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Polish law of denationalisation: a response to the Anschluss.
However, Joseph Beck intends to resolve the problem in a radical way. In a first step, a denationalization law is passed on the 31st of March 1938. It authorizes to cancel Polish citizenship for anyone who has been staying abroad for more than five years. The first intention is to make it impossible for Polish Jewish citizens, to return to Poland from a country taken over or threatened by Hitler’s Germany 3. In a second step, the Ministry of Interior of Poland publishes on October 6th 1938 a decree requiring every Polish citizen abroad to validate passports at the consulate again by affixing the warning "verified under the Decree of the Minister of internal affairs of 6 October 1938. ZbaszynThe deportations took place throughout Germany. The deportees are allowed to take only ten Marks per person. They are forbidden to carry any value and they do not have the time to put their affairs in order. The majority is deported by train, but larger groups were deported on foot and were beaten and forced to cross the Polish border. The deportees were herded into barracks and flour mills and they endured inhumane conditions.However, Warsaw said that there is no requirement to receive them, they are deprived of their nationality. "Rejected by the Germans, banned from living in Poland, about 5 000 Jews fail in the tiny border village of Zbaszyn" 5, a no man's land between the two countries. In Hanover, 484 people were evicted to Zbaszyn and including the family Grynszpan. Berta Grynszpan wrote to her brother in Paris a letter he received on November 3. "Dear Herschel We have begun on cultural activities. The first thing we introduced was the speaking of Yiddish. It has become quite the fashion in the camp. We have organized classes in Polish, attended by about 200 persons, and other classes. There are several reading rooms, a library; the religious groups have set up a Talmud Torah [religious school]. …Zbaszyn has become a symbol for the defencelessness of the Jews of Poland. Jews were humiliated to the level of lepers, to citizens of the third class, and as a result we are all visited by terrible tragedy. Zbaszyn was a heavy moral blow againt the Jewish population of Poland. And it is for this reason that all the threads lead from the Jewish masses to Zbaszyn and to the Jews who suffer there…Please accept my warmest good wishes and kisses from Emmanuel HerschelWhen Herschel Grynszpan who is in Paris, learns on the 3rd of November 1938 that his parents and sister were deported from Hanover, he decides to act in order to publicize their fate and the ones from their owns and to avenge the Germans who persecute the community Kristallnacht: a deliberate act
 There is evidence that the Nazis were awaiting an opportunity to start what will be in their terminology as the final solution 11 meaning the solution to the so called Jewish problem. The first act will be a vast pogrom in all territories under German rule, intended to terrorize the Jewish people and force them to leave Germany. The attack against vom Rath offers a perfect motive. Hitler then stages to show that the Germans, representatives of the Reich are threatened by Jews. The Volkisch Beobachter [The Observer of people], Goebbels’s newspaper for propaganda echoed and printed on Nov. 8: "It is clear that the German people will draw conclusions from this new action. We can no longer tolerate that hundreds of Jews still exist within our borders on streets full of shops, they inhabit our places of entertainment That foreign owners pocketing money from tenants while their German brothers outside incite to war against Germany and kill German officials ". In addition, to reinforce the seriousness of the act committed against a representative of the Greater German Reich, Hitler raises vom Rath from the rank of third secretary at the embassy to counselor of embassy and decides to send to the wounded his staff physic is a great professor from Munich. Meanwhile, on November 8, the Nazis took the precaution to confiscate weapons and all what could be used to defend oneself from all Jews. When vom Rath dies Nov. 9, everything is in place. At the time the news reaches Hitler, he is in Munich, with the old guard of the SA, at the City Hall they commemorate the attempted coup of 1923. Unlike habits, Hitler left the meeting without imposing a speech and said only: "We must clear the field for the SA" 12 Joseph Goebbels, Minister of Propaganda, is in charge not only to then announce publicly the death before the assembly of SA but also to encourage the pogrom in a diatribe of great violence. The main leaders then left the meeting at 23 am and instructions to call their regional branches. For the SA, it is the burning of synagogues regardless archives but objects of worship, not to allow firefighters to intervene or to prevent the spread of fire on nearby houses, destroying shops Jews, and to affix signs like "Death to international Jewry" 13, to murder the Jews found in possession of a weapon. At the same time, a secret message is broadcasted at 23 h 55 in the direction of the Gestapo in Berlin in all its services. For the Gestapo, their mission is the burning of synagogues, but to prevent looting, to secure the important archives found in synagogues, prepare the arrest of 20 to 30 000 Jews among the more fortunate, to deal with extreme rigor Jews found with weapons. Finally, the Chief of Security, Heydrich is warned at 23.30 that a synagogue in Munich and a castle were burned, he asks for instructions that arrive after consultation with Hitler at 1.30. 14 The content of messages from heads of SA and those of the Gestapo, which synthesis seems made in the orders of the head of security supports the idea of the existence of an overall plan instigated by Hitler. Indeed the silence of Hitler and Goebbels at the events of November 7 and 8 confirms this view. In his diary 15; Goebbels wrote about the attack when he recounts the day of Nov. 8: "In Paris, a Polish Jew named Grynzspan fired into the embassy a German diplomat vom Rath, wounding him seriously. He wanted to avenge the Jews. The German press now casts screaming. We are going to dot the 'i'. In Hesse, major anti-Semitic rallies. Synagogues are burnt.» If only we could unleash the wrath of the people " The historian Saul Friedländer comments: Although he [Goebbels] had spent the end of the evening from 8 to discuss with Hitler at Heck’s coffee. Obviously, the Nazi leaders had decided to take action, but preferred to await the death of Ernst vom Rath. This unusual silence [is] the surest indication of the existence of plans to accredit a "spontaneous explosion of anger of the people" and therefore beyond the Führer. "16 Also in the diary of Goebbels for the day of Nov. 10: The condition of injured German diplomat by a Jew in Paris is still very serious. The German press rampage ... Helldorfer totally disarm the Jews of Berlin.. They might want to start again on another target.. Later, "Large demonstrations against Jews in Kassel and Dessau.. Synagogues were burned and shops looted. In the afternoon the death of diplomat vom Rath is broadcasted. Now it is cooked. » " A few lines later confirmed that Goebbels presents the facts to the Führer andt he decided to let the demonstrations continue and to withdraw the police.. Goebbels commented "The Jews must feel for once the anger of the people.. That is justice." Goebbels then accurately described his action, he gives orders, motivates the undecided, instructed the police and the party. He is applauded by members of the party. All rush into their phones. The assault battalion 'Hitler' leaves for Munich. Goebbels wrote that he seeks to save a small synagogue from being shredded. He speaks with Streicher of the Jewish issue 17 The beginning of the destruction "After hearing the burning address by Dr. Goebbels, [SA] are convinced that the time of the Jewish problem has come and they have carte blanche to maximize the pogrom until the following day" 18 According to the guidelines of Goebbels, the only reservation is not to appear as an organization. Therefore, the SA and SS dressed in civilian clothes, and start action at rom 1 hour in the morning. From north to south of Germany, synagogues, community centers, elderly homes and Jewish hospitals, children's homes, shops and private dwellings of Jews suffer the onslaught of brown hordes. 19 Everywhere the scenario is identical: the synagogues were ransacked, looted, destroyed, burned, but firefighters only prevent the spread of fires to non Jewish houses. Groups of SA flock on Jewish shops that are easily recognizable from a previous order demanding that the owner's name is painted on the window largely letter. D.Golly is sixteen years and then lived in Bremen, remembers: We were sleeping early. Me and my family, we slept every four when we heard knocking on the door." Strike violently. My father down the stairs, he opened the door before which stood two Nazis wearing brown uniform. "Tell your family to dress quickly, you come with us. Hurry up!" We had no choice. We dressed quickly, and the two soldiers led us in a barracks room downtown. Upon entering, we realized that all the Jews of the city were rounded up and taken in this room. Nobody knew why. Nobody knew what was going to happen. They left us on our chairs for hours, hours, until finally they separated women from men and they took men. We did not know where they went; they took my father and my brother. In the morning, my mother and me and all women have been allowed to return home. This is where we discovered what had happened during the night while we were locked in the room. The Brown Shirts had smashed all the windows of Jewish shops, homes and forced the Jewish apartments, breaking everything they could. The business of my father was devastated that night. And of course our synagogue was burned. The day after without any doubt, I went back to school, it was the day after Kristallnacht. I climbed the stairs to join my class and I accidentally crossed my teacher, Mr. Koch, who approached me and said, the looking really saddened "Miss Golly, I am deeply sorry, but the Jews are no longer attending school." I had no choice but to go. I returned to the house head down, all my future plans just shattered. "20 In Elberstadt in Württemberg, Adolf Heinrich Frey Chief SA shoots in cold blood Susanne Stern, a widow aged 81 years who refuses to follow. "I knocked on the door ... and I asked Stern to dress ... she sat on the sofa. When I asked her if she intended to follow my instructions and dress; she replied that she would not dress and would not come with us. We could do what we wanted "I will not leave my house, I am an old woman." I took out my duty weapon in my pocket and I called the woman still five or six times to stand and dress. Stern shouted loudly in my face with defiance and insolence: "I do not rise and I do not dress. "As she screamed" make what you want of me, I removed the security of my weapon and fired once ... Stern collapsed on the sofa. She looked back and brought her hands to her chest. I then fired a second time, aiming the locked the door key and made hi sreport. In Berlin, acts of destruction and violence are especially characterized according to Rita Thalmann: "In Berlin, the pogrom began at two o'clock in the morning after the teams had isolated Jewish institutions by cutting the telephone, and unplugging the electricity and heating and that the police had diverted the trafficking in "hot spots". Groups then unleashed blow bombs and cobblestone towards Jewish shops. Then the crowd takes out of windows all objects that can be used as projectiles. Seven major synagogues in the capital are burning, including the great edifice of Fasanenstrasse where the officiating minister Davidsohn comes running to save what can be. […] [...] At this point shots are heard and Wolfsohn, the concierge, appears in shirt covered with blood. He refused to give the keys of the shrine, which doors are pressed. The 78 pipes organ is thrown over the railing. The bronze candelabra are dismantled and, like all objects of worship, torn to pieces. The priestly clothes are torn, as well as books of prayers. Then commandos SA and SS water gasoline on wooden benches and fire spreads inside the synagogue incredibly fast. Davidsohn tries to enter, in vain. He remains there until five o'clock in the morning until the fire smoldering under the ashes. Gradually the crowd withdrew, firefighters are going and the man who for twenty-seven years recited prayers of the community, bows to the smoking rubble for one last time recite the Kaddish, the prayer of the dead . "22 Summoned to the police, with all leaders of the community, he meets rabbis, ministers, officers and heads of choir. Locked up 18 hours without eating, some are released, including him, while others are taken with about 10 000 men to concentration camps. In Leipzig, "after having demolished the homes and dumped in the street all that could be used at the insatiable sadism drove many of their occupants shivering in a thin stream that flows through the zoo, ordering horrified spectators to spit on them cover them with mud and make fun of their plight. [...] The slightest sign of compassion put the persecutors outrage, and the crowd was helpless, otherwise divert her gaze appalled by these scenes of abuse. This tactic has been applied throughout the morning of November 10 without police intervention and was imposed on all men, women and children "23. In the Austrian territories which became German; Jews were ordered to leave the country before mid-December 1938. Although, there were only a few hundred Jews in the province of Tyrol-Vorarlberg the Gauleiter Franz Hofer intendended to carry out orders to rid the territory under its responsibility of any Jewish presence. The night of 9 to 10 November 1938 provides the opportunity. Saul Friedländer writes about it 24: "Hofer hurriedly returned from Alte Kämpfer [old guard] dinner in Munich and gave the tone:" In response to the cowardly assassination of our advisor vom Rath by Jews in Paris, Tyrol also exasperated soul of the people must stand up tonight against the Jews. "Heydrich's message had put on alert. [...] [In Innsbruck] men gathered in civilian clothes until around 2.30am in the morning [...]. In a few minutes a special SS commando took the leadership of the 4 -5, Gänsbacherstrasse, where lived several influential Jewish families in the city. Meanwhile, the regional head of the SS gave the order to "kill the Jews quietly in the Gänsbacherstrasse." At 4 of Gänsbacherstrasse engineer Richard Graubart [one of the most prominent of the community] was stabbed in front of his wife and daughter. On the second floor of the same building, Karl Bauer [other eminent person] was dragged on the floor, stabbed and beaten with the butt of a pistol; he died on the way to hospital. " The Nazis review the pogrom at a meeting held on November 12 to assess the economic impact of events they call Kristallnacht in reference to the thousands of windows that were smashed. SS Reinhard Heydrich reported that 7 500 shops were destroyed, 267 synagogues burned and 91 Jews killed. We know that the Gestapo and the SS carried out the arrest and internment in concentration camps of 30 000 Jews, among them Abraham Dreifuss, who died in Dachau on November 22. According to Goebbels’diary, the order came directly from Hitler. At the same meeting, the Nazi leaders decide to take further steps to expropriate the Jews of their property, depriving them of all livelihoods, and excluding them from social life. These are the steps that are now clearly defined as a preliminary to the destruction of the Jewish population in territories under Nazi domination. The incentive to emigrate by fear has completed the arsenal as a first step. The outcomeIn Germany 2 000 2 500 people were killed during the pogrom or in concentration camps. When three months later, some are released, it is under the condition to emigrate immediately. The Jews are blamed for the pogrom, presented as the result of spontaneous popular anger at the assassination of vom Rath by a Jew; therefore Nazi leaders decide that not only the Jews of Germany will pay a fine of one billion mark but they must pay their own repairs without the assistance of their insurance as compensation. Thousands of Jews from Germany deprived of all their property try to cross the border illegally and to obtain political refugee status. The plight of women is particularly tragic. In an analysis of the plight of women after Kristallnacht, Rita Thalmann class them into five categories 25: the largest group consists of older women, too poor or too weak to rebuild a life in exile, the second group; equally important, is composed of women who married an Aryan and feel in relative security, the third includes women who did not want to leave alone, isolated and without assistance, a father, mother or a family member, then there are women whose husbands and children have already left, and remain alone in Germany, for lack of means to emigrate and who hope to join them, finally, women who chose to stay. Of these, some belong to the Organization of Jewish Women, and organize rescue operations for children, trying to maintain active community life, dealing with material and psychological survival of those remaining in Germany. In France,Since the Evian conference of July 1938, the French government has clearly stated its position: France can no longer accommodate more refugees. Moreover, during the Munich Agreement, France has yielded to German demands. The Sudetenland is annexed, peace is saved. If France turns its back so openly to its principles and traditions of a country caring for human rights it is motivated by the government seeking peace at all price. Appeasement with its German neighbor, including through secret negotiations conducted by Georges Bonnet 26, Minister of Foreign Affairs since 10 April 1938. Georges Bonnet does not want the events of Kristallnacht undermine his policy. He ignores the report of George Coulondres 27, new French Ambassador to Berlin:"The treatment of Jews in Germany by the Nazis trying to eradicate them completely like malicious animals illuminates the great distance that separates the design of Hitler's world from the spiritual heritage of democratic nations" France is the only major democracy that does not publicly denounce the massacres perpetrated in the night of 9 to 10 November 1938. France is also seeking an inner peace. Already, during the signing of the Munich agreement, the former French ambassador to Berlin, Francois-Poncet drew the conclusions of these events: "It is essential that Western democracies are reaping from the tragic events of last week the lesson. It is necessary, while continuing to assert their desire for peace and spares no way to deal with authoritarian states , they eliminate the causes of domestic weakness [...] "28 He alluded to the thousands of refugees who were felt increasingly as a threat by the population: economic threat against the financial burden of refugees and jobs they take from the French, threat by social tensions they create, political threatens when they settled their accounts such as Herschel Grynszpan. Also, the return of Édouard Daladier as premier on April 10 1938 put an end to the the Popular Front policy of receiving refugees.. One of his first acts was the release of the 2nd of May 1938 decree-law, which is a step backwards. At that point a distinction is made between new refugees from the former. The first, as the Russians and Armenians arrived in the twenties have their residency rights guaranteed in France, while the latter, as the Jews of Germany can hardly get a temporary permit of residence. 29 On the 12th of November 1938, a law allows the internment of these undesirables in concentration camps. Hundreds of Jewish refugees from Germany and Austria who entered illegally in France are now directly threatened. In Great Britain, the population strongly denounces the criminal anti-Jewish acts. For the first time, supporters of appeasement beginning to doubt of the sincerity of statements of intention of Hitler in terms of peacekeeping. In response, Neville Chamberlain condemns before the House of Commons the Kristallnacht anti-Jewish acts In the United States, Roosevelt said publicly that he would never have imagined that such events can occur in the twentieth century in a civilized country. 30 He recalled the U.S. ambassador to Germany but does not break diplomatic relations, however.
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1. ZARANSKI Jozel, Dariusz, tome IV, p. 76, cité par ROLLET Henry, La Pologne au XX° siècle, Paris, Pedone, 1984, pp. 298-299. 2. ZARANSKY Jozel, op cit, p.81. 3. BURKO Jacques, KORZEC Pawel, Le gouvernement polonais en exil et les Juifs. Un document traduit et présenté par, Pardès, n° 16, 1992, pp.121-133, note 1. 4. MARRUS Michael R., Les exclus. Les réfugiés européens du XX° siècle, Paris, Calmann Levy, 1986, p. 172.
5. MARRUS Michael R., op cit, p. 173. Selon l'auteur, ils sont 5000 dans ce camp. Selon Vicky Caron, 15 000 CARON Vicky, Prelude to Vichy: France and the Jewish Refugees in the Era of Appeasement, Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 20, N° 1 (Jan., 1985), p.159.
6. Emanuel Ringelblum was born in 1900 in Buczacz. He graduated from Warsaw University, he earned his doctorate in 1927 for his thesis on the history of the Warsaw Jews in the Middle Ages. For several years, he taught history in Jewish schools and has also been active in public affairs. From a young age, it was also an active member of the "Left Po'alei Zion" political movement (Marxist-Zionist), a separate part of Zion Po'alei Right "(mainly Social Democrat - Zionists). In 1930, he became part-time employee of the Joint Committee of the Joint Distribution "), and in November 1938 was sent by them in the city of Zbaszyn.Ringelblum spent five weeks at camp, where he directed relief work, collected testimony from deportees, and gathered information on the events in Nazi Germany. His experiences during this period have left an indelible impression.
7. R. Mahler, "Mikhtavei E. Ringelblum mi-Zbaszyn ve'al Zbaszyn" ("Letters of E. Ringelblum from and about Zbaszyn"), Yalkut Moreshet, No. 2 (1964), pp. 24-25.
8. THALMANN Rita, FEINERMANN Emmanuel, La nuit de cristal 9-10 novembre 1938, Paris, Robert Laffont, 1972, p.55 et suivantes.
9. THALMANN Rita, op.cit., p. 56 10. THALMANN Rita, op.cit., p. 58
11. The term was used at the Wannsee Conference in January 1942 which decided the extermination of Jews by the Nazis
. 12. Actes du Procès de Nuremberg, éd. française, Tribunal militaire international, 1947, vol. XII, p. 381, cité par THALMANN Rita, op. cit., p. 91.
13. Wiener Library, Institute of Contemporary History. Ordres du chef SA "groupe baltique".
14. Actes du Procès de Nuremberg, éd. française, Tribunal militaire international, 1947, vol. XXXI, document PS 3051, pp. 515-519.
15. Joseph Goebbels, Journal 1933-1939, Collectif, Ed. Tallandier, 2007
16. FRIEDLÄNDER Saul, L'Allemagne nazie et les juifs, vol 1 Les années de persécution (1933-1939), Paris, Seuil, 1997, p.271.
17. Julius Streicher met Hitler in 1921. It was then the head of the extreme right of Franconia, which contributed to a city of Nuremberg beacon of the Nazi party. 18. He was the director of anti-Semitic newspaper Der Stürmer from 1923 to 1945. Nazi Gauleiter of Franconia (1925-1940), then a member of the Reichstag in 1933, he was known for his verbal violence against Jews
19. THALMANN Rita, op. cit., p. 96. 20. THALMANN Rita, op. cit., p. 97. 21. Témoigner, paroles de la Shoah, Paris, Flammarion, 2000.
22. SAUER Paul (dir.), Dokumente über die Verfolgung der jüdischen Bürger in Baden-Württemberg durch das nationalsozialistische Regime, 1933-1945, vol. 2, Stuttgart 1966, pp. 26-27. 23. THALMANN Rita, op. cit., p. 100. 24. HECK Alfons, The Burden of Hitler's Legacy, Frederick, Maryland, 1988, p.62. 25. FRIEDLÄNDER Saul, op cit., p. 274. Les citations insérées dans son texte sont extraites de : GEHLER Michael, Murder on Command : The Anti-Jewish Pogrom in Innsbruck, 9-10 novembre 1938, Leo Beack Institute Year Book,, n° 38, 1993. 26. THALMANN Rita 27. CARON Vicky, Prelude to Vichy: France and the Jewish Refugees in the Era of Appeasement, Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 20, N° 1 (janvier 1985), p. 161. 28. Coulondre, ambassadeur français à Berlin, à Bonnet, 22 décembre 1938, Documents diplomatiques français, vol. XII, n° 309, pp. 572-573, cité par CARON Vicky, op cit., p. 161.
29. Ministère des affaires étrangères, Le livre jaune français. Documents diplomatiques 1938-1939, Paris, Imprimerie nationale, 1939, p. 19. 30. [1] MAGA Timothy P., Closing the Door: The French Government and Refugee Policy, 1933-1939, French Historical Studies, Vol. 12, N° 3, 1982, p. 436. 31. [1] New York Times, November 16, 1938 |
On Sunday November 6 in the evening, he took a hotel room, boulevard de Strasbourg paid in advance, wrote a farewell letter to his parents and does further the next morning. At the first time of day he went to the store "on the cutting blade at 61 rue du Faubourg Saint-Martin, he explains that he needs a weapon because he works for his father and must carry large sums of money. On the advice of the dealer, he bought a gun barrel and bullets. On leaving the store, he settled shortly before 9 am in a brewery, went into the toilet to load his weapon and slided it in the pocket of his jacket. 