Author: John Ashley Soames Grenville

Publisher:

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780415665865

Toward the end of the 19th century, Hamburg Jews were deeply embedded within the society of the city, proud of its liberal spirit; they contributed greatly to its wealth and considered themselves Germans. Relates the story of the Jewish community, interspersed with stories of many Jewish and mixed families, as well as of some non-Jewish bystanders. Although even in pre-1914 Hamburg there were barriers between Jews and Christians on the private level, and anti-Jewish prejudices persisted, it was the growing common preoccupation with race and eugenics that spelled real danger for the Jews. In Hamburg of 1919-32 the Nazis were still an insignificant force, but it did not need Nazis to establish growing anti-Jewish sentiments. Describes Nazi policies toward the Jews of Hamburg, the "Kristallnacht" pogrom, concentration of the city's Jews in "Jewish houses", and then the deportations to Minsk, Riga, and Theresienstadt in 1941-42, as well as Jewish reactions to all of these. 7,500 Jews were in Hamburg in July 1941; only 674 Jews, 631 of them in mixed marriages, remained on 30 April 1945. Believes that the Germans knew much about the mass killing of Jews in the "East", in particular because many business people of Hamburg visited the "East" and could see it. The Holocaust of the Hamburg Jews was facilitated by the overall indifference of the city's population. It was not just a Jewish civilization that the Nazis destroyed in Germany, but German civilization, of which it was a part.