History

It is too easy to dismiss extremism as foolishness, to ignore warning signs of horrors to come. The German reaction to The Boxheim Documents in 1931 is one example of how dangerous this thinking can be.

Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda, was one of the most vicious Anti-Semites in Hitler’s circle. How ironic that on March 8, 1945, a group of American soldiers celebrated Purim at Goebbel’s vacation home.

In April, 1933, book burnings began in Germany. They increased in number and intensity during May and June. These tragedies were not organized by top Nazis. University students led the way.

People often think Theresienstadt was the death camp “for the public.” The Nazis used it as an example of how well they treated Jews. But the real model camp for the Nazis, was Sachsenhausen. They viewed it as the prototype for all future camps and the perfect place to train mass murderers.

When my great-grandparents prepared to leave Russia, they were not concerned with immigration quotas. Quotas did not exist until the 1920’s. Later, these quotas restricted the numbers of Jews desperate to escape deadly conditions. The Wagner-Rogers Bill was introduced in 1939 to increase the number of German (Jewish) refugee children allowed into this country. The bill was voted down.

Although many people know about Kristallnacht; few realize the horror extended to Czechoslovakia. The fate of Czech Jews was sealed in 1938 amid the sound of broken glass and smell of black smoke.

On October 27, 1938, Germany deported all Polish born Jews back to Poland. But Poland didn’t want them. This tragedy was a precursor to future tragedies and had special significance for my family.

My father’s friend grew up in Germany. In 1938, when this friend was a boy, his parents wanted to leave Nazi Germany. The boy had no wish to leave his home. But new Nazi laws about Jewish passports changed his mind.

During a wonderful trip to Santorini, Greek anti-Semitism and Holocaust denying struck us head on. A person claimed a volcanic eruption had the moral equivalency of Nazi slaughter.