Excerpt 2

The Jews In Berlin

There were many Jews in Berlin. This was certainly connected with the past of Berlin. Since I cannot assume that the reader of my translation will be familiar with the history of Berlin, I better bring a few facts. Don't worry
- I will make it short

Since Frederick the Great was himself not religious at all the
spiritual atmosphere was very relaxed and many newcomers arrived. Frederick the Great also encouraged trade and enterprise and Berlin started to prosper. When in 1871 all German kingdoms were united under Prussia and ruled by a
Kaiser residing in Berlin, Berlin became the capital of a strong powerful Germany. And Berlin kept its religious tolerance.

In Russia and Poland, especially in Galicia lived a lot of Jews who started to move from the East to the West, slowly at first. But soon more and more Jews emigrated. A lot of them left because of the constant pogroms, but they were also lured by the promise of a better life. Most of them went to the cities, and Berlin seemed an ideal place. Some of the Jews were tired of the habitual harassments they had to endure in a lot of countries and they decided that this was a perfect opportunity to shed their Jewishness. They became Christians and many married Germans, and soon they and their children assimilated. Often they would not even tell their offspring that they had converted from the Jewish faith, so their children never knew. In general
people are drawn to a different race by their healthy instinct against inbreeding. Therefore the population in Berlin had after some time an enormous amount of Jewish genes and vise versa. A lot of the ones who stayed
in their Jewish faith would soon feel German too.

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Soon the Nazis began their large hate campaign. Hitler detested Jews. I have no idea why. There was a rumor that Hitler himself was Jewish or part Jewish. And Goebbels and Himmler, my goodness, they looked exactly like the Jews in the Stürmer. The Stürmer was a ridiculous sinister newspaper, which brought articles full of malice and outrageous caricatures. The main purpose of the Stürmer was to attack the Jews. However the Stürmer was too
preposterous to be taken seriously. But even sincere newspapers made it undoubtedly clear that it would be better for the Jew to depart.

The Jews who still went to the synagogue were urgently warned by their Rabbi to leave Germany, and a lot did just that. But they were also warned not to stay in Europe either but to go to Israel.. Many Jews stayed in Germany. Here they had their professions. Here they had their homes, their friends, and not to forget their belongings. And when you worked hard for them, they are precious to you.

A lot of Germans would not leave their homes in the East either when the Russian Army came with their horrid ravaging soldiers. One reason for a lot of people was also that they did not know where to go. The unknown is a risky
thing for cautious souls. They rather took the chance of death than the chance of uncertainty.

Hitler tried all kind of methods to make the Jews leave the country. First they were humiliated. If you looked Jewish the Nazis on the streets would call you names. Jews were forbidden to go to certain places, certain restaurants. But who went to restaurants anyway - just the Nazis could afford to eat there because you needed food stamps, and we did not have any spare ones.

We were told not to buy in Jewish shops. But most people didn't care and bought anyway. In Berlin they bought where they would find the best und most reasonable items and these were mostly in Jewish stores. So the Nazis thought
of a more drastic measure. One day they smashed the windows and looted the Jewish stores. In Berlin it was certainly not the deed of the people but was done by the SA (a Nazi organization) on a party order. It did not happen in our area, but our area was a very quiet one. In the business parts of Berlin it was different. We heard it from friends and read it in the newspaper, Fritz passed a lot of damaged stores in the center of town. And a friend told
me later on that on her way to work in the morning she passed a little street near the Spittelmarkt. Here were only Jewish stores. They were all demolished and glass was covering the whole sidewalk. After the attack on their stores many Jews left Germany.

And then came the racial laws forbidding marriage between Jews and Non-Jews. And one day the Jews were suddenly not allowed to practice their profession anymore. This prompted a lot of Jews to leave. It was hard to survive without your profession. And furthermore they were not allowed to study at a university. But it was actually the same for the Non-Jews. All men were drafted and had to leave their profession and all students were drafted
too. All except those who studied medicine. But when you had finished your medical examination you had front-service, that meant fighting at the front for several months. Very few came back. The wounded soldiers sometimes got the permission to study till they recovered. By the way, later on in the war wounded soldiers were never sent back to their unit, unless their regiment
still existed and demanded them explicitly back. They all had to be sent to the first lines of the front. It was their punishment because Hitler demanded the soldiers to fight till they were dead not till they were wounded.

But the Jews were not drafted. Hitler declared them unworthy of fighting. We would have given anything to be declared unworthy for the army. Only when you were seriously wounded you were not put back into the lines. Even after Fritz had lost his leg, he was declared fit for combat. The soldiers with one leg could still drive a tank. Toward the end of the war all men and sometimes even females were forced at gunpoint to fight. There was no age-limit; ten-year-old boys and eighty-year-old men as long as they were able to walk.

Furthermore, the Jews could leave Germany. We could not. Even when we dared crossing the Baltic Sea in little boats, we were sent back by all the countries and then shot by the Nazis. Even when we climbed dangerously over the Alps to Switzerland and had the luck not to be noticed by the mountain guards and their police dogs, we were sent right back and shot. We were all in Hitler's grip, there was no escape, just the hope that we would lose the war. But in the beginning there were many victories. And later on the
soldiers had to keep the gruesome Russians out of the homeland.

When I helped in my father in law's store I met a lot of Jews. They ordered mostly metal arch supports for their feet. Some had yellow stars on their coats and they told us that they would be sent to country working camps. That didn't sound too bad. I myself had been in the Arbeitsdienst, which was a working camp. All of Germany was now a working camp. All people were forced to work. All except expecting or nursing mothers. Now most people had to work for the armament and they were not allowed to
leave their place. In Spandau one section of Berlin was full of war industry factories and expected heavy air attacks. But country working camps were never in endangered parts where they could be hit by the bombers. And since
the bombs would soon start to fall, it actually seemed not too bad to be sent to working camps in the country. That was what we thought.

The connection of Jews and concentration camps this we heard only after the war. That in these horror camps they mainly killed Jews only because they were Jewish - no, we certainly did not know this. By we, I mean our whole family and all our friends and all their friends. And people who say they knew, must have been Nazis. Nazis knew usually more than we did, but we never spoke with Nazis. We were much too much afraid to reveal somehow our political opinion, and we did not dare to talk politics to any stranger either. To our knowledge these horror camps were for the enemies of Hitler, for political enemies. They could be Jewish or Christian. Hitler hated not only the Jews, he hated a lot of other people too. He hated all intellectuals. He hated all the loners, He hated all the people who had their own mind. If you were not for him, you were considered to be against him. There was no neutral. And the ones who dared to be against him had to be destroyed. Anyone who interfered did not live long. The citizens he hated the most were the people who had been his opponents before he gained
power.