Jewish Life in Nazi Germany: Dilemmas and Responses (34 page)

Nonetheless, otto Dov kulka considers the Reichsvereinigung to have been primarily a closed, pluralistic-democratic community that preserved elements of former Jewish life, such as education and social welfare activities in the midst of a totalitarian terror state.
⁵⁷
kulka’s perspective on the Reichsvereinigung, however, hardly takes into account the extent of its cooperation with the Nazis in preparing the deportations, the work of German-Jewish functionaries in Theresienstadt, and the activities of the Jewish
Vertrauensmänner
from 1943 to 1945.

why did the Jewish functionaries take on these dangerous positions that cost most of them their lives? out of a highly developed sense of responsibility and an exaggerated level of self-confidence and because they were coerced into doing so—that is the answer supplied earlier. with what means could they confront the implementation of the “fi-nal solution”? Many high-level Jewish functionaries were lawyers and economists who had held upper-echelon positions in government administration before the Nazis came to power. The Reichsvereinigung’s apparatus, with its many departments and sections, its predetermined areas of competence, its rigid structures and regulations, and its “chain of command,” closely paralleled the government administration. when eppstein was ordered to report to the RSHA, his “higher authority,” he regularly took minutes of the meetings. Ignoring the humiliating forms of communication, he recorded the orders given, his own sugges-tions for implementing them, and the reactions of the other side. All of this was written in a language that was demonstratively matter-of-fact and bureaucratic. The complete version of these minutes went to the RSHA and the executive board of the Reichsvereinigung. Certain sections were sent as memos to the appropriate department heads or staff members. Apparently, the aim was to record in writing anything that pertained in the broadest sense to the deportations, and to deal with these matters in a manner that was transparent, comprehensible, consistent, and independent of the persons involved.

Administrative authorities normally work dependably and in accordance with the law. The Jewish functionaries followed the principles of this type of “old-style administration.” They expected that such bureaucratic rules would act as a counterweight to arbitrariness, violence, and murder. That such bureaucratic rules and mass murder by no means precluded one another but might, on the contrary, form a tight bond, contradicted the personal experience of these Jewish functionaries. The National Socialists, in contrast, propagated the ideal of a “fighting administration” that was not bound by norms and the law. The RSHA was the prototypical model. Michael wildt has referred to this kind of authority as a “new type of institution” because of its structure, which went unchecked by regulations and laws and its directors who alternatively organized the process of deportations and mass murder in the “killing fields” in the east.
⁵⁸
The Reichsvereinigung’s functionaries interpreted their “old-style administration” as a bulwark against the corruption, exploitation, arbitrariness, and inhumanity all around them. even in Theresienstadt, they persevered and created an oversized

administrative apparatus. The commission that compiled the deportation lists there, for example, consisted of forty-three people, all of whom held positions entitling them to participate in these decisions. But preserving an administration that functioned methodically and followed the rules proved to be a pitifully helpless strategy for averting what Dan Diner has termed the “rupture of civilization.” Survivor erich Simon later summarized his position and that of his murdered companions as follows: “Horrible, when one thinks back today, but it [the cooperation with the Nazis] happened in the interest of our people, from the perspective of the time; we believed that by cooperating we had accompanied them into a foreign situation in an orderly manner.”
⁵⁹

Notes

1. Landesarchiv Berlin (hereafter LAB): Rep. 20, No. 4616–4617, Announcement of the Jewish Community in Berlin, 12 July 1945.
   
2. See Beate Meyer, “Gratwanderung zwischen Verantwortung und Verstrickung— Die Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland und die Jüdische Gemeinde zu Berlin 1938–1945,” in
   Juden in Berlin 1938–1945
   , ed. Beate Meyer and Hermann Simon (Berlin: Philo Verlagsgesellschaft, 2000), 291–337.
   
3. Allied Control Council, Act No. 1, 20 September 1945, I.1.
   
4. See esriel Hildesheimer,
   Jüdische Selbstverwaltung unter dem NS-Regime. Der Existenzkampf der Reichsvertretung und Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland
   (Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1994); otto Dov kulka,
   Deutsches Judentum unter dem Nationalsozialismus. Dokumente zur Geschichte der Reichsvertretung der deutschen Juden 1933–1939
   , Vol. 1 (Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1995); and otto Dov kulka, “The Reichsvereinigung and the Fate of the German Jews, 1938/1939–1943. Continuity or Discontinuity in German-Jewish History in the Third Reich,” in
   Die Juden im nationalsozialistischen Deutschland/The Jews in Nazi Germany
   , ed. Arnold Paucker (Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1986), 353–363.
   
5. Leo Baeck Institute
   (hereafter: LBI), Jerusalem: D 52, 556/2, D 24, 556/1, Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland, Circular Letter No. 454, 3 February 1939; see also Yehoyakim Cochavi, “‘The Hostile Alliance’: The Relationship between the Reichsvereinigung of Jews in Germany and the Regime,”
   Yad Vashem Studies
   22 (1992): 237–272.
   
6. See Michael wildt,
   Die Judenpolitik des SD 1935 bis 1938. Eine Dokumentation
   

   (Munich: oldenbourg Verlag, 1995).
   

7. Reichsgesetzblatt
   1939: 10. Verordnung zum Reichsbürgergesetz, 4 July 1939, 1097.
   
8. See Gudrun Maierhof,
   Selbstbehauptung im Chaos. Frauen in der Jüdischen Selbsthilfe 1933–1943
   (Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 2002).
   
9. See Avraham Barkai, “Von Berlin nach Theresienstadt. Zur politischen Biographie von Leo Baeck 1933–1945,” in Avraham Barkai,
   Hoffnung und Untergang. Studien
   

   zur deutsch-jüdischen Geschichte des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts
   (Hamburg: Christians Verlag, 1998), 141–165.
   

10. See Maierhof,
    Selbstbehauptung
    , and wolf Gruner, “Armut und Verfolgung. Die Reichsvereinigung, die jüdische Bevölkerung und die antijüdische Politik im NS-Staat 1939 bis 1945,” in
    Juden und Armut in Mittel-und Osteuropa
    , ed. Stefi Jersch wenzel (Cologne/weimar/Vienna: Böhlau, 2000), 405–433.
    
11. See LBI, New York: AR 7171, Letter Leo Loewenstein to ernst Noah, Martin Salomonski, Heinrich Stahl, und Hermann Stern, 20 February 1940.
    
12. See Yad Vashem Archives, Jerusalem (hereafter YVA): 01/226, Benno Cohn et al, “Verschiedene Informationen über die jüdische Situation in Berlin in den Jahren von 1933 bis 1940, Sitzung des Arbeitskreises von Zionisten aus Deutschland on 20 May 1958,” 5.
    
13. See Recha Freier,
    Let the Children Come
    (London: weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1961),
    

    64–74; Yfaat weiss,
    Deutsche und polnische Juden vor dem Holocaust. Jüdische Identität zwischen Staatsbürgerschaft und Ethnizität 1933–1940
    (Munich: oldenbourg, 2000), 211–217.
    

14. YVA: 01/320, k. J. Ball, Illegale Aliya (!) 1939/1940 aus Hitler-Deutschland, 32.
    
15. YVA: 02/283, Michael Meyer, emigration to Palestine during the war, 10.
    
16. The author is working on a comprehensive study on the Reichsvereinigung and the deportations. It is due to be published in 2009.
    
17. See wolf Gruner, “Von der kollektivausweisung zur Deportation der Juden aus Deutschland (1938–1945),” in
    Die Deportation der Juden aus Deutschland. Plaene—Praxis—Reaktionen
    , ed. Birthe kundrus and Beate Meyer (Göttingen: wallstein, 2004), 21–62.
    
18. See wiener Library, London: P. III.c.No. 622, evakuierung der Juden aus Stettin, 1 September 1940. For the living conditions in the Lublin district, see Robert kuwalek, “Das kurze Leben ‘im osten.’ Jüdische Deutsche im Distrikt Lublin aus polnisch-jüdischer Sicht,” in kundrus and Meyer,
    Deportation
    , 112–134, here: 112–119.
    
19. Archive Centrum Judaicum, Berlin (hereafter ACJ): 2 B 1/1, Memo written by eppstein, 19 February 1940, 3f.
    
20. Ibid., 4.
    
21. Bundesarchiv, Berlin (hereafter Barch): R 8150, 1.1., Minutes of the Board Meeting [Protokoll der Vorstandssitzung] of the Reichsvereinigung, 29 February 1940, No. 3; see also Archive of the Forschungsstelle für Zeitgeschichte, Hamburg: Schottelius on an Interview with Max Plaut, 11 July 1953, 4.
    
22. ACJ: 2 B 1/1, Memo written by eppstein, 19 February 1940.
    
23. LBI, Jerusalem: D 52, 556/2, Memo written by Hirsch, 28 october 1940.
    
24. YVA: 01/53, Max Plaut, “Die Juden in Deutschland von 1939 bis 1941,” 6.
    
25. See Hildesheimer,
    Selbstverwaltung
    , 200f., and Meyer, “Gratwanderung,” 297–320.
    
26. Yedioth Hayom, 2 May 1941, “Das Nein der deutschen Juden. Hinter den kulis-sen des Madagaskar-Plans,” 11.
    
27. Ibid., 12; see also, Anonymous Report, compiled by the Jewish Agency, Geneva, February 1940, in
    Archives of the Holocaust. An International Collection of Selected Documents
    , ed. Francis Nicosia, Vol. 4 (New York/London: Taylor and Francis, 1990), Docs. 4, 9.
    
28. Archiv der Stadt Mannheim: 27/2002/7, Collection Paul eppstein, Report Paula eppstein, 1 July 1994, 9.
    
29. LBI, Jerusalem: 643, Berthold Simonsohn, Gedenkblatt für Paul eppstein, 18 September 1959, 1f.
    
30. Archive of the AJDC, New York: Collection 33/44, File 631/2 of 2, Memorandum, 26 February 1941, Request from Dr. Meyerheim.
    
31. LBI, New York: AR 25033, Collection Rischkowsky, Memo written by eppstein, 24 october 1941.
    
32. LAB: Rep. 235–07, MF 4170–4171, Martha Mosse, erinnerungen, Attachment: Die Jüdische Gemeinde zu Berlin 1934–1943, 23/24 July 1958, 2.
    
33. Ibid. See also Leo Baeck, “A People Stands before its God,” in
    We survived. The
    

    Story of Fourteen of the Hidden and the Hunted of Nazi Germany
    , ed. eric H. Boehm (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1949), 288.
    

34. See Meyer, “Gratwanderung,” and Meyer, “Handlungsspielräume regionaler jüdischer Repräsentanten (1941–1945). Die Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland und die Deportationen,” in kundrus and Meyer,
    Deportation
    , 63–85.
    
35. See Rivka elkin,
    “Das Jüdische Krankenhaus muss erhalten bleiben.” Das Jüdische Krankenhaus in Berlin zwischen 1938 und 1945
    (Berlin: edition Hentrich, 1993), 46f.
    
36. See Guidelines in Alfred Gottwaldt and Diana Schulle,
    Die “Judendeportationen” aus dem Deutschen Reich 1941–1945
    (wiesbaden: Marix Verlag, 2005), 56ff, 140ff, 148ff.
    
37. See Miroslav kárný, “Theresienstadt 1941–1945,” in
    Theresienstädter Gedenkbuch. Die Opfer der Judentransporte aus Deutschland nach Theresienstadt 1942–1945
    , ed. Theresienstädter Initiative (Prague: Academia, 2000), 15f.
    
38. See elke Froehlich, ed.,
    Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels
    , Vol. 4 (Munich: Saur, 1987), Notice 24 May 1942, 351f.
    
39. See Meyer, “Gratwanderung,” 309f.
    
40. Ibid. See also Meyer, “The Inevitable Dilemma: The Reich Association of Jews in Germany, the Deportations, and the Jews who went Underground,” in
    On Germans and Jews under the Nazi Regime: Essays by Three Generations of Historians
    , ed. Moshe Zimmermann (Jerusalem: Hebrew University Press, 2006), 297–312.