Dearest grandchildren,
As I began this post, I looked in my photos folder and online for a photo I was sure I had – that of the fiery red sky over Dresden in the distance, over a hillside. I couldn’t find that photo anywhere. Turns out, it doesn't actually exist. It’s a vivid picture only in my own mind, formed when Dad described his experiences on the night of February 13 – 14, 1945.
The bombing of Dresden killed at least 25,000 people. That’s about twice the population of Gig Harbor, where we currently live and about the size of many larger suburbs of Seattle and San Francisco, where you live. It’s still quite unfathomable to me… but so much of the destruction of WWII is.
In this post, Thomas describes that horrible night in Dresden and prepares us for what was to come in Chemnitz. And he again brings up an irony that has impacted generations of our family – the fact that Carl wasn’t deported along with the remaining Jews in Chemnitz.
Here are your great grandfather’s words:
The next few months in Meissen were bearable, not because living was any easier, but because it was becoming obvious, despite all the propaganda to the contrary, that the war was lost and the days of Nazi rule were numbered.
There was a popular quip: “Enjoy the war — peace will be hell!”
I felt I was floating down an increasingly turbulent and treacherous river. No one knew who would survive and who would not, but there was no escape. I’d have to navigate through the rapids as best I could and keep my head — and protect it.
Meissen is a small town about 30 km down the Elbe river from Dresden, and its pride and claim to fame is the manufacture of the fine ancient porcelain known in the US as “Dresden China.” Since there was no other industry, Meissen was relatively safe from air attack, so much so that people would hardly bother to go to the shelter when there was an air raid alert.
One such alarm came on February 13, 1945, a bright wintery day. The “Air Status Report” (given by a system that used the electric power grid rather than the air waves, in order to not provide a radio beacon to the enemy) reported that large numbers of aircraft had entered the air space of Saxony.
It was a spectacular and awesome sight.
Wave after wave of heavy bombers flew overhead -- hundreds of them, in perfect formation, undisturbed by anyone. Their only logical destination was Dresden, the Baroque pride of all of Germany, the “Florence on the Elbe River,” as it was affectionately called. Now, in February 1945, Dresden was the hub for all traffic to and from the east, beyond which lay nothing but the Russian front line. Everyone knew that the city was completely jammed with refugees from Silesia -- hundreds of thousands of people with carts and babies and bundles who were fleeing west in endless treks ahead of the rapidly advancing Russians. At the same time, Dresden was the staging center for troops and materials going east, supplying what was left of the disintegrating German army.
In the afternoon of February 13th, there could be no more doubt that Dresden was indeed the target. First, there was a column of smoke that rose up in the distance, growing thicker every hour. As night fell, the sky in the direction of Dresden turned color -- first a flickering yellow, then a dirty red, brighter and higher as the night went on. It was a firestorm feeding on itself, consuming everything in its path -- apartment houses, centuries-old churches, medieval books in museums, university laboratories... and ghetto houses filled with Jews.
Hell itself had come to this once proud and cultured city. Air raid sirens, not trumpets, had announced the Last Judgment, and it had come in the form of miles-wide carpets of bombs, incendiaries first, then a wave of explosives, then a wave of phosphorous that ignited anything it touched - roofs, wood, clothes, or flesh. By morning, the column of smoke stretched from one end of the horizon to the other, and the stench stretched 30 kilometers in every direction.
Three days later, on February 16, after serious air raids on Chemnitz, too, Father sent a cryptic message to Rainer and me: “Certainly, there will be many changes soon for both of you. Keep calm, because it all will all depend on the circumstances that are changing from day to day. One thing is clear: in times like these, every single person is on his own. We must try to stay in touch, especially if you are forced to make decisions on your own.”
I believe this was in reference to the last transport of remaining Jews from Chemnitz to Theresienstadt. The transport, according to research by Dr. Nitsche in 2009, consisted of 57 Jews still living in Chemnitz at this late date, just before the end of the war, namely:
- 20 Jews not in privileged mixed marriages, most of whom had no children;
- 26 Jews living in privileged mixed marriages
- 11 “Mischlinge classified as Jews[1]”
Father was not among these deported Jews. Those Jews were transported to Theresienstadt Camp in Czechoslovakia under the most chaotic circumstances at a time when it was about to be liberated by the Red Army. Every single one of those 57 Jews survived the war!
To this day, I do not know why my father was not included in this last transport from Chemnitz. An expert on the Jewish Mischlinge, Beate Meyer in Hamburg, told me it probably was because Ulli (and I, ironically!) were underage -- yet more than half of the 26 Jews from “privileged” marriages had children under the age of 18.
Was it because my father was widowed? Not at all likely. In fact, my mother’s death would have made my father’s transport more likely, as he was officially no longer married to a non-Jewish wife so he was no longer considered “privileged.” The Gestapo was not known to consider such human reasons.
Did the Nazi Waldemar Ballerstedt have anything to do with protecting my father? Even Ballerstedt himself who, in a 1957 letter to Rainer, made every effort to tell us how he single-handedly protected our father, said no word about this. In fact, he doubted that any such late transport even happened.
Rainer was sure that our father had received an order from the Gestapo early in 1945 that, according to Father’s investigations, could only mean Theresienstadt. On February 21, 1945, Father wrote to Rainer: “On the question of my Dienstverpflichtung (“Work Duty Order”), I haven’t heard a thing in the past three weeks. With all reservations, I can assume that I don’t have to count on that in the VERY immediate future.”
So WHY?
Dad. We talked about this. I have my own theory as to why Carl was not deported. I’ve discussed it before, and we’ll discuss it again today.
Did Father literally buy his freedom from persecution with large sums of money? Very unlikely for the simple reason that it would have been an illegal act, an act of lowering himself to the moral level of the oppressor, and anybody who knew Konsul Heumann knew he would not do that. And anyway, Father simply wasn’t rich enough to buy much of anything, let alone his freedom, after the Nazis confiscated most of what he owned.
I agree that this is unlikely. If it were true, a lot of wealthy Jews would have survived the Holocaust. Nope – wealth just meant more for the Nazis. No way is this the case, Dad. I agree with you.
Did Carl Heumann, being a titular Vice Consul of neutral Portugal, somehow use diplomatic immunity? Would the Nazis have honored this paper status, allowing my father to escape persecution? My only guess in this regard is that the Nazis knew that they would need the good will of neutral nations like Portugal or Switzerland after the war ended. But my father’s life being spared to this end seems unlikely to me.
Hmmm… interesting theory. I think this is a possibility, but also unlikely. I think neither fame nor fortune mattered to the Nazis.
I still think the reason Carl was not deported is because he had a secret protectorate – and I think that person was Waldemar Ballerstedt!
I do not know why my father was not included on the last transport from Chemnitz in February, 1945, and I probably never will. I only know this: his absence from this transport was the cause for the most absurd irony imaginable: if he had been on this transport, he, like all the fifty-seven others, would have been spared the agony of what was to come. Had my father been on this final transport, my life and the life of many others would have taken a very different turn.
This irony always causes me an existential crisis. These days, writing this blog, I almost feel that I know Carl, my Opa. But HAD he survived, I absolutely wouldn’t be alive. Even if my father had met my mother, I believe Carl would have talked him out of marrying her. My mom wasn’t the type of person Carl would have wanted his son to marry. Mom was spirited, opinionated, feisty, and she lived her life with a flippant “come-what-may” attitude. Rules? Those are meant to be broken! Carpe Diem! How different from Carl – the careful rule-follower who cared so much about what others thought -- can you get?!
Yeah, my life (and therefore yours, dear grandchildren) would have taken a very different turn – right into oblivion!
Three weeks later, on March 5, 1945, Chemnitz suffered the same fate as Dresden. Once again, the map of my life – and of so many other lives -- changed.
Now the war was coming home. Chemnitz, a sooty industrial center, was not in the same league as Dresden, but that’s where father was. That’s where my friends were. That’s where my home was. Reliable information was impossible to get now, as the mail service was practically nonexistent and the newspapers reported nothing but the bare minimum, namely that there had been a severe “terror” attack in Chemnitz. Between the lines of the military jargon and the pep talk, it was clear that the attack had been a bad one, a very bad one indeed.
[1] “Mischlinge of the first Degree” who were of Jewish religion, thus were “considered” Jews
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