1933…Hitlercomes to power.
UNESCO Update: Wiesenthal Center requested by France to assist in examining World War burial sites
At the 42nd meeting of UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee, held in Manama, Bahrain, H.E. LaurentStefanini, Ambassador of France to UNESCO, requested...
| SNAPSHOTS OF A LIFE “Die Juden sind unser Unglueck!” “The Jews are our misfortune!” It is bad to be a Jew, It is bad to look like a Jew, It is bad to have a Jewish nose. I am five years old.1933…1934…1935…1936…1937 Signs, everywhere: “Juden unerwuenscht! - Jews not wanted!” They ban and burn books. Any book, by a Jew or about a Jew, Books by anyone and about anything consideredincompatible with Nazi beliefs. “Where books are burned,” wrote German-Jewish poet, Heinrich Heine, prophetically, “human beings are destined to be burned also.” Orders are given, laws are passed to boycott Jewish stores, businesses, and services, to forbid Jews from becoming doctors or lawyers. To terminate Jews from teaching positions in publicschools and universities, to dismiss Jews from Civil Service jobs, to stop socializing with Jews, to forbid intermarriage between Jews and Christians. In 1933, there were 66 million Germans in Germany. Less than 1 percent, some 500,000 wereJewish. November 9, 1938 - Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass. It's already two o'clock in the morning, the next day. All is calm, all is quiet, in this unholy night. Welive on the second floor. I have a room, on the third floor. Another month, and I'll be eleven years old. Now I am sound asleep. Suddenly there is a pounding, a loud, constant poundingand I wake up--a pounding, a terrible pounding at the front door. "Open up, open up, or we'll break the door down!" I run to the banister. I see my parents on the second floor below, frightened, hesitant. My father wants togo down, but my mother stops him. He just had an operation around his eyes and she does not want anything to happen to him. Before he can argue, she is down thesteps. "Open up, open up, or we'll break it down!" "I'm coming, I'm coming," my mother calls out. I am scared. I rush into my room, grab a small suitcase and rush out again. "Vati, Vati!" I call down."Daddy, Daddy! If they take you, I'm going with you!" My mother has reached the door. As she opens it she and the door are hurled against the wall. Nazis, half adozen of them, with rifles, rush up the steps. My mother follows. I come down. We all meet on the second floor. They want to lock us into the kitchen. "No, no," my mother screams, "we won't be locked up!” We run around through the rooms, one after the other. As we come into the study, my father rushes to hisdesk, with the head Nazi close behind. My father opens a drawer, pulls out the Iron Cross, his medal from World War I, holds it up and shouts, "Is this the thanks I get for having servedthe fatherland?" The Nazi and he stand face to face. What now? Curses: "Damned, dirty Jew!"? The butt of the rifle in the face? Or an even quicker, final answer:a bullet in the head? For a moment, a long moment, silence, deadly silence, their eyes locked for an eternity. Suddenly, the Naziturns, signals his men silently, leads them down the stairs, out of the house and into the black night, without breaking one dish. Day breaks but it isn't over. They come to take my father away to the concentration camp along with all the otherJewish men of the city. He is at the doctor's. They never come back for him and let him go. |