Life_under_Siege_The_Jews_of_Magdeburg_under_Nazi_Rule.pdf

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regime or their sympathy to the plight of the Jews. The young Sigrid Schetzer
remembered with great fondness her English teacher, Studienrätin Justus, who
was also her class teacher at the ‘Augustaschule’. The teacher made it perfectly
clear that she was sympathetic to the plight of the Jews and was later sent to a
concentration camp for refusing to swear an oath to Hitler. 41 Not dissimilar were
the feelings of Gisela Jankelowitz, then aged sixteen years old, toward her class
teacher, Mr Schwienhagen, who, after learning that she was not attending the
informal farewell for her class arranged at a local café, telephoned her and insisted
she attend, remarking to her: ‘You are a part of us.’ 42 Equally as noble is the
account of an incident at the ‘Augustaschule’ in a particular class where there
were two Jewish girls who sat together. The interviewee recalled the incident:
One winter morning, we came inside and there was huge lettering across our
desk, which read: “Jewish Pigs!” We left the room, and when the teacher came
in she saw it immediately, and said: “Who did this?” Naturally, no one said
anything. So she picked four girls to clean it up. She was very popular and in
winter if it was snowing, she would tell us that if we worked very hard she
would allow us ten minutes at the end of the class to play in the snow, and she
said: “If this ever happens again……Not in my class!.....No one is different
here!” I thought this was very, very brave. 43
Hans Jensen could not recall any antisemitism on the part of his teachers at his
school, the ‘Vereinigtes Dom- und Klostergymnasium’, and completed his
schooling there on 24 February 1938. 44 However, his predominantly positive or
neutral experiences with regard to the occurrence of everyday antisemitism were
unusual. For the majority of interviewees antisemitism was a regular school
experience. For a minority, it was encountered often, but not with any regularity.
41 S. Freeman, op. cit., 13 May 1998.
42 Kent, op. cit., 12 January 1998.
43 H. B., op. cit., 15 August 1997.
44 Zeugnis der Reife, Vereinigtes Staatliches Dom- und Klostergymnasium
Magdeburg, 24 February 1938, Private Archive of Hans Jensen, op. cit.