One of the most important consequences of Nazi hatred toward the Jews has been its effect on family life. Most of the German emigrants are young people who have been sent away to renew their lives. Thousands of devoted parents without any possibility of themselves leaving Germany have made great sacrifices in order to give better opportunities to their children in foreign countries. This means separation just at the time when children most need the protection of their family. What is the significance of this separation?
Let us take, for example, the case of a prominent Jewish lawyer in Berlin who had always planned that one of his three sons should some day become his partner. The young man who had been studying law gave up his studies because he realized that he would never be permitted to practice law in Germany under the Hitler regime. He went to Holland, where a committee placed him as a farm hand. The second son also left Germany and found refuge in an agriculture camp in Lithuania. The third son was taken on as an apprentice by a master-joiner in East Prussia.
The mother could not withstand the strain of separation from her children and consequently suffered a nervous breakdown. The father became an old man overnight. He had lost his best clients because they were no longer allowed to consult a Jewish lawyer; financial troubles tormented him; his empty home filled him with despair.
This story might be supplemented by others. They would all reveal tragedies resulting from the separation of parents and children.
COUNCIL FOR HOME TRAINING
The problem of the future of Jewish children was the theme which the Council of Jewish Women, the most important organization of Jewish women in Germany, discussed at their last convention in Berlin. Miss Bertha Pappenheim, the council’s president since its organization, said that it was most important for the Jewish family to be held together. She declared that German Jews must see that their children receive a simple healthful education in Germany. It would be false sentimentality to deny them the character formation which such education would bring, she pointed out.
The delegates adopted a resolution that unity of the family in these days is of the utmost importance for children and parents. The resolution reads, “therefore the question of the separation of children from their parents requires a decision of the greatest significance which should be taken only after most serious deliberation. The council is strictly opposing emigration of children in large groups.”
By the same token, the Council at first refused the generous offer of a group of American families to adopt Jewish children of Germany.
THOUSAND CHILDREN PLACED
Since then, necessity has compelled them to agree to the policy of sending a limited number of children to America. Arrangements have been made under the joint auspices of the Council of Jewish Women, the B’nai B’rith, the Jewish Agency and others to find homes for 250 Jewish children in America without legal adoption. Already, a thousand children have been placed in neighboring countries.
It is easier to obtain a better understanding of the Council’s opposition when one considers the difficulties involved for parents to lose their children; and that hopes for a happier future are all that enable them to maintain their courage in these dreadful times.
The standpoint of Miss Pappenheim that it strengthens the character of the Jewish children to conquer the problems of the time is in general justified. Of course, the struggle for self-preservation develops a strength, a fine personality which is lacking in spoiled children. Children who live in the atmosphere of hostility gain the adaptive mechanism to maintain themselves in it. They become better fitted for the struggle of life; they are educated to offer resistance. Jewish children often are too sensitive; they do not like to fight. A thirteen-year-old Berlin boy refused to go to school because his comrades had jeered at him. He was deeply offended and upset emotionally. His father gave up a fairly good medical practice and emigrated with his family to Palestine. The boy and his sister are happy there, like all young people, but the problem of adjustment for his parents is more difficult. They had made the best of it however in emigrating together, because the members of this particular family were so intimately united that separation would have been destructive of real values.
VALUE OF THE FAMILY
This point of view is noteworthy in numerous cases. The family as an institution of great value is appreciated to the same degree by German Jews as well as by American Jews. In times like these, when oppression paralyzes life and movement, the family is bound together as an unit; their common fate intensifies the relationship of the members. Divergencies in character and opinion are no longer considered important; understanding of each other grows. Parents and children realize that they must create happiness for each other, and their relations deepen.
The pleasures of family life are about the only ones which cost nothing, and are therefore within the reach of all.
To send the children away from the home means to take them out of a sphere of love, tenderness, confidence, and emotional growth and place them in a world where they are strangers and where nothing can replace warm paternal interest and guidance.
Of course, if it is impossible to maintain family unity, the best solution of the problem is to plant the children in a happier soil; as an emergency measure perhaps in foreign countries, especially in Palestine. Visitors who return from Palestine are enchanted by the natural poise of the children who, rooted in its soil, display a sense of security, optimism and love of life.
DEMANDS ON YOUTH
It is true that youth remaining in Germany has to meet so many conflicts that it is impossible to maintain poise. When they master the problem of growing up as proud Jews, without losing their self-respect, then they may maintain themselves in every situation with which life may confront them. If they attend the public schools, the pupils have to be reserved and tactful—never aggressive. They must be ambitious, assidious but not bold, quick-witted but not meddlesome, proud but not stubborn Acquisition of these virtues means the development of the best in human nature. Jewish children are asked to realize an ideal. They will not reach perfection because they are human beings. To aspire to improvement, however, is, as Goethe says, the purpose of life.
It is easier for children to develop proper behavior when parents give them a better understanding of the situation. It was the fault of many parents that their children were not conscious of their Judaism and did not receive a Jewish education. Now the reverse is true, and the Jewish education of the parents by their children has begun. The Jewish festivals are celebrated and Jewish history studied. Hebrew is learned and the progress made in Palestine stimulates a real interest.
In the Jewish schools, Jewish history and Hebrew language are the principal subjects. Children of parents who had abandoned such studies as unnecessary are now educating these parents in Jewish subjects. They help in making the German Jews really Jewish.
No one knows what may be the future of the German Jewish youth. We can only hope that with the help of America and other lands the Jewish family in Germany will be given an opportunity to maintain itself as a unit and as the primary source of training for the young.
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.
