Mörder und Ermordete. 2. Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem, pp. 117–18.

Glossary

Deutsche Arbeitsfront (DAF) (German Labor Front). Created by the Nazis as a replacement for all existing trade unions. Membership was obligatory for every employee, but Jews were excluded. Free Corps (Freikorps). Militias created by German military officers in 1919 to put down Polish insurrectionists, expand German influence in the Baltic region, and crush revolutionaries within Germany. The Free Corps commanders, who led some sixty-eight units of volunteers, tended to be radical nationalists and were often also monarchists. Frequently, they staged punitive expeditions against workers, plundering and killing many innocent people. Gauleiter (District Leader of the Nazi Party). In 1933, Gauleiters assumed responsibility for regional administration and thus became the most powerful authorities in their districts. Gestapo Acronym of Geheime Staatspolizei (secret state police). A successor to the pre-1933 Gestapo in Prussia, whose task it had been to keep track of and combat movements hostile to the state, for the most part those on the left. In April 1933, Hermann Göring, Prussian Minister of the Interior, transformed the Gestapo into an agency of the Nazi Party and, in fact, turned it into a branch of the SS. Even though it was a relatively small organization, numbering no more than 32,000 men in 1944, the Gestapo supervised the system of terror imposed on Germany and it enforced most of the anti-Jewish measures enacted by the Nazis. A law of February 1936 explicitly stated that the actions of the Gestapo were outside the control of the courts, formalizing what had actually been the case over the preceding three years. Hachschara Zionist training center in agricultural work in preparation for emigration to Palestine. Oberbürgermeister (Lord Mayor). Elected by local citizens. Oberpräsident (Provincial Prefect). Highest official of Prussian provinces, appointed by authorities in Berlin. Preisbehörde (Price Authority). Office in local areas that administered the regulations regarding the rental of apartments.

302

Glossary Regierungspräsident (President of the Governing Board or Board President). Appointed by the government in Berlin to supervise the administration of several regions. Reich Representation of German Jews Formed in 1933, this organization (known in German as Reichsvertretung der deutschen Juden) was to represent the entire Jewish community in dealing with the government and Nazi Party and to devise plans on how to cope with the wide range of restrictions the authorities were imposing on the Jews. In February 1939 the Nazis, to emphasize that Jews were no longer considered German citizens, forced it to adopt the name Reich Association of Jews in Germany (Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland). The Association was placed under the supervision of the Gestapo. Rabbi Leo Baeck was the president of both Jewish organizations. SA Sturmabteilung (Storm Section, also known as Brownshirts for their uniforms). Founded in 1921, its initial membership was made up largely of Free Corps. They protected Nazi Party meetings, fought street battles against leftists, intimidated voters during elections, and frequently attacked Jews, especially during the initial period of Nazi rule. By 1932, its membership rose to 400,000 and to perhaps 2,000,000 in 1933. After the Night of Long Knives (June 30, 1934), its role in Nazi affairs declined and its size was reduced, but it remained active till 1945. SS Schutzstaffel (Protection Squad, also known as Blackshirts for their uniforms). Founded by Hitler in 1925, to whom they always remained answerable and whose protection was their initial task. An elite group within the Nazi movement that insisted on the most rigorous standards of racial purity before accepting anyone into its ranks. By 1933 it had grown to 50,000 and by 1939 to about 250,000. The SS, headed by the notorious Heinrich Himmler, supervised the enforcement of Nazi racial policies, administered the concentration camps, and played a major role in the murder of Jews, Gypsies, and many others the Nazis considered undesirable for one reason or another. The Gestapo was one of its subdivisions. During the Second World War the SS’s so-called Verfügungstruppen (Disposition Troops), some thirty-nine divisions, fought with fanatical tenacity alongside the regular army. Stahlhelm, Bund der Frontsoldaten (Steel Helmet, Association of War Veterans who had served at the front). Right-wing organization of soldiers that did not admit Jews. Volksgenossen A difficult word to translate. Strictly speaking, it means “people’s comrades.” Another possible translation is “national comrades,” but neither translation fully conveys what the Nazis had in mind in using the word. It had a strong racial tinge to it and was meant to imply that only a person with Aryan blood could be considered a true German. I therefore use the German word in the text.

Bibliography

Interviews Bomstein, Moritz (Moshe Chalamish); Kibbutz Lehavot Habashan, Israel, May 31, 2004. Fraenkel, Ernst; London, January 7, 2004. Holzer, Gabriel; Tel Aviv, May 24, 2004. Janower, Kurt (Yitzhak); Kibbutz Lehavot Habashan, Israel, May 31, 2004. Laqueur, Walter; Washington, DC, November 5, 2004. Lasker-Wallfish, Anita; London, January 9, 2004. Lewy, Guenter; Washington, DC, November 4, 2004. Tuckman, Ruth; Ashkelon, Israel, May 19, 2004. Wolf, Karla; Nahariya, Israel, May 27, 2004.

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Index

Achad Ha’am, 245 Agricultural Emigration Training Center in Gross-Breesen, Silesia, 186 –87 Agudah (ultra-orthodox opponent of Zionism), 38 Aleichem, Sholem, 125 Aliyah, 54 Allied Powers, 52 Altman, Isidor, 181 Alt-Stutterheim, Joachim Friedrich von, 79 Am Anger School, see Schule am Anger American Joint Distribution Committee, 168 Annaberg, Saxony, 83 Amsterdam, 197 Anti-Hitler plot (July 20, 1944), 206 Anti-Semitism, 4, 32, 36, 40, 43, 108, 166, 251, 255, 263; advocated by Loringhoven, 61; during First World War, 50 –51; Hitler and, 66 –67; increase of in Breslau, 60; Julius Streicher and, 114; Neumann on, 69 –70; resurgence of, 46; turns racist, 49 Archiv für Schlesische Kirchengeschichte, 250 Archive of Jewish community in Breslau, 24, 96 –97 Arendt, Hannah, 108, 142, 205, 275, 276, 278 Arens, Fritz Israel, 182 Argentina, 111 Arkwright, Ken, 226 Arlt, Dr., 25 Arndt, Ernst Moritz, 146 Aron, Ernst Israel, 233 Aron, Olga Sara, 233

Aryanization, 121, 176; definition of, 120; justification for, 182; of art, 216; new procedures for, 223; trustees and, 222 Ascher (now Adler), Esther, 4 –5, 7, 19, 105 Ascher, Henry, 8, 9 –10, 16, 19, 20, 144 Ascher, Leo Israel, 240 Ascher, Max, 6, 8, 12 –13, 18, 19, 20 Association of Jewish War Veterans (Reichsbund jüdischer Frontsoldaten), 51, 86 Association of Republican War Veterans, 78 Association of Senior Gentlemen, 173 Association of Synagogue Communities in Lower Silesia, 90 Atonement penalty, 175 –83 Auschwitz, 189, 192, 197, 238, 261; Anita Lasker-Wallfisch and, 262, 265 –67; Breslau Jews sent to, 239; Judith Steinberg and, 273 –74 Ausweisungsbefehl (Order of Expulsion), 10 Avonmouth, UK, 17 Bach, Joseph Israel, 240 Baarova, Lida, 206 Baeck, Leo, Rabbi, 125, 148; influence on Willy Cohn, 247, 250; leader of German Jewry, 89; on Jewish survival in Germany, 124; on Saar district, 114 Baer, John J., 85, 99, 190 –91 Bandmann, Eugen, 45, 130 Bandmann, Linda, 130 Bank Heinz, 239 Bank E. Heimann, 239 Barkai, Avraham, 84, 121, 172

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314

Index Bar Kochba, 125 Bar Mitzvah, 6, 12, 16 Baron, Mrs. [Salo], 123 Bartov, Omer, 243 Bashford, R. F. O’N., 133 –34 Bauschowitz, 260 Beate-Guttmann Home for the Aged, 214, 228, 230 Becker, Judge, 78 –79 Beckmann, Max, 218 Beer, Julius, 128 Belzec, 238 Bendix, Julia Sara, 240 Berg, Hermann Hans Israel, 113 Bergen-Belsen camp, 266, 267, 272 Berger, Erich, 173 Bergmann, Fritz, 143 Bergmüller (art collector), 217 Berlin, 29, 30, 56, 70, 80, 268, 275, 276; American embassy in, 178; anti-Jewish measures in, 134; aryanization and, 222 – 23; dissolution of Jewish community, 239; flight of Jews to, 135; size of Jewish population in, 141 Berliner, Grete, 144 Berlin Jewish Community Office, 239 Bernay, Paul, 91 Bern Hospital, 261 Bernstein, Eduard, 45 Bernstein, Leo Israel, 179 Bertram, Adolf Johannes Cardinal: and murder of Jews, 244 – 45; and Nazism, 243 – 44; meeting with Oskar Wassermann, 82 Bielefeld, 232 Bielschowsky family, 45 Bileski (student), 123 –24 Black Death, 27 Blankenburg, 201 Blaschke, Olaf, 45 Bloch, Hans, 143 Blumenfeld, Kurt, 81 Blumenthal, Hermann, 229 Bochum, 206 Boehm, Dr., 274 Bonn, 2 –3

Bormann, Martin, 241 Born, Max, 40 Bornhausen, Professor, 75 Boss, Dr.,111 Boycott (April 1, 1933), 81–85 Bradford, Robert R., 138 –39 Brauchitsch, General Walter von, 172 Brazil, 111, 190, 192 Breitman, Richard, 142 Breslau: American consulate in, 6, 135 – 43; anti-Semitism in, 46 – 48, 51–52, 61–65, 80; aryanization of Jewish assets, 120 –23, 126 –28, 222 –23; becomes major city, 31; boycott (April 1, 1933), 82 –83, 85; Conservative Judaism in, 33 –36; deportation of Jews, 230 – 41; early history of, 27–29; eastern European Jews, 56 –57; economic conditions of Jews, 31–32, 112 –13, 133 –34, 174 –82, 207–10, 219, 249; emergence of Reform Judaism, 29 –30; emigration from, 108 –111, 143 – 45, 146 – 48, 187– 200; enforcement of atonement penalty, 177–82; evolution of Jewish community, 31–33, 52 –54; Jewish archive in, 24 –25, 96 –97; Jewish cultural events after 1933, 91–93, 125, 228; Jewish education, 38, 98 –108, 183, 225 –26; Jewish Hospital, 36, 227–28, 255 –59, 273; Jewish Museum (1934), 93; Jewish response to persecution, 86 –96, 114 –15; Jewish welfare institutions, 37, 145 – 46, 200 – 03, 227–28; kosher food in, 93 –95, 123 –24; Kristallnacht in, 170 –75, 263; Naumann in, 115 – 16; Nazi demonstrations against “defilers of the race,” 117–18; Nazi seizures of Jewish dwellings, 210 –16; Nazism before 1933, 60 –61; Nazi violence in, 70 –71, 72 – 79, 134 –35; relations between Jews and Gentiles, 40 – 41, 42 – 46; seizure of Jewish assets, 128 –34; seizure of Jewishowned art, 216 –19 Breslau-Dürrgoy, 76 Breslauer Addressbuch, 202 Breslauer Jüdisches Gemeindeblatt, 86, 87, 88, 89, 111, 113, 120, 143 Breslau Public Pawnshop, 173, 179, 180

Index Breslau Theater, 91 Breslau University, 75, 146, 252 Brieg, 234 Brilling, Bernhard, 25, 97, 183 British Foreign Office, 133 Browning, Christopher, 253 Brückner, Helmuth, 71, 205 Brückner, R. R., 181, 182 Bruegmann, Vera, 129 Brüning, Heinrich, 69 Buber, Martin, 12, 55 Bucka, Dr., 274 Buchenwald concentration camp, 127, 134, 135, 170, 201, 236, 269; conditions in, 183 – 87; release of inmates, 256 Budapest, 34, 137, 143, 179; investigation of Vice-Consul Vaughan in, 138 –39 Buenos Aires, 143 Bünde ( unions), 54 Burgfrieden (civil truce), 50

Cohn, Hermann Ludwig, 42 Cohn, Rudolf, 102 Cohn, Siegmund, 76 Cohn, Willy, 9, 91, 123, 245, 278; diary of, 246 –53; learns of massacres of Jews, 243; on Nazi seizure of power, 67,111; seeks kosher meat, 243 Cologne, 96, 124, 125, 141 Columbia University, 20 Conservative Judaism, 3, 34 Cosel (Upper Silesia), 254 Cosel Jewish Cemetery, 25, 226, 271 Counseling Service, 89 –91 “Counting of Jews,” 50 –51 Courbet, Gustave, 217 Croydon, 9, 10, 11, 14 Cultural Circle—Society of Friends of Jewish Culture (Jewish Cultural Association after 1935), 92 Czernowitz, 248

Calderón de la Barca, Pedro, 93, 125 Cadiel, Herbert, 141 Carlebach-Rosenak, Bella, 234 Carr, Wilbur J., 138 Cassel family, 116 Central Archive of the History of the Jewish People, 248 Centralverein deutscher Staatsbürger jüdischen Glaubens, 89 Chagall, Marc, 93 Chamber of Commerce, 23, 132, 219, 220 Chamber of Handicrafts, 221–22 Chanukah, 41, 192, 268 Chemnitz, 80 Chevra kadisha (sacred society), 28, 175 Chile, 111, 192, 196 Churchill, Winston, 169 City College of New York, 18, 19 CMR (U.S. State Department official), 137–38 Coar, John Firman, 66 –67 Cohn, Conrad, 97 Cohn, Elly, 199 –200 Cohn, Ernst, 62 –65 Cohn, Ferdinand Julius, 43

Dachau, 147, 171 Damascus Affair, 30 Daumier, Honoré, 217 Decree of April 27, 1938, 128 –32, 174, 175 Decree of May 31, 1933, 241 “Defilers of the race,” 117 Der Angriff, 168 Deutsche Arbeitsfront (German Labor Front), 121, 212 Deutsche Bank, 173, 239 Diaspora, 54 Die Greifen, 53, 54 Dienststelle Judenvermögensangabe, also known as Dienststelle J ( Office J), 177–78 Dohm, Wilhelm von, 46 Drakes, Mr. (teacher), 17 Dresden, 213 Dresdner Bank, 131, 173, 188 Drews (German official), 127 Duff Cooper, Alfred, 169 Dyhrenruth, Josef, 37 Ebel, Dr. (official in Ministry of Labor), 212 Eden, Anthony, 169 Ehrlich, Paul, 39

315

316

Index Eichmann, Adolf, 142, 205, 260, 275 Eisenberg, Otto, 191, 192 Elias, Norbert, 42, 48; on anti-Semitism in Breslau, 40; on education in Breslau, 39; on emigration, 189; on German culture, 41 Elliott Central School for Girls and Boys, 16 Emigration, 22, 89, 91, 126, 174, 176, 219, 269; difficulties of, 109 –11, 147, 190 –92, 196 –97; discussion of, 108 – 09, 143 – 45; Gestapo pressure for, 87–88; my mother’s decision for, 5 –6, 24; tax on, 130, 222 Engels, Friedrich, 193, 250 Engels, Louis-Werner, 74 Ephraim, Frank, 102, 141 Epstein, Hans, 191 Epstein, Kurt, 236 Epstein, Martha, 237 Epstein, Walter, 191 Epstein, Yoram, 237 Ertelt (Gestapo official), 147 Erfurt, 43, 273 Erzberger, Matthias, 71 Fay, Sidney B., 148 Feige, Roza Sara, 179 Feige, Willybrand Heinrich, 179 Feinstein, Max Israel, 221 Feme courts (Femgericht), 71, 72 Feuchtwanger, Ludwig, 93 Feuchtwanger, Max, 100, 101, 104 Financial Office (Silesia), 130, 132, 174, 177, 180, 222 Fischer, Martin, 84 Foerder, Ludwig, 76 –78 Foerder, M. P., 64 Forest Office (Forstfiskus), 234 Fraenckel, Jonas, 33 –34, 36, 37 Frankel, Zacharias, 34 Frankfurt am Main, 33 Free Corps (Freikorps), 52, 71, 72, 104, 301 Frederick William IV, King of Prussia, 33 Freund, Else, 256 Freund, Wilhelm Salomon, 43, 45 Freundesaal (Hall of Friends), 226, 240

Freytag-Loringhoven, Axel Freiherr von, 61 Fried, Carl, 256 Friedenthal, Karl Rudolf, 45 Friedland, Joseph, 233 Friedländer, Alice, 7 Friedländer, Saul, 65 Friedmann (art collector), 216 –17 Fröhlich, Georg, 121 Fuchs, Markus, 36 Furriers Guild, 221–22 Gastonia (North Carolina), 191 Gaul, August, 218 Gauleiter, 21, 24, 224, 230, 231, 234 –35, 311; functions of, 176, 204 – 05, 206, 272; on “war profits,” 242 Gehringshof, 273 Geiger, Abraham, 29, 30, 34 Geist, Raymond, 140, 141, 142 Geldfeld (lawyer), 77 Geldgeschäfte (financial transactions), 27 Gemeinderabbiner (community rabbi), 30, 32 Geneva Minorities Agreement (1922), 123 George Washington High School, 18 Gereuth, Clara Hirsch von, 36 Germania Judaica, 250 German National Movement, 61, 267 German People’s Party, 55 Gestapo, 10, 78, 142, 205, 206, 250, 259; and deportations, 231–32, 234 –35, 237, 239; and expulsion of Polish Jews, 167–68; and Jewish Hospital, 257, 258; and Kristallnacht, 170, 173, 186 –88, 251–56; and seizure of Jewish assets, 172, 175, 210; and surveillance of entertainment halls, 113; and “surveillance of Jewry,” 211; contradictory policies of, 110; corruption of, 241; pressured Aryans to divorce Jewish spouses, 269 Gleiwitz, 80 Glogau, 231 Gluskinos, Willi, 173, 174, 188 Goebbels, Joseph, 78, 119, 169, 206, 251 Goebbels, Magda, 206

Index Goldenring, Joseph and Friederike (foundation), 37 Goldschmidt, Fritz, 40 Göring, Hermann, 79, 81, 82, 176 Görlitz, 230, 231 Görlitz, Professor, 252 Gottstein, Dr., 254 Grabowsky, Karl, 268, 272, 273 Grabowsky, Trude, 267–70, 272: resists Gestapo pressure to leave Jewish husband, 270 Graetz, Heinrich, 35 Greenberg, Henry (“Hank”), 88 Gross-Aktion (large-scale action), 134 –35 Grosswartenberg (Syców), 132 Gruenthal, Dr., 274 Grünmandel (philanthropist), 201– 02 Grünspan (Grynszpan), Herschel, 168 Grünthal (Silesia), 271 Grüssau, 192, 235, 237, 239 Guildford, Surrey, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 Guttmann, Dr. Ludwig, 256 Haber, Fritz, 39 Habelschwerdt (Lower Silesia), 225 Hadda, Albert, 112 Hadda, Moritz, 122 Hadda, Mr. and Mrs., 7–8 Hadda, Dr. Siegmund, 8, 43, 240, 246; as doctor under Nazis, 255 –59; attachment to Breslau, 45; childhood and education, 254 –55; in Theresienstadt, 259 –61; last years, in New York, 261–62; medical practice in Breslau, 255; on Gestapo corruption, 241; principles as physician, 253 –54; release from Theresienstadt, 261 Hagadah, 229 Haifa University, 20 Halifax (Canada), 17, 18 Halm, Richard, 251 Hambrock, Matthias, 116 Hamburg, 10, 93, 94, 95, 127 Hamburger, Hans, 144 Hamburger, Rabbi, 201 Hampel (Gestapo chief, Breslau), 272

Hanke, Karl (Gauleiter), 205, 224, 259; and last-ditch defense of Breslau, 272; distribution of Jewish assets, 242; on deportation of Jews, 214, 230, 231, 234 –35; rise to prominence, 206 – 07; shot by Czech partisans, 207 Hanke, Mr., 251 Hannover, 94, 273 Heilberg, Adolf, 45 Hanseatic Travel Bureau (Vienna), 192 Hartmann, Heinz, 40 Harvard University, 147 Haskalah, 29 Hasidism, 35 Heard, William W., 72, 139 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 20 Heidelberg, University of, 246 Heidenfeld, Dr., 274 Heines, Edmund, 60, 63, 77, 79, 205; and boycott of April 1, 1933, 83; as police chief in Breslau, 72 –77; murdered by Nazis, 74; personal background, 71–72 Heinz, M. Kohn, 201 Helfritz, Geheimrat Professor Dr., 75 Henkel, Dr., 213 Henningsdorf, 107 Heppner, Aron, 24, 25, 97 Heppner, Sara, 220, 231 Herzfeld, Hans, 86 –87 Hess, Rudolf, 66, 67 Hessen, 169 Hettling, Manfred, 21 Hewetson, Emily M., 16 High Holy Days, 31, 33, 201 Hilfsverein der deutschen Juden (changed to Hilfsverein der Juden in Deutschland), 110, 143 Himmler, Heinrich, 170, 207, 261 Hindenburg, Paul von, 59, 68, 114 Hipo (relief policemen), 170 Hirschberg, Georg, 234 Hirschfeld, Alfred, 89, 90, 112 Hitler, Adolf, 5, 58, 59, 69, 74; and Kristallnacht, 169; birthday celebrations of in Jewish school, 105; dismissed Himmler,

317

318

Index 207, 261; hatred of Jews, 66 –67, 85, 126, 204, 242; his program, 60, 70; and boycott (April 1, 1933), 81, 82; orders Goebbels to stay with his wife, 206; popularity in Breslau, 21 Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth Movement), 225 Hoffmann, Hermann, 243 Hoffmann, Moses, Rabbi, 1, 32 Hohenborn, Adolf Wild von, 50 Hohn, Captain, 83 Holländer, Martha, 218 Hollaender, Frieda, 201 Holzer, Gabriel, 39, 98, 127, 128 Hönigswald, Richard, 42 House of Refuge, 200 “Housing commune” (Wohngemeinschaft), 233 Hull, Cordell, 140, 141 Hünert (businessman), 120, 121 H. von Martin estate, 234 Icyk, David Israel, 221–22 Illmer, Fritz, 216 Independent Socialist, 51 Institut des Volksschulseminar (in Würzburg), 100 Institute for the Study of the Jewish Question, 126 Intensification of persecution (1937), 125 –35 Intermarriage, 42 – 43 Isquith, Arthur, 76 Izbica (Poland), 238, 263 Jacobsohn, Dr, 111 Jaeger, D. (SS colonel), 238 Janower, Kurt (Yitzhak), 113, 118 “Jew Elder,” 235 Jewish Board of Guardians, 11, 208 Jewish Cultural Association, 91, 92, 125, 131 Jewish Emergency Service, 227 Jewish Enlightenment (Haskalah), 29 Jewish Friends’ Food Fund, 123 Jewish Home for the Sick, 191 Jewish Hospital, 24, 36, 84, 210, 233, 236, 273; after Kristallnacht, 171, 227–28, 255,

271–72; Nurse Legler and, 256 –57; Siegmund Hadda’s role in, 246, 253, 254, 258 Jewish Museum in Breslau (1934), 93 Jewish-owned art: seizure of, 216 –19 Jewish properties, 132, 176, 223, 242 Jewish Religious Association ( Jüdische Kultusvereinigung), 214, 215, 219, 221, 231 Jewish Theological Seminary, 3, 33, 34, 60, 247 Jewish Welfare Office, 96, 123, 174 Jews’ houses (Judenhäuser), 203, 211, 212, 214 Jilek, Mrs., 251 Johannesburg, South Africa, 144 Johannesgymnasium (also known as Johanneum), 39, 98, 99, 246, 247 Johann von Capistrano, 28 John of Luxemburg, King, 27 Jonca, Karol, 232 Judenbischof, 27 Judenrein, 107, 239 Jüdische Rundschau, 85, 87 Jüdische Zeitung, 61, 68, 79, 115 Justizrat, 43, 76 Kaiser, Mr., 231 Kaiser, Dr., 260, 274 Kaliski, Mr. & Mrs., 239 Kallenbach (Jewish swimming pool), 226 Kameraden, 193 Kempen (Posen), 263 Kansas City, 144 Kapp Putsch, 51 Karlsbad, 118 Karteihäftling (prisoner with a file), 265 Kasriel, Conrad, 113 Kassel, 169 Kattowitz, 238, 254 Katzmann, Fritz, 170 Kauffmann, Dr. Hirsch, 274 Kenya, 111, 119 Kibbutz, 9, 16, 54, 194 King’s College, London, 65 Kisch, Guido, 123, 124 Klausewitz, General von, 97

Index Klee, Alfred, 55 Klemperer, Victor, 210 Kohn, Georg Israel, 231 Kokozynski (butcher in Breslau), 209 Kolbe, Georg, 218 Kölnische Zeitung, 55 Komotau (Chomutov), 207 Koniev, Ivan, Marshal, 200 Königlicher Kommerzienrat (Royal Councilor of Commerce), 33 –34 Königsberg, 29, 227, 228 König Wilhelms Gymnasium, 40 Konrad (friend of Anita Lasker-Wallfisch), 264 Körner, Theodor, 146 Korett, Ludwig, 173 Koschik (Koszyk), Gerhard, 238 Kosher food, 22 –25, 94, 123 –24, 227, 229, 268, 273 Krankenbehändler (people who treat the sick), 208 Krankenstation, 271 Kraut, Alan M., 142 Kristallnacht, 125 –26, 198, 203, 236, 263, 268, 269; and schools, 183; and the Jewish Hospital, 255 –57; background of, 166 –69; in Breslau, 169 –73; stimulated emigration, 187–90, 191 Kroch, Elly, 192 –97 Kroch, Ernst (Ully), 192 –97 Kroch, Heinz, 193 Kroch, Ludwig, 192 –97 Kroch, Suse, 193 Kroll, Dr., 270, 272 Krosigk, Count Schwerin von, 175 Künigl, Count, 263 Ladislaus, King of Bohemia, 28 L’ag Ba’Omer, 107 Landeshut, 237 Landräte, 224 Landsberg, Toni, 37 Landschule, 234 La Paz, Bolivia, 200 Laqueur, Walter, 40, 54, 143

Lasker-Wallfisch, Anita, 246; deportation to Auschwitz, 265; deportation of parents, 263; conditions in Auschwitz, 266; finds sister in Auschwitz, 265 –66; help from non-Jews, 263; joins Auschwitz orchestra as cellist, 265; in Bergen-Belsen, 266 –67; on own with sister in Breslau after April 1942, 263 –64; put on trial, 264 –65; upbringing and education, 263 Lasker, Marianne, 263 Lasker, Eduard, 44 Lasker, Renate, 263, 264, 265 –66, 267 Lassal, Hermann, 44 Lassalle, Ferdinand, 44, 250 Lauban, Silesia, 206, 231 Läuferin, 266 Laurahüttte (now Siemianowiceilskie), 254 Law for the Defense of German Blood and Honor, 116 Law for the Reestablishment of the Professional Civil Service, 80 Law of May 26, 1933, 241 Law of July 14, 1933, 241 Law on Tenancy, 203 League of Nations, 94 Legler, Lisbeth, 256 –57 Leibl, Wilhelm, 218 Leipzig, 222, 227 Leipziger, Friedel, 190 Leistikow, Walter, 217 Leo Baeck Institute, 148 Less, Georg, 173 Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim, 102 Levenbach, Philipp Israel, 233 –34 Lewin, Lotte, 113, 118 –20 Lewin, Rabbi, 200, 228, 270 Lewy, Guenter, 53 –54, 190 Lewy, Israel, 35 Lewy, Louis, 120 –21 Lichtenberg, Bernhard, 82 Liebermann, Max, 217 Liegnitz, 106 Lindner, Ernesto and Charlotte, 232 Lippmann, Leopold, 132 Lodz, 167

319

320

Index Loewe, Heinrich, 55 Lohestrasse cemetery, 226 London-Rosenbaum, Vera, 31, 51 Loringhoven, see Freytag-Loringhoven Ludnowsky, Mr., 271 Lüneburg Trial, 267 Lyall (British Consul-General in Berlin), 133 L’viv, 243 Magdalengymnasium, 40 Maidanek, 197 Malachowski, Hedwig Sara, 178 Malachowski, Leo, 178 Malachowski, Rose, 179 Mandel, Mrs., 266 Manet, Edouard, 217 Manila, 141, 199 Marcus, Ernst, 43, 79, 118; and antiSemitism, 40, 91, 113; and inmates in concentration camp, 135; biography of, 146 – 48; departure from Germany, 147; on aryanization, 120 –21; on Hitler’s assumption of power, 65 Marées, Hans von, 218 Margolies, Edith Sara, 181 Maror (bitter herb), 229 Marr, Wilhelm, 49 Martinshof, 230 Marx, Marxism, 13, 20, 75, 99, 193, 250 Masur, Mordekhai (Heinz), 232 Maybaum, Ignaz, 88 –89 Mehne, Walter Mathias, 263 Mendelssohn estate, 107 Mengele, Dr. Josef, 265 Merchant of Venice, 16 Meyer, B. P., 64 Meyer, Franz, 102 Michaelis, Max, 134 Midland Bank Ltd., 124 Mikveh (ritual bath), 95, 268 Milch, Löbel, 44 Ministerpräsident (prime minister), 176 Minister for Science, Upbringing, and National Education, 105 Miodowski, Dr., 274

Mischling (offspring of mixed marriage), 128, 129, 177, 267, 269, 271 Mitzman, M., 207– 08 Mizrachi (religious Zionist movement), 38 Moffat, Jay Pierrepont, 66 –67 Molière, 195 Mommsen, Theodor, 46 – 47 Monatsschrift für Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judentums, 35 Monopol Hotel, 5 Montevideo, 189 –92 Moringen, Lower Saxony, 118 Moses, Jacob, 140 Mudgen, Charles, 76 Munich Agreement, 166 Murray, Wallace, 129 Nahariya, Israel, 273 National Archives, Washington, DC, 136 National Association of Jewish Culture in Germany, 92 National Culture Board, 218 Nationalists, 59, 65 National Liberals, 43 – 44 National Socialist Party (Nazi Party), 52, 72, 120, 204 – 06, 218, 231, 244: and Kristallnacht, 169; its program, 22, 59 –60, 70; new decree on aryanization, 223; rise to power, 57–59 Nationalsozialistische Schlesische Tageszeitung, 116, 117 Naumann, Max, 55 –56, 81, 102, 115 –16 Nazi Party, see National Socialist Party Neuberger, Hilde, 228 Neubert, Miss, 264 Neue Breslauer Zeitung, 69, 85 Neue Synagoge, 32, 92, 268 Neumann, Franz, 69 –70 Neustadt, Guido, 89 Newton, Harvey P., 186 –87 New York City, 130, 147 New Zealand, 144 New York Times, 69 Night of the Long Knives, 74 Nimkau, 171

Index Nonimmigrant visa (visitor visa), 6, 135, 137, 138, 139, 141 North German Confederation, 31, 47 Noske, Gustav, 72 Nuremberg Laws (1935), 116, 129, 174, 212, 223, 268 Nurse Charlotte, 274 Nurse Franze, 274 Nurse Mirjam, 274 Nurse Selma, 273 Nurse Suse, 274 Nurse Toni, 274 Nurse Vera, 274 Oberbürgermeister der Stadt Breslau (Lord Mayor of Breslau), 33, 111, 118, 211 Oberfinanzpräsident (Senior Financial President), 113, 129, 172 Obergruppenführer (equivalent to general in army), 72, 76 Oberländer, Adolf, 217 Oberpräsident (Provincial Prefect), 71, 204 Oberrabbiner (Senior Rabbi), 29 Ober-Realgymnasium am Zwinger, 193 Obersturmbannführer (equivalent to lieutenant colonel in army), 74 Oels (Silesia), 80 Offenbach, Jacques, 93 Office of Foreign Exchange, 179 Office of Racial Studies in Breslau, 25 Office of the Provincial Prefect, 179, 199 Offig, Max, 75 Olbersdorf (Lower Silesia), 225 Olympic Games (1936), 113 Ostjuden (Jews from eastern Europe), 56 – 57, 68 O’Toole, Donald L., 139 Palestine, 6, 8, 9, 193, 273: attitude toward of German Jews after 1933, 109; early Breslau Jews and, 55; film about, 56; Jewish youth and, 54; preferred destination of Krochs, 196; preparation of youngsters for, 144 – 45; Willie Cohn’s lectures on, 247 Palestine Office (Palestinaamt), 247

Pariser Tageblatt, 118 Party chancellery, 241– 42 Passia, Miss, 249 Passover 1941, 229 Patchowsky (deputy police chief ), 73 –74 Peiser, Mr., 111 Pendorf, Robert, 275 Perle, David, 173 Petuchowski, Bernhard, 53 Philippines, 141– 42, 143, 197, 198 –99 Pissarro, Camille, 217 Plainview, Long Island, 20 Polish consulate, 7 Polish government, 166 Polizeipräsident (chief of police), 71 Prager, Jenny, 180 Prager, Toni Sara, 181 Preisbehörde (rental office), 213 Preiss, Harry, 197–200 Preiss, Heinrich, 180 Preiss, Rosa, 228 Progressives, 44, 49 Provincial prefect, see Oberpräsident Przemeck, Walter, 219 Public welfare, 98, 120, 145 – 46, 200 Radzionka (Poland), 167 Raffaelli, Jean-François, 217 Rahden, Till van, 43 Rassengenosse (racial comrade), 252 Rath, Ernst vom, 168 –69, 175, 186 Rathenau, Walter, 71, 114 Ravndal (State Department official), 139 Realm Achievement Law, 1934 (Reichsleistungsgesetz), 231 Red Cross, 233 Reform movement (in Judaism), 29, 101 Regierungspräsident (President of Governing Board), 129, 211, 302 Regierungsrat (counselor to Governing Board), 74, 188 Rehdigerstrasse School, 171, 183, 225, 228; enrollment and curriculum, 103, 106 – 07; founding of, 38; policies after 1933, 100, 104 – 05

321

322

Index Reich Association of Jews in Germany (until February 1939 the Reich Representation of German Jews), 116, 188, 209, 215, 225, 224, 250, 259, 302 Reich Chancellor’s Office, 202 Reichenbach (Lower Silesia), 225 Reich Flight Tax, 222 Reich Representation of German Jews (Reichsvertretung der deutschen Juden), 108, 110, 188, 302; and education, 100, 102; and emigration, 144 – 45; and welfare, 174; change of name, 116; founding of, 89 Reichsbanner, 71 Reichsbund jüdischer Frontsoldaten (Association of Jewish War Veterans), 51 Reichsführer, 170, 207 Reichskanzler, 105, 241 Reichsleistungsgesetz (Realm Achievement Law, 1934), 231 Reinerz (Silesia), 76 Residence Office, 214, 215 Revolution of 1918 –19, 57, 58, 72 Rezitator, 268 Richter, Paul, 130 Riebnig, 234 –37, 239 Riedl, John O., 139 Righteous Gentile, 142 Röcher, Ruth, 225 Röhm, Ernst, 74 Rosé, Alma, 265 Rosé, Arnold, 265 Rosenbaum, Cäcile, 180 Rosenberg (now Olesno), 197, 198 Rosenberg, Heinz, 233 Rosenthal, Theodor, 110, 186 Rosten, P., 184 –86 Roth, Joseph, 48 Rothenburg, 230 Rousseau, Henri (?), 217 Royal Wilhelm School for Jewish Youth, 29 Ru˘ da, 238 Ruhr, 58, 114 Ruttkay, Zoltan von, 179 –80 Sachs, Eduard, 43 Saks (art collector), 217

Saar district, 114 Sachsenhausen (concentration camp), 134, 171 Sackett, Frederic, 69 Salzberger, Dr., 269 São Paulo, 191 SA Watch (comparable to military police), 73 Schachtel, Dr., 111 Schaeffer, Rudolf, 102, 103, 106, 107 Schäfer, Wilhelm, 85 Schalscha, Sylvius, 126 –27 Schiesswerder (city square), 232, 238, 240 Schiftan, Leopold, 237–38 Schild, 86 Schindler und Jakubowicz, 237 Schirmer, A. W., 218 Schlageter, Albert Leo, 104 – 05 Schlesische Nationalsozialistische Beobachter, 62 Schlesische Volkszeitung, 49 Schlesische Zeitung, 45 Schmidt (SA guard), 73 Schneider, Dr., 274 Schmoller, Dr., 258 Scholl (Jewish businessman), 120 Schönfeld, Richard, 181 Schottländer (art collector), 217 Schottländer, Bernhard, 51 Schottländer, Lobel and Henrietta, 37 Schuftan, Nelly, 269 –70 Schule am Anger (School on Anger Street), 146; curriculum of, 106 – 09; founding of, 102 – 03; its closing, 183 Schumann, Robert, 265 Schwarz, Josef Israel, 215 Schwarz, Ninette Sara, 216 Schweidnitz (Lower Silesia), 224, 243 Schwerin (Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania), 43 Schwerin, Kurt, 114 Seforim, Mendele Mocher, 125 Senior financial president (Oberfinanzpräsident), 123, 129, 132, 172, 173, 237 Shanghai, 186 Shylock, 16 –17 Siechenhaus (Invalid Home), 258

Index Silberberg, Max, 92, 93, 217, 218 Silesian Museum of Art, 218 Silesian Society for National Culture, 42 Singer, Kurt, 91 Singer Sewing Machine Co., 254 Slevogt, Max, 218 Smendek (art dealer), 217 Smochewer (art collector), 217 Sobibor, 238 Social Democratic Party (SPD), 44, 45, 193 Society for Aid to German Jews (Hilfsverein der deutschen Juden), 110 Sombart, Werner, 32, 46 Sonszajn, Erna, 220 Sonszajn, Laib Israel, 220 Sosnowiec (Upper Silesia), 245 South Africa, 111, 144, 199 Southwick, Sussex, 11, 13, 14, 28 Soviet Union, 8, 192, 204, 224, 230, 248, 278 Spanish Inquisition, 276 Spiritus Rector, 42 Spitz, R. A., 102 Sports Festival of Jewish Students, 125 SS men, 83, 232, 265, 278, 302; and Kristallnacht, 169, 170, 184, 187 Stabswache (bodyguard), 72 Stahlhelm, Bund der Frontsoldaten (Steel Helmet, Association of War Veterans), 51, 76, 302 Stamford Hill (London), 10, 11 Stamm (descent, stock), 55, 61 State Department, US, 136, 143, 169 Statenlos (stateless), 208 Stein, Karl, 218 Stern, Otto, 39 Sternberg, Judith, 273, 274 Stoppelmann, Georg, 130 –31 Stauder, Dr., 85 Storch Synagogue, 1, 3, 32, 152 –53 (illustrations), 171, 228, 249, 259 Streicher, Julius, 114 Streitschwert, Herr von, 120 Stresemann, Gustav, 50 –51 Stürmer, 99 Sturmhauptführer, 73

Suppé, Franz von, 93 Succoth, 6 Switzerland, 261 Synagogengemeinde (Synagogue community), 38 Talbert, Dr., 274 Talmud, 20, 34, 35, 49, 62, 106 Tatura (Australia), 236 Tecklenburg & Co., 239 Teichmann, Hans, 268 Thaulow, Frits, 217 Theresienstadt, 197, 234, 235, 238 –39, 247, 259, 270 –71, 274: conditions, 260; hospital in, 261; Nazi deceptions about, 260 Tietz, Hermann, 225 Tiktin, Eva, 37 Tiktin, Salomon, 29, 30, 34 Tormersdorf, 235, 252; conditions in, 232 – 34; deportations to 231–32; establishment of camp for Jews, 230, 239 Tramer, Hans, 60, 68 Translateur, Salo, 55 Traub, Dr., 145 Treaty of Versailles, 52, 67 Treblinka, 197 Treitschke, Heinrich von, 44, 46 Trotsky, Leon, 63 Tulag Company, 219 Tuny, Hildegard Sara, 201 Unbedenklichkeitsbescheinigung (certificate of payment of taxes), 233 United States, 17, 67, 85, 144; difficulty of obtaining visa for, 6, 135 – 43, 192, 236, 257, 268 Upper Silesia, 31, 45, 104, 127, 245, 254; kosher meat from, 94, 123; Polish insurrection in, 72; Treaty of Versailles and, 52, 58 Veidlinger, Jeffrey, 18 Vaughan, Stephen Bernard, 137– 43 Verband nationaldeutsche Juden (League of National-German Jews), 56 Verein Landgerichtsanwälte (Association of County Court Lawyers), 43

323

324

Index Verwaltungsbehörde (administrative authorities), 223 Vienna, 12, 13, 34, 91, 135, 141, 192, 196 Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, 196 Vogelstein, Hermann, Rabbi, 32, 92, 95, 100 – 02, 122, 270 Volksgemeinschaft, 56 Volksgenossen (people’s comrades), 84, 86, 117, 209, 211, 269, 302; and acquisition of Jewish assets, 242; separate housing for, 212 –13 Volksschule, 38, 100, 102, 103, 200 Wagner, Josef, 182, 205 – 06 Wagner, Richard, 265 Waldecker, Ludwig (?), 63 Walk, Alexander, 171 Walk, Joseph, 248 Wallstrasse, 3, 228, 259 Wandervögel, 53 “War profits,” 242 Warsaw, 9, 25, 167, 240 Washington, DC, 136, 139, 141 Wassermann, Oskar, 82 Weil, Bruno, 108 – 09 Weimar era, Weimar Republic, 33, 34, 54, 57, 69, 75, 105 Weiss, Maximilian, 77 Weizmann, Rudolf, 213 Weltsch, Robert, 85 Wenzel Hanke Hospital, 84 Wertheimer, Mr., 143

West Prussia, 55 Wilde, Oscar, 125 Winterhilfe des Deutschen Volkes, 186 Wischnitzer, Mark, 109 Wischnitzer-Bernstein, Rahel, 93 Wissenschaft des Judentums, 35 Wohngemeinschaft (housing commune), 233 Wolf, Karla, 246; childhood as offspring of mixed marriage, 267–68; converted to Judaism in 1937, 268; emigrated to Palestine illegally in 1947; in hiding with father after summer 1944, 272; relations with Christian grandparents, 269; special privileges of family, 269; work for Jewish “hospital” after 1943, 271 Wolff, Mr., 64 –65 Wrociaw, 1–3, 28, 202, 220 Wrotizla, (early name of Breslau), 27 Yad Vashem, 142, 192, 235 Yellow star, 210, 226, 242, 249, 269 Yugoslavia, 194, 248 Zagreb, 194 Zakopane, 4 Zbaszyn, 167, 168 Zionism, 6, 38, 54, 55, 109, 145, 194, 247 Zoar (camp), 230 Zwillenberg, Ella, 227–28 Zwillenberg, Erich, 227 Zwölf-Uhr Blatt, 168