Life_under_Siege_The_Jews_of_Magdeburg_under_Nazi_Rule.pdf

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The duress of school life did not have any unifying effect on Jewish pupils
from the different backgrounds of German-born and Eastern European Jews. In
the majority of cases, the division was only exacerbated by the already tense
situation and spilled over into the school domain. In fact, there existed occasions
when one group set out to malign the other. Gerry Levy recalled, with aggrieved
feelings, an incident at school when two Jewish boys of Polish background ‘set
him up,’ leading to an altercation with non-Jewish pupils. He recalled: ‘They
really did the dirty on me, which of course led to a certain amount of acrimony.’ 38
Hemmi Freeman recalled with anger how one Polish-Jewish youth at his school
set out to wilfully provoke non-Jewish pupils. He related the incident:
We had a boy who was very unpopular. Let’s say that he just had a bad
character, Jew or not. The fact that he was a Jew incited the rest of the class. 39
Manfred Pelz – he was hateful! He came into the school with the Nazi flag on
his bicycle. And of course, all the boys at school pounced on him, and I felt
embarrassed. I mean, he was an idiot! Why should a Jew do this! And he
looked Jewish too. And he was clumsy in sports, so that was another thing that
nobody liked. But this boy wanted to provoke them. He comes on his
bicycle with a swastika flag. Stupid! Stupid! 40
In behaving in such a manner, Freeman felt that this youth only increased the
culture of exclusion and negative stereotyping and furthered potential physical
confrontation.
Despite the pervasive hostile culture a number of teachers in a variety of
schools also displayed great acts of kindness and humanity. Many non-Jewish
pupils also acted cordially toward their Jewish peers. Yet, whilst these acts on the
part of the pupils were noble, they were not perceived as controversial, unlike the
actions of some teachers, who made no secret of their antagonism to the Nazi
38 Levy, op. cit., 4 August 1997.
39 H. Freeman, op. cit., 13 May 1998.
40 H. Freeman, op. cit., 3 June 1998.