September 17, 2006
By Susan Warsinger
My brother has always been braver than I. On a night when we were little children (he was eight and I was nine), when the rocks and bricks came crashing through our bedroom windows, it was he who looked out to see what was happening. I stayed under the cover, hiding my face in the dark shadowy room because I was afraid. He did, however, give me a full report of what was happening outside while he was leaning on the low windowsill. It was our neighbors, adults and their children, who were hurling the missiles while the civil policeman was watching at the edge of the crowd doing nothing to stop the bombardment.
We got the courage to run to our parents’ bedroom across the hall. On our way there, we had to pass the front door which was made out of stained glass, and we saw more rocks being pitched through its lovely panes. We finally reached our mother and father, hoping to get relief from our anxiety. Our parents had always tried to protect us from the Nazi propaganda and the antisemitism that was raging in Germany. They had explained to us why we could not go to the public schools anymore, why we could not walk through a park, and why certain shopkeepers would not sell us any goods. But this was something new. It was November 10, 1938, my mother’s birthday.
Our innocent baby brother Ernst, who was named after the serious times in which we were living, was sleeping in his little crib in our parents’ bedroom when a new barrage of rocks was flung through the window, hitting his tiny hand. While all five of us were huddled together waiting for the assault to subside, we heard a tremendous noise coming from our glass front door which was laced with steel frames. People had uprooted a lamppost from outside of our house and were using it as a ram to batter down the door. After they had successfully completed their mission, we heard men and women trampling through our hallway, shouting at the top of their voices. Then all was quiet; they were on their way to the rabbi’s living quarters.
The house we lived in had three floors: we lived on the first floor, the rabbi of our town on the floor above us, and a non-Jewish family on the third floor. There was an attic above us all in which we had stored piles of red apples ready to be eaten during the winter months. It was to this attic that our father suggested we go and hide until things got back to normal. My father also asked me to safeguard, in my underwear, an envelope containing all his life’s savings. I felt extremely important to carry such a family treasure.
My mother, brothers, and I went to the attic while my father remained downstairs. In the attic we observed that even though the rabbi was missing, his family—his wife and four children—were there. Joe and I were enormously happy because we had playmates to keep us company during the fretful night. We made up games with those red apples all through the night. We polished the apples, we made abacuses with them, we made personalities out of them, and we ate them. However, during all that play we knew the rabbi was not with us. Much later we learned that the rabbi was arrested, his beard cut off on his balcony for all the people to see, and he was hauled off to jail with most of the adult Jewish males of our town. I do not remember how my father joined us up in the attic. I do know that he was jailed for only one day and then released and we were not sure whether it was because he had played chess with the chief of police for many years or because his birth certificate established that he was a Polish citizen (at that time the Nazis had not yet declared war on Poland).
We remained in that attic for three days, being nourished by the apples and sleeping on rough burlap sacks. Our bathroom facility was on the landing between the second and third floors of the building. We had to stealthily tiptoe down the staircase, holding tightly to the banister, in order not to be heard. At times we used a lookout to make sure we were guarded from anyone finding out that we were hiding there. Some of my father’s money, which he had given me for safekeeping, became rather damp.
On our return to the apartment, we found broken glass over everything and many of our belongings were demolished. We also discovered that all the Jewish families in our town had had similar experiences and that the Jewish shops were looted. Our one precious synagogue was completely destroyed. Bad Kreuznach, our town, was not singled out—this ghastly event had occurred everywhere in Germany. It was the night of broken glass, known as Kristallnacht.
©2006, Susan Warsinger. The text, images, and audio and video clips on this website are available for limited non-commercial, educational, and personal use only, or for fair use as defined in the United States copyright laws.