Life_under_Siege_The_Jews_of_Magdeburg_under_Nazi_Rule.pdf

was made known to the CV, then it acted on it immediately. If more senior advice
was required, the Leipzig and/or Berlin offices were consulted.
Antisemitic incidents which were registered and acted upon include the
following: complaints made that at local gatherings of the SS (Schutzstaffel) and
SA (Sturmabteilung) in December 1933 that lists of Jewish doctors were being
read out with a view to incitement; 184 that masses of antisemitic signage appeared
throughout the city including behind windows, 185 in shops and in restaurants; the
incidence of the publication and distribution of boycott lists and of tens of
thousands of copies of a directory, with a caricatured Jew pictured on its cover,
entitled Magdeburgs Juden stellen sich vor! [Magdeburg’s Jews Introduce
Themselves!] detailing the names, addresses and professions of all Jews in the
city; 186 complaints concerning the public singing of defamatory, antisemitic songs;
notification concerning the introduction of antisemitic signage to be displayed on
trams from 31 August 1935; 187 and notification that Jews would be forbidden from
visiting the city’s archive, libraries, and bookshops and requested not to use the
city’s public baths from 8 September 1935. 188
The majority of complaints lodged by the CV to the authorities took time to
resolve, seldom with success. Much of the limited success was confined to the
184 Correspondence from the regional office of the CV in Leipzig to the head office of
the CV in Berlin concerning the Magdeburg branch of the CV, 2 December 1933,
Collection 0.51.OSO, File 243, YVA, op. cit., pp. 3–4.
185 Correspondence from the regional office of the CV in Leipzig the CV and the
Magdeburg branch of the CV, discussing antisemitic signage, 30 January 1934 and 2
July 1934, Collection RG-11.00M.31, Reel 130, File 721-1-2845, USHMMA, op. cit.,
pp. 430–431.
186 Correspondence from the regional office of the CV in Leipzig to the Gestapa in
Magdeburg, complaining about boycott lists and the publication Magdeburgs Juden
stellen sich vor!, 13 February 1935, ibid., pp. 428–429.
187 Correspondence from regional office of the CV in Leipzig to the head office of the
CV in Berlin, concerning the introduction of antisemitic signage on Magdeburg trams,
31 August 1935, ibid., p. 392.
188 Report from the Magdeburg City Press Office, 8 September 1935, ibid., p. 380.
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