Life_under_Siege_The_Jews_of_Magdeburg_under_Nazi_Rule.pdf

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little doubt that there were those who were unaffiliated. The persecutions and
experiences of those individuals of ‘mixed race’ were not uniform. Discrimination
depended on the racial classification the individual was allocated and eventually
on whether a mixed marriage was ‘privileged’ or ‘non-privileged.’ 161 The
refinement of definitions and their applications continued for the duration of the
war, affecting the families of anyone connected to a racially mixed pedigree.
Children of unions between Jews and individuals of ‘German blood’ were labelled
‘Mischlinge,’ meaning of mixed blood or hybrid, but with a derogatory
connotation as in mongrel, mixed breed or cross-breed. 162 In the 1930s only
approximately 11% of such children had remained religiously Jewish. These
children, as well as ‘Mischlinge’ who had married Jews, were called
‘Geltungsjuden’ and were treated as ‘full or racial’ Jews. 163
In Magdeburg, of the few documented cases of members of the Jewish
community who were in a ‘Mischehe,’ the majority were subjected to the same
persecutions as all Jews, as were their children who were counted as
‘Geltungsjuden’ or ‘those individuals who counted as Jews.’ However, the
situation for their non-Jewish spouses varied. 164 Such couples and their children
were also, as a rule, not subjected to deportation. Consequently, by April 1945,
with the exception of Jews living in hiding, the overwhelming majority of Jews
161
See Meyer, op. cit.
162
Kaplan, op. cit., p. 75.
163
Ibid.
164
For a comprehensive discussion on the treatment of non-Jewish spouses and on the
divisive classification of ‘Mischehen’ into ‘privileged’ and ‘non-privileged’
marriages, see Victor Klemperer, I Shall Bear Witness: The Diaries of Victor
Klemperer 1933–41 London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1998 and Victor Klemperer,
To The Bitter End: The Diaries of Victor Klemperer 1942–45 London: Weidenfeld
and Nicholson, 1999.