Life_under_Siege_The_Jews_of_Magdeburg_under_Nazi_Rule.pdf

148
day the Gestapa ruled that only in exceptional circumstances could Jewish
functions take place on Christian holidays and/or Sundays, owing to the lack of
available surveillance. The memorandum indicated that up to that time the Jews
had taken advantage of this. 86
By the end of 1935 exclusion of Jews in the public domain had been expedited
and daily life in public became increasingly burdensome and the risk of public
humiliation greater. Gisela Kent recalled the impossible situation when one came
upon a Nazi parade:
You had to raise your hand to greet the flag. But I never knew if I raised my
hand if someone would say: “There is a Jew and how dare you greet the flag!”
Or, if I didn’t greet the flag they would say to me: “Why didn’t you greet the
flag?” There were always opened doorways, where I ducked into. It was
terrible. This was our home where you belonged and you didn’t question that.
And all of a sudden you were an outcast! 87
Public chores and daily routines once considered simple took on a whole new
meaning for Jews, who could find potential danger at every corner.
From 1936 onwards the opinion of interviewees was that exclusion from all
non-Jewish public venues was normative. One interviewee recalled the existence
of benches in parks marked for the use of Jews only. 88 She recalled incidents of
the ongoing exclusion:
When we went ice-skating, we were thrown out. We could not go swimming;
we could not go to the cinema. The risk was always being identified. If you
weren’t, you got through; otherwise you got thrown out. We couldn’t even go
to restaurants. 89
The same situation applied to the families of Gisela Kent and Gerry Levy. Gisela
Kent recalled a similar situation, which is graphically illustrative of the exclusion:
86
Betrifft: Jüdische Veranstaltungen, 2. Dezember 1935, Collection JM, File 10624,
YVA, op. cit., p. 97.
87
Kent, op. cit., 12 January 1998.
88
H. B., op. cit., 15 August 1997.
89 Ibid.