Search JTA's historical archive dating back to 1923

Frau Goebbels Was Childhood Friend of Dr. Chaim Arlosoroff

January 24, 1934
See Original Daily Bulletin From This Date
Advertisement

This is no fairy tale, though it may read like one. In a small German town, according to the Saarbruecken Deutsche Freiheit, there once lived on a large estate an attractive girl employee to whom the owner took a strong liking. Then came a beautiful, mellow summer night. A few months later a child was born to the girl. The baby was named Magda, and turned out to be a pretty, lively little thing. Legally speaking, she was not fatherless because her natural father had seen to it that the young woman on whom he had bestowed his affections, married a Jewish small tradesman.

Carefree and unsuspecting, in the friendly atmosphere of her adopted father’s home, little Magda grew to maidenhood. Naturally enough, her foster-father’s influence was predominant in the family, and Magda had quite a number of young Jewish friends. For one of them, a boy, she conceived a special liking. And a clever, energetic, strong-willed fellow he was.

One day, the veil that had been drawn over her birth was torn asunder. Her real father appeared on the scene. The world crumbled before the child. She rushed to her playmate and cried herself to oblivion on his shoulder.

“Just think of it,” she sobbed, “I’m not a Jewess at all! What am I to do now? Everything seems wrong, all wrong, now!”

Her friend consoled her as best he could. Himself a young Jewish nationalist, he succeeded in awakening in the girl a clear, logical perception of her own consciousness.

Time separated them. Their roads parted. Both, almost simultaneously, attained the greatest success of their lives. And as they reached the highest peaks of their respective careers, the abyss of time made the separation between them deeper still.

Frau Magda is at present the wife of Paul Joseph Goebbels, head of the Nazi propaganda department, the most fanatic anti-Semite after Hitler. Her childhood friend, who fell victim to assassins in distant Palestine last June, was Dr. Chaim Arlosoroff, the noted Zionist leader.

Recommended from JTA

Advertisement