My Father’s Story: Germany 1933/France 1938
or
COMING TO AMERICA 2018??

By David Meyerhoff

Introduction: My parents and grandparents escaped from Germany and survived the Holocaust.  My father went to college in France and was caught in “Surrender on Demand” where all Germans-the vast majority were Jewish- had to turn themselves into French authorities.  He was put into 2 detention camps.  The whole story can be found in the magazine-Jewish Currents – How Varian Fry Rescued My Elders.

“Hitler came to power in 1933. . . . When a teacher entered the classroom, we had to stand up and give the Nazi salute saying ‘Heil Hitler.’ I just moved my lips and did not say anything.

By the end of 1933, a Hitler Youth Group had formed at the school. One very tall boy, whom I can still recognize from a class photo, was their leader. He asked me why was I at ‘their’ school and said that ‘they’ would beat me in gym class if I persisted in coming. I felt terrorized and turned to my older brother, who was in his last year in the Gymnasium, for protection. He said he could not help me.

In music class, I once kept singing my part of a canon at the wrong time. The teacher got so mad that he came up to me and slapped my face so hard that my nose bled. When my parents complained to the principal the next day, he indicated that he was powerless because the music teacher was a member of the Nazi party.

All males 17 to 65 and all females 17 to 56 had to assemble on May 15 and bring with them a blanket, clothing and food for a few days. All males in Paris had to assemble in a sports stadium, called Stade de Colombes. Soon the toilets overflowed. People relieved themselves next to the toilets and the stench of the sewage became unbearable. The situation was inhumane.

I was assigned to an army camp at Chambaran. I remember that a soldier hit me in the face because he thought I did not climb into the bus quickly enough.”