04.2 Hist 20 podcast: Hedda 1930-1939

Hedda in the 4th decade of the 20th C

Transcript

University of California UCOP | podcast 4.2

Hi there. Let's check in with Hedda again, shall we? This is the 1930s, and one of the great events in German

history were the Olympic games that took place in Berlin in 1936. Now, it was a grandiose event, something that

Hitler had hoped would showcase German athleticism and strength. And it was also grandiose because these are

the Olympic games where Jesse Owens won four medals for the US and essentially sort of became known as one

of the greatest athletes of all time.

I'm pretty sure Hedda didn't go to the Olympic games, and there are a couple of reasons for that. In 1933, after

Hitler came to power, [? Anst, ?] Hedda's husband, my great-grandfather, had lost his job because he was Jewish,

and the company he worked for was owned by a Jewish man. And this was simply no longer allowed to happen.

So he lost his job in '33, got another job in '35 for a non-Jewish company advising currency issues.

But Wolfgang, my great uncle, their son, had to leave school because he was Jewish. Robert too. And so they

both became apprentices at mechanic shops since they couldn't go to school anymore. And Ruth, my

grandmother, surprisingly could stay in school, but she had to go to a Catholic school. She couldn't stay at her old

school.

But things were certainly changing. And essentially everything had changed in 1933. But my great grandparents

just wouldn't believe it. Things were getting really bad, and both Hedda and Anst still thought-- or hoped it would

pass. Friends of Anst from the old army days tried to petition the German State to give him a dispensation from all

these constraints, in a sense this dispense him from being Jewish since he was a decorated German soldier.

But really it was a ridiculous thought. Why would the State make an exception? What were my grandparents

thinking? What, they were more German than others? They were more German than their other friends? That

they would get a dispensation that nobody else was getting? It was madness. It was absolute blindness.

They were so blind to what was going on, but in that sense, they weren't alone. There were many other Germans

who-- German Jews-- who just simply couldn't believe that they were no longer considered Germans in their own

country.

Some of Hedda's cousins did read the writing on the wall. And they started leaving Germany. Her cousin Walther--

Walter-- was offered a job at the University in Peking. He was a Sanskrit scholar, and he took the job. And he

essentially stayed there for the rest of his life. There's an entire Chinese side of my family.

And her cousin Robert flees to France, and an uncle of [? Anst, ?] [? Benno ?] Siegel, emigrates to Belgium. But

still, Anst and Hedda stay in Berlin until November 9, 1938, when the paramilitary wing of the Nazi party and aband of civilians were thrust into violent action across Germany.

This was the night that goes by the name of the [INAUDIBLE] Kristallnacht, the Crystal Night, the program against

Jews. They ransacked, attacked Jews. They destroyed Jewish homes and Jewish stores. People were pulled out

of their homes and beaten or killed. Property was destroyed and burned. only property that was owned by Jews,

in which Jews lived.

This unbelievable act of violence that literally lasted all night long, from November 9 through November 10, 1938

happened with not a single opposition from authorities-- from German authorities. They, in fact, let it happen and

doubled down. The next day, they rounded up approximately 30,000 Jewish men and sent them to concentration

camps. [? Anst, ?] Hedda's husband, and Wolfgang, her son, they were among those men. Wolfgang was a 16-

year-old boy, and with his father, they were both sent to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp 22 miles north of

their hometown.

These were the early days still, and Sachsenhausen was not an extermination camp. They hadn't started building

those yet. And somehow Anst and Wolfgang managed to get out. Not exactly sure how. Either because one of [?

Anst's ?] friends from the army finagled something or because Anst bought his way out. We don't know.

We don't have any sort of certainty about what the story is. But by December 15th, so almost more than a month

after they were rounded up, Anst and Wolfgang are home. But this is the experience that finally convinced Anst

that literally there was no future for them in Germany.

It also causes a psychotic break in Wolfgang. He would end up having schizophrenia for the rest of his life. So this

was a short month but a fairly significant one in their lives. Anst does not suffer a psychotic break. He puts all his

brain to figuring out this problem. Here, he is faced with a problem, and he's going to solve it. And he puts his

contacts and his networks and his money to work to find a way to leave and to figure out where to go.

This is still the period when the Nazis are happy to see Jews leave. After all, they haven't started a war yet. And so

any Jew that leaves has to leave all their property behind. So in that sense, A Jew that leaves is a lot of capital

that they can get their hands on.

Anst is trying to figure out a way in which they can avoid leaving officially so that they can take some of their

property with them. And the plan materialized. They will emigrate via Australia via the port of Antwerp in Belgium.

And once in Australia, they are going to set up a gas station and a mechanic shop where Wolfgang and Robert

would be able to essentially run the shop.

Plans are also in place to send Ruth to London, where she will stay with another cousin who had moved there

earlier and finished her schooling. And she's, in fact, sent off in February 1939. And on July 4th, the move foreverybody else is set-- Hedda, [? Anst, ?] Wolfgang, and Robert, as well as cousin Martha, a cousin of Hedda's,

and two more friends take the train to Aachen. This is in Western Germany.

And then they walk across the border. And by July 6th, they're in Brussels. In her pocket, Hedda is carrying a

letter from her mother, Jeanette. Jeanette had to stay behind in Berlin. She was still alive, as was her husband

Alexander. But he was too old and frail to travel by train and let alone walk across the border.

So Jeanette and Alexander are alone in the big house in Viktoria-Luise-Platz the house where Hedda was born.

They have no more help, because the German state has made it illegal for Germans to be employed by Jews.

And they are living in that big house on that big square in the city from which more and more of their friends are

fleeing.

And in the letter, Jeanette says goodbye to her daughter. She essentially admits that their relationship was

strained and that she wishes it hadn't been so. And that now she's saying goodbye forever, because she's most

likely never going to see her daughter again.

Hedda had left Berlin. She had left her home, and she had left her parents. And all of this was very explicit. This

was known. There was no secret about this. These weren't just temporary goodbyes. This wasn't like when she'd

gone to the Netherlands for the winter and would soon be back in Berlin. This was a final goodbye.

So it wasn't just a physical ordeal, it was an emotional ordeal. And Hedda and Anst and the boys stayed in a small

hotel to recover from that and to start planning for the next stage of the journey. They're going to get from

Brussels to the port of Antwerp and then from there, they're going to get on a boat and, with what they did

manage to take out of Germany, head to Australia.

So they're in Belgium in July 1939. About six weeks later, Germany attacks Poland on September 1st. Great

Britain declares war on Germany on September 3rd. France declares war on Germany on September 4th. And

with that, all the civil seafaring travel was canceled. That was it. No more passenger ships. So the Australian

migration plans are indefinitely interrupted. And Hedda and her family are now literally stuck in Belgium as the

Second World War erupts around them.

And that is Hedda in the 1930s. And I look forward to keeping you up to date on what happens to her and the

family in the 1940s next time.