I Am a Star (4 page)

In March 1941, Adolf Eichmann was appointed head of the Gestapo section for Jewish affairs. His job was to speed up the extermination. After September 1941, all German Jews over the age of six were required to sew a large yellow Star of David on the left breast of their clothing, and were forbidden to walk in public without it.

As the Nazi hordes marched farther east, more Jews came under their control. Special death squads called Einsatzgruppen rounded up the Jews, forced them to dig their own graves, and then shot them. By the beginning of 1942, these squads had killed close to 1.4 million people.

The elimination of the Jews was not going fast enough for Hitler, however. Cheaper and quicker methods of killing were needed. At the Wannsee Conference of January 20, 1942, the Nazi leaders worked on the details of the Final Solution, the plan to kill all of Europe’s Jews. The concentration camps and ghettos were eventually to be liquidated. Their surviving population would be sent to extermination camps. The largest of these was Auschwitz in Poland. This camp was equipped with poison-gas chambers and crematoria, ovens in which the bodies were burned. Four million people died in Auschwitz. Most of them were Jews.

The Germans tried to hide their intention of murder. They used terms like umgesiedelt (resettled) instead of deported, and they hung signs saying “Arbeit macht Frei” (work means freedom), over the gates of the camps. When prisoners entered an extermination camp, a flick of a finger by a Nazi doctor selected an individual for a life of hard labor and starvation or for immediate death. Those who were sentenced to die were forced to enter the “showers,” which actually were gas chambers. They were given a piece of soap and an SS officer told them to breathe deeply. He said it would help their lungs to stay healthy by disinfecting them and would keep them from getting sick. Within a short time only their ashes would remain.

 

 

I
remember well that November day when Papa and Grandpa were sent to the Dachau concentration camp. It was Kristallnacht. Grandma and Grandpa had come to visit us in Kippenheim and were caught with us in the unforgettable terror. How thankful we were to welcome my father and grandfather home again a few weeks later. They spoke quietly about having been beaten and mistreated in that awful place, saying, “The child must not hear these things.” Soon afterward, Papa lost his textile business.

It was time to leave Germany, but where could we go? Most nations of the free world were closing their doors. In May 1939, we packed our belongings and sold our house. We left our village and moved in with my grandparents in Jebenhausen. This was meant to be a short stay, since we still hoped to find a way of leaving Germany. Grandpa soon succumbed to a broken heart. He died from a combination of illness and a disappointment in the country he loved.

Even so, some of my happiest memories of my childhood go back to the two years we spent in Jebenhausen. My grandparents were the only remaining Jewish family in this village of one thousand inhabitants. The other children were friendly and had no bad feelings toward me. I became their leader as we marched up and down the street singing the popular songs of this time, which often contained Nazi propaganda. The frenzy of the day was infectious. We did not understand the implications of these songs in our childhood innocence.

Even though there was little anti-Jewish feeling in Jebenhausen, my grandparents had always practiced religion with caution. According to the Jewish religion, the forty year period during which Moses and his flock wandered in the desert is commemorated through the Feast of the Tabernacles, or Succos. This festival calls for a symbolic hut (a succo) to be built of reeds, tree branches, and grass. The interior is decorated with colorful ornaments and the fruits, vegetables, and flowers of fall. The roof of the attic room in my grandparents’ house was lifted off and the room converted into a succo. Although the room could not be seen, after my grandpa died, we did not dare to celebrate even in this secret way.

Every day new restrictive decrees were announced. Jews were compelled to give up all their gold and silver. They had to take Israel or Sara as a middle name to make them recognizable as Jews. My name became Inge Sara Auerbacher. Some of the villagers of Jebenhausen were not alarmed by these anti-Semitic laws and continued their friendship with us, even though Christians were forbidden to associate with Jews. A few of the farmers continued to give us food.

Our beloved Christian friend, Therese, who had worked as a servant in my grandparents’ house for over twenty years, placed food behind my grandfather’s gravestone at night for us to pick up in the morning. She was able to save a few of our things until after the war, including two family photo albums and some of our prayer books. The pictures shown in this book were among the items she kept for us. By associating with us, the people who helped us risked their lives. They were very brave.