Читать книгу A THREE PART BOOK: Anti-Semitism:The Longest Hatred / World War II / WWII Partisan Fiction Tale - Sheldon Cohen - Страница 19

By 1938, Hitler had fully cemented his power in place by clamping down or eliminating all opposition. If there were any loopholes in his anti-Jewish laws they would quickly be closed. Here are a few of the laws as written: Jews could not change their names nor could they change the name of any business they own; they could not be auctioneers or sell guns or ammunition; male Jews must have the first name of Israel and female Jews must be named Sara; all passports owned by Jews will be stamped with J; no Jew can attend a health gym; Jewish assets exceeding five thousand reichsmarks must be reported; Jewish-owned businesses must close; Jews cannot keep carrier pigeons; Jewish midwives are barred from practicing their profession; all state contracts with Jews are null and void; all precious metals owned by Jews must be returned to the state without compensation.

Germany was not the only country in the world that had undergone upheaval. This was a worldwide phenomenon as exemplified by the following examples in 1937: Poland, known for its anti-Semitism at the time, has its own “Jewish problem.” A Polish Colonel stated, “Fifty-thousand Jews would be fine, but we have three million. Where can we send them?”

Mussolini, Italy’s dictator and anti-Communist, is certain only fascism as manifested by Italy and Germany can save Europe.

Russia fights a battle between Stalin and Trotsky for control of the country. Trotsky flees for his life, but Stalin’s forces would eventually find him in Mexico and kill him.

Hitler starts the first of his many demands as he withdraws Germany from the Versailles Treaty, insists on a return of German colonies, and refuses to make any more reparations payments.

A civil war in Spain between Communists and Nationalists rages on. Germany and Italy align themselves with General Franco, a nationalist, and bomb the city of Guernico killing over 1600 people.

Pope Pius XI condemns atheistic Communism.

Neville Chamberlain becomes Great Britain’s new Prime Minister.

Japan invades China. War starts as General Chiang Kai-shek of China fights back.

Stalin’s great purge starts the killing of what would eventually amount to 724,000 people as he consolidates his power.

China signs a military pact with Russia strengthening Chinese Communism.

The United States, still reeling under the depression, is isolationist. Communism and Fascist elements arise, but the majority of American citizens want to stay out of entanglement in European affairs. As the intertwined world evolves during this period, that would be proven to be naiveté to the extreme.

Hitler, slowly emboldened over time, was now ready for some aggressive moves. He put his sites on Austria already reeling under the impact of Nazi agitators within Austria’s borders. Dr. Kurt von Schuschnigg, Austrian Chancellor hoped to calm Hitler’s roving eyes by efforts at a peaceful settlement. He met face to face with Adolph Hitler, although shocked over the fact that three of Hitler’s top Generals were in attendance. He soon learned why. Hitler was not here for a friendly give and take. He was here to throw down ultimatums which he did with forceful gestures. He wanted Austria pure and simple; it was Austria or all-out war. He got Austria, and soon thereafter he used the same tactics and took over the Sudetenland, a part of Czechoslovakia where many ethnic Germans lived. The rest of the world stood by, but realized that Hitler was carving out another empire and moving in the direction of another war that would undoubtedly engulf the world.

From the time that Hitler took power in 1933 to 1938, approximately one hundred and fifty thousand German Jews, or thirty percent, fled Germany. This proved to be difficult for Jews as most countries had enforced quotas and required that immigrants had to support themselves. Since the German authorities put rigid restrictions on how much money an emigrating Jew could take, many Jews could not leave.

In 1911, Zindel Grynszpan, a Jew born in Poland moved to Hanover, Germany and established a small business. On October 27, 1938, the Nazis forced the family out of their home, confiscated their business and deported the Grynszpans to Poland. Since Poland would not accept any more Jews, they were kept interred on the Polish Border. Grynszpan’s son, Herschel, living in Paris with an uncle at the time, tried to take revenge on the German ambassador to France by killing him, but Herschel shot third secretary Ernest vom Rath instead. He died two days later.

In what some feel was the start of the Holocaust, Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s propaganda minister, launched an attack on German Jews to stop “International Jewry from attacking Adolph Hitler’s third Reich.”

On November 9 and 10, 1938, Goebbels announced that because of this attack by “International Jewry” there will be retribution. It came in the form of Krystallnacht, “the Night of Broken Glass.” Up until Krystallnacht, German Jews had been subjected to repressive, albeit non-violent policies since Adolph Hitler came to power in 1933. Krystallnacht was the first manifestation of the Nazis’ cruelty to Jews that culminated in the genocide of 6,000,000 Jews (holocaust) by 1945, the end of World War II.

On the evening of the first day of Krystallnacht, in one of thousands of attacks on Jews, Nazi Storm troopers broke into the Neue Synagogue. The ravagers desecrated Torah scrolls and smashed and set fire to piled-up furnishings. The building itself was saved the next morning by a Berlin police officer, Lieutenant Otto Bellgardt, who drew his pistol, dispersed the crowd, and claimed the synagogue was a protected historic landmark. He then called in the fire department to extinguish the blaze. Bellgardt’s senior officer Wilhelm Krutzfeld covered up for Bellgardt, and Berlin’s Police Commissioner Graf Helldorf, in his turn, only mildly reprimanded Krutzfeld who was later mistakenly given credit for the rescue of the Neue Synagogue much of which would be eventually destroyed during World War II. Lieutenant Bellgardt (first on the scene, and to whom credit should be given), was an anti-Nazi, and he retired early rather than continue serving Nazi interests. Although his actions did preserve the synagogue on the terrible nights of 1938, the synagogue was later destroyed during the war which followed. Today, the surviving remnants serve as an exhibit for the Holocaust, an appropriate designation, as many authorities consider Kristallnacht to be the first manifestation of the Holocaust during World War II.

At least one-thousand Jewish Synagogues were torched in Germany, Austria, and Sudetenland. Jews were attacked and violated on the streets and in their homes and Synagogues, and 7,500 Jewish businesses were destroyed. Hundreds of Jews were injured and 91 were killed.

Two of those killed were the wife and daughter of Samuel Rosen…