A personal memoir of Zippora Hess, born in Berlin, escaped
Nazi Germany at eighteen to Washington Heights, Rochester and
Boston before making aliya in 1984. We revisit Kristallnacht
through the eyes of this granddaughter of the longtime
shammos of the Breuer shul in Frankfurt.
"I'm not going to stay here! I've got a family!" Mutti cried,
as the crowd outside hooted and jeered. "You must come with
me! I cannot stay here and you have to come with me!"
For a long time, my elderly grandmother refused to listen to
my mother's pleas to leave her small apartment. This is how
old people are -- in times of emergency they cling to their
familiar possessions. No matter that her 76-year-old husband,
my grandfather, had been rudely awakened that morning and
dragged across the street by the Gestapo to watch his beloved
synagogue set aflame. The heat of the soon-to-be- inferno had
not yet reached their apartment on the top floor of the
imposing, revered shul, but my mother knew that she
must remove her mother to safety.
"You have to come with me!" Mutti pleaded and
insisted, pulling her frail mother by the arm. Finally, after
many entreaties, the older woman consented. She dutifully
followed her daughter down the back stairs and out the door
towards her other daughter's apartment in Frankfurt. Had
Mutti not happened to be visiting her parents for two weeks,
who knows what would have happened to my grandmother?
Outside, forced by the Nazis to stand and watch the
magnificent synagogue burn to the ground, my grandfather
witnessed the conflagration through tear- filled eyes. For
thirty-nine years, shammas David Ginsberger had
faithfully served the majestic IRG shul (Israelitische
Religions Gesellschaft), symbol of a proud kehilla
living by the legacy of R' Shamshon Raphael Hirsch through
his son-in-law R' Shlomo Breuer. Throughout the day,
firefighting units surrounded the burning building only to
make sure that the fire did not spread to neighboring
houses.
(As it happened, that fire did not extensively damage the
distinctive, impressive block-square edifice. Over the next
few days, the Nazis set new fires until the entire interior
was gutted. At that point, police ordered the kehilla
to demolish the building -- at the kehilla's own
expense -- because it was in danger of collapsing.)
My grandfather's ordeal did not end at the shul. The
Gestapo fanned out through the streets, arresting Jewish men
and boys on every corner, and brought them to a central
pickup point. My elderly grandfather was herded off with
everyone else to a deportation center. Destination:
Buchenwald, Belzac or Dachau.
As he stood in line inside the building, however, a high
German official spotted him and pulled him out of the line.
"Go home," he ordered the surprised prisoner. My grandfather
was even more amazed when he stepped outside the building: no
Gestapo or police were there to watch him leave! Probably,
the official arranged that no one would witness his
miraculous escape from the hands of the Nazis.
*
Three hundred and eighty kilometers northeast in the capital
city of Berlin, my father, sister and I were also caught up
in the drama of that infamous night and day which would be
forever remembered as Kristallnacht, the night of broken
glass.
At 3 o'clock in the morning, the ringing telephone pierced
the stillness in our apartment in the Schoenberg district.
Papa, vice president of our shul, received word that
it was on fire. He ran to his window and saw a Nazi galloping
on horseback towards another shul that belonged to the
Grossgemeinde (the government-recognized Reform Jews'
organization). Since that temple was located in a residential
area, the Nazi was racing to tell other Nazis not to set fire
to it lest the surrounding German houses also burn down.
We lived in a residential neighborhood, so the violence out
in the streets was not readily apparent. In the morning, my
19-year-old sister Rita went to work as usual at a
dressmaking factory. Suddenly, the girls in the factory heard
angry shouts and noise from the outside. They scurried to
hide in a small back room. In stormed the Gestapo, smashing
and destroying everything on the premises. Miraculously, the
girls in hiding were not discovered, and emerged only after
the gangsters finished their work.
During this period, a teenage girl from a small town who had
come to Berlin to attend the Jewish school, was boarding by
us. On the morning of Kristallnacht, after she left for
school, Papa received a call from the girl's mother. At 7
o'clock that morning, the doorbell had rung at the girl's
home. Her father had opened the door and the man on the
doorstep had shot him in cold blood, killing him
instantly.
It was a day of confusion, fear and terror. I was only 17
years old. In the afternoon I heard that the Gestapo was
going to Jewish homes and arresting all the men and boys. One
of our neighbors urged me to find my father and tell him to
hide from the Nazis. Where could he be? I thought he was at
the shul and ran out into the streets to find him.
People warned me to be careful, but I didn't realize what was
happening until I passed a street lined with Jewish stores.
The Gestapo and their accomplices were out in force, smashing
and destroying the whole line of shops. They ran amok on that
day. It was terrible to see how they actually reveled in
destroying the Jewish stores. They were laughing and joking
loudly. Little German children joined in the mayhem.
Our shul was aflame; Papa was nowhere in sight. Scared
and shaken, I retraced my steps and found him at home with my
sister. They were glad to see me, too, because they thought
the Gestapo had taken me in place of my father!
Back in Frankfurt, Mutti safely settled her parents at her
sister Henny's apartment. Then she ran to the train station
and embarked on an eight-hour train trip back to Berlin,
riding the whole night through. Hers was a nerve-racking wait
at the Frankfurt train station, as local Germans sat around
laughing about what had happened that day. They weren't
threatening Jews then, yet, but you never knew what would
happen the next moment as you sat there. Mutti braved the
trip, however, because she knew she was needed at home.
As soon as she arrived on the doorstep, Papa raced out of the
apartment without even saying `hello' or `good- bye'. He ran
down the stairs and went into hiding in an apartment of two
elderly people where the Nazis were not likely to look for
him. He remained in hiding for two weeks. Papa had not wanted
his two daughters to stay alone in the apartment when he
fled, so he risked his life to take care of us until Mutti
returned home.
Kristallnacht signalled the end of Jewish life in Germany.
The government-sanctioned destruction of some 7,500 Jewish
businesses; the burning and demolition of Jewish synagogues,
hospitals, schools, homes and cemeteries, and the arrest and
incarceration of 30,000 Jewish men and boys sent a clear
message to native German Jews that their country no longer
wanted them.
By 1939, approximately 300,000 German Jews had fled the
country. Another 150,000 managed to escape after the war
broke out. Left behind were 210,000 precious souls, of whom
more than 80% were murdered by the Nazi genocide machine.
[And those magnificent synagogues -- may their ruins be
transported from alien soil -- and rebuilt on holy soil, with
the speedy coming of Moshiach and the rebuilding of the Beis
Hamikdosh. Amen.]
