Life_under_Siege_The_Jews_of_Magdeburg_under_Nazi_Rule.pdf

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The majority of interviewees recalled that it was not until this event that they had
had any real connection to the Eastern European Jews in the community at all. A
number of them did know some of the children and youth from their association at
school. These interviewees recalled their shocked reaction to the deportations.
Gerry Levy recalled the event:
My parents sent me in to the Hauptbahnhof [main railway station] with
sandwiches, fruit and chocolate for those leaving. I knew some of them. But
most of the people I had never had any contact with. It was the first
time that I saw people being herded into railway cars. I spent a few hours
there. It was probably Rachmanit [compassion or pity]; that feeling of being
duty-bound. 10
He further remarked that it was the only real occasion when he had had any
interaction with Eastern European Jews as a group in the city. 11 Evidence does not
indicate how many groups were deported and over how many days. However,
Gerry Levy confirmed that the group he took food to consisted of approximately
150 Polish Jews. 12
Some Jews did return temporarily after the mass deportations. One of the
Polish-Jewish deportees who returned to Magdeburg was twenty-six-year-old
Gertruda Litmanowitz née Schindler. She re-entered Germany on 17 February
1939 on a nine-day transit visa and lodged with her father-in-law. 13 On 13
February 1939, the German border police in Neu Bentschen advised the police in
Magdeburg of her intention to re-enter the Reich and of her imminent immigration
to Shanghai. The border police requested that she be placed under surveillance for
10 Levy, op. cit., 7 November 1996.
11 For a discussion on the reactions of German Jews and the reaction of the
Reichsvertretung der Juden in Deutschland to the ‘Polenaktion’ see Yfaat Weiss,
Deutsche und polnische Juden vor dem Holocaust. Jüdische Identität zwischen
Staatsbürgerschaft und Ethnizität 1933–1940 München: R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 2000.
12 Telephone interview with Gerry Levy AM, Sydney, 8 July 2005.
13 Correspondence to and from the Deutsche Grenzdienststelle in Neu Bentschen and
das Polizeipräsidium in Magdeburg, 13 February – 22 February 1939, Bestand Z.-
Dok.001, Signatur Nr. 105, ASGM, p. 343.