Source: Viktor Klemperer Ich will Zeugnis ablegen bis zum Letzten (Berlin 1996).
[Viktor Klemperer, born 1881, was a Jewish professor for literature at the Dresden University. His diaries, published in 1996 in Germany, describe his life in Dresden during the Nazi years. Being married to a non-Jew he was protected from deportation, and spend the war with other mixed families in one of the Jewish houses'. He died in Dresden in 1960.]
31 March 1933 - Friday evening .
More and more hopeless. Tomorrow is the beginning of the boycott. Yellow posters. Guards. Orders to pay two months salaries to Christian employees and to fire the Jewish ones. No answer to the heart-breaking letter of the Jews to the President of the Reich. They murder coldly or "with Verzoegerung" [by delayed action] . " Not a hair will be touched" - but they let them starve. If I do not torture my cats, just give them no food, am I an animal torturer? - No one dares come forward. The student body of Dresden made a declaration today: All united...and it is against the honour of German students to come in contact with Jews. The entry to the student house is forbidden to them. How much Jewish money was put into the building of that house only a few years ago. In Munich they had already prevented the entry of Jewish lecturers to the University. The appeal and orders of the boycott committee says "religion is not an issue", it is solely a question of race. If owners of a business are a Jewish man and a Christian wife or the other way round, the shop is considered Jewish.... On Tuesday at 9 o'clock at the new University movie theatre on Prager Street. Next to me an army soldier, still a boy, with his unattractive girlfriend. It was the evening before the call for the boycott. They had a conversation while the commercial was running. He: actually one should not buy from the Jew'. She: But it is so cheap'. He: In that case it is of bad quality and will not last long.' She thinks it over and very matter of fact without any pathos: No, really, it is just as good a quality and lasts as long, really as long as what is bought in Christian shops - and so much cheaper.' He keeps silent. - When Hitler, Hindenburg etc. came on screen he applauded with enthusiasm. Later during the American film with all its jazz bands and in part clearly juedelnden, applauded with even greater enthusiasm.
7 April 1933
No one dares write a letter. One dares not speak on the phone. One visits others and weighs the options. The referent [expert advisor] in the ministry said this someone else said something else. This could be an advantage. But one does not know if the person with the guenstig [favourable] opinion will remain at the helm, to what extent he is at the helm, etc. etc. An animal does not have less rights, is not less persecuted. Yesterday Albert Hirsch from Frankfurt wrote to me that he had been retired after thirteen years of service. Does not know how he is going to make a living. Will move with wife and two children to his parents-in-law. Perhaps he will be lucky to receive a few pennies as a pension, but certainly far from what he would need to live. One case out of thousands and thousands. Edgar Kaufmann, who became a father four weeks ago, laid off. On 2 May, at the first lecture, it will become clear whether I can keep my position.
10 April 1933
The terrible atmosphere of "Hurrah , I'm alive". The new civil servants' "law" leaves me as a former soldier [who fought at] the front in my job - probably wenigstens [at least] and for the time being (by the way, Dember and Blumenfeld were protected too - probably wenigstens). But everywhere incitement, misery, trembling with fear. A cousin of Dember, a physician from Berlin, was dragged out of his clinic at work in his shirt, severely maltreated and brought to the Humboldt Hospital where he died at age 45. Mrs. Dember told us the story in whispers behind closed doors. After all, in doing this she is spreading "horror stories", untrue ones of course.
27 July 1933
Yesterday I ended my lecture term as I had opened it: that is I waited in vain for students who had again been prevented from coming. This term I have given over [teaching] my classes to one or two students. The same goes for my seminars. All in all I had two female students: Miss Heyne and Miss Kaltofen, one male student and a SA man (of highly un-military nature) Heintzsch. And what about the future? I am waiting like a junior employee to know whether I will be laid off on 1 October. But maybe by that time others will be fired.
