Advanced Search

Learn About The Holocaust

Special Collections

My Saved Research

Login

Register

Help

Skip to main content

Print

Oral history interview with Ruth Meyerowitz

Oral History | Digitized | RG Number: RG-50.128.0001

Search this record's additional resources, such as finding aids, documents, or transcripts.

No results match this search term.
Check spelling and try again.

results are loading

0 results found for “keyward”

    Oral history interview with Ruth Meyerowitz
    Transcript
    --organized and better attendance.
    However, I would like to thank those who are here this morning
    and welcome you.
    I'd like to introduce our speaker for this morning, Ruth
    Meyerowitz.
    Ruth was born in Frankfurt, Germany,
    and came to America in 1947.
    She has a master's degree in literature
    and a bachelor's degree in history,
    both from William Paterson College.
    She was married to the late Harry Meyerowitz.
    And together, they had opened a fur shop in Paterson
    for many years.
    It has since moved to Fairlawn, and Ruth is still
    involved in it.
    She has three sons, one a rabbi.
    She has written newspaper articles.
    She has lectured and occasionally at the present time
    teaches a Sunday class for children at Shomrei Torah
    here in Wayne on the subject of the Holocaust.
    Without further ado, I present Ruth Meyerowitz.
    Thank you.
    I would like to start with some statistics
    simply because they are very important in the development
    of Jewish life in Germany during the Nazi era.
    In 1925, which was the height of the Jewish population
    expansion in Germany, there were 564,379 Jews in Germany.
    They were 9% of the population.
    And I was born in the city of Frankfurt.
    So most of my references will go back to the city of Frankfurt.
    The internal development in the city, of course,
    differed from one place to another as the laws
    pertaining to the outside, to the general Jewish population,
    of course, they were the same all over Germany.
    It's just that the city of Frankfurt
    developed its own laws and its own regulations
    as far as within the Jewish community
    because we were isolated for about 400 years in a ghetto
    until 1796 or so.
    There was a declining birth rate in Germany.
    It was just fashionable to have one or two children.
    And we also had a 20% to 25% rate of intermarriage.
    So that by 1933, when Hitler came to power,
    the population had gone down.
    But I do want to bring out some other statistics.
    Ruth, a question, you said the population
    of the Jews of Germany was 500 some odd thousand?
    In 1925.
    And because-- it was very fashionable to just
    have one child or two children.
    We were-- in my class, I don't remember
    anyone having more than one brother or sister.
    But the German population was no more than 6 million?
    No.
    No.
    You said the Jewish population was 10% or 9%.
    9%, that's what I read.
    No, it had to be much more, of course.
    Well, I don't know whether the--
    maybe it was point--
    I really don't know.
    I took the statistics from someone.
    I didn't check it.
    I'm sorry.
    Well, anyway, in Frankfurt in 1925, there were--
    in fact, there were 29,000 Jewish people.
    In Berlin, there were 185,000 Jewish people.
    And then the rest were in the outlying areas.
    But I have some other figures.
    During World War I, there were 102,000 Jewish soldiers
    in the German army.
    And I'm not sure now if this is Austria and Germany or just
    Germany.
    I think it is Germany only.
    There were 12,000 men who died during World War
    I. 80,000 Jewish men were at the front--
    now these are rounded figures.
    35,000 received medals.
    And 2,000 were promoted to be officers.
    And in general, 23,000 were promoted to higher officers.
    Now, this is important because in 1923--
    or actually, let me go back 1st to 1916.
    Every time I took a course in history,
    I heard that Germany was winning the war
    and suddenly just like that they lost.
    And of course that gave rise to the idea
    that Germany was stabbed in the back, betrayed by the Jews.
    But I couldn't believe how that it's possible for a great nation
    to suddenly have such reverses.
    And now, I have read something, and it's clearer now
    that by 1916, I think, the war was
    beginning to go bad because in 1916 there
    was a commission appointed to see if Jews really
    served in the army and how many served and what the population--
    if they were in the right proportion
    to the rest of the population.
    The results were never made public.
    And when the Centralverein, which
    was an umbrella organization of Jewish groups,
    wanted to get information on this survey,
    they were not given anything, which
    makes me think that at the time already things were going bad
    and they were scouting around for the--
    Scapegoat--
    --the real scapegoat that they had traditionally used.
    Well, when Hitler was writing his now famous
    infamous Mein Kampf in Landsberg prison in 1923, the idea of Jews
    having done to Germany what they claimed
    they did, that they had stabbed them in the back,
    that the international Jewishness had contributed
    to the downfall of Germany, this was
    one of his main themes in the book
    and his main reason for these trying to destroy Jewish people.
    Now, his followers, of course, didn't need an explanation.
    And the others dismissed this as a lot of nonsense.
    And, you know, it was just another waving of--
    and, of course, no one took Hitler seriously at the time.
    But they did come to power.
    And they did several things.
    The very first thing was that there was a boycott
    against Jewish stores.
    They were very careful not to boycott against Jewish stores
    that were owned by Jews that were not from Germany,
    foreign Jews, because everyone still lived under the illusion
    that other countries would protect its Jewish citizens.
    And so they had a boycott.
    This was picked up in the newspapers.
    And American Jews decided to boycott the German goods coming
    into the United States.
    The German authorities, of course, were very upset at this.
    They called in the Jewish leadership and threatened them.
    And so they decided it was--
    the Jewish leadership was now in this position
    to have to beg the American Jews not to make an issue over this
    because what was more important was not to be jailed,
    not to be persecuted, not to be killed.
    That was one of the things that they did right away.
    Another, of course, was the perversion of the law.
    They could have confiscated things.
    But they tried to keep an illusion of legitimacy.
    There were in Frankfurt 65 charitable trusts given by Jews.
    And Frankfurt had been a rather wealthy Jewish community.
    The Rothschilds came there.
    The Speyers came from there.
    And so they took this--
    they didn't want to give back this money, dissolved the trusts
    and give it back to the Jewish sources.
    So they invented a new law, or they perverted the old law,
    saying that since the Jewish people did not
    benefit from this money, these trusts could
    continue as long as they benefit the German population.
    At the same time then, they dismissed Jewish doctors.
    They dismissed the artists from the theaters, the opera.
    They dismissed-- Jewish dentists, for instance,
    could not get any coverage through health insurance
    so that their patients could not be reimbursed.
    And, of course, that is the end of the profession
    because if you can't get paid back,
    you just don't have any business.
    They arrested men at that time just
    to show that they are able to create terror tactics
    and to intimidate the population.
    They took people right off the street, took them to a sports
    complex outside the city.
    And they really were subjected to some terrible abuses.
    They took away the suspenders for their trousers,
    for instance, and had them stand for hours in the same spot.
    They made them crawl on the floor,
    while each one had to hold on to the man in front of him.
    There is a document of a letter that an eyewitness had written.
    One man had been taken into this place with a tallis
    and tefillin still on.
    And the Nazis decided they were going
    to have some sport with him.
    And this old man was now told that he should pray.
    And he was just either too petrified,
    or he wasn't going to mention the word of God
    in a place that was as unholy as this, and he just stood there.
    And the Germans became more threatening by the second.
    One of the other men, another Jewish man, walked up to him,
    took off the tallis and tefillin, put it on himself,
    and started saying the Shema, whereupon this moment,
    everybody decided that they felt very united
    with the rest of Jewishness, with the rest of Jewish history,
    and they were determined to preserve
    Jewishness in all its aspects.
    And most of the people who then were released again
    left Germany right after that.
    And I wish with all my heart that everyone
    would have been arrested at that time
    because then they would have seen that there was no
    getting along with the Germans.
    There would be no accommodations.
    And there was no living with them.
    And everyone should have fled.
    But instead, it was very difficult to leave
    your house, children, and family, businesses.
    How can you just give everything up?
    You don't know everyone--
    some of these-- even the Germans themselves
    and one of my father's so-called friends said, well,
    why would you leave?
    This nonsense isn't going to go on forever.
    Look at him, look at the newsreels.
    He stands there shouting and screaming
    and pounding on the table.
    And it looks like he's going to burst a blood vessel.
    But who's going to believe such a clown?
    And it was very strange when I came to the United States
    in 1947, there was a campaign, the election
    on for Truman and Dewey.
    And I couldn't believe that everybody was talking so calmly.
    I couldn't understand what kind of politicians
    these were who didn't scream and didn't carry on
    and were just normal.
    And then later on when I saw the next election in 1952,
    when we had television, and I really
    saw that people were nice and calm and civilized,
    it was just a revelation because I really had never
    expected anyone to act like other than screaming
    and carrying on.
    But Jews did leave.
    But more came in from the outlying areas
    because it was not safe to live in a smaller place.
    And these people, of course, didn't have any way
    of making money anymore.
    They were deprived of their incomes.
    And so they had to go to the safety of the city
    and try to earn a living there.
    Of course, since the Jewish artists
    were dismissed from their work, the Jewish organizations--
    the community started a cultural organization, cultural group
    in order to give them work and also
    to supply cultural entertainment for the rest
    of the Jewish population.
    And it was very important to the Jewish people
    to have this kind of entertainment because, my gosh,
    I couldn't imagine my parents ever
    missing a night at the opera or at a new play.
    And suddenly, this was all stopped.
    Well, my uncle was an opera singer,
    was this a big young man, aspired to be an opera singer.
    And he came-- he was part of this group.
    Now, my uncle left in 1936, went to Israel,
    and never continued with his career.
    Sometime, I am not sure if it was before or after, during one
    of the dress rehearsals, the Gestapo
    came and watched the rehearsal.
    And after everyone was sent and everything
    was ready for the performance that night,
    they stated that they would bar the use of costumes,
    and people were to go on without costumes and just
    in civil clothes, which was, of course, unheard of for an opera,
    but it had to be done then.
    But there were also arrests of communists,
    so-called communists, socialists, and democrats.
    And they just didn't need many excuses.
    Now, my other uncle was a writer for a newspaper.
    And I don't know what he had written.
    I don't know what his political beliefs were.
    I was two years old at the time.
    But my father told me one morning
    that if some men were to come and ask for Uncle Julius,
    I was to tell them that I had just seen them
    in the morning, when in reality he had been over the house
    the night before and I had not seen him the next day.
    And my father wanted to cool my uncle's trail.
    Sure enough, some men came, but I never
    had a chance to do my act.
    And in a way, I was very glad because I was afraid
    that I would make some kind of mistake
    and that I would be caught in a lie.
    My uncle made his way to Czechoslovakia.
    He went over the border into Pilsen from Bavaria
    and continued his writing from there.
    But when the Nazis invaded in 1938, 1939, whatever, he fled.
    He bought a motorbike somewhere.
    And he tried to make his way east.
    He had an accident, broke his leg, was taken to the hospital.
    The Nazis took him out of the hospital,
    put him in jail where he was shot.
    And this information was mailed to us
    by one of the people who worked with him at his writing
    and at the Jewish Community Council.
    By 1935, we had the development of the Nuremberg laws in this.
    We all remember the laws because it forbade intermarriage and sex
    between Jews and non-Jews.
    And one of the real things, real important issues,
    was that no one could have a German maid under the age of 35.
    And everybody knows that Aryan women after the age of 35
    are over the hill, so that was quite a proper law.
    But included in this Nuremberg law
    was the abolition of civil rights for German Jews.
    The rights had been granted first in 1848
    during the revolutions.
    And then when Germany was United in 1870 after the Prussian war
    when Bismarck united the state, Jews actually
    had civil rights somewhat like the rest of the German people.
    But in 1935, that was the end of the Jewish civil rights
    in Germany.
    In 1913 or so, Franz Rosenzweig, the famous philosopher,
    decided to remain a Jew.
    He had toyed with the idea of leaving Judaism.
    He served in the German army.
    While he was in Poland, it was the German army.
    He was became enamored of the actions of the Polish Jews.
    He liked their spontaneity in prayer and the joy
    that he saw in prayer.
    And it was very different from the formal and very
    strict behavior in German prayers.
    And so when he came back after the war,
    he wanted to do two things.
    He wanted to establish a chair of philosophy
    at the Frankfurt University in Judaic studies.
    And also-- well, this was a result of being refused this.
    Now while the Goethe University in Frankfurt was being built,
    it was endowed mostly by Jewish money.
    So many of the non-Jewish organizations, for instance,
    the [NON-ENGLISH] building was built with a lot of Jewish
    money.
    And the trusts that were established
    by all the different charitable families
    usually specified that if a hospital was
    built for Jewish orphans or a home for Jewish orphans or house
    for Jewish children or for other Jews,
    the same thing would be done for the general population.
    And today, even there is still an old age home in Frankfurt
    which was given by the Boedker family,
    which is interdenominational.
    You have Jews and non-Jews living there.
    And this is still part of the trust.
    But with this all, the University of Frankfurt
    did not want a Judaic chair established.
    Buber eventually taught Jewish philosophy
    through the philosophy department,
    but there was no chair.
    So Rosenzweig turned his talents to other things.
    And he opened the Lehrhaus, which
    was a study for adult Jewish education.
    You had some very, very famous people teaching there,
    but also people who were active in business,
    but had a special interest in anything Judaic.
    And they gave their time.
    And for a while this Lehrhaus was doing quite well.
    Now you might if I jog your memory about Rosenzweig
    remember that he was a philosopher who
    was struck with a very serious sclerotic disease.
    And he was only expected to live like about two years after that.
    He ended up living for another seven years
    and dictated finally his last works
    just to his wife he did this.
    And he dictated it with by just blinking his eyelids
    in some kind of code so she could take down these words.
    Well, when Rosenzweig died, his baby, the Lehrhaus sort of
    lost its glamour.
    And some of the people who were involved in it, like Buber,
    their own careers developed.
    And they probably didn't have that time
    to give to the Lehrhaus.
    And it was broken up.
    In 1933, there was a real need for something
    to bring the Jewish people together.
    And many were suddenly told that the Jews,
    even if they had never known before
    or were just dimly aware of it, some of them
    really wanted to feel Jewish to spite--
    there was a real will to be Jewish.
    And so the Lehrhaus opened again under the direction
    of Martin Buber.
    It wasn't the same Lehrhaus as before.
    It taught the people the languages in the countries
    that they have to go to or what rules to follow to emigrate.
    By 1938-- Buber left, I think, in 1936.
    Heschel took over the Lehrhaus.
    After Kristallnacht, also Heschel was forced to flee.
    This was the end of the Lehrhaus.
    But there were also things that had
    to be done for Jewish people.
    There was a thing called Winterhilfe,
    which meant that people who could not
    have warm clothes or cold for the winter were helped.
    And everyone had to donate pennies into this little box.
    And people went around collecting.
    So that the institutions of self-help
    that were originated during the time in the ghetto
    were now employed again so that Jews would not be destitute.
    But from 1933 to about 1938, even
    with the time of the Nuremberg laws in 1935,
    there was just a continuous grinding down of Jewish morale.
    But also there were incidents, really severe incidents
    of Jewish persecution.
    For instance, we would not be able to go swimming.
    In the Jewish community sort of didn't--
    was not-- could not-- it was not safe to announce
    that you couldn't go swimming because there
    were drownings or beatings.
    But it came out in the grapevine that Jews should not
    go swimming because it was just too dangerous.
    And there were some small nonsense things,
    chicaneries just to bear down on the Jewish population
    and just wear down their morale.
    I, for instance, had a violin teacher,
    who was a cousin of Vladimir Horowitz.
    And every time I saw Horowitz play on television,
    I remember my teacher, who really looked like him.
    But the Nazis decided that he was not a worthy violinist.
    He was a coffeehouse player, they called him.
    And then he was reduced to teaching no talent students
    like me to teach violin.
    Now, there were other very, very stupid things.
    For instance, there was a law that every store that
    advertised a newspaper that was Jewish owned
    had to have a mother and daughter as part
    of their advertising.
    It was a store that had used the same ad for years and years.
    It was a corset store.
    And they had a dressmaker dummy.
    And the dressmaker dummy was wearing the corset.
    And that was what was in the ad.
    In this law, all at once there was a mother and daughter
    pinned on to the corset.
    And this is how the ad appeared.
    And then there was a German citizen
    who complained that while he was walking
    through the woods, a small stretch of woods,
    to the bus station he was obliged to walk with Jews.
    And he could not see why Jews should
    be sheltered by German trees.
    Now, this was an excuse really, and who
    knows if this letter ever was written
    or was instigated to be written, it
    was really an excuse to stop Jews
    from using this little stretch of walkway,
    just to put on some more hardship or chicanery
    or annoyance to wear down Jewish morale.
    One of the real stupid things was that the zoo in Frankfurt
    could not buy any more fish from a Jewish store, Jewish fish
    store, because German sea otters and German sea lions and seals
    or whatever could not eat Jewish fish.
    And so they were stopped from doing this.
    And this is-- yeah.
    Now in 1938, before Germany even started the war,
    there was a lot of instigation against the war--
    against the Jews.
    And in 1938, Gauleiter Sprenger said
    that the Jews are instigating the war so that they can regain
    their position in Germany.
    And it's possible that from that time
    on, the final solution became somewhat possible
    in their own minds.
    In 1938 was the Évian conference.
    And the Germans asked that each country that
    wants to take Jewish refugees would
    have to pay $250 per person.
    The countries either weren't very
    willing to spend that money, or they didn't
    want to give in to blackmail.
    And so they refused.
    Of course, this was fuel to the German Nazis who then said, see?
    They don't want the Jews either.
    So why should we want them.
    Now, then followed this famous incident in 1938,
    known as Kristallnacht, where the Polish Jews became stateless
    overnight through some manipulations
    in the Polish government that was
    instigated by German agitators.
    Poland had a large German population.
    And they were able to hide these instigators.
    And so the Polish government sort of buckled under
    and declared the Jews that lived abroad as stateless.
    At that point, the Polish Jews were picked up.
    Like 5:00 in the morning, there was a knock at the door.
    And within a half hour, they had to be ready.
    And they were taken to the Polish border.
    The Polish government at that point
    did not recognize the Jews as the Polish citizens
    and refused to let them in.
    There was a lot of haggling going up and back.
    And somehow it was resolved.
    Some people, they admitted, lived under terrible conditions.
    And I understand that the Polish communities living in the border
    did a tremendous job trying to relieve
    the suffering of the Jews that were just dumped over
    without any ceremony.
    And a lot of the Jewish people were allowed
    to come back into their cities.
    And at that point, though, there was no way to escape.
    And everybody had to try to make as best as they could pick up
    their lives.
    At that time then, Herschel Grynszpan was in Paris.
    He supposedly shot the consular official.
    And this supposedly set off the Kristallnacht.
    Of course, we remember Kristallnacht
    because the windows of the shops were broken.
    The glass was all over the floors.
    And because of the sparkling glass was called Kristallnacht.
    I also remember that the furniture was thrown
    out windows in private homes.
    And in some rage and fury, all the Nazis
    took the pillows, the feather pillows and feather blankets,
    cut them open and dumped them out onto the street.
    And for days after, the feathers were just flying.
    And weeks later, every time there was a little wind,
    the feathers were stirred up.
    And to me, this should have been called the Feather Night.
    And for weeks later, there were still
    pieces of clothing and pieces of linen hanging in the trees
    because no one was there to take it off.
    And it had just been thrown out.
    So there was this tremendous damage done to Jewish property.
    And by rights, the German insurance companies
    should have paid for it.
    The Nazis perverted the law against
    and said that Jews had been responsible themselves
    for this kind of behavior, for this damage.
    And so the Jewish community was again
    forced to pay and repair the own damage that
    was done to their own places, even though they
    should have been collecting it.
    And then at that point, we realized
    that there was no place to go.
    There was nowhere to turn to.
    And we just tried to make the best of whatever we could.
    On November 29 of 1938, there were prohibitions.
    No more carrier pigeons.
    It seems that they were probably afraid
    that messages would be sent out through carrier pigeons.
    No Jew was allowed to have a driver's
    license except some doctors.
    And they were in their old rickety cars
    because they couldn't have any new ones.
    And they also were only allowed to have Jewish patients.
    Jews were not allowed to stay in hotels or in sleeping cars.
    They were not supposed to go to theaters, to movies.
    And the radios were confiscated.
    And Jews were considered enemy aliens.
    And in order to collect the radios,
    they were forced to bring them on Yom Kippur.
    And that particular day, there was also
    a J stamped on the Jewish food cards.
    There were no more long distance phone calls for Jews.
    And there were the newspapers and magazines
    that were owned by Jews were dissolved.
    Jews were not allowed to go to German barbers.
    They were not supposed to be on public transportation.
    They were not supposed to have any pets.
    They had to hand in their typewriters, their bicycles,
    their records.
    And by 1941, our school was dissolved.
    Now, I must say that throughout this whole time
    from the time that the Nazis took power,
    they prepared for war so that the civilian population was
    really deprived of all kinds of things.
    And the Gestapo went around making sure
    that no one was out of line with this.
    They carried the identification badge pinned under their lapel.
    One time, my mother was waiting in line to buy potatoes.
    And a German man, not Jewish, saw
    an airplane go overhead and said, look, here
    goes our butter.
    Immediately, two men stepped out of the line,
    identified themselves as Gestapo men and took this man away.
    This was to-- who knows?
    Maybe he was even a plant.
    This was to prevent German people from complaining.
    But when France was invaded and when Jewish people left
    and goods became available, you should
    have seen with what eagerness they
    threw themselves at this goods, how they grabbed it up.
    When we had to give up our apartment
    and my parents had beautiful furniture,
    the Nazis came in and fingered everything.
    The people that were supposed were given names
    where they could buy Jewish property for a pittance.
    They had such greedy eyes.
    They had such greedy fingers.
    They just threw themselves at these things.
    And it was absolutely amazing because they could just
    perceive the rich Jewish things that would now be theirs.
    And it was just--
    they were just terrible.
    And I think sometimes many causes
    have been given for the Holocaust, but one of them
    was really done by the Germans to get
    at this perceived or real Jewish wealth.
    While it was legally required to buy things,
    they bought things for a 10th or 1%,
    or whatever it was, because Jews had no way of taking anything
    with them.
    And they had to sell whatever they could
    at the lowest price in a hurry.
    And so they just grabbed everything.
    Our school was dissolved in 1942.
    And there were very few people left.
    There were about-- when we left Germany--
    when we were sent to Auschwitz in 1943,
    there were just about-- we were the last 37
    Jews to leave the city.
    There were about 500 Jews left who were either
    from mixed marriages-- offspring from mixed marriages
    or the partners in a mixed marriage.
    Now, we sometimes say, didn't the German population
    want to help?
    And then we hear that, yes, but what could they do?
    And it was dangerous to help.
    But when the Nazis started their euthanasia program very early
    in their existence, 1934 or '35, German parents of these people,
    or German relatives of the people
    who were singled out for euthanasia protested.
    And the program was stopped.
    In 1944, they tried to take away the Jewish husbands
    of German wives, or the Jewish partner in German marriages.
    The non-Jewish partners went out--
    this happened in Berlin.
    They went out and they protested.
    And the deportation stopped.
    So it is just a lot of nonsense to say
    that the Germans couldn't do anything
    or that they would have been hurt themselves.
    Where there was a will, they really
    were able to do the things that they really should have
    done morally, but did not do.
    When the Nazis were elected, my parents
    always told me that the there were
    goons at the polling stations that kept people from voting.
    Some of my other friends, my friends
    tell me who lived through that time--
    I was two years old.
    So I didn't notice anything at the polling stations.
    I wasn't aware of anything.
    But my friends who lived through that time
    tell me that the elections went very smoothly, which only means
    that the Germans did not put many obstacles
    in the way of the Nazis.
    They just were glad that the Nazis came to power.
    Now, in 1933, the Jewish leader of the Frankfurt community
    wrote proclamation, urging the people not to flee,
    to stay in their own homes.
    And he called on the stones of the city
    to bear witness to the things that the Jewish people had
    done for the city.
    Well, of course, very soon after that,
    he realized that there was no way of living in Germany.
    He made his way to Israel and remained there as an advisor,
    high up-- his name was Eugene Meyer.
    He was high up in the Zionist circles
    and remained there for the rest of the war.
    Now, today, there is a debate.
    German historians, many of the German historians
    claim that the Holocaust was just one more
    burp in the history of inhumanity to other people.
    And as in history, we will judge that other people have
    been destroyed at times, and they will again be destroyed,
    and this was nothing unusual.
    And it's these same historians who now--
    it's probably overshadowed right now
    by the economic war that's going on-- but these historians have
    been carrying on a campaign in German newspapers
    just recently, just within the last few weeks,
    saying that American Jews do not want to vacation
    or spend leisure time in Germany.
    They go there just if they have any business, they will go.
    Or as is the case with many of the Jews from Germany,
    originally from Germany, to go back to the graves,
    to see the cemeteries and places like that.
    Well, there are some words that I could use.
    Of course, each one would fit.
    But I must say I am extremely proud of the American Jewish
    community for their fortitude, for the backbone to not buckle
    under, and to place the [NON-ENGLISH] owners where it
    belongs.
    And the German people--
    and until the German people are willing to admit and to really
    collaborate with Jewish people, to really extend themselves
    for the Jewish people, other than paying the reparations,
    which is really not very much when you really think about it,
    then this generation of Jews who has lived through this
    really is doing the right thing by not
    encouraging any recreation in Germany,
    not encouraging many things in Germany.
    Just yesterday, we picked up the New York Times.
    And my son says, he can't believe, is it 1942 or 1992?
    The Gypsies are being chased out of Germany again.
    And one of my pet theories is that, thank God,
    it does not happen to Jews.
    If Jews are chased today, they have a national home.
    The Gypsies were just killed just for the same reason
    that the Jews were killed.
    They did not have a national home.
    They had no place where to go.
    There was no one to take them.
    And since they still do not have a national home,
    they are still subjected to this kind of treatment.
    And thank God that there is a home for Jews
    if we ever need it.
    There was a poll taken in Israel and in Germany.
    And the question was, should there
    be a special relationship between Israel and Germany?
    70% of the Israelis answered that they were really ready
    for reconciliation.
    42% of all the Germans said, yes.
    But 27% said, of the younger people, we're not really ready.
    Now, 30% of the Israelis think that Germany is now totally
    negative towards Israel.
    And 62% of the Jews and 60% of the Germans
    said that antisemitism is here to stay in Germany.
    And now there are no Jews to speak of-- there were none,
    not many to speak of until the recent integration
    of the Russian Jews, which made me very sad because that Germany
    would be the only place where Russian Jews could find a home
    when they could have been a $10 million loan guarantee--
    was it 10 million--
    that was not given to the Jewish state.
    And so Jews were again forced to stay in Germany, which is really
    somehow morally horrible.
    But it has happened, and there is nothing
    that we can do about it.
    Well, the stones that this man was talking about that
    would be a witness to the Jewish presence in Germany
    and all the things that Jewish people had done for Germany,
    of course, these stones did not come forward to bear witness.
    And in 1945 when we came back, it
    was wonderful to see that the city was totally leveled
    and that the stones which had remained mute
    were now just lying on the ground
    and were not put, even not one sitting on top of another.
    To me, that was the beginning of a catharsis of sorts.
    To my mother, she told me then later on that
    she was just frightened.
    She was scared when she saw this.
    And she was never able to adjust to what
    had happened to her without a husband, without money.
    We had $300 when we arrived in the United States
    between the two of us.
    She was now left without family, without business,
    without anything, and had to start her life all over.
    When I think of her life after the war,
    it was as though someone had put a giant hand over her trachea.
    She was allowed to breathe, to exist, but not to live.
    She could not enjoy anything anymore.
    And her life was really totally ruined.
    Now, we know that when there is a hostage situation
    or when there is a traumatic situation, we go in
    and we send psychologists and whatnot in
    to help these people overcome these things.
    In 1945, there was no such thing available for us.
    We were left on our own.
    And the most important thing was really
    to restore the body and the soul.
    Psyche would come at another time.
    For some, it came.
    For some it didn't come.
    We know now that it is very important
    that people receive the kind of counseling--
    it's not necessarily a psychiatric endeavor.
    It's just a counseling that is necessary
    so that they would have to be able to live
    normal and regulated lives.
    But best of all, I hope, but unfortunately,
    I'm very pessimistic with events in the world,
    I hope that there will not be so many incidents where
    people will be subjected to such terrible things as we were.
    Thank you.
    Questions?
    Yes, I mean if you want to keep talking while this is rolling--
    OK.
    It may be difficult for you, but could you
    spend a few minutes on your experiences
    at Auschwitz from that point until you were
    able to come to this country?
    All right.
    We were among the last Jews in Frankfurt
    to leave because my father had a Czechoslovak passport.
    And he had also dealings with France.
    And he was able-- he should have been technically
    able to leave for France.
    In 1938, we sold everything after Kristallnacht.
    And we tried to make our way to France, spent a terrible night
    getting to the border.
    When we arrived there, we were told that we could not cross,
    and we had to go back and pick up
    our lives as best as we could.
    We then stayed in Frankfurt.
    But because my father was a Czechoslovak citizen,
    the Slovak president, Tiso, tried to protect--
    it was very strange.
    He protected the Jews that were living outside
    of Czechoslovakia-- or of Slovakia,
    which was an independent state run by a Nazi.
    While at the same time, Czechoslovak Jews
    were exported to Auschwitz, were sent to Auschwitz in 1942
    already.
    And when we came to Auschwitz, we met many of them.
    But we were protected until the beginning of 1943.
    And for April 19--
    Hitler's birthday was April 20.
    April 19, the Gestapo was giving Hitler a birthday present
    of making Germany Judenrein.
    And so we were rounded up.
    And we had to travel for seven nights--
    seven days rather because at night the trains
    wouldn't go because they were afraid of Allied bombings.
    We were sent to Auschwitz.
    The reason we were not gassed, the other prisoners
    told us was, that we were very small transport.
    And it didn't pay to run gas into our cars.
    Ruth, I don't think you should have to go through this.
    Really, this is painful for you.
    No, I mean I'll do it fast.
    No, but I think it's unnecessary.
    Not for you to relive that experience.
    I think--
    The man asked me about--
    I'll make it very fast.
    And so we came into--
    we stayed there.
    Out of the 37 people who left Frankfurt together,
    only four survived.
    My father did not.
    We stayed in Auschwitz until the end of 1944.
    We were then taken to Ravensbrück
    and stayed there for a few days without water or food.
    And we brought into a camp, a slave labor camp.
    I had a very nice experience with the Gypsies
    who were in Auschwitz, who were killed, as I said,
    the same as Jewish people.
    Some of them were still alive and were taken out of Auschwitz
    when the camp was broken up.
    And the Times in New Jersey is going
    to print this letter that I had written to them.
    And they came to the camp.
    They shared their food that they had gathered on the way.
    And they really tried to cheer us.
    And they were very, very friendly and very
    hospitable and cheerful.
    And it hurts me that today the Gypsies
    are really exposed to the same things, these terrible things
    that they are.
    And I have never spoken to any group
    without trying to memorialize them because they do not
    have a Yad Vashem.
    They do not have anyone speaking-- or very few people
    speaking for them.
    And it's very important to me that they be remembered.
    And again, we came back to Frankfurt.
    And my father, of course, did not return.
    And we waited-- my mother was sure that he was not alive.
    And I, of course, wanted to wait for the last minute
    to see maybe he would turn up somewhere.
    I was hoping he would.
    And our visa came through.
    I waited for just about the last days
    before it would expire to leave Germany
    because I was still hoping my father would be alive.
    My brother was taken by the Israeli contingent
    of the British army, was taken to Israel,
    and remained there for a number of years.
    Ruth, you mentioned earlier the population at its height
    was no more than 500,000.
    Let me get the figure exactly again.
    It's approximately.
    Well, there were 550,000 Jews in Germany.
    A very small number.
    Yes.
    So difficult in retrospect to think
    that this tiny number of people should
    have been picked upon where they were and then
    lead to the Holocaust that spread into Poland.
    But interestingly, it's difficult for me
    to grasp that the German judiciary, the intelligentsia,
    the professors, the universities, the higher
    elements of the society would have stepped back and permitted
    these atrocities to take place.
    And they apparently did.
    I know.
    But it's difficult--
    It's difficult, of course, but you know--
    You had a whole legal system.
    You had the court system.
    Yes.
    And it was also burdened--
    For a while it was supposedly approaching democracy
    under von Hindenburg, it's difficult to--
    But you see, if you read the book, Gold and Iron
    by Fritz Stern, which is the story of the Bleichröder banking
    family who were friends of Bismarck,
    it isn't just the story of this banking family.
    It's also the life in Germany in the 1870s and just up to that.
    He writes about the development of academic antisemitism
    at that time.
    When I first read it, I thought he meant an abstract kind
    of antisemitism.
    But what he really meant was that in the universities
    the it started with antisemitism.
    And of course, it spread.
    University professors are even more respected in Germany
    than in other places.
    And if they said it, then that was [NON-ENGLISH]..
    And they were able to spread.
    But of course it was never really absent
    so that the way it was prepared for them.
    And the judiciary was subverted.
    There were just enough to--
    well, sometimes maybe they were coerced.
    And many were arrested and fled.
    But for the most part, it was much more
    convenient to go along.
    Anything else?
    Well, thank you very much.
    [APPLAUSE]
    I want to say thank you very much to Ruth for such a
    moving story and sharing her experiences with us.
    I'm sure it was very trying.
    I also want you to know that this is being videotaped
    and will go to several Holocaust centers throughout the country
    and become part of the story.
    I'm just sorry that there are not
    more people here to hear this, but hopefully through the tape,
    they will.
    And God willing, at another time,
    Ruth may come back and share these memories with us,
    and we can have a larger audience.
    I thank you all for being here this morning.

    Overview

    Interviewee
    Ruth K. Meyerowitz
    Date
    interview:  1992 September 20

    Physical Details

    Language
    English
    Extent
    1 videocassette (VHS) : sound, color ; 1/2 in..

    Rights & Restrictions

    Conditions on Access
    There are no known restrictions on access to this material.
    Conditions on Use
    No restrictions on use

    Keywords & Subjects

    Administrative Notes

    Legal Status
    Permanent Collection
    Provenance
    The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives received a copy of the interview from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Oral History Branch
    Record last modified:
    2023-11-16 08:16:44
    This page:
    https:​/​/collections.ushmm.org​/search​/catalog​/irn520367

    Additional Resources

    Transcript (English)

    Download & Licensing

    In-Person Research

    Contact Us