Life_under_Siege_The_Jews_of_Magdeburg_under_Nazi_Rule.pdf

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otherwise they generally felt ‘fortunate’ or ‘lucky.’ A minority of interviewees did
not discern any change for the worst.
By the time of the Nuremberg Laws in September 1935, the situation changed
for the worst. Most pupils were no longer simply being ‘needled,’ but were now
being subjected to both verbal and, on occasion, physical abuse. As a result of
antisemitic laws slowly forbidding Jews to live, work and socialise amongst non-
Jews, combined with the city of Magdeburg’s effective propaganda campaign,
Jewish children only mixed amongst other Jews (outside school), at the synagogue
or within the various Jewish youth groups. Non-Jewish school friends
disappeared. Some parents even took the trouble to tell the Jewish parents that
their respective children could no longer be friends.
On 21 September 1935, the office of the mayor in Magdeburg received a
questionnaire regarding the racial classification of all pupils, which had to be
returned to the provincial government by 1 November 1935. 20 Rassentrennung or
‘Separation of the Races’ in schools was desired, as the presence of Jewish pupils
in the classroom presented a major obstacle in the National Socialist education of
‘Aryan’ pupils. After the collection of the required statistics, on 24 September
1935 the mayor reported that there were over ‘100 Jews and half-Jews’ 21 in public
schools and requested that a separate school be made available for their instruction
for the commencement of the 1936 school year. On 6 October 1935, he received a
reply stating that the Prussian Ministry for Science, Art and Education had not as
20 Nachweisung der Rassenzugehörigkeit der die öffentlichen und privaten
Volksschulen besuchenden Reichsdeutschen Kinder, 21. September 1935, Bestand
Rep. C 28 II, Signatur Nr. 89, Band 2, LHASA MD, pp. 11–12.
21 Correspondence from Der Oberbürgermeister der Stadt Magdeburg, An den Herrn
Regierungspräsidenten zu Magdeburg, 24 September 1936, ibid., p. 21.