Life_under_Siege_The_Jews_of_Magdeburg_under_Nazi_Rule.pdf

eligious leadership. The synagogues played effective roles both within their
pastoral role and beyond this as a de-facto ‘one-stop-shop.’ They played a vital
role in developing strategies of communal defence and had thus moved beyond
their traditional religious roles and responsibilities.
Strategies of Communal Defence and Survival
On a communal level, strategies of defence and survival in the face of increasing
hostility were achieved in four separate communal arenas: the Centralverein
(CV), 170 the religious communities, the social welfare organisations and
organisations acting independently.
Prior to the pogrom of November 1938, the legal defence of the community
and its members was largely represented by the CV, the Centralverein deutscher
Staatsbürger jüdischen Glaubens – Landesverband Provinz Sachsen, Ortsgruppe
Magdeburg. 171 Much of this branch’s legal affairs were attended to by the CV’s
regional office in Leipzig, the Landesverband Mitteldeutschland des
Centralverein deutscher Staatsbürger jüdischen Glaubens. Particularly after the
introduction of the Nuremberg Laws, the CV also assisted community members to
adapt to new situations. The main task of developing appropriate strategies to
170 See Barkai, “Wehr Dich!” Der Centralverein deutscher Staatsbürger jüdischen
Glaubens (C. V.) 1893–1938, op. cit.
171 An extensive literature exists on the roles, activities and position of the CV from
1933 until 1938. See Konrad Kwiet and Helmut Eschwege, Selbstbehauptung und
Widerstand: Deutsche Juden im Kampf um Existenz und Menschenwürde 1933–1945
Hamburg: Christians-Verlag, 1984; Jürgen Matthäus, “Kampf ohne Verbündete. Der
Centralverein deutscher Staatsbürger jüdischen Glaubens 1933–1938,” Jahrbuch für
Antisemitismusforschung, 1999, pp. 248–277; and Arnold Paucker and Konrad Kwiet,
“Jewish Leadership and Jewish Resistance,” in David Bankier, ed., Probing the
Depths of German Antisemitism: German Society and the Persecution of the Jews,
1933–1941 Jerusalem: Yad Vashem and the Leo Baeck Institute, Jerusalem in
association with Berghahn Books, 2000, pp. 371–394.
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