Berlin at War (61 page)

the SS guards and threats to shoot sent the women scurrying into the

nearby side streets and alleyways for cover. Within minutes, they would

be back on the pavement, continuing their noisy protest. As Ruth

Andreas-Friedrich put it, the women at Rosenstrasse ‘called for their

husbands, screamed for their husbands, howled for their husbands,

and stood like a wall, hour after hour, night after night’.15

Then, after around a week, there was a change in fortunes. Slowly at

first, some of those imprisoned began to be released. On Friday 5 March,

the first inmates – primarily those ‘privileged’ Jews in mixed marriages

– were sent home. Over the subsequent days, others followed, with the

last of them being released up to two weeks after their initial arrest.16

Each of them was given a certificate, detailing their name, address and

occupation, and stating the date of their release from the ‘Rosenstrasse

collection camp’. Even the twenty-five ‘privileged’ individuals who had

already been deported to Auschwitz – apparently ‘mistakenly’ – were

swiftly returned to the capital.

The prisoners released from Rosenstrasse couldn’t believe their luck.

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berlin at war

Most of them would have expected to be deported and, though they

were ignorant of the precise workings of the Holocaust, they would

have known or suspected enough to have been profoundly concerned

for their lives. As one of the prisoners, Ernst Bukofzer, recalled:

When I left that house, equipped with my official release note . . . my

wife and both daughters were there, expecting me. They had already

been there for hours, patiently sticking it out, and led me home, glowing

with happiness. I was exhausted, as if a heavy burden had fallen from

my shoulders. There had indeed been hours when I had not expected

to return once again to the circle of my family.17

For many, however, the release must have seemed less a liberation

than a stay of execution. Ruth Gross’s father arrived home ‘exhausted,

hungry, tired and stubbly’ in the early morning of 6 March. But already

at 4.00 p.m. that same day, he had to attend an interview with the

local police and the following day he was obliged to report for his

next stint of forced labour – this time clearing buildings containing

unexploded bombs.18

The Rosenstrasse protest has been much discussed by historians in

recent years and has spawned two rival interpretations.19 Some argue that

the women’s protest on Rosenstrasse was instrumental in securing the

release of the prisoners and in saving them from certain death in the gas

chambers of Auschwitz. They believe that Goebbels, the SS and the Nazi

hierarchy ‘blinked’ when faced with the determined opposition of the

Rosenstrasse women. Unable to risk such open dissent, they stayed

their hand, thereby halting – albeit on a small scale – the apparently

unstoppable progress of the Holocaust.

Others take a rather more nuanced, if less romantic view. They

argue that the Rosenstrasse revolt, though heroic in itself, actually

had little effect on the progress of the Holocaust. They hold that the

inmates of Rosenstrasse were never actually scheduled for deport a-

tion, rather they were separated out from the remaining ‘full-Jews’

in the capital, while their identities and precise racial status were

checked. They were then to be used to replace the staff of the

remaining Jewish organisations in Berlin, who were almost all sched-

uled for imminent deportation.20 Thus one might see the Rosenstrasse

protest as a side show: a distraction from the more serious – and

against all odds

291

more deadly – operations then going on elsewhere. After all, while the

1,800 at Rosenstrasse were freed, the 8,000 or so held elsewhere that

week were all deported to Auschwitz, and the majority of those were

murdered immediately upon arrival.21

Whichever way one interprets the events on Rosenstrasse, it is clear

that it
was
a remarkable episode. But, while historians argue over

archival minutiae and precise chronologies, the most extraordinary

fact of all seems to be that mass, popular resistance erupted in 1943,

in the very heart of the Third Reich. The fact that many hundreds of

Berlin women dared to demonstrate openly against the deportation

of their Jewish sons, husbands and fathers – the only protest of its

kind in Nazi Germany – is little short of astonishing.

Yet another important consequence of the
Fabrik-Aktion
and the

Rosenstrasse revolt has traditionally been overlooked. Prior to that

final round-up of late February 1943, the remaining Jews in the German

capital could still convince themselves that the work they were doing

in the munitions factories and elsewhere was so vital to Nazi Germany

that they would effectively be spared the horrors of deportation. They

had bought their lives, they would have reasoned, by their hard labour.

For those Berlin Jews who had dared to entertain this opinion, the

Fabrik-Aktion
would have come as a shock. It would have become imme-

diately and brutally clear that they were not indispensable; their places

would be taken by Poles, French and Dutchmen, as well as by the more

‘privileged’ of their fellows, and they would be sent to meet their fate.

For Rachel Becker, whose father had been held in Rosenstrasse, it was

a sobering realisation: ‘All those who did not even want to believe the

strange rumours according to which the Jews, being ostensibly deported

for “resettlement” somewhere in the east . . . were not put to work but

[were put] to death, were suddenly shaken out of their complacency

and faced, at last, with the whole and cruel truth.’22 For some, there

was now only one alternative to boarding the cattle trucks bound for

Auschwitz: to ‘go underground’ and take their chances as fugitives

beneath the Aryan surface of Hitler’s capital.

It is easy to underestimate the enormity of the decision to ‘go under-

ground’ in wartime Berlin. For one thing, the so-called Jewish
Taucher

or ‘U-boats’, had no idea how long their underground odyssey would

last, or if it would ever end at all. Modern readers with the benefit

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berlin at war

of hindsight should not forget that the Third Reich was in the ascend -

ancy at least until the winter of 1942–3 and even after that point those

on the German home front often had little idea of the war’s progress.

For a Jew deciding to ‘dive’ in 1943, therefore, it was very much a leap

into an unknown and very forbidding future.

First of all, going underground in Nazi Germany was to break the

law. Becoming a fugitive involved removing the
Judenstern
and

discarding one’s papers; it implied a life on the run – lying, stealing,

cheating, doing anything to survive. And, despite everything they

had already endured, the majority of Jews – especially the older gener-

ation – found this an unnerving prospect. Like their Aryan fellows,

they were to a large degree wedded to the principles of civic obedi-

ence, and the implicit belief in the authority of the state and its organs.

In this regard, one must not forget that the deportation of German

Jewry bore the legitimate stamp of Nazi officialdom and was backed

by the necessary paragraphs of German law. Thus, many Berlin Jews

could not contemplate such a radical course of action and preferred

to comply with their deportation. After all, deportation was the only

certainty that many of them had left.

There were other factors that would complicate the decision to

flee. For a Jew, to become a ‘non-person’ was to leave behind one’s

own past. Previous residences – even whole areas of the capital –

would have to be routinely avoided. And though a few trusted friends

might be called upon to provide shelter, most former neighbours and

acquaintances would also have to be actively shunned by a
Taucher
for

fear that any contact might lead to betrayal and arrest.

In addition, the decision to go underground effectively meant giving

up on those friends and family who had already been deported. Though

many Jews had heard the rumours and feared the worst, they still

hoped that their direst imaginings might prove to be wide of the mark.

Making the leap into a life in the underground, therefore, often meant

a simultaneous acceptance that the rumours were true and that loved

ones would not be returning. It meant abandoning all that they held

dear.

Nonetheless, despite the drastic nature of the move, many went into

hiding, especially after the
Fabrik-Aktion
of spring 1943. It has been estim ated that around 10–12,000 Jews went underground in Germany over

the course of the war. Of these, the vast majority hid in the big cities,

against all odds

293

where anonymity was easier to maintain. Berlin, with its left-liberal

traditions and history of Jewish settlement, offered perhaps the greatest

opportunity for survival. Consequently, about half of all those Jews

braving the ‘dive’ into the underground – some 5–7,000 – are thought

to have done so in the capital.23

For those taking the plunge, there were a number of essential

survival tactics. The first step for any would-be fugitive was to remove

the hated
Judenstern
stitched to their clothing. For some, this act alone was something of a liberation, a way of celebrating their new identity. Yitzhak Schwersenz went underground in the late summer of

1942. Escaping his scheduled deportation, he travelled with a friend to

the semi-rural area of Pichelsberg, close to the Olympic Stadium.

There, the two of them removed the Jewish star and replaced it with

the insignia of the Nazi labour service, the
Deutsche Arbeitsfront
. As

Schwersenz recalled: ‘I left Berlin with the
Judenstern
and came back

with the swastika . . . After dark, I returned to Berlin alone and made

my first wander through the streets of the city, to get used to my new

“role” as a free, ordinary citizen.’24

For many it was imperative to change their appearance. For those

who were ‘blessed’ with Aryan looks – blue eyes and blond hair –

this was not an issue, but for the majority of Jews, some visual sleight

of hand was usually necessary, altering their looks, their hair colour,

even their style of dress.

Some went to greater lengths to forget, deny and expunge all traces

of their Jewishness, and to live as far as was possible as ‘Aryans’. One

young woman hiding in Pankow was advised by her aunt to ‘forget

that she was a Jew’.25 On the most basic level, this would involve

altering one’s whole demeanour, learning to walk tall once again, and

shaking off the hunted, mistrustful look that the years of persecution

had brought. One
Taucher
noted that one of the golden rules for under-

ground life was ‘never to look unkempt. An unshaven face or dirty

collar would always attract attention.’26 Regardless of the difficulties

of their predicament, therefore, fugitive Jews had to adopt a confi-

dent, ‘normal’ bearing in order to survive.

While there were many within the Jewish community of Berlin who

were willing to help fellow Jews, the scope of their activity was severely

limited. Nonetheless, some self-help organisations were formed, such

as
Chug Chaluzi
– the ‘Pioneer Circle’ – which was established in 1943

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berlin at war

in response to the
Fabrik-Aktion
. On one level, the Circle sought to

maintain some semblance of Jewish spiritual and cultural life, by visiting

theatres and concerts, or celebrating Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.27

Beyond that, it also offered practical help to fugitive Jews by exchanging

information and organising meals and lodgings. For the Circle’s

founders, its actions were a form of resistance: ‘We’re combating Hitler’,

they said, ‘with every life we save.’28

A few tried to be as independent as possible, seeking out abandoned

houses or garden sheds, frequenting the railway stations, or riding the

trains for as long as they could. The houseboats on Berlin’s lakes –

the Havelsee, Wannsee and Müggelsee – were also favourite hideouts

– and, as we have seen, so were some of the more elaborate tombs

of the capital’s cemeteries. Yet for all their valiant efforts at self-help,

Jewish
Taucher
were, in most cases, entirely reliant on Aryan helpers.

Indeed, it has been estimated that, on average, it took the coopera-

tion of seven Germans to help each fugitive Jew.29

Quite a number of Aryans in Berlin were willing to help Jews –

even to run the ultimate risk and hide Jewish refugees in their own

homes. Often, such assistance consisted of very modest gestures: the

sharing of ration coupons, for instance, or the donation of clothes.

One evening, two fugitive Jews arrived at Ursula von Kardorff’s door:

Yesterday at dusk the doorbell rang. Outside two figures, who haltingly