Dearest grandchildren,
Thirty-one years ago, on November 9th, 1989, my twins Alex and Kat, were born in Oceanside, California. At the exact same time, across the world, the Berlin Wall was falling.
“Finally, Dad said, “GOOD things happen on November 9th!”
At that time, I knew very little about my father’s early life, let alone the meaning for him of November 9th. He describes it here:
November 9th was a Nazi holiday to commemorate the Beer Hall Putsch of 1923. The date has meanwhile entered history for even more sinister reasons. On the night of November 8-9, 1938, many Jewish homes were ransacked, possessions looted or trashed, and the owners arrested. It became known as Reichskristallnacht , or the “Night of Broken Glass.” On that night, the display windows in many Jewish businesses were smashed, and practically every synagogue in Germany was set on fire. “The German People’s hatred of the vicious baiting of Germany by the International Jewry became spontaneously fanatic” the Nazis publicly said. (The word “fanatic” had always been derogatory; until the Nazis made it heroic!) In reality, the “public outburst” was completely planned and coordinated nationwide long in advance. But the day before, conveniently, a Nazi in France had been killed by a Jew. So the whole nationwide act of arson could nicely be made to look like a “spontaneous outburst of the enraged German population!”
We knew better. Our house was located directly across the street from the Chemnitz synagogue on Stephansplatz, and every important room looked directly onto it.
This probably could have been taken from the front room of the Heumann’s house. What a beautiful and sacred building!
Thank you, EBay. (I think I’ll bid on this postcard!) The copy says: “Antique Postcard. Postmarked in 1903.The Liberal Synagogue on Stephanplatz on the Kassberg, formerly the center of Jewish life in Chemnitz. Founded in 1871, the modern community consecrated a prayer hall (on Neugasse) in 1878 and an actual synagogue (on Stephansplatz) in 1899; the Liberal synagogue, built in the Romanesque style, featured a cupola and a seating capacity of 700. In March 1933, SA men forced Chemnitz Jews to remove anti- Nazi slogans from buildings and pillars, soon after which, on April 1, 1933, the anti-Jewish boycott was implemented in Chemnitz. Violence erupted, and some Jewish-owned stores were damaged. In October 1938, 300 Polish Jews were expelled from Chemnitz. On the evening of November 9, 1938 (Kristallnacht, Night of Broken Glass or November Pogrom), SA men and local youths set the synagogue on fire, cheered on by a shouting mob. Jewish-owned stores were looted, windows were smashed and more than 170 local Jews were arrested and taken to Buchenwald. Of these, one was shot, and a few died either during or after their detention. The synagogue was "sold" in April 1939.”
Here’s another view, with the location of the Heumann house circled.
This monument (that’s my cousin, Claudia) is all that’s left at the location of that gorgeous synagogue. It’s heartbreaking.
My mother was on a trip to Italy that day, and we children were eating dinner with our father when we heard a commotion outside. I can still picture the alarmed expression on my father's face as we heard fire engines pulled onto our street. We ran to the window. Flames were coming from the synagogue! Father immediately told us to close all roller shutters on all the windows in the house, and to turn off all – yes, all! -- lights, to make the house look deserted. There was no discussion as to why; we simply did as we were told. In retrospect, it is clear that our father was very aware that the noose around the necks of Jews was being official tightened all the time, and on that day in particular. He knew what was going on. We did not. We only could see through he slits in the shutters that the firemen were dowsing the house next door to the synagogue, but not the synagogue itself.
Why??
For hours, we silently sat in the dark, motionless. No one wanted to talk, least of all Vati. He knew more than we did, and we knew he knew, but no one dared speak.
Can you imagine being ten years old and watching flames shooting violently from this enormous synagogue? I can only imagine that Thomas and his siblings (and their father!) must have been absolutely terrified. What was going ON?!
This is what…
The most important information came the next morning. My friend Zschorn, the one who always had all the answers, said he knew something I didn’t. "I know, because my brother is in the SA. He was in the group who set it on fire!" (Kids will brag to anybody to make themselves interesting, remember?) When I told that to Father later that day, he held me by both arms and said slowly and most earnestly: "Don't you ever repeat that to anybody!!" I didn't, but I wondered, and I did not understand. I believed Zschorn. He always knew.
Again, thanks to Google, I found some photos – not of what Carl and his kids observed that night, but of what greeted them when they looked out their window the next morning. Carl certainly knew exactly what was going on, and he knew what it meant for HIM.
Carl must have known what was happening in town too. It’s been said that if there was a specific day when the Holocaust began, it was this day. Until November 9, 1938, it was the drip, drip, drip that we spoke of previously. A decree here, a “law” (with quotes because it wasn’t a democratically created law) there. But something BIG just happened, and Carl knew it. Can you even imagine?!
Mother came back home the same day. Her explanation was that there was probably an electric short circuit that start the fire. But when we heard from kids in school that the display windows of stores in town had been smashed, we knew something was up. We knew that both of our parents, and especially Mother, seemed even more nervous and distracted. We knew there was something beyond asking, something secret, something we kids were not supposed to talk about.
For days – no, weeks -- the remnants of the synagogue were blasted and removed, piece by piece. Before each blast, the fireman's horn would sound, and I knew -- to Rainer’s amusement -- to lie on my bed and hold on to the headboard bars that Rainer began calling my “Angststange[1]”. The sound of the blasts was deafening and most frightening, and they went on for weeks, sometimes throwing chunks of brick into our yard, until nothing was left but a hole in the ground where the once majestic synagogue had stood.
(Cleaning up the rubble in Chemnitz. Photo from WikiMedia)
[1] “fear bar”
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