Life_under_Siege_The_Jews_of_Magdeburg_under_Nazi_Rule.pdf

Magdeburg prominent Jews in the community were also pursued and ruined
through show trials and media publicity. 2
After the initial waves of boycotts in 1933, the majority of the city’s Jewish
population attempted to adjust to their changed circumstances. From 1934 until
1937 the majority of the population had adapted, however grave their financial
circumstances had become. This adaptation was assisted by a number of factors,
including the hope that the regime was a temporary aberration and exemptions
from some antisemitic laws. Nevertheless, the situation worsened noticeably after
the Nuremberg Laws. Approximately one third of Magdeburg’s Jews either
relocated or emigrated during the period from 1933 until the middle of 1937.
By the spring of 1938 all preparations for the final exclusion of the Jews from
the economy had been completed. 3 Despite this, the Jews of Magdeburg continued
as before, even though economic disenfranchisement had gathered much
legislative momentum. It was not until the pogrom of the Reichskristallnacht that
the illusion German Jewry had held was completely shattered.
Magdeburg was an industrialised, working-class city. Support for socialism
and communism was strong prior to 1933. 4 Gerry Levy recalled with some irony
that after the Nazis assumed power, an expression concerning the change in public
support circulated throughout the city: ‘Innen rot, außen braun – Wie ein Steak!’
[‘Red on the inside, brown on the outside – just like a steak!’]. 5 The political
metamorphosis expressed in this phrase provides an insight into the population’s
adoption of official antisemitism, as the overwhelming majority of interviewees
2 This subject, together with examples, will be discussed in Chapter Three.
3 Avraham Barkai, From Boycott to Annihilation: The Economic Struggle of German
Jews, 1933–1943 Hanover and London: University Press of New England, 1989, pp.
116–117.
4 H. Freeman, op. cit., 13 May 1998.
5 Correspondence from Gerry Levy AM to the author, 10 January 2002.
79