The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945 (43 page)

Stalin—whose postwar anti-Semitism had possibly started to show in the late thirties, and who, after 1945, launched his own massive anti-Jewish campaign—considered the Soviet Jews as useful intermediaries to the West, particularly to the United States, as long as the German threat was real. In his own mythic world the Soviet leader (like Hitler) vastly overrated the influence of American Jews. However, he did not overrate the tireless energy Jewish personalities called to meet in August 1941 (and who subsequently established the Jewish Antifascist Committee) would devote to mobilizing Western public support for the USSR from the second half of 1941 onward.
²⁰²
More than anything else, however, this political effort demonstrated, as did several other initiatives during these years, that the Jews as Jews, East and West, were essentially defenseless instruments, even in the hands of leaders belonging to the anti-Nazi coalition. The Erlich-Alter case was typical.

In the fall of 1939 the NKVD had arrested the two most prominent leaders of the
Bund
, Henryk Erlich [Dubnow’s son-in-law] and Wiktor Alter, who had fled to the Soviet-occupied area of Poland. They were dragged from cell to cell, from interrogation to interrogation, and both were condemned to death shortly after the German attack of June 1941. In mid-September, however, they were released from prison. The Soviet change of attitude probably had several aims: to use both Bundist leaders in the anti-Nazi propaganda campaign; to impress the West, mainly British and American trade unionists, with Soviet liberalization; to reinforce the socialist wing of the Polish government-in-exile, which showed some readiness to come to an agreement with the USSR, notwithstanding continuing Soviet claims to the territories of eastern Poland.

Erlich and Alter remained in the Soviet Union but rapidly became involved in what could appear in Stalinist eyes as independent, Jewish-socialist political activity on an international scale. Thus, as the Soviet military situation improved, the two Bundist leaders were arrested again in December 1941. The British, obviously unwilling to put any strain on their relations with Moscow, declared the issue to be an internal Soviet matter. The Polish government-in-exile made only feeble attempts to intervene, as it hoped to use the anger of American Jewish labor organizations to bolster its own position in the territorial controversy with Stalin. And the American entry into the war overshadowed any “divisive” issues that could have been raised on the U.S. public scene. Erlich committed suicide in his Soviet jail in May 1942; Alter was executed in February 1943.
²⁰³

XI

A few days after Goebbels received Hitler’s authorization, the marking of the Reich’s Jews with a “distinctive and clearly visible sign” was launched. A decree of September 1, 1941, issued by the Ministry of the Interior, ordered that from the nineteenth of that month all Jews of the Greater Reich and the Protectorate aged six and above should wear a yellow six-pointed star with the word
Jude
inscribed on it in (twisted) black letters. The palm-size star had to be sewed to the clothes, on the left side of the breast, at the height of the heart, so as to be fully visible when a Jew was in a public place (defined as any place where people not belonging to the family circle could be encountered).
²⁰⁴
From the same date (September 19), it was forbidden to Jews to leave their area or residence without police authorization, as well as to carry medals, honorary decorations, and any other kind of badge.
²⁰⁵

The Jews had to obtain the stars at their community offices. On delivery they usually signed a receipt that also included an acknowledgment of the related ordinances: “I certify hereby the receipt of 1 Jewish Star,” Gustav Israel Hamel from Baden Baden certified on September 20. “I am informed of the legal regulations regarding the display of the Jewish Star and of the prohibition to carry decorations, medals and any badges. I also know that I am not allowed to leave my domicile without carrying a written authorization from the local police authorities. I undertake to handle the identification sign with attention and care and to ensure that when sewing it on clothing, the fabric that surrounds the sign will be turned over.”
²⁰⁶

In Goebbels’s mind the star allowed for total control over the Jews once they left their home and thus protected Germans from dangerous contact, mainly from the spreading of rumors and defeatist talk. But, as in the case of most anti-Jewish measures, the additional intent was the humiliation and degradation of the victims, and, of course, a further opening for the ongoing anti-Jewish propaganda campaign. Dietrich’s
Tagesparole
of September 26 was explicit: “On the occasion of the identification of the Jews there are possibilities to deal with the theme in the most diverse ways, to explain to the German people the necessity of these measures and mainly to point to the harmfulness of the Jews. From tomorrow on the information service will publish material that offers proof of the harm the Jews inflicted on Germany and the fate they planned and still plan for it” [the obvious reference here is to the Kaufman story and to the Diewerge pamphlet, which, as we saw, included commentary on excerpts of Kaufman’s book].
²⁰⁷

“Today, the Jew’s star,” Klemperer wrote on September 19: “Frau Voss has already sewn it on, intends to turn her coat back over it. Allowed? I reproach myself with cowardice. Yesterday Eva wore out her feet on the pavements and must now go shopping in town and cook afterwards. Why? Because I am ashamed. Of what? From Monday I intend to go shopping again. By then we shall certainly have heard what effect
it
has” (Klemperer’s wife, Eva, not being Jewish, did not have to wear the star).
²⁰⁸
How did the German population react?

As we saw, the opinion summaries of the SD for the early summer indicated widespread anti-Jewish hostility. Newsreels showing the arrest of Jews, their toil as forced laborers, and even lynch scenes from Riga, apparently received loud approval from movie audiences.
²⁰⁹
As such footage regularly emphasized the Jewish “racial traits,” audiences expressed their disgust and often wondered aloud what should be done with these “hordes.”
²¹⁰

Did the introduction of the star change these attitudes? According to a September 26 SD report from Westphalia, the new measure was often greeted with satisfaction; criticism was directed, rather, at the existence of exceptions. Why were the Jewish spouses of Aryans exempted from wearing the tag? As the saying went, there were now “Aryan Jews” and “non-Aryan Jews.”
²¹¹
An SD report from the previous day (from the same area) mentioned the general opinion that the Jews should also wear the star on the back of their clothes for better visibility: It would compel those still remaining in Germany to “disappear.”
²¹²

And yet, many witnesses also recorded different reactions. On September 20 Klemperer described what happened to Frau Kronheim: “The latter took the tram yesterday—front platform. The driver: Why was she not sitting in the car? Frau Kronheim is small, slight, stooped, her hair completely white. As a Jewess she was forbidden to do so. The driver struck the panel with his fist: ‘What a mean thing!’ Poor comfort.”
²¹³
The most extraordinary expression of sympathy was recorded on November 25: “Frau Reichenbach…told us a gentleman had greeted her in a shop doorway. Had he not mistaken her for someone else?—‘No, I do not know you, but you will now be greeted frequently. We are a group ‘who greet the Jew’s star.’”
²¹⁴
Yet, exactly a month beforehand, on October 25, Klemperer had written: “I always ask myself: Who among the ‘Aryan’ Germans is really untouched by National Socialism? The contagion rages in all of them, perhaps it is not contagion, but basic German nature.”
²¹⁵

It seems indeed that such expressions of sympathy were not infrequent: “The population in its majority disapproves of this defamation,” Elisabeth Freund, a Jewish woman from Berlin, wrote in her memoir.
²¹⁴
She noted incidents very similar to those mentioned by the Dresden diarist: “I am greeted on the street with special politeness by complete strangers, and in the streetcar ostentatiously a seat is freed for me, although those wearing a star are allowed to sit only if no Aryan is still standing. But sometimes guttersnipes call out abusive words after me. And occasionally Jews are said to have been beaten up. Someone tells me of an experience in the city train. A mother saw that her little girl was sitting beside a Jew: ‘Lieschen, sit down on the other bench, you don’t need to sit beside a Jew.’ At that an Aryan worker stood up, saying: ‘And I don’t need to sit next to Lieschen.’”
²¹⁷

A report sent by the United States consul general in Berlin Leland Morris, to the State Department, on September 30, confirmed the information described by Klemperer and Freund. “It may be noted that a very large proportion of Berliners have shown embarrassment and even sympathy rather than satisfaction at the display of Jewish badges under the recent decree. This may be due to the fact that the Jewish Question as a domestic issue has been deliberately kept out of the public notice since before the war and most ordinary people had willingly tried to forget it. Disapproval of this measure is so general that one of the justifications advanced for it…by those responsible is that Germans in the United States are obliged to wear a swastika with the letter ‘G.’ This preposterous lie is passed from mouth to mouth but finds little credence.”
²¹⁸

In fact the most diverse sources confirmed the disapproval of the badge among part of the German population.
²¹⁹
In David Bankier’s nuanced assessment, it was the visibility of the persecution that caused so many Germans to react as they did, at least for a while: “As long as anonymous Jews were persecuted, the population could remain emotionally distant from the moral consequences of the affliction they had helped to cause, easily coming to terms with persecution since shame and guilt were not involved. Labeling the victim, however, made him an accusing public witness who testified to the cost of conformity and adjustment in a murderous system…. These disturbing feelings obviously did not last long. As had happened with other measures, the penalties exacted from those who sympathized with Jews plus mounting insensibility to what became a common sight, produced increasing apathy and insensitivity.”
²²⁰

Yet we also have to accept the possibility of an ongoing dissonance in attitudes and reactions, as was bluntly stated in a detailed report sent to the Foreign Ministry in Stockholm by Arvid Richert, the Swedish minister in Berlin, on October 31, 1941. After mentioning the “noteworthy courtesy” of the German population in its attitude to the Jews who had received their “decoration,” he expressed a warning: “In order to avoid any misunderstanding, I would like to add that even if many Germans dislike the draconian measures against the Jews, anti-Semitism appears to be deeply rooted in the people.”
²²¹

Oral history confirms both the negative reaction of part of the population to the star and the approval of other Germans; it also confirms that, once the star was introduced, many Germans were astonished at the number of Jews still living in their midst, thus confirming a finding of the SD. According to Eric Johnson’s and Karl-Heinz Reuband’s study, it seems that “older people disapproved of the star much more than younger people, and that Catholics and women were more opposed to the measures than Protestants and men, as were people from urban than rural areas and midsize towns…. In general,…the pattern we found in this regard closely resembles that of Nazi supporters [analyzed in another part of the study.] Those who were least supportive of National Socialism were least positively disposed to the introduction of the Jew’s star.” The authors confirm that among critics of the measure, indifference took over after a while: “For a couple of days, one swallowed hard,” as a respondent put it, and then one accepted it. After all, “There wasn’t any changing it.”
²²²

In fact all interpretations seem to confirm the fact that the negative reactions to the introduction of the star among part of the German population were ephemeral and did nothing to change overall acceptance and passivity. As for the Jews, not all felt unmixed gratitude at the early shows of compassion. Ruth Kluger, a Jewish girl of twelve in the late fall of 1941, born and living in Vienna, was given an orange by a stranger, as the subway they were riding entered a tunnel (for the gesture to pass unnoticed). “By the time we were back in the daylight, I had stowed it in my bag,” she wrote in her memoirs, “and gratefully looked at the stranger, who looked down on me with a benevolent smile. But my feelings were mixed…. I didn’t like the role of the passive victim who could be comforted with a small demonstration of kindness…. An orange, no matter what it stood for, was no help as my life became progressively more restricted and impoverished. It was a sentimental gesture, and I was a prop for the donor’s good intentions.”
²²³
The memory of such mixed feelings in a twelve-year-old, may of course have been influenced by the events that followed: A year later, in September 1942, Ruth and her mother, a nurse and a physical therapist, were on their way to Theresienstadt; later on they would be sent to Auschwitz. The father, a physician, had performed an abortion on an Aryan woman; he had to flee to Italy, then to France, where he was arrested, deported to the Baltic countries, and murdered.

Whether as an afterthought in the wake of the star decree or as an early sign of decisions to come, on September 11, 1941, the Gestapo disbanded the Kulturbund. Most of its cultural activities had already been forbidden beforehand. Thus in July, the association’s musicians met for the last time to celebrate Verdi; then, their instruments were confiscated and handed out to SA and SS units, the pianos were sent to Nazi welfare organizations and Wehrmacht sanatoriums, and their records were recycled by the German record industry.
²²⁴
In Germany the last remains of authorized Jewish cultural activity had been snuffed out.