The Art of Resistance. Justus Rosenberg

fifteen, my parents planned to stay out late, while I planned to take the suburban train to Zoppot and attend whatever was being performed that night at their annual summer, open-air, Wagnerian opera festival. It was Rienzi. Since I had no money for a ticket, I managed to get through a hole in the wire fence that surrounded the place and find an elevated spot with an unimpeded view of the stage. I was also close enough to hear all the subtle harmonies of Wagner’s music. Two years later, I learned that Wagner had been one of the most virulent anti-Semites of the nineteenth century and was Hitler’s favorite composer.

      THOUGH MY FATHER’S father had not aided him financially after his elopement with my mother, once I was born, tensions eased between them, and my grandfather’s lucrative international business trading in grain was now supporting his son. My father owned a storage facility in town from which he fulfilled wholesale orders. It was on the ground floor of a three-story apartment in a pleasant Danzig neighborhood. A business office and the storage facility opened onto the street. We lived upstairs. Other Jewish businesses flourished in close proximity. Two doors down, for instance, was Levi’s clothing store. This was very convenient for my father and perhaps gave him a false sense of security.

       A POGROM GERMAN-STYLE

      

       Spring 1937

      EARLY IN 1937, Nazi demonstrators began targeting Jewish businesses in Danzig. My father refused to take them too seriously. He didn’t believe they represented a change in official policy. They were disturbing, of course, for they reminded him of the spontaneous outbursts against the Jews common since the early Middle Ages. In the familiar pattern, anti-Semitic feelings would manifest for a few months and then die down.

      Under the Nazis, however, the character of anti-Semitism was changing. Outbreaks of hatred against the Jews would neither be sporadic nor temporary. One beautiful spring day in 1937, I stopped at the window of a bookstore to look at the colorful covers on display. Suddenly my attention was attracted by shouting so loud and so close that it made the windowpane tremble. I tore myself away and headed in the direction of the noise. It was the sound of a group of Nazis chanting slogans and a crowd of onlookers walking along with them. I turned at the end of the block and saw at least thirty people—young and old—howling “Judas verrecke!” (“Let the Jews be slaughtered!”). I wanted to go and warn my parents, but I was curious to see what the Nazis would do. They were not in uniform, and they weren’t alone: a crowd of bystanders in the middle of the street moved slowly along with them. The Nazis themselves were moving slowly, making funny movements with their heads, to the right, then to the left, to take in everything that was happening around them as they marched. The mob beside them kept growing. Soon I really did want to get away and warn my parents, but I was now in the midst of them. I couldn’t move too quickly or I would appear to be abandoning the scene. I kept thinking, confusedly, wishfully, that perhaps they’d just disperse. I remembered my father’s words: “Bah! They’ll get over it; a few months from now everything will settle down.” But things were not about to settle down. These Nazis were getting wilder and wilder, their cries of “Death to the Jews” more and more virulent.

      Now I myself was being pushed forward. When would the police show up and prevent them from doing something violent? But the police were nowhere to be seen.

      The crowd was being squeezed closer and closer together. The Nazi agitators had reached Steiner’s grocery store, whose attractive shop front had been repainted the previous winter. The display window and the store’s clean, modern interior struck me as strangely out of place in this ominous tumult. I saw several of the Nazis holding bricks in their hands, others brandishing truncheons or carrying buckets of paint.

      It happened like a bolt of lightning: a crash of broken glass, and Steiner’s shop window was smashed into shards. The men weren’t shouting anymore; they seemed to be in rapture over their fine work. The crowd remained silent, too, though the hiatus in the uproar didn’t last very long. Steiner came out of his store, his big blue apron hanging over his big belly. The children in the neighborhood were accustomed to making fun of him, and he’d often come out of the store, just like that, to chase them away. Now he looked stunned, surprised, like someone who had been slapped without his knowing why, as if by mistake. He stepped toward the Nazis, his hands out in front of him—begging for mercy? to protect himself? to show peaceful intentions? to reason with them? Suddenly he brought his hands to his face. Someone had thrown something at him and struck him. He stumbled backward, his hands covered with blood, his body careening. Then, with a quick motion, he turned and ran toward a large door at the back of his store. Everyone was surprised to see him escape so deftly, since they had the impression his big bulk was about to collapse on the pavement. He had left his store wide open, but behind the big oak door he seemed to be safe. I let out a sigh of relief.

      There was a moment of indecision among the Nazis, and again I had the wishful thought that they would be satisfied. I was wrong. They started shouting again and some of them tore into the store. Cans of food came rolling into the street—sardines and fruit preserves—and they were pushing over pickle barrels, barrels of herring, and wooden crates of smoked sprats. I saw one Nazi pour a big can of oil onto the sidewalk. Some of them were attacking cupboards and shelves. I could hear, coming from inside, the noises of bottles clanking and various nondescript muffled sounds. The Nazis came out of the store one by one and eyed the crowd, each one sure of his strength. They were happy with themselves.

      Then one of them noticed Mr. Klein, the tailor, standing next door in front of his shop, hurriedly attempting to close the shutters. The Nazis turned toward him. They seemed to be blaming him for Steiner’s hasty retreat. Mr. Klein was a small man who always dressed sharply, as was appropriate for a tailor. But he had left his jacket inside, and in his suspenders he looked even more diminutive than usual.

      “What’s the rush, Dad?” said one of the Nazis, and the others burst out laughing. Before he could answer, another struck him in the face, first a slap, then blows with his fist, harder and harder, until the little man collapsed half unconscious; another kicked him again and again in the ribs, shouting, “Look! This is the way to treat a dirty Jew!” Someone corrected, “Not at all! He deserves the noose!” Mr. Klein wasn’t moving.

      Someone kept shouting that the Jews were a plague—the land had to be rid of this vermin. Some others were demolishing everything in the tailor’s shop. Now the crowd was actively joining the Nazis. I was getting seriously worried about my parents and wanted to tear myself away. My father was probably downstairs in the storage facility. I feared the crowd would soon proceed to our street. On my right, I saw a small gap in the throng; I used my elbows and shoulders to make my way through to it. Too bad if they noticed my defection. I’d chance it. I kept moving in the opposite direction of the crowd, trying to look natural, as if I had something to do, despite the “interesting” goings-on here. Little by little I was getting free.

      Within a few minutes, I had broken clear and was heading in the direction of my home, perhaps two hundred yards away. I didn’t look back but could hear behind me the sound of metal shutters rolling shut. The crowd was somewhat behind me now. I stopped to catch my breath and took a seat on a wall from which I could observe what was going on.

      They were in front of Goldberg’s, a clothing store. The shop was protected by shutters, but some Nazis had found a big iron bar, actually a small girder, with which they were rushing at the store using it as a battering ram. The metal sheets made a noise on the girder’s impact like thunder. The window posts of the shop broke from the force, but the shutters held. The thugs dropped the girder in the middle of the street and tried in a concerted effort to force up the shutters manually. “Eins, zwei, drei, heben! (heave!) Eins, zwei, drei, hoch!” It still held. They tried again. The bolt gave way—slightly. The shutters lifted enough for a few of them to squeeze in underneath them. The crowd roared a cry of victory.

      From inside, a woman’s