Nadene Goldfoot
My Essay, an attempt to answer this question with history.
"There was nothing unique about the German people of the 1930s." Then what was happening at this time in Germany? Something had to start the Nazi movement and of selecting Jews to be extinguished.
Are people really all alike? No. We have had different experiences.
"Caesar described the cultural differences between the Germanic tribesmen, the Romans, and the Gauls in his book Commentarii de Bello Gallico, where he recalls his defeat of the Suebi tribes at the Battle of Vosges. He describes them at length at the beginning of Book IV and the middle of Book VI. He states that the Gauls, although warlike, had a functional society and could be civilized, but that the Germanic tribesmen were far more savage and were a threat to Roman Gaul and Rome itself. Caesar said the Germanic tribes were nomadic, with no notable settlements and a primitive culture. He used this as one of his justifications for why they had to be conquered. His accounts of barbaric northern tribes could be described as an expression of the superiority of Rome, including Roman Gaul."
"So I suppose it might come as a surprise when I tell you that there was once a point where Germania was a Roman province. And that they welcomed the empire with open arms into their forests and lands. They fought in the Roman armies. And they accepted Roman learning and culture, at least for a time.
When Rome burned down the 2nd Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE, events started falling in place. Jews were starved, killed in this burning, and some managed to get to Iberia (Spain) where they had previously started trading. Jews had been under occupation by the Romans and many were taken into their army as evidence of this has turned up Jewish soldiers being in Roman garrisons, , and brought to Europe's Rhineland (Germany) where they had also taken over. Romans also took a majority to Rome as slaves where at least one of our ancestors were brought, facing the ultimate death of being in the Roman circus, eaten by lions, slaughtered in one to one combat, etc. We have genes from the famous Jewish-Italian Kalonymus family of which many entered into eastern Europe much later.
Then Jews were barred from entering Jerusalem by the Roman edict. They had to find other places to live. However, General Bar Kakhba took back Jerusalem from the Romans and held it for 3 years from 132 to 135 CE, fighting them harder than any other people had previously. He was slaughtered in the attempt. The Romans were so furious with the Jews at this point that they renamed the land-Palestine-named for the worst enemy Jews had had up till then, the Philistines.
From Italy to Germany was the flow of Jews. Some 200 years later in 321 CE, the emperor Constantine issued regulations on Jews which acknowledged that Jews had made it to Cologne. Jews also had settled in other spots along the Rhineland.
People of all sorts were taken in by the Romans and had become soldiers with promises from the Romans of land. Why was there a problem with the Jews, a people of the empire of Israel, who had their own religion, language and royal house until the Roman destruction. The problem was with the newly found religion of Christianity, and emperor Constantine who held a meeting of all the new Christians who decided that Jews were their competitor and how to undermine them and end their religion to make not only room but the only religion at that time.
In the beginning, Jews were admired and needed in lands for their trading acumen. Jewish communities appears in Germany. By the 9th century, they were living in Augsburg and Metz, and by the 10th at Worms, a very important center then for Jews and later for Christians, Mainz, Magdeburg, Ratisbon, etc. The largest population of Jews was in the Rhineland of Mainz, Speyer, Worms, Cologne, etc where an intense intellectual life developed in the Jewish communities and went on into the 11th century under Franco-Jewish influence.
Persecution of Jews commenced and were recorded in 1012. Then the worst thing happened in history. The year 1096 brought out the Crusaders of Europe who embarked on the trek to Palestine with horses to drive out the Moslems from Jerusalem, where Queen Helena had visited looking for pieces of anything connected to Jesus. The Europeans thought they had spotlighted Jerusalem as their land being it was where Jesus had his Last Supper and was killed by the Romans outside of it. They had just changed over from a polytheistic religion to believing in a new way, a powerful way since Queen Helena had converted and talked her son into also converting to Christianity.
It was in 1096 that the Crusaders massacred the Jews throughout the Rhineland and adjacent area on their way to the Holy land where they would spill the blood of both Muslims and Jews. After 9 Crusades and 200 years, they ended their trying takeover of the land that spit them out.
Now Jews are being chased out of the trades and forced into money lending since Christians found it a distasteful profession. It was now the only one open for Jews among any populated area. There were massacres happening. The 1298 one was started by a knight by the name of Rindfleisch of Germany. Notice that knights were from many countries of Europe by now, not just from England.
The stage is set against Judaism. The people are marked first by the Romans and then by Constantine, who set the attitude towards Jews and the need to put them down.
We come to the 1930s CE in Germany and the country was going through an economic disaster. They suffered after WWI-the war they themselves started. Who did one enterprising man blame who had a big and loud mouth but Hitler, who accused the Jews for their problems. His demeanor and voice and words mesmerized the people who were very oriented towards male dominance in their culture, and found themselves dominated intellectually as well by this evil representation of human existence. Somehow people kowtowed to him, giving in as they thought he made sense. They could not break out of this line of thought, and bent their minds to accept his attitude towards the unwanted Jews that they obviously heard about and their evil ways in their Lutheran churches.
There, there you have it. A country who had a large population of Jews, and Jews, who had already gone through a massacre in many European towns back in 1096 in the Christian Crusade, who suffered massacres by these same Crusaders in 1099, who had gone through expulsions from England, France, Spain, Hungary, Austria, being forced into Christianity, who had these events burned into their DNA, hung their heads in shame or in pride of who they were, and stayed until they felt the warning to leave, like Einstein did.
Our own uncle must have been the last Jew to leave in May of 1939 on a ship. His father had fought for Germany in WWI and then made to scrub the streets in a showing against Jews. He showed them. He wore his WWI uniform. Germany had started 2 World Wars. This shows how aggressive a country they have become.
For Germany, with Hitler at the helm, had become an aggressive country to relieve their stagnant economic woes, and they were automatically slaughtering off the very people who could have helped them: the Jews. Hitler had decided to kill them all, all who lived in this whole world, and he managed to slaughter 6 million. Today we now have about 14 million Jews in the world, less than 1% of the world population. The Germans had allowed an evil mind to dominate theirs. They were used to being dominated in their homes by the father. Hadn't they already been used to such a structure early on by being a part of the Roman army and it's structures? For centuries they did not develop a reason to question life-to question their father's dominance.
Extra reading: https://www.historyonthenet.com/authentichistory/1930-1939/4-roadtowar/1-germany/index.html on why the Germans were in economic woes. ---WWI. Their desire to take others' land led to their own downfall economically.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germania
https://smartergerman.com/german-history/germania-germany-roman-empire/
From 139 BCE to 139 CE: The Fight To Remain Monotheistic https://jewishbubba.blogspot.com/2014/12/from-139-bce-to-139-ce-fight-to-remain.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bar_Kokhba_revolt
PS: My husband belonged to a baseball group made up of various religions. The Lutheran minister was his friend, and invited me to make a presentation about Israel to his congregation. He loaned me information and slides, as I believe he had also visited. That was the push I needed to make Aliyah to Israel and teach English. He was a wonderful friend. Luckily, we weren't living in Germany then.
Correction: General Bar Kokhba's 3 year war from 132-135 CE., not 135-138.
"There was nothing unique about the German people of the 1930s." Then what was happening at this time in Germany? Something had to start the Nazi movement and of selecting Jews to be extinguished.
Are people really all alike? No. We have had different experiences.
"Caesar described the cultural differences between the Germanic tribesmen, the Romans, and the Gauls in his book Commentarii de Bello Gallico, where he recalls his defeat of the Suebi tribes at the Battle of Vosges. He describes them at length at the beginning of Book IV and the middle of Book VI. He states that the Gauls, although warlike, had a functional society and could be civilized, but that the Germanic tribesmen were far more savage and were a threat to Roman Gaul and Rome itself. Caesar said the Germanic tribes were nomadic, with no notable settlements and a primitive culture. He used this as one of his justifications for why they had to be conquered. His accounts of barbaric northern tribes could be described as an expression of the superiority of Rome, including Roman Gaul."
"So I suppose it might come as a surprise when I tell you that there was once a point where Germania was a Roman province. And that they welcomed the empire with open arms into their forests and lands. They fought in the Roman armies. And they accepted Roman learning and culture, at least for a time.
Germania "was used more as a catchall for the collectives of people who lived beyond the Roman borders on the Rhine, the Germani cisrhenani– literally “this side of the Rhine.” These peoples included the Teutonics, the Cherusci, the Seubi, the Chatti, the Goths, and a bunch of other colorful names, and possessed their own diverse culture. They were often considered by the Romans to be relations to the Gauls who emigrated into Rome, but over time assumed a sense of “othering” that would set them apart from the Empire to their east and south.
Starting as early as 12 BC, Augustus began a series of campaigns to defeat the tribes and unite all of Germania into a single province, Germania Magna, much as his uncle had desired to do. So one by one, the armies of Rome began to defeat the tribes and bring them to heel."
When Rome burned down the 2nd Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE, events started falling in place. Jews were starved, killed in this burning, and some managed to get to Iberia (Spain) where they had previously started trading. Jews had been under occupation by the Romans and many were taken into their army as evidence of this has turned up Jewish soldiers being in Roman garrisons, , and brought to Europe's Rhineland (Germany) where they had also taken over. Romans also took a majority to Rome as slaves where at least one of our ancestors were brought, facing the ultimate death of being in the Roman circus, eaten by lions, slaughtered in one to one combat, etc. We have genes from the famous Jewish-Italian Kalonymus family of which many entered into eastern Europe much later.
Then Jews were barred from entering Jerusalem by the Roman edict. They had to find other places to live. However, General Bar Kakhba took back Jerusalem from the Romans and held it for 3 years from 132 to 135 CE, fighting them harder than any other people had previously. He was slaughtered in the attempt. The Romans were so furious with the Jews at this point that they renamed the land-Palestine-named for the worst enemy Jews had had up till then, the Philistines.
From Italy to Germany was the flow of Jews. Some 200 years later in 321 CE, the emperor Constantine issued regulations on Jews which acknowledged that Jews had made it to Cologne. Jews also had settled in other spots along the Rhineland.
People of all sorts were taken in by the Romans and had become soldiers with promises from the Romans of land. Why was there a problem with the Jews, a people of the empire of Israel, who had their own religion, language and royal house until the Roman destruction. The problem was with the newly found religion of Christianity, and emperor Constantine who held a meeting of all the new Christians who decided that Jews were their competitor and how to undermine them and end their religion to make not only room but the only religion at that time.
In the beginning, Jews were admired and needed in lands for their trading acumen. Jewish communities appears in Germany. By the 9th century, they were living in Augsburg and Metz, and by the 10th at Worms, a very important center then for Jews and later for Christians, Mainz, Magdeburg, Ratisbon, etc. The largest population of Jews was in the Rhineland of Mainz, Speyer, Worms, Cologne, etc where an intense intellectual life developed in the Jewish communities and went on into the 11th century under Franco-Jewish influence.
Persecution of Jews commenced and were recorded in 1012. Then the worst thing happened in history. The year 1096 brought out the Crusaders of Europe who embarked on the trek to Palestine with horses to drive out the Moslems from Jerusalem, where Queen Helena had visited looking for pieces of anything connected to Jesus. The Europeans thought they had spotlighted Jerusalem as their land being it was where Jesus had his Last Supper and was killed by the Romans outside of it. They had just changed over from a polytheistic religion to believing in a new way, a powerful way since Queen Helena had converted and talked her son into also converting to Christianity.
It was in 1096 that the Crusaders massacred the Jews throughout the Rhineland and adjacent area on their way to the Holy land where they would spill the blood of both Muslims and Jews. After 9 Crusades and 200 years, they ended their trying takeover of the land that spit them out.
Now Jews are being chased out of the trades and forced into money lending since Christians found it a distasteful profession. It was now the only one open for Jews among any populated area. There were massacres happening. The 1298 one was started by a knight by the name of Rindfleisch of Germany. Notice that knights were from many countries of Europe by now, not just from England.
The stage is set against Judaism. The people are marked first by the Romans and then by Constantine, who set the attitude towards Jews and the need to put them down.
We come to the 1930s CE in Germany and the country was going through an economic disaster. They suffered after WWI-the war they themselves started. Who did one enterprising man blame who had a big and loud mouth but Hitler, who accused the Jews for their problems. His demeanor and voice and words mesmerized the people who were very oriented towards male dominance in their culture, and found themselves dominated intellectually as well by this evil representation of human existence. Somehow people kowtowed to him, giving in as they thought he made sense. They could not break out of this line of thought, and bent their minds to accept his attitude towards the unwanted Jews that they obviously heard about and their evil ways in their Lutheran churches.
There, there you have it. A country who had a large population of Jews, and Jews, who had already gone through a massacre in many European towns back in 1096 in the Christian Crusade, who suffered massacres by these same Crusaders in 1099, who had gone through expulsions from England, France, Spain, Hungary, Austria, being forced into Christianity, who had these events burned into their DNA, hung their heads in shame or in pride of who they were, and stayed until they felt the warning to leave, like Einstein did.
Our own uncle must have been the last Jew to leave in May of 1939 on a ship. His father had fought for Germany in WWI and then made to scrub the streets in a showing against Jews. He showed them. He wore his WWI uniform. Germany had started 2 World Wars. This shows how aggressive a country they have become.
For Germany, with Hitler at the helm, had become an aggressive country to relieve their stagnant economic woes, and they were automatically slaughtering off the very people who could have helped them: the Jews. Hitler had decided to kill them all, all who lived in this whole world, and he managed to slaughter 6 million. Today we now have about 14 million Jews in the world, less than 1% of the world population. The Germans had allowed an evil mind to dominate theirs. They were used to being dominated in their homes by the father. Hadn't they already been used to such a structure early on by being a part of the Roman army and it's structures? For centuries they did not develop a reason to question life-to question their father's dominance.
On the other hand, as I look at Israel today and its 6 million Jews, 80% of its population, a country created by Jews seeking shelter in its own homeland after being the "wandering Jews of 2,000 years"
Who is creating the most businesses? Israelis are. 6 million Jews now live in Israel, able to be surviving the indignities of a world of racists-who have turned against us again by calling Israel a racist state; our refuge, our origin. They have to be creative to handle such a stress. Israelis have to think outside the box.
I'm so proud to be one of a handful of people who have survived. May
Israel and its Israelis continue to live on.
Extra reading: https://www.historyonthenet.com/authentichistory/1930-1939/4-roadtowar/1-germany/index.html on why the Germans were in economic woes. ---WWI. Their desire to take others' land led to their own downfall economically.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germania
https://smartergerman.com/german-history/germania-germany-roman-empire/
From 139 BCE to 139 CE: The Fight To Remain Monotheistic https://jewishbubba.blogspot.com/2014/12/from-139-bce-to-139-ce-fight-to-remain.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bar_Kokhba_revolt
PS: My husband belonged to a baseball group made up of various religions. The Lutheran minister was his friend, and invited me to make a presentation about Israel to his congregation. He loaned me information and slides, as I believe he had also visited. That was the push I needed to make Aliyah to Israel and teach English. He was a wonderful friend. Luckily, we weren't living in Germany then.
Correction: General Bar Kokhba's 3 year war from 132-135 CE., not 135-138.
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