Re: Star of David Question
Eberhard Weber (glosys@PSNW.COM)
Thu, 1 May 1997 16:41:52 -0700
On Thu, 1 May 1997, PHMS Media Center wrote:
> Why did Jews in Europe willingly wear the Star of David on their
> clothes? Why not just pretend to not be Jewish?
This is the Berlin schoolboy
I gather that if you were jewish you would not willingly wear that
star and wonder why everyone else would. But where does the idea
of "willingly" come from? I have never heard anyone even consider
that possibility. And of course, jews did not "willingly" wear it
in Germany or in countries occupied by germans. They had no choice
in the matter.
One might also wonder that if they "had" to wear it, why not comply
initially and "then" remove it. The problem is, of course, that
you would never know whether someone else who knew you were jewish
and that you did not wear it would most likely report that fact, in
which case you would immediately be incarcerated and perhaps even be
executed in a matter of days or immediately.
And pretending not to be jewish would not do any good either for the
same reason, plus another:
I recall that one day in Berlin we received two brown paper
booklets from the government in which our family tree had been traced
backward for a number of generations, sufficiently far back to establish
that we did not have 1/16 or 1/32 (I forget which) of jewish heritage
in that family tree. I also do not recall what the reaction of my
parents was. But I recall that for myself I felt somewhat relieved
that we were "cleared" and that we would not be bothered by the
government on these grounds. I was about 6 years old when we received
these books.
For one, I had no idea what being "jewish" meant. All I knew is that
being jewish is "bad". I was therefore most surprised when one day, while
walking with my parents I passed a most distinguished looking man walking
arm in arm with what must have been his adult daughter. Both wore the
star which I had not seen before on anyone, but I was able to read the
word "Jude" in that star which was supposed to be "bad". But these
people did not look bad at all. They looked like any of the friends of
our family. Like most people, even adults, we are inclined to think that
one could recognize a "bad" person by some facial features, some ugly
features to validate that a person is indeed "bad". But even the most
malicious and perverted people oftentimes can not be recognized as such
even if you know them relatively well.
I was so surprised that these very nice looking people were supposed
to be bad but looked like many people I knew and I turned around and
stared at them as if my confusion could be resolved by looking closely.
And then I asked my mother some question in that regard and since she
was holding my hand as we were walking she just shook it and made the
hissing sound she occasionally used to tell me to close my mouth. To
me it meant that I should not inquire, and to my recollection I never
did. But I kept wondering many times thereafter when I saw people who
had a star pinned to their dress just what was so bad about them.
But after a while I no longer saw these stars and the issue was resolved
for me, I simply forgot as children do, and nobody talked about it
anyway. It took me over fifteen years after the war to come to grips
with the fact that indeed the german government killed people on an
industrial scale. Until then I, and many of my friends, tried to
find arguments to deny that germans were capable of such mass murder, it
was unthinkable that germans would do that and we were absolutely
convinced that this was nothing but an orchestrated effort by those
who won the war to malign germans. We studied pictures not for their
pictorial content or their meaning but for evidence of "photo montage",
the willful altering of photographs to create images for which the
object never existed.
A long explanation to a brief question, but once my mind engages on
matters related to that period it seems to continue as a movie from
some long forgotten fixed images of situations experienced which such
questions retrieve.
Best regards
Eberhard
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