The Waterbury Democrat., 1943-01-18

in the international Jewish plot against Germany" had long since escaped to safer clilnes. The young had mostly escaped or been impris- oned. Those who remained were old, decrepit, pathetic creatures whose spirit of resistance had been broken long ago, and whose bodies were almost broken. The Bernsteins Frau Bernstein about fifty, and her aged inother-in-law-who lived in the apartment next to mine, were typical examples. The husband and son, respectively was arrested in 1888 and was still in prison. The daughter of Frau Bernstein, the younger, had escaped to Czechoslo- vakia early in the NaI regime, and had not been heard from since. For the first two years of the war, the old couple lived unobtrusively in their three-room apartment on Wit tenberg Platz. I knew them and spoke to them daily, but our fam. iliarity never overstepped smile and @ casual greeting, for 1t was ob- vious that they preferred 1t that way. They did not want to attract attention by having too close 8 friendship with me, @ foreigner and through no fault or virtue of mine an "Aryan." They seemed as con- tent as they could be with their meager lot; they were being left alone, and that, after eight hectic years, is all those broken souls still in Germany could demand of Fate ito be left alone until quiet, Imer- ciful death overlook them.
 No NaM read with greater horror, in the autumn of 1941, than these poor, helpless people the omens be- tween the lines of Nazi communiques from the East. The Nazs were no longer winning in the East; 1t was obvious to Jews as it was to Aryans. The home cupboard was approach ing baroness with alarming speed. The people were growing obviously ill-tempered. And the Jews in Ber- lin have never allowed themselves to be deceived about what these de- velopments would mean, when and If they came; it haunted every mo- ment of their lives. The Nazis would never lose, or even approach defeat, while there was a Jew with in the reach of Hitler's armies still alive.
 JEWS REQUIRED TO
 WEAR YELLOW STAR
 Tn mid-September came the har- binger, as clearly indicative of some- thing to come as wild geese against an autumn sky. The Reichsgesetz- bIatt, the German law journal, pub- lished an announcement that, from September 10, every Jew in Ger many and Bohemia would be rec quired to wear a yellow star over his left breast, the six-pointed Star oi David marked in black hebraiC characters: Jude for Jew. The Voel- klscher Bcobachter, explaining the measure, was transparent: 'SThe German soldier" 1t wrote, ''has met in the Eastern Campaign the Jew in his most disgusting. most grlle- some form. This experience forces the German soldier and the Ger man people to deprive the Jews Oi every means of cainouflage al
 home" The villains moustache wal
 being painted bigger and blackel that he might moro easlly be hated
 At the end Of September. lesi
 when depression in the German peo'
 pie reached its lowest point before
 Dletgieh's famous speech, the Prop
 nganda Ministry. apparently mol c0gnizant Of the plants Of Hitler ans \ the High Command ln Rllaaia-jusl two days moro and the big offen' aiye would be unleaAhed-puiled ( 1 ghost. q very neraWny ghost. out Ol
 Ils idea-eabinet. ft vas Q bo0l which many people have certainty heard Of, but only few have read uarmany Agmnf peEish, hy an Amer laan 5gH named Nathan MAuanannlil