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Silent Night, Crystal Night
© 1999 by Lillian Belinfante Herzberg
A true story
Opa, my grandfather, rarely initiated a conversation and he surprised me that Thanksgiving Day. It happened to be our mutual birthday. Ordinarily not a talkative man, he asked me a question as we walked in the brisk autumn air toward the pond near my house.
"November is very meaningful to me," he began. "Three highly significant things occurred during this month in our family. Do you know what they are?"
"I guess you mean our birthdays and Thanksgiving," I answered.
"Close, but no cigar," he shook his nearly bald head and his voice seemed to have a suggestion of sadness.
"Have you ever heard of 'Kristallnacht'? You would call it Crystal Night in English. Well, that happened in November, too, when I was about your age."
My grandfather still had his German accent. But every once in a while, especially the few times he showed emotion, his 'r's disappeared and his 'a's broadened revealing a pronounced trace of Boston. That is where he went to college.
"You've never talked about what happened to you growing up."
"I never felt the need. Well, you are getting older and now and it's time you heard a bit of history told by someone who lived it."
And so, this is the story he told to me during one Thanksgiving day when I had my sixteenth birthday and he had his seventieth.
In 1935, when I was ten, a document called the Nuremberg Laws became the law of the land in Germany. It deprived its Jewish citizens of the rights of citizenship. Some of these rules stated adult Jews, and those whom Hitler defined as Aryans, could no longer have neither business nor personal relationships. In part, this meant Jews could neither marry nor employ nor be hired by non-Jews. I think Jews were even prohibited from having telephones necessary to carry on their businesses.
I don't remember being aware of all the immediate consequences those laws had for my family and for me. I do remember we were not allowed to play in the park nor sit on park benches. A few years later, as a fourteen year old, just before Jews could no longer attend school, I remember riding my bike home from school trying not to notice the signs displayed in different store windows or plastered on buildings all over the place:
"Juden Verboten," meaning "Jews Forbidden," in huge letters like a trumpet blaring out their malicious themes to anyone passing by. One of those times I was even hit on the head when a Nazi youth threw a rock at me.
Buying medicines, or meat or anything became a challenge. Jews could only patronize Jewish owned stores and they didn't have much to sell. But my mother, your great grandmother, was very well thought of in our community and a kind butcher or grocer would occasionally leave a meat bone or some vegetables at our door. If they were caught giving us food they could have been arrested, or worse.
Gifted and reputable doctors, well known in their fields, were banned from hospitals and had to practice medicine from their homes. Professors, as well as other teachers, prevented from teaching, held classes in secret locations. Not only were Jews jeered in the streets, we weren't allowed to use public transportation or public parks.
My parents, like I am, were not talkative people so I don't remember speaking much about the situation going on around us. Once I did overhear a conversation between my parents. My mother said we should leave the country, pack up whatever we're allowed to take with us and just go.
But my father reassured her, "This madness will pass. After all, our families had lived in Germany for generations. Germans are civilized people. Others won't allow this madman to go far. Besides, I served in the army during the great war," referring to World War I,
I think he was really trying to convince himself as well as my mother that German people will never allow such barbaric behavior.
My parents, for my own safety, warned me not to talk unnecessarily to people I did not know well. If I had to go out I was to keep as invisible as possible, to avoid crowds or any commotion in the street and go directly to my destination. In other words, if I saw anyone in uniform marching around I should get the hell out of the area. Can you imagine how it was to be a kid then?
My parents decided to ask my mother's American aunt and uncle who lived in Maine, to sign a required affidavit guaranteeing they would take responsibility to see we would not become public charges or need welfare. To emigrate to the United States, the American government required this commitment if we were to enter the country. This document would also allow us to leave Germany.
While we were waiting, a year went by. Our American relatives wrote, "Don't worry. Things will blow over. Look how nice they were when the Olympics took place in Berlin last year."
They couldn't know how the Nazi government took down the offending signs so people would come to see they games. They didn't realize how precarious our situation was. Soon circumstances worsened and became more and more dangerous. Jews were being harassed in the streets by uniformed bullies. Our Christian friends were afraid to be seen with us. One of my teachers visited our apartment and gave my ten year old brother and me lessons so we wouldn't fall too far behind when all this was over.
Around the first of November, 1938, my mother left home to attend a special school in Munich. We didn't know what to expect when, hopefully, we got to the States, and we didn't want to be a burden to anyone. She wanted to learn fancy hotel cooking making it easier for her to find a way to help support the family when we moved to America. My father, once a prosperous businessman, could no longer afford to hire help. He stayed at home trying to run what business he had left as best he could from our apartment.
Early in November of 1938 a minor Nazi officer, stationed in Paris, was killed by a Polish Jew, in retaliation for the murder of his parents at the hands of the Nazis. During the night of November 10, while my brother, your Uncle Fritz, and I were fast asleep, the Nazis organized a riotous demonstration as an excuse for retribution.
All over Germany uniformed goons hurled rocks and other debris through windows of Jewish owned stores. Millions of pieces of glass shattered all over the streets. Synagogues were desecrated or torched or blown up. Fires, deliberately set, burned many Jewish homes. People trying to escape the flames were shot. The stifling smell of burning buildings saturated the air with smoke which even crept into our apartment choking us. I woke up coughing. I got out of bed and looked out the window to see what was causing the shouting and noises that sounded like explosions coming from the street.
I heard screaming voices and even saw a woman struck while trying to prevent her son and husband from being arrested and carried off in a truck. My father came into our room, closed the curtains and told me in no uncertain terms to get back to bed and keep the lights off. He suggested, without going into detail, some bad people were rioting, and if we didn't want to be hurt we had better be quiet. We lay in our beds trying not to breath too loud fearing "they" would find us.
We discovered later throughout that night over 20,000 Jewish men were arrested and sent to concentration camps. Many of these victims, natural born German citizens, had served their country bravely in World War I and received medals of valor.
The next day survivors of the previous night's devastation were rounded up. They were made to stand in line at the nearest government office. Officials presented them with a notice billing them for costs resulting from damages occurring in the riots performed on their own businesses and homes. The voucher was a demand for payment to the German government.
The incident later became known in German as "Kristallnacht," "The Night of the Broken Glass."
My father wasn't home when we got up in the morning and I don't really remember, but I probably assumed he had gone out early on business. Since my mother was away I had to get myself as well as your Uncle Fritz, ready for school. As we were about to leave a family friend came to our door.
He said, "I've come to tell you your father may not be home for a while and he has instructed me to advise you and your brother not to go outside or to go to school. You must both stay inside your apartment."
Of course, what I didn't know was my father had gone into hiding to avoid the mass arrest taking place all over Germany of every Jewish adult male.
In those days we accepted without question what our elders told us. The friend left and I remained at home with Fritz. Naturally, as a ten year old he behaved like a caged cat because he hated being confined to the house. I think I threatened to slap him silly if he didn't keep still. I guess he believed me because after that he stopped complaining and played quietly with his electric trains.
About an hour after the family friend left I heard a pounding at the front door. When I opened it expecting to see someone familiar, I looked up into the face of a tall stranger. I felt intimidated by his ample size. I remember he wore a dark leather, belted overcoat, and his black felt hat was pulled down on his blond head as protection from the winter cold.
I looked up and he looked down. We both stared at each other and after a moment of silence, the six foot plus stranger snarled, "Gestapo!" I can still hear that cold, sharp voice demanding, "Where's your father?"
Really scared I told him as respectfully as I could he was not at home and I didn't know where he was nor when he'd return. The agent then left, promising, "I'll be back."
Two or three hours later I again heard that familiar loud knock on the door. I shivered with fear anticipating the return of the Nazi. When I opened the door there stood two different Gestapo agents practically filling the doorway with their size, looking like clones of the first one.
"So! Has your father returned?" they growled at me. Then, without waiting for an answer, they shoved me aside, entered our home, started opening bureau drawers, emptied them on the floor, looked into all the closets and searched under the beds. Fritz stood very close to me and we both shook with fright but tried to hide our terror by jamming our cold, clammy hands into our pockets. After not finding whatever it was they were looking for, they turned without saying a word and left. Fritz and I nearly collapsed with relief.
A short time later these same two returned again. They told me, "Get your coat. You're coming with us!"
"Where are we going," I asked, fearing their answer. I was told I must accompany them to Gestapo headquarters at once.
I told Fritz to go to family friends immediately. He protested, reminding me of the friend's admonition not to leave the house.
In an angry tone, I insisted he do as he was told him and must have threatened to do him bodily harm. I never saw him move so fast. He grabbed his coat and hat and ran out the door before I left. Allowed to get my coat, I was then sandwiched between the two tall robot-like Nazis. They accompanied me out into the street. Would you believe the three of us got on a public streetcar? This is how I was delivered to Gestapo headquarters.
At Gestapo headquarters they led me into an ornately decorated inner office where an official sat behind a huge wooden desk. On the mahogany wall behind the desk hung a huge colored portrait of Hitler looking as if he was watching over the official's every move.
When the uniformed administrator talked to me he barely looked up from his papers. He informed me in a deep menacing voice, "You will wait outside the office until your father turns himself in."
One of the aides, probably a secretary, shoved me into a large, cold marble anteroom and told me to sit and wait on a bench at the other end of the room.
"How long will I have to wait?" I asked.
"For as long as it takes!" he snapped.
Only then did I realized I was being held as a hostage. I kept really quiet. I didn't want to be noticed. I shivered from fright or cold or both. Luckily, I had my coat. I wrapped it around me hoping it would shield me from whatever was in store.
I had no idea how long I sat there before I noticed my father pass through the doorway at the other end of the anteroom. His usual neat appearing clothes were rumbled. He looked terrible. He disappeared through a door to another office. Later I learned he had been informed of my arrest by friends who were watching the apartment. He gave himself up in exchange for my release. The Nazis often took children as hostages knowing their parents would turn themselves in. It was a very successful tactic.
I sat there for a long while after I saw my father, numb, not knowing what to do. No one paid any attention to me. Waiting for what felt like hours after my father appeared and disappeared, I got up the courage to approach the deputy seated at a nearby desk.
"Excuse me."
"What," he snarled.
"My father has already arrived, and I would like to go home," I told him.
The arrogant uniformed person behind the desk dismissed me curtly with the flick of his pen gesturing I should be seated. Confused, I went back to the cold, stone bench and sat down again. After I sat down the telephone on the clerk's desk rang. I guess someone verified my father's arrival. Only then did the official swear at me, dismissing me with a warning it would be my turn next time.
Meanwhile, my mother had been notified and came home immediately. My father spent approximately six or seven weeks in a concentration camp. The day he came home I remember he looked thin and gaunt - like a living corpse. He never discussed his experiences in the camp. If anyone asked about it, he addressed the question with a slight shaking of his head, a distant stare and silence.
A few months later, five months before the start of World War II, the necessary papers came through allowing us to leave Germany and emigrate to America.
When the United States entered the war, I joined the army, allowing me to be able to become a citizen before my parents, and was sent back to Germany via North Africa and Italy as an interpreter. My job was to interrogate the captured Germans. One captive, Hermann Goring, Hitler's right hand man, wondered about me and admired my fluency in speaking German. He told me my accent was perfect.
When I returned Stateside I made up my mind to put these things out of my mind. Sometimes I succeeded. Today I didn't. Occasionally it's important to remember the past but not to dwell on it.
"Well, something good came out of all that tragedy, Opa," I told him.
"Yeah? What's that?"
"Me," I said and went over and put my arms around him and planted a kiss on his cheek!
My grandfather never spoke of this again.
This was Originally printed in Chicken Soup for a Kid's Soul and is reprinted in the Jewish Magazine with the authors permission
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from the November 2007 Edition of the Jewish Magazine
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