• The First Scroll •
Preludes to Darkness
• INVOCATION •
Spoken in a whi÷ er
before reading
the scroll
The Author speaks:
This scroll is di√erent from all other scrolls. In all other
scrolls, we recount what happened to our fathers and
forefathers in ancient days.
In this scroll we tell what happened to our fathers and to
us in the generation of Auschwitz.
The slaughtered Jewish people speak, in silence and in
words, to the living Jewish people:
You who were unable to save us, listen nowwith all your
heart to our testimony; it is all that remains of our lives.
Try to understand the meaning of destruction and what
words would have strengthened our spirit at the
moment of parting.
The Scroll speaks to the Reader:
Do not regard this testimony as an inspiration for hatred.
By the rivers of Europe we sat down and wept when our
turn came to be murdered. By the chimneys of the cre-
matorium
even there
we preserved scraps of
incinerated time and we pondered the future as we
thought of you. . . .
Do you have a spare moment to think of us
innocent of crime and unashamed?
• PROLOGU E•
Countdown or
the Corridor
of Lo≥
Alternatives
• The First Scroll: Preludes to Darkness •
• Prologue: Countdown or the Corridor of Lost Alternatives •
HITLER AND HIS NAZI PARTY’S
RISE TO POWER
JANUARY 30, 1933: Hitler was
appointed head of the German
government. His o¥cial title was
Reichskanzler. The appointment
was made by the president, Field
Marshal Paul von Hindenburg,
following the elections to the
Reichstag (the Parliament) in
November 1932. Although the
National Socialist Party lost
the election, having obtained
2,000,000 votes and 34 seats, it
remained the largest party, with
over a third of the delegates to
the Reichstag. But in order to
form a government it needed the
support of the German National
Party, headed by Alfred Hugen-
berg. FEBRUARY 27, 1933: The
burning of the Reichstag build-
ing in Berlin, which was followed
by a wave of arrests and Nazi
terror throughout Germany.
APRIL 26, 1933: Establishment of
the Gestapo, the Nazi secret
police. MAY 10, 1933: Jewish books
and books by opponents of the
Nazis are publicly burned
throughout Germany. JULY 14,
1933: All political parties but the
Nazi Party are prohibited in Ger-
many. APRIL 1, 1934: Heinrich
Himmler is appointed head of
the SS in Germany. JUNE 30–JULY
2, 1934: “Night of the Long
Knives,” a murderous outbreak
of terror perpetuated by mem-
bers of the SA against men con-
sidered undesirable by Hitler,
including Röhm and his associ-
ates. AUGUST 2, 1934: Field Mar-
shal von Hindenburg, the Ger-
man president, dies. Hitler takes
over as head of state.
“In appointing Hitler Chancellor
of the Reich, you have placed our holy German nation in the hands of one of the greatest demagogues of all
time. I prophesy that this evil man will lead our country to the abyss and cause our nation incalculable hard-
ship. Future generations will curse you in your grave for this act.” —From a telegram sent by General Luden-
dorf to his comrade Field Marshal von Hindenburg, February 1, 1933.
ADOLF HITLER (1889–1945): Born in Austria, Hitler lived for a time in Linz and Vienna. In 1913, Hitler came to
Munich, and at the outbreak of World War I volunteered for the army. He reached the rank of corporal, and was
wounded by poison gas. The defeat of Germany drove him into political activity. In 1919, he joined the small Ger-
man Worker’s Party in Munich, which numbered 55 members. The platform of this partywas based on racism,
hatred of the Jews, and opposition to socialism and liberal democracy. This was the nucleus of the Nazi Party,
which was o¥cially founded in 1920. In 1923, Hitler tried to take over power in Bavaria by revolution. The attempt
failed and Hitler was imprisoned. In prison he wrote his book Mein Kampf (My Struggle). After his release he set
about organizing all the malcon-
tents, and his movement gained
strength after the economic crisis
of 1929. By 1932, the Nazi Party
was the largest political force in
Germany. With his ascent to
power he became known as the
Führer (Leader), established a
dictatorship, and dragged Ger-
many into a maelstrom of war,
conquest, mass murder, and
crushing defeat. Hitler commit-
ted suicide on April 29, 1945, a
week before the fall of Berlin.
BRANDENBURG GATE: Brandenburg
was one of the outlying princi-
palities in Germany, ruled by
princes of the House of Hohen-
zollern. At the end of the fif-
teenth century, the rulers of
Brandenburg established their
capital in Berlin, where they built
palaces. The Brandenburg Gate,
famous in our time as the main
gateway in the wall that divided
East Berlin from West Berlin
until the reunification of Ger-
many, is a remnant of one of
these palaces.
THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC: In 1919, at
the end of World War I, which
brought about the defeat of Ger-
many and the abdication of the
kaiser, the German National
Assembly met in the East Ger-
man town of Weimar and con-
firmed the democratic Weimar
Constitution. The Democratic
Republic of Germany, known as
the Weimar Republic, held power
in Germany until Hitler took
over on January 30, 1933.
control, moves behind the chair of the leader of the
Communist Party.• Bending over the ear of his colleague
and rival, he murmurs discreetly,“Comrade Torgler! This is
zero hour and you can see what is happening. Perhaps
finally you will behave logically and cooperate with us,
with the Socialists, to avert the imminent danger.”
Torgler, an intelligent man, a brilliant speaker, a sea-
soned politician, leader of the largest of the parties, leans
slightly backward and without blinking an eyelid answers
the mayor of Altona. “That is quite out of the question,
Comrade Brauer. The Nazis must win and take over the
government. Then—it won’t take more than three or four
weeks—the whole of the working class will fall in behind
us.”
And in the darkness of their ignorance
at zero hour
at zero hour
at zero hour
fear and darkness coveredthe land;
fear and darkness covered the land, and the Holocaust that
befell the Jewish people was the greatest atrocity that
human history has ever known; in every generation the
human impulse for evil breaks out, the forces of destruc-
tion rampage, and the history of mankind is full to
overflowing with bloodshed:
the blood of conquered tribes
in ancient times;
the blood of whole populations slaughtered
by the Mongols,•
which flowed like rivers for a thousand years
between the old and the new;
that was spilled in the appalling religious wars
in the name of God and His prophet;
the blood of the innocents who died
when the peasants and Cossacks rebelled;
the flow of blood from American Indians
who were wiped o√the land of their fathers by
weapons in the hands of enlightened nations: Spain, France, England, and America.
And the Turks who slaughtered the Armenian people;•
and all these rivers of blood flowed down
to the sea, and the sea ebbed and flowed around the Old World and the New
World and the Third World;
and there is no diminution
of civil wars, and revolutions, and counterrevolutions, world wars and local conflicts
between nations,
both then and now.
A notice in the March 21, 1933
newspaper Völkische Beobach-
ter (People’s Observer), the Nazi
Party daily, announcing that on
March 22, 1933, the first concen-
tration camp for political prison-
ers will be set up near Dachau.
THE COMMUNIST PARTY (KPD): The
German Communist Party had
considerable influence among
the workers, the trade unions,
and in the Reichstag. At the
head of the party stood Ernst
Tellmann (1886–1944). The
leader of the KPD party in the
Reichstag was an experienced,
well-respected partyworker,
Ernst Torgler. The philosophy of
the Communist Partywas based
on Marxist-Leninist theory and
the principles of revolution.
According to this view, the revo-
lutionary proletariat had no
interest in the continued exis-
tence of the Weimar Republic or
indeed of any other organized,
legal regime. Consequently, it
was di¥cult for other move-
ments to form alliances or even
cooperate with the Communists.
The Social Democrats (SPD)
were the main faction support-
ing the stable continuance of the
Weimar Republic. Any coalition
with the Communists was there-
fore out of the question. More-
over, the Communist Partywas
convinced that its true enemies
were the Social Democrats. At a
party congress June 8–15, 1929,
the Communists coined the term
“Social Fascists” and in their
fanaticism used it as a label for
the Social Democrats. They
o√ered no strenuous opposition
to the rise of the Nazis, on the
assumption that “after Hitler,
we’ll take over.”
THE MONGOLS: The tribes of Mon-
golia were united in 1206 under
their leader Temuchin, better
known as Genghis Khan (1167–
1227). He established the Mon-
golian Empire and is considered
one of the greatest conquerors in
history. The Mongolian Empire
stretched from China in the east
to Hungary in the west. Genghis
Khan ruled over central Asia and
he came westward as far as Kiev,
the capital of the Ukraine. The
Mongols also invaded Persia and
Iraq. Their cruelty toward the
people they conquered is notori-
ous. The united Mongol king-
doms held on until the end of
the fourteenth century, though
the process of dissolution began
with the death of Kublai Khan
(1294).
SLAUGHTERED THE ARMENIAN
PEOPLE: After the conquest of
Armenia by its neighbors the
Turks in 1473, the Armenians
began to spread throughout the
Ottoman Empire. They fulfilled
important roles in the bureau-
cracy, in handicrafts, and in com-
merce. From time to time there
were Armenian uprisings against
Turkish rule, which were put
down with the utmost cruelty.
Well-known, for instance, is the
Slaughter of the Armenians that
took place after the uprising of
1895. And one year later, the
Turks slaughtered en masse the
Armenians who were living in
Constantinople. In 1915, during
World War I, the Turks murdered
at least 800,000 Armenians, at the
express command of the govern-
ment, which was in the hands of
the party of “Young Turks.”
5 minutes to 12
4 minutes to 12
3 minutes to 12
2 minutes to 12
1 minute to 12
12 o’clock. Berlin, January 30, 1933.•
A black Mercedes passes through the gate of the Kaiserhof
Hotel and turns toward the residence of Field Marshal von
Hindenburg,• the aged president of the German Republic.
In the back seat sits Adolf Hitler,• leader of the National
Socialist German Workers’ Party, a frustrated painter from
the gutters, a Bohemian corporal when he enters the build-
ing and the new ruler of Germany when he leaves; in
extensive articles accompanied byfront-page photographs
the most important journalists in the capital have reported
the annual press ball, held last night in Berlin. In close-up
photographs the high society of the great metropolis can
be seen joyfully celebrating in evening dress and resplen-
dent gowns, glasses of champagne in their hands.
In private soundproof drawing rooms, Berliners leafed
through their favorite newspapers without a word, while
close at hand, beyond the walls, legions of Hitler’s sup-
porters paraded through the streets of the capital. They
wore caps, flaunted swastikas of various sizes, and waved
party flags. They streamed toward the Brandenburg Gate,•
and the dark winter night was broken by the vast light of
flaming torches as hands were raised in a mass salute.
In one of the splendid marble buildings an emergency
meeting of the Prussian State Council has been called.
Before the chairman can open the meeting, the mayor of
Altona, the last stronghold of the short-lived Weimar
Republic,• rises in his seat, and, with an e√ort at self-
•
This symbol denotes corresponding sidenote(s). However, some side-
notes are meant to provide additional information on the text in general
and do not correspond to a specific symbol.
• The First Scroll: Preludes to Darkness •
• Prologue: Countdown or the Corridor of Lost Alternatives •
Nevertheless
the Holocaust
was a project of annihilation, the like of which
mankind has never seen, di√erent from the pogroms and
evil decrees that the persecuted Jewish people have known
throughout the ages;
For
this was not the rioting of an incited rabble.
Nor an outbreak of vengeance by the
poor and hungry.
Nor the hysterical outcome of religious fanaticism.
Nor a revolution whose ends justified the means.
The ghetto was not a prisoner-of-war camp.
Itwas not attacks from the air that caused Auschwitz
to burn with a fire that consumed human beings
for four whole years.
For the first time
a whole nation was consigned to destruction by
order of a government, which organized, planned to the
last detail, practiced, and carried out a giant safari, and the
hunt was maintained summer and winter, from the
Atlantic coast to the foothills of the Caucasus, from the
frozen North sea to the shores of the Mediterranean,
everywhere, with no pause for holidays, day and night, in
the high noon of the twentieth century;
and assistants of every tongue took part, in every land,
by agreement and on one condition, that the hunted be
members of the Jewish people, men and women, young
and old, pregnant, sick, disabled, and healthy, with no
exceptions, and to this one purpose were allotted all the
financial resources, the transport and the communication
services required;
and the hunt for Jews continued as planned for almost a
hundred thousand hours, which is twelve years, three
months, and fifty days without end;•
and the Jewish people had no shield or savior.
No asylum, no escape.
EXTERMINATING THE JEWS
MARCH 22, 1933: The establish-
ment of Dachau, the first Nazi
concentration camp in Germany.
The watchword of the camp
command was “Tolerance means
weakness.” Dachau was the origi-
nal camp, and it continued to
exist for 12 more years. 1936:
Establishment of the camp at
Sachsenhausen, in the suburb of
Oranienburg near Berlin. After
Kristallnacht, 10,000 Jews from
Berlin, Hamburg, Mecklenburg,
and Pomerania were imprisoned
there. The total number of vic-
tims at Sachsenhausen equaled
100,000. AUGUST 1937: Establish-
ment of the concentration camp
at Buchenwald. JULY–AUGUST 1938:
Establishment of the concentra-
tion camp (Grade III, for han-
dling severe punishment) at
Mauthausen near Linz. MAY 1939:
Establishment of the concentra-
tion camp for women at Ravens-
brück in northern Germany. MAY
20, 1940: Establishment of the
concentration camp at Ausch-
witz. The slogan “Work Sets You
Free” was blazoned above the
gate. JUNE 1940: Establishment
of the concentration camp at
Neuengamme near Hamburg,
Gross-Rosen in Silesia. FEBRUARY
22, 1941: Deportation of the Jews
of Amsterdam to Buchenwald.
JULY 1941: Jews are murdered en
masse at Ponar, near Vilna. By
July 1944, about 100,000 Jews
had been murdered at this place.
JULY 31, 1941: Göring makes Hey-
drich responsible for implement-
ing the Final Solution. LATE
AUGUST 1941: 23,000 Jews are shot
at Kamenetz-Podolsk. SEPTEMBER
29–30, 1941: 34,000 Jews from
Kiev are murdered in the valley
at Babii Yar. OCTOBER 2, 1941:
Opening of the death camp at
Yasnowech in Croatia. OCTOBER 13, 1941: Establishment of the death camp complex at Auschwitz-Birkenau. OCTO-
BER 23, 1941: 19,000 Jews are murdered at Odessa. MARCH 26, 1942: The first convoys of Jews from Slovakia reach
Majdanek and Auschwitz. By September nearly 60,000 Jews had been deported. MARCH 28, 1942: The first deporta-
tion of French Jews to Auschwitz. JUNE 1, 1942: Opening of the death camp at Treblinka. JULY 17, 1942: The second
dispatch of Dutch Jews is sent to Auschwitz. JULY 22, 1942: The first convoy of deportees from the Warsaw ghetto is
sent to Treblinka. AUGUST 28, 1942: Part of the Jewish population of Antwerp reaches the death camps. SEPTEMBER
14, 1942: More than a quarter million Jews from Warsaw are murdered at Treblinka. SEPTEMBER 30, 1942: The first
wave of Croatian Jews reaches Auschwitz. OCTOBER 28, 1942: The first consignment of Jews from Theresienstadt
reaches Auschwitz. NOVEMBER 25, 1942: Jews from Norway reach Auschwitz. DECEMBER 10, 1942: A consignment of
Jews from Germany reaches
Auschwitz. MID-JANUARY 1943:
Further consignments of Jews
from the Theresienstadt ghetto
reach Auschwitz. JANUARY 21,
1943: Victims of the second mass
Aktion in the Warsaw ghetto
reach Treblinka. FEBRUARY 12,
1943: About 10,000 Jews from the
Bialystok ghetto reach Treblinka.
MARCH 15, 1943: Jews from Greece
reach Auschwitz. APRIL 1943: The
remaining Jews of Warsaw are
sent to Auschwitz and Treblinka.
MAY 1943: Convoys of Jews from
Amsterdam reach Auschwitz and
Sobibor. LATE AUGUST 1943: The
number of Jews killed at Treb-
linka reaches 800,000. OCTOBER
10, 1943: 1,000 Jews from Rome
are deported to Auschwitz. NO-
VEMBER 3, 1943: 10,000 Jews are
murdered at Majdanek. APRIL 28,
1944: The first trainload of Jews
from Hungary reaches Ausch-
witz. MAY 15, 1944: The systematic
deportation of the Jews of Hun-
gary to their death at Auschwitz
begins. SEPTEMBER 23, 1944: Jews
from the Vilna ghetto and Riga
are murdered in the camp of
Kaluga, in Estonia. OCTOBER 31,
1944: 14,000 Jews from Salonika
are brought to Auschwitz. END OF
OCTOBER 1944: The last 20,000
Jews from the Theresienstadt
ghetto reach Auschwitz. NOVEM-
BER 8, 1944: 37,000 Jews from
Budapest begin the death march
to the Austrian border. JANUARY
17, 1945: The death march of the
prisoners of Auschwitz. JANUARY
25, 1945: The death march of the
prisoners of Stutthof. APRIL 10,
1945: The death march of the
prisoners of Buchenwald.
SS: The strike force of the Nazi
Party, under the leadership of
Himmler. Members wore black
uniforms and the insignia of a
skull.
SA: The elite unit of the Nazi
Party. Organized by Ernst Röhm,
it became an instrument of terror
dreaded by all, individuals and
communities.
From the moment Hitlerwas made ruler of Germany, he
began his war against the Jews. He hated the Czechs, the
French, and the English; he detested the Russians and
abominated the Poles; he despised the Belgians, the Dutch,
and the Italians; he looked down on the Americans. But
mortal hatred he bore the Jews. And in Czechoslovakia the
Jews behaved like Czechs, in Hungary like Hungarians, in
Poland like Poles, and even in Russia they tried to behave
like Russians. And in Germany the Jews regarded them-
selves as German in every respect. And Hitler was hostile
to the working class; he legislated against the Socialists
and made war on the Communists. He loathed the Liber-
als. He looked down on writers and was repelled by mod-
ern art and by democracy. But more than anything he
hated the Jews. For there were many Jews in the ranks of
the working class. There were many Jews among the
Socialists and the greatest of the Communists were Jewish
in origin, and among the important bankers there were
men of the Mosaic persuasion, as there were among the
leaders of the Liberals, the believers in the Republic, the
supporters of the young democracy. In the community of
intellectuals, writers, artists, and thinkers, there were very
many famous figures descended from Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob. It was they who in those days fashioned German
culture, its language and literature, and earned its world-
wide reputation.
Hitler despised the weak, and the Western democracies
whose power had faded, and those small nations who
pinned their hopes on a paper tiger or a dead lion. Most of
all he despised the Jews,who had no army and no state and
not even a true ally anywhere in the world.
And the net that he spread before them took a thousand
forms: the SS• and the SA• and the SD• and the Gestapo;•
the Einsatzgruppen• and the Hitlerjugend;• the Wehrma-
cht.• And there were those countries who sent their own
auxiliary police forces against the Jews: the “Blue” Police•
of Poland and the Vlasovites• of the Soviet Union; the
Ypatingas• from Lithuania and their counterparts from
Latvia and Estonia; the men of Vichy• in France; and the
Nazis in Austria and Mussolini’s Fascists in Italy; the gangs
who called themselves the Iron Guard• in Romania and the
party of the Arrow-Cross• in Hungary; the Ustashi• in
Yugoslavia and the traitors to their country in Greece. In
Belgium Degrel’s• men moved against the Jews; Quisling’s•
lay in wait for them in Scandinavia; and
SD: The security arm of the SS.
GESTAPO: Political secret police.
The Gestapo was established on
April 26, 1933, within the frame-
work of the SS. It was the princi-
pal executive arm of the dictator-
ship and the symbol of torture
and murder.
EINSATZGRUPPEN: Operational
units. An improvisation of 1938,
these operational units cast
dread over Poland at the time of
the conquest in 1939. Reestab-
lished on the eve of the invasion
of the Soviet Union, the Einsatz-
gruppen accompanied the regu-
lar army forces as they advanced
into Russia. They systematically
killed Jews in the conquered
territories, even before the estab-
lishment of the death camps.
HITLERJUGEND: The organization
of Hitleryouth, led by Baldur von
Schirach.
THE WEHRMACHT: The regular
German army.
THE “BLUE” POLICE: The Polish
police, which cooperated with
the Nazi conqueror. It excelled in
persecuting Jews and extorting
money from its victims.
VLASOVITES: Andrei Vlasov, a
captured Soviet general, cooper-
ated with the Germans. A“Liber-
ation Army” under his name
numbered two divisions and was
composed of Soviet deserters
and prisoners of war. The Ger-
mans took about 5 million Soviet
prisoners of war, o¥cers and
men, of whom about 2.5 million
died in the P.O.W. camps of
hunger or disease; about
150,000 were killed outright by
the Germans.
YPATINGAS: Lithuanian auxiliary
units, which acted in the service
of the Germans and helped them
carry out the murders.
VICHY: A town in France where in
1940 a government of collabora-
tors with the German conqueror
was set up under the leadership
of General Henri-Philippe Pétain.
IRON GUARD: A Romanian Fascist
organization (established in
1927) whose members were
already carrying out mass po-
groms against the Jews in 1941
(in Bucharest and Jassy). After
Romania joined the war against
the Soviet Union, extremist anti-
Semites were responsible for the
slaughter of 150,000 Jews in Ser-
bia and Bukovina and the 60,000
Jews of Odessa.
ARROW-CROSS: The militant Nazi
Party in Hungary.
USTASHI: Military police units in
the puppet state of Croatia dur-
ing the time of German rule. The
Ustashi carried out expulsions
and killed tens of thousands of
Jews and Gypsies, and hundreds
of thousands of Serbs.
DEGREL (1906–1950): Leon Degrel
was a Belgian Fascist, who, in the
1930s, with the support of Mus-
solini, set up a royalist party that
preached Fascism and extreme
Catholicism. On the whole, the
Belgian population did not sup-
port it and was not influenced by
its anti-Semitism. After the Ger-
man conquest, Degrel organized
brigades of Flemish and Wal-
loons, who fought alongside the
Germans on the Russian front.
Degrel’s party took control of
civic institutions and the means
of communication. With the
liberation of Belgium in Septem-
ber 1944, Degrel fled to Spain,
where he was supported by
Franco and granted Spanish
citizenship.
QUISLING (1887–1945): Vidkun
Quisling served as an o¥cer in
the Norwegian army and later as
military attaché in Petrograd
(1918–1919) and Helsinki (1919–
1921). As the Norwegian minister
of defense (1931–1933), Quisling
resigned to form a Fascist organ-
ization, National Sammlung. He
supported the suppression of the
trade unions and the elimination
of the Communists. In 1939,
Quisling met Hitler and from
then on supported the German
conquest of Norway. After the
German invasion, Quisling pro-
claimed himself prime minister
• The First Scroll: Preludes to Darkness •
• Prologue: Countdown or the Corridor of Lost Alternatives •
of Norway and assisted the con-
querors, actually serving as the
German commissioner’s deputy.
Quisling was personally respon-
sible for sending a thousand Jews
to the death camps. After the
liberation of Norway in May
1945, he was arrested, tried for
treason, and executed. His name
became a synonym for“traitor”
throughout the countries con-
quered by the Germans.
THE MUFTI (1897–1974): Amin el-
Husseini was appointed by the
British as grand mufti of Jeru-
salem and permanent president
of the supreme Arab council, the
ruling religious body in the Mos-
lem community of Palestine. El-
Husseini was engaged in perpet-
ual conflict with Zionism, Jewish
immigration, and the sale of land
to Jewish settlers. However, he
was also in unending internal
conflict with the Nashashibi fam-
ily, who also sought prestige and
authority. In 1936, a compromise
was reached and the Supreme
Arab Committee was set up,
which declared a general strike
and a state of rebellion against
the Mandatory government. The
British dismissed el-Husseini
from o¥ce as head of the council
and declared the Committee to
be illegal. In the wake of these
decrees there was an outbreak of
bloody riots from 1936 to 1939.
In October 1937, el-Husseini fled
to Lebanon, where he reestab-
lished the Arab Committee under
his own command. During
World War II, he was an ally of
Hitler, lived in Germany, and
broadcast to the Arab world over
German radio. At the end of the
war he escaped from Germany to
Egypt and from there to
Lebanon.
SHTREIMELS: Circular, black fur
hats worn by Hasidim.
PAPACHAS: Round fur hats worn
by men in Russia.
followers of the Mufti• from Jerusalem briefed the Gestapo in North Africa, assigning
places of destruction for the Jews of the Maghreb; Jews from Tunis had already been sent
to concentration camps.
In every place Jews were loaded onto waiting trains, and of the condemned none knew
who was to live and who was to die. At first they only arrested Communists, and settled the
fate of Communists alone. Then they took the various kinds of Socialists, and distin-
guished their fate from the rest. And when they took those thought to be liberal and loyal
to the democracy, the others still considered themselves outside the ring of terror. Then
they took statesmen, one third Jewish and one quarter Jewish and veterans of the Kaiser’s
War who were of Jewish origin, nor did they hesitate to take men of learning and interna-
tional reputation, and they tookwriters and journalists and artists who had not already left
the country or committed suicide. In the end they also seized those who had succeeded in
fleeing Germany but had not gone far enough away from the European continent.
And before the Nazis put them behind walls and watchtowers, they declared the Jews
outside the law. In every single state that the Nazi Germans reached, the Jews of that
country were deprived of their rights as citizens and forbidden to do business with their
Christian neighbors; all services and every kind of human contact were denied them, for
theywere not Aryan. At that time they stripped the Jews of all theirworkshops, businesses,
and industries, which they and their fathers had built over the years. Their gold and silver
were confiscated. And their furs. The carpets were removed from their drawing rooms, and
the works of art, which the more senior o¥cials took into their own possession. Quilts and
pillowcases embroidered with the monograms of their lawful owners were unhesitatingly
commandeered by neighbors. The Jews were then driven from their homes, rich and poor
alike.
One and all they were marched through the streets, bareheaded or wearing shtreimels,•
those whose tunics were fastened with three buttons, and those who worried lest—God for-
bid—they lose the fourth button required by a di√erent Hasidic court. And when they
looked at the most recent arrivals, wearing sti√hats from Amsterdam and some deported
from Budapest actuallyflaunting real top hats, theydid not laugh or show surprise, for they
saw the common heap where all the caps, bowlers, and papachas• would end up.
When the manhunt began in Paris, the Germans had trouble at first distinguishing a
French-Jewish face from a French-Aryan face. But in no time there were enough French-
men, in town and country, who were eager to help their conquerors, to be their eyes and
show the SS and the Gestapo how to tell a pure French beret from a base beret on the head
of one of France’s stepsons.
And they seized Jews in coarse working boots, who had never been separated from the
tilling of the soil, in the villages of Thrace and the borders of Lithuania, in the Crimea and
the small farms of the Carpathians.
They had walked in these places from sunrise to sunset in the shade of broad trees, and
had had permission since time immemorial to clear forests and cut up trees and float the
logs down the Danube on a vast fleet of barges; and once these men were taken, a tribe of
Jewish farmers was wiped o√the face of the map of Europe as though they had never
existed.
And then came the turn of the speakers of pure German, the intellectuals of Prague and Vienna. You could tell them by
their dress, by their jackets with padded shoulders and velvet lapels. Many left their homes in shoes of kidskin, in skirts of
suede or patent leather, shining and immaculate.
Even the Bohemians were not disheveled; they wore
hats of soft felt with wide brims, tilted slightly to one side.
When they climbed up into the railway cars designed for
cattle, their faces wore an expression more of surprise than
fear; and the countrywas full of such trucks. Though Ger-
many was at war with Russia in the east and the Allied
Forces in the west and needed all forms of transport for
moving troops, all railway engines necessary for the move-
ment of Jews were made available and the tracks kept clear.
And they traveled with armed guards. And day and night
the trains did not stop running.
When they took the Jews from their ancient homes in
the towns of Italy, most members of the community still
held to the belief that this was just a small cloud, which
would in the end pass over. Only a few sensed that their
Italian homeland was betraying them in their time of
greatest need. Many seemed to be hovering between
heaven and earth; a train from the southwest passed a
train from the southeast and the Jews deported from Flo-
rence did not know that at this unknown junction they
were meeting Jews from Zagreb, and Jews on a train from
Hungary caught signs of Jews deported from Holland and
Belgium and when one of the trains was shunted onto a
siding outside town, the few railway workers around
seemed to be posing them riddles:
“Westerbroek?”• “Drancy?”• “Romanesti?”•
All the trains were bound for Poland, for the unknown.
And once the Jews had been uprooted from their homes
and deprived of all their property, theywere set to work in
sweatshops, whether in ghettos or forced labor camps, for
a mere pittance. In the end the Nazis and their collabora-
tors took the Jews’suitcases and their shoes and the rest of
the clothes they had brought with them from home, and
from the women they took their flowing hair; and then
they took their souls.
And finally they burned their bodies. They carefully
extracted the gold teeth and crowns from the mouths of
the dead. They packed them in sealed boxes marked in
code plus netweight plus consignment number plus desti-
nation, also in code. And the condemned went with hope
in their hearts. Day after day they said, “Blessed be the
Lord,” and hour after hour they waited for a miracle. And
hope saved them from utter desolation, and also stifled the
spirit of rebellion.
All this time they looked for help—from where? Their
longtime neighbors, their natural allies,were against them,
most of them with equanimity. In the places where they
had been born and raised, in their own towns they
drowned in a sea of hostility. Gradually they came to real-
ize the fact that a billion, two billion human beings were
looking on and the world had forgotten them while they
still breathed. No bomber took o√from its base on their
behalf; no company of soldiers went ahead and broke
through one day in order to release them from the death
camps, neither in Estonia in the north, nor at the gates of
Budapest, nor to save the survivors of the ghetto of Lodz.
Thousands of daring actions were carried out on the soil of
Europe against targets of greater and lesser importance, as
deemed appropriate by the commanders of the armies of
the free world. Only targets of benefit to the Jews failed to
inspire acts of daring and imagination, or to figure in the
counsels of the leaders.
Youngsters tried to escape. The daring took up arms.
More than can be estimated, they made theirway, heedless
of risk, to the woods and joined the partisans. “Stoj! Kto
jidjot?” (Halt! Who goes there?) “Svaj!” (Friend!)—they
tried to explain. Some were accepted and some were
rejected. Many who fled the burning ghetto lost their lives
on the forest paths, some dying of hunger, some from Ger-
man bullets, and some even shot in ambushes bythose who
were meant to be their comrades in arms. Indigent farmers
who had not managed to acquire rifles killed them with
axes and pitchforks when the hunted sought a night’s
refuge on their threshing floors. The manhunt continued
in the virgin forests.
Thus they went to their deaths devoid of all forms of
communal defense. Distinguished among themselves by
their dress, their behavior, and their languages, they moved
through urban streets humming with life, among friends
and acquaintances from the same alley, workmates, class-
mates, fellow students from the university, speakers of the
same language—only one thing they did not have in com-
mon with them: their ethnic origin.
Even a Jewish memory,
which finds it convenient
to forget, could not easily
obliterate the e√ect of
finding the ground cut
from beneath their feet,
not because of any doubt
of their citizenship, or dis-
loyalty to their country,
WESTERBROEK: A concentration
camp set up by the Germans in the
north of Holland. It served as a
transit camp for those destined for
the death camps.
DRANCY: A French concentration
camp whose prisoners were later
sent to Auschwitz.
ROMANESTI: Those expelled from
Romania.
11
• The First Scroll: Preludes to Darkness •
10
• Prologue: Countdown or the Corridor of Lost Alternatives •
or opinions, or even this time because of their faith and
religion. Only their birth determined their fate. Long
before they were transported in trains their fate had
already been sealed beyond any possibility of appeal, to
live a life of endless humiliation and to die powerless. Was
this a certainty that could have been foreseen? A disaster
that could have been prepared for?
There were some from whom even the certain knowl-
edge of the general disasterwas withheld. Even at the gates
of Auschwitz they found it hard to grasp the message of a
common Jewish fate. After all, they had cut themselves o√
from their common origin and of their own free will, or
that of their parents, had dissociated themselves from the
Jewish people. Few of them remembered the shape of the
letter yud. When the knock came at the door, they could
not believe it—descendants of court Jews who by exem-
plarye√ortworthyof the highest praise had created a quite
unprecedented harmony between their self-negating Jew-
ishness and their utter Germanism, were they too to be
deported? One old ladywas taken to Theresienstadt.• In a
trainload of notables she was transported along with the
other assimilated Berliners of Jewish origin.
The Germans joked with her with exaggerated polite-
ness, since she was a great granddaughter of the composer
Liszt, and a cousin of Gerhart Hauptmann,• one of Ger-
many’s greatest writers. Though they treated her with spe-
cial respect, she su√ered greatly. Sitting in her cell, the old
lady sobbed and mumbled, “If Gerhart knew what they
were doing to me, oh Gerhart!”And the prisoners of There-
sienstadt looked on the old lady with pity, for it is hard to
live in the shadow of death, and even harder to stand in the
presence of living shadows.•
A page from the minutes of the Wannsee Conference: the decision to destroy
11 million Jews.
THERESIENSTADT: Another name
for the small Czech town of
Terezin, which the Germans
turned into a Jewish ghetto on
October 16, 1941. Actually, this
ghetto was nothing but a transit
camp for the gas chambers at
Auschwitz. To outward appear-
ances it presented a false image
of a model ghetto, with a high
standard of living and a rich cul-
tural life. The Germans even
immortalized this fake image of
the good life in a propaganda
film called The Führer Grants the
Jews a Town, which showed
young Jews in a swimming race
across the river, well-dressed
women sitting in a cafe in There-
sienstadt, and a football match in
progress. Delegations from the
Red Cross and from Denmark
were invited to visit the place.
They came and saw, and were
taken in.
THE END OF THERESIENSTADT: The
Allied armies had liberated Paris,
Brussels, and Antwerp and had
crossed the German border. The
Soviet army had liberated Bel-
grade and was pushing into East
Prussia. At that time there re-
mained only one ghetto in
Europe, Theresienstadt. The Nazi
film studios had successfully
completed a bogus documentary
film about Theresienstadt in
October 1944, the month that
saw the beginning of the
destruction of what was left of
the Jews. The Jews of Bohemia
and Moravia numbered 118,000
before the outbreak of hostilities. Thirty thousand remained in the Theresienstadt ghetto, including thousands of
youngsters yearning to follow the example of their brothers in Slovakia, who had rebelled and fled to the hills. The
Germans decided to destroy them by bombing the ghetto from the air. Dr. Epstein, the last of the puppet leaders,
was told to report to the German broadcasting studio in Dresden and protest to the world about the cruel bomb-
ings being carried out by Allied warplanes, so it seemed, against the ghetto. Dr. Epstein refused and was the first
to be killed that day. On explicit orders from Berlin, all leaders of the Zionist and communal organizations and
community executives were transferred from Theresienstadt to Auschwitz, together with the leaders of Czech
Jewry, its writers, actors, musicians, sportsmen, singers, youth leaders, children, and their parents. Heroes of World
War I, Jews from Denmark and Holland, and members of mixed marriages were included in this last transport, and
were killed in the gas chambers of Birkenau on the night of October 28, 1944, a day of national celebration for the
Czech parliament of Masaryk. After that, the gas chambers of Auschwitz ceased to function.
GERHART HAUPTMANN (1862–1946): Writer, poet, and playwright, Hauptmann was one of the greatest modern Ger-
man writers. Unlike other German writers and thinkers, he did not leave Germanywhen the Nazis came to power,
expressed no reservations about the Hitler regime, and did not utter a word of protest.
“Such is Jewish fate. Professor
Aron has died here (in the
ghetto of Theresienstadt) at the
age of 86. After the Great War
(World War I), the French im-
prisoned him at Strasbourg, on
the grounds that he sympa-
thized with the Germans. He
remained some time in prison
and then the French deported
him to Germany. Until 1936, he
was a university professor. One
of his sons was an o¥cer on the
Eastern front. One of his
daughters emigrated to Israel,
the second was sent with him to
Theresienstadt. Jewish destiny:
one son fought the Bolsheviks,
one daughter came to Israel.”
—gonda redlich,
Life as If (a diary)
THE FINAL SOLUTION: The German
plan for the destruction of the
Jewish people. According to
Hitler’s fundamental belief, it
was necessary to find a “revolu-
tionary” solution for the Jewish
problem. Either Reinhard Hey-
drich or Adolf Eichmann coined
the label “the Final Solution.”
When, in the summer of 1941, it
was decided that the Jews should
be murdered and the extermina-
tions were already at their height,
a conference was convened at
Wannsee, a suburb of Berlin, in a
building that served as the Ger-
man branch of Interpol. Its aim
was interdepartmental coordina-
tion for the continuation and
expansion of the policy of mur-
der. Responsibility for carrying
out the Final Solution was placed
on the leader of the SS (the
Reichsführer SS). It was at the
Wannsee Conference that the de-
cision was made about the means
of carrying out the annihilation,
and authority for its implementa-
tion was placed in the hands of
Eichmann and his command.
The Nazis strove to carry out the Final Solution• with-
out compromise, to destroy the Jewish people in its
entirety, to wipe it o√the face of the earth. And if their
plan failed, by a little or a lot, it is not their fault. A sti√-
necked people is not easily destroyed. . . .
The Nazis were not content with the death of the Jews,
with su√ering and humiliation. Theywanted the victims to
believe that they were rightly despised, that their deaths
had no meaning just as their lives were not sacred.•
But among the Jews there were teachers and educators,
a fact which escaped the notice of their murderers; from
the days when the Temple still stood, Jewish sages had
declared the right and obligation of every Jew to an educa-
tion. In so doing they had preceded most of the nations of
the world by fifteen hundred years. Since that time every
Jewish boyat the age of three was alreadystudying with his
rabbi and no ideal was more binding upon a Jewish family
than the education of its children. Even within the ghetto
walls instruction did not cease.• The teachers were
THE FINAL SOLUTION:
Q: Wasn’t the Final Solution the
realization of the racist theories
that the Nazis had advocated
from the very beginning?
A: The germ of the plan for the
destruction of European Jewry is
to be found in Hitler’s Mein
Kampf and in his speeches in the
Reichstag, but the intent went
through various stages before it
was put into e√ect. Until the
beginning of 1939 at least, Hitler
said nothing, neither in print nor
in speech, about what he wanted
to do with the Jews. If a plan
for murder had taken shape in
his mind, he did not share it
with those around him.
Q: In other words?
A: In order to carry out such an
appalling, murderous plan, wide-
spread favorable conditions were
required, which were hard to
imagine.
Q: Such as?
A: Firstly, the denial of all rights
of the Jews, the repeal of Emanci-
pation. This meant the coopera-
tion of jurists, lawyers’ o¥ces, the
ministries of justice and the inte-
rior. Secondly, the removal of
Jews from the economic system,
the theft of the property of mil-
lions of Jews, the confiscation of
their homes and businesses. So
businessmen also took part, in-
dustrialists, bankers, manufac-
turers, trade unions, civil authori-
ties, as well as the police and
their ancillary units, clerks at
every level, and janitors—for
whom personal profit was no
small motive in the process of
confiscation. Thirdly, social and
physical isolation.
Perhaps even before all this,
there was total elimination of
Jews from all fields of culture, art,
science, and education. This
involved the cooperation of pro-
fessors, managers of theaters and
orchestras, writers, and poets.
And their removal from a¥lia-
tions they had had.
Q: How many railway workers,
engineers, linesmen, transport
o¥cials, squads of escorts, and
such were required for the elimi-
nation of the Jews?
A: We haven’t yet mentioned the
builders of the camps, the manu-
facturers of the gas, the suppliers
of machinery for forced labor, the
furnace engineers, and finally the
direct perpetrators of murder.
Q: And what about the neigh-
bors, who closed their eyes
whether in consent or out of im-
potence and the convenience of
nonintervention?
A: Yes, they too. In other words,
throughout this whole terrible
process of carrying out a plan
with no precedent in human his-
tory, a part was played, active or
passive, by the broadest sectors of
the German people.
Q: And other peoples?
A: And other peoples.
“In a submerged room within
the walls of the ‘Cavalier’ bar-
racks there is a faint light, a
smell of urine and physical and
spiritual pollution. But the seed
of artistic inspiration does not
perish, not even in the mud and
the mire. There too it sprouts
and gives forth blossom, like
stars shining in the darkness.”
—peter ginz (age 13), in the
ghetto of Theresienstadt
PETER GINZ: A promising young
artist who was killed in the gas
chambers of Auschwitz. Ginz
was 11years old when World War
II broke out. In the Theresien-
stadt ghetto he edited a
children’s newspaper for which
he wrote and drew illustrations.
When he reached the age of Bar
Mitzvah, he wrote a novel based
on the events of the time. (The
manuscript is held in the
museum at Terezin. Drawings
and etchings from his prolific
writing have survived and are on
exhibition at Yad Vashem in
Jerusalem.)
13
• The First Scroll: Preludes to Darkness •
12
• Prologue: Countdown or the Corridor of Lost Alternatives •
precisely those who had taught in the schools that had
been destroyed, and the youth leaders were those young-
sters who had been the pride of the pioneer youth move-
ments. It was they who improvised an organized frame-
work,who set up classes within the walls, finding chalk and
notebooks, and candles for lighting. Only their mission
was di√erent. They no longer saw their role as imparting
knowledge or preparing their pupils thoroughly for the
matriculation examinations . . . but to give them something
vital for their very existence. They did not declare from
their raised dais that the main thing was “to stand firm.”
Quietly and consistently they tried only to insist on the
principle of sustaining the terrified spirit with a life of
meaningfulness, the meaning of being a Jew, even on the
brink of extinction. They had no time to convene confer-
ences. They received no authorization of credentials or cir-
cular letters from any government ministries of education.
As if with one common purpose, illegal educational insti-
tutions were established within the walls of the Vilna
ghetto and the death camp of Buchenwald.• In due course
they were set up in the displaced persons camps in Ger-
many and in the internment camps on Cyprus. No matter
how scattered and isolated, teachers answered the call of
their
consciences: Yitzhak
Katznelson,•
Emmanuel
Ringelblum,• and Josef Kaplan• and dozens of their
comrades in the Warsaw ghetto; Gonda Redlich• in There-
BUCHENWALD: A concentration
camp, situated in central Ger-
many, near Weimar. It was estab-
lished in the summer of 1937. At
first only political prisoners were
sent there. In 1938, it began to
receive Jews, who were brought
en masse after Kristallnacht. In
all 238,989 prisoners reached
Buchenwald. Most of them were
forced to work in the German
armaments industry or in the
mines. The SS men at Buchen-
wald displayed a particular
measure of cruelty and blood-
thirstiness.
YITZHAK KATZNELSON (1886–
1944): Katznelson was born in
White Russia, in the district of
Minsk. From his youth, Katznel-
son wrote poetry in Hebrew and
Yiddish. He also wrote plays and
poems, some of them on biblical
topics. Katznelson was very active
in education and wrote books for
children. At the outbreak of the
war, he and his family moved to
Warsaw, and in the ghetto there
he ran a drama group, taught in
the underground high school,
and helped with the newspaper.
His biblical drama, Job, was pub-
lished by the underground press.
Together with his son Tzvi, he
took part in the first armed clash
between the Jewish Fighting Or-
ganization and the German con-
querors in the Warsaw ghetto, in
January 1943. On the previous
evening he had given an inspir-
ing speech to his comrades. He
wrote of this in his great poem,
“The Song of the Murdered Jew-
ish People.” After the uprising he
was arrested and imprisoned. He
tried to maintain contact with his
friends, but was sent to some un-
known destination and all trace
of him was lost.
EMMANUEL RINGELBLUM (1900–1944): Born in Buczacz, Ringelblum went to Warsaw in 1920 and studied history at
the university, devoting his leisure time to cultural activities for youth. He wrote for the press and taught evening
classes for workers. He received his doctorate in 1927. Ringelblum maintained contact with YIVO in Vilna and
worked as a high school teacher. There he worked for the “Joint” and was very active in finding productive
employment for poor Jews. He also wrote and published manyworks of scholarship. From the outbreak of the war,
he was one of the active leaders of the “Joint” in Warsaw, representing them at the head of social work projects,
especially ghetto housing committees, and joining the Jewish Fighting Organization. It was his energy and devo-
tion that led to the establishment in the ghetto of the underground archives, which collected all the documents
concerned with the martyrdom of Polish Jewry. After the crushing of the Warsaw ghetto uprising, the Nazis
GONDA REDLICH (1916–1944): Born in Ullmitz (Olomaicz), Moravia, Egon
(Gonda) Redlich studied law and believed in Zionism and self-realization.
In the autumn of 1940, at the time of the German occupation, he was vice
principal of the Youth Aliyah school in Prague. He was sent to Theresien-
stadt, where he was very active in youth education. While at Theresien-
stadt, he kept a diary in Hebrew from 1942 to 1944. The diarywas pub-
lished in Hebrew under the title ayyim Ke’ilu (Life as If, Ha-Kibbutz
Hame’u˙ad, 1984). In 1944, Redlich was deported to Auschwitz. Czech
building workers found the diary in its hiding place in 1967.
sienstadt. And when one was taken o√to his death, others
took his place. The Hebrew teachers taught in Hebrew and
the Yiddish teachers taught in Yiddish and the average
teachers, who came from private schools where Jews were
taught in the language of the state, taught Jews in the
ghetto, men and women, in Polish. And the Germans took
the teacher Morgenstern, not because he had a teaching
certificate but because he lacked his yellow certificate.
They took Morgenstern and his daughter Cherna on the
same day. An autumn breeze was blowing outside, and
they stood arm in arm, father and daughter. Morgenstern
means “morning star” and Cherna was his only daughter—
until they were separated at the gate by a gesture from a
finger in a leather glove.
deported him to a con-
centration camp at Travniki (a
village near Lublin). With the
help of the Pole, Theodor Fayev-
ski, the underground rescued
him from there. He secretly
returned to Warsaw and contin-
ued to work on the collection of
invaluable material documenting
the destruction of Polish Jewry
during the war. When the Ger-
mans discovered the shelter
where he, his wife, and his son
were hiding, they arrested him
and 35 other Jews, and tortured
and then murdered them in the
notorious Pawiak prison.
YIVO: Initial letters of Yidisher
Visenshaftlicher Organizatsye,
the principal world organization
for the preservation of Yiddish
culture and research in Yiddish
language and literature. It was
founded in Vilna in 1925, and has
been in New York since 1940.
THE “JOINT”: The Joint Distribu-
tion Committee—in full, the
“Joint Distribution Committee of
American Funds for the Relief of
Jewish War Su√erers,” the lead-
ing American Jewish relief
organization, founded on No-
vember 17, 1914, during World
War I.
JOSEF KAPLAN (1913–1942): Kaplan was born in Kalisz and studied at a ˙eder, a yeshiva, and a Hebrew high school.
He joined Ha-Shomer Ha-Tza‘ir and became an active youth leader and member of the group’s directorate. He
traveled the length and breadth of Poland organizing seminars, summer camps, and kibbutz training camps. He
waived his right to immigration out of devotion to the movement and its activities. A humble man with simple
ways, Kaplan spoke little and did much, and knew how to work under conditions of hunger and penury. He
became very active in the underground, maintained contact with Jewish institutions and distant branches of the
movement, and saw that there was material assistance for those in need. He became a father figure to the Zionist
movement in its most di¥cult days. Kaplan wrote many letters, which were smuggled out through Switzerland,
and published the movement newspaper Neged Ha-Zerem (Against the Stream). Despite his Jewish appearance, he
took the risk of traveling all over occupied Poland in order to keep constant contact with movement members and
encourage them. Kaplan was a central figure in the leadership of the Jewish Fighting Organization in Warsaw
from its establishment in July 1942. Part of his work involved the forging of documents, and his role in this was
discovered when one of the holders of these documents, captured by the Germans, broke down under torture.
Kaplan was arrested in Septem-
ber 1942, and despite attempts to
free him, he was executed in the
Pawiak prison.
15
• The First Scroll: Preludes to Darkness •
• CHAPTER ONE •
The Man
with His Head
on the Block
Continues to Hope
Name? asked the interrogator.•
I told him my name.
Born?
I said: yes.
I mean when!
I gave the date.
Religion?
That’s notyour concern.
So, a Jew!
ERICH MÜHSAM (1878–1934): Awriter and politician who was a German
Socialist with Communist-anarchist views. Mühsam, along with other
Jewish intellectuals Gustav Landauer and Ernst Toller, was a participant
in the revolutionary government of Bavaria under the leadership of Kurt
Eisner, which was set up at the end of World War I. Mühsam was mur-
dered by the Nazis after being tortured in the camp of Oranienburg.
KURT EISNER (1867–1919): German writer and political leader who was the
son of a Jewish industrialist from Berlin. In 1917, he took part in the
founding of the Independent Socialist Party (USPD). With the collapse of
the imperial regime, he became head of the revolutionary movement, and
was then elected prime minister of the Revolutionary Government of
Bavaria by the council of workers, farmers, and soldiers on November 8,
1918. Eisner strove for Bavarian autonomy and fought against German
nationalism. His opinions, his actions, and his Jewishness caused a furor
in Germany. In the wake of anti-Semitic and nationalist incitement, his
partywas roundly defeated in the elections and he was murdered on Feb-
ruary 21, 1919, by Graf Arco-Valley of the Freikorps, a forerunner of Hit-
ler’s storm troops.
“THE INTERROGATION”:
From a poem by Erich Mühsam.
The title of this chapter, “The
Man with His Head on the Block
Continues to Hope,” is taken
from the writings of the German-
Jewish writer and critic Walter
Benjamin.
WALTER BENJAMIN (1892–1940):
German philosopher and literary
critic. During World War I Ben-
jamin made no secret of his
pacifist views. He studied philos-
ophy at several universities in
Germany and Switzerland. On
finishing his studies in 1920, he
settled in Germany, where he
lived until 1933.
Benjamin is considered one of
the great philosophic commenta-
tors on German literature. From
1929, he was closely associated
with Bertolt Brecht and the Com-
munists, and interpreted the
theories of Karl Marx. With the
rise of the Nazis, he fled to Paris.
There he was arrested as a
German citizen and held under
supervision until 1939. Before
the German occupation of
France, he fled south to Nice
with a group of refugees, intend-
ing to cross the frontier into
Spain. When the Spanish Border
Police threatened to send them
back the way they had come,
Benjamin took his own life.
GUSTAV LANDAUER (1870–1919):
German-Jewish writer and
thinker and holder of anarchist
views. In 1919, he was appointed
minister of culture in the revolu-
tionary government of Kurt Eis-
ner in Bavaria. After a short time
he resigned in protest against the
violent methods of the new
regime, which were carried out
by the Communists. When the
regime was suppressed, he was
murdered by the soldiers who
took him prisoner.
ERNST TOLLER (1893–1939): Ger-
man writer and revolutionary
born to a Jewish family. When
World War I broke out, Toller
volunteered for the army, fought,
and was wounded and released
as a disabled veteran in 1915. The
war had a traumatic e√ect upon
him and turned his views upside
down. In 1919 he joined the lead-
ership of the Socialist Republic
of Bavaria. After the suppression
of the revolution, he was arrested
and sentenced to five years im-
prisonment.
He fought for the Republicans
in Spain (1936–1939) and never
gave up his war against Nazism
and Fascism. His disappoint-
ment with the Communist move-
ment and dismay at the victory of
Franco in Spain cast him into a
profound depression. He took
his own life in New York.
17
• The First Scroll: Preludes to Darkness •
16
• Chapter One: The Man with His Head on the Block Continues to Hope •
Dinslaken, August 18, 1935
My dear son,
You’re lucky you’re not in Germany at this time. But
you’re not exempt from knowing what is going on in our
native land. Our neighbor, Oscar Hermann, has been dis-
missed from his job. For thirtyyears we have seen the man
working hard in the interests of the city as headmaster of
the Wilhelm High School and as the organizer of profes-
sional courses,which were famous throughout the land. He
has educated thousands of young people, Jews and non-
Jews, to a life of productivity, to what should be a life of
happiness. This fine scholar who despite his origin—from
Russian Galicia—quickly became editor of our splendid
scientific encyclopedia, thanks to his elevated German
style and his many books on botany and mathematics,
which are a credit to our scientific establishment, has been
fired. I knew, of course, that Dr. Hermann held socialist
views, but he was totally nonpolitical, a pure intellectual,
with a fine mind, a man of integritywho sought justice.
As you know, he was our neighbor for manyyears before
you went to study in France, and his wooden leg is a sou-
venir of his patriotic service in World War I; if I’m not mis-
taken, he lost his leg at the Battle of Tannenberg.
One of our hooligans yelled at him one day on the
trolley car, “Dirty Jew! Disabled or not, you should get up
for a German!” and kicked the good doctor o√the trolley
car (fortunately the carwas slowing down before a stop); it
was Oscar Hermann who was ashamed to admit to his wife
what had happened, and explained away the mud smeared
on his coat as just a fall. My God! What kind of mud are
they pushing us into?
With much love,
Father
REPRESSION SWELLS
MARCH 9, 1933: The beginning of
anti-Jewish riots in Germany by
storm troopers (SA) and the
Stahlhelm organization. APRIL 1,
1933: Anti-Jewish boycott in Ger-
many. APRIL 7, 1933: Jews in Ger-
many are forbidden to work in
government o¥ces. APRIL 21,
1933: Jews in Germany are for-
bidden to practice ritual slaugh-
ter. OCTOBER 17, 1933: Jews in
Germany are forbidden to work
for newspapers. MAY 31, 1935:
Jews are forbidden to enlist in
the German army. JUNE 1935:
Anti-Jewish riots occur in
Poland. DECEMBER 1935: Riots
against the Jews take place at
Polish universities; Jewish stu-
dents are allocated special
benches. MARCH 3, 1936: Jewish
doctors (3,152 in number) are
forbidden to work in public
health institutions in Germany.
MARCH 9, 1936: Anti-Jewish riots
occur in the Polish town of Paszi-
tik. DECEMBER 3, 1938: Jews are
excluded from the German econ-
omy. JANUARY 1939: A law is pro-
posed in the Polish parliament to
deprive Jews of citizenship. JANU-
ARY 30, 1939: In the Reichstag,
Hitler threatens to destroy the
Jews of Europe. FEBRUARY 9, 1939:
A law in Italy reduces the eco-
nomic activity of the Jews. APRIL
18, 1939: Anti-Jewish racist legis-
lation is enacted in Slovakia. MAY
3, 1939: A law is passed in Hun-
gary instituting a numerus
clausus, a quota, restricting the
participation of Jews in the free
professions.
Once the Nazis rose to power, they immediately began to implement their racist theories. Henceforth, blood and
race were the criteria for German citizenship, and the expulsion of Jews from public life became a top level prior-
ity. This is the sequence of decrees enacted against the Jews of Germany up to the outbreak of World War II:
expulsion of Jewish judges from the courts in Frankfurt and Breslau; expulsion of Jewish doctors from public
service; riots in Berlin and provincial cities; a numerus clausus (quota) for Jewish students at the universities; eco-
nomic boycott; expulsion of Jewish artists from national associations; and the Nuremberg Laws.
NUREMBERG LAWS: From September 8–14, 1935, the Freedom Convention of the Nazi Party met in Nuremberg. At
this convention two laws were ratified whose main purpose was to harm the Jews: a Citizenship of the Reich Law
and a Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor. The first law revoked civil equality, which had
been granted to the Jews during the period of the Emancipation; the second law gave o¥cial authority to racism
and on grounds of principle separated the Jews from the rest of the population.
JEWISH RESPONSES
JANUARY 30, 1933: Establishment
of the Association for Aid to
Jewish Youth in Berlin. MARCH 27,
1933: The American Jewish Con-
gress holds a mass demonstra-
tion in New York in protest
against Nazi terror in Germany.
APRIL 4, 1933: “Wear Your Yellow
Patch with Pride,” an article by
Robert Waltsch is published in
Jüdische Rundschau, the Ger-
man-Jewish Zionist newspaper.
It is the first in a series titled
“A¥rm Your Jewishness.” These
titles became rallying cries for
the Jews of Germany. APRIL 26,
1933: Decision by the National
Committee of Jews in Palestine
to set up a project for absorbing
immigrants from Germany. MID-
MAY 1933: Members of Jewish
delegations to the League of
Nations present a petition con-
cerning discrimination against
Jews in Germany (the Franz
Bernheim Petition). MAY 20, 1933:
Jews of Paris meet in a mass rally
to protest against the anti-Jewish
campaign in Germany. JUNE 27,
1933: The Jews of London hold a
mass anti-Nazi protest rally.
AUGUST 10, 1933: The American
Jewish Congress declares a boy-
cott of Nazi Germany. FEBRUARY
1934: Kibbutz Ein Harod absorbs
the first group of Jewish boys,
refugees from Germany. FEBRU-
ARY 4, 1936: David Frankfurter
attempts to kill Wilhelm Gustlof,
the leader of the Swiss Nazi
Party, in revenge for the persecu-
tion of Jews in Germany. MARCH
17, 1936: Jews in Poland, with the
participation of Poles from lib-
eral and left-wing circles, con-
duct mass demonstrations in
protest against the riots in
Poland. JUNE 30, 1936: Jews of
Poland conduct a general strike
in protest against anti-Semitism.
DECEMBER 1938: Aliyah Bet
(organized illegal immigration) is
established in Palestine. JANUARY
1939: German Jews begin immi-
grating illegally to Palestine. By
the end of 1940, 27,000 immi-
grants had reached Palestine
from greater Germany.
Dinslaken, Tuesday, November 9, 1938
My dear son,
The stranger slipped into my o¥ce like a cat. I could see
from his face at once that he was a Jew. He said, “I’m the
head of the congregation at Dusseldorf. I spent the night in
the railway station waiting room at Gelsenkirchen. Please,
let me into the orphanage. Just for a little while. Maybe I’ll
find a wayout. They’re arresting Jews everywhere. The syn-
agogues are going up in flames.”
I listened with growing fear. Before I could get up and
say something, the man stepped back and cried in a bro-
ken voice, “No! I won’t come in! There’s no safety here
either. We’re all lost!”
I saw him vanish in the heavy mist that covered the
road, and he never came back.
There’s someone at the door. More tomorrow.
Father
My dear Heinz,
You’ll be surprised, no doubt, when I tell you that I managed by great e√ort to show no
sign of emotion. This was the onlyway I could prevent panic from breaking out among the
children and the sta√. At the same time, I decided I could not leave the children without
some preparation for what is going to happen.
That evening I assembled in the dining hall our forty-six sta√members and two-thirds
of the students. It was 7:30 and I told them briefly, in dry tones:
“Yesterday, as you know, a member of the German Embassy in Paris by the name of vom
Rath was murdered. Responsibility for the murder has been placed upon the Jews. All the
great political tension is being vented on the Jews alone, and it will no doubt reach a peak
in the next few hours. My feeling is,”I said,“that the Jews of Germany are in for hard times,
worse than anything they have known since the Middle Ages. Be strong hearted, and trust
in God.”
As I was finishing a squad of marchers passed by outside and their raucous singing was
heard within. I heard our teacher’s assistant, a young lad who had only recently been taken
on, join in singing, humming to himself—in my presence—the “Horst Wessel Lied.”•
“What is this?” I asked in shock.
I ordered everybody to go to the upper rooms, and no one but me was to open the front
door, “and from now on, obey my instructions alone!” At 9:30 in the morning there was a
ring of the bell at the entrance gate to the Dinslaken Orphanage. I opened the gate; no less
than fifty men, most of them in high-necked tunics, burst in. Pushing me to one side, they
ran to the dining hall, which was empty, and began their systematic work of destruction.
From upstairs could be heard the scared voices of the children. I called out to them, “Boys!
Outside immediately! Everyone! Into the street!”
I did this in violation of the orders of the Gestapo. I hoped that in the street, in a public
place, we would be in less danger. The children followed my instructions with exemplary
dispatch. They streamed down the winding staircase to the back of the building. Most of
GERMANY’S ANNEXATIONS
AND ALLIANCES
OCTOBER 14, 1933: Germanywalks
out of the disarmament talks at
the League of Nations, and five
days later leaves the League.
JANUARY 26, 1934: Germany and
Poland sign a pact of nonaggres-
sion. JULY 25, 1934: The Nazis
attempt a coup in Austria; Dol-
fuss, the Austrian prime minister,
is murdered. JANUARY 7, 1935: The
Franco-Italian Treaty is signed in
Rome. The signatories are Mus-
solini and Laval. JANUARY 13,
1935: The Saar region is annexed
to Germany. MARCH 6, 1935: Com-
pulsory military service is re-
newed in Germany, in flagrant
violation of the Treaty of Ver-
sailles, signed at the end of
World War I in 1919. OCTOBER 3,
1935: Italy invades Abyssinia. MAY
2, 1936: The Italian army occupies
Addis Ababa, the capital of
Abyssinia; three days later
Abyssinia surrenders. JULY 26,
1936: Germany and Italy begin
their military intervention in the
Spanish Civil War. AUGUST 25,
1936: The Italian-German Treaty,
which established the Rome-
Berlin Axis, is signed. JULY 7,
1937: Japan invades China. NO-
VEMBER 25, 1937: Germany and
Japan sign a political and mili-
tary treaty. MARCH 13, 1938: The
German Reich annexes Austria.
Vienna gives Hitler an en-
thusiastic welcome. APRIL 26,
1938: Regulations are put into
e√ect concerning the confisca-
tion of Jewish property in Ger-
many. AUGUST 1, 1938: The
Bureau for Jewish Emigration is
established under the command
of Adolf Eichmann. SEPTEMBER
27, 1938: Jewish lawyers in Ger-
many (1,753 in number) are for-
bidden from appearing in the
courts. SEPTEMBER 29–30, 1938:
The Munich agreement is
reached, with the participation of
British Prime Minister Chamber-
lain, French Premier Daladier,
Hitler, and Mussolini. England
agrees to let Germany annex the
part of Czechoslovakia known as
the Sudetenland. OCTOBER 1,
1938: Germany annexes the
Sudetenland. OCTOBER 5, 1938:
The passports of German Jews
are cancelled. OCTOBER 28, 1938:
More than 17,000 Jews of Polish
nationality are deported from
Germany to Zbaszyn on the Pol-
ish frontier. NOVEMBER 6, 1938:
Herschel Grinspan assaults Ernst
vom Rath, the secretary of the
German embassy in France. NO-
VEMBER 9–11, 1938: The Kris-
tallnacht riots occur in Germany
and Austria.
“HORST WESSEL LIED”: A German
song, which became the anthem
of the Nazi storm troopers and
was heard constantly throughout
Germany and occupied Europe.
The song includes the following
lines, “When Jewish blood is
spilled from the blade of the
knife / we feel twice as good.”
19
• The First Scroll: Preludes to Darkness •
18
• Chapter One: The Man with His Head on the Block Continues to Hope •
them were bareheaded and had not even taken their coats,
though it was cold and wet. I joined them and tried to lead
them to a busy junction, near the town hall.
About a dozen policemen were standing in front of us. I
ran toward them, intending to ask their help. Captain Frei-
hahn, whom I knewwell, quieted the crowd and called out
to me,“Don’t expect protection! Jews will get no protection
from us! Get away from here, you and your vermin!”
And the policemen barred our way and thrust us back.
“Better to kill me, and the children, and the nightmare
will be over!” I shouted at him.
“Take it easy!” replied Freihahn, a cynical smile on his
lips. He pushed the children onto a wet lawn in the
grounds of the orphanage and told us not to leave the
place: “That’s an order!” We could see how the Gestapo
were destroying the building, systematically, under police
supervision. Through the breaches in the wall, which
hitherto had been doors and windows, theywere throwing
out beds, tables, cupboards, pieces of piano, books. I saw my gramophone flying through
the air.
In the meantime hundreds of people were gathering around the building. Among them
were familiar faces, suppliers, craftsmen, friends.
They gazed at the spectacle with total indi√erence.
At 10:15 the sound of sirens split the air. Immediately, thick smoke could be seen above
the roofs: the great synagogue was on fire.
When huge tongues of fire and smoke were already billowing upward, the firemen came
in a hurry and worked hard to save from the fire . . . the houses of Christians in the vicinity.
Without mynoticing when or how it happened, Jewish refugees from other streets in the
area of the burning synagogue had been assembling in our school yard. Most were poorly
dressed women, but there were also men who up till nowhad somehowescaped arrest. Now
theywere ordered to abandon their homes and assemble in the school yard.
“What are you staring at these Untermenschen• for?” screamed the man in uniform as he
dispersed the crowd of curious spectators.
Our “family” had grown by ninety souls. We were packed indoors now, in one of the
small halls of the school. We were forbidden to go out.
We were soon informed that all Jewish males under the age of sixty were being trans-
ported to Dachau. The children’s turn would come later.
My son,
Do you remember, perhaps, a boywith a long face and a remarkably high forehead? His
name was Leo and I used to call him Leo der Junge, young Leo; I believed he was destined
for great things. . . .
Of course, I wasn’t thinking of Trotsky• but Leon Blum• . . . theytookyoung Leo with the
first group.
Itwas Herr Hugo Cohen—I’m sure you remember how he was always given a place at the
UNTERMENSCHEN (German): Sub-
humans. The Nazis used the
term with reference to Jews, Gyp-
sies, Poles, and at a later period
also for Soviet soldiers with
Mongolian or Tartar features.
The prayer below, composed by
Rabbi Leo Baeck for the Eve of
the Day of Atonement 5696
(1935), was banned by order of
the Gestapo. Dr. Baeck and Otto
Hirsch, the leaders of German
Jewry, were imprisoned. Here is
the prayer:
“At this hour the whole House
of Israel stands before God. With
the courage with which we stand
before Him to confess our sins,
as individuals and as a commu-
nity, with that same courage we
express our disgust at the lies
that are raised against us, at the
accusation that bears false wit-
ness against our faith; we have a
history of spiritual greatness, a
history of pride and glory of the
spirit, upon which we take our
stand when enemies and detrac-
tors would do us harm. God, who
guided our ancestors from gener-
ation to generation, will guide us
and our children at this hour; at
this time the whole House of
Israel stands before God—grief
and su√ering in our hearts. By
our silence, by this total silence
we express before God what is in
our hearts. May our silence cry
out more than anything we say.”
OTTO HIRSCH (1885–1941): Jewish
leader and chairman of the Cen-
tral Association for German Citi-
zens of the Mosaic Faith during
the Nazi period. Hirsch stood up
to the Nazi authorities with cour-
age and dignity. He was arrested
and perished in the camp of
Mauthausen.
TROTSKY (1870–1940): A Russian
revolutionary born to a Jewish
family, Lev Trotsky’s original
name was Lev Davidovitch Bron-
stein. Because of his activity on
behalf of the Russian Social
Democratic Party, Trotskywas
imprisoned, exiled, and
ultimately fled abroad before
president’s table at any important celebration, being the
only man in the town who had been awarded the Iron
Cross, First Class, for bravery in the War for the Father-
land—who led the men marching o√to Dachau, wearing
his decoration with pride. “Jewish swine, where did you
steal that medal?” With a single blow the SS man sent the
medal and its ribbon flying. The Iron Cross, worse luck, hit
the patently non-Aryan snout of the Sturmbannführer,•
who shouted, “Mutiny! The Jewish vermin are rebelling!”
A hail of blows from whips and truncheons fell on their
heads. The brow and face of old Hugo Cohen streamed
with blood. But he continued to march with dignity, as
though on parade for the last time. The day grew dark.
Everyone had been savagely beaten. That evening I tried, for
the first time in my life, to get drunk. I covered the win-
dows. The sound of the siren splashed against our window.
And all this, myson, is no nightmare. It reallyis happening,
here and now, on the soil of Germany, the warm and gener-
ous. . . .•
With much love,
Father
LEON BLUM (1872–1950): Franco-
Jewish statesman and writer who
stood at the head of the French
Socialist Party. Blum was the first
Jew to be elected premier of
France, at the head of the Popu-
lar Front (1936–1937). As pre-
mier, Blum passed numerous
amendments to the law for the
benefit of the workers. During
the German occupation he was
arrested by the Vichy govern-
ment (1940) and handed over to
the Germans. Blum was impris-
oned in Dachau (1942–1945)
because of his opposition to the
Petain government, which coop-
erated with the Germans.
COUNT FONTANA: “Pardon me,
Your Holiness. In Berlin I was
eyewitness to the loading of Jew-
ish children onto trucks by the
Nazis.”
The Pope (in anger): “Eyewit-
ness! Count, a diplomat must
look, see—and keep quiet!”
Before they could recover from
the riots, the Third Reich con-
demned the Jews to isolation and
exclusion by stamping the letter
“J” in their passports and per-
sonal documents, at the sugges-
tion of Dr. Heinrich Rothmund,
the chief of the Swiss police,
Aliens Division.
STURMBANNFÜHRER: An SS o¥cer,
equivalent in rank to a major.
The sentences italicized at the
end of the letter are lines of
poetry by Alfred Mombert and
Gertrud Kolmar, German-Jew-
ish poets of the period.
ALFRED MOMBERT (1872–1942):
Poet, philosopher, and naturalist
who lived in the town of Heidel-
berg. In 1933, with the rise of the
Nazis to power, Mombert was
removed from the German Acad-
emy for Language and Poetry
because of his Jewish origin.
Arrested and transferred from
camp to camp, Mombert finally
reached a detention camp in the
south of France. There he fell
sick, and his friends in Switzer-
land succeeded in obtaining his
release.
GERTRUD KOLMAR (1894–1943): A
Jewish poet from Berlin who is
considered one of the greatest
women poets in modern German
literature. Even though the Nazis
were rising in power, Gertrud
Kolmar remained in Berlin in
order to support her sick father—
until she was taken to Theresien-
stadt. She was arrested along
with the last Jews of Berlin, on
August 27, 1943, and sent to
Auschwitz, where she perished.
revolution. Trotsky held Marxist
views; he was at first a Menshe-
vik, but then joined with Lenin.
Trotskywas one of the leaders of
the Civil War, which broke out
after the October Revolution; he
founded and organized the Red
Army (1918–1920). After the
death of Lenin (1924), Trotsky
opposed Stalin, who worked to
have him removed from the
Communist Party (1927) and
expelled from the Soviet Union
(1929). In exile Trotsky set up the
Fourth Internationale (known by
its nickname, the “Trotskisti”).
He was murdered in exile in
Mexico by an assassin sent by
Stalin. To this day there are
groups of Trotskyites in the
world who preach his ideas of
ongoing revolution.