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Flight and Concealment: Surviving the Holocaust Underground in Munich and Beyond PDF

385 Pages·2022·31.924 MB·English
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FLIGHT AND CONCEALMENT FLIGHT AND CONCEALMENT Surviving the Holocaust Underground in Munich and Beyond k SUSANNA SCHRAFSTETTER TRANSLATED BY ALLISON BROWN Indiana University Press This book is a publication of Indiana University Press Office of Scholarly Publishing Herman B Wells Library 350 1320 East 10th Street Bloomington, Indiana 47405 USA iupress.org © Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen 2015 English translation © 2022 Indiana University Press All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48–1992. The translation of this work was funded by Geisteswissenschaften International—Translation Funding for Work in the Humanities and Social Sciences from Germany, a joint initiative of the Fritz Thyssen Foundation, the German Federal Foreign Office, the collecting society VG WORT, and the Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels (German Publishers & Booksellers Association). The translation was also funded by the REACH Grant Program of the Office of the Vice President for Research at the University of Vermont. Manufactured in the United States of America First printing 2022 Cataloging information is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN 978-0-253-06402-8 (hardback) ISBN 978-0-253-06403-5 (paperback) ISBN 978-0-253-06404-2 (ebook) CONTENTS Preface and Acknowledgments vii List of Abbreviations xi Maps xv Introduction 1 1. Under Nazi Rule: Jews in Munich, 1933–1941 13 2. The Deportations 31 3. Early Escapes: Fall 1941–Summer 1942 43 4. The Conclusion of the Mass Deportations in 1943: A Second Wave of Escapes? 65 5. Evading the Final Deportations in February 1945 87 6. Dangers and Failed Escapes, 1941–1945: Denunciation, Exploitation, Discovery, Illness 103 7. Specific Groups of Helpers and Those They Helped: Hidden Children and Church Aid 126 8. To and from Munich: Regional, National, and Transnational Escape Routes and Connections 144 9. After 1945: Reconstruction or New Beginning? 161 10. Postwar Encounters 182 11. Compensation for Surviving U-Boats, Their Family Members, and Their Helpers 202 12. U-Boats and Their Helpers in Postwar German Society 219 Conclusion 235 Notes 243 Bibliography 305 Index 351 PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This book is the revised and updated English version of my book Flucht und Versteck. Untergetauchte Juden in München—Verfolgungserfahrung und Nachkriegsalltag, which was published by the Wallstein Verlag in Göttingen, Germany, in 2015. The English version has been made possible by a grant from Geisteswissenschaften International—Translation Funding for Work in the Humanities and Social Sciences from Germany and by a REACH grant from the office of the vice president for research at the University of Vermont. Over the years, the Miller Center for Holocaust Studies at the University of Ver- mont has also provided financial support and a congenial intellectual climate. I would like to thank these institutions for their generous funding. The original German manuscript has been altered in many places. The introduction has been substantially changed to make it accessible to an international audience. In addition, the text has been revised to reflect a broader perspective on the situation of German Jews in hiding in Munich and elsewhere in Germany. With that goal in mind, some sections of the German version have been removed, while some new information has been added. A significant number of relevant publications has appeared since the German edition was published, and in many places, the text has been revised and updated to reflect the latest state of the historiography. There are numerous individuals to whom I owe thanks for making the origi- nal German book and the English translation possible. At Indiana University Press, in Bloomington, Indiana, Dee Mortensen brought this project on its way, while Gary Dunham, Ashante Thomas, Anna Francis, and Darja Malcolm- Clarke oversaw the process of publication. I’m grateful to Jamie Armstrong for the meticulous copyediting. In Berlin, Allison Brown translated the book vii viii Preface and Acknowledgments in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. She is a great translator and editor, who had an incredible amount of patience with me. In Munich, Germany, Eva Schrafstetter scanned literature and documents that I could not access because of the COVID-19 pandemic. In Burlington, Timber Wright took great care in designing several maps that indicate most of the places mentioned in the book, while Liam Hilferty got the bibliography into printable shape. Alan Steinweis remained by my side, kept calm, and kept telling me that, one day, I would be able to fly back home to Germany again. He was right, and I brought the project to fruition in Munich in early 2022. The original German book was the result of a research project that grew over time. I owe a great debt to many people who helped me turn a small case study into a book. The Lehrstuhl für Zeitgeschichte (Chair for Contemporary History) at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich and a number of individuals who are connected to it played a key role in making the original publication of the book possible. My greatest thanks go to the chairholder, Mar- git Szöllösi-Janze, for funding the publication of the German edition. Margit Szöllösi-Janze, Hans Günter Hockerts, Christiane Kuller, and Winfried Süß, who have been directing a research project on the Munich city administration under National Socialism, supported my work through to its completion. Their profound knowledge and constructive criticism of the manuscript have been invaluable. All four of them, each in their own way, have shaped my develop- ment as a historian and a scholar. From the start, I have profited immensely from Maximilian Strnad’s knowl- edge and friendship, and I’m very grateful for his ideas and recommendations as well as his enthusiasm about this project. In addition to the individuals already mentioned, Annette Eberle, Anna Hájková, Beate Kosmala, Eva Schrafstetter, and Jürgen Zarusky read the manuscript in whole or in part, providing nu- merous valuable suggestions. For insights, ideas, constructive criticism, and encouragement, I am indebted to Natalia Aleksiun, Frank Bajohr, Michael Brenner, Marion Detjen, Atina Grossmann, Angela Herrmann, Dominique Hipp, Anna Holian, Marion Kaplan, Rudi Armin Kitzmann, Katja Klee, Philipp Lenhard, Antonia Leugers, Andrea Löw, Ilse Macek, Heinrich Mayer, Beate Meyer, Armand Presser, Ellen Presser, Edith Raim, Rebecca Raue, Mark Roseman, Daniela Schmidl, Barbara Schieb, Claudia Schoppmann, Katharina Seehuber, Dana Smith, Manfred Struck, Dietmar Süß, Adi Trumpf, Martina Voigt, Maria von der Heydt, Gerhard Weinberg, and Angela Zieglgänsberger. At the Wallstein Verlag in Göttingen, Germany, Hajo Gevers and Stephanie Mürbe oversaw the publication of the German manuscript with great care. Preface and Acknowledgments ix Hugo Holzmann, Charlotte Knobloch, Bernhard K., Richard Marx, Herta Pila, and Klaus Vrieslander graciously shared their memories with me. I’m deeply grateful for their willingness to talk to me. Sadly, three individuals who were instrumental in the genesis of this project are no longer alive to see the English edition. Bernhard K. told me his story of hiding and rescue in 2012, when I had just started my research. After that con- versation, I knew that this would become a bigger project than I had originally planned. Brigitte Schmidt generously shared her unique expertise, her dry wit, and good food. When I knocked on the door of her office for the first time, I did not know that this archivist at the Munich City Archive possessed an ency- clopedic knowledge of the Munich Jewish community past and present. I also did not know that this was the beginning of a wonderful friendship that was ended much too early by her untimely death. Jürgen Zarusky, at the Institute for Contemporary History in Munich, gave me the original idea for the project. For more than twenty years, Jürgen was a colleague, mentor, friend, and source of inspiration and advice to me. Archivists in many archives and libraries assisted me with my research. I am especially indebted to Robert Bierschneider (Munich State Archive) and Sigmund Bornstein (Bavarian State Compensation Office), who went the extra mile and allowed me to benefit from their profound knowledge. Andreas Heu- sler (Munich City Archive) provided generous help in the beginning phase of this project. I wrote large sections of the original text and made many of the revisions in the reading room of the Institute for Contemporary History, where the librarians were immensely helpful ordering books and documents. My colleagues and friends in Vermont—Jonathan Huener, Frank Nicosia, Adriana Borra, Antonello Borra, Marc Heinzer, Michael Johnson, Marilyn Lucas, Judith Müller, Annegret Schmitt-Johnson, Sandra Sonntag and Meša Tuco—contributed in many different ways to the completion of this book as well as to the earlier German edition. I benefited immensely from their knowl- edge and insights and from their continued intellectual and emotional support during a difficult year of COVID-19, when we were all grounded in Vermont. The congenial and friendly atmosphere in the Department of History at the University of Vermont has made my work very enjoyable overall. I would like to thank the chairperson, Paul Deslandes, and all of my colleagues in the de- partment for their support and for their constant efforts to maintain a spirit of solidarity and empathy in the department. It is not to be taken for granted. Fritz Schrafstetter and Rosalie Steinweis have followed this book proj- ect (and others) with keen interest and encouraging comments. Sadly, Fritz

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