Before the Nazis assumed power, Jews enjoyed all rights of citizenship in Germany.
After 1933, the German government gradually excluded Jews from public life and public education.
Newly established Jewish private schools provided a safe learning environment for some.
By 1938, German authorities had isolated and segregated Germany’s Jews, expelling them from the
professions and eliminating most opportunities to earn a living.
We felt so… why can’t we be part of it? Why can’t we? Everybody said, “Heil Hitler,”
like this. I did, too. What did I know? I was eight years old. So my mother said to
me, “You’re not supposed to do that.” I said, “Why not?” She said, “Haven’t
you been told that you are Jewish?” I said, “Oh, I forgot.”
Germany’s Jews would get plenty of reminders.
This sense of isolation that came upon us after 1933, gradual and increasing, it also
affected us psychologically. We knew we were in a hostile world.
Between 1933 and 1939, the German government enacted hundreds of laws to define, segregate
and impoverish German Jews.
My sister and I used to slink by those huge banners that were all over the city. And we
used to just try not to see them, thinking if we didn’t see them, they weren’t there.
But they were there. That just, little by little, that really took over.
The goal of Nazi propaganda was to demonize Jews and encourage Germans to see Jews as
dangerous outsiders in their midst. After 1935, everyday antisemitism was a regular
part of carnival parades and floats. Public displays of antisemitism reinforced a climate
of hostility toward Jews in Germany, or at the least, indifference to their treatment.
In March 1938, German troops moved into neighboring Austria. Germany shredded another provision
of the Versailles Treaty, as Hitler’s homeland was incorporated into Germany. It was a disaster
for Austrian Jews. Within a year, the Nazis achieved in Austria what had taken five years
to carry out in Germany.
On November 9th, the Nazi Party orchestrated an outbreak of anti-Jewish violence throughout
Greater Germany. It was a lawless onslaught that outraged the world and provoked criticism
of the regime by many Germans. Jewish businesses that had already suffered antisemitic attacks
were targeted for deliberate vandalism disguised as spontaneous public action. Party officials
directed the SA, SS and Hitler Youth to destroy Jewish shops and torch synagogues. Over 7,000
Jewish-owned businesses were vandalized. Germans named the violent attacks Kristallnacht—Night
of Broken Glass—for the shattered windows of Jewish-owned stores that littered the streets.
The nationwide violence damaged or destroyed more than 250 synagogues.
After Kristallnacht, I remember driving through Berlin and seeing the synagogues in flames
and all the glass on the streets, and the people huddled and depressed. They walked
around like the victims, like the hunted.
German police filled the concentration camps with thousands of Jewish inmates. The SS released
them only if they agreed to emigrate. But Jews faced increasingly restrictive immigration
quotas in most countries and bureaucratic hurdles in Germany. A new law issued in October
1938 required Jews to surrender their old passports, which would be valid only after
the letter “J” was stamped on them. Two months later, another law prevented the flight
of capital owned by Jews, when the Economics Ministry froze all Jewish property and assets.
Many who had the means and somewhere to go tried to leave Germany. Some families sent
their children alone to other, safer countries. They could not know how soon the world would
be at war.