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Between
Heaven and Earth
..The
great majority of German Jews remains firmly rooted in the
soil of its German homeland, despite everything. There may be
some who have been shaken in their feeling for the German
Fatherland by the weight of recent events. They will overcome
the shock, and if they do not overcome it then the roots which
bound them to the German mother earth were never sufficiently
strong. But according to the ruling of the laws and
regulations directed against us only the "Aryans"
now belong to the German people. What are we, then? Before the
Law we are non-Germans without equal rights; to ourselves we
are Germans with full rights. We reject it, to be a folk
or national minority, perhaps like
the Germans in Poland or the Poles in Germany, because we
cannot deceive our own innermost [feelings]. We wish to be
subject as Germans with equal rights to the new Government and
not to some other creation, whether it is called League of
Nations or anything else. As far as we are concerned that also
closes the question of Geneva,** which at present occupies
Jewish people everywhere.
Thus
we are suspended between heaven and earth. We will have to
fight with courage and strength in order to get back to earth,
in the eyes of State and Law too...
C.V.-Zeitung,
No. 22, June 1, 1933.
*
Centralverein deutscher Staatsbürger judischen
Glaubens Central Association of German Citizens of the
Jewish Faith, commonly abbreviated as C.V.
**
The reference is to the League of Nations, where Bernheims
Petition concerning the rights of the Jewish minority in Upper
Silesia was discussed on the application of the Comite des
Delegations Juives. |
