I’ve posted twice on this, here and here. This is either the last or second-last post, depending on what further thoughts I have.
I had never wondered, but should have, how Jews in Germany and Austria made out day to day under the Nazis before they were hauled away. One thing that comes across in about the first 60 pages is the day-to-day difficulties, and sometimes actual torments, that Jews had to deal with.
Here’s one story from the author:
I refused to let the political situation keep me from my studies. I had taken both state exams and passed with high grades. One last exam, and I would be a doctor of law, qualified to serve not just as a lawyer but also as a judge. I felt that if I earned my degree, if I was trained, qualified, certified, I would have a much easier time emigrating.
In April 1938 [DRH note: the Anschluss had happened the previous month] I went to the university to pick up my final exam papers and to receive the date for my doctoral exam. A young clerk there, actually someone I knew, said: “You will not be taking the examination, Edith. You are no longer welcome in our university.” She gave me my papers and the transcript of my grades. “Good-bye.”
For almost five years, I had studied law, constitutions, torts, psychology, economics, political theory, history, philosophy. I had written papers, attended lectures, analyzed legal cases, studied with a judge three times a week to prepare for my doctoral exam. And now they would not let me take it.
My legs buckled. I leaned on her desk for support.
“But…but…this last exam is all I need for my degree!”
She turned her back on me. I could feel her sense of triumph, her genuine satisfaction in destroying my life. It had a smell, I tell you–like sweat, like lust.
READER COMMENTS
steve
Aug 27 2024 at 10:15am
That’s pretty powerful. While we concentrate on the more awful acts towards Jews perpetrated by the Nazis like the concentration camp killings and tortures, there were every day acts of cruelty by people who knew each other before Nazi ideology took hold. It shows what a powerful force hatred and anger can be especially when it can be focused on outgroups. It shows how many people willingly jumped into the cult of personality that let Hitler thrive and rule as an authoritarian. Those who didnt buy into the hatred towards the outgroups complied out of a combination of fear and self-interest.
Steve
Richard W Fulmer
Aug 27 2024 at 10:24am
People whom Thomas Sowell referred to as “minority middlemen,” include Jews around the world, Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, Chinese throughout Southeast Asia, Ibos in Nigeria, Indians and Marwaris in Burma, Japanese in Peru, and Lebanese in Sierra Leone. People from each of these groups have – for a variety of geographical, cultural, and historical reasons – worked far from their homelands as peddlers, merchants, and money lenders. They and other entrepreneurs helped bring mankind out of caves and into prosperity; in return they have been reviled, persecuted, and killed.
The oppression of “parasitical middlemen” has immeasurably diminished humanity’s welfare. Had their contribution always been understood and appreciated, the world’s people would be far wealthier than they are today. Even an additional annual growth rate of only one percent compounded over the millennia would have doubled and redoubled per capita income many times over. The human suffering that would have been avoided can scarcely be imagined. When we interfere with peaceful commerce, we hurt ourselves, our children, their children, and their children’s children throughout eternity.
Roger McKinney
Aug 30 2024 at 11:41am
She found it hard to immigrate because most Western countries had classified Jews as undesirables thanks to eugenics. FDR turned away a boatload of about 300 Jews who later died in camps.
Even after the war, no country would accept the millions of homeless Jews I’m Europe, not even the US. That’s why they went to Palestine.
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