December 1941 in Portland, Oregon For a Jewish Family At the Beginning of WWII

 Nadene Goldfoot                                         

Hitler was named German chancellor on January 30, 1933 and immediately began pushing an anti-Jewish agenda.  Hulton Archive/Getty Images  

Law Limits Jews in Public Schools, APRIL 25, 1933, The Law against Overcrowding in Schools and Universities limits the number of Jewish students in public schools.

           Book Burning, MAY 10, 1933, Books deemed "un-German" are publicly burned throughout Germany.

Law for the “Prevention of Offspring with Hereditary Diseases”
JULY 14, 1933, New German law mandates the forced sterilization of certain individuals with physical and mental disabilities.

Hitler Abolishes the Office of President, AUGUST 19, 1934, Hitler becomes the absolute dictator of Germany.

Nuremberg Race Laws, SEPTEMBER 15, 1935, The Nuremberg Laws of 1935 herald a new wave of antisemitic legislation that brings immediate and concrete segregation.

Buchenwald Concentration Camp Opens, JULY 15, 1937, Buchenwald becomes one of the largest concentration camps established within the old German borders of 1937.

Munich Agreement, SEPTEMBER 29, 1938, Germany, Italy, Great Britain, and France sign the Munich agreement.

German Jews’ Passports Declared Invalid, OCTOBER 5, 1938, The Reich Ministry of the Interior invalidates all German passports held by Jews. Jews must surrender their old passports, which will become valid only after the letter “J” has been stamped on them.

Werner Oster, 21 of Westerburg, Hildesheim, Niedersachsen, Germany, born in 1916, was picked up by the new Nazis for hitting his cow with a little stick while guiding it on the path to the barn.  That's how all people walked their cows.  Werner's father was a sausage maker and he was bringing in the cow for his father.  Werner and his family were Jewish, and Werner was taken directly to Aushwitz and beaten.  It was 1937. Besides being beaten, Werner was forced to eat raw pork as part of the suffering he had to undergo.  Werner was 5'9" and weighed 196 lbs.  He was an athlete, all muscle. He had to take to his bed after being in such a place.                                

Word came from Germany of Kristallnacht ( The night of Broken Glass), when on the evening of November 9-10, 1938, riots were unleashed in which almost every German synagogue was destroyed, Jewish shops were demolished, and at least 10,000 Jews were arrested.  this marked the end of organized Jewish life in Germany.  After it came increasing persecution, the concentration camps and horrible deaths. 

                                                  

 Jews in Vienna scrubbing their streets, the way they belittled the Jews.  

Werner's father had been a soldier in WWI for Germany.  He put on his uniform as the Jews were being horribly treated during these 2 nights.  He was made to scrub the street with a tiny brush, then kicked and was screamed at.                              

 From 1938 to 1939 he was in the Dachau Concentration Camp.   When he got out, his parents added more to their saved money and made plans to get him out of the country.  He would eventually get on the ship, SS Washington, after going from Boppard to Hamburg's port.  His parents had saved just enough money to get only him out.  He was 22 when the day arrived and he got out on May 4, 1939, and arrived in New York on about May 12th.  After he left, it was as if the door was locked behind him.  He could never get his parents or his 16 year old red-headed sister out.  They were all killed. Werner was among the very last Jews that managed get out.    

Pearl Harbor Day, is observed annually in the United States on December 7, to remember and honor the 2,403 Americans who were killed in the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii on December 7, 1941, which led to the United States declaring war on Japan the next day and thus entering World War II.

Following the Declaration of War on Japan on December 8, 1941, the other Axis nations of Germany and Italy declared war on the United States. Congress responded, formally declaring a state of war with Germany in this Joint Resolution on December 11, 1941.

My mother had just realized on Pearl Harbor Day that she was finally pregnant.  She and my father had tried for the past 6 years to have another baby, and she wasn't sure, but thought it might be this time.  Pearl Harbor frightened her.  What would it be like to be pregnant at the start of a war?  I had been pressing so much for a sister or a brother.  She couldn't face me if anything happened to this much-awaited baby.  On Pearl Harbor Day I was already 7 years old.  

Newspaper Reporting:  Was the entire USA informed of what was going on in Europe?  They had newspapers and the radio in those days, and short wave radios that was against the law to use.  

A Problem in Democracy

Event: American Nazis Rally in New York City

Newspaper: The Akron Beacon Journal

Location: Akron, Ohio

Publication Date: Wednesday, February 22, 1939

Article Type: Editorial or Opinion Piece - Page: 4

Resource: A Marked Man

Event: German Government Forces Jews to Wear Yellow Stars

Newspaper: The Evening Tribune

Location: Marysville, Ohio

Publication Date: Friday, December 5, 1941

Article Type: Other - Byline: None listed - Page: 3

Jews' Slaughter Shocks Roosevelt

Event: Nazi Plan to Kill All Jews Confirmed

Newspaper: The East Liverpool Review/The Evening Review

Location: East Liverpool, Ohio

Publication Date: Wednesday, December 9, 1942

Article Type: News Article - Page: 13

A Need for Action

Event: Nazi Plan to Kill All Jews Confirmed

Newspaper: The American Israelite (Jewish newspapers)

Location: Cincinnati, Ohio

Publication Date: Thursday, December 10, 1942

Article Type: Editorial or Opinion Piece - Page: 4

Werner had to have a sponsor to take responsibility for all his economic needs, bills, etc.  My great uncle in La Grande did that, and then got him a job with my father.  

Werner married my fathers sister and I got to be the flower girl September 1, 1939, just before my 5th birthday.  My aunt and uncle had 5 girls with the 1st born in 1941.  .  

I had something to celebrate in August 1942, a baby brother.   

My father, starting up his Lincoln Market Wholesale Meats, also worked at the shipyards, and never holding a hammer before, became the boss with a unit there.  When he slept is still a mystery.  He was furnishing hides for the army to use for leather boots.  We were lucky in that he had a needed skill to stay at home.  

I used to ask my mother what newspapers used to be like, as all I ever remember seeing were reports of the progress of the war, and all the battles fought.  I wonder when they printed what was happening to Jews in Europe.                              

A book came out in 2005  by Laurel Leff. that answers my question.  

The book is a critical account of The New York Times's coverage of Nazi atrocities against Jews that culminated in the Holocaust. It argues that the news was often buried in the back pages in part due to the view about Judaism of the paper's Jewish publisher, Arthur Hays Sulzberger. It also gives a critical look at the work of Times correspondents in Europe.

The book received critical acclaim and was the recipient of the best media history book from the American Journalism Historians Association.

A practicing Reform Jew, Sulzberger was an enthusiastic supporter of the American Council for Judaism, founded in June 1942 to oppose Zionism, giving it prominent coverage in his newspaper. In a 1946 speech, Sulzberger claimed that Zionism was to blame for some of the Jewish deaths in the Holocaust, and that the refugee crisis during the war had been “a manageable, social and economic problem” until “the clamor for statehood introduced an insoluable [sic] political element” into the issue. “It is my judgment that thousands dead might now be alive” if “the Zionists” had put “less emphasis on statehood”.  (Now, this is the most uninformed Jew that I would have seen in those

 days.  This attitude comes out of fear, not knowledge.)  He, who held the most

power being the editor of the New York Times newspaper, was no better

than the spies of Moses who got frightened at the height of the Canaan-

ites and told Moses it was a no go.  It took Joshua to have bravery

and tell Moses they could enter and handle any situation.)

                                                 

The warning in 1933 alerted a few Jews to get out.  In 1914, Albert 

Einstein became professor of physics at the Berlin University and Director

of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Physics.  He remained there until the 

rise of Nazism in 1933 when he immigrated to the USA.  After all, he was Jewish.  

6 million Jews were slaughtered in the Holocaust.   

September 29–30, 1938: Germany, Italy, Great Britain, and France sign the Munich agreement, by which Czechoslovakia must surrender its border regions and defenses (the so-called Sudeten region) to Nazi Germany. German troops occupy these regions between October 1 and 10, 1938.

Reference: 

Book: My People, Abba Eban's History of the Jews, Volume I, adapted by David Bamberger

https://www.archives.gov/historical-docs/todays-doc/index.html?dod-date=1211

https://www.ushmm.org/learn/timeline-of-events/1933-1938

https://www.ushmm.org/information/exhibitions/online-exhibitions/special-focus/kristallnacht

https://www.insider.com/kristallnacht-night-of-broken-glass-anniversary-2019-11#the-nazi-party-spent-the-1920s-gathering-support-and-in-1933-they-were-able-to-officially-come-into-power-2

https://jewishfactsfromportlant.blogspot.com/2021/12/80th-anniversary-of-pearl-harbor.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Hays_Sulzberger

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/la-xpm-2013-apr-07-la-oe-medoff-roosevelt-holocaust-20130407-story.html

https://jewishbubba.blogspot.com/2021/12/shocking-revelations-about-new-york.html