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OUR DAY in the GERMAN GESTAPO

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OUR DAY in the GERMAN GESTAPO space, of distance, of stubborn ocean stretches we can had nothing whatever to do with Die Gesellschaft der probably overcome. Mountains can be tunnelled; they Freunde. What a relief it was! Meantime through OUR DAY can even be removed. Matter is no doubt stubborn, consultation with Jewish agencies and leading Jews we but nothing in the universe is so utterly unconquerable worked out a plan for the extensive migration of as in THE GERMAN GESTAPO as a mind possessed by a set of ideas that have become many Jews as could be got out of the country and for entrenched and sacred. Our struggle is not with bringing relief to the more desperate cases in Germany. by Rufus M. Jones flesh and blood but with an intangible set of entrenched When we had our plans matured it had become ideas, what we now call 'ideologies'. We can almost clear to everybody that we must visit the chiefs of certainly accomplish some practical things which need The story has often been told of the visit of three the Gestapo, in hope of securing from them the personal attention. Whether we can influence minds necessary permission to undertake the purveying of Quaker men, D. Robert Yarnall, George Walton, and or soften hearts or make spiritual forces seem real- that myself, to the German Gestapo at the end of December, relief. Every avenue of approach had been tried. remains to be seen. We shall do our best and wisest Every department of the Government that offered any 1938. The "Day of Broken Glass" occurred on and we shall go in the strength of God." November loth, 1938. Many Jews were killed the hope had been visited. We had knocked at all doors that gave a chance of forwarding our main purpose. night of the 9th. All Jewish shops had their windows We sailed on the S. S. Queen Mary, which made a Everybody said, or intimated, that only the chiefs of broken and much of their possessions ruined. Synae record trip on that crossing. When we were in the gogues which could be burned without endangering the Gestapo could issue the permission we were seeking. middle of the ocean I was called up by radio,telephone And everybody knew, though we didn't know, that the German property, were set on fire. Thirtyhve thous* and asked by the Philadelphia Record for information Gestapo had done the deed. and Jews were taken to concentration camps that day. as to the aims of our trip. I refused to give any infor. The free food centers, which had been set up by the mation, whereupon a sensational article appeared the The Monday after our decision was reached we went Jews for feeding their people who had been reduced to next morning, built on imagination, telling of a pro. in the morning to the office of the American Consul- poverty, were destroyed and ceased to function. posed Quaker visit to Herr Hitler! This was taken up General, Raymond Geist. If ever there was a good man, by the London papers with corresponding headlines. he was one. We told him that we had to visit the Impressed as we were by the sufferings of the Jews The information was being hawked about the streets in this crisis, Clarence Pickett and I visiteti the German chiefs of the Gestapo and that we knew of nobody of London that morning. And so the "information" but himself who could make the visit possible. He Ambassador in Washington and asked him to get reached Goebbels in Germany in advance of our said, "I will do what a man can." After trying to permission of his Government for the Service Come arrival, and he wrote the famous article on "The Three mittee to take relief to the Jews who were suffering in telephone, which we already knew always failed to Wise Men" who were coming to "save" Germany- get any response, he put on his hat and went into Germany. He promised to use his best efforts to a scurrilous article. secure the permission. Quite naturally, as we can now the storm that was raging that day in Berlin-said to understand, no results came from these efforts. It We landed at Cherbourg, spent the evening in Paris have been the worst storm and lowest temperature for appears very plainly from the facts now known that with Allen Hole and his wife, exchanged our money, eighty years! In about half an hour we were summoned. the events of "the Day of Broken Glass" were planned engaged sleepers for Berlin and were there next morn- We leaped into a taxi and drove to the huge buildings. by the Heads of the Nazi Party and executed by their ing, five days from the time we left home. Six black,shirted soldiers with helmets and muskets escorted us to the great iron doors which opened and let subordinates who consequently could not at the time We at once formed a small conference group which be expected to be punished for the crimes committed. us in to the ominous building. It is gone now. Nobody included Howard Elkinton, head of the German Center; will ever see it again. We were given tickets and were I Our minds were so occupied with the desire to get Paul Sturge, who had joined us from London; Jim told that we did not need them to get in but we should help and relief to those who were suffering that we Lieftinck of Holland; and prominent German Friends need them to get out! gave almost no thought to the dangers which con. who were from time to time invited. We spent all our fronted us on this visit. We waited two weeks before evenings counseling on ways of ~rocedureand on aims We went through seven corridors, each one opening starting, in the vain hope that the German Ambassador to be accomplished. Our first visit was to the State into an uncovered square, and then climbed five flights would succeed in opening the door for the proposed Department. It very soon became evident that little of stairs to a top room where Raymond Geist met us relief. Of course no door was opened. could be accomplished through the State Department. and said: "I have done it. Two chief officers of the Gestapo have been delegated to hear your plans and At the November meeting of the American Friends The first Sunday morning after our arrival there to get a decision on your project." The chief of the Service Committee a deep concern spread over the appeared a scathing article in Goebbels' official newse Gestapo at this time was Heydrich, nicknamed the group that a delegation should be sent at once to paper against "Gesellschaft der Freunde," which we 'LHangman," who was later assassinated in Czecho. I Germany. At the Board meeting the first Wednesday naturally supposed meant the Society of Friends. We Slovakia. He was in the next room and we could I in December a positive decision was reached to go for. went to Quaker Meeting that morning in a discouraged see him through the window. But our first task was ward with the delegation. The three Friends above state of mind, convinced by this terrible article that our to convince the two hard#faced, ironaatured men as* mentioned were selected and I was asked to be chairman visit was in vain and that we might as well turn signed to us. The night before I had prepared an around and come home. We had a wonderful meet. I of the delegation. opening message; had had it carefully translated into ing, however, with great depth of life and power. German and typed. I asked the two men to read it At the farewell meeting before we sailed, I spoke After meeting was over we learned through a very before we began our discussions. It was as follows: briefly as follows: "There must be no illusions in our intelligent person that the "Gesellschaft" that was mind about this venture of ours. The difficulties of being attacked was a society of the Masonic Order and "We have come to Germany at this present time to see whether there might be any service which American prayer-the only Quaker Meeting ever held in the Quakers could render, and to use every opportunity Gestapo! It proved to have been rightly ordered. open to us to understand the present situation. Those The two men returned at the announced time and the whom we are to consult should clearly understand that leader said: "Everything you have asked for is granted." we have had close and friendly relations with the I said, "That is splendid. We should like to have the German people throughout the whole post,war period. report in writing." "No," the leader said, "the Gestapo We represent no governments, no international organi, does not give its decisions in writing." "What will be zations, no parties, no sects, and we have no interest the evidence, then," I asked, "that this decision has in propaganda in any form. We have always been been made?" "Every word," he said, "that has been unhappy over the conditions of the Peace Treaty and spoken in this room has been recorded by a mechanism in spirit opposed to those conditions. and this decision will be in the record." We were glad then that we had kept the period of hush and quiet "We came to Germany at the time of the blockade, and had uttered no words for the record! The leader organized and directed the feeding of German children, then said, "I shall telegraph tonight to every police OUR DAY reaching at the peak no less than a million two hundred station in Germany that the Quakers are given full thousand children per day.
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