The night of the
broken glass. That night 9-10 November 1938 also crystallised the beginning of
the Holocaust. Synagogues were burnt, windows of shops owned by Jews had their
windows smashed, the shops were looted and in some cases already Jews were
pulled out of their homes. This may have been the final push to make Clara’s
daughter Käthe and granddaughter Renate want to leave Germany. The Kindertransport
came into operation shortly after this and Renate was able to come to England
towards the end of January 1939 on one of the especially arranged trains that
evacuated just under 10,000 Jewish children. Clara’s sons Ernst and Rudi had already
been in England some time by now. Clara was still determined to stay.
In the book I have
Clara watching the fires burning from one of Stuttgart’s seven hills. Even if
she didn’t actually do this, she must have been aware of what was happening.
Yet still she
refused to leave. Could it really still have been that she truly believed herself
to not to be Jewish? Or that human nature was just too good to allow any
atrocities to continue? Surely a more deeply-seated belief system must have driven
her.
I think this is something
that I shall be exploring by writing in the next few weeks.
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