The largest group by far among the victims of the NS terror regime consists of the six million European Jews who were murdered.
In the second half of the 19th century concepts derived from biology had transformed the centuries old Anti-Judaism based on religious prejudices into a ‚modern‘ Anti-Semitism based on racist ideas that penetrated the society of the industrial era deeply and tried to rescind the achievement of equal civil rights for Jews. With the transfer of power to the National Socialists in 1933 Anti-Semitism became state doctrine which was implemented with terror based on laws. The preferred way towards the long debated „solution of the Jewish Question“ consisted in the beginning of the idea of expelling all Jews from Germany and all of Europe. With the invasion of Poland in September 1939 mass executions of Jews began which then led to the organized industrial mass murder of the European Jews since the invasion of the Soviet Union since June 1941. The symbol of the state-run genocide of the Jews – the Shoa – has been “Auschwitz” since the end of World War II. In Auschwitz approximately 1.1 million people were beaten to death, shot and sent to the gas chambers, or they died of the abominable conditions or as a consequence of medical experiments. Most of them were Jews. Among these were approximately 128.000 Jews from Germany and Austria.
Germans and their willing assistants carried out the extermination predominantly in the occupied territories in the East of Europe. But the way towards that end began with stigmatizing, excluding, divesting of their rights and robbing the Jews – also in Augsburg. After the NS-state had abolished the democratic civil rights and eliminated their political opponents, it began with the legal divestment of the Jews. The “Law to Restore the Professional Civil Service” from April 4th 1933 excluded them, with the exception of World war I veterans and their children, from public service, the “Law against Overcrowding of German Schools and Universities” narrowed their educational opportunities. Economic organizations, sports clubs or cultural institutions excluded Jewish members as well – often ahead of a respective state order.
The so-called “race laws”, enacted during the NS party convention in Nuremberg in September 1935 then deprived Jews of their rights as German citizens and degraded to the position of second class citizens. In addition, they established the rules who was to be considered a Jew. The following executive orders introduced the categories of “half-breeds”, so- called “Half-Jews” and “Quarter-Jews”, who had one or two Jewish grandparents. All of a sudden thousands were declared Jewish who had no affiliation with a Jewish congregation or were even baptized.
Following the exclusion from their positions in German society Jews were also edged out of economic activities. Many Augsburg Jews were forced to sell their businesses and stores, usually way below their actual value. But despite the loss of their livelihood only few Jews decided to leave their home, or they failed to find a country that would accept them. In Augsburg 1.033 had been officially registered in 1933, only 200 of them had left Germany by 1937.
At the same time more and more Jews had moved from rural communities into the assumed protection of the more anonymous big cities. Intensified measures of persecution in 1937 and 1938 were designed to accelerate Jewish emigration. With the pogrom of November 1938 the NS-state finally forced mass emigration. So-called “action-prisoners” – taken into custody during the pogrom – were only released after producing their signed emigration papers. Within the following three months alone 89 Jews left Augsburg. Until the complete prohibition of Jewish emigration in October 1941, altogether ca. 600 Jews from Augsburg had managed to flee to foreign countries – not always into safe havens.
For those remaining in Augsburg – most of those were the elderly and sick – the imposition of a host of new rules and bans limited the opportunities to make a living to the utmost. Each violation of one of the numerous rules and regulations could result in drastic sanctions. Based on the “Law on Rent Contracts with Jews” from April 30, 1939, many of them lost their familiar apartments and houses.
They were forced into ghetto-like so-called “Jews’ Houses” or were moved to a camp of shacks in Geisberg-Street (today called Reichenberg-Street) or they moved in with relatives. Attending public events and entering public facilities was prohibited, even being outside their abodes after eight o’clock at night was illegal, and they were denied the use of public transport. If they were not fortunate enough to have brave non-Jewish friends who would visit them secretly, they were completely isolated by now.
Since the winter of 1939/40 all Jews in Germany were ordered into forced labor. On November 20, 1941 thee first transport of Jews from Augsburg, including those from the suburb Kriegshaber, left Augsburg for Lithuania. Their destination was Riga, but as the ghetto there was overcrowded the NS authorities diverted the train to Kaunas/Kowno. None of the 20 deportees from Augsburg returned. Eight further transports deported Jews from Augsburg to the East. According to all available sources one train with 129 Jews from Augsburg left for the transit ghetto Piaski in what is Poland today in April 1942; between July 31 and August 12, 1942, 51 deportees were taken to the supposedly “privileged” ghetto Theresienstadt, a further 3 on April 20, 1943 and 46 on January 13, 1944 and February 20, 1945. On March 13, 1943 a train took 91 Jews from Augsburg directly to Auschwitz. The exact number of Jewish victims could not be determined so far: it differs depending on whether you base the numbers on Augsburg as city of birth or residence. Only 25 survivors returned to Augsburg after the end of the war.
Benigna Schönhagen
Translation: Wolfgang Poeppel