Culture, Race, Class and Family: Growing up Immigrant

All of us here in the Americas, except perhaps for Native Americans, have emigrated from somewhere else or are the near or distant descendants of immigrants. To build walls around a country, as a number of our current crop of politicians sometime offer to inhibit immigration, is to try to constrain a human ecosystem that exists beyond borders. All walls fail in time. Something there is that doesn’t love a wall.

I am the son of two immigrants—my father arrived in the 1930’s, from Germany, and my mother’s family arrived from England early in the Puritan era. I never learned from my mother or from her parents about the nature of their ancestors’ decision to leave their home to come to a very uncertain future in relatively unknown territory. Perhaps they, like many others, came here because of religious persecution. My mother’s family, the Whipples, was from the mid-1800’s to the early twentieth century full of a religious fervor that led my great-grandfather and his family to Urumiah, Persia, as Protestant missionaries.

It is clear why my father and his family emigrated: The imminent Nazi threat. They emigrated late in the period when it had become clear to many what Hitler was up to. After Kristallnacht, when my father and his family were threatened by a group of organized hoodlums and the Gestapo (always difficult in the Germany of that time to know the difference), they determined to emigrate.

The story of Kristallnacht, and how it came about for the Bings, is well told in my grandmother’s story. I cannot do justice to her telling but only summarize. The evening of Kristallnacht in Nuremberg, a group of youths gathered across the street from the Bing’s home. After a time, they picked up rocks and began throwing stones at the stained-glass windows that surrounded the front door. For hours the Bings heard the sound of breaking glass as their beautiful windows were destroyed. When they had all broken, the hoodlums left. It is a perfect metaphor for the cracking and breaking of civil society. Hitler had sent out the following order:

1) Actions against Jews, especially against their synagogues, will take place throughout the Reich shortly. They are not to be interfered with; however, liaison is to be effected with the Ordnungspolizei to ensure that looting and other significant excesses are suppressed.

2) So far as important archive material exists in synagogues this is to be secured by immediate measures.

3) Preparations are to be made for the arrest of about 20,000 to 30,000 Jews in the Reich. Above all well-to-do Jews are to be selected. Detailed instructions will follow in the course of this night.

4) Should Jews in possession of weapons be encountered in the course of the action, the sharpest measures are to be taken. Verfugungstruppen der SS as well as general SS can be enlisted for all actions. Control of the actions is to be secured in every case through the Gestapo. Looting, larceny etc. is to be prevented in all cases. For securing material, contact is to be established immediately with the responsible SD…leadership. Addendum for Stapo Cologne: In the Cologne synagogue there is especially important material. This is to be secured by the quickest measures in conjunction with SD.[1]

After the departure of the stone-throwers came the Gestapo. Banging on the door, they demanded entrance. They then said that they were taking an inventory of all the valuables in the house, and began that process. Perhaps a small miracle occurred when the colonel in charge took my grandparents aside and said, quietly: “You must leave Germany at once for your safety.”

After determining they would leave, my grandparents applied for a visa from the American Embassy. They were given a number so high (it was perhaps 450) that they realized that they would not be able to leave in time. So they went to the chargé of the American Embassy and asked if there was any way they could receive a higher number. The chargé replied that he would look into it, but it required much work and hoped they understood that some recompense would be helpful. They replied that they weren’t able to take with them all of their possessions, and wondered if the chargé might like one of their Persian rugs. He told them where it could be sent. They received a visa with a specific number, perhaps 224, and left just before the first Jews were sent to the camps.

Much later, my aunt told the story that she was on a plane returning to Germany at the invitation of the German government, some time in the latter part of the 20^th century. Sitting next to her was a woman whose parents had died in the camp. “They had a high visa number and didn’t manage to escape.” My aunt asked what it was. Her seatmate said it was number 450.

[1] http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/timeline/knacht1a.htm