His successor, a Dr. Richter, was, however, just as friendly and again used legal tricks to delay the forced sale of the house. In the various jobs he was compelled to take, shoveling snow or in a factory packaging herbal teas and remedies, Klemperer was treated humanely. Even in jail, where he spent a week as punishment for failing to darken his apartment window during an air raid alarm, there were moments of rough-edged kindness from the guards. As before, at the beginning of the Nazi era, so many people believed that this was a regime that in war had once again overextended itself to such a great degree that its demise was imminent. It won't last long.
German youth fares poorly.
The children he meets, usually in groups, often wearing HitlerYouth uniforms, invariably take the opportunity to taunt the Jew. Klemperer realized that it would take a long time to detoxify these young minds. The German working class makes a much better showing, as the following incident indicates. But members of the upper class showed compassion too. At the same time the outcast tried to educate himself about his Jewish origins by reading books on Jewish history and Zionism.