Life_under_Siege_The_Jews_of_Magdeburg_under_Nazi_Rule.pdf

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Despite the ideological differences, there was no acrimony between the two
groups. Hemmi Freeman recalled that the political situation had indirectly forced
the two groups to be more tolerant, as ‘all Jews had been thrown together.’ 84
However, whilst the small size of the community meant that all children and youth
involved in both non-Zionist and Zionist groups knew each other and relations
were cordial, they could not be characterised as close. As late as 1938 one
interviewee recalled:
I was a member of Habonim. My father was a Zionist. I remember we had this
sports field where we used to go, next to the cemetery. We used to go there
on Sundays and we used to change around. One Sunday they [that is, members
of the non-Zionist youth groups] were there in the morning and we were in the
afternoon and the other way around the next week. In Habonim they probably
had various age groups. When I went there I would have been about ten. Most
of those people were mainly of Polish background. 85
Clearly, the two factions shared sporting fields, sometimes resources and building
venues. However, after youth groups were dissolved, there exists no evidence to
indicate that the ideological and cultural differences were bridged and the two
branches of youth groups in the community amalgamated in the period prior to the
pogrom in November 1938. Evidence indicates that the two youth factions
remained disunited until they were forced to unite by the circumstances in the
wake of the pogrom.
A number of conclusions and observations can be drawn from the activities
and roles of both non-Zionist and Zionist youth groups. Whilst their ideologies on
German and Jewish identities and the role of Palestine and Zionism for German
Jewry were at variance, both strands of youth groups filled the social void for
Jewish youth, when they were excluded from German society. Jewish youth were
84 H. Freeman, op. cit., 13 May 1998.
85 M. F., op. cit., 27 June 1999.