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Tag: Carl Rosenberg

How Nazis stole assets

How Nazis stole assets

Prof. Chris Friedrichs speaks at the annual Kristallnacht Community Commemoration, on Nov. 9. (screenshot)

Under the Nazi regime, almost all personal property and wealth owned by German Jews was either explicitly confiscated or, in the case of bank accounts, effectively frozen. Yet, while Jewish property was stolen without compunction, the Reich had scrupulous records and systems in place to ensure that no Aryan German who was owed money by those Jews was deprived of their due.

Chris Friedrichs, professor emeritus of history at the University of British Columbia and himself the son of a couple who fled Germany ahead of the Holocaust, delivered the lecture at the 2020 annual Kristallnacht Community Commemoration, Nov. 9. The event was recorded and presented virtually due to the pandemic. His lecture, How to Steal from Jews: A Story from Nazi Germany and What it Teaches Us, explored the history of the family of Friedrichs’ late wife, Rhoda (Lange) Friedrichs, as a microcosm of the sprawling bureaucracy the Reich put in place to manage the stolen property.

Rhoda Friedrichs’ grandparents, Carl and Thekla Rosenberg, lived comfortably in Berlin. Their two daughters grew up and migrated to the United States. By the time the Nazis came to power and the Rosenbergs might have been able to escape, Carl was already experiencing dementia.

Because there was no room in the Jewish nursing home in Berlin, he was moved to a facility in Koblenz, hundreds of kilometres away. Thekla was forced from their home and ordered into a sort of dormitory for older Jews, where she shared a single room with five or more other Jewish women. From there, she was assigned to forced labour in a factory.

Eventually, consistent with the plan for the “Final Solution,” almost all the Jews remaining in Germany were transported to Nazi-occupied Poland.

“Every time a Jew was put on a list to be deported to the east, he or she first had to fill out what was called a property declaration, a complete list of all his or her property, which would now become the property of the German Reich,” said Friedrichs.

In the spring of 1942, Carl Rosenberg and the other residents of the Koblenz care home were deported to a death camp in Poland.

In November 1942, Thekla and 997 other Berlin Jews were transferred to a train station and deported directly to Auschwitz.

“Who suffered most on these trains to Poland?” Friedrichs wondered. “Was it Carl Rosenberg, his mind clouded by confusion and dementia, suddenly removed from the caring place where he had lived for two years and put on a train for reasons no one could explain to him? Or was it his wife, her mind clear to the last, not knowing the exact destination but almost certainly able to guess what lay ahead for her? This, like much else, we will never know. But we do know that both of their lives ended in unspeakable misery in 1942.”

Their lives ended, Friedrichs noted, “but their victimization did not.”

The German Reich claimed to own whatever property the Rosenbergs still had at the time of their deportation. Like that of the other German Jews who were deported, the assets came under the authority of German finance offices in cities and towns across the country.

“One might think that this was an uncomplicated matter,” said Friedrichs. “Well, no. There was a problem. If a Jew owned a house or a piece of land, there might be a mortgage on it. The mortgage-holder might be a German, who expected his regular interest payments. If a Jew had any debts or obligations, they might be owed to some German, who expected those debts to be honoured and paid. If a Jew still owed some rent or had not yet paid the last gas bill or electric bill before being taken to the station, the landlord or utility company waited impatiently for that payment. You could steal every penny from a Jew, but you still had to be careful not to deprive even a single penny from a German who was entitled to it. So, all the local offices of the ministry of finance had to handle all these matters with scrupulous bureaucratic precision. Otherwise, they might be accused of cheating Germans of what was due to them.”

In files Friedrichs has copies of, the respective finance offices in Berlin and Koblenz had extensive back-and-forths about which office was responsible for settling outstanding obligations from the Rosenbergs’ estates.

The documentation of the officials was meticulous, something Friedrichs credits more to the nature of bureaucrats than to the Nazis specifically.

“Most of the thousands of people who worked for the German ministry of finance or the local finance offices were not hard-core Nazis,” he said. “The majority of them had been working in those offices for many years, usually starting long before the Nazis came to power.… As long as it was clear which ordinances or decrees were pertinent to the work at hand, they carried on as usual.”

Historians have found several instances of officials defying orders and returning stolen property to their Jewish owners, but this was exceedingly rare, said Friedrichs. “Did they ever wonder if they were in fact facilitating or cooperating with a process of mass murder?” he asked.

As the Nazis’ defeat approached, high-ranking officials circulated an order to the local finance offices in Germany, demanding that all records pertaining to the disposition of Jewish property be destroyed rather than fall into the hands of the invading Allied armies.

Again, behaving more like bureaucrats than Nazis, few offices complied. “The work of the finance offices would be carried on right to the bitter end,” said Friedrichs. “This is how bureaucrats reacted when they were taught what to do but not to think about why they were doing it.”

The care the German officials took with Jewish property juxtaposes bleakly with the fate of the Jewish people themselves.

“It teaches us something not just about the fate of two of the victims, but also about those who participated in the victimization,” said Friedrichs. “The Holocaust, in its fullest sense, was not only the murder of Jews. It was also a relentless project to take whatever the Jews had and make it the property of the German Reich or in some cases of their accomplices in other parts of Europe. After all, the Nazis valued everything the Jews owned, everything, that is, except their lives, which the Nazis regarded as worthless.”

screenshot - As part of the Nov. 9 Kristallnacht commemoration, candles of remembrance were lit by Holocaust survivors in their homes
As part of the Nov. 9 Kristallnacht commemoration, candles of remembrance were lit by Holocaust survivors in their homes. (screenshot)

Friedrichs’ lecture dovetailed with the theme of the exhibition currently ongoing at the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre. Treasured Belongings: The Hahn Family & the Search for a Stolen Legacy tells the history of Max and Getrud Hahn, whose collection of Judaica and other artwork was stolen by the Nazis, and the efforts by their descendants, including their grandson Michael Hayden, a UBC professor, to locate and restitute some of the artifacts.

Friedrichs’ talk paid tribute not only to his wife’s grandparents, Thekla and Carl Rosenberg, but also to his wife Rhoda, who, he said, had hoped to pursue the research on this aspect of history and share it with the public herself, but who passed away due to cancer in 2014.

The lecture was presented by the VHEC and Congregation Beth Israel. It was made possible with support from the Robert and Marilyn Krell Endowment Fund at the VHEC and contributions to the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver annual campaign.

Beth Israel’s Rabbi Jonathan Infeld thanked Friedrichs and reflected on his words and their meaning. Nina Krieger, executive director of the VHEC, read a proclamation from the City of Vancouver on behalf of Mayor Kennedy Stewart.

Corrine Zimmerman, president of the board of directors of the VHEC, introduced the event, which took place on the 82nd anniversary of Kristallnacht, Nov. 9-10, 1938. That date is seen by many as the beginning in earnest of the Holocaust. The well-orchestrated pogrom, planned to appear like a spontaneous anti-Jewish uprising, saw violence across Germany and Austria that night. Rioters destroyed 267 synagogues, damaged or destroyed 7,000 Jewish businesses and 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and incarcerated.

Candles of remembrance were lit by Holocaust survivors in their homes and incorporated via video into the commemorative program. Cantor Yaacov Orzech chanted El Moleh Rachamim.

Format ImagePosted on November 27, 2020November 25, 2020Author Pat JohnsonCategories LocalTags Beth Israel, Carl Rosenberg, Chris Friedrichs, Holocaust, Nazis, Rhoda Friedrichs, Shoah, Thekla Rosenberg, VHEC
Sometimes innocent jailed

Sometimes innocent jailed

Ken Klonsky speaks on “Freeing David McCallum: A Story of Exoneration” at the Outlook fundraiser and social event Sept.27. (photo by Winnifred Tovey)

“Number one, never talk to the police.” The first tip Ken Klonsky gave when asked by the Jewish Independent for the best advice to avoid getting wrongfully convicted by the police. Klonsky – Vancouver author and director of Innocence International, which focuses on righting wrongful convictions produced by false confessions – spoke at Outlook magazine’s annual fundraiser and social event on Sept. 27, which was held at the Peretz Centre for Secular Jewish Culture.

The event began with refreshments. During the initial schmoozing, Faith Jones, a member of the Vancouver Outlook collective, explained that people attending were “from various Jewish activist communities, such as Independent Jewish Voices,” as there is an “overlap with IJV and the Peretz community and the new UBC club, the PJA” (Progressive Jewish Alliance at the University of British Columbia), with topics ranging from food security to Yiddish-language activism.

Jones included that “many other people read Outlook because it offers a voice they don’t hear often” and, within the community, there is a “strong sense that words can change the world.”

Amid stories of the joys of being Jewish and various community and activist involvements, the crowd of about 25 people entered the downstairs room at the Peretz Centre scattered with foldout tables and a slide projecting: “Freeing David McCallum: A Story of Exoneration.”

Klonsky explained “the fraudulent case” of David McCallum, with which he became involved after receiving a letter from McCallum, who had read an interview Klonsky had done for The Sun Magazine with Dr. Rubin Carter, the founder of Innocence International, who passed away April 20, 2014.

“David McCallum was in prison for 19 years when he saw this. What he saw was a friend was reading it somewhere in the library of the prison. He was able to read it, and saw my name connected to it. He wrote to The Sun, asking for my address and he wrote me a letter asking if I would help him with his case. I had nothing to do with the law at that point in my life. I was just basically an observer…. But the letter was so poignant that I decided I was going to get involved.”

When referring to the McCallum confession, Klonsky noted: “We never see the interrogation. If you have a videotape confession, the purpose of it was to get a conviction because the jury sees a videotape confession.”

Klonsky explained, “The police say, when they are in private, they say, and I’m using their language, the reason people talk to us is because they are stupid and they love to tell their stories and that’s how we get them. Now, I know young people, the reason they talk to the police is they think, ‘Well, I haven’t done anything wrong and I’m going to tell them the truth, the truth is going to protect me’… but your truth might not be the truth of the next person they talk to. McCallum and [the late Willie] Stuckey… they were both told, your friend has told us you shot Nathan Blenner, but we know you didn’t do it, we know it was him.”

Elaborating on the mindset of the interrogated individuals, Klonsky said, “Well, I’m going to go home because all I’m saying is what my friend did … neither David nor Willie confessed to the crime. They said they were witnesses to somebody else doing it. They didn’t realize, being children, that if you’re along for the ride, you are an accomplice and it doesn’t matter. You are going to get charged.”

McCallum was exonerated last year, after nearly 29 years in prison.

Klonsky is currently working towards proving the innocence of Atif Rafay and Sebastian Burns. He called the situation “the greatest tragedy I’ve ever ran in to” because “there is no evidence linking them to the actual crime” and, he alleged, their “false confession … was engineered by the RCMP. Sebastian and Atif were the youngest people that have ever been victimized by this routine.” Klonsky continued, “It is a very dangerous thing to do … they know how to set up a young person.”

In responding to a question of the number of wrongful convictions in the United States, Klonksy said, “A minimum of 35,000, that is 1.5% of the 2.3 million people who are in prison in the United States.… This is the mechanism of an oppressive state. I don’t want to paint an unnecessarily dark picture, but it really is pretty dark.” Klonsky added that he considered this a low estimate, as “The New Yorker says five percent, that is, over 110,000 wrongly convicted people. There are only 70 innocence projects in the United States.”

Throughout the talk, comments and questions were shared by the crowd, ranging from experiences in the 1970s of interrogation regarding the activist work of individuals on the way to an anti-apartheid conference, to questions regarding the motivations of police officers pushing these charges and using such tactics.

Gyda Chud, emcee of the event, spoke after Klonsky and highlighted one of his quotes of the evening: “The opposite of evil is not good, it is truth.” She continued to say that, “for truth to prevail, people like yourselves [Klonsky] and those involved in the innocence project work … we must thank you for righting these wrongs.”

Klonsky told the Independent about “a case in Louisiana, a football player, African-American kid. He was accused of writing false banknotes, forged banknotes, and the handwriting didn’t match and we were able to get him off.” The “kid” is now married with four children, said Klonsky. “Sometimes, you do things that you don’t have any idea of the effect you are going to have.”

A fundraising speech by Marion Pollack concluded the event. “Outlook has a strong and proud history of voicing dissenting opinions…. It shows that there is an amazing and wondrous reality of Jewish voices,” she said.

Outlook editor Carl Rosenberg said, “The presentation was good, people seemed to enjoy it…. I think it went well.”

Outlook publishes six times a year and offers both a socialist and humanist lens of social justice, Yiddishkeit, ethical humanism and other issues. For more information, visit outlookmagazine.ca.

Zach Sagorin is a Vancouver freelance writer.

Format ImagePosted on October 23, 2015October 22, 2015Author Zach SagorinCategories WorldTags Atif Rafay, Carl Rosenberg, David McCallum, Faith Jones, Innocence International, Ken Klonsky, legal system, Outlook, Sebastian Burns
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