My family saw it, and I'm ashamed of it.

My father often told me how he had experienced November 10, 1938. Because in the small town in southwest Germany, in which I was raised, the anti - Jewish population began, not on the evening of November 9, but on the afternoon of tomorrow. My father then went to the first grade of elementary school, and when the class was finished, the children received orders from the teacher not to go through the synagogues and homes of the Hebrews because it could be dangerous.

Of course, Father and his companions, like six years of age, understood this counsel from the teacher just as a direct request to see what could be so dangerous in the middle of the day in the sleeping provincial city. They saw the synagogue in a fire that was not extinguished by firemen, broken window windows and deserted local shops owned by Jewish owners. And they saw firsthand how from the residence of a Jewish family flew through the window of the second floor all the furniture and household furniture.

What happened back then in the small town of 30 Jews is now documented and can be read. But one thing I wanted to ask my father, as if he were living today: What my grandparents said when their son told them what had happened in the middle of the day and in the middle of town. They had tried to explain to him the inexplicable. What they said when they heard that they had not entered the apartment with women and children, nor had they broken all the furniture. The men had been arrested in the early morning hours of November 10, and had been sent on a special train to the Dacha concentration camp.

To be honest, I don't want to know. I don't need to ask, because I guess what the answer might be. No, my grandparents weren't fanatic Nazis, that's for sure. But they pretended not to see and silence, like millions of other Germans. The parents of four young children are not suitable for heroes or martyrs. They know there was a concentration camp in Dachau and what happened there. They knew it because in 1933 they were arrested and kept in prison for several weeks, the mayor and several city Social Democrats. But these were Jews what were we doing, Catholics, with them? To risk it?

The systematic exclusion of Jews and denial of their rights did not begin in November 1938. Just a few weeks after Hitler took power, the Jewish store windows were written “Do not buy Jews”, Jewish officials were laid off, doctors, lawyers and journalists were deprived of their right to practice. Then came the racial laws of Nuremberg, expropriations, and much more. However, November 9 and 10, 1938, was the open passage to terror in front of all the people. And my family saw it and kept quiet. It bothers me and shames me. Even now, 80 years later.