A Jewish Story. Sheldon Cohen
by Jews of any German female less than forty-five years of age. The second law, the Reich Citizenship Law, took German citizenship away from Jews, creating a distinction between Reich citizens and nationals. Jews lost the right to visit swimming pools, parks and restaurants. The authorities restricted their passports.
These laws, Hitler’s first efforts to formalize the anti-Jewish measures taken to bring consistency with the program of Hitler’s Nazi party demanding that Jews must no longer be citizens, would be his first efforts in the long process he envisioned to rid the world of Jews. The genocide would start later, but not while he was establishing his power base.
David sat down at the kitchen table in their three-bedroom apartment in central Berlin, an upper-middle-class neighborhood close to the doctor’s office and hospital. He had a good idea what his father had on mind, but he respectfully remained silent.
In a firm, loud voice, Ben said, “I want to tell you everything, David. Your mother and I have been talking about this for at least a year and we agree. Emily will be okay with it; you know how she clings to her mother. For her, at her young age, the only thing she worries about is where momma is.”
David smiled and nodded his head, understanding by his father’s tone of voice that he would hear something important. He also agreed with his father’s interpretation about his eight-year-old sister.
Ben continued, “From the time you learned to talk, the first punctuation mark that you understood was the question mark. I never knew a kid that would ask so many questions. Sometimes they were too tough for your mother and me to answer. We knew from the start that you were a brilliant boy and you proved that by your school grades. We’re very proud of you.”
David smiled and said, “Thanks, dad.”
Ben continued, “When things got bad for Jews in Germany, you were just a toddler. I followed what was happening because of your grandparents, of blessed memory; they suffered from anti-Semites in Czarist Russia. You know about your grandfather and what happened to him. Since I was a kid, I heard about such things, so my antenna has always been up. After World War I there were former soldiers who blamed Communists and Jews for Germany losing the war…”
“Why did they do that, dad?” interrupted David.
“That’s an easy one, son—I have no idea.”
David laughed.
“Here’s what I think, and this is just an amateur opinion you know. After the war ended in 1918, German Communists and German Fascists fought against each other to take over the new German government—the Weimar Democracy. There was blood in the streets. They hate democracy, you know, and they hate each other.”
“Why do they hate each other, Dad?”
“Good question, David. They’re similar in many ways. They both have a top man who runs things with an iron fist, a dictator. These dictator’s words are law. I think they are both wanting to control the world, so if you have two powerful parties trying to control the world, you have all the ingredients for battle. It’s a dangerous world, David,”
“I can see that,” answered David.
“Anyhow, many of the Communists from Munich were Jews, so Hitler’s Fascists said they would fight against the so-called Jewish-Communist plot. The Fascists lump Jews and Communists in one breath, you see. Communism got its first start in Russia about 1917. Before that in Russia under the czars, Jews lived under hard times. They suffered discrimination…even killed, so it is no wonder that some of them thought that Communism might be better than the conditions they were living with under the Czar.“Anyhow, anti-Semitism didn’t start then, it is as old as the bible. There’s nothing new about it, but in early twentieth century times it probably came from the fact that Jews were trying to remain separate as far as their personal and religious life was concerned; they found it tough to become a part of non-Jewish societies.
“Going further back in history when Christianity started, the Jews were blamed for rejecting Jesus and crucifying him even though the Roman authorities ordered and carried out the crucifixion. We became a convenient scapegoat, and it looks like we still are to this day.”
“I think that we can discuss this for a year and never figure it out for sure,” said David.
You’re right, so let’s stick to the point I’m trying to make: the fix we’re in now and what we have to do to survive it.”
This took David by surprise. After a period of silence and a crinkled brow, he said, “Survive it? Are you worried about us not surviving it?”
“That’s on the back of my mind. Yes, it’s real for me. My own father didn’t survive the pogroms in Russia. I don’t mean to scare you, but you’re smart enough to understand what’s going on and what has happened and could happen again.
“Maybe my way of thinking comes from my training as a doctor. We always worry about the worst possible diagnosis every time we see a patient, because we don’t want to miss anything for fear of not doing our job and not helping the patient. I guess that’s what I’m doing; only I’m going from a personal level to a much broader one. What Hitler is doing and thinking is serious trouble for Jews especially. You understand?”
“Yes, I do,” answered David.
“Anyhow, back to the history and the reason why I’m afraid of what’s starting with Germany’s Jews. Hitler fought in World War I and when the war was over he blamed Germany’s defeat on the Jews.”
“Did you know him during the war?” asked David.
“No I didn’t, but from his book, Mein Kampf, he was an anti-Semite long before the war ended…even before the war. Some day you’ll read his book; he tells how he learned to hate Jews. He was a minor politician in Bavaria in 1922. No other Germans even heard about him, but a Jewish friend who was with me in the war and who lives in Bavaria told me about him and his anti-Semitism. In 1923, he tried to take over the Bavarian Government with his famous Beer Hall Putsch. Thank God it didn’t work. The Bavarian authorities stopped Hitler and his followers and killed some of them and put Hitler on trial. There was a lot of publicity and this made him famous in Germany and even around the world, but all he got for it was six months in jail and that’s when he wrote his book. It didn’t sell many copies at first, but this same friend sent me one and I read it from cover to cover and it scared the hell out of me. I even took notes on his anti-Semitism. Here they are on the table in this notebook. I’m trying to unravel his brain, and I sure don’t like what I’m coming up with.”
“I know about his book, but I never read it,” said David. “What are you coming up with, Dad?”
“Well, let me tell you. It’s scary. He spelled out everything he planned to do. People thought it was the ravings of a maniac, but I read it as the ravings of a man who thought he was right about everything and everybody else was wrong. You had to agree with him, or else. He believed in a leader whose word was final. This to him was the only way to run a government.”
“You mean a dictator like you said, right Dad?”
“That’s it. Like Mussolini in Italy. He was Hitler’s idol in the twenties when Hitler was building his party—the National Socialist German Worker’s Party or Nazis for short. As far as the Jews were concerned, he accused them of ruining Germany. Plus, he says the Jews ruined all of western civilization. To him, that means the whole white race. To Hitler, the Jews were the creators of the modern world that he hated and claimed they would destroy the world as we know it.”
“Why did he hate the modern world? I don’t get it.”
“Because the modern world had freedom of speech and the press, a government of the people, freedom to do any job you want, no discrimination based upon religion, birth or wealth. Freedom to live your own life and go as far as it can take you as long as you work within the rules and follow the laws. Hitler blamed those freedoms on the Jews. He doesn’t believe in them. He believed that only a super person could run a country, a great man. A government of the people, a democracy was ridiculous.