70 Years ago - Pogrom of the 9th/10th November 1938

← Verfolgung

"All German newspapers must report extensively on the attempted assassination. The report must fill the entire front page. Information regarding the grave condition of vom Rath will be released by the DNB. His life is in danger. Commentaries are to stress that the assassination carried out by the Jew must lead to serious consequences for the Jews in Germany, including foreign Jews in Germany. It should be stressed that the Jewish emigrant clique who placed the gun in Frankfurter's hand are also responsible for this crime. The question should be posed if it was the intention of this Jewish clique to cause trouble between Germany and France, as an assassin was sent to the German embassy, that is, to German soil, after Jewish poison had long dominated the German programmes of French radio."

Anonymous: One of the 1,000 Hamburg Jews who were arrested and who was incarcerated in Sachsenhausen concentration camp described the period between his arrest on the 10th November and his release on the 21st November 1938. In comparison with his fellow-suffers his experience was relatively harmless:

We were initially taken to Fuhlsbüttel Prison and imprisoned in a dark room whose capacity was exceeded fivefold, and were held there the entire day without food. We were then transported in the night, in open lorries, to Sachsenhausen concentration camp where we arrived at 2 a.m. En route a 17 year-old youth from Bremen experienced a nervous breakdown having been forced to witness the SS shoot his mother and leave her lying where she fell, she having screamed in anguish over his being led away. A large group of SS greeted us at Sachsenhausen who immediately began such maltreatment of us, with kicks and blows from rifle butts and clubs, that the accompanying policemen stood aghast and quickly departed. The physical strain and incessant beatings and harassment by the SS on our 15 minute march to the camp left two of our group dead. Then began the most terrible physical maltreatment of all: we had to stand 19 hours on the parade ground (for some this lasted 25 hours) and if during this time someone broke down he received kicks and beatings with rifle butts.

Firstly, the rabbi was called out, his beard pulled, generally maltreated, then given a sign to carry which read: 'I am a traitor and implicated in the death of vom Rath'. He had to carry this sign in outstretched arms for a period of 12 hours. The SS men, none of whom were above the age of 21, especially victimised old, fat, Jewish looking, Jews of social status, e.g. rabbis, teachers, lawyers, whereas the athletic looking younger Jews were treated more leniently. And so it was that a former senior civil servant who reported with his title was specially cruelly treated, and likewise the owner of a restoration firm. I am still convinced the behaviour of the SS had a homosexual undertone to it. Then our beards and heads were shaved and we had to stand another six hours in the rain without food, drink or head covering. Consequently, we were two nights without sleep or food, having to stand most of the time ... .

The work, to which we were escorted at the double, was in the Hermann Göring Brick Works (Klinker Werken Hermann Göring) and consisted of carrying sand and cement bags. We prisoners had to wear our jackets back to front holding up the bottoms so that sand could be shovelled in indiscriminately. We then had to carry this, at arms length, for a distance of five minutes and empty it into trucks. Then back at the double. Bags of cement, weighing 50 kgs., were thrown indiscriminately onto the backs of 60 and 65 year-old men who had to carry this load the same distance at a fast pace, throw them down and run back. Now and then the sand was carried on so-called stretchers which was worse as the wood cut so deep into the hands that the flesh of my hands was cut to the bone. ... . We marched back from work in columns of five.

Those who collapsed were beaten and then carried on stretchers inside the column so that they were hidden from the people on the street. Those who could not stand upright at drill had to "roll", i.e. to turn over and over in the sand until unconscious. Many of these tortured souls then committed suicide by running up against the electrified fence or were shot by the guards in the towers overlooking the compound.

Finally, on the 21st November we were informed of our release and were transported back in groups of seventy. As we were assembled in front of the camp commander prior to our release senior SS officers discussed whether it would not be expedient to kill or burn this or that especially fat Jew. This joking had a terrible effect upon those who had experienced nervous breakdowns. This was not the end of our ordeal. The morning after this announcement we had to stand, from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. in the pouring rain without anything on our heads, and then on the following day, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., without food or the possibility of going the toilet. Finally, it was announced that the Jews were not to receive a travel ticket and that: "You can walk all the way to Stargard as far as I am concerned". We paid for those among us without money and then had to wait a further 12 hours at the railway station before being able to make the return journey. Our clothes having been disinfected, as all Jews are lice-ridden, were completely ruined."

Johanna Neumannn-Gerechter: "How did an eight-year-old girl experience "Kristallnacht"? This was before the age of mass media and radio was not what it is today. News did not circulate so speedily and so the 10th November 1938 began like any other day: I left home for school. I took the route I had taken so many mornings. This took me to the rear of our beautiful Bornplatz Synagogue where a large crowd had gathered in front of the entrance who were shouting and throwing stones at the lovely windows. I did not understand what was happening and hurried on to school. I had hardly arrived at school when we were informed that something terrible had happened and that there would be no school. All parents were requested to collect their children. My mother collected me and took me to my grandmother where we remained the entire day. In the meantime my father had gone into town and seen the terrible destruction of Jewish property that had occurred during the night: the smashed windows, the devastated shops, the destroyed goods strewn all over the road, men being arrested.

My father was fortunate that no one recognized him and that he was not at home when they called to take him away. My mother tried to convince him that we should not return home but stay with my grandmother but he insisted that we spend the night in our own flat. We returned home and went to bed without switching on the light. I remember the terrible fear I felt specially when in the middle of the night the Gestapo hammered on our door. We remained silent and they finally left.

Early the next morning, with only a few necessities in a bag, we returned to grandma and remained until the pogrom was over. It lasted an entire week. Grandma had a spacious flat at no. 83 Grindelallee. The bedroom was at the rear and it was here that my father, Bruno Becher, a dentist and friend of the Baers, and an older man whose name I no longer remember, hid for several days. We assumed that, as my grandfather had died in 1935, the Gestapo would not come looking for him. Our assumption was false as on the second or third day of the pogrom two Gestapo men called to arrest my grandpa. Grandma told them that her husband was three years dead. They departed but my father and Bruno Becher did not want to risk the Gestapo returning and therefore set out that night, under the cover of darkness, to Blankenese. There was a summer camp for Jewish children in Blankenese which also served as a Hachschara (agricultural and craft training) for those wanting to emigrate to Palestine. Our friends the Meyers and their three children had fled to Blankenese at the start of the pogrom. Blankenese was surrounded by thick woods and everyone that hid there had a stock of food and remained the whole day in the woods. No one was arrested in Blankenese; they all returned when the week of terror was over.

Aunt Herta's fiancé, Ernst Rothstein, the manager of a large Wagner department store, was immediately arrested on the morning of the 10th November as he left for his office. He was taken to Sachsenhausen concentration camp and released sometime in December 1938, shortly before Herta departed for the USA. He did not succeed in getting to the USA and was deported to Auschwitz on the 11th July 1942. Becher, a friend of the Baer family, was deported to Minsk on the 8th November 1941. Herta Baer and her two children Werner and Ruth (born in 1932 and 1937 respectively) were deported to Minsk on the 18th November 1941.

My mother and I remained the entire time with my grandmother. We had no news of my father and did not know how long the pogrom would last or what else could happen. When we finally returned to our own flat the neighbours informed us that the Gestapo had called a number of times to arrest my father and had attempted to kick open the door. There were visible boot prints. It was a harsh winter and many of those who had been arrested and incarcerated in concentration camps returned home with severe frostbite and other injuries. The result of "Kristalnacht" and its aftermath was an increase in emigration at the beginning of 1939. It was also a turning point in the Nazi persecution of German and Austrian Jews.

(...) Life had lost its normality. The fear, this awful fear, that scarred my childhood has never left me. The experience of the war years only intensified it. I had almost forgotten what this fear was like and what provoked it until I saw a film on Israeli TV about a German-Jewish family. When I heard Hitler's voice delivered to a mass meeting all those memories of terror with which I grew up suddenly returned. I felt as though I was back in Hamburg, a five-year-old, lying in bed unable to sleep because the terrifying voice of Hitler resounded through our neighbourhood from the neighbour's radios.

Schlomo Schwarzschild: (...) One morning in late autumn 1938 many of my fellow pupils did not arrive at school. They and their families, being Polish citizens, were, suddenly and without warning, deported to the Polish border, in the so-called "Poland Operation" ("Polenaktion"). The mood among us Jews was very gloomy. There was a foreboding that something terrible was going to happen to us. Then vom Rath, third secretary in the German embassy in Paris, was assassinated. None of us slept during the night of the 9th/10th November. We all hoped he would survive. He died. Early in the morning of the 10th of November on my way to morning prayers in the Bornplatz Synagogue I met old Mr Schenkolewski. He told me the synagogue had been set on fire, the windows smashed and the interior devastated. When I arrived, out of breath, at Bornplatz, I saw the awful sight. An assembled crowd. The younger ones seemed to be enjoying the spectacle. Most of the others stood around in silence with grave looks. Some grinned and gloated. Thick, black smoke streamed out of the broken windows. Torn up Torah rolls and prayer books lay in the ruins. On this morning at this spot time came to a standstill for me. This moment was the traumatic end of my childhood that had, up to this point, been closely bound up with the synagogue choir and orthodox community life. It was plain to me that there was no future for us Jews in Germany.

When I returned home later I found my mother sobbing hysterically on the telephone. She was begging our relatives abroad for the financial assistance for us to emigrate. Tragically, it was too late!!! Then the arrests began. Some hid, many were incarcerated in concentration camps. When, weeks later, the men were released their heads were shorn and they had terrible septic chilblains (it was winter). And their eyes! Fear and shock! Unforgettable!

(...) All Jewish families arranged not to ring but to knock on the front door when visiting one another. It could be the Gestapo. To this day I start for fright when I hear the sound of shattering glass. A few days later I returned to Bornplatz. I put my beret in my pocket so as not to be identified as a Jew. People stood around curious, silent. I wanted more than anything to take something from the synagogue as a memento. I picked up a fragment of coloured glass from the ruins. Today it hangs, framed with a picture of the Bornplatz Synagogue, above my bed at home in Haifa.

And then something occurred most unusual for the time. As I stooped rummaging in the ruins I sensed someone standing motionless behind me. Frightened, I looked round to see a 40 to 50 year-old man in working clothes, cap and bicycle. As our eyes met he quickly looked around and muttered angrily: "Look here young lad. You will very much regret this. What you see here will one day occur to Hamburg." The man hastily cycled off in the direction of Grindelallee. Only later did I realize that he had taken me for a young Nazi looter. (...)

Mrs R.: "Kristallnacht" was carried out on Thursday/Friday night of the 9th/10th November 1938. On Thursday my employer, Mr Heimann, and I left the shop "Funk-Heimann", in Neuer Steinweg, for home as usual. I lodged at the Heimann's house at no. 9 Parkallee. At 6 a.m. the following morning the front door bell rang. On opening the door a Gestapo officer placed his foot in it preventing it from being closed. He entered and immediately went to the bedroom where Mr and Mrs Heimann were sleeping. He switched on the light and ordered Mr Heimann to go with him. He also searched the closets for weapons and gold.

I left the house and met Dr Möller in the street who asked me not to talk to him. I crossed Grindelhof and saw the pages of the prayer books flying around and the smashed windows of the Bornplatz Synagogue. I continued on into the city. My brother, Samuel, was employed as a carpenter at Hirschfeld's fashion store. The coats, dresses, etc. were swimming in the canal (fleet). My brother disappeared and it was three weeks before someone having returned from Sachsenhausen concentration camp in Oranienburg, near Berlin reported that he had seen him there. My father, Julius Plessner, was spared this ordeal. I saw him with a Sefer Tora, which belonged to our family, but I have no idea where he took it. That very Friday I went to Gestapo headquarters in the Stadthaus in Stadthausbrücke and asked if we could bring food or other things. I was told that if I did not leave I would also be imprisoned. Nearly all our Jewish men were arrested.

At Funk-Heimann's we had a man who delivered eggs. He suddenly appeared at the house door. All I could say was: "A man is here". The men were released after a few months but there was the general belief that it would not be long before they were arrested again. Having returned from Sachsenhausen Mr Heimann phoned his employee Mr Engel but the later never visited him. He had taken over the shop.

Hans J. Robinsohn: A statement made on the morning of the 10th November 1938 concerning the damage done to the Robinsohn Brothers' fashion store in Neuer Wall. On that dreadful morning the caretaker phoned warning me not to come to work. My father and I went nevertheless. The ground and first floors looked as though they had suffered a bombardment. All the windows had been smashed. The heavy cupboards and tables had been thrown down the air well from the first-floor to the ground-floor. Typewriters had been smashed with crowbars, all the card index cabinets had been bent out of shape, all the display dummies and bolts of material had been thrown into the Alster canal to the rear of the building. All the glass tables and cupboards had been destroyed. All the toilets on one staircase had been systematically smashed. There was such a quantity of splinters of glass and wood that we set up two first-aid stations where the workers' wounds, to the feet and legs, hands and arms, were bandaged.

Like other "Jewish" businesses Robinsohn was forced to sell his business to high-ranking Nazis for well below its value ("Aryanization"). It is clear that the business was brought to a close only after it had been broken into, destroyed, looted, and its personnel arrested. Normal competition and boycott action had been unsuccessful. This shows the limits of personal resistance but more significantly that within these limits resistance was possible. This is a fact that is often ignored.

Luise Solmitz, diary extracts:

7.11.38: Assassination of vom Rath, third secretary at the German embassy in Paris by the 17 year-old Jew Grynszpan. Grünspan stated that he wanted to avenge his Polish-Jewish countrymen. A subject without identity papers who had no residence permit for France. How did he gain access to the German embassy? Without being searched for weapons?

10.11.38: An evil, evil day. Fr. at the greengrocers I heard that Jewish shops had been wrecked and closed. We walked to the city centre ... . People were uncannily busy and occupied, groups, crowds, barriers, all the large Jewish shops closed: Robinsohn, Hirschfeld, all windows shattered, a continuous clatter and clashing of glass falling while being cleared by glaziers; I have never heard such a clatter. Silent, astonished and approving people. An ugly atmosphere - An elderly women decided: "When they shoot our people over there we are forced to react so." 6 p.m. on the radio: Demonstrations and actions against the Jews are to cease immediately. - Goebbels says that the Führer will decree the response to vom Rath's murder.
i.e. our fate slowly progresses towards our destruction.
Practically all the synagogue windows were smashed and the interior devastated. People were looking into the building through the open doors. Policemen standing in the front garden. People continuously passing by.
In the evening Gi. and I took a puppy to our local police station; a Jew was being investigated, a deathly pale man lay on a seat in the corner. The puppy sniffed at the man, the policeman said: "Stop that, that's a Jew."

11.11.38: The day began with the comforting words of Mrs H. (the cleaning lady): "In no time they have had it; it's all up with the Jews". I feared she had heard an early morning announcement but I did not ask and there was nothing. Dismal, bitter, fearful atmosphere. Courage does not help. Gi. and I walked into the city, wooden boards instead of windows, immense damage; the silent crowd walked up and down. No Jews among them.
To our block warden in the evening regarding the surrender of weapons. Gi. and I had read this while out walking: all firearms, stabbing and cutting weapons owned by Jews had to be surrendered to the police within the next four days.
Fr.'s beautiful sporting-gun, the weapons he used in action. One sorrow leads to another, nowhere a glimmer of goodwill, of hope, nowhere a small sigh of relief. Those not affected cannot understand how fortunate, how secure, their life is. They have no need to fear for their property; newspapers, radio, nothing can worry them. When I had surrendered the weapons I rushed home, worried about Fr. I was relieved when we met him ... we wanted to see how much we could endure. Theodor Fontane has Effi Briest ask: "Is it difficult to rise somewhat earlier from the table of life?" Yes, for those that retain the bond of love, that know the value of life, its beauty, its sacred daily routine, and who is not guilty of any civil offence and was never disloyal to his country.
Himmler's regulation threatens 20 years protective custody and concentration camp for not surrendering weapons!

12.11.38: I went to Alsterhaus to buy theatre tickets for Gi, and Mrs E. and her Rita. Before I entered Alsterhaus I read: "The Reich government will respond lawfully but firmly". - I will never forget these words: lawfully but firmly. Our fate is sealed. I hardly believe I carried out my errand in Alsterhaus. I no longer noticed my surroundings. I had to tell Gi. about the tickets, I phoned, I was able to speak about the tickets; my voice nearly failed me. Then I met up with Fr. again ... and we went to the Gestapo in the Stadthaus, Stadthausbrücke.
Fr. had not read the wording of the weapons' regulation, otherwise he would not have applied to keep his battle sword, and pistol. - The two SS men, who dealt with us in the vestibule were somewhat at a loss: "retired squadron-leader?" The official on the floor above dryly said: "That is all over." He added: "And I would advise you to surrender everything." Fr. answered: "That goes without saying for an ex-officer."
Just as we arrived home and were about to go out again the front door bell rang. Two men in civilian clothes. Fr. said: "Luise, these men are from the Gestapo." - "Please come in", I said as calmly as I felt. As I entered the room with them one of the officers asked Fr.: "Can I speak to you alone?" I left the room. : However, I heard him ask: "Do you have decorations?" Fr.: "War decorations? Yes, quite a few." - "Show me the documents." "You were a pilot?" Fr.: "Yes, one of the first air-force officers in Germany and as such was 50% disabled." "Keep it short!" - Fr. said that we had just returned from the Gestapo regarding the surrender of weapons. He asked: "You have weapons?" - "Many, as an ex-front-line officer." -"Oh, then surrender them all." Fr. again stated that this went without saying. "May I ask you the reason for your visit?" "That we are departing without taking action demonstrates that everything is in order."
Would they have arrested Fr. or asked him to report at a particular time and place had he not had decorations? He had struggled through a bad quarter of an hour.
In a gloomy mood, me stone-like, we travelled to W. having announced our arrival. On the way all newspapers screamed out: "Attendance at theatres, concerts, cinemas is banned to Jews."
We were not cheerful guests ... W. was horrified: "But Fr. nothing will happen to you! This has nothing to do with you!!" How is it possible that people can be so out of touch. I told her not to be too eager to seek a two-room flat, perhaps her third room would be our last refuge. ... She promised. - No, we were not cheerful guests, And in the evening the blow hit us. - I was too terrified to listen. Paris reported: The Jews were to pay one billion RM for the murder in Paris. Also total elimination from economic life. Now Fr. admitted: we are destroyed.
Around 45 million ... Frenchmen in a rich country paid 5 billion (1871), which makes 9 million paid one billion. Here 600,000, in a dire crisis, must raise one billion ... It does not relate to earning power but accessible bank accounts, i.e. everything.

14.11.38: Jews may no longer attend German universities; there are certain exceptions. The final solution to the Jewish problem is discussed. What will this be; why must we be terrified and 80 million people calmly await this? The farewell that Fr. made with his companions in war yesterday. Honourably held, ignominiously carried out. That one must again sleep! .. falling asleep now means fear of waking; ... I was wide awake in the middle of the night; that one attempts to stifle by reading, without registering what one is reading.

5.12.38: Berlin already has streets prohibited to Jews, and streets in which they are strongly advised not to move to.

Rudolfo Jacobi: Following the "Reichskristallnacht" pogrom of the 9th/10th November 1938 all the synagogues in Hamburg, destroyed and intact, were sealed by the police on the 10th of November preventing entry. Those Jews who were either not on the lists or who had escaped arrest by the Gestapo, or for reasons of illness were not incarcerated in concentration camps were not able to hold religious services. We were about to emigrate - my father was interned in Sachsenhausen concentration camp but he hoped he would be returned home before the ship departed on the 22nd November - and wanted to take various ritual objects and prayer books with us that were kept in the almemar in the synagogue in Gluckstraße in Barmbek. I decided, as seventeen-year-old, to visit the relevant police station to ask whether they would allow me to collect these. The police were friendly and, following a short conversation with their superiors, two police officers, one either side of me, accompanied me to Gluckstraße. Naturally, everyone in the street turned to look at us surprised to see such a young lad being led away.

Arriving in Gluckstraße, they broke the seal on the door and the non-Jewish sexten, who lived next door, opened the door. I went to my father's and my pigeonholes, empted both and placed the prayer books in my briefcase. I thanked the two friendly police officers and travelled home content. I doubt whether this was possible in other places. The fact that my father had valid emigration papers and the Iron Cross from the First World War had not prevented him from being incarcerated in Sachsenhausen concentration camp.

A telephone conversation with Sachsenhausen concentration camp:

As recounted, our ship, the "Alhena", was to depart on the 22nd November for Rotherdam-Monteviedo-Buenos Aires. We had visas for Uruguay. A few days prior to this date the Gestapo had informed my mother that her husband was to be released. When on the afternoon of the 21st November there was no sign of my father we were close to despair and did not know what to do. Finally, in desperation, my mother had an idea. She telephoned the telephone exchange and asked the operator to connect her with Sachsenhausen concentration camp. After a short wait the operator reported: "There is no Sachsenhausen concentration camp, only a Sachsenhausen training camp." "Please connect me." "I am sorry but I cannot connect you as it is a secret number." "Ask your superior whether, as a special exception, you can connect me , it is extremely important", urged my mother. "One moment please."

My mother's hands, holding the telephone, were trembling. The two, three minutes that elapsed seemed like an eternity. Suddenly, a male voice was heard: "Sachsenhausen training camp". My mother's voice broke: "Can you please tell me whether my husband, Max Jacobi, has been released. The Gestapo informed me a few days ago that he was to be released". From the other end was heard: "You must wait a few minutes while I check the papers." It seemed as though hours passed. Then the voice reported back: "Your husband was released an hour ago." As it turned out later this information was true. Via Berlin, where my father borrowed money from relatives to continue his journey home, he arrived around midnight at Hamburg central railway station, roughly twenty minutes before the departure of our ship.

I have never heard from any other survivor of the 9th/10th November pogrom that they were able to telephone a concentration camp.

Steffi Wittenberg: On the 10th November 1938 I was on my way to my school in Karolinenstraße (Israelitische Töchterschule). In Binderstraße I met school-friends coming the other way: "There is no school today, the synagogue is on fire." I returned home to find my mother in utter dismay. Already it was known that Jewish men had been arrested in their homes and shops. As a consequence two Jewish fathers, whose families lived in our apartment house, Dr Hugo Meyer and Max Haas, came to hide by us as my father and brother had left Nazi Germany for Montevideo, Uruguay on the 12th October 1938. No one was arrested from our house.

The Gestapo occupied the Talmud Tora boys' school; practically all teachers, including the school director Arthur Spier, as well as the upper school pupils, were arrested. The school remained closed for 10 days, as did our girls' school in Carolinenstraße. Many of the fathers of my school friends were arrested. Our female teachers were spared arrest as was our school director Dr Alberto Jonas. He died in Theresienstadt in 1942. The over 1,000 arrested Hamburg Jews were taken away to the Gestapo in the Stadthaus, in Stadhaubrücke, to Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp and Sachsenhausen concentration camp. In the concentration camps they were pressed into heavy labour and suffered terrible beatings and other maltreatment that also resulted in deaths or permanent damage to their health.

The Gestapo demanded that the Talmud Tora school be reopened. The teachers were therefore released after 10 days. The pupil Gert Koppel described their appearance after their return home: "limping, heads shaven, with face wounds and eyes full of terror." The majority of the other prisoners returned home after 6 to 8 weeks with the threat not to relate what had happened to them and to immediately leave Germany.

Andreas Jordan, September 2008

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