Title
Memories of living in Germany before WW2
Subject
Leicester in WW2
Description
An oral history extract recalling antisemitism in Germany in the 1930s
Creator
EMOHA
Source
LOHA
Publisher
EMOHA
Date
1930s
Format
.mp3
Language
English
Type
Oral History
Original Format
Tape
Duration
2 min 6 sec
Transcription
There was a lot of political turbulence in Germany...
Yes, yes, this began to affect us when I was about 8 or 10. With the political turnabout in 1933, obviously this began to have an impact. And I remember my father feeling, getting rather anxious and worried about the situation and talking to us about it. And then they began to feel it at school. There were four of us Jewish children, and we had to sit in the front two rows, in a special place, and then my father decided that it wasn't right that I should be sitting in a special place and be, as it were, be regarded as something different from the others. So, he took me away from the school and put me into another school. And so, I had about two or three years, and then after that, things began to get gradually much worse, because, for instance, going home from school, coming home from school, we had to - we were not allowed to talk to our friends, to some of our friends who were not Jewish in the street anymore, and my brother was regularly attacked and came home with a bloody nose every day. And I remember whole rows of children coming in the opposite direction towards me and pushing me out of the way, I was somehow regarded as something that wasn't desired anymore. And I felt very bad about it, and I couldn't understand why all this was happening. And also, people began to disappear in the roads, in the streets, and nobody said anything, but people were not allowed to congregate in the street anymore. They used to hide themselves in their homes. And then there was also curfew for Jewish people and so we went loud out after seven o’clock, or could have been six or eight, I can't remember. But all these things seemed to start to encroach on us, and then it got gradually worse and worse. And then my mother said we must leave the country. And she said she wondered whether I'd like to go to a college where we learned shorten and typewriting, because she said it was very important that I learned how to look after myself and to how and how to earn money very quickly and I was only 13 ½. On one occasion. I think it was in November 1937 that I heard that the Nazis had set all the synagogues alight, and as I went with the tube, which was overhead rather than on the ground to the college where I was learning short and typewriting and some bookkeeping, I could see several fires rising from the synagogues as we passed, and even then I didn't quite understand what it was all about, and nobody had really talked to me about politics. But it seemed very sad, a very sad thing that all the synagogues should be alight and been burned down. And then of course, after that, things began to kind of accumulate and the horror began to suddenly be realised. I don't know how to explain to myself very easily here, but my father’s shops, my father had a series of shops, tobacco and delicatessen and the gangsters, the Nazi gangsters came and smashed in his glass window. And where it wasn't smashed in, they wrote on the glass, in large letters, Jew. And although the assistants were not Jewish, they were also thrown out of the shop. And then the the shops were smashed. And I think it was in June 1938 that they finally took my father away. He suddenly disappeared one day, and he took my, I asked my mother why he wasn't coming home. She said they'd take him away. And she didn't know where he was.
Yes, yes, this began to affect us when I was about 8 or 10. With the political turnabout in 1933, obviously this began to have an impact. And I remember my father feeling, getting rather anxious and worried about the situation and talking to us about it. And then they began to feel it at school. There were four of us Jewish children, and we had to sit in the front two rows, in a special place, and then my father decided that it wasn't right that I should be sitting in a special place and be, as it were, be regarded as something different from the others. So, he took me away from the school and put me into another school. And so, I had about two or three years, and then after that, things began to get gradually much worse, because, for instance, going home from school, coming home from school, we had to - we were not allowed to talk to our friends, to some of our friends who were not Jewish in the street anymore, and my brother was regularly attacked and came home with a bloody nose every day. And I remember whole rows of children coming in the opposite direction towards me and pushing me out of the way, I was somehow regarded as something that wasn't desired anymore. And I felt very bad about it, and I couldn't understand why all this was happening. And also, people began to disappear in the roads, in the streets, and nobody said anything, but people were not allowed to congregate in the street anymore. They used to hide themselves in their homes. And then there was also curfew for Jewish people and so we went loud out after seven o’clock, or could have been six or eight, I can't remember. But all these things seemed to start to encroach on us, and then it got gradually worse and worse. And then my mother said we must leave the country. And she said she wondered whether I'd like to go to a college where we learned shorten and typewriting, because she said it was very important that I learned how to look after myself and to how and how to earn money very quickly and I was only 13 ½. On one occasion. I think it was in November 1937 that I heard that the Nazis had set all the synagogues alight, and as I went with the tube, which was overhead rather than on the ground to the college where I was learning short and typewriting and some bookkeeping, I could see several fires rising from the synagogues as we passed, and even then I didn't quite understand what it was all about, and nobody had really talked to me about politics. But it seemed very sad, a very sad thing that all the synagogues should be alight and been burned down. And then of course, after that, things began to kind of accumulate and the horror began to suddenly be realised. I don't know how to explain to myself very easily here, but my father’s shops, my father had a series of shops, tobacco and delicatessen and the gangsters, the Nazi gangsters came and smashed in his glass window. And where it wasn't smashed in, they wrote on the glass, in large letters, Jew. And although the assistants were not Jewish, they were also thrown out of the shop. And then the the shops were smashed. And I think it was in June 1938 that they finally took my father away. He suddenly disappeared one day, and he took my, I asked my mother why he wasn't coming home. She said they'd take him away. And she didn't know where he was.
Interviewer
James McGrath
Interviewee
Eve Holden
Location
Interviewee's home
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