142
PARTISAN R.EVIEW
13efore and il11mediately after his rise to power, Hitler's denunciations of
the Jews as masters of the world were directed against Jews identified wi th
13olshevisl11. His policies played to anti-Semitism in other countries-the
Soviet Union, Poland, England, the Uni ted States and France-where
unemployment was rampant and where Jewish immigrants (who were flee–
ing fi-om Germany), if accepted, would be competing for jobs wi th the native
populations. Since economic condi tions in the 193()s already were making
for volatile internal politics, anti-immigrant sentiment was high. Of course,
"ordinary" anti-Semitism was rooted in different traditions-as Friedlander
superbly demonstrates-but it could be exploited in order to keep out the
Jews who had to leave Germany, Austria after the
Al/selilll55,
and soon the
"Sudetenland" and then the rest of Czechoslovakia. That was why the con–
ference at Evian, which was called to address the refugee question, began
wi th fanfare but ended in fiasco and why the Swiss asked that a large
"J"
be
stamped on Jews' passports. Since no country opened its frontiers, the Nazis
now proclaimed that the problem was in no way only a German one, and
the
Vii/kisc!Jcr Bcobac!Jtcr
exulted that "Nobody wants them." Friedlander,
however, doesn't stop at these obvious conclusions wi thout also pointing to
the "small islands of purely symbolic opposi tion wi thin Germany," when,
for instance, Toscanini refused to conduct the Salzburg festival. Yet he then
demonstrates that exhibitions, such as "The Eternal Jew," that represented
Jews in the most repulsive ways had the desired etlect on visi tors.
After the
A
I/SC!J/1I55,
the anti-Jewish campaigns accel erated, wi th some
Nazi honchos competing with each other f()r recognition. Laws and decrees
followed one another, all intent on legally strippingJews of every right and
every bit of property while terrorizing them, rounding them up, and send–
ing them to the concentration camps set up ever since 1933. Increasingly,
Friedlander refers to the
SOl/rlcrrcrhtc,
over two thousand laws that were
enacted to dehumanize the Jews residing in Cerman territories. He is pre–
cise in demonstrating how the pauperization of the Jewish population and
growing obstacles to emigration created the need for public support, which
was the last thing the Nazis were willing to offer. As Goebbels noted in his
diary on June 10, 1938, "the Jews must get out of 13erlin. The police will
help." It did, as did all party organizations with the authorization of the
Call/citlil/g.
However, when the situation got out of hand it was stopped to
avoid protests during an international crisis (the takeover of the
Sudetenland), allegedly at the wishes of Hitler himself. 13ut it was resumed
when, after the seventeen-year-old Hershel Grynspan shot the German
ambassador to Paris, Ernst vom
I ~ath-which
was used as the pretext to
shooting, looting and setting fire to nearly every synagogue around the
country. Goebbels commented on the ensuing
Krist(/I/I/(/rht
as "a good day's
work." Here as elsewhere, Friedlander relies on diaries, testimonies of par-
