Cyprus Fallout: Moscow Accuses Euro Zone of Theft -- and Worse

SPIEGEL ONLINE INTERNATIONAL: Russia has sharply criticized the bailout deal for Cyprus, with Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev accusing the EU of theft. Russian state television even likened the forced levy imposed on wealthy investors -- many of them Russian -- to the expropriation of Jews by Nazi Germany.

The verdict of Russian state television on Europe's effort to save Cyprus was damning. The last week "will enter the history books of the EU as a destructive one," said Dmitry Kiselev, the presenter of the popular news program Vesti Nedili on the Rossiya channel.

Kiselev heaped criticism on the forced levy to be imposed on bank deposits in Cyprus. He said the last time a Western European government proceeded so recklessly was when Adolf Hitler expropriated the Jews.

Nazi propaganda at the time described the money held by Jewish people as "dirty," said Kiselev. That was precisely how Europe was talking about Russian assets deposited in Cyprus, he added.

"The new world order is being founded against Russia, at Russia's costs and on the rubble of Russia," said a Rossiya correspondent from the Mediterranean island nation.

The Kremlin feels it has been sidelined in the tug-of-war over the Cypriot bailout, European Commission President José Manuel Barroso visited Moscow for talks last Friday, but just a few days later, Europe's new attempt to avert a financial meltdown in Cyprus has elicited fierce criticism from Moscow. » | Benjamin Bidder in Moscow | Monday, March 25, 2013

Bulgaria Regrets Failing to Save Thousands of Jews in WWII

BBC: Bulgaria has expressed regret that more than 11,000 Jews were deported to Nazi concentration camps from areas under Bulgarian control during World War II.

A Bulgarian parliament declaration did however praise Bulgarians for having blocked the deportation of more than 48,000 Jews during the war.

It said it could "not be disputed that 11,343 Jews were deported from northern Greece and the Kingdom of Yugoslavia".

Most Jews sent to the Nazi German death camps in Poland died.

Referring to the 11,343 deported, the MPs' declaration said "we denounce this criminal act, undertaken by Hitler's command, and express our regrets for the fact that the local Bulgarian administration had not been in a position to stop this act".

Only a few hundred of those deportees survived, Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust Centre says.

Yad Vashem lists 20 Bulgarians among its "Righteous Among the Nations" - individuals who acted to protect Jews from the Holocaust.

Bulgaria was an ally of Nazi Germany during the war, when Jews were deported en masse from the Nazi-occupied Balkans to death camps such as Auschwitz. » | Friday, March 08, 2013

U.S. Linguist Noam Chomsky Compares Colin Powell to Von Ribbentrop and the U.S. to Nazi Germany (January 29, 2013)

Excruciating Details Emerge on Jewish Ghettos

YNET NEWS: Editor of 'Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos' says research conducted in 'town after town, village after village' in Eastern Europe found that Nazis made 'concerted effort to find every last Jew in every last place'

Even after decades of in-depth Holocaust research, excruciating details are only now emerging about more than 1,100 German-run ghettos in Eastern Europe where the Nazis murdered hundreds of thousands of Jews.

And there were about 200 more ghettos than previously believed, said Martin Dean, editor of the recently published "Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933-1945, Volume II." It's part of a long-term effort to document every site of organized Nazi persecution, beyond the well-known Warsaw ghetto and extermination camps like Auschwitz.

It "gives us information about ghettos that would slip into historical oblivion and be forgotten forever if we didn't have this volume," Holocaust scholar Lawrence Langer said. "Who knew there were more than 1,000 ghettos?"

More Jews died during World War II in Poland and the western Soviet Union — today's Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania — than the estimated 1 million gassed in Auschwitz, Langer said.

"The people are dead, but at least we have the memory of the place where they lived and some knowledge of who killed them," said Langer, an 83-year-old professor of English emeritus at Boston's Simmons College.

The museum fields inquiries daily about survivors' families using the new information — some of it from non-Jews divulging locations of unmarked mass graves. » | Associated Press | Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Stolen Art Returned to Jewish Family
A painting that was stolen from a Jewish family during World War Two, and then sold, has been returned to its rightful owners.

Redemption (for Now) of 'Hitler's Pope' as Vatican Opens Secret Archives
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: A controversial wartime Pope accused by historians of being too compliant towards Hitler was praised by former Jewish prisoners for preventing their deportation to death camps, documents released from the Vatican's secret archives have revealed.

Pius XII, who was elected in 1939, has been accused of turning a blind eye to the Nazis' extermination of the Jews in Europe, including a round-up by the Gestapo of 2,000 Italian Jews in Rome's Ghetto area in 1943.

They were sent to concentration camps, including Auschwitz, and only a handful survived the war.

The Vatican has until now refused to release any documents from Pius's papacy, despite calls for them to be made available by Jewish groups and historians, who in the past have dubbed the Italian pontiff "Hitler's Pope" and accused him of being anti-Semitic.

But in an historic move, seven documents from the so-called "closed period" went on display this week in an exhibition of 100 historic items from the Vatican Secret Archives.

They suggested that the Pope showed more concern for the plight of Jews during the war than he is often credited with. » | Nick Squires, Rome | Friday, March 02, 2012

Naked Nazis: Book Reveals Extent of Third Reich Body Worship

SPIEGEL ONLINE INTERNATIONAL: Science fiction, jokes and forbidden love: The book market in Nazi Germany was surprisingly varied. But perhaps the most bizarre bestseller to make it past the censors was an unabashed collection of nudist photography. It was a celebration of the Aryan body.

What did Germans read during the Nazi era? In search of the answer, author Christian Adam surveyed a total of 350 bestsellers from the 12 years of the Third Reich's existence -- making striking discoveries in the process. In addition to well-known propaganda books like Adolf Hitler's "Mein Kampf" and Alfred Rosenberg's "The Myth of the Twentieth Century," there were schmaltzy regional novels, science fiction, mysteries, love stories, joke books and cross-media marketed accompaniments to radio programs and films.

The rich variety of reading material likely arose because different censorship offices competed to have the last word on what books publishers could print, Christian says. The paradoxical effect is that some of the books printed seem surprising today. Perhaps the oddest of them all was Hans Surén's "Mensch und Sonne," or "Humans and Sun," a collection of nude photographs that includes lyrical praise of the male member, instructions for yoga-like exercises and even naked skiing.

It could be seen as a precursor to the sexual revolution and "Freikörperkultur (FKK)," or "free body culture" of the late 1960s, if it weren't so blatantly racist, researcher Adam told SPEIGEL ONLINE in an interview. » | Interview conducted by Hilmar Schmundt | Thursday, June 16, 2011

Photo Gallery: Naked Nazis and a Surprise Bestseller »

This article originally appeared in German on einestages.de, SPIEGEL ONLINE’s history portal.

EINESTAGES.de: FKK im “Dritten Reich”: Körperschau mit Nacktmodellen »

Germany's WWII Occupation of Poland: 'When We Finish, Nobody Is Left Alive'

SPIEGEL ONLINE INTERNATIONAL: Germany's occupation of Poland is one of the darkest chapters of World War II. Some 6 million people, almost 18 percent of the Polish population, were killed during the Nazi reign of terror that saw mass executions, forced evictions and enslavement.

Adolf Hitler left no doubt about his goal before he ordered the invasion of Poland. Addressing generals and commanders at a reception he gave at his Berchtesgaden retreat on August 22, 1939, Hitler said he was not interested "in reaching a specific line or a new border." He wanted "the destruction of the enemy."

On September 1, 1939, German soldiers marched across the border into neighboring Poland. The vastly superior Wehrmacht forces advanced so quickly that the Polish government was forced to flee to Romania just 16 days later. On September 27, the defenders of the Polish capital, Warsaw, gave up. Nine days later, the last remaining Polish troops laid down their weapons.

Thus begun a nightmarish occupation that would last more than five years. In Poland, the Nazis had more time than in any other occupied country to implement their policies against people they classified as "racially inferior."

The task of implementing Hitler's plan fell to Hans Frank, a 39-year-old lawyer, Nazi Party member and brutal champion of the Nazis' vision of racial purity. Frank was named "Governor-General" of a large chunk of Poland, an area of about 95,000 square kilometers (36,680sq mi), with approximately 10 million inhabitants. This was the western part of Poland that had been annexed by the German Reich, while the eastern half of the country was occupied by the Red Army in accordance with the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, the 1939 non-aggression treaty between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. » | Michael Sontheimer | Friday, May 27, 2011

SPIEGEL ONLINE PHOTO GALLERY: The Horrific German Occupation of Poland »

Related Topics:

German-Polish Relations »

The Holocaust »

Adolf Eichmann Regretted Not Killing All Europe's Jews
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Adolf Eichmann, the bureaucratic mastermind of the Holocaust, regretted that he failed to exterminate all of Europe's Jews, saying "there was more we could have done", recordings have revealed.

Eichmann showed only disappointment that some survived, according to newly declassified files. Looking back on his role in organising the systematic slaughter of Jews, gipsies and other groups, he says: "We didn't do our work correctly."

Recordings of Eichmann were made in the 1950s while he was hiding in Argentina. They have come to light after the German news magazine Der Spiegel found them in 4,500 files on his case recently opened by Germany's intelligence services. » | Matthew Day, Warsaw | Monday, April 04, 2011

Poland Wants Auschwitz Website to Drop .pl Suffix
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Poland wants to ditch the .pl suffix to the Auschwitz.pl website in an effort to ensure people realise that Nazi Germany’s most infamous death camp was not Polish.

Bogdan Zdrojewski, the Polish culture minister, said he had asked the authorities at the Auschwitz-Birkenau museum, along with their counterparts at the Majdanek and Stutthof concentration camps, to change their domain names to either .com or .eu. >>>

Confiscated Jewish Wealth 'Helped Fund the German War Effort'
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Jewish wealth confiscated by the Nazis paid for almost a third of the German war effort, a new study has found.

The Nazis made vast profits out of selling off the possessions of Jews who were later deported to die in the extermination camps in occupied Poland. Photo: The Daily Telegraph
Nearly 120 billion Reich marks – over £12 billion at the time – was plundered from German Jews by laws and looting.

The official study commissioned by the ministry examined the years from 1933 to 1945. Hans-Peter Ullmann, a Cologne history professor, said the tax authorities under the Nazis actively worked to "destroy Jews financially" and to loot wealth in the nations the Germans occupied.

Even Jews who managed to escape from Germany before the Holocaust had to leave part of their wealth behind in the form of an "exit tax". Tax laws discriminated against Jews from 1934 onwards.

The ministry raised money for the war effort through taxes, borrowing and "outright theft," Prof Ullmann said. "Conservatively, their money financed at least 30 per cent of the German war effort," he added.

Christine Kuller of the University of Munich, who also worked on the study, said tax offices built whole hierarchies of bureaucrats "who discovered dwellings and bank accounts and emptied them". The bureaucrats then disposed of all traces of those who disappeared in the extermination camps.

She added; "Post war there was a myth that the civil servants of the finance ministry were neutral; the reality was that anti-Semitism among them was an everyday occurrence." >>> Allan Hall in Berlin | Tuesday, November 09. 2010

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: German Foreign Ministry 'actively encouraged Holocaust': A German government report has concluded that German diplomats were complicit in the murder of millions of jews during the Second World War. >>> | Thursday, October 28, 2010

Operation South Coast: Germany's Plans for the Invasion of Britain Revealed in Rare Nazi Book Not Seen for 70 Years
446-page Nazi war dossier details Hitler's planned 'Operation Sealion'. Photograph: Mail Online
MAIL ONLINE: With obscure technical diagrams and notes scrawled over its pages of faded colour maps, this book might appear as nothing more than an uninspiring aerial survey.

But these pictures are taken from Adolf Hitler's original war dossier of the planned Nazi invasion of Britain.

Unveiled for the first time 70 years to the day of Hitler's planned onslaught on England's south coast, the blueprints offer a chilling insight into what might have been on the morning of September 15, 1940.

The booklet pinpoints the quaint English coastal towns in the path of the Nazi ground assault, which could have been a grim reality had the RAF not performed so valiantly against the Luftwaffe during the Battle of Britain.

The invaders' guide book also eerily shows how postcards identifying unmistakable landmarks such as Brighton Pier and Land's End were given to Nazi troops to identify their targets in preparation for their blitz of the British Isles. Read on and comment >>> Daily Mail Reporter | Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Nazi Executioner Protected from Jail by Germany
THE TELEGRAPH: The fifth most wanted Nazi fugitive is living out his old age safe within Germany, despite being wanted in Britain and the Netherlands on war crimes charges.

German Chancellor Adolf Hitler (L) standing in a convertible Mercedes reviews SA and SS troops and wellwishers somewhere in Germany, 1937. Photo: The Telegraph
Klaas Faber, now 88, volunteered for Adolf Hitler's notorious SS during the Second World War and worked as part of a Gestapo death squad.

Despite being sentenced to death for his crimes in 1947, Faber is immune from prosecution because he escaped from prison in the Netherlands in 1952 and fled back to Germany.

Demands by Britain and other nations to hand him over have since been rejected by Germany, according to the Sun.

Faber, who was born in the Netherlands, is immune from extradition because he was granted German citizenship by Hitler.

Local privacy laws also mean that Germans cannot be told that Faber is a war criminal. >>> | Monday, July 05, 2010

Gaza Flotilla Attack: Israeli Ambassador Compares Raid to Second World War
THE TELEGRAPH: Israel's ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren, has compared the Gaza flotilla attack with America's fight against Nazi Germany in the Second World War.



In an interview with Fox News, he described the operation, in which nine people died, as "perfectly legal, perfectly humane – and very responsible".

He defending the attack in open waters, saying: "Israel acted in accord with international law. Any state has the right to protect itself, certainly from a terrorist threat such as Hamas, including on the open seas.

"The US acted under similar international law when it fought the Germans and the Japanese in World War Two."

His comments came as Israel began deporting hundreds of activists seized from the flotilla, including more than 120 activists from Muslim countries who were taken to the border with Jordan early this morning.

There is no immediate word on the fate of 42 British nationals who were on the convoy of ships.

US President Barack Obama has spoken to Recep Tayyip Erdogan, prime minister of Turkey, which had branded the attack a "bloody massacre", the White House said.

The President expressed "deep condolences" over the deaths on board a Turkish flagged ship that was part of the flotilla and said Washington was working with Israel on the release of impounded vessels and passengers.

In his television interview, Mr Oren said Israel "has to make some hard choices sometimes," adding: "We live in a rough neighbourhood." >>> Alastair Jamieson | Wednesday, June 02, 2010

Israeli Ambassador to U.S. Michael Oren

Germany Fights to Keep Holocaust Organiser's Files Sealed
THE TELEGRAPH: Germany is fighting to keep sealed the Eichmann files detailing the years the Holocaust's chief logistics organiser spent on the run before he was captured by Mossad agents.

Adolph Eichmann during his trial in 1961. Photograph: The Telegraph
Those hoping to have a 50-year secrecy order overturned believe the government is embarrassed by details within that may prove German and Vatican officials colluded in his escape and freedom.

The secrecy order is being challenged in a benchmark court case against the BND, Germany's domestic intelligence service, which wants the 4,500 pages of documents on Adolf Eichmann to remain out of the public domain. The service claims that intelligence agencies in other countries will be "frightened off" in future data-sharing if they are disclosed, Der Spiegel reported.

Critics believe this is a smokescreen designed to avoid official embarrassment both in Berlin and the Vatican. It is well documented that German Bishop Alois Hudal in Rome operated postwar "Ratlines," getting passports for wanted Nazis to allow them to escape justice.

Franz Stangl, commandant of the Treblinka extermination camp, admitted to British Nazi expert Gitta Sereny that Hudal helped him get away after the Nazi defeat in 1945.

Eichmann also escaped. He was the ultimate "desk murderer" of the Third Reich who, as head of department IVB4 of the SS in Berlin, was responsible for the trains that carried millions to their deaths at extermination centres in Nazi occupied Poland. >>> Allan Hall in Berlin | Friday, March 12, 2010

DER SPIEGEL: Adolph Eichmann: Alle Artikel, Hintergründe und Fakten >>>

Kristallnacht (The Night Of Broken Glass): A Documentary
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Al Qaradawi Praising Hitler's Anti-Semitism

War Declaration on Nazis Recalled
BBC: The moment Britain finally declared war on Nazi Germany exactly 70 years ago is being remembered.

Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain made his sombre radio broadcast at 11.15am on 3 September 1939, two days after German forces attacked Poland.

France followed suit hours after the historic address at 10 Downing Street.

There are no official events to mark the anniversary, but war-related re-unions and debates are being held in northern England and London.

A group of land girls who worked together on farms in Lincolnshire during the war will be reunited in Grimsby - some for the first time in 70 years. >>> | Thursday, September 03, 2009

Prime Minister Chamberlain Declares War
BBC: With Hitler's invasion of Poland on 1 September the British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's policy of appeasement had clearly failed.

In the face of a revolt from members of his Cabinet and a growing feeling in the country that Hitler must be tackled, he had little choice but to declare war.

At a little after 1100 on 3 September he made this broadcast.

I am speaking to you from the Cabinet Room at 10 Downing Street.

This morning the British Ambassador in Berlin handed the German Government a final note stating that, unless we hear from them by 11 o'clock that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland, a state of war would exist between us. I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received, and that consequently this country is at war with Germany.

You can imagine what a bitter blow it is to me that all my long struggle to win peace has failed. Yet I cannot believe that there is anything more or anything different that I could have done and that would have been more successful.

Up to the very last it would have been quite possible to have arranged a peaceful and honourable settlement between Germany and Poland, but Hitler would not have it. He had evidently made up his mind to attack Poland, whatever happened, and although he now says he put forward reasonable proposals which were rejected by the Poles, that is not a true statement.

The proposals were never shown to the Poles, nor to us, and though they were announced in a German broadcast on Thursday night, Hitler did not wait to hear comments on them but ordered his troops to cross the Polish frontier the next morning.

His action shows convincingly that there is no chance of expecting that this man will ever give up his practice of using force to gain his will. He can only be stopped by force.

We and France are today, in fulfilment of our obligations, going to the aid of Poland, who is so bravely resisting this wicked and unprovoked attack upon her people. We have a clear conscience - we have done all that any country could do to establish peace.

The situation in which no word given by Germany's ruler could be trusted, and no people or country could feel itself safe, has become intolerable. And now that we have resolved to finish it I know that you will play your part with calmness and courage.
At such a moment as this the assurances of support which we have received from the empire are a source of profound encouragement to us.

When I have finished speaking, certain detailed announcements will be made on behalf of the government. Give these your closest attention. The government have made plans under which it will be possible to carry on work of the nation in the days of stress and strain that may be ahead...

Now may God bless you all. May He defend the right. For it is evil things that we shall be fighting against - brute force, bad faith, injustice, oppression and persecution - and against them I am certain that right will prevail. [Source: BBC] | Wednesday, September 01, 1999

Hitler's Address to the Reichstag
BBC: At dawn on 1 September, German troops invaded Poland, unleashing Blitzkrieg or 'lightning war' on the world for the first time.

The Nazi invasion of Poland was entirely unprovoked and the German dictator, Adolf Hitler, gave no ultimatum or declaration of war to the Polish government.

Instead the Nazi leader simply issued a proclamation to the army saying that Poland had refused the "peaceful settlement" desired by him, but which in reality he had never worked for.

Later that morning the German High Command issued the order: "Soldiers of the German Army - after all other means have failed - weapons must decide."

Hitler addressed the German Parliament, the Reichstag, later that day.

Here are some extracts from his speech which have been translated from the original German.

For months we have been suffering under the torture of a problem which the Versailles 'Diktat' created. A problem which has deteriorated until it has become intolerable for us.

Danzig was and is a German city . The [Polish] Corridor was and is German. Danzig was separated from us. The corridor was annexed by Poland. As in other German territories [outside Germany] the east German minorities have been ill-treated in the most distressing manner... I attempted to bring about, by making proposals for revisions, an alteration in this intolerable position.

It is a lie when the outside world says that we only tried to carry our revisions through by pressure. I have, not once but several times, made proposals for the revision of intolerable conditions.

All these proposals have been rejected... In the same way I have also tried to solve the problem of Danzig, the Corridor etc... by proposing peaceful discussion... I then formulated at last the German proposals, and I must repeat that there is nothing more modest and loyal than these proposals.

These answers have been refused. Not only were they answered first with mobilisation, but with increased terror against our German compatriots and with a slow strangling of the Free City of Danzig - economically, politically, and in recent weeks by military and transport means.

I made one more final effort to accept a proposal for mediation on the part of the British Government. They proposed, not that they themselves should carry on the negotiations, but rather that Poland and Germany should come into direct contact and once more pursue negotiations.

I accepted this proposal and worked out a basis for those negotiations which are known to you. For two whole days I sat with my government and waited to see if it was convenient for the Polish Government to send a plenipotentiary or not. Last night they did not send us a plenipotentiary, but instead informed us through their ambassador that they were still considering whether and to what extent they were in a position to go into the British proposals...

If the German Government and its leader patiently endured such treatment Germany would deserve only to disappear from the political stage. I therefore, decided late last night, and informed the British Government that, in these circumstances I can no longer find any willingness on the part of the Polish Government to conduct serious negotiations with us...

When statesmen in the West declare that this affects their interests, I can only regret such a declaration. We ask nothing of these Western states and will never ask anything. I have declared that the frontier between France and Germany is a final one. I have repeatedly offered friendship and the closest co-operation to Britain, but this cannot be offered from one side only...

I will not make war against women and children. I have ordered my airforce to restrict itself to attacks on military objectives. If, however, the enemy thinks he can from that draw 'carte blanche' on his side to fight by other methods he will receive an answer that will deprive him of hearing and sight. [Source: BBC] | Friday, September 03, 1999]

New Book Reveals Horror of Nazi Camp Brothels
REUTERS: BERLIN - In 1942, the Nazis decided that forced labourers in concentration camps would work harder if they were promised sex -- so they made female prisoners work in brothels for them.

The brothels form the subject of "Das KZ Bordell" (The Concentration Camp Brothel) by Robert Sommer, a book that has been hailed as the first comprehensive account of a little known chapter of Nazi oppression in World War Two.

Sommer's 460-page work, due to be presented at the Berlin state parliament on Wednesday, explores the origins, structure and impact of the "Sonderbauten" (special buildings) run by Heinrich Himmler's SS in Germany and Nazi-occupied Europe.

"In the collective memory and written history of World War Two, the camp brothels were for a long time taboo," the 35-year-old Berliner told Reuters. "The former prisoners didn't want to talk about it: it was a difficult subject to handle.

"It didn't fit so easily into the postwar image of the concentration camps as monuments to suffering."

Beginning with the Austrian camp at Mauthausen in 1942, the SS opened 10 brothels, the biggest of which was in Auschwitz, in modern Poland, where as many as 21 women prisoners once worked. The last opened in early 1945, the year the war ended.

The chapter is separate from the annals of the Holocaust of European Jews. Jewish women were not recruited as prostitutes, and Jewish men were not admitted to the brothels.

Sommer estimates around 200 women inmates in total were forced to work in the brothels -- initially offered the prospect of escaping the brutality of the concentration camps.

"They were promised release after half a year if they served in the brothel. But the promises were never honoured," he said. "Later, the SS just selected women they felt were suitable."

"Jews were not allowed in. Neither were Soviet prisoners of war," he added. "Jewish women did not serve as sex workers."

Tens of thousands of captured soldiers, political prisoners and people branded socially undesirable by the Nazis, including Roma and homosexuals, were held in camps alongside the millions of Jews who died in the Holocaust.

"The idea behind the brothels was to raise productivity by providing forced labourers with added incentive," said Sommer. "Yet from what I found, it didn't work at all. Only a few people were actually in a physical condition to go to them."

According to Sommer, the use of prisoners to provide sex to other prisoners was purely a Nazi phenomenon in the war. >>> Dave Graham, Editing by Kevin Liffey | Monday, August 17, 2009

Kristallnacht: Still an Unforgettable Nightmare 70 Years On
THE TELEGRAPH: For historians, the night of Nov 9-10, 1938, represents a turning point for Hitler’s Germany, the moment when the persecution of the Jewish population moved from the psychological to the physical, a milestone on the road that led to the murder of six million people. But for me, it is something more: it is the night they took away my father, and destroyed the synagogue that was my second home.

A wrecked Jewish shop in Berlin, the day after the "Kristallnacht" rampage. Photo courtesy of The Telegraph
The campaign against the Jews that began when Hitler took power gathered momentum in 1935 with the promulgation of the Nuremberg Race Laws, which for all intents and purposes made Jews into second-class citizens. But anti-Jewish agitation was still mostly verbal: a hate campaign orchestrated by a propaganda machine that poured poison into young and old, rich and poor, into the university campuses and professions. “Die Juden sind unser Unglück” was the catchphrase – “The Jews are our misfortune.” Hitler screamed it from the rostrum, journalists splashed it across newspapers, party workers scribbled it on public hoardings. Teachers taught it in the classroom, and the children in turn frightened their parents into believing and repeating it.

Even now, 70 years later, it is hard to forget what it was like growing up in such an environment. In 1936, when I was eight, my parents wanted me to have swimming lessons at the municipal pool in Hanover. When I arrived for my third lesson there was a large notice at the entrance: “Juden sind hier unerwünscht” – “Jews are not welcome here”. We turned back, and out of the corner of my eye I saw my mother wiping the tears from her face.

This was not confined to the cities. I remember accompanying my father, a textile merchant, on a business trip to a small village where he had several regular customers. At the entrance, workmen were busy erecting a huge hoarding, reading: “Juden betreten dieses Dorf auf ihre eigene Gefahr.” (“Jews enter this village at their own risk.”) My father turned back, and I read from his pale face that something was seriously wrong. The same happened in another village. First one, then another, then another of his customers refused to do business: “We have known each other for many years,” said one. “But I beg you, leave right away. I like you, and enjoy dealing with you. But I am afraid of my staff, and of my neighbours – and of my children.”

By 1938, things were getting even worse. In the summer, a law required all Jewish men to adopt the name “Israel” and women the name “Sarah”. The new names were to be inserted in all official documents, such as passports and birth certificates. I remember the debate: was this merely an additional stigma, or a way to identify us for whatever was planned later? Soon after, on the night of Yom Kippur, the Rabbi addressed a crowded congregation, for what would prove to be the last time before the synagogue’s destruction. He exhorted us to take pride in bearing the names of our forebears – but the severe thunderstorm that raged as he was speaking reflected our feelings more accurately than his uplifting words.

And then, on a Friday morning in the middle of October, the word spread like wildfire: all Polish Jews, of whom there were many in our town, had been rounded up – men, women and children, without a moment’s notice. They had been in the middle of preparing food for the coming Sabbath, but instead mothers carrying their babies and men carrying the barest necessities they could gather were bundled into a reception centre. By the evening, it became clear that all over Germany, the Jews of Polish origin had been rounded up with trademark efficiency. They were quickly and unceremoniously deported across the border, never to return and never to be heard of again. >>> By Joe Lobenstein | Monday, November 10, 2008