Testimony of Selma Schiratzki, Principal of a Jewish School in Berlin during the years 1926-1939 .
Source : Yad Vashem Archive 0.1/138
…In the early 1930's the Jewish Community of Berlin went through yet another political change. The Liberals who took over the community, regarded the Jewish elementary schools as a sore spot and one of their first decisions was to reduce them in order to economise. On 30 January 1933, at a meeting of the school board with the participation of all the school principals, we were told about this plan to reduce the schools. The first school to undergo cuts was to be the school on Rykes Street. This was the only big school. It had several classes for each grade. The fact that the school had a shortage of space was to be the excuse for this step. All our protests were to no avail. No one listened to the warning of Prof. Gutmann, Director of the Jewish Teachers Seminary: who knows if we will not be needing these Jewish schools in the near future for the Jewish students now in the public schools'. It was decided that as of spring 1933, the school at Rykes Street would not accept new students. I had hardly the time to inform my colleagues of this calamity, when the news of another one reached us: Hitler had been nominated Chancellor of the Reich. We were soon to find out how right Prof. Gutmann's warning had been. The treatment of Jewish students in the public schools and their relationship with their fellow students became increasingly difficult. The demand for our school increased steadily. I added students to existing classes as much as it was possible, but soon this was no longer enough. Parents came to me daily, describing the suffering of their children, the unbearable degradation, begging helplessly to register their children. I had no choice but to open a waiting list of all the applicants – there were several hundreds of them – and to attempt to comfort the parents with the promise that perhaps there will be an opening at some point. The moment a student left, of course, I would immediately inform the next one on the waiting list. Then I would have to listen to the complaints of parents whose children could not yet be admitted. Not in every school did the situation of the Jewish students become unbearable from the beginning. It depended very much on the attitude of the school principals and mostly of the teachers. There were among them some decent people, heroes and martyrs. To give an example, a story a student's mother …told me: a class was playing in the school yard, when a teacher saw one little girl going to the side in tears. When the teacher asked her what had happened, the little girl answered that the others would not hold hands with her because she was Jewish. The teacher acted swiftly and made sure the child was accepted again by her peers. But this was not the end of the story. At the following teachers' meeting a young teacher complained about the outrage of a teacher forcing Aryan children to touch and play with a Jewish child, and declared she was unworthy to be a teacher. The [concerned] teacher had a breakdown at the meeting. Later, in a private meeting, the school principal expressed his regrets, but informed her that the young teacher was nominated by the Nazi party as 'supervisor' in the school, and that there was nothing to be done. The teacher had to suffer the consequences and give up her job…. …What was daily life [in the Jewish school] like? As everyone knows, the streets became a place to be avoided by Jews unless one needed to go from one place to another. The children had no playground in which they could play freely. As time passed, more public parks, swimming pools and beaches, even park benches became 'forbidden for Jews'. The [Jewish] school had to offer a substitute, and the schoolyard became the place where youngsters would spend their spare time. Workshops and courses, such as language classes and vocational training, as well as playgroups were organised at the school in the afternoons. However, even the schoolyard between the synagogue and the school building was no longer safe. Stones were often thrown into the yard on the children playing during breaks, even during mornings. Once, we saw exactly what window the stones were thrown from, so I called the police for help. A young policeman came, listened to our complaint, and refused to intervene. I submitted a written complaint. Several days later, a high ranking police officer arrived, asked me to describe the event again, admitted that the young policeman had not acted correctly, but asked me with a meaningful emphasis whether I intended to insist on the policeman being punished. I replied that he should at least be reprimanded. A reprimand is a punishment too', said the officer. I then decided it would be better not to continue.
In the building next to the school was a stationary shop, most of whose clients were our students. One day, pictures from Der Stuermer , with disgusting, obscene drawings of Jews were glued to the shop window. They stayed on the window from that day on. An Aryan neighbour came to me one day and expressed her disgust at the display of such material, and especially so close to a school. She intended to complain to the party leadership. Naturally nothing changed.
The way to school became more and more dangerous for our students. Groups of boys and girls from the neighbourhood, armed with sticks and stones, waited for them. The result was real street fights. I would complain to the other school principals, but the best I could accomplish were some periods of quiet…
Until 1937, a major portion of the Jewish students had left the public schools of their own will and had found a place in Jewish schools. Our school had grown to a point where it now held 17 classes and over 700 students… 1939: At the beginning of the 1939 school-year, we witnessed a new development. The Christian students of Jewish or half-Jewish origin now had to leave the public schools and go to a Jewish school. The Christian parents naturally resisted this decision, submitted one petition after the other, but had to comply in the end. Thus, children who until recently had been educated in the spirit of Hitler, were moved to the 'school of the Jews'. One of the new students was a boy who had been zealously throwing stones at our windows on 9 November 1938…
This student, of course, was an awkward addition to our student body. Although we managed to overcome the problems and difficulties caused by such students, we were very happy when after some time it became possible to transfer them: a half-Jewish teacher of Christian faith opened a private school for these children…
