Anti-Semitism
In Wroclaw, as in other German cities, anti-Semitic moods also intensified at the end of the 19th century: hateful articles were printed in the press, racist lectures were given, and it was demanded to demote the Jewish teachers. Although a lot of Jews fought at the front, they were accused of disloyalty after World War I. The division of citizens and anti-Semitic attacks intensified – during the outbreaks of violence there were beatings, murders, shops were devastated. These moods, in consequence, translated into the election results, because in 1933 the inhabitants of Wroclaw cast more votes for the National Socialist party than the inhabitants of other large German cities. After the Nazis came to power, the most important Wroclaw officials quickly became zealous implementers of Adolf Hitler’s ideas, which made the campaign against Jews very intense. The KZ Dürrgoy, one of the first concentration camps for political opponents of Nazism, was established also in Wroclaw. The camp operated for a short time in the 1930s and was located in the present Tarnogaj housing estate.
Anti-Jewish riot
On 1 April 1933, the first nationwide anti-Jewish boycott took place in Germany. On that day also in Wroclaw the Nazis stood in front of Jewish shops with banners calling for a boycott. Similar actions were taken with regard to the services of Jewish doctors, lawyers and judges, while Jewish university professors were dismissed. The members of the NSDAP were perfectly prepared for this, as they had previously received brochures with lists of Jewish shops and the names of doctors. The Nazis often demanded ransom for the richest Jewish entrepreneurs.
This day began the darkest period in the history of Jews, the cruel end of which was the Holocaust. Increasing restrictions and the deprivation of basic rights were the first steps towards dehumanizing Jews and, consequently, their extermination. With each passing year, the anti-Semitic campaign in the public space was more and more brutal. The first attacks on the Jewish community may have seemed harmless, but in fact from the beginning the NSDAP policy aimed at getting rid of Jews from the Reich. Initially, Adolf Hitler tried to expel them from the country and from Europe, but to be able to leave, the Jews had to pay the so-called escape tax, so they were forced to leave all their property in their country of origin.
On 10 May 1933, another symbolic cut-off from the culture and intellectual output of Jews took place. In many German cities, there was the burning of Jewish books – many students joined in this action, supported by librarians and lecturers. Among the burned titles there were also works written in a socialist, pacifist, Marxist or religious spirit. In Wroclaw, a rally and burning were organized on the present Wolności Square, which is located in the vicinity of the Jewish commune to this day.
In 1934 “Der Stürmer” published an article in which he accused the Wroclaw Jews of ritual murdering of Christian children. Institutions, the media and ordinary residents regularly joined the anti-Semitic narrative of politicians and state administration. Propaganda was disseminated in the press more and more often. Numerous Nazi dailies fueled the hatred while praising the actions directed against Jews, for example the oldest Wroclaw newspaper, the “Schlesische Tageszeitung”, reported the destruction of the New Synagogue during Kristallnacht.
On 15 September 1935, the government passed the Nuremberg Laws, which initiated official, systematic, and national actions that discriminated against Jews in the Reich. The purpose of racial laws was for instance to deprive Jews of their citizenship so that they would not be legally protected. The new regulations also forbade mixed marriages or relations between Jews and the “master race”. The aim of the new legislation was to unequivocally and permanently eliminate Jews from social and economic life. The economic struggle, however, was nothing new – since the Nazis came to power, Aryanization began, aimed at forcing Jews to sell businesses, valuables and real estate for nothing. On the one hand, expropriation was to force them to leave the country quickly, and on the other hand, to allow to seize their property.
Deportation of Wroclaw Jews (Yad Vashem, Photo Archive, Jerusalem)
On the eve of the war
The next stage of policy radicalization and the introduction of further anti-Jewish laws began at the beginning of 1938. Jews had to e.g. register the value of their property, they could not conclude public procurement contracts, their children were expelled from public schools, and the Jewish communes lost their status as subjects of public law. This led to extreme marginalization and pauperization of the Jewish inhabitants of the Reich. That year, racial segregation began through giving Jews additional names: all Jewish men were given the name Israel, and women – Sarah. The Jews were also evicted from flats and placed in substitute housing. These and many other activities made them a weak, intimidated and impoverished minority on the eve of the war. Suicides often happened, and those who could afford it left – it is estimated that within a few years almost one hundred and fifty thousand Jews left the Reich. Kindertransport was an important form of saving Jewish children from the outbreak of war. These transports were planned by international organizations and governments of individual countries. Children without parents were sent, e.g. to Switzerland, Great Britain or France, where they were guaranteed refuge. However, from the beginning of the war, the emigration of Jewish residents was very difficult, and it became impossible from October 1941.
Kristallnacht
Kristallnacht was the beginning of uninhibited and everyday aggression towards Jewish citizens. The pogrom organized by the Nazis on the night of November 9-10, 1938, brought not only enormous social and economic repercussions, but also fatalities – ninety-one people were killed throughout the country, and over twenty thousand were arrested and transported to concentration camps. The Nazis carried out an organized and nationwide pogrom at night, during which militias devastated Jewish property – from shop windows, organizations and schools, to houses and synagogues.
The action was carefully planned and prepared in advance. At night, the Nazi militias waited only for a signal from the central authorities to start the pogrom. In Wroclaw, among others, over five hundred shops, ten inns and thirty-five enterprises and the headquarters of one organization were devastated. Moreover, the Nazis vandalized the White Stork Synagogue, the Jewish Theological Seminary and the National Synagogue. However, Kristallnacht’s biggest loss was undoubtedly the New Synagogue – the only case in a nationwide pogrom where militias used explosives to raze the house of worship to the ground.
After the events of Kristallnacht, no one had any doubts about an explicit policy towards Jews. With each successive month and each new law, their situation worsened, and the state’s policy effectively demoralized ordinary citizens, who assumed discrimination and aggression against Jews as right and necessary. In 1939, Jews were not allowed to use most public places, such as cinemas, libraries or theaters, even benches in Wroclaw parks were marked with the words “not for Jews”, while children were not allowed to use public playgrounds. Shortly thereafter, the Jews had to start wearing armbands with the Star of David, which resulted in direct aggression in everyday life due to stigmatization. On 29 May 1941, it was announced that Wroclaw would be “cleansed” of Jews.
The New Synagogue being burnt down during Kristallnacht pogrom (Poloniae Amici)
Holocaust
On 20 January 1942, in Wannsee, three hundred kilometers from Wroclaw, a conference was held during which the most important politicians of the Nazi regime unanimously decided to prepare the “final solution to the European Jewish issue”. Although there were organized transports of Jews to the places of their extermination even before this historic conference, after the conference the Nazi machine of bestial killing acted with redoubled power. In order to efficiently “evacuate German Jews to the East”, as was expressed in propaganda, the administration increasingly scrupulously registered Jewish citizens in the Reich in order to quickly deport them to the so-called temporary ghettos or directly to extermination camps. In 1942, an extremely fast national organization of the deportation of Jews to places where they were theoretically supposed to work began, but it was obvious that the Nazis were planning to exterminate the Jewish people. All seizures, evictions from apartments, as well as transports were carried out by the Nazis in accordance with the applicable law.
It is estimated that most of Wroclaw’s Jews left the city during the several years of Nazi rule, and only those who did not believe in the specter of death or those who could not afford to leave or were not allowed to do so due to their health condition stayed in the city. One of those who did not leave the city was Willy Cohn. He did not believe in the darkest scenario, and his journal No Justice in Germany: The Breslau Diaries, 1933-1941 is today an extraordinary chronicle of those times. In November 1941, recalling the events of Kristallnacht, Willy Cohn noted with great hope: “Today is the eve of the infamous November 9! Three years ago, synagogues were on fire! But the Jewish people will survive these times anyway!”. However, two weeks later he and his family were ordered to show up at the collection point, from which the transport set off to Kaunas, where the Nazis first forced the Jews to dig pits, then told them to undress and shot them all.
Deportation of Wroclaw Jews (Yad Vashem, Photo Archive, Jerusalem)
The first deportations of Wroclaw Jews took place at the end of 1941. Jews had to wait for deportation at collection points; for instance at the courtyard in front of the White Stork Synagogue and the vicinity of the present Nadodrze Railway Station and Strzelecki Square. The Jewish inhabitants of Wroclaw were deported in several transports: to the camps Tormersdorf, Riebing and Grüssau, to Kaunas, Izbica, Sobibór, Bełżec and Majdanek, as well as to Theresienstadt and Auschwitz. The last transports were organized at the beginning of 1944. Owing to an extremely scrupulous bureaucratic system, the Nazis were sure that Jews had disappeared from Wroclaw. The only survivors were the few who lived in mixed marriages. Thus, the Nazis annihilated one of the largest German Jewish communities.
Willy Cohn (Yad Vashem, Photo Archive, Jerusalem)