Life_under_Siege_The_Jews_of_Magdeburg_under_Nazi_Rule.pdf

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Interviewees also recalled that home life continued and that ‘life in general, as
peculiar as it might sound, always went on.’ 27 For adults, reading became a
popular activity as Jews were banned from owning radios. 28 Both Freiberg
brothers also recalled the birth of their sister, on 14 March 1944, and that their
mother was attended to by another member of the community. 29
During an allied air raid of the city on 16 January 1945 the ‘Judenhaus’ at
Große Schulstraße, in which the Freiberg family lived, was destroyed. 30 Fearful of
air raids and of imminent deportation, as rumour had spread that ‘the Gestapo was
rounding up anyone, whoever they could find for deportation,’ 31 the family fled
for a short time to a village near Stendal. When they returned to Magdeburg, they
installed themselves at the ‘Judenhaus’ at Westendstraße: ‘There were not many
families there; it was only a house. There was hardly anyone left. There wouldn’t
have been more than four or five families there.’ 32
Jews herded together in ‘Judenhäuser’ experienced isolation and exclusion
from society. This stripped them further of dignity and inflicted appalling living
conditions on them, which only compounded their emotional and physical
degradation and torment. This also allowed the Gestapo to both monitor the
population and to convey directives, primarily notices for forced labour and
pending deportation. After the establishment of the ‘Judenhäuser,’ the physical
and spiritual needs of the Jews of Magdeburg were attended to solely by the
former Synagogen-Gemeinde.
27
Name withheld, op. cit., 18 June 1999.
28
M. F., op. cit., 27 June 1999.
29
Ibid.
30
Personal file on the Freiberg family, Bestand Pe, Signatur Nr. 14, ASGM.
31
Ibid.
32
Name withheld, op. cit., 13 July 2004.