The scene is laid in a polling place in Nuremberg, Germany. The time is yesterday, anywhere between 8 a. m. and 6 p. m. by the Central European clock.
As the curtain rises a confused noise, as of sheep marching blissfully to slaughter, pervades the air. It sounds something like this: “Ba-a-a-a-a, ba-a-a-a-a-a-a.”
No, that’s wrong. Closer attention reveals that the sound is actually “Ja-a-a-a-a, ja-a-a-a–a.” This bleat is issuing from the threats of thousands of Nuremberg citizens, who are practicing what constitutes almost the only remaining word in their vocabulary as they file woodenly into the polling place.
The room in which the balloting is taking place is cluttered with storm troopers, in various stages of drunken hilarity. Suddenly there is a stir in the doorway. In walks a trembling little man, his face ashen with pallor, his upper lip covered with beads of perspiration.
Behind him are two storm troopers.
“Remember,” one of them says, poking a pistol meaningly into the little man’s ribs, “this is a free plebiscite. Now get in there and vote just as you please, so long as you vote ‘yes’.”
“Wait a minute,” says the second trooper, fingering the rubber truncheon which hangs at his belt with caressing affection. “This guy looks as though his circulation isn’t too good. Maybe we ought to give him a few setting-up exercises before we let him vote. I distinctly heard him say ‘Nein’ when I was passing by his house.”
The little man is seized with a palsy of trembling.
“But gentlemen!” he pleads. “I already explained to you! My little son was studying his lesson in English and he asked me what number comes after ‘eight,’ so I told him ‘nine.’ I didn’t mean anything by it!”
The storm troopers sneer.
“English!” snarls the first. “Yiddish, you mean! Isn’t it true that your wife’s grand-uncle was once engaged to a Jewess?”
“Yes,” says the second, “and how about that silk tie you’re wearing? It looks to me as though it was made by the Japanese-Jewish silk trust.”
Faced with these damning accusations, the little man tries to cower into a protecting corner, but a well-placed kick from one of the storm troopers’ boots sends him reeling into a voting booth.
“Now get in there and cast your ballot!” the righteously indignant trooper shouts. “And see that you’re quick about it, or we’ll find a way to speed you up.”
The polls are closed. The votes have been counted. The results are gratifying in the extreme. Julius Streicher, overlord of Franconia, is sitting in the room, contentedly picking his teeth, his chair tipped back against the wall.
“It just goes to show you, boys,” he says, “these filthy foreigners have been saying we aren’t solid. It takes a free plebiscite like this to show them. Solidarity is the outstanding characteristic of the German people.”
“Yes,” says one of his lieutenants with an ingratiating smile, “the German people certainly are solid—from their heads down.”
—A. J. B.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
