A month and nine days too early
Kristallnacht – Crystal Night, a euphemism for the shards of broken glass that littered the streets – was a pogrom against Jews carried out by the Nazi Party’s Sturmabteilung (SA) and Schutzstaffel (SS) paramilitary forces along with some participation from the Hitler Youth and German civilians throughout Nazi Germany on 9–10 November 1938.
In 1933, the Jewish population of Mainz was 2730, 1.8% of the population.
In 1939, it had shrunk to 1452
In 1948, 80
It is estimated that between 1300 and 1400 Mainz Jews were deported and murdered.
I have stories of 3 families and 22 young people who were affected.
There are so many more.
- The Schönbergers
Two brothers, Arthur (†1931) and Eugen, their wives, Johanna and Edith, two children, Doris and Egon, two sisters, Bertha and Johannette
A very wealthy and respected family in Mainz, a leading producer of sparkling wines in Germany with close associations to Heidsieck in France.
Eugen and Edith’s apartment above the business was ransacked, Eugen signed over his business at gunpoint.
Eugen and Edith, Johanna and her 2 children Doris and Egon were granted permission in 1939 to emigrate upon payment of the equivalent of $2.4m, Egon to New Zealand as one of only 100 Jewish refugees accepted, the rest of the family to France where they went underground with the help of Heidsieck , it is assumed, for 2 years, Eugen and Edith making their way to America via Spain and Portugal, Johanna and Doris interned in Drancy, deported, murdered. Bertha and Johannette took their lives to avoid deportation.
Full story here:
https://mainzdailyphoto.com/2012/09/07/2-degrees-of-separation-1649/
2. The Gaertners
Simon and Juliana Gaertner together with their son Willi, daughter-in-law Johanna and granddaughter Elsbeth,
Simon died in 1940, Juliane deported and murdered, Willi, arrested (and released) by the Gestapo after Juliana marched down to their headquarters and confronted them with the words “I gave two sons for my country in the war, you’re not taking this one!”, Johanna and Elsbeth emigrated to the USA.
We all know the number “6 million” – the Jews murdered by the Nazi regime.
It’s a number that you can’t comprehend
Today, I look at it as being 2 old people.
Murdered 3 million times.
You’ll find Elsbeth again in the Class of 1936
Full story here:
https://mainzdailyphoto.com/2015/10/13/long-story/
https://mainzdailyphoto.com/2015/10/16/stumbling-blocks/
3. The Heimanns
Nile Rodgers, musician (Chic), songwriter (“Upside Down”, Diana Ross),, guitarist (his Fender has played on over $2bn worth of music..) and record producer. (Bowie) once said “You may not know my name, but I *bet* you know one of my songs”.
If you enjoyed Braveheart, Titanic, Forrest Gump, Fatal Attraction or The Accused at the movies, you have Max Heimann (here with his daughter Rosa in 1923 ) to thank.
Had he not emigrated to the USA in 1988 at the age of 15, he wouldn’t have been able to sponsor his brother Fritz, his wife Hilda and daughters Lora (r) and Margot (l) to emigrate in 1938, shortly before Kristallnacht.
Which is why there are no Stolpersteine in front of Hindenburgstrasse 23
Margot’s childhood friend “I’m the chubby one” Charlotte Hölz (who I tracked down, still living in the same house, one of few in the road that survived the bombing raids of 1942, 1944 and 1945) told me of the mob trying to break down the door of their apartment block, just down the road from the synagogue and baying for the blood of “the Jews you’ve got living here..”
And the movies?
That would be Margot’s daughter
Sherry Lansing
First female studio head, chairwoman and CEO of Paramount Pictures, and president of production at 20th Century Fox and – they say – the most powerful woman in Hollywood, then, now and forever.
Just like Nile Rodgers, you won’t have heard of her.
But you’ll have seen one of the films that she got onto the screen.
(I did genealogical and local research for her biography, Leading Lady. We’ve met a few times, missed each other by a hair more often than not, I flew to LA to a book launch event, we get on well. Class act.)
4. The Jewish Regional School – Class of 1936
The Jewish Regional School in Mainz was one of 10 founded in 1934 under a law “to establish new Jewish schools, particularly in view of the necessary reorganisation of the professions of German Jews”
Now, there’s a euphemism for you…
I researched the 22 young people in the picture, born between October 1922 and August 1924
4 deported and murdered
1 emigrated and killed by German troops in France
7 saved by the Kindertransport initiative
1 appears to have survived in hiding
2 are missing without a trace
7 emigrated to Australia, Israel, the USA or UK
Back row, left to right:
Margot Marx – deported 1942, murdered in Piaski
Erna Stern- deported 1942, murdered in Treblinka
Elsbeth Gaertner – Kindertransport UK, then USA
Lotte Hirsch – Kindertransport UK, then USA
Margot Jungermann – Kindertransport UK,
Doris Kahn – France 1940, then US
Lore Lebrecht – UK, then US
Richard Weber – no trace
Lotti Metzger – emigrated 1937 France, killed by German troops 1940
Ruth Metzger – Kindertransport CH, then Israel
Lutz Ganz – emigrated 1938, UK
Lotte Wertheimer – Kindertransport UK
Lutz Greif – emigrated 1937 Netherlands, then UK
Evi Metzger – Kindertransport UK
Walter Fridberg – emigrated 1940 to US via Rotterdam, served in the US Army and became a PoW.
Ernst Heinemann – no trace
Gunther Buch – emigrated Australia
Julius Mann – Kindertransport UK
Front row, left to right:
Siegfried Bernay – deported 1942, murdered in Piaski
Eugen Beck – survived
Günther Marx – emigrated via Yokohama to US
Ernst Heymann – deported 1942, murdered in Piaski
And just to give you an indication of the horror of it all – here’s Lotte Hirsch’s family tree
Her parents, her sister and 5 aunts and uncles murdered, 4 others who would have joined that number had they been still alive.
Almost the entire family
This song is 43 years old.
Someone commented recently “It’s outrageous that this song is still as relevant as it was in my childhood”.
BAP is a German band from Cologne, woke – as in “aware of and actively attentive to important societal facts and issues” – as shit and singing in the dialect that Ms MDP speaks and which few understand.
They were challenging the rise of the hard-right wing, of the heavy hand of Chancellor Helmut Kohl, of the remnants of the Third Reich, still in positions of power in finance and industry and the drift away from addressing their crimes and back to “business as usual”
The lyrics are underpinned by an instrumental crescendo of an increasing tension.
Netflix would subtitle it “Threatening music”
Some lyrics
No one cares about sirens
Because all-clear signals only cost half as much
It smells like Kristallnacht
When the people’s soul, always up for this
Rages and screams towards boiling point
‘Heil Halali’ [a call to mark the end of a hunt] and relentlessly obsessed
Roars for retribution
Trembling with envy
On Kristallnacht
But if you think differently, you’re the problem
Go with the flow, as you should
Gays are criminals
Foreigners are scum
We need someone to rid us of them
And then there’s no cavalry to save them
You think Zorro gives a shit?
He’ll just piss a ‘Z’ in the snow
And lean against a wall, slurring with nonchalance
“Yeah, and…??
Kristallnacht
Wolfgang Niedecken wrote in the early 1990s:
Everyone sings along, and no one thinks about what it’s actually about. But I can’t blame anyone for that, because people come to the concert, not to engage with me about the Jewish pogroms.
Read the news.
It’s happening again
Mainz Daily Photo 
Powerful post.