Nazi Germany and the Jews, Volume 2: The Years of Extermination

by Saul Friedlander

  Approximately twenty-five to fifty refugees per day were allowed to cross the Spanish border if they carried valid passports and a visa to a country of final destination. Soon, however, passage through Spain became conditional on French exit visas that, as we saw, could take months to obtain, due to a peculiar twist of French administrative sadism. Other restrictions followed: From November 1940 each Spanish transit visa needed permission from Madrid; authorization from the American consulate in Marseilles, for example, was no longer sufficient. These Spanish regulations lasted throughout the war, despite new difficulties in 1942, and did not discriminate between Jews and non-Jews. Ultimately, however, passage through Spain meant salvation for tens of thousands of Jews.86

  Spain, however, allowed only brief transit; Portugal was even more restrictive. But while the Portuguese dictator, Salazar, ordered stringent anti-immigration measures and strict control of transit visas, from fear of an influx of “ideologically dangerous” individuals, Portugal’s consuls in several European countries nonetheless delivered thousands of visas, in the face of Lisbon’s explicit instructions.87 Some, like the consul general in Bordeaux, Aristides de Sousa Mendes, were to pay for their courage with their careers.88

  Even the limited generosity shown by the fascistlike regimes in Spain and Portugal was not replicated by two other neutral countries, Switzerland and Sweden, model democracies by any standard. The Swiss authorities clamped down on Jewish immigration immediately after the 1938 Anschluss, demanding that a distinctive sign be stamped on the passports of Jews from the Greater Reich. The Germans acquiesced and, from the fall of 1938 onward, every Jewish passport which they issued was stamped with an indelible red J (the Swiss made sure that it could not be effaced).89 For all practical purposes, therefore, Switzerland was closed to the legal entry of Jews, precisely as their need for transit authorizations or asylum became overwhelming. Sweden also wanted a J stamp on Jewish passports and was about to demand it from Germany when the Swiss took the initiative. In fact, until the late fall of 1942, Swedish immigration policy regarding Jewish refugees was as restrictive as that of the Swiss. In late 1942, as we shall see, a change occurred in Stockholm.90

  From the beginning of the war, one may remember, the Kleppers wanted their daughter Reni to leave for Switzerland. Jochen’s wife, Hanni, had converted to Protestantism, and Reni was about to take the same step. A Zurich family, also deeply religious, it seems, the Tappolets, were ready to open their home to the young girl and let her stay as long as necessary. A member of the Swiss embassy in Berlin had promised to help and, on January 20, 1940, Klepper recorded that this official was in touch with a relative who worked as secretary at the Bundesrat [the Swiss government]. But he [the secretary] “wishes above anything else to protect Switzerland from being overrun by foreigners” [Überfremdung].91

  In February, after the deportation from Stettin, the rumor spread in Berlin that all Jews would be sent to Lublin. Reni’s departure seemed more urgent than ever. The Tappolets wrote daily about the difficulties they encountered with the local authorities.92 On March 17 Klepper met the well-known Swiss historian and diplomat, Carl Burckhardt, the ex–high commissioner of the League of Nations in Danzig, who promised to intervene. He apparently mentioned the matter to the Swiss minister in Berlin, Fröhlicher, who seemed ready to assist.93 On March 27 the Swiss legation sent forms and questionnaires.94

  On April 25 the Tappolets forwarded a letter just received from Carl Burckhardt: “Unfortunately, I have the feeling that Miss Stein’s matter is being dealt with in a very dilatory way. I have myself been asked to help in so many entry and residence requests that my credit is somewhat spent for the time being.”95 On April 28 Klepper was advised that Reni’s application had reached Bern. On May 15, as German victories in the West followed one another, the Tappolets wrote that the request had been rejected: “Any further attempt would be hopeless…. Due to the critical war situation, the aim is now to expel foreigners who are in possession of residence authorizations. Even somebody like Professor Burckhardt could not help anymore.”96

  At some stage Klepper asked Pastor Grüber’s office for assistance in arranging Reni’s departure, but to no avail. Set up shortly before the war by the Confessing Church administration to help “non-Aryan” Protestants emigrate, to provide relief for them or cater to their religious and educational needs, Grüber’s office cooperated with Bishop Wilhelm Berning’s Raphaelsverein for assistance to “non-Aryan” Catholics and with the Reichsvereinigung. The Gestapo tolerated these activities for a while. In December 1940 Grüber was arrested and sent to Sachsenhausen and then to Dachau on the charge of using forged passports in his operations. Limited activities continued under the direction of Grüber’s colleague, Werner Sylten, a converted Mischling. In February 1941 Sylten was also arrested and sent to Dachau: The office was closed. Grüber survived the war; Sylten was murdered.97

  Eichmann closely followed the dwindling emigration. In an internal memorandum of December 4, 1940, prepared as background material for an address that Himmler was to give on December 10 at the annual meeting of Gauleiter and Reichsleiter in Berlin, he estimated the total number of Jews who had left the Reich, Austria, and the Protectorate at 501,711. The surplus of deaths over births reduced the remaining Jewish population by 57,036 persons. Thus, according to Eichmann’s computation, 315,642 Jews, as defined by the Nuremberg laws, remained in the Greater Reich (including the Protectorate). The head of the Jewish desk at the RSHA then turned to the second section of his report; titled “The Final Solution of the Jewish Question,” it was very brief: “It will be achieved by way of transfer of the Jews out of the European economic space of the German people to a still-to-be-determined territory; the numbers that come into consideration in this project are approximately 5.8 million Jews.”98

  While Jews from the Reich and Western Europe were desperately trying to leave the Continent, an unexpected and sudden deportation of Jews from two German provinces was ordered by Hitler, as we saw at the beginning of the chapter. In October 1940 the Nazi leader gave the go-ahead for the deportation of the Jews from Baden and the Saar-Palatinate. The operation, led by Gauleiter Josef Bürckel and Robert Wagner, was organized by the RSHA;99 it ran smoothly and was hardly noticed by the population.

  Assembly points had been designated in the main towns of the two provinces; buses were ready; a criminal police commissar was assigned to each bus, and, just in case, police units were on standby. The Jews boarded the buses according to names lists: They were allowed to take one suitcase per person, weighing up to fifty kilograms (or thirty kilograms for a child), a blanket, food for several days, tableware, and one hundred reichsmarks in cash, as well as the necessary identification documents. Valuables had to be left behind; food was turned over to the NSV representatives; apartments were closed and sealed after water, gas, and electricity had been disconnected. Pets were delivered to party representatives “against a receipt.” Finally, it was forbidden to mistreat the deportees.100

  Without any consultation with Vichy, the RSHA shipped the deportees to the nonoccupied zone; the French sent them on to camps, mainly to Gurs, Rivesaltes, Le Vernet, and Les Milles; there the cold weather, the lack of food, and the absence of the most elementary hygienic conditions took a growing toll. According to a report of the Swiss Basler Nachrichten of February 14, 1941, even without any major epidemics, half of the population of Gurs would be wiped out within two years.101 The Germans explained to the French authorities that these Jews would be sent to Madagascar in the near future.102

  It seems that Hitler had decided to take advantage of a clause in the armistice agreement with France that foresaw the expulsion of the Jews of Alsace-Lorraine into the unoccupied zone. The October 1940 expulsion was an “extension” of that clause as Baden, the Palatinate, and the Saar, adjacent to the two French provinces, were meant to become part of two new Gaue. The Jews of Alsace-Lorraine had themselves already been expelled on July 16, 1940. Thus, the two new Gaue would be enti
rely “Judenrein.”103

  On April 4, 1941, on Himmler’s order, the property and assets belonging to the Jews deported from the two provinces and from Pomerania (Stettin and Schneidemühl) were impounded. The Reichsführer based his decision on the decree issued on the morrow of the Reichstag fire, on February 28, 1933, granting extraordinary executive powers to the Reich chancellor for the protection of the Volk and the state. On May 29, 1941, Hitler ordered local authorities to turn over all such confiscated property to the Reich.104

  Two days after the beginning of the deportations, Conrad Gröber, the archbishop of Freiburg, wrote to the papal nuncio in Berlin, Cesare Orsenigo: “Your Excellency will have heard of the events of the last days concerning the Jews. What pained me most as Catholic bishop is that a great number of Catholic Jews were compelled to abandon home and work and to face an uncertain future far away, with only 50 pounds of movable property and 100 RM. In most cases, these are praiseworthy Catholics who appeal by way of my letter to the Holy Father to ask him, as far as is possible for him, to change their lot or at least to improve it…. I urgently ask your Excellency to inform the Holy See of the fate of these Catholic Christians [sic]. I also ask your Excellency to use your personal diplomatic influence.”105 No answer is on record, either from the nuncio or from the pope.

  V

  While considering the deportation of all European Jews to Madagascar and ordering the expulsion of Jews from two German provinces to Vichy France, the supreme leader of the German Reich did not miss any detail regarding the fate of the Jews living in his own backyard. On April 8, 1940, Hitler ordered that half Jews—even “Aryan” men married to Jewish or half-Jewish spouses—be transferred from active service to Wehrmacht reserve units. Quarter Jews could be maintained in active service and even promoted. Yet the order had barely been issued when the Western campaign transformed the situation: many of these partly Jewish soldiers received citations for bravery. Without a choice, in October 1940, the Nazi leader had them turned into “full-blooded Germans,” on a par with their fellow German soldiers. The status of their Jewish relatives, however, would remain unchanged.106

  During the same weeks and months, most German state and party agencies were competing to make life ever harder for the Jews of the Reich. On July 7, 1940, the Reich minister of postal services and communications forbade Jews to keep telephones, “with the exception of ‘consultants’ (the title given to Jewish lawyers after 1938), ‘caretakers of the sick’ (the appellation of Jewish doctors from the same year), and persons belonging to privileged mixed marriages.”107 On October 4, the remaining rights of Jews as creditors in judicial proceedings were cancelled.108 On October 7 Göring, as commander of the Luftwaffe, ordered that in air raid shelters “the separation [of the Jews] from the other inhabitants be ensured either by setting aside a special area, or by a separation within the same area.”109 Actually the separation was already being enforced in many shelters, as William Shirer, the CBS correspondent in Berlin, noted in his diary on September 24, 1940: “If Hitler has the best air raid cellar in Berlin, the Jews have the worst. In many cases they have none at all. Where facilities permit, the Jews have their own special Luftschutzkeller, usually a small basement room next to the main part of the cellar, where the “Aryans” gather. But in many Berlin cellars, there is only one room. It is for the “Aryans.” The Jews must take refuge on the ground floor…. This is fairly safe if a bomb hits the roof…. But it is the most dangerous place in the entire building if a bomb lands in the street outside.”110 In the fall of 1940 English bombings were not yet a major problem in Berlin; later, when the Allied air attacks became a major threat to German cities, very few Jews were left to worry about shelters.

  On November 13, 1940, Jewish shoemakers were allowed to work again in order to take some of the pressure off German shoemakers, but they could cater only to Jewish clients. As for German shoemakers who belonged to the party or affiliated organizations, they were not allowed to repair the shoes of Jews. Those who were not party members “were to decide according to their conscience.”111 In matters of clothing and shoes Jews of all ages, young and old, were actually compelled to engage in complex strategic planning. Thus, in Hamburg, a few months before the war, a Jewish mother received a winter coat for her adolescent son from the Jewish community. In May 1940 the community gave him a pair of shoes and bartered his coat for a used one; he was allowed to have his shoes repaired one last time in January 1941. “By 1942,” according to historian Marion Kaplan, “needy Jews sometimes received hand-me-downs of neighbors who had committed suicide or had been summoned for deportation. Receiving such clothing was patently illegal, since the government confiscated all Jewish property.”112

  On November 15, 1940, Himmler instructed all members of the German police to see Jud Süss during the winter.113 On December 12 the minister of the interior ordered that all mentally ill Jewish patients should henceforth be confined to only one institution, Bendorf-Sayn, in the Koblenz district, which belonged to the Reichsvereinigung.114 This was becoming technically possible because since June of that year a great number of Jewish mental patients were being sent to their death.115

  On July 4, 1940, the police president of Berlin issued an order limiting the shopping time for Jews to one hour per day, from four to five p.m. “In regard to this police order,” the decree indicated, “Jews are persons whose food cards are marked with a ‘J’ or with the word ‘Jew.’”116 In Dresden the shopping hours for Jews were not yet restricted at the beginning of the summer of 1940, but the J card was a constant problem. On July 6 Klemperer noted: “But it is always horrible for me to show the J card. There are shops…that refuse to accept the cards. There are always people standing beside me who see the J. If possible I use Eva’s “Aryan” card…. We go for short walks after our evening meal and utilize every minute until exactly 9 p.m. [the summer curfew hour for Jews]. How anxious I was, in case we got home too late! Katz maintains that we should not eat at the station either. No one knows exactly what is allowed, one feels threatened everywhere. Every animal is more free and has more protection from the law.”117

  Of course all major decrees were uniformly applied throughout the Reich, but nonetheless local variations allowed for the expression of the bountiful production of all imaginable forms of anti-Jewish harassment. Thus, according to the diary of Willy Cohn, a Breslau high school history teacher, his city’s officials did not lack imagination. “January 30, 1940: Jews need travel permits; March 27, 1940: Barber service is only available until nine o’clock in the morning; June 14, 1940: Overseas mail must be taken to the post office personally; June 20, 1940: Jews are forbidden to sit on all public benches. [Only three months earlier, on April 1, Cohn had remarked that along the waterfront there were still some benches where Jews could rest.] July 29, 1940: No fruit available for Jews; November 2, 1940: A storekeeper is summoned by the police after being denounced for selling fruit to Cohn’s wife.”118

  With the help of her non-Jewish ex-husband, Hertha Feiner had succeeded in sending their two teenage daughters, Marion and Inge, to a boarding school in Switzerland, immediately after Kristallnacht. Her own chances of leaving were practically nil (registration number 77,454 for an American visa, sometime in the spring of 1940).119 Her daily life and chores as a teacher in a Jewish school in Berlin were becoming increasingly difficult: The schoolrooms remained unheated during the bitter cold months of early 1940; soon her telephone would be taken away. In Hertha’s desolate condition, one essential lifeline remained: the regular exchange of letters with her daughters. It was to them that over the next two years she would, at times openly, but mostly in veiled allusions, describe her path to an as-yet-unimagined end.

  “First I want to tell you,” she wrote on October 16, 1940, “that we are not in our beautiful school anymore. Yesterday we moved into an old house, which we have to leave again. Yes, yes, comments are superfluous. We do not know yet where we shall teach. I have 46 children in my class.”120 A few weeks later s
he wrote to her daughters that on the following day she was starting millinery courses (a milliner probably had a better chance of getting an American visa than did a schoolteacher): “Shall we open a fashion shop together?” she asked.121

  Under the hail of new regulations, issued at all levels of the system, no Jew in the Reich knew exactly what was allowed and what was forbidden. Even the “Jewish Cultural Association,” the Kulturbund, now a section of the Reichsvereinigung, was often at a loss regarding what could be included in its programs. Thus, in mid-September 1939, after his first meeting with the immediate overseer of the Kulturbund’s activities, Erich Kochanowski from the Propaganda Ministry, the new artistic director of the association, Fritz Wisten, wrote in mock confusion about the contradictory and absurd instructions given him. The performance of Ferenc Molnar’s play The Pastry Chef ’s Wife was forbidden, as were all plays with an “assimilatory” tendency (“assimilatory” meaning encouragement for Jews to stay in Germany and assimilate to its society and culture). “I cannot see,” Wisten wrote, “any assimilatory aims in ‘The Pastry Chef ’s Wife.’”122

  On January 5, 1940, Wisten received new instructions. All German composers were banned from the Kulturbund’s musical repertory, including Handel (who mostly lived in England), except for German Jews. All foreign composers were allowed. The same principle applied to theater except, it seems, for the contemporary English repertory: “There are no reservations about Shakespeare. All authors of German descent or those who belong to the Reich Theater Chamber are excluded from consideration.”123 Six months later Kochanowski authorized the performance of Liszt and Sibelius, which immediately encouraged Wisten to submit other Hungarian and Nordic composers.124 Some of Wilde’s plays were acceptable, but this demanded much explanation, as Wisten noted on January 3, 1941: “I ask for permission to submit Wilde’s ‘Bunburry’ [the German title of The Importance of Being Earnest]. At the same time, I stress that Wilde is Irish and belongs to a past epoch so removed from us that the English atmosphere should not be able to cause offense.”125