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Home , July 1938, November 1938

Lesson 13: Handout 4, Reading 1 : The range of choices (Part 1)

Alfons Heck (From the biography of Alfons Heck, a leader in the Hitler Youth Movement, excerpted from Parallel Journeys by Eleanor Ayer)

On the afternoon of , 1938, we were on our way home from school when we ran into small troops of SA and SS men [Nazi police]. . . . We watched open-mouthed as the men . . . began to smash the windows of every Jewish business in [our town]. Paul Wolff, a local carpenter who belonged to the SS, led the biggest troop, and he pointed out the locations. One of their major targets was Anton Blum’s shoe store next to the city hall. Shouting SA men threw hundreds of pairs of shoes into the street. In minutes they were snatched up and carried home by some of the town’s nicest families—folks you never dreamed would steal anything. 13

It was horribly brutal, but at the same time very exciting to us kids. “Let’s go in and smash some stuff,” urged my buddy Helmut. With shining eyes, he bent down, picked up a rock and fired it toward one of the windows. 14

My grandmother found it hard to understand how the police could disre - gard this massive destruction. . . . [She said,] “There is no excuse for destroying people’s property, no matter who they are. I don’t know why the police didn’t arrest those young Nazi louts.” 15

Purpose: To deepen understanding of how our decisions can perpetuate or prevent injustice and violence by studying Kristallnacht. • 211 Lesson 13: Handout 4, Reading 2 Kristallnacht : The range of choices (Part 1)

Andre (Excerpted from “Taking a Stand” pp. 268 –70 in Facing History and Ourselves: Holocaust and Human Behavior )

In November, 1938, twelve-year-old Andre came home from a youth group meeting. He told his father that his youth group leader said that everyone was supposed to meet the next day to throw stones at Jewish stores. Andre said to his father, “I have nothing against the Jews—I hardly know them— but everyone is going to throw stones. So what should I do?” Andre went for a walk to help him figure out what he should do. When he came back, he explained his decision to his parents. “I’ve decided not to throw stones at the Jewish shops. But tomorrow everyone will say, ‘Andre, the son of X, did not take part, he refused to throw stones!’ They will turn against you. What are you going to do?” His father was proud and relieved. He said that the following day, the family would leave Germany. And that is what they did. 16

Purpose: To deepen understanding of how our decisions can perpetuate or prevent injustice and violence by studying Kristallnacht. • 212 Lesson 13: Handout 4, Reading 3 Kristallnacht : The range of choices (Part 1)

Melita Maschmann (Excerpted from “Taking a Stand,” pp. 268–70 in Facing History and Ourselves: Holocaust and Human Behavior )

Melita Maschmann lived in a small suburb of Berlin and knew nothing of Kristallnacht until the next morning. As she picked her way through the broken glass on her way to work, she asked a policeman what had hap - pened. After he explained, she recalled:

I went on my way shaking my head. For the space of a second I was clearly aware that something terrible had happened there. Something frighteningly brutal. But almost at once I switched over to accepting what had happened as over and done with, and avoiding critical reflec - tion. I said to myself: the Jews are the enemies of the New Germany. Last night they had a taste of what this means. . . . I forced the mem - ory of it out of my consciousness as quickly as possible. As the years went by, I grew better and better at switching off quickly in this man - ner on similar occasions. 17

Purpose: To deepen understanding of how our decisions can perpetuate or prevent injustice and violence by studying Kristallnacht. • 213 Lesson 13: Handout 4, Reading 4 Kristallnacht : The range of choices (Part 1)

Frederic Morton (Excerpted from “The Night of the Pogrom,” pp. 263–67 in Facing History and Ourselves: Holocaust and Human Behavior )

The writer Frederic Morton recalls his experience in , Austria (which had been taken over by Germany) on November 9, 1938:

The day began with a thudding through my pillow. Jolts waked me. . . . By that time we’d gone to the window facing the street. At the house entrance two storm troopers lit cigarettes for each other. Their comrades were smashing the synagogue on the floor below us, tossing out a debris of Torahs [holy scripture] and pews. “Oh, my God!” my mother said. . . .

The doorbell rang. . . . Ten storm troopers with heavy pickaxes . . . were young and bright-faced with excitement. . . . “House search,” the leader said. “Don’t move.”. . . They yanked out every drawer in every one of our chests and cupboards, and tossed each in the air. They let the cutlery jangle across the floor, the clothes scatter, and stepped over the mess to fling the next drawer. Their exuberance was amazing. Amazing, that none of them raised an axe to split our skulls. “We might be back,” the leader said. . . .

We did not speak or move or breathe until we heard their boots against the pave - ment. “I am going to the office,” my father said. “Breitel might help.” Breitel, the Reich commissar in my father’s costume-jewelry factory, was a “good” Nazi. Once he’d said we should come to him if there was trouble. My father left. . . . I began to pick up clothes, when the doorbell rang again. It was my father. “I have two min - utes.” “What?” my mother said. But she knew. His eyes had become glass. “There was another crew waiting for me downstairs. They gave me two minutes.” Now I broke down. . . .

Four months later he rang our doorbell twice, skull shaven, skeletal, released from Dachau [a prison], somehow alive. 18

Purpose: To deepen understanding of how our decisions can perpetuate or prevent injustice and violence by studying Kristallnacht. • 214 Lesson 13: Handout 4, Reading 5 Kristallnacht : The range of choices (Part 1)

The United States (Excerpted from “World Responses” pp. 270–72 in Facing History and Ourselves: Holocaust and Human Behavior )

On , six days after Kristallnacht , President Franklin D. Roosevelt opened a press conference by stating, “The news of the last few days from Germany has deeply shocked public opinion in the United States. . . . I myself could scarcely believe that such things could occur in a twentieth-century civilization.” 19 As punishment to Germany, he announced that the United States was withdrawing its ambassador to Germany. But he did not offer to help the thousands of Jews now trying desperately to leave Germany.

Few Americans criticized Roosevelt’s stand. According to a poll taken at the time, 72 percent did not want more Jewish refugees in the United States. In the Americans were more concerned with unemployment at home than with stateless Jews in Europe. Although many were willing to accept a few famous writers, artists, and scientists who happened to be Jewish, they were less willing to let in thousands of ordinary Jews. Then in , Senator Robert Wagner of and Representative Edith Nourse Rogers of Massachusetts sponsored a bill that would bypass the immigration laws and temporarily admit 20,000 Jewish children who would stay in the country only until it was safe for them to return home. As most were too young to work, they would not take away jobs from Americans. Furthermore, their stay would not cost taxpayers a penny. Various Jewish groups had agreed to assume financial responsibility for the children. Yet the bill encountered strong opposition and was never passed. 20

Purpose: To deepen understanding of how our decisions can perpetuate or prevent injustice and violence by studying Kristallnacht. • 215 Notes

1 Proceedings of the Intergovernmental Committee, Evian, –15, 1938. Verbatim Record of the Plenary Meetings of the Committee. Resolutions and Reports. : , 25. 2 Margot Stern Strom, Facing History and Ourselves: Holocaust and Human Behavior (Brookline: Facing History and Ourselves National Foundation), 264. 3 Anthony Read and David Fisher, Kristallnacht: The Unleashing of the Holocaust (New York: Peter Bedrick Books, 1989), 127. 4 Victoria Barnett, For the Soul of the People: Protestant Protest Against Hitler (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 142. 5 Richard Rubenstein, The Cunning of History: Mass Death and the American Future (New York: Harper & Row, 1975), 27. 6 “Extract from the Speech by Hitler,” January 30, 1939, http://www.yadvashem.org/about_holocaust /documents/part1/doc59.html (accessed on January 16, 2009). 7 Rubenstein, The Cunning of History , 33. 8 Helen Fein, Accounting for Genocide (London: The Free Press, 1979), 33. 9 Joe Lobenstein, “ Kristallnacht : Still an Unforgettable Nightmare 70 Years On,” Telegraph , 10 November 2008, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/3416004/Kristallnacht-Still-an -unforgettable-nightmare-70-years-on.html (accessed January 16, 2009). 10 Dan Barry, “A Boy the Bullies Love to Beat Up, Repeatedly,” The New York Times , May 24, 2008, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/24/us/24land.html?pagewanted=l&_r=l&partner=permalink&exprod =permalink (accessed January 16, 2009). 11 Eleanor Ayer, Parallel Journeys (New York: Aladdin Paperbacks, 1995), 30. 12 Alexandra Zapradur, Salvaged Pages: Young Writers’ Diaries of the Holocaust (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), 19–23. 13 Ayer, Parallel Journeys , 27. 14 Ibid., 29. 15 Ibid., 30. 16 Dan Bar-On, Legacy of Silence: Encounters with Children from the Third Reich (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989), 1. 17 Melita Maschmann, Account Rendered: A Dossier on My Former Self (New York: Abelard -Schuman, 1965), 56. 18 Frederic Morton, “ Kristallnacht ,” New York Times , , 1978. 19 “Kristallnacht ,” The American Experience , PBS website, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/holocaust /peopleevents/pandeAMEX99.html (accessed January 16, 2009). 20 “Jewish Refugees from German Reich, 1933–1939,” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum website, http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online/stlouis/teach/supread2.htm (accessed January 16, 2009).

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