Life_under_Siege_The_Jews_of_Magdeburg_under_Nazi_Rule.pdf

295
ordered the Registrar General’s office to insert the names of ‘Israel’ and ‘Sara’
into the names of all Jews in the register for births. 155
On 15 April 1939, the Reich Minister for the Interior ordered that all archival
material and documentation seized from Jewish institutions during the pogrom be
turned over to the Gestapo, if this had not already occurred. 156 The concern was
raised that a number of other governmental bodies still had in their possession
important and valuable documentation, which the Gestapo wished to assess. 157 On
9 May 1939, the Reich Propaganda Office for Magdeburg-Anhalt, located in
Dessau, despatched a memorandum announcing the forthcoming nationally
acclaimed exhibition of ‘The Eternal Jew’. Magdeburg hosted the exhibition from
13 May – 11 June 1939. The memorandum proclaimed the success of the
exhibition in other districts and encouraged attendance of this ‘great political,
educational exhibition.’ 158 According to the memorandum the exhibition provided
the visitor with an overview of the Jews’ pollution and ruination of other peoples,
both in the past and the present, and provided evidence of how the Jew was
already identified as an enemy of the people centuries prior. 159 The exhibition was
open daily from 9.00 a.m. until 8.00 p.m. Tickets were sold at a cost of RM 0.35
for advance bookings or RM 0.50 at the door. In order to advertise and celebrate
155
Correspondence from Das Amtsgericht Abt. 13, 24 March 1939, Bestand Oa,
Signatur Nr. 46, ASGM, op. cit., unnumbered page.
156
Betrifft: Jüdisches Archivgut, 15. April 1939, Bestand Rep. C 20 I. I b, Signatur
Nr. 1, LHASA MD, op. cit., p. 201.
157
Ibid.
158
Ausstellung “Der ewige Jude”, 9. Mai 1939, Bestand Rep. C 141, Signatur Nr. 2,
LHASA MD, p. 20.
159
Ibid. The cited quotation is the author’s translation from the original German
which reads: ‘Die Ausstellung gibt in übersichtlicher Form einen Einblick in das
völkerverderbende Treiben der Juden in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart. Weiterhin
wird anhand von Tatsachenmaterial nachgewiesen, wie der Jude schon vor
Jahrhunderten als Volksfeind erkannt worden ist.’