Letter to Kari at Farm Hill School
Walter Felscher (walter.felscher@UNI-TUEBINGEN.DE)
Fri, 23 Jan 1998 19:12:18 +0100
Dear Kari,
I shall try to reply to your questions. Let me say that I
then lived - and still live - in Germany; so all my answers
refer to the situation in Germany. I was not quite 8 when
the war started in 1939 and was 13 when it ended in 1945 .
The NS rule lasted for twelve years, from 1933 to 1945 . As
you yourself are ten, you will realize that twelve years are
a long time during which many things may change
considerably. For instance, twelve years ago, neither you
nor I had a computer to write messages from one continent to
another one. And the NS rule, during its twelve years,
changed similarly: every year it became more oppressive.
Consequently, answering a question "how was that ?" may well
depend on the year - things that were possible in 1933 were
not possible in 1936, and those that were possible in 1936
may not have been possible in 1941 . This should explain
why, in my answers, I sometime have to mention the years
about which I say "it was so-and-so".
1. What was it like to be apart of the Hitler Youth?
I suppose that, where you write "apart", you mean "a member".
Well, what it was like depended, of course, very much on the
child in question. For some it was most unpleasant, but for
most children it seemed to be entertaining, if not fun.
Whether or not, that did usually not depend on a conscious
decision, but on accidental circumstances. As for me, I was
at that time quite timid, not at all given to sports, and
generally quite a-social (as your teacher might say) and a
loner. So I didn't like it at all - but that was in no way a
virtuous, moral decision on my part, such as it was not immoral
from those who happened to like it.
As Mr.Behrendt already explained, Jewish children were not
accepted in the HJ . A few weeks ago, our public radio here
(the station DLF) broadcast the memories of a girl from
Berlin who had a Jewish father and a non-Jewish mother;
hence she was "half-Jewish" as the authorities called that
situation. It must have been in 1935 or so that she very
much wanted to become a member of the girl's HJ, the BdM. So
she went to their meetings; her mother even had bought her the
appropriate uniform. She liked it very much: the spirit of
comradeship, the singing of songs, the storytelling .. . Yet,
after a few weeks, she was informed that she had to leave for being
half-Jewish. Such was the appeal of the HJ that it attracted
even one of those which it considered as its enemies ! [And
she continued to report that, a few years later, just before the
war, her father, a doctor, killed himself in despair because while still
having his office to practise, no patients came to him anymore.]
2. Was it dangerous to not become a part of the Hitler Youth
or the Nazi troops?
If by Nazi troops you mean the SA or the SS, these consisted
of volunteers; not to become a member of them was in no way
dangerous. If you mean the military then, beginning with 1937
there was a draft, a law requiring you to join. If you did
not join, you were imprisoned or, depending on the reasons
you gave for your refusal, even executed.
As for the HJ, in the first years until 1938 it was
voluntary; so not to join was not at all dangerous. After
1938, a law came into effect obliging every child above 10
to become a member. So when I was 9 and 1/2, in March 1941,
there appeared one day in our mailbox a small, handwritten
notice that I should appear next wednesday afternoon at a
certain schoolyard for my first "service" meeting in the HJ .
My parents told me that they had other plans for that day
- and so I simply did not go but joined my parents. After
two weeks, another such notice appeared in our mailbox,
saying that I should appear next wednesday ... . My parents
told me that they had tickets for a variete [a show with
acrobats and clowns and dancers in a big theater "Die Skala"
in Berlin] on that particular afternoon - and so again I did
not go but went with my parents to nearby Berlin. A few days
later, a formal, printed letter arrived in our mailbox,
saying that according to the law # so-and-so, dated
so-and-so, I was obliged to appear next wednesday - and said
that, should I not come, the police would come and enforce
my appearance there. This time, my parents found it wiser to
send me there. Clearly, unpleasant things would have
followed had I not obeyed - presumably of the quality that
happen to a child which, informed at the age of six to
appear in elementary school, refuses to do so. Not to
mention what happens to the parents.
4. Was there a lot of shortage on good food?
When Hitler came to power, many people were unemployed or
otherwise in bad situations; so many did not have the money
to buy good food. During the pre-war years, this situation
improved - but now the government began to restrict imports
of food with the slogan "Kanonen statt Butter" - cannons
instead of butter. As soon as the war started, food became
rationed, and certain things disappeared altogether: no
(whipped) cream, no bananas, rarely an orange. Meat maybe
twice a week. Still, even at the end of the war, nobody had
to go hungry or to starve - except prisoners, both POWs and
those in gaols and camps.
6. Were non Jewish people at all allowed to talk with
Jewish people?
If you mean by "talk to" to put a question to some person on
the street ("do you know where the bus stop is ?"), then
that was 'allowed' without restriction. If, however, you
mean to meet a person which you knew already, meet it on the
street or in a park, and to engage in a conversation - then
it became a different matter.
But first, of course, how would you know that the person you
met was Jewish ? You couldn't read it from their faces or
from their clothes. At least not until 1939 - but then, yes,
you could: because from that time on Jews were required to
wear on the outside of their clothes a particularly shaped
patch: a yellow star or hexagon. So until 1939, talking in
public to a Jew, not known already in your neighbourhood,
would not be noticed. From that time on, it would be
noticeable, and while it never was disallowed (to non-Jews)
to do so, you would think it better not to talk: (1) in
order to avoid unpleasantness to yourself and (2) to avoid
persecution of the Jew.
Because (2) the Jew, indeed, might be arrested by any
passing policeman, might be beaten etc - just for talking to
a non-Jew. And understand the "unpleasantness" I
mentioned under (1), imagine, say, that the non-Jew is a
teacher, and imagine that he is seen talking to a Jew by
another teacher from the same school. Imagine that the
other teacher does not like him - e.g. the first teacher's
salary was risen last fall, but the other teacher's salary
was not. Or the other teacher was rebuffed by the first
one's wife when he wanted to start an affair with her. So
the other teacher goes to the headmaster, tells him and asks
to have the first teacher's scandalous behaviour registered
in his personal file [precluding any further promotion or
salary rise]. What will the headmaster do ? He is in the
same situation as is the first teacher ! Either he is a
skunk [rat] and indeed enters the first teachers illoyality
into his file. Or he doensn't. Then the other teacher may
go to the schoolboard and report the headmaster as
sheltering people who talk to Jews. And of course, there
are sufficiently many teachers in the district who also
would want to become headmasters ... . You see the scheme ?
Because that is the universal scheme by which oppression
works. Replace "teacher" by "employee" and "headmaster" by
"submanager" - and you have the same story. Or take
owners of grocery stores instead of teachers, and imagine
the second one to be envious of the business success of the
first. Imagine the first one to deliver milk and drinks and
food to some school, or some factory - and then have the
second storeowner complain with the headmaster or the
factory director. The same scheme: Systems of oppression
make people function for them by appealing to their fear and
their inner skunkishness [rattyness].
So even while it was not formally forbidden to talk to Jews,
it was informally enforced. And unfortunately, the more
intelligent people were, the more they often were willing to
give in to such pressures. Professor A once told me that he
had a colleague, professor B, working in the same field,
with whom he often had had interesting scientific
conversations, had had him visit his house etc . Professor A
was a Jew, professor B was not [actually, he happened to be
an Englishman who had chosen to live in Germany]. A few
weeks after Hitler had taken power, they met on the street.
But 200 feet before their meeting, professor B turned,
walked across the street, and proceeded on the other side of
it. So as not to meet the Jew. [And again this story is
typical - it happened the same way to acquaintances in a
communist country who had been publicly identified as
'bourgeois'.]
Again, all of this developed, slowly at first, from 1933
onwards. Some, not all restaurants put signs in their
window "no Jews served here". Likewise, some storeowners
did so. Again, the pressure from competing restaurants and
stores had its influence, though it did not become
universal. By 1934/35, all Jewish teachers and professors
were fired. By 1936, no Jew was permitted to marry, or to be
engaged to, a non-Jew - the punishment being execution for
the Jew, and concentration camp for the non-Jew. And so on.
In April 1938 I was treated by a Jewish doctor in our
neighbourhood: some other boy had run his bicycle across my
leg and broken it severely; my playmates put me on a small
wagon and pulled it to the next doctor's office. I
remember: I was the only patient in the waiting room and in
the office; noone came to him anymore. And of course, he
had no X-ray machine; so he could only put some bandages on
the leg and send me off to a surgeon who had. A non-Jew, of
course. - Also, my father's business was visited by many
travelling salesmen, representing small producers. At
first, about a quarter of them must have been Jewish. Over
the years, they became fewer and fewer, and after 1938 there
remained none of them. Still, one of them must have been
successful to hide: we saw him one day in 1943, in a crowded
street in Berlin after an air-raid. He stood at the side of
a large entrance-way, characteristic for the pre-ww1-houses,
his face partly blackened by smoke. When we came near, he
shook his head and moved us to pass on ... . I have never
seen him again.
Now, Kari, that was probably much more than you had asked
for. So I shall not reply today to your questions
5. What was it like after the war was over?
7. What was it like when you found out the war was over?
which require answers at least as long. Let me know whether
you still want to hear about them or whether you feel that
it's getting too complicated anyway.
With best wishes
your
Walter Felscher