The Fate of a Generation

Generation Exodus. The Fate of Young Jewish Refugees from Nazi Germany. By Walter Laqueur. Brandeis University Press. $29.95.

Laqueur’s book traces what became of the teenagers among Hitler’s refugees who managed to get to America, England or Palestine, to Shanghai, Bolivia, Nepal, Ecuador, or Peru. Now in their seventies and eighties, they then were eager to forget their childhoods. But more recently, as some of them gathered acclaim as writers and statesmen, as academics and scientists, and others grew rich or famous, they not only gloried in their singular achievements, but began to look back at that repressed past–as did many who led relatively undistinguished lives after an extraordinary escape. The spate of their memoirs testifies to the depth of these experiences, their traumatic quality, and the need to make sense of their survival–whether due to inordinate luck or the ability to have seized it.

Laqueur himself completed Gymnasium in Breslau before leaving for Palestine on the eve of Kristallnacht (and never again saw his parents), fought in the battle of Jerusalem in 1948, and subsequently became a journalist and a historian, dividing his time between Europe and the United States. He knew many of the people in this book personally, and read hundreds of memoirs and relevant studies. He cites the problems and inaccuracies that must inhere in a portrait of such an amorphous generation when trying to find what the thousands of individual stories had in common, and what distinguished them. He repeatedly states that his conclusions are tentative, that for each example he cites he could have chosen at least ten others, and that early upbringing and predispositions, specific ages and locations of individuals, make it nearly impossible to generalize about those who were rescued.

Wisely, Laqueur begins this tour de force by stating that he focuses on those who were old enough to remember–but not old enough to have finished their studies or be "gainfully employed"–when the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933, and after they annexed Austria in 1938. These youngsters came from families that had been in Germany or Austria for centuries, and whose loyalty was to their country, as well as from others who had arrived from Poland before and after World War I; they lived in cities, towns, or villages; went to Jewish or non-Jewish schools; and belonged to orthodox, conservative, and reformed temples. Some had no religious affiliation at all; the families of others had converted before they were born. The Zionists among the older ones learned to farm in preparation for life in Palestine; the Communists thought of going East; and the nonpolitical ones, for the most part, looked westward. Most of their families were comfortably middle class, some–as those of the historian George Mosse and George Weidenfeld, among others–were wealthy and renowned, and some were fairly poor. But Germany and Austria were Heimat to them all; and so was the German language. More or less suddenly they were ostracized by friends and neighbors, kicked out of schools and universities, and had to scramble for visas to whatever country would have them.

That this "generation" was born between 1914 and 1928, of course, makes sense, given the five years of incremental horror in Germany and the abrupt realization, if not immediately after the Austrian Anschluss then after Kristallnacht, that escape alone could save them. Laqueur quickly disposes of the ludicrous supposition by a few historians, and by some of the so-called second generation, that they might have left sooner. Such hindsight ignores that during these years of depression, anti-Semitism and fear of competitive labor were rampant everywhere; that most countries’ borders were tightly closed after March 1938 if not sooner; and that the Nazis took every precaution to hide their (incrementally passed) "Jewish laws" from their prey, as well as from the rest of the world. Neither Laqueur nor anyone else is able to provide exact statistics; accurate numbers of escapees are unavailable in most countries; many crossed borders illegally, often more than once; and many others did not directly reach their final destinations. And a large number changed their names. (Laqueur bases his approximations on all the obtainable facts.) For instance, among those who settled in the United States, some first went to England, France or Cuba, to Shanghai, Ecuador or Italy, and so on. Among those were the women who left for England as domestics, the ten thousand children who arrived there on a Kindertransport, the few hundred who were allowed into Holland and Belgium (I was among them), and the adventurous ones who made it on their own by crossing the borders of Holland and Switzerland, and the Baltic sea.

Laqueur follows up on what happened after a successful flight, which depended on the political moment, on whether it had been before or after the outbreak of World War II, and on the strength and determination of the local German forces. By the end of 1942, nearly everyone knew that none of those who had been transported to the east had come back, which sent twelve to fifteen thousand Jews from Germany into hiding–with or without false papers. These so-called U-boats changed their identities, impersonated Nazis, and moved from place to place every few days–which was possible only with the help of friends. Fear of discovery, of being recognized as Jewish, haunted them at every moment. About 25 to 30 percent of these survived, based on their ingenuity and, most of all, on luck. Finally, each fortuitous story was unique. For them all, it was important not to call attention to themselves, not to look scared or furtive, to walk neither too slowly nor too quickly, and not to look Jewish, which was easier for blond and blue-eyed women than for males of military age.

The story of the flight to Palestine, which was halted by the British in order to try to stop Arab agitation, and the ensuing history of the battle for Jerusalem, are too well known for me to reiterate here. The refugee fighters, so-called Yekkes, who took part in the creation of that state were fighting for survival. But elsewhere, too, there were a few resisters, most of whom had been in Communist or Zionist youth groups before 1933. Under German rule opposition was futile. But about three hundred of those hiding in France joined the maquis. Among these, Herbert Herz took part in attacks around Grenoble and Toulon; Lothar Martin became a soldier in North Africa, joining in the battle of Bir Hakim, and then of Normandy. Many young refugees participated in the invasion of Europe. In occupied Germany, they helped locate former Nazi honchos, became translators and administrators–some of them in the Secret Service. Indeed, they all had much at stake in rooting out fascism.

To begin with, in Britain as well as in the United States, enemy aliens were drafted but not allowed to carry arms, although before GIs were sent overseas they were given American citizenship. Among the older ones, Herbert Marcuse, Franz Neumann, and Otto Kirchheimer did research for the OSS, while the younger ones, such as John Weitz (the distinguished fashion designer), Werner Angress (later a professor of history), and Ernst Beyer (later a professor of psychology) went to the battlefield. But all of them, even those who might have been ambivalent or nostalgic about their early youth, realized by the time of the Nuremberg trials, in which a few had leading roles, that America was not exile but their new home, their permanent Heimat.

Whereas for many years the refugees didn’t think of themselves as a distinct group, Laqueur comments on the recently organized get-togethers of, for instance, the former residents of Nuremberg and Fuerth; the pioneers (to Palestine) who hid in Holland; the graduates of various high schools; the group of agricultural trainees of Gross Breesen; those who ended up in Australia; those who (in New York) belonged to the Austro-American Youth group; the Shanghailanders, and so on. The motivations for these reunions appear to be rooted in a wish to recover that experience. Laqueur recounts, for example, that the Kindertransport meeting in London began with laughter and smiles, but on the second day lapsed into tearful recall of hidden memories–of having been abused and forced to slave in unloving households. At the time, most of these teenagers were not in the position to give voice to their misery.

Throughout the book, Laqueur mentions many distinguished names. Among them are some who became influential in their new countries: in the American political arena, Michael Blumenthal, who arrived via Shanghai, became a top-ranking member of the Carter administration and now heads the Jewish museum in Berlin; Henry Grunwald was ambassador to his native Austria; Arthur Burns, born in Austrian Galicia, was made ambassador to Bonn; Felix Rohaytan represents the United States in France; and former Secretary of State Madeline Albright was born in Prague. The most influential of that cohort, of course, is Henry Kissinger. He came with his parents from Fuerth, joined the army during World War II and (among many other veterans) took advantage of the GI Bill of Rights on his way to fame. Quite a few refugees–a label they detested–created enterprises, invented industrial techniques and products; became renowned professors and scientists, editors and winners of Nobel Prizes, among other distinctions. They all shared a common background and a common language, had a similar education and understood the same allusions and jokes. Whether their religious origins or practices were worn on their sleeves or denied, they were motivated to adapt to their new country.

There is too much information in this book for me to even mention the fascinating tales of those who landed in West Africa and Israel, in India and Russia, and of those who returned to East Germany. Along with the survivors of Auschwitz, these refugees foiled Hitler’s plan to free the world of the "Jewish race." To some extent, I believe, they then felt triumphant to have escaped and, simultaneously, worried about those they left behind–while meeting the challenges of their new country and new language. Psychoanalysts diagnosed them as feeling guilty for having survived. I rather think that they became affectless when emotional tensions and conflicts overwhelmed them; or that they got so used to running that many among them even now are diagnosed as workaholics and overly ambitious. Be that as it may, Laqueur is correct in concluding that whatever the common features of that generation, their fate was different from those who came before and after. What the postrefugee generation and their descendants will ultimately remember and make of their lives is up for grabs.

Edith Kurzweil