Second of two parts
In the playground of the Frankfurt Woehlerschule boys’ school I
could see a dozen or so youngsters surrounding, taunting, and hitting
a Jewish fellow-pupil. They were playing “concentration camp”
and the year was 1934, the year after Hitler became the dictator of Germany.
The scene came to my mind when I was invited to speak to a senior class
at the same Woehlerschule during my recent stay in Frankfurt. In my childhood
I had spent six years there - four, in elementary school, and two, in
the Gymnasium (high school) and recently I became friends with Waltraud
Giesen who now teaches there and who in 1995 helped organize an exhibit,
memorializing former Jewish Woehlerschule students who had been killed
or exiled by the Nazis.
The school now occupies a new modern building, and upon my arrival with
Waltraud and my son John Fredric, we were greeted cordially by the school’s
director Martin Hilgenfeld and deputy-director Heidi Schaeme . The latter
excitedly told me that she had been present when I lectured as a visiting
professor in 1965, at the University of Frankfurt (Goethe Universitaet).
The students in Herr Hilgenfeld’s senior class of about 25 boys
and girls were of diverse backgrounds, reminding me of how different Frankfurt
is from what it used to be when I lived there (a point born out by the
recent statement of the newly elected coalition government that Germany
is now “a country of immigrants”).
The students seemed interested in my description of schooldays back in
the 20's and early 30's, and eagerly engaged in a lively discussion. One
got into a debate with the director, arguing that the fact that he came
from Morocco did not make him Moroccan since that was not part of his
cultural background or self-identification. We had been talking about
how German Jews once considered themselves to be just as German as the
rest of the citizens of Germany. The students listened with empathy to
my account of the pogrom called Kristallnacht (November 9-10, 1938) and
how it marked an intensification of the persecution of Jews and foreshadowed
the horror of the Holocaust in which so many millions were murdered, including
my mother and other members of my family. Since that terrible history
will forever be associated with Nazi Germany, it is perhaps not surprising
that these young students are better informed about it than their American
counterparts.
Though my son does not speak German, most of the students understood English,
and were curious about his views on such issues as Israel, nationalism,
and religious practice and in how he and I occasionally differed. Some
of the students were critical of the Israeli government’s treatment
of Palestinians and of Israeli Arabs. I detected no anti-Semitism, however,
in the ways in which they expressed their views. Most of them seemed to
approve my explanation that my experience with Hitler’s supremacist
nationalism led me to a lifetime of opposition to such sentiments as “Deutschland,
Deutschland ueber alles in der Welt” (Germany, Germany over everything
in the world), or for that matter, “America, America over everything”
or “Israel, Israel over everything”, or “Palestine,
Palestine over everything”.
Another encounter during my Frankfurt visit was a meeting at the Erzaehkafee)
Narration Cafe) where three senior citizens were telling tales of the
30's when, as they put it, they were ordinary young people who got into
trouble with the Nazis and the Gestapo (Secret State Police). At the event,
which was held at the Karmeliterkloster, they shared the program with
an excellent jazz band which included two seniors, one being the popular
jazz musician Emil Mangelsdorff. He and his friends recalled the days
when they were members of the “Harlem Club”, gathering in
secret to play jazz and other “non-Aryan” music.
Two associates of the Institute for City History, Dr. Michael Fleiter,
the director of the monthly Erzaehlkafee programs, and Dr. Konrad Schneider,
the institute’s archives director, spoke about the ways in which
young people had resisted the Nazis. Recently discovered Gestapo files
(most were destroyed) contain surveillance reports on the Harlem Club
and similar groups which the Gestapo characterized as “politically
unreliable”. With humorless literal-mindedness, the Nazi police
had set down as treasonous the young people’s preference for English
and American rather than German fashions and music -- unconventional trousers,
long hair, carefree attitudes, and of course jazz music. Severe punishments
were imposed, including incarceration in concentration camps.
The Harlem Club members recalled how they rejected the ugly anti-Semitism
and racism of the Nazis, and gloried in the kind of jazz music the Nazis
called “Negermusik”. In the days when they were playing jazz
tunes in backrooms of restaurants and taverns, they would post a guard
so when the Gestapo or Hitler Youth approached they could promptly switch
to popular German tunes. Along with members of other nonconformist groups,
the Harlem Club loved to go on excursions, especially in the nearby Taunus
mountains. There the rebellious boys and girls would play their favorite
music and enjoy the carefree time that’s craved by young people
the world over. Sometimes, being better at music than fisticuffs, they
got beaten up by Hitler Youths. Though the dissident youngsters were accused
of immorality, Mangelsdorff stressed that whatever sexual freedom there
was couldn’t be compared to the organized illegitimacy of the Hitler
Youth and BDM (German Girls’ Association).
One of the club members described what his home life was like under the
Nazis. He was one of nine children; his father was Jewish and his Christian
mother persisted in her refusal to give the obligatory “Heil Hitler”
greeting. With dry humor and a strong Frankfurt dialect he told hair-raising
stories of what happened to his working-class family - beatings, arrests,
punishment, and narrow escapes. During the Kristallnacht pogrom he had
observed the horrible fate of Jews. His experiences wandering through
Frankfurt on November 10, 1938 were almost identical to mine, except that
the Nazi hooligans had done even more damage in his neighborhood than
in the Westend, where I lived.
Of course the persecution of young people who showed any resistance to
Nazi regimentation was not confined to Frankfurt. Mangelsdorff read excerpts
from official correspondence of Heinrich Himmler, the infamous head of
Hitler’s SS and chief of the Gestapo. In response to a January 1942
surveillance report from the “Youth-Fuehrer of the German Reich
and the Reich Youth-Fuehrer of the NSDAP” (National Socialist Party)
about “the ‘Swing Youth’” (as the Nazis called
the non-political jazz clubs) in Hamburg and elsewhere, Himmler gave orders
(on Hitler HQ stationery) that “All ringleaders, male and female,
as well as teachers with hostile attitudes who support the Swing Youth,
are to be ordered into a concentration camp” (2-3 years). “...
they must first get a beating”, be made to “exercise in the
most strenuous ways” and “not be permitted to ever study again.”
Parents who were identified as supportive “must also be taken to
a KL (concentration camp) and their fortune is to be confiscated”.
It was a jolting reminder of Nazi totalitarian oppression and the havoc
it wrought. Once more I appreciated how important it is not only to champion
freedom but to practice it - not only for one’s own welfare but
for that of one’s fellow human beings, regardless of race, religious
belief, social status, or sexual orientation.
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