A SHORT HISTORY OF ANTI-SEMITISM
TEACHING LESSON 1
HANDOUT 1B
FACT—NOT FANTASY: WALTER IN GERMANY

At first I went to public school like everyone else in my town, but I was not permitted to say “Heil Hitler” or wear a uniform. This set me apart from the rest of my classmates. I had to attend school parades and listen to propaganda speeches.

The attitude towards Jewish people became worse as time went on. The other students were told not to socialize with Jews. The teachers were not supposed to speak to our parents. In 1937 we were separated from other German children and placed in a school with children who were mentally handicapped.

On the day after Kristallnacht began, the first thing I noticed as I went to school that morning was that the Jewish shoe store downstairs had all the windows smashed. Glass and shoes were all over the street.

I went off to school and the first thing we were told in school was that the teacher would be late because the synagogue was burning and he had gone there. The next hour was uneventful. The teacher returned. Then some plainclothes men, I guess they were from the Gestapo, came and they took the teacher and the headmaster [principal] away and I went home.  

Getting home, I found my mother in tears because two men had been up to our apartment and searched it. They had torn the curtains and a few pictures off the wall. I suppose they were looking for valuables. My mother was very upset.

My mother said, “Let’s go to Grandma’s” and that’s what we did. We went to the railroad station and took the train. My Grandma lived about an hour and a half away in a small village. Everything was calm there. There was a Nazi in uniform standing in front of Grandma’s house. He happened to be the next door neighbor. This man put on his Nazi uniform and stood in front of the house so that no one would do anything to Grandma. He looked out for us. So he was a good Nazi, if there is such a thing.  

THEN AND NOW
After Kristallnacht, Walter applied for a visa to leave Germany. In 1939 he was able to go to England where a family friend lived. His mother also applied for an exit visa, which she received a few days before the war started. She was not allowed to use it. Walter never saw his mother or grandmother again. Both died in concentration camps. Walter emigrated to the United States when the war ended. He and his wife have lived in Greensboro, North Carolina since 1960.

Published in cooperation with the North Carolina Council on the Holocaust
Copyright © 2002 by the North Carolina Council on the Holocaust. Updated 2005.
North Carolina Department of Public Instruction
http://www.ncpublicschools.org/holocaust_council/