Life_under_Siege_The_Jews_of_Magdeburg_under_Nazi_Rule.pdf

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was to be completed prior to their release. The rabbi determined to retain his beard
and asked the officer if he could do so. 56 To his surprise, he agreed, much to the
horror of the barber, who feared for his life. The officer then telephoned the camp
headquarters for approval. Wilde wrote:
All orders from the Lager-Kommandantur [office of the Camp Commander]
were given by loudspeaker and so two minutes later about 16,000 German
Jews in the camp and many other people could hear the decision of the
Solomon in the Kommandantur: “The Jew, Chief Rabbi Dr Wilde, is allowed
to keep his beard; his head has to be shaved.” And so I came home without
any hairs on my head but with my beard. 57
Prior to his release, he and his entire group were instructed that their release was
contingent on their emigration. They were threatened with reprisals should they
discuss their camp experiences. This fear instilled in the former prisoners was one
factor why their experiences were not discussed for a time, if at all.
Sigrid Freeman recalled her father telling her at the time that he was not
allowed to discuss what had taken place in the concentration camp. She also
recalled her father’s return in the same group as the rabbi. Families of those
incarcerated were somehow informed of the details of the forthcoming return of
56 Whilst it was standard practice to shave the beards and heads of all prisoners, this
was a particularly degrading and humiliating act for a rabbi. Strict guidelines on
shaving are set down in the Code of Jewish Law. As such, the majority of Orthodox
Jews, and those from other Jewish traditions who choose to adhere to this law, refrain
from shaving altogether. This act symbolically constituted a further attack on Judaism
and Jewish practice.
57 George Wilde, Eleven Days in the Concentration Camp Buchenwald, 1938–1939,
File ME 687; MM82, LBIA NY, op. cit., p. 5. The quoted figure of approximately
16,000 German prisoners cannot be substantiated and Wilde provides no source for
this. It was most likely based on anecdotal sources, when the account was written.
Marion Kaplan cites the figure of 9,845 Jews incarcerated in Buchenwald
Concentration Camp after the pogrom. See Kaplan, op. cit., p. 122. Kaplan’s figure is
close to the figure cited by David A. Hackett, ed., The Buchenwald Report Boulder,
Colorado and Oxford: Westview Press, 1995, p. 113. Hackett cites the following
figures for November 1938: Admissions – 10,098; departures – 2,181; and camp
population at the end of the month – 18,105.