Excerpt from a letter from the Norderney municipal council to the district president in Aurich, dated September 23, 1933: „… The attitude towards the Jews has caused Norderney tremendous damage. Thousands of German guests who used to come here for spa treatments have stayed away from the island because of the unbearable number of Jews. […]
“Boycott of Jewish businesses” in Ruppichteroth
On April 1, 1933, there was a nationwide boycott of Jewish businesses. SA men were also posted in front of the shop of the Jewish butcher Hermann Gärtner that morning to prevent people from shopping there. Hermann Gärtner could not endure this humiliation, got drunk in the surrounding restaurants out of desperation and later told […]
“Boycott of Jewish businesses” in Solingen
The textile merchant Albert Tobias came from a Jewish family near Neuwied. In 1918, he married a non-Jewish woman from Solingen-Wald and founded a men’s clothing store there. Although not religious himself, his business, like many other shops and practices, was affected by the nationwide “boycott of Jewish businesses” on April 1, 1933. Nevertheless, the […]
Norderney after the so-called seizure of power
To get rid of the “stigma” of being a “Jewish bathing resort,” after the Nazi takeover, the local authorities made targeted attempts—primarily through the press—to keep Jews away from the spa; this was already largely successful in 1934/1935. Prior to 1933, “anti-Semitism at seaside resorts” was propagated primarily by spa and bathing guests, who influenced […]
Flight to Shanghai via Hong Kong
When Hitler came to power in Germany in 1933, small numbers of Jews started to escape Germany for Shanghai. In 1938, the year of the Anschluss and Kristallnacht, this exodus rapidly escalated. That year, Hong Kong became a major port of transit for hundreds of Jewish refugees fleeing Nazism for the sanctuary of Shanghai – […]
Jewish life on Norderney and the increasing spa anti-Semitism
From 1885 to 1914, between twenty-two and thirty-five Jews lived on the island of Norderney (0.5– 1.1 % of the population); in 1933, there were twenty-eight Jewish residents and, in 1935, only nine. The number of Jewish workers, salaried employees, and shopkeepers who stayed in Norderney only during the bathing season was higher. In 1923, […]