A Child's Experience of Kristallnacht
Poetic Ethnographer: David I. Hanauer
Participant: Holocaust survivor
Project: Lived Holocaust experiences
Source: Hanauer, D. (2012) Living the Kindertransport: A poetic representation. Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies, 31 (1), 18-33
IV.
In Würzburg
there was a well-known Jewish teachers seminar
it’s very well-known
well known Jewish personalities teachers came from there.
And it was the morning for me to go to this particular building
And I went off, um, and went walked towards it
it wasn’t very far
and suddenly our car
my parents had a car
the car was an Adler
came up
and the chauffer that we employed, uh,
wearing a brown Nazi uniform quickly caught up with me,
got hold of me
and put me in the car
and said “under no conditions are you to go to the teachers’ seminar or anywhere near it,”
and he said
“I’ll drive you past it and I’ll drive you home.”
And he drove past it
and there they were
and they had taken all the books that were in the seminar, uh,
And they were burning it down
and he took me home
And my father had gone to the office
to his business to the factory
he didn’t know anything because
unlike other people,
we had the assistant there living at downstairs
he didn't want anybody,
you know,
coming into the apartment
breaking the windows
breaking the furniture
and having some screaming Jews come out
he wanted a peaceful
life
and so nothing happened.
So my father didn't know
when he found out what the chauffer knew
when he found out,
he asked the chauffer to take
my mother and myself to the office to the business
so we would all be together and not at home.
And, we were there
and after a little while,
the two gentlemen, uh,
who were the Gestapo came in
to the business and wanted to arrest my uncle and my father
My father told them that he was a war veteran and that he had a medal
they left him alone and they left my uncle alone
but my cousin
who was young, they took him.
V.
Later on,
my mother and myself went back to the flat
there was a knock at the door
and a cousin of mine,
with his father
wearing jackboots and brown trousers
came to stay with us.
He had heard about the Kristallnacht in the village
and he had been on the train
all the time moving around
so that he wouldn’t be caught
And he came and he said he was tired now
he had been moving around all day
could he stay there
he thought it might be safe.
After a little while towards the evening
another two gentlemen came to the flat
who were also Gestapo
and said “we’d like to wait for your,” to my mother,
“we’d like to wait for your husband”
in the meantime we had this cousin’s brother sitting in the toilet
locked
It’s a good thing that they didn’t have to go to the toilet
My father came home,
and, uh, they said to him,
“We're very sorry, but we have to take you into protective custody.”
And they took him
but they didn’t take him to a concentration camp
they took him to the prison in Würzburg.
the prison was at the end of what is called the Hofgarten
And everyday,
I can remember,
my mother and I walked, um,
through the park at a certain time
I don’t know how she got the message to my father,
but my father was at the prison window
when we walked past and we saw him.
And he was imprisoned for I think about two weeks
ten days or two weeks,
and then he was released.
after the Kristallnacht
we were asked to move from our very nice flat
to a not a ghetto
but a more Jewish district which was of lower value
and we moved there
They came and said
“you can no longer live here.”
somebody came and said out - “Raus”
I think it,
it was at this point that my parents decided
that um this was not a place
for their child that there was not much future.
I didn’t know that
I didn’t realize that.
