Life_under_Siege_The_Jews_of_Magdeburg_under_Nazi_Rule.pdf

119
Magdeburg-Anhalt on 20 August 1938, he declined to approve the sale. He stated
that the sale price was far too high and requested that the contract be revised and
include all of the business’s equipment and stock in the revised price. 146 By 7
October 1938 Wurmser had organised his emigration and that of his wife Betty
and fifteen-year-old daughter Hannelore and wished to have his affairs finalised
by 14 October. Without the sale of the business he could not receive certification
from the Ministry of Finance, nor a passport. On the same day the head of the
Cobblers’ Guild of Magdeburg, having visited and taken a thoroughly
documented inventory of Wurmser’s premises, recommended that the sale price of
the same business be reduced to RM 1,251.50. 147 The second contract was drawn
up on the same day for the second price, and after its submission to the local
authorities it was approved by the Gauleiter on 3 November 1938. 148 Not
dissimilar to the predicament of Ida Karfiol, although on a smaller scale, Jakob
Wurmser simply had to accept the reduced offer, knowing full well that he was
absolutely defenceless and that he was being swindled. Evading arrest after the
Reichskristallnacht, Wurmser, together with his family, left in the last week of
November 1938 and emigrated to Australia. 149
Deflated sale prices were not the only problems that Jewish vendors faced, as
the siblings Joachim and Lilli Freiberg experienced when they also finally bowed
to pressure to sell their leathergoods shop ‘Taschen-Freiberg’, located at Breiter
146
Arisierung der mechanischen Schuhbesohlanstalt nebst Lederhandlung Jakob
Wurmser, Magdeburg, 20. August 1938, Bestand Rep. C 28 I f, Signatur Nr. 933,
Band 2, LHASA MD, op. cit., p. 301.
147
Betrifft: Übernahme des Schuhmachereibetriebes Wurmser/Güssau, 7. Oktober
1938, ibid., pp. 308–309.
148
Betrifft: Übernahme der mechanischen Schuhbesohlanstalt nebst Lederhandlung
Jakob Wurmser, Magdeburg, Breiter Weg 147, durch den Schuhmachermeister Fritz
Güssau, Magdeburg, 3. November 1938, ibid., p. 315.
149
Personal interview with H. B. (recorded), Sydney, 19 November 1997.