Synopsis "Judenhaus: Small Ghetto at Grosse Merzelstrasse 7"
Germany, under National Socialist rule, issued thousands of anti-Semitic decrees. Some are well known such as the notorious boycott of Jewish businesses on April 1, 1933, the quickly followed "Law of the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service," denying employment to Jewish civil servants and restricting the practice of Jewish lawyers and doctors. Paramount, however, were the Nuremberg Laws of 1935 that formally stripped Jews of their German citizenship, defined who was an Aryan and prohibited marriages and sexual contact between ethnic Germans and Jews. What did not received headlines was the Nazi policy of Jewish containment, eliminating the Jew from society by taking away means of earning a living, prohibiting children from attending the public schools and universities, limiting freedom of movement and curtailments due to enforced curfews. An even lesser known restriction was The "Law on Tenancies with Jews" imposed on April 30, 1939, forcing the Jewish population to give up their personal residences and crammed into a limited number of specially designated houses throughout Germany, the so-called Judenhaus, the Jews' House, or sometimes called "small ghetto." This book focusses on one such Judenhaus located in the city of Mannheim where some of the author's family resided. The narrative identifies and follows the fate of 80 individuals who were residents of this apartment building, reflecting their experiences during the pogrom of Kristallnacht in November 1938 and the massive October 1940 deportation of all Jews in the area to an internment camp from which most were ultimately transported to death at Auschwitz.
