Trudy Gold
The Voyage of the St. Louis, Part 1
Trudy Gold - The Voyage of the St. Louis, Part 1
- Good afternoon everyone, from London, and I’m going to be spending two sessions on the Voyage of the St. Louis; Today and Thursday, because it’s such an important event because it’s more than just the tragedy of what happened to the people on the ship. It’s really the tragedy of German Jewry and also gives us a very strong indication of the reaction of the rest of the world. Because in the end, the St. Louis is going to be turned back from Cuba, it’s going to try and enter America, it’s going to try and enter Canada, and then it’s going to have to cross the ocean again before finally, the passengers are disembarked in Europe. But in fact, of those that were disembarked, it’s really only those who survived in England, really survived the war. Many of the others were murdered by the Nazis. But in order to do this, I’ve been thinking long and hard, because I need to put the whole situation in perspective for you. And I know many of you will know what I’m talking about when I’m going to talk about what’s going on in Germany. I think it’s important to pull all the threads together and to try and understand how it was that one of the best educated nations in the world voted into power, an insane demagogue. A, if you like, Robert Wistrich called him “The German Messiah with a sword in his hand.” That’s the way he was known. That’s the way they thought about it. And it’s important to remember, also, who voted for Hitler. It was not a gutter-up situation. University professors, students, doctors, lawyers, housewives, it’s across the spectrum.
So, perhaps it helps us to understand what is it in the human psyche that when there’s social, economic and political unrest, we turn to extremist situations; because make no bones about it, I’m not talking, today is not Nazi Germany. But if you think about what’s the instability in the world, the fear of change, the world moving far too quickly with economic, social, and political extremism coming to the fore. Why? Because people are frightened. And when people are frightened, this is something that we have not managed to deal with. When people are frightened, they tend to go for extreme solutions. So what I want to do is to look at what was happening in Germany, to look at how America and the allies dealt with the situation in Germany. And then on Thursday, we’re actually going to spend more time on the fate of the ship itself. So before the rise of Hitler, you could make the case that Weimar was really a golden age for German Jewry. They were at the forefront of the arts, the sciences, most famous scientist in the world was a German Jew, Albert Einstein. They were at the forefront of music. They were at the forefront of politics. The grand old man of art was Max Lieberman; and it’s all going to be wrenched away. Because when Hitler comes to power, he comes to power determined on a Judenfrei Reich. And this really has to be stated. What does that mean? It means a Jew-free Reich. Was murder always in that insane evil mind? We’ll never know. But what we do know that was that between the period he took power in 1933, right up until 1941, which is the invasion of Russia, Jews could get out of Germany.
They were even getting out of Germany in 1941. It was really when he goes for global war that he then decides on what we call the final solution, which is genocide. And I’m sure most of you know the term genocide, which is banded around so loosely today, was actually invented by a Polish Jew working in America; a man called Rafael Lemkin, who’d lost his family in the Shoah, whose family were murdered in the Shoah. And he was trying to come up with a word to describe the obliteration of a people; and that is what genocide means. It means the attempt to exterminate a whole people. And that is what the Nazis tried to do. And, they certainly succeeded with a third of all the Jews of the world. So, Hitler takes power in 1933. He’d advertised what he was going to do, and can we see the first slide, please? Here you see Hitler coming to power. And I hope you also see the adoration with which he is greeted by his followers. His taking power was not some crass dictator, he was a crass dictator, seizing power. Please don’t forget, he was elected. He came to power through the ballot box. 44% of the German public voted for Adolph Hitler. Weimar was probably the most perfect democracy in the world, for that period, if you actually look at the Weimar constitution; which of course had been created by a German Jew called Hugo Price.
He comes to power through the ballot box, 44% of the population voted for him, and then he made an alliance with an ultra right wing party which took him over 50%; and then finally, the unity of the party and the state, he dissolves parliament. All other parties are illegal and many of the liberal and left wing members of the parliament are sent to Dachau. He sets up a concentration camp within two weeks of coming to power. And by the way, the establishment of that concentration camp was marked both in the London Times and in the New York Times. And against the backdrop to everything, and I’ll be coming back to this time and time again, please don’t forget that the American press was in Germany right up until 1941. And the British, the French, the Belgian, whatever, their press people were in Germany right up until the outbreak of war when Britain and Germany go to war. So many of the events that I’m talking about are going to be freely reported in the press. So he comes to power. To Hitler, the Jew was always the other. He had this absolute insane preoccupation, obsession with Jews. He’d swallowed whole the protocols of the Elders of Zion, which he talks about in “Mein Kampf.” He believed all communists were Jews, he believed anyone he didn’t want in his world, were Jewish. And as a result of that, he absolutely demonised them. Now, we could say that he was building on a 2000 year old history of Jew hatred in the Christian world.
But I want to say something very, very clearly: Hitler was a Pagan. Hitler was not a Christian. Hitler, if you like to quote Hugo Gryn, he overturned the 10 Commandments. Christianity has a moral code. Hitler believed in race and blood. He also, to a large extent, believed in the occult. So this man, with his totally dysfunctional views, is now the Fuhrer of Germany and he’s incredibly popular. And one of the first things that he enacts, can we see the next slide, is the boycott. April the first, 1933, all Jewish shops and places of business and places of professional offices, are to be boycotted. And he had his storm troopers at the gate stopping any German who went into shop. Now, interesting, he had announced the boycott in advance. And Rabbi Stephen Wise, who I’ll be talking about in a couple of weeks, had organised a huge rally in Madison Square Garden to protest against the boycott, because the boycott was meant to go on indefinitely. Goebbels writes in his diary, only lasts one day, and he writes in his diary, “We are not yet strong enough to go against world Jewry, that day will come.” And it’s important because it shows that the Nazis were listening to outside opinion. And because Rabbi Stephen Wise and anti-fascists in America had put together this boycott of German goods, and this is at a time when Germany was very short of foreign currency, he was prepared to halt the boycott; but, it’s not the end. He has a policy. He is going to push the Jews out of German society.
Now, important to remember, his policy between 1933 and 1939 is a social, political and economic exclusion of the Jews from German society with an aim to get them out. He wants a German sphere of influence that will be Judenfrei, and that is his aim. And you know, the Jews of Germany, they were under 1% of the population. A hundred thousand of them had fought for Germany in the first World War. 12,000 have been awarded the Iron Cross. There were thousands of Jewish casualties in the First World War, they had been completely loyal to Germany. The Zionist organisation in Germany was very small. German Jews saw themselves as German of the Jewish persuasion, and it has to be said: their Judaism was being worn more and more lightly into marriage, in Germany, in Weimar in 1925 was running at 45%; which was far higher than anywhere else in the Jewish world that was collecting data. So important to remember, they saw themselves as citizens of Germany and what happens to them is such a terrible tragedy. Now, the first act against the Jews, can we see the next slide? Is the Career Civil Service Act. This bans Jews from any aspect of the civil service, which also included the teaching profession. So this is when the great professors lost their jobs, including Albert Einstein. Ironically, 90% of the physicists in Germany were born Jewish. Now, the fact that some of them had converted, very few of them were religious, was irrelevant; because this is a policy of race and blood. It is not a policy of what you believe, it is how you are perceived. And to the Nazis, a Jew was defined by blood.
So the Career Civil Service Act bars the Jews from the teaching profession. Just think: 90% of the physicists in Germany were Jewish. And if you want to play the ifs and buts of history, if Hitler had not been an antisemite, would he have achieved the bomb before America? If you consider that 90% of the individuals at Los Alamos working under Oppenheimer were European Jews, it does pose a very strange if and but question. May, 1933, one of the most chilling acts in history, for someone who believes passionately in freedom of speech, it’s the Burning of the Books on May the 10th, 1933. There is a brilliant memorial in Berlin outside the university; the Humboldt University, which had been set up really as a pillar to the European Enlightenment. You see glass, you look down and you see rows and rows of empty shelves. University students burnt over 20,000 books that night, on May the 10th. Goebbels was giving his great speeches, the first books to be thrown on the flame were in fact those of Sigmund Freud. Sigmund Freud, when he heard about it in Austria, he said, well, I suppose we’ve made some progress. Because in the Middle Ages they would’ve burnt me. Tragically, of course, he couldn’t predict what was to come and his three elderly sisters were not as fortunate as him. They were in their eighties when they were murdered in Theresienstadt. So, the Burning of the Books. Gradually, and then a new act, no Jews can apply to become lawyers or doctors. They didn’t yet throw the Jews out of the medical or legal professions, why?
Because something like 50% of the doctors in Berlin and 50% of the lawyers, were Jewish. And if you look at the whole of the country, it was 22% and 16%. They’re not yet up to it. And it’s also in 1933 that the Nazis shacked the head of the Reichsbank, enters into negotiations with the Jews of Palestine. Because at this stage, they’re prepared to let the Jews out. And the Haavara agreement is negotiated with that German Jews who leave for Palestine don’t have to pay the flight tax. Before Hitler came to power, because of the terrible recession in Germany, if you wanted to leave the country you had to pay a flight tax, which was two thirds of your movable goods; that was removed for Palestine and it actually enriched the German economy. It was very controversial, but that’s another story for another time. But I’m using it as an example to show you that at this particular time, it is a Judenfrei Reich that is wanted. The next stage because by 1935, about 130,000 Jews have left Germany. You know, think about all the doctors who are unemployed, think about the lawyers, think about people who had businesses, think about people who were teachers. They’re losing their jobs. So consequently, you need to ratchet it up a bit. And then, can we see the next slide please? These are the infamous Nuremberg laws. They’re divided into two parts. Can we see the next slide please? Here you see Hitler announcing the laws to the Reichstag.
And, I’m sure many of you would’ve seen the documentaries of this where you actually see the footage, where they’re screaming and applauding. These laws, divided into two, put up by really good German lawyers. Later on, you find some of those characters around the table at Wannsee when they write down the final solution of the Jewish people. Lawyers, enacting immoral law. It’s a very interesting notion, if you think about it. What duty does a person have to a state if that state has enacted immoral law? Because this law, it bans the Jews from citizenship; which meant, if you think about it, well they can’t vote but that doesn’t mean anything at the moment, because there’s only a one party state. But if they are swindled, if they are attacked, if anything goes wrong for them, they have no redress through the law. Plus, intermarriage becomes a crime and you have a very, very sad situation. What about couples who have intermarried? And you see many rather tragic situations of loving couples, where the Jewish partner is trying to persuade the gentile partner to divorce them for the sake of the children. And along with this, goes the social exclusion. Jews not allowed to attend concerts. Jews not allowed to go on public transport, or the park benches. Jews aren’t allowed to sit here, not allowed to go to swimming pools, signs in hotels: Jews not admitted. So gradually it’s the legal, the social exclusion. And what was in it for the German public? How come hundreds of thousands of people went along with it? Well, there’s venality, because one of the reasons the highest membership of the Nazi party was the legal, the teaching and the medical profession, was there have been so many Jews in it.
The film industry was completely de-juda-ized. When Goebbels became minister of Cultural Affairs, minister of Propaganda, he totally de-juda-ized the arts. So think of the Berlin film. Think of the great UFA Studios in Germany. Think about people like Max Reinhardt, perhaps the greatest of all the entrepreneurs and impresarios controlling over 30 theatres in Berlin, and also in Vienna. Think of some of the great stars of the German cinema. Of course, and we’ve begun to look at it, and we’re going to look at it a lot more, it becomes Hollywood’s gain. But think of the concert halls. Think about some of the great singers who are forced out. Of course, they’re greatly going to enrich the West. But it also meant that Germans could take their jobs, and also, Hitler had a programme. Of course he’d outlawed trade unions, but if your assembly line did well, you had a holiday on the state. He really was creating the bread and circuses for the masses. The creation of the autobahns, the notion of the Volkswagen, the people’s car; the notion that every area in Germany should have a clean life with a clean little house, with a neatly tended garden. There were great exhibitions of what was permissible in German art, what was permissible in German music. Karl Orff was one of the most popular composers in Germany, Carmina Burana.
And there is a story that was actually forced to listen to him, so he should understand what great German music was. Anything written by a Jew was of course banned. There are some extraordinary anomalies here, because if you think about Heine and so many of the poems that he had written that was set to music, they couldn’t be banned. So underneath, it would say anonymous. So basically, it’s the de-juda-ization of culture, it’s the de-juda-ization of the professions, it’s the de-juda-ization of the business, its social exclusion, and the whole point is to get them out of Germany. Can we see the next slide please? And then of course, against the backdrop to Hitler’s Germany, bearing in mind that the press were freely reporting on it, Berlin stages the Olympics. There was only one American athlete, a man called Johnny a Jew, who voted against them going. Hitler did allow some foreign Jews competing in other teams, to participate. Germany was sanitised for the Olympics, a lot of the signs were removed, but if you think about the kind of people who went to Germany, I mean, the man who became Edward VIII of England, he was there, the king was there. The many of the press barons, we’ve already looked at some of the great American figures who were there, Lindbergh was there, the Mitford girls were there. I mean, high society from Britain, from America, from France, they all went to the Berlin Olympics; which is being staged by a totally racist country. Again, you’ve got a lovely debate here, sports and politics. I hope many of the things I’m talking about will have resonance in the kind of world we are living in at the moment, because of course it’s completely different circumstances.
But as I’ve said to you many times, people’s reactions don’t change much. And it must be said, because of a kind of lull, many German Jews thought, well, this is as bad as it’s going to get. It’s going to simmer down. And you’ve got to remember: to get out of a country, because the Germans weren’t just pushing the Jews out, they were robbing them blind. And to come almost penniless to another country, if you don’t have the language, and what if you’ve got an elderly relative you can’t leave behind? What if you have a problem child? All the personal issues that stop people going on the move, that big question, how bad does it have to come before people decide it’s not safe for their families? There’s a great quote by Isaiah Berlin, he said, “On the subject of the Jews and paranoia, of course we’re all paranoid, but with our history we have a right to be.” And then in 1937, you have the aryanization of businesses. What that meant was that every Jewish business now has to be sold to whom? It has to be sold to an Aryan. Now it’s a buyer’s market, not a seller’s. So some of the great businesses of Germany were sold for an absolute pittance. The art galleries, the Jewish artists, of course their work was banned. But what about the great art collectors? What about the collectors of musical instruments? What about the porcelain factories that have been owned by Jews? All these things were confiscated. And tragically, not everything has been returned to its rightful owners. It’s still a terrible sore. The aryanization of businesses, where many people, many Aryans as they were called, became incredibly wealthy because of the aryanization of businesses.
Now, and then the Anschluss. In March, 1938, Hitler fulfils his dream and he goes home. Remember, Hitler is an Austrian. He was born in Braunau near Linz. He goes home to Vienna. 10% of the population of Vienna was Jewish. There were 200,000 Jews in Vienna and I don’t have to tell you what an extraordinary community they were. Just as the German Jews were extraordinary in their cultural and intellectual eloquence, so were the Austrian Jews. And the scenes of Hitler’s entry into Vienna, 90% of the population were there to greet him, to cheer him on. You know in the twenties, Hugo Bettauer, who was a Jewish author and filmmaker, he’d written a play called “A City Without Jews.” It was made into a film. And in the story, the people of Vienna, they kick the Jews out, but everything goes wrong so they ask them to come back. It was a dream, because it didn’t happen like that. The population was screaming. The Jews were completely demoralised. Rabbis made to scrub the streets with toothbrushes, humiliation, beards being clipped off. There were lots of suicides. Goebbels writes in his diary, “At least now the right people are committing suicide.” By this time, there’s so much outcry. I mean, we’ve talked about Hollywood, we’ve talked about what’s been going on in America, the same thing’s been going on in England. There are anti-fascist groups, there is so much protest, that in the end through, it’s Roosevelt, who decides to call a conference. Can we see the next slide please? Here you see a slide for the Aryanization of business and form for registering the assets of Jewish citizens. So sad; so, so, so sad. Can we go on please?
Right. Roosevelt, also because he’s getting quite a lot of flack because he himself is not relaxing the quotas of allowing Jews into America, and I’m going to talk more about that the week after next, I believe. Myron Taylor. Myron Taylor was a fascinating character. He was a close friend of FDR, he was a lawyer, he was a businessman, he was incredibly smart. He’d helped turn around the fortunes of US Steel, the largest corporation in the world. Between 32 and 38, he was the chairman and CEO. He’d been very important in labour conciliation. In the states, it’s called the Myron Taylor Labour formula. Now Roosevelt, in order to stave off criticism from his own policy, he asks his friend Myron Taylor, who’s a very close associate, this is what Roosevelt said: “All you need to do is to get these people together.” Myron Taylor had also, by the way, served as a personal envoy to the man who became Pious the Twelfth in 1938. And I want to mention him at this stage because if you talk about the Catholic church and you talk about where protests should come from, back in 1933, Cardinal Roncalli who later became Pious the Twelfth, he was Papal Nuncio for foreign affairs; he’d actually signed a deal with the Nazis. Basically, you leave the Catholic church alone and I’ll leave you alone. And the proposal had also come from Sumner Welles, who was the American Undersecretary of State. So Sumner Welles, he’s also a fascinating individual. Can we see him? Sumner Welles, he is not in favour of an open door immigration policy.
And I’m going to talk more about him later, but he works with a man, and there are a few heroes. He works with a man called James Grover McDonald. And because once in a while we do need heroes, can we have a look at the next slide? This is James Grover McDonald. And I want to give you a bit of background on him because he’s one of my personal heroes. He was born in Ohio. He got his BA in Indiana, a master’s in political science and history. He won a teaching fellowship at Harvard, then he was an assistant professor. 1919, he comes to New York City to work for the civil service. He is the chair of the Foreign Policy Association. In 1933, he’s assigned to chair the high commission for refugees from Germany, which was affiliated to the League of Nations. Unfortunately, it’s set up, but they receive no funding. He appeals for support to the American government and to the Vatican. He actually personally becomes very close to high invites for the Norman Bentwich, who was the deputy director. He met with the Central British Fund to discuss aid plans. He was a man who was well aware of what was going on with the Jews of Germany. He regularly visited Germany and in fact, he records a meeting he had with Nazi officials. He writes his autobiography, which is a wonderful read. And so he’s meeting with Nazi officials and they’re charmed because he has fluent German, he has aquiline features, and spoke. Now, they begin to speak to him about their obsession with the Jews, he said this: “When I indicated my disbelief in their racial theories, they said what others Nazis had said. ‘But surely you, a perfect type of Aryan, would not be unsympathetic to our views.’”
His diaries have now been published. It’s called “Advocate For The Doomed.” And later on he wrote a credo. This is in 1951. “To me, the threat of the Jewish situation in Germany was a threat, also, to all Christians.” He was a religious Christian. “The threat to the Jews was not only a hideous wrong, but also created a world problem of the overwhelming significance. You see, when the Jews are attacked, is it just Jews who are attacked or is it the core of democracy itself? Hence, it was not only for the sake of the Jews, but for the larger cause of freedom, justice, and equal treatment of all human beings. I, a blonde ‘Aryan’ offspring of Scottish Canadian Midwestern stock and teacher and student, became a champion of Jewish aspirations and equal rights. It was an irresistible call.” And he becomes an important member of the American delegation at Evian. Myron Taylor is in charge. Remember, Myron Taylor is also chairman of the President’s advisory committee. So, Grover is working for Myron. Later on, by the way, he becomes the special representative to Israel in 1948 and he becomes the first American ambassador to Israel, forty nine to 51, and he was chairman of the Advisory Council Development Corporation of Israel, 1951 to 1961. And he is going to try and aid as much as he could, very much against the background of the Americans becoming more and more disenchanted. But what happens is, and remember James Grover McDonald is himself serious, but the real point is, as it were, to put it colloquially, to get Roosevelt off the hook. So what is convened, can we see the next slide, please? Is the Evian Conference.
The 16th to the 18th of July, 1938. Now, 32 countries attend, 24 voluntary organisations as observers. The US doesn’t send a government official, remember, it sends Roosevelt’s business friend. Now, what happened at Evian? There are now 300,000 Jews left in Germany and Austria. Before 1938, they’d left at a steady rate. Now what is going to happen to the remaining ones of them? The top foreign office officials in London was worried about Evian. They warned it might encourage other countries to try and get rid of the Jews. This is a briefing for the British foreign minister, Lord Halifax. You know, Halifax who had spent much time hunting, was a great huntsman, hunting with Goering at his estates in Germany. And this is the briefing to Halifax. “The question of the Jews in central Europe will be raised sooner or later and can only be resolved comprehensively and perhaps radically. We’re worried that a crackdown on Jews in Poland, Romania, and Hungary would, quote, ‘unleash a movement of population involving several million people.’” And think the British at the moment. It’s 1938, the British have already made a decision that they are going to reject the idea of the partition of Palestine, and we are moving to towards the closing, the more or less closing of the doors of Palestine to Jewish refugees. So this is a time of huge tension for the Jewish people. The Americans invited Romania to participate and the foreign minister told the American ambassador to Bucharest, he hoped that the Jewish resettlement would be extended to his country. In an interview with the Nazi Potent, a Nazi newspaper, “We have to force the Western democracies to choose between opening up new territories for Jewish immigration, or accepting a violent solution to the conflict. It’s difficult to restrain people from carrying out pogroms and those in Paris and London should be made to know that it wasn’t always be able to do this.
A decision must be taken quickly.” Now the Romanian government drew up its own answer and sent it to London. “The Jewish state must be established in cooperation with Jewish organisations, be supported with decisive action on the part of the Western powers.” So basically, you have the Eastern powers, the Romanians, the Pols who have violently antisemitic governments saying that they have a problem with their Jews. And in discussion between Hitler and the Polish ambassador, Lipsky, Hitler stated, quote, “The Jewish problem could be solved by immigration to the British colonies based on an agreement with Poland, Hungary, and possibly Romania.” The Polish foreign minister Joseph Beck, reported Lipsky’s answer. Quote, “On this score. I told Hitler we’d be able to react a magnificent monument to him in Warsaw if he brought about such a solution.” At this stage, reasonable Polish-German relations, because at this stage the Pols were hoping that they could stave off a German invasion. Anyway, this is a quote from William McKenzie Lyon, the Canadian PM. “We would have riots if we agreed to a policy that admitted large numbers of Jews. South Africa, we have enough.” So I mean, the British diplomats realised the Germans were playing a double game. Deport the Jews, having made them penniless. All Jews had to register their assets with a tax office. And in a way, they’re being used as pawns. So, after the Anschluss, Eichmann set up an immigration bureau in Vienna to facilitate Jewish immigration. And at the same time, an immigration bureau was set up in Berlin. So at Evian, the countries of the world meet to decide on the plight of the German Jews, and now Austrian Jews. And I’m going to read you some of the responses. This is from an article in the Daily Express.
And of course, the Daily Express was very much an appeasement paper. “Britain government investigating possibilities of settling limited numbers of refugees in East African colonies. Australia: British immigrants only wanted. Canada: unemployment problems and economic uncertainty severely restrict power to absorb considerable number of immigrants. United States: suggest permanent committee be set up in Paris to consider the problems. Argentina: immigrants must be kept mainly to experienced agriculturalists. Belgium: we will not, as a point of honour, assume international obligations whose consequences she cannot foresee.” And this is about the Australian delegate, Lieutenant Colonel T.E. White, Australian Minister for trade and customs, today told, I’m quoting again from the Daily Express, told the Evian conference on refugees he could not offer the same hope to refugees from Germany and Austria. Now, under these circumstances, Australia cannot do more. Undue privileges cannot be given to one class of non British subject, without injustice to others. We have no real racial problem. He said, we are not desirous in 41 by encouraging any scheme of large scale foreign immigration. So basically, you have a situation where the countries of the free world met at this gorgeous hotel, 32 countries in Evian-les-Bains. And as a colleague of mine once pointed out, Evian, at its best, spells naive backwards. And it was a golfing hotel. They didn’t spend much time considering the issue. The only country that was prepared to extend numbers, was the Dominican Republic. And Golda Meir was there as a representative from Palestine, as a observer.
“I don’t think that anyone who didn’t live through it can understand what I felt at Evian. A mixture of sorrow, rage, frustration, and horror. I wanted to get up and scream at them all, ‘Don’t you know that these numbers are human beings who may spend the rest of their lives in concentration camps or wandering around like lepers if you don’t let them in?’” And this is a comment from an American observer. “In North America, South America, in France, in Holland, Scandinavia, Greece. Wherever the stream of Jewish migrants has poured in, a clear increase in antisemitism has already been recorded.” And so basically the German foreign policy, a memo, “It must be the aim of German foreign policy to strengthen this wave of antisemitism.” German foreign policy memorandum of February, 1939 regarding the Jews. So basically, at Evian, the country’s deciding they’re not going to do anything. And it’s at this stage that Goebbels writes in his diary, “We savages are better than the so-called civilised world, because we say what we’re going to do.” So Evian convened through the wishes of Roosevelt with one very good man there, who becomes heartbroken. And can you just imagine, it wasn’t, Abba Eban was also a very young official there. Can you imagine how the Zionists felt? The powerlessness of it all? Look, nobody at this stage, and I think it was Nahum Goldman who said you’d need to have the soul of a Dante to imagine the inferno. I’m not expecting you to take on that they could have imagined the Shoah, but nevertheless, they knew what was going on to a large extent. They knew about the cons, they knew about Dachau, they knew about the robbing blind, they knew about the humiliations. And yet, nobody was doing anything.
And I think, also, if I may speak personally, this seared into the souls of those who later on became the powers in the state of Israel: it will never happen again. Now, we can do with that comment what we like in the questions afterwards. Can we see the next slide, please? Okay. In the German Workers Party manifesto of 1921, which Hitler co-authored, he had said that anyone who had entered Germany after 1914, would be expelled. Evian is almost a nod. Do what you like. And so, in October, 1938, the beginning of a cold German-Polish winter, he begins expelling Polish born Jews living in Germany to the border town of Zbąszyń. And I’m going to read you now, can we see the next slide please? This is Emmanuel Ringleblum, the extraordinary historian who died in the Warsaw ghetto. But he writes to his friend Raphael about his experiences in Zbąszyń and I think his words should be read. “I’m on holiday in I worked in this Zbąszyń for five weeks. Apart from Ginsburg, I’m one of the few who managed to hold out there for a long time. Almost all the others broke down after a more or less short time. I had neither the strength nor the patience to describe for you everything that happened. Anyway, I think there’s never been so ferocious, so pitiless a deportation of any Jewish community as the German deportations. I saw one woman who was taken from her home in Germany while she was still in her pyjamas.
The woman is now half demented. I saw a woman of over 50, who was taken from her home, paralysed. Afterwards, she was carried to the border in an armchair by young Jewish men. I saw a man suffering from sleeping sickness who was carried across the border on a stretcher, a cruelty not to be matched in all history.” Tragically, if you read the Oneg Shabbat archives of the Warsaw Ghetto, it gets far more pitiless than this. “In the course of those five weeks, we set up a whole township with departments for supplies, hospitalisation, carpentry, workshops, tailors, shoemakers, bookshops, a legal section, a migration department, and an independent post office with 53 employees. A welfare office, a court of arbitration, an organising committee, a cleaning service, a complex sanitation service, et cetera. In addition to 10 to 15 people from Poland, almost 500 refugees are employed in the sections I have listed. The most important thing, is that this is not a situation where some give and some receive. The refugees look upon us as brothers who have been hurried to help them at a time of distress and tragedy. Almost all the responsible jobs are carried out by refugees. The warmest and most friendly relations exist between us and the refugees.” You see, what had happened was, the Germans had taken the Jews to the border and were shooting over their heads to get them in. The Polish army was trying to stop them coming in. In the end, in Zbąszyń, many of them were sort of being put up in, basically in barns. And one of the people there, can we see the next slide please? Was a family called the Grynszpan family.
They had been deported and letters were being sent from Zbąszyń. And Herschel Grynszpan had a sister and she sent him a postcard, telling him what was going on at Zbąszyń. To bring the world’s attention to the plight of the family and everyone else there, he went into the German embassy in Paris, can we see the next slide please? And he assassinated the third attache, a man called Von Rath. It took Von Rath a few days to die. He gave himself up to the French police. In his pocket was this note: “Being a Jew is not a crime. I hoped President Roosevelt would take pity on us refugees.” Let me repeat this: “Being a Jew is not a crime. I hoped President Roosevelt would take pity on us refugees. I’m not a dog. I didn’t mean to kill, I lost my head. May God forgive me. I must protest so the whole world hears my protest.” Two days after his arrest, Von Rath dies. And that was the excuse for Kristallnacht. Kristallnacht, can we see the next slide please? Kristallnacht, the night of the smashing of the glass. It’s the first state organised pogrom in Germany. During the attack, 267 synagogues were destroyed by fire, 7,000 businesses, Jewish hospitals attacked across Germany, Austria, and the Sudetenland. 30,000 men were arrested and taken to concentration camps. 91,000 people were murdered, but a further 638 died of maltreatment after torture or committed suicide.
The following day, all Jewish children were banned from schools and all communal organisations were disbanded. And if that was not enough, the Jewish community was fined a billion marks, which today is $5.5 billion. 20% of all remaining Jewish property in Germany was confiscated, and all insurance claims paid to the state. It cost $40 million to repair the windows. It was organised by paramilitaries, the SA and by civilians. And it also had a lot to do with the local chapters of the SA not having enough money, so never forget the venality. Jews were now completely forbidden from attending concerts, theatres, cinemas, public parks, even from owning a dog. And as I said, to hasten their evacuation, an immigration bureau was established. Now the Americans, Roosevelt did withdraw his ambassador, but did not break off diplomatic relations. In Australia, by the way, William Cooper led a delegation of Australian aboriginals, the Australian Aboriginal League in a march through Melbourne, to deliver a petition, quote, “Of the cruel persecution of the Jewish people by Nazi government.” We’ve always had allies, too. The German officials refused to accept the document. It led to an outcry. But in America, even a special proposal by Senator Robert Wagner to admit 20,000 children to America over the quota, was defeated. See, he was a senator for New York. Now, Kristallnach was widely reported in the press. So important to remember, all these things are being widely reported in the press. And this is the background which led, in 1939, very near the end of the peace.
Beg your pardon, in May, 1939, the ship the St. Louis is going to sail from Hamburg with 937 people on board, many of whom have transit visas for Cuba, awaiting visas for the United States of America. And I’m going to continue on Thursday. Can we see the last slide, please? This is of course Adolf Eichmann, who was in charge of Jewish affairs under Heydrich, and he was responsible for the bureau in Berlin and in Vienna to facilitate Jewish immigration. What does that mean? Rob them blind and get them out. So, that’s by way of background. So let’s have a look at the questions.
Q&A and Comments:
Rona, I’m coming to Toronto the last weekend in May, 2025. Anthony’s saying, my late father was on board the St. Louis.
Yes, the movie “Voyage of the Fools,” “Voyage of the Damned.” There’ve been quite a few movies that have been based on this. “Ship of Fools,” it’s “The Ship of Fools.” “Ship of Fools” isn’t exactly based on the St. Louis, “Voyage of the Damned” is. “Ship of Fools” is a fascinating film by Abby Mann that’s really worth looking at. Arlene, when I think of Europe in the twenties and thirties, it brings to mind the world today. Anti-Semitism rules, Israelis criticised for descending itself against the pogrom. Trump just won the Iowa Caucus, insanity rules again. What can we do to bring sanity and compassion back into the world?
Warren says, never forget Jews were only 0.8% of the German population. But Hitler’s big lie was that they’re responsible for all Germany’s ills. Classic playbook of demonising a small minority, which sadly now we see again in the US against minority goods. Yes, Warren, unfortunately we haven’t yet learnt to control our behaviour. We just have so much more sophisticated toys.
Oh yes, Noah is bringing our attention to “East West Street” by Phillipe Sands, about Lemkin. Yes, he’s actually spoken on Lockdown and of course, you can get hold of it.
Q: When do you think Hitler decided to invade Russia?
A: Whilst he was making the pact. Historians think whilst he was making the pact with Stalin, he was buying time. He had to go for Russia because of the ideological hatred of communism, which by the way, he saw was a Jewish disease. I actually read the reason Germany didn’t have the atom bomb, because all the Jewish scientists left mainly for the USA. It’s not quite that, but it’s certainly part of it Bernice. the memorial in Berlin is by the artist Micha Ullman. He won the Israel prize and designed artwork in the garden of the new national library in Jerusalem.
Thank you for that, Barbara. It is wonderful.
Rose, Hitler’s physician was a Jew by the name of Dr. Bloch. He enabled passage for him out of Germany. Yes, this is fascinating. He wasn’t Hitler’s doctor, he was his mother’s doctor. He was the doctor who was very kind to Hitler’s mother. And as a result, he did get him out of Germany. Strange, strange story. Mitzi, the ex-president of Harvard, Claudine Gay, thought that the appropriate context to call for the genocide Jews would be to say it directly to someone. Obviously, she doesn’t understand the meaning of genocide. That refers to the deicide of every Jew. Either she’s an idiot or she thought she would get away with the condition. Yeah, I think, you know, it was Carl Popper. He was an Austrian Jew who, of course, had to get out and he finished up at LSC. And he said the 20th century is not going to be about philosophy, it’s only going to be about the meaning of words. What does the word genocide mean? Oh my goodness.
Michael, the constitution of the Weimar Republic must have been defective. It allowed Hitler to come to power. Well, there was one clause; clause, I think, it’s called 48, about the power of the president. But no, what he did was, remember he did it through the ballot box. But he had the army behind him and he had the SS and the SA behind him. No, once he had the majority, he could outlaw parliament. That’s what he outlawed, all other parties. The unity of the party and the state. It is a perfect example of how to take away democracy.
Q: Adrian, is the world heading towards the Nuremberg laws?
A: Look, we are not in Nazi Germany. Be careful Adrian. We are not. We are not. That doesn’t mean things are good, I’m not for a minute saying that. But, we are not.
Maya said, a comment I heard that Hitler banned the development of the atomic bomb because he called it Jewish science. Yeah, he did. He hated Juden physique. He did call it that, yeah. Oh yes, Monique is recommending the diary of Victor Klemperer, two volumes. Yes. Brilliant, brilliant. And in fact, it was made into a play.
On the other hand, says Carol, the German immigration to Israel was cardinal on the growth and creation of Israel in every subject and sphere. And then in the end, the German reparations were so important to the growth of the new country. And we will no doubt be talking about the reparations. Sorry, I’ve just lost the question. Sorry.
Jean says, as I listen to you, I can’t help thinking of the Jews in South Africa at this time. Things have come really difficult since the South African case at the ICJ. “Nazi billionaires: The Dark History of Germany’s Wealthiest Dynasties” David De Jong is an excellent read. Yes, yes, yes. And you know, so many of them got off. I mean, if you look at the Krupp and Tyson and their exploitation of slave labour, and then how light their sentences were. And I’m going to actually be talking about that next week when I look at America and the Holocaust. Thank you David.
Oh, this is from Michael. My wife has the actual official slip of paper dated 31st of August 33 notifying her father, a doctor of law from Heidelberg University, that he had been deregistered from the regional court in accordance with the Reichs law of 7th of April 33. Wow, Michael. Oi-yoi-yoi. But you have to, on one level, Germany’s loss was the West’s gain. Yes Susan’s reminding us that Ambassador McDonald left his papers to the United States Memorial Holocaust Museum in Washington. Yes, he was a giant and there were giants. There always are people who go against the crowd and that’s what we should concentrate on.
Peter, my father learned that Hitler meeting with the Austrian chancellor Schuschnigg in February 38 in Birch’s Garden had announced the coming of Anschluss. He wrote to relatives in Connecticut for affidavits, which enabled my parents and me to escape to the US from Austria, two months later. Yeah, yeah.
Maya, in Netanya, there’s a street named after James Grover McDonald. In the street there’s a shul, colloquially called the McDonald Shul. Oh, I love that Maya, thank you for that. Melvin tells us, although the Dominican Republic offered to accept a hundred thousand, they took less than a thousand.
Serena, from Brian Kapinsky. I attended the European Cantor’s Annual Convention in Hanover, Germany in November, 2023. I’m not Hassan, but I love the music. On November the ninth, Kristallnacht anniversary, the Cantors were invited guests at the lower Saxony parliament. We sang Hebrew songs for peace. The president of the Senate made a speech after, about the Holocaust. She insisted those who lived here and did nothing were also complicit, a moving experience. Yes, that’s the whole point. To what extent are bystanders actually participants and complicit? I’m going to be talking about that a lot when I talk about America and the Holocaust. Amazingly, some of those taken to concentration camps after Kristallnacht were released because they were Iron Cross holders. In Germany, Kristallnacht is now often referred to as Reichspogrammnacht. Thank you.
People were released, also, as long as they had exit visas. That’s the point as well, Dorothy. At this stage, the pogrom is to make it even worse, to get them out as soon as possible.
And Rita says, in memory of my parents, Holocaust survivors, resistance fighters. May they rest in peace.
Talia Feldman, a young Jewish artist currently living in Berlin, tells us that the Jews in Germany now refer to Kristallnacht as Pogrom Night to avoid using the language of the oppressors. That’s interesting, Serena. In Canada, none is too many. “None Is Too Many: Canada And The Jews of Europe” by Harold Troper and Irving Abella. There is currently a small exhibition on the Poland action, at the Vena Library in London. Naomi, just finished a great document on the Brazilian consulate who helped the Jews by giving them visas to Brazil, called passport to , great story. Yes, don’t forget there are so many diplomats who helped and from time to time, depending on the country we are doing, I do bring them into the story.
Jacqueline, my grandparents were on the ship. My grandfather had an Iron Cross from World War I. He was a Cantor and was put on a truck on Kristallnacht, but his community loved him and got him off, ah wonderful.
David, my grandparents’ shop in Vienna was attacked and damaged on Kristallnacht. My father, aged 10, before Kristallnacht had many, many non-Jewish friends and felt no antisemitism. After Kristallnacht, all his non-Jewish friends wouldn’t talk to him and he was thrown out of the school he loved. There is a recording at the Imperial War Museum of his childhood in Vienna. I only discovered this recently. Oh, what memories you all have.
This is Yonah. The problem of the Weimar constitution is identical with the problem of Israeli democracy. The person who gains the plurality of stets can make a coalition with any other parties, without the approval of the electorate. Aha, thank you for this Yonah, this is the flaw. Without a public requirement of some sort of a review or approval, rejection of coalition, there is no public control over who gets to form a government and take over the state. That is very important information. Thank you for that.
And I think that’s everything, so I wish you all well and I will see you on Thursday, but we have another lecture coming up at seven o'clock, so take care everybody. Bye.