Hitlerland, so far as the Jew has been concerned, has been anything but the source of idylls, fairy stories or myths. Cables and news letters from Berlin and other Nazi way spots have been, to put it bluntly, a stench in the Jewish nostrils and a nausea provoking pain in the Jewish stomach.
But flowers spring from the most barren lands and even from Germany there comes a story that might well enter the permanent library of the Jewish literature of escape. As reported by the Chicago Tribune, it is one story in which Mr. Nazi swallowed his anti-Semitic cud.
The story concerns young Peter Wolf, twenty-two-year old actor, blonde, blue-eyed and tall as behooves a Nordic, who was quickly forging ahead toward matinee idol fame when the Nazis suddenly stepped into power and banned all Jews, or part Jews, from the stage. Peter Wolf’s mother was of a high and mighty family, daughter of the late Prussian General Biebrach-as “Nordic” as could be desired, but that did not help Peter.
“Her family ostracized her when she decided to marry Peter Wolf, Sr., son of Rabbi Wolf. the rabbi was equally indignant at his son for marrying a “goy,” and the young couple were expelled by both families. They did tell their two boys about their ancestors, and the youngsters laughed many a time about the story of how great-grandfather Rabbi saved King Frederick William III, king of Prussia, and how the king had promised to always protect his descendants.
When Peter lost his occupation because of his Jewish ancestry he remembered the old story. He wondered whether his grandfather, the rabbi, was still alive. He discovered him in Berlin, and the old rabbi welcomed his unknown grandson with open arms.
“He helped him trace the old story of how his own grandfather had saved the king of Prussia, Frederick William III, when he fled from Berlin to Konigsberg to escape Napoleon.
“The king had to rely on Rabbi Wolf of that day, who gave him financial and practical assistance. When the king came back to power, gold and tithes were offered to the rabbi.
“All he asked for was a slip of paper with the king’s recognition of the rabbi’s services, and the promise that he and his descendants were to be protected in all cases of pogroms, or attempts against the Jews.
“The king gave his promise, sealed with his own royal seal, and great fun was made of the worldly unwise rabbi. His descendants, happy in the placid security of the nineteenth century, attached no importance to the king’s document, and one of them sold it. Peter and his grandfather searched for it, and finally learned that it had been bought by the Detaches Museum in Munich.
“Peter scraped pennies together and betook himself to Munich, only to discover that the document had been exchanged with another in Berlin Museum. Back to Berlin he went, where he finally secured an authentic copy.
“Armed with it, he called on the Nazi chief of the Theater Guild, who ruled that a promise given in the name of the state by a king of Prussia must be honored by a German state of Hitler’s making.
“Peter Wolf, grandson of a German general and of a rabbi, is allowed to vie for laurels with his “Aryan” countrymen on the German stage. Only Jews who fought actively in the World War are allowed on the German stage in restricted numbers. So Peter Wolf is, probably, the only young Jewish hector of Germany on the general public stage.”
H. W. L.
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.
