Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews, Peter Longerich [essential books to read TXT] 📗

cussed in the literature. 74 Here we will merely attempt to provide an overview of Jewish self-organization under the immediate pressure of persecution and locate

that self-organization within the history of Judenpolitik.

The economic consequences of the increasing ‘creeping’ exclusion of many

Jews from the economy, which set in at the end of 1936 after the ‘boycott’ had

already considerably undermined their economic situation, were particularly

grave. The considerable reduction of economic possibilities as a consequence of

exclusion now led to characteristic relocations of Jewish economic activity, for

example to their heightened activity as salespeople (until that profession came

under greater pressure from the authorities late in 1937), or the relocation of

businesses to homes and thus to typical poverty careers. 75

Through the discriminatory measures in the economic field something like an

autonomous Jewish business cycle came into being: Jews were increasingly forced

to fall back on Jews as suppliers and customers, although that Jewish ‘internal

economy’ did not offer sufficient opportunities to make a livelihood; most busi-

nesses lived on their capital. 76 A closed Jewish labour market was supported by a Jewish labour exchange until it was closed down late in 1936. It was characteristic

of the Jewish commercial sector that the amount of credit provided by loan offices

increased steadily until 1936, while the activity of the agency that was supposed to

help with the reconstruction of livelihoods declined, since fewer and fewer Jews

wanted to engage in businesses. 77

Under the increasing pressure of exclusion on the one hand, and impelled by

Jewish attempts at self-assertion and self-organization on the other, an ‘autonomous

Jewish sector’ came into being, and not only in the commercial world, which

Interim Conclusions

87

facilitated survival for those Jews who had remained in Germany and gave them one

last means of support before complete impoverishment. As a result of segregation

something like a Jewish ‘public service’ came into being: Jewish health and educa-

tion, Jewish welfare, and social security78 reached a considerable size; a considerable administrative apparatus was maintained in the Jewish communities and in organizations such as the Central Committee and the Reich Board. The establishment of

Jewish institutions and the exclusion of Jews from the institutions accessible to the

general population occurred as a complementary process.

In 1935–6 the Reich Board of Deputies of the Jews in Germany (originally

founded, as an umbrella organization, as the Reich Board of Deputies of German

Jews, it had been obliged to assume this new name after the introduction of the

Nuremberg Laws in 1935) began to develop more collective places of education. 79

While it transpired that the redistribution of adults did not increase chances of

emigration to any significant extent, after 1935–6 these institutions undertook

above all the initial training of young Jewish people who were unable find an

apprenticeship, or whose training in the commercial professions preferred by Jews

seemed pointless.

By 1938 some 30,000 people had been trained in training farms and training

centres, two-thirds of them younger than 20. These included a considerable

number of young people who were able to train in agricultural professions outside

Germany. About 15 per cent of young people between 14 and 25 had thus been

covered by the educational measures by 1938.80

Finally, the construction of an autonomous Jewish cultural life made further

progress. 81 Alongside a sizeable Jewish press82 this found expression above all in the establishment of Jewish cultural organizations. March 1935 saw the foundation

of the Reich Association of Jewish Cultural Societies in Germany, under the

supervision of the Propaganda Ministry. With the appointment of Hans Hinkel,

the Commissar in the Prussian Ministry of Culture originally commissioned to

undertake the ‘Entjudung of cultural life’, as ‘Special Agent for the Cultural

Activity of all Non-Aryans’ in this ministry in July 1935, and through its simul-

taneous function as one of the managers of the Reich Chamber of Culture, a close

connection was established between the Entjudung of the general cultural indus-

try, and the construction of an autonomous Jewish culture was produced. From

August 1935 cultural associations had to become members of the Reich Associ-

ation, which thus became something resembling a Jewish Chamber of Culture. All

programmes of cultural events now needed—after being presented to the Reich

Association—permission from the Hinkel Office; organizers, performing artists,

and audiences had to be members of the Reich Association. In 1938 there were a

total of 76 cultural associations, involving about 50,000 people. The creation of an

efficient Jewish cultural organization was—and this connection should not be

overlooked—one of the preconditions for the exclusion of the Jews from the

general cultural life.

88

Racial Persecution, 1933–1939

The Jewish school system was considerably expanded under the pressure of

persecution. At the start of the Nazi era only around 25 per cent of Jewish primary

schoolchildren attended Jewish schools, about half each in private and public

schools. During the 1930s the following developments can be observed: the

number of Jewish primary schoolchildren declined overall, due to emigration

and the falling birth rate, while an ever greater proportion of Jewish schoolchil-

dren left general primary schools. The result of these movements in the Jewish

student body for the Jewish public schools was a steady loss of pupils; the number

of these establishments, most of which had been barely sustainable one-room

schools even before 1933, thus declined from 148 in 1932–3 to 76 in 1937. 83

The private Jewish primary schools, on the other hand, registered a constant

increase in pupil numbers, at least until 1938; later the figures fell again. The

number of these schools rose between 1933 and 1937 from twenty-seven to seventy-

two. 84 The number of pupils at the public secondary schools—ten schools in all—

increased slightly until 1937, while the role of the private Jewish secondary schools

remained insignifant. 85

In 1934 the Reich Board drew up guidelines for education in Jewish primary

schools, which were understood as a complement to the state curricula which were

also valid for the Jewish schools, and which effectively represented a compromise

between German-Jewish, Orthodox, and Zionist educational goals. 86 In 1937 the Reich Board issued new guidelines which took into account the altered outlook for

those Jews still living in Germany: unlike 1934, the emphasis was no longer on the

rootedness of Jewish culture in the German environment; instead the pupils’

orientation towards Jewish tradition and preparation for emigration, especially

to Palestine, 87 found expression, for example, in a larger amount of Hebrew education, a greater emphasis on sport and handicraft,