Source : Yad Vashem archives 0.33/975 [Born 1870 in Frankfurt am Main; teacher. This account was written upon his arrival in the United States in 1939.]
In early 1915 I was called up for military service. Being forty-five years old, I was not enlisted for combat duty, but served on a military base. During my service I had only pleasant experiences with my comrades, who came from all the ranks of the people and from all professions. Only during guard duty did I often have to respond to anti-Semitic comments - not directed against me personally - or to correct common mistakes that resulted from ignorance or misconceptions about the Talmud and the Bible quoted from anti-Jewish speeches and writings....
I also had to participate in the infamous 'Jewish Census'. Together with the accusation of evading the war, it caused us great bitterness. Was this the fatherland's gratitude which the Kaiser had promised us? These accusations were extremely unjustified. The percentage of Jewish soldiers sent to the war by the Jewish population of Germany was the same as that of the general population.... We rejoiced with the entire German people at every victory and followed the advances of the army. We believed in a German victory like everybody else. Our grief at the frequent anti-Semitic events was enormous our loyalty to the fatherland was repeatedly questioned....
The announcement of the end of the war - so tragic and fateful - hit us out of the blue while I was walking with my wife one afternoon in November 1918. Both of us nearly collapsed when reading the special issue of the paper. I had always said to my family, with a sense of impending doom: If Germany loses the war, it is its end. And this is what indeed happened....
Thus we lived through the events of January 30, a catastrophic change for Germany and especially for us, the Jews....
Teaching became very difficult in the first days and weeks after 30 January 1933, especially with my feelings about the Reich and the Kaiser. My students knew me. They knew I was a whole Jew and a whole German, that these two components of my emotional self were never in conflict and that I regarded loyalty to the fatherland as a true religious duty. Now they were increasingly faced with accusations: you are not Germans, you don't belong to this people, you are enemies, Asians, human parasites, human trash; get out, we loathe you.'. These were thrust in their faces with increasing brutality and deafening fervour in the streets, in the papers and in official publications. Could one be surprised if their young hearts bled and they asked themselves: Are we indeed Germans? Are we foreigners? Are we inferior? Should we be loyal to the fatherland?'.... At first I tried to believe that this madness would pass, that this catastrophe would disappear; and I tried to make others share my hope. I attempted to maintain my faith in the fatherland. Some of my students followed me when I said: We are Germans. We shall remain Germans. No one can tear our German identity from our hearts'. But I had no following in the street. The youth had no patience, and did not want to accept the balanced and patient views of the elder generation. Once rejected by the fatherland, they turned their backs on it and moved to the distance, to radical Zionism, which opened up new horizons for them with the fatherland of their ancestors…
Naturally, the participation of Jews in public life, especially in the cultural domain, was severely limited by the National Socialist State, and eventually forbidden altogether. I myself refrained from visiting public places, especially museums, theatres, concerts and others, out of an inner sensibility. Until November 1938 we could still go to the movies. But from these fateful days, even these visits were forbidden. The Kulturbund, the Jewish Cultural League, offered concerts and theatre under government supervision. But it was a pale substitute, so hard for a modern man.... The events organised by the Kulturbund were held only in large cities, in small and inadequate halls... The programs were under supervision. Pieces by German poets, authors and composers were forbidden. The German Jew was not allowed to listen to Goethe, Hauptmann and Beethoven. He was expelled from the cultural world. Only Jewish or foreign authors remained. Only Jews could participate in these limited internal performances.... One had to present a ticket with photo at the entrance. Thus, we were banished into a cultural ghetto. In spite of the cultural pleasure these events provided, it was a heavy feeling to have been banned and isolated from the world around us...
Contact with 'Aryans,' including exchanges of greetings in encounters in the street and public places, diminished steadily. Even former acquaintances and good friends, professional colleagues and wartime buddies were deterred from conversing [with us], greeting us furtively and often explaining their behaviour as stemming from fear of persecution or other unpleasantness. Here is one of many examples: An old woman whom I almost failed to identify at first glance greeted me in the street from a distance and seemed pleased to see me. She was a colleague from one of the government schools that I had worked at decades back. We approached each other. After we exchanged a few words, however, my eyes settled on the party emblem affixed to her dress. Noticing my gaze, she abruptly turned pale and, without saying another word, spun about and walked away. It had suddenly dawned on her that she, a respectable Party member, was standing and talking with a Jew, thereby risking dismissal from the Party. We, of course, were among the few decent Jews. We were given this dubious compliment almost every day in the following words: Ja, if only all of them were like you.' The German People was led to madness ....
