Preface
It is now 50 years since the infamous "Reichskristallnacht". All this time I purposely suppressed my thoughts of this occurrence. I rarely talked about it in detail (even to my own family), since it would only open painful memories and give me sleepless nights. What am I writing this story now? I would like to convey to the young German, how it feels to live in a country where the laws have been silenced, where freedom, rights and human dignity have been taken away, and where, in the name of patriotism, everything is permissible. I appeal to you, to make certain, that no human being is ever treated the way I and millions of others were. Thousands of books have been written on how Nazism came to power and about the atrocities committed during that period of time. I will therefore, strictly concern myself with what happened to me in the 24 hours of November 9th to November 10th, 1938.
I was born in Augsburg in the year 1920, went for four years to the "Stadtpleger Anger Schule" and from there to Realgymnasium. I was never a top student and like Professor Haugg said many times, "Madle, Fussball and Kino - that is all Landman has on his mind". I was an average young boy with many friends, Jewish and Gentile alike, but all this was changed by the coming to power of Hitler and his cohorts. By the year 1938 all my Christian friends were not speaking to me any more and we Jews had to live among ourselves. From week to week, life became more and more difficult and antisemitic acts became more frequent and more violent. So, when in November 1938 a young Jewish man (who's parents were deported by the Nazis) shot the German Legationssekretar in Paris, we German Jews expected "reprisals", but we could not foresee what was in store for us.
NOVEMBER 10, 1938
It is 5 o'clock in the morning. I awake to the sound of the doorbell, an ominous and feared noise at this time of the day. I sit up in bed and listen to voices out in the hallway. My door opens. Two strange men in Lodencoats and green hunting hats are entering my small bedroom. Behind them I can see my aunt Minna in her nightgown, with a face as white as the wall. The two strangers ask me for my name and order me to get dressed. I obey and put on my shirt, Lederhosen and a sweater. While I am dressing, one of the two opens my closet drawers and searches the room. I am ready to go. By now my parents have emerged from their bedroom and with tears in their eyes, are saying good-bye to me.
All this took less than 15 minutes. Nobody spoke - except for the saying of good-bye. There was no reason given for my arrest, no warrant was produced and no information given as to my future whereabouts. I leave my home walking between the two Gestapo agents. We cross the street in front of the Hotel Kaiserhof and I can see smoke coming out of the Synagogue in the Halderstrasse. There are people milling around in front of the building. My two escorts speed up the pace and tell me to look straight ahead. We are going along Schatzlerstrasse and turning left at the Cafe Eickmann towards Prinzregentenplatz. I know where we re heading. We enter the Police Building and I am handed over to the officer on night duty. He searches me like a common criminal and tells me to sit down. After a few minutes the door opens and two other agents enter with my friend Erich Teutsch between them. The same procedure follows several more time. After about one hour, all of us are taken outside and told to get inside the waiting "Grune Minna" (that was the popular name for a prison van). We are now driven to the Katzenstadel prison. As a kid, I often wondered, what it would be like to sit behind these bars and look out at the "free" people on the street. Well, I found out - it is a terrible feeling. I realize now for the first time, that I am a prisoner. On our short trip through the town I see the broken windows of several Jewish stores. Upon arrival at the prison we are put into small cells. I am sharing the old dingy room with two other men. There are friends of my father and we are encouraging each other, trying to make light of the situation. There is only one bucket in the cell and we try not to use it. We all agree, that this will turn out to be just a big hoax - they just want to scare us and will release us soon.
So we sit and wait while the hours go by and it is getting dark. Suddenly we hear noises outside in the hall and our spirits lift. The little window in the door opens and a guard shoves three bowls of some kind of cereal through it. I realize that I didn't have anything to eat since the night before and I am very hungry. But just looking at that "grit", my stomach starts turning and I refuse to touch my portion. After another dreadful hour the door opens and we are told to take our belongings and to follow the guard. I am sure, that this will be the end of our nightmare. We walk down a staircase and I don't want to believe my eyes - there on the ground floor are lined up nearly all the Jewish men of Augsburg... among them I see my father. We are standing silently for some time until we are given the command to move towards the exit door. Outside stands the only oversized bus in Augsburg, that regularly carries passengers to Gersthofen. One by one we file into the vehicle and sit down. I manage to get a seat next to my father. We whisper encouragement to each other and I find out, that my father was arrested on the street, while trying to get a lawyer for me. As soon as the last man is on board, two Gestapo men enter and sit down behind the driver. They order us not to smoke and to stop talking. The lights are extinguished and the bus starts moving. Subconsciously we all know the destination of this trip, but we don't want to believe it. I compare it to a person, who knows he has a growth inside his body, but is afraid to even mention the word "Cancer". For us the unmentionable word is "Dachau". Silently we pass through the dark landscape. Suddenly there is a commotion up front. The bus stops and the Gestapo men are conferring with the driver. He is trying to turn this enormous vehicle around. It takes nearly half an hour before he finds a spot that is wide enough. Everybody's spirits soar. Maybe the "Ausland" got wind of what is going on here and put a stop to it. We all still have great faith in America and the rest of the world. They must do something! They can't just idly stand by and let outrageous injustices like this go on forever. However our assumptions were just wishful thinking - nobody cared and we realized, that the driver merely got lost and was now on the right road towards our final destination. We didn't have to wait much longer to see the end of our involuntary bus ride. The road widened ahead of us and bright lights lit up the horizon. The bus slowed down and came to a stop among several other buses. Looking out the window, I saw a big white wall, barbed wire on top, towers with might searchlights going up and down and their occupants pointing machine guns at us. A large gate - like an entrance door, with an inscription "ARBEIT MACHT FREI" lay ahead of us.
Hundreds of SS men are screaming, hitting and kicking people indiscriminately. The door of our bus opens and the voice of the receiving Storm Trooper thunders through the vehicle. "SAUJUDEN RAUS! ON THE DOUBLE!" The first man in the door is pulled out, hit in the face and told to run towards the designated area to start forming a line for the rest of us to fall in. Each one of us has to run through the gauntlet of shouting and cursing guards, hitting and kicking the dazed and bewildered victims. When I finally reach the end of the column, I stand at attention and listen to the "Empfangsrede". We are given the 10 Commandments of Dachau. The first one reads, "Suicide is permitted - attempted suicide will be severely punished." It gives us a good idea of what's in store for us.
After standing at attention for another two hours, listening to the additional indoctrination we are marched to our quarters - Block 10 Stube 3. The Food Detail brings two kettles filled with raw herring and potatoes and we devour the grub with our bare hands. Soon after I have to vomit and eventually fall asleep for sheer exhaustion. And so ends the 10th day of November 1938.
Postscript
Hundreds of books have been written about the most barbaric, inhumane and sadistic treatment ever given to human beings in the history of mankind in these camps, so mine would only be repetitive. However, I would like to add, that I think this day will be remembered as the day when Hitler and his cohorts received the green light from the rest of the world to go ahead with his terror tactics against Jews and other minorities (homosexuals, gypsies, retarded people and communists). It cost the lives of millions to rectify this mistake and to put an end to this lunacy. Beware, it can happen again!
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