Ruth Drescher Recalls Memories of Kristallnacht

Ruth Drescher was the featured speaker at Seton Hill University's Annual Kristallnacht Remembrance Interfaith Service on November 8, 2005. The following text is a transcript of her address:

What can a child know? Children are naturally protected from understanding what is happening around them, when to know would be too frightening. As a Jewish child born in Germany in 1934, I had no idea of the difficult times which my parents and other Jews were confronting during those years. I have strong images of my brief life in Germany as a young child, just as things were beginning to look as though life would get worse.

We lived in Stuttgart, the largest city in the province of Wurttemberg. My parents had had a kosher butcher store in a small village called Ichenhausen, not far from Stuttgart. In 1933 my father could no longer make a living there, and the family moved to Stuttgart. Picture our apartment: It is large. I am riding my little tricycle on the black and white checkerboard kitchen floor. On a wintry day, my father holds me in his arms and together we look out the window to watch the cars sliding on the ice. On another day, neighborhood children and I play outside the apartment building at #82 Olgastrasse. The mother of one of the children comes out with a bag of candy. She gives each of the children two pieces. I look down at my one piece wondering why I only got one, when the other children got two. "It is because you are Jewish," said one of the other 5-year olds. Of course this made no sense to me, yet it is one of my most vivid memories, which is to say my personal suffering was very limited.

I have some dim memories of Kristallnacht. My 12-year-old sister, Margot, comes running home crying. Her school is burning. My father is not home. He has been protected by a friend (I believe he was the chief of police), who warned him of what was to happen on the night of November 9, 1938, and gave him the keys to his villa in the woods. Though he never spoke about it, I concluded only as an adult that it must have taken this frightful night to convince him that he had to get his family out of Germany. Prior to that, his attitude had been: "Leave Germany? How could I do that? This is my home " I fought in the war (that would have been the First World War), why, I was even awarded the Iron Cross. We will be safe here. This Hitler business will pass." And he was by no means unique.

I have since spoken to many people who recall their fathers in precisely the same way. Yes, they were Jews, but they were Germans first and found it inconceivable that they could be treated in anything less than a respectful way. But ultimately it was the night of the burning of the synagogues and the incarceration of Jewish men, which removed the blinders from their eyes. It is this night which we commemorate tonight 67 years later. What they couldn?t believe, and wouldn?t believe, could no longer be denied. We were among the fortunate ones.

I believe that my father must have made application to emigrate late in 1938, and in August of 1939, with visas for the US, my sister, my parents and I took a train to Rotterdam to board the SS Vendam to sail to New York. While we were at sea World War II broke out. I, of course, had no knowledge of this at the time, but I often think about what an enormous sense of relief my parents must have felt that they were on this very comfortable ship (my mother's and sister's seasickness notwithstanding). And at the same time an enormous sense of loss.

My parents often talked about how they would never go back to Germany, and how they couldn?t understand those Jews who did. I wasn?t sure I shared their view, and when my husband Sy and I lived in France for a year when we were in our early 20's (about the same age as many of you, students here at Seton Hill), I saw no reason why we shouldn?t visit Germany on our motor scooter, just as we did Italy, England and the Netherlands.

I was in deep shock when I found that no German words would cross my lips, even though I was reasonably fluent in the language " how horrified I was when I saw a policeman whose cap looked entirely too much like the SS officers? caps. How seeing men in their 40's and 50's sitting in beer gardens happily downing their beers made me want to go up to them and say "and what were you doing 15 years ago?" We cut short our visit to Germany " the weight of the unexpected feelings was more than I wanted to continue to bear.

So when many years later, an invitation from the municipal government of Stuttgart arrived in December of 2000 inviting me to join a group of others who had been forced to leave the city of our birth for a two-week all expense paid visit, I didn?t even take it seriously. My husband asked me to think about it more seriously. "Why should I do this " it will be horrible " remember when we went in "58." We were to be the last group to participate in this program. It was the last year because they had by then contacted all those people whose names they had, and we were the youngest, and therefore the last to be invited. I couldn?t imagine that it would be anything but painful. But with the encouragement of my husband, plus others who had participated, I finally agreed to go. I have never been sorry that I did. Our group came from Israel, Brazil, Argentina, England, Australia and the US. Never was there a hint of minimizing the horrors of German atrocities, or the smallest evasion of guilt from the leaders of the group or the many speakers who were invited to address us. On the contrary, the message was consistently one of contrition " one of honest and humble expressions of sorrow. And we were able to hear them and to believe them because none of these people would have been old enough to have participated in the torment which was heaped upon the Jews and other victims of the Holocaust.

On the one hand they wanted us to have the experience of enjoying the city where we might actually have grown up, and they did want us to see the castles, and the lovely countryside, but above all they wanted to deliver this message: "We do not ask you to forget, let alone forgive, but we would like you to see that the Germany of today is not the Germany of the Third Reich. We recognize the sacrifices which you and your families made, and how many of them suffered at the hands of our ancestors, but we would like to offer you the opportunity to get to know the city of your birth." How moving it was to meet gentiles who were restoring desecrated Jewish cemeteries, and who formed associations to promote Christian-Jewish understanding.

However, it was not all sunshine and roses. We were also exposed to some of the dark side which is still alive in Germany. For example, we were introduced to a teacher who was fired from her teaching job because of her research into the fate of Jewish musicians and composers. No, Germany is not free of anti-semitism, any more than is the United States.

Finally, it was a rewarding and enlightening trip " one which left us with many questions as well. What of the next generation? What do they have to be proud of? Can they find ways of dealing with the shame of their history? And will they avoid the sins of their fathers? Will they tire of hearing of the horrors of their ancestors? Will they deal with the challenges of a multicultural society, and how will they be protected from the influences of neo-Nazism? While we cannot know the answers to these questions, we can have some degree of optimism that Germany will not be ripe for a repetition of such unfathomable inhumanity. Furthermore, our previous experience at the Holocaust Center in Pittsburgh with young German volunteers with Action Reconciliation helped to strengthen our belief that there is reason to be optimistic for the new generations of Germans. I hope we are right.