by Curtis Casewit

   In December 1937, when I was living in Florence, Italy, I received a visit from my father. The resettlement in Mexico City was proceeding well. He planned to make just one final trip to Germany. As on previous occasions, he would fly. Curiously, the Gestapo did not arrest or even bother airline passengers, while Jewish travelers by train were often stopped at the Swiss border and pulled off the trains by the German police with the duplicity of the Swiss. While in Florence, my father revealed to me that he'd hidden a nest egg of 25,000 German marks in a Swiss bank; like many Jews who feared for their lives, the account was "numbered" and nameless. It was a secret account.

   I didn't know it then, but this was my father's final visit. I would never see him again. His Lufthansa plane crashed in Frankfurt, Germany, killing all the passengers. The date was January 8, 1938. My father's fiancée committed suicide by throwing herself from the highest building of Munich, her hometown. The Swiss bankers meanwhile refused to return the 25,000 marks. My own search for these all-important savings held by the Swiss was unsuccessful.

Jewish boy forced to paint "Jude" on his father’s store: Vienna, Austria, 1938

   Imagine a world where suddenly you are no longer considered a citizen because you are a Jew. Imagine the financial troubles that would ensue in a world where you were not allowed to own a business or to have any non-Jewish employees or customers. It is a world where shuls are destroyed and Jewish politicians can't seem to do anything about it. You may once have belonged to this world, but now nobody wants Jews in it anymore. If it is too painful to imagine, try asking a German Jew what it was like before the war.

   For a contemporary U.S. citizen, the plight of the pre-war German Jew is difficult to imagine. The brutality of Hitler's Nazis began with his seizing of power in 1933 and eventually ended with the "Final Solution"—Hitler's diabolic term for the mass murder of six million Jews. The victims were not only German "Juden" but Jews from every nationality, including a few Americans who happened to be at the wrong place in the wrong time.

   My own story began when I was in my early teens and part of an old family in Mannheim, a large city near Frankfurt. Before Hitler, life proved to be fairly uneventful. My great- grandfather was a rabbi; my grandfather built a solid business which my father, Theodor Caswitz, built into a successful international enterprise. Theodor sold German steel items all over Europe. I had no brothers or sisters. My parents were divorced in 1923 and my mother lived in the U.S.

Overnight, German "Juden" could not hold public office, run a business or teach.

   At first, everyone thought that Hitler would not last. Nevertheless, it was not easy to be a Jewish boy surrounded and outnumbered by young Nazis. Some of my earliest memories date back to the Nuremberg Laws, which banned us from Mannheim's libraries, museums, restaurants, sports activities and cafés. Most of my hometown's retail businesses displayed a sign telling Jews that they were not wanted. ("Juden unerwuenscht" and later "Juden Verboten!"). Meanwhile, there was always the constant danger that our shul would be burned down.

   No one could ignore the warnings. When I took a swim at the local pool—something I'd done for years—the lifeguard grabbed me by the neck and tried to drown me. Fortunately I was a long-time athlete and strong enough to shake him off. (The lifeguard claimed that it was just a "joke," but I knew better.) One never knew if some young, fanatic Hitler hoodlums would beat us up; some of my former schoolmates were attacked by three dozen Nazis with vicious police dogs. Every day, we heard more and more gruesome stories about the SS and the Gestapo.

At first, everyone thought that Hitler would not last.

   Both my father and I were victims of the Nuremberg Laws, which brought about a drastic change in the life of every German Jew; officially, the discrimination began on September 15, 1935, when we lost our citizenship. Overnight, German "Juden" could not hold public office, run a business or teach on any level; they were excluded from the arts, the theater, industry and entertainment. Self-employment was forbidden.

   My father had to sell his import-export business. As he expected, the sale brought him only 10% of the business's original value. (The buyer was his former partner.) What should he do next? After much research, my father decided to immigrate with his fiancée and me to Mexico. The paperwork would take time, however, and he'd arranged for me to wait for the move at an international language school in Florence, Italy.

   I considered myself lucky. Most German Jews were understandably nervous. Many countries were not accepting the terrified Jews who were fleeing Hitler. Palestine was another possibility for some motivated, healthy individuals. Many German Jews managed to find a new home in China, which needed educated, willing, professional people.

   The Language Institute in the Tuscan hills of Florence was a delight after our mistreatment and the Nazi cruelty in my hometown of Mannheim. Our professors and the Italians didn't take Fascism seriously; nor were they interested in introducing and enforcing the new laws.

Jewish woman on a park bench labeled "for Jews only": Austria, 1938

   After my father died in the plane crash in January 1938, conditions worsened weekly for the Jews. In the Mannheim area, Jewish hospitals and nursing homes became the sites for mysterious disappearances of the elderly and sick; the able-bodied often vanished at night to die of hunger in forced labor camps while young Jews were in constant danger at the hands of the Hitler youth. For the very old and often for the Orthodox Jews, this was the start of the Holocaust. All through the late 1930', the pograms went on in earnest. The most historic day was October 11, 1938, the day that became known as Kristallnacht. That night, shuls burned all over Germany; windows of Jewish-owned retail stores were smashed by hateful Nazi mobs. In one night, some 20,000 innocents found themselves grabbed, arrested and incarcerated. Max Goldberg, one of the prisoners and a family acquaintance, had been my father's accountant. For no rhyme or reason, Goldberg, 54, was hustled to Dachau, a concentration camp not far from Munich. Here this sedentary man had to jog the length of the oval camp until he dropped dead. He was slightly portly and in no condition to survive. The camp guards beat Max with the umbrella he had brought with him. "This is open season to kill Jews," Max was told. He survived this torture only for a few hours.

   In the meantime, deportations became commonplace. Families were split apart, never to see each other again.

   My former math teacher was arrested in front of my entire school class. He died at the Dachau camp, where most guards happened to be former criminals.

   Personally I was a lucky young man.

When I took a swim at the local pool — something I'd done for years — the lifeguard grabbed me by the neck and tried to drown me.

   The Language Institute moved from Florence, Italy, to Nice, France. Foreign Jews had to report to one of several camps. The majority picked Gurs, not far from the Spanish border—a bitter cold, primitive labor camp supervised by vicious goons. I chose Antibes, on the legendary, sunny French Riviera. One day, the camp commandant announced that the French Foreign Legion, which was headquartered in Algeria, was seeking volunteers. I volunteered immediately and by the next weekend I found myself in a dark and windy fort in Marseilles, France. All the gates and even the windows were bolted shut; the French obviously didn't trust our eagerness to sign up and didn't want us to change our minds. And the Foreign Legion? It just happened to consist mostly of former felons. Just then, it was the toughest army in the world. Its official mission: to guard Algeria. We had to carry 100-pound weights on our backs in 110-degree heat. Most of our military activity took place in the desert. I blacked out several times in the heat from sunstroke. Brawling, drunken fellow soldiers often attacked me. Painful and brutal, yes, but the Legion saved my life; Hitler and his armies never came to Algeria. In 1943, my situation improved even more when I joined the British Army. In time, I ended up in London and then, in 1949, joined my mother in New York.

Yellow Star of David worn by all Jews in the Reich: decreed September 1941

   The years of Nazi party power were more than cruel and unpredictable. The cutthroats who became sudden rulers and concentration camp guards systematically starved the slave labor to death. They were trying to achieve a "Judenrein" (clean of Jews) Germany. (Likewise, they mistreated Christians.)

   The unexpected showed up daily. For instance, I saw my first German book burning in 1933. A year later, a longtime family governess told my law-abiding father that she'd betray him to the Gestapo if he didn't hand her 50,000 marks. (My father paid without hesitation.)

   The years have passed. I'm now 76 years old. The German government paid me a one-time financial grant for my lost education. The Swiss bankers, citing secrecy laws, kept the 25,000 marks that my father had deposited in a numbered account. I visited more than a dozen Swiss banks, but to no avail (see sidebar). Still, six million of my brethren were exterminated; I'm grateful to be alive.

Curtis Casewit, a syndicated book columnist, resides in Denver, CO.