Soumerai, Eve_1980/07/02,Oral History, July 2, 1980

Eve Soumerai – July 1980 Interviewed by Carol D. Schulz

Side One

ES: Okay, my name is Eve Soumerai but when I was born my name was Eva Nussbuam and I was born in Hanover, Germany on the 15th of May, 1926. I had a father and a mother and a brother who was 18 months younger than I was.

Uh, my father was a Manager, Managing Director for a factory that makes comforters, pillows and such things and I would say he was middle class. He was not as well-to-do as some of the other members of his family, some were very wealthy, but he was a man who enjoyed life, a family man, and he liked to spend a lot of time with us.

What was the general feeling of the non-Jew in toward those who are Jews? I would say, as I think about it now as I grew up, because in our house where we lived in Berlin, the apartment house there were all non-Jews and we were friendly with everybody. So, there wasn’t, as far as I remember, when I was a little girl before I became aware of it, before it became really bad, there wasn’t any overt hostility. Um, in fact I played with, (cough), played with the children upstairs and we had quite a happy time before, I would say, 1935, ’36, until I was about nine to ten years old it was okay. Nobody ever said anything or hurt anybody’s feelings. It was rather pleasant. And then things changed.

Jews held very respected positions in community, in government, were doctors, lawyers, teachers and everything. The Jewish community in my own family goes back four to five hundred years in Germany and they were in my father’s family, they were business people, small businesses and my mother’s family they were professional people and my grandfather was very civic-minded. He started the Berlin Zoo and also contributed heavily to the university. They were very much involved. They didn’t think other of themselves as German first of Jewish, of Jewish background, of Jewish religion and I grew up with an awareness that you could be a Catholic, or a Protestant, or a Jew just as people do in this country.

Um, yeah, they belonged to clubs and they belonged to, um, they, my father was in the first World War and he belonged to some organizations, something like the …for a short time.

Were they observant? My parents, my grandparents were observant. My parents weren’t very observant. They were observant that Passover time we would go to grandfather’s house but we were not very observant. We had a Jewish consciousness but it was kept alive I would say by our grandparents.

Um, no, in Germany, they did not live in a separate part of the town. They were very assimilated. We lived among, as I just pointed out, so many other people and they were all non-Jews. And yes, members of my family did serve in World War I. My father was a…, my uncle was an officer so yes, they did and my grandfather, too. In fact, I remember as a little girl we would go to my grandfather’s study and finding a whole wall full of certificates, honoring his civic service, honoring his military service and so forth, and beautiful-looking certificates, and he was very, very proud of them. That’s why, I suppose, I was the only one to come out alive because they we were so part of the German scene that they believed constantly that this would blow over, that people would expect, that people would recognize Hitler for what he was, and that, uh, things would come out alright because they have to come out. We are kind of born with a kind of consciousness that unless you’re proven guilty you’re alright in justice will pass and it came as a shock when it didn’t. And then they realized that things weren’t going to get any better. In fact, they were getting worse and it was too late! We could no longer get exit visas to other countries and therefore, they unfortunately did not survive as did many others. So, uh,

CS: Let me, let me ask you a question again. How did your family react to the Nazi government when they first took over?

ES: I think they sort of thought it would blow, as I just mentioned, thought it would blow over. They kind of would discuss it. They kind of looked upon Hitler as a sort of, uh, idiot and people were going to find out about him and he was a second-rate painter, and there really wasn’t much to worry about and the fabric of our life wasn’t really changed and when your life doesn’t change you don’t worry too much because, in the very beginning, you know, my father still went to work and we had our comfortable life, we went to see our grandparents and had a very good time. So therefore, we didn’t really worry all that much. It was, a little uncomfortable. I think that would be a proper phrase, a little uncomfortable.

CS: Did people do anything or say anything?

ES: They were some people and they would be, I’ve thought about it, the proportions there, I would say no more than 5%, right in the beginning, who could tell and had read Mein Kampf and who were aware that Hitler had certain hypnotic powers and that he answered a need in German people and therefore it would be a wise idea for them to leave Germany and save themselves. I mean, like who were those 5%? The 5% aren’t big proportions. Ninety-five percent are staying put and went about their business, as usual.

CS: Were there non-Jews or Jews that were?

ES: There were very few non-Jews who left Germany. There were some non-Jews who, uh, there always are, because you know the Bible talks about them as a saving … There always are some that are in political opposition because the Communists at the time were in political opposition. There was a large group of Communists but there were also liberal, intelligent, educated people who were in opposition but, of course, they didn’t last very long and they were taken away very fast and they were hurt, they were killed, and everything else so, if you were not in agreement with what was going on, you took your life into your own hands, which some did, to their regret. So very soon all kinds of opposition was really squashed and people tried to, uh, tried to either dismiss it or do what they could without getting into trouble. I have a, I’ll give you a concrete example. I was playing with the child upstairs, and we were friends for years, and come ’35 and pressure was put on parents not to let their children play with Jewish children this lady, this mother came down, talked to my mother and she had tears in her eyes and she said she believed this was only temporary and things would change but for the time being she thought it would be best if the two of us didn’t play together and she bought us a bunch of flowers and some chocolates. And this is what she could do, she could not be a heroine and go against the wishes of her husband and the wishes of the Nazi life because she just couldn’t and the question, should she have endangered her family life, that’s a question that this whole thing raises. And but what she did do was assure us, in her way, that it was not a personal thing and that she was really grieved about it. You know, she did that much. She couldn’t do any more.

CS: Did your parents discuss it? What was their reaction to what she did?

ES: Well, uh, by that time they were getting a little anxious and a little nervous and, you know, they accepted it because they could understand, and they kind of parted as friends. But, uh, then, at that particular point in time they were getting, uh, you know, their topic of conversation was very often “what do we do” and “where can we go”. At that point it started.

CS: Um, hmm.

ES: Uh, there was another person. The house belonged to a …which is a small kind of nobility in Germany and he was a lawyer, an attorney, and he was also a very courageous man, more courageous, and he decide that he would never throw us out of the house, that we could live there as long as we wanted, and in fact, we did. He was a real…, when my father was, at one time, rounded up and was sent to prison. He was the one that got him out again. So, you know, if you were important enough, interestingly enough, this bears out from the record, you were important enough and had enough courage, you were left alone and you could, to some extent, do some good, and did some good. He certainly did. He helped my parents stay where they were.

CS: Uh, I guess, well, the next question I had you answered partly, too, did they, did you have non-Jewish friends and what was there reaction to Hitler and Nazism? Were there other people besides? How about at work? Did your father have problems at work?

ES: Yeah, he was, again, it’s so similar, he had to be let go because Jewish people could no longer be employed by non-Jewish organizations after, I think, it was the ’36 Nuremburg laws, and he was in a non-Jewish company and, uh, they had to let him go. But they gave him a party and they gave him a long, beautiful letter that he was very proud of. I mean, they kind of, they were, in my father’s case, at any rate, they were very nice to him. If you, they did what they had to do, the way they saw it, but they tried to be as decent as they could about it. That was the experience we had. Of course, pretty soon people moved in across, uh, across our, across the, uh, our apartment, there’s an apartment, and they moved in there and they were Nazis and they gave us a hard time, you know, they would watch us through that little spy hole.

CS: Um, hmm.

ES: Uh, but they were people that, more and more people became that way as time went on. These were the kinds of people that would gravitate, as we see here too, towards hate. There are always people like that in any given society, and these are the people that became, uh, would have done anything, would have squashed you like an ant.

CS: How about close friends? Did your parents have any close friends who weren’t Jewish?

ES: Oh, yeah, they did. In fact, in fact my mother’s brother’s wife wasn’t Jewish and she stuck to him, she married him when she wasn’t supposed to marry him and she went with him into exile and she in fact waited for him. He was in Brussels when, and when the Germans invaded Belgium. They took my uncle and she stayed for him until two years after the war, just in case he returned. So again, there’s an example of a good person, risking her life, her case is to stay married. And well, there’s another example, …my father, who married a German woman, who had heels in concentration camp, took all his money and everything and said she didn’t want to be married to a Jew. So it’s, you could find anything you want to find, even within my own family.

CS: Um, hmm.

ES: So, it always comes, fundamentally, to what kind of people they are.

CS: Hm.

ES: And you can prove anything you want to prove, too, but there’s certainly both kinds.

CS: Um, did your family try to have, did you see other things happening to other Jews. Was there anything they could do to help anybody else?

ES: Let’s see, other Jews? You mean other countries, or you mean?

CS: No, I mean in your neighborhood. For example were things happening

ES: Oh, yes, oh, yes. Jews are very ingenious, the more I think about it. They really are, they helped each other, there were organizations, there were all kinds of organizations, you know, a lot of emphasis on trades and they helped to get young people, youth, uh, training, so that they could work when they left, hopefully, to other countries. There was all kinds of sports and physical fitness programs. Uh, Jewish communities, you can see that too when you study or read about the ghettoes, I mean , they, up to the last, they were on behalf of other Jews, I mean, and you also see the other side. You can see and prove anything you want, but I think more tried to help than the other way around. There was a feeling of uh, solidarity, and there was a feeling of getting together and helping.

CS: Yes. Um, what were the first kind of rules or laws that you , um, that started to affect the Jews?

ES: Uh, well, the first laws I think were that you, I’m not sure about that, but I think the very first laws were that you couldn’t hold any public positions. You couldn’t work for the state and you couldn’t work for the town, couldn’t be a bureaucrat. And then pretty soon you couldn’t be a doctor, you couldn’t be a lawyer, then you couldn’t hold, uh, it kept, you know, from about 1934, 5, 6, 7, or every six months, another law came out restricting what you could do in order to earn a living.

CS: What did people do for a living when that happened?

ES: Well, again, it’s really quite interesting, and I think about that, too. They, uh, they somehow managed. I mean, people weren’t really starving. Now in the ghettoes they were starving, in the ghettoes there was hunger. But in Germany, I was there until ’39, my father didn’t have a job but he worked for my uncle, …they sold, they helped other people… There was movement going on, and somehow people could do, they might share a home, you know, they had to restrict their expenditures but they sort of got together. People survived, which is quite interesting because you wonder how, but they did. And of course they had money, they had some money. That was gradually taken away but like my mother, for instance, she had a lot of jewelry and I actually think that she kept selling bits and pieces, and hiding some at Gentile friend’s houses, selling those. You know, usually they managed.

CS: Um, uh, when you went to school did you find things start to change? You said that you were friends with like everyone in your building. Did you see a change in school?

ES: Uh, well, I had a very good teacher when I went to the German school so my other was worried that they would be prejudiced but he said as long as he was teaching there wouldn’t be any prejudice. There wasn’t. A little later, for instance, in ’36, ’37 again, um, there came a point when I didn’t like to go out at night because, you know, people would pounce on you, say dirty Jews. But again, the experiences were always mixed. And as you got towards ’39 it got worse and worse but by then we went to Jewish school. We were not allowed in the German schools anymore, we went to Jewish schools. So it, uh, on the whole I didn’t know what unhappiness was. I was very happy but my father wasn’t and of course we were very close to him but until, until I got to England as a refugee, I didn’t really know what unhappiness was and in the book it will tell you all that.

CS: Um, hmm. Um, you said your father was arrested. Had people been leaving? I guess this is two questions. Were people trying to get or was it too late and what happened when he got back from prison? Did your parents want to

ES: I think there was an event, you know but I’m not sure, Kristallnacht.

CS: Um, hmm.

ES: Okay, when that happened everybody, nobody, nobody doubted that what was happening, everybody all of a sudden got the idea that it was terrible to stay on. And everybody tried to get out and there’s no placed to go because many countries had closed their borders to Jews or didn’t give out …. You know, it was just impossible. And how, in one case my father’s youngest brother was in a concentration camp and my father decided that he, he didn’t think, you know he wasn’t being heroic, he just thought he could transfer his papers to him and his family and then he would get his, that the next mail would bring his papers, that it would be just a matter of a few months. But it so happened that my uncle and his family went out and then they went to Louisville, Kentucky and then my aunt was the kind of person who was so short-sighted and she didn’t, she was a kind of, who, was so ill at ease in this new environment, Kentucky, compared to Germany that she kept bugging the cousin who brought us over that she needed this and she needed that. But the cousin that brought us over said this is “oh my god! This is the first example of the family. I can’t take any more”. So they kind of waited around to send the other papers and that’s what happened.

CS: Hmm.

ES: So you know, this is why, I don’t mind saying it, this is why I hate insensitivity and I hate cruelty and I hate all this. And to me it doesn’t really have a label on it, it doesn’t have, I mean, I am unable to see that the Germans are guilty, Jews are holy. I can’t see that, you know, I mean, thinking about my particular life.

CS: Hmm.

ES: The experiences I’ve had there.

CS: Wow, umm.

ES: And my parents had booked passage on the, finally they got them, and then got a boat took forever and the boat was supposed to sail from Lisbon and then America entered the war the day before the boat was supposed to sail so it was canceled. You know, it was one of those awful things.

CS: Mmm. So, my mother had said that you were attempting it, and you just mentioned it, how did you end up in England?

ES: But because my father did realize that, uh, you know that, uh, things were pretty bad so he tried to get his two children out, you know, just in case he didn’t make it. And, uh, in my case there were two families that wanted me as a girl but nobody wanted a boy, my brother. So I had two, and he had none. And it was really also, and I always emphasize this, the real help, this is why this is so important to talk about, the real help was given by private organizations and private individuals. It was never through government channels. Government channels, in some cases, helped bring in limited numbers but the impetus came from private individuals, private organizations. And the reason for really talking about this is just that. Unless you have individuals in any given situation to do something about anything nothing will happen.

CS: Yeah. (pause) Um, a lot of these questions you’ve answered.

ES: That’s ok, um.

CS: No, that’s good. Um, sorry to say no, I asked you were there any mass meetings or demonstrations and things of that nature going on and what were your reactions to it. Um, I know we study in school, we learn about the big demonstrations and the propaganda and all of that.

ES: Oh, yeah, I do, I do …on that. Uh, yes, he staged … Hitler staged fantastic spectacles and that and his power to speak and persuade really took everybody in and what he did was to, the rallies, and the torchlight parades and the flags and the martial music and good-looking young men marching and singing. And it’s interesting, I used to hear them downstairs. I used to be upstairs in my bed and I used to hear them go through the streets and you can’t help but tap to the music. And then you realize what the music said, you know, that the Jews are against the war, we’ll kill them all, and you find as a young girl this terrible dichotomy: this is happy music, these are handsome people, they are all together, they are all, you want to be proud of them but they’re out to kill you. And you don’t understand why. As a little girl I always had these fantasies about, you know, I’d be skipping along with an ice cream cone and I used to say to myself “I’m gonna see Hitler because I’ll tell him how nice my parents are and he should come over for supper and he’ll find out.”

CS: Hmm.

ES: Because you’ve got such an idea that nothing can happen to you that if you’ve been okay, nothing can happen. I mean this is how stories end, you know, he was, that was, and that is another reason why people couldn’t believe that stuff happened in this civilized country.

CS: Uh, hmm.

ES: That’s another reason why people didn’t go, didn’t leave Germany because we were a society founded on laws. And this is also a very important point that so many people say, that kids will ask isn’t it true that the Jews owned all of Germany, they had all the money. Well, in a society of laws, if they have the money they should pay taxes, and if they didn’t pay taxes then they should get the ... That has nothing to do with extermination and people are always on the defensive. Every time you ask a question which is sort of critical of Jews you sort of imply that they understand what happened. Which is besides the point.

ES: Um, hmm.

CS: If they did something wrong there was a society there and they all know it. One kid asked me that, uh, about us owning all of Germany and I said “well okay, this is the law there. And also would you suggest in this country we get rid of the Rockefellers and the Kennedys and their parents and their grandparents and their unborn babies and their babies” and they kind of see it in a new view.

ES: Um, hmm.

CS: People are always on the defensive. You know, I find Jews are more defensive than anybody else.

CS: And

ES: That bothers me, very much. We’re never going to be able to … again …. Whatever they say, answer. You know, that’s one thing I have really developed. So, whatever the reasons are, Christ killers and so forth, you know.

CS: Hmm. I thought of a question and now I can’t remember it, right out of my head, um, that’s terrible. Right, well, I’ll get it.

ES: It’ll come back.

CS: Yeah, um. Oh, I wanted, you’d said that, uh, that you were friendly where you lived and people didn’t seem to be anti-Semitic and I wondered what you, what reasons you saw for them jumping on the band wagon and going along with all this and then supporting it, uh, the people that were marching in the parades and the people who went to the rallies and got all excited about them.

ES: That’s a good question. I think people are very gullible, people are very taken in, you see that every day, you see it every day all around you. If you stage things, that’s kind of answering your question, that, uh, before, if you stage things right, if you give them spectacles, if you give them the feeling. I remember that we came in, there was a German depression, there was a disastrous defeat in World War I, there was a lack of pride, a lack of jobs and forth. All of a sudden there was a sense of order. Order is a very important element in Germany. Everybody had something to go do and something to go to, there were all these organizations that took care from, took care of you, from the cradle to the grave. There was always someplace to go, there was always music, there was always, there was free, there was food and so on. So therefore, you dismiss those things that are unpleasant and you have a reaction. First of all it’ll blow over (if you happen to like Jews). Secondly, that maybe there’s a point I don’t understand and I’m not going to think about it because I have enough to worry about as it is. And when they think about it they become gullible. And those people that have hate in them, as I mentioned to you there are a lot of them, have a place to put their hate now in terms of scapegoating. And the others, you know, they do, they give you flowers or they give you, or they kind of say it’s awful, it’ll get better and that’s the extent of it. People follow a leader, you know, especially given the circumstances that the Germans were in.

CS: When things got really bad were you still, were you still in Germany when they were taking people to concentration camps?

ES: Oh, yeah. That was just before the war. Well, you‘d hear that. The concentration camps were, you know, in, in Poland and you kind of heard about it, you didn’t see it. I guess in ’41 you were beginning to see it because in ’41, ’42 they did. But, you know, you saw, I mean the people in Germany, they thought they were being deported in order to work for the Germans somewhere. So people rationalize, they will believe what’s comfortable. When you see a lot of people at a station being deported somewhere you don’t really ask too much because it’s uncomfortable, people, very few people, are going to find out things that make them uncomfortable which therefore they’d have to take a reaction to, so very few of them would.

CS: How about the Jews, did they, did they know?

ES: I think they were getting to know. Of course. And, uh, I don’t know to what extent they knew in ’41, ’42. I suppose they did and they were worried and they were, you know, it was pretty bad. But they kept going, and it’s the nature, human nature is to hope and human nature is to go, whatever it is, from one thing to another. I’m just reading “Heart Sounds”. Have you ever read that?

CS: No.

ES: About, I just had, uh, had a heart attack and how you cope from day to day and you know, things are going to get better. Even, even if you have the evidence, you think they are getting worse.

CS: Uh, huh.

ES: And that’s a very good example, right?

CS: Hmm.

ES: That you’re married to somebody, who all of a sudden, he’s healthy, he’s charming, he’s handsome, he’s a doctor and everything else. All of a sudden he had a heart attack and he has to have heart surgery and it’s a decline of three years, there, right? And one and a half years after the attack he’s a shadow of his former self but you still hope that he’ll be okay.

CS: Mmm.

ES: And it’s the same kind of psychology. People Side Two

(Side Two was taped over)