Emma’s story: Crystal Night
Peter Aldhamland
Peter Aldhamland was born in London and survived six years of war including Hitler’s Blitzkrieg. Because of war damage and shortness of trained teachers, he didn’t start school properly until the age of nine. At the age of thirteen - he emigrated with his family to New Zealand. At the age of sixteen, Aldhamland joined the NZ Merchant Navy. He is mostly self taught with a passion for writing and relating stories of recent history. He has a number of articles published in the Alex Turnbull New Zealand National Library and the Otago Early Settlers Museum.
Peter was entrusted with Emma’s story, Crystal Night. He shares:
The following story was written by a friend, her name was Emma.
Emma was a delightfully bright and intelligent woman; her husband was a professor of mathematics and astronomy. This story is the account of Crystal night as it affected her and her family. Emma made me promise never to allow anyone to know her identity, her fear of retribution lived with her for the whole of her life.
Emma has now been dead for almost thirty years.
I believe that now is the time to tell her story, it is a story like many other similar stories that shaped part of Germany's downfall during the Second World War. It also is a story of continuous hate of one race for another, even to this Day.
I will not tell you Emma's full name I must keep my promise...But here is her story, I hope that it touches you as it touched me…
CRYSTAL NIGHT
1
Her friends, disapproval in their eyes, sometimes say to her: "It seems quite ludicrous the way you spoil your husband."
"Not enough, not enough," she thinks, and laughs almost imperceptibly.
Then her thoughts return to one night in November. The date is mentioned in her encyclopaedia as follows:
"Crystal night is the name given by J. Goebbels, the Minister of Propaganda in Hitler's Germany, to the pogroms organized by the Nazis against the Jews. The German Ambassador in Paris, E.V. Rath, wa murdered by H. Grynszpan and the Nazis used this assassination as a pretext for "spontaneous demonstrations". Goebbels ordered the destruction of Jewish synagogues, business houses, Jewish cemeteries and private homes to be carried out during the night of the 9th to the 10th of November 1938. The Crystal-Night was the introduction to the extermination of the German Jewish population."
She lived in a modern flat on the second floor of a big house with her husband and little daughter. Her old parents occupied the first floor. The living-room and lounge, the sunrooms and the kitchen were on the ground floor. Below, in the cellar, were stored apples, potatoes, eggs and many bottles of a special wine for her diabetic father, and then there were ironing facilities, the boiler for central heating, store-rooms and a ping-pong room.
She was feeling happy, that cold winter's day in November. The first snow had settled on the trees and shrubs in their garden, transforming it into a fairyland. It was 6 o'clock in the evening and she was looking forward to her final driving-lesson. Tomorrow they would drive into the mountains she loved so much. She was twenty-eight years old, healthy, and happily married. A bright and carefree future lay ahead of her.
CRYSTAL NIGHT
2
But the driving teacher didn't come. Instead, five men knocked at the front door, their faces cold and brutal. Without waiting to be asked, they rushed inside, armed with hammers, iron bars and other tools.
Systematically and ruthlessly they broke china, pierced the eyes of portraits which hung on the walls, ruined clocks, tore wallpaper, ripped curtains, threw cutlery and clothing through closed windows, smashed toilet-basins and cracked bath-tubs. She stood by the telephone on the ground floor. She stood with her eyes fixed on their big mirror and she saw her own reflection, a pale, old face with trembling lips, expressionless eyes.
"Ring the Police, go on, ring the Police!" shouted one Nazi, looking at her with venomous irony.
She stood immobile, like a stone.
Only a few days later did she learn that the whole Police Force was given holidays on the 9th and 10th of November.
After the intruders had left she was numb with fright. Her parents sat down trembling. Her husband tried to say a few comforting words. They couldn't take it in, what he was saying. His voice seemed to come from far, faraway and it sounded strange to her. Yet, although his words meant nothing, their sound was soothing.
After two hours the next wave of destruction engulfed them. This time even more men entered the house. They didn't knock at the door. They stormed in through the windows like a violent and destructive whirlwind. They had been told by their bosses that the second floor of this house, where she lived with her husband and little daughter, was taboo. Her husband had the good fortune to be a Christian, a 'pure' Aryan, like all the intruders. His family tree went back for centuries: he had it in black and white. All his Christian forefathers lived in Germany.
CRYSTAL NIGHT
3
Her family tree went back until the year 1649. She had it in black and white. All her ancestors lived in Germany. But there was one flaw: the Jewish religion. That was why these arrogant Nazis felt they had the right, even the obligation, to despise her and her kin.
As soon as her husband heard the approach of the second wave, he shepherded his family upstairs into his flat. Here the old couple found refuge. Paralysed, they sat cornered like wounded animals surrounded by fierce dogs and huntsmen who are well prepared and ready for the kill. The noise of breaking and smashing and crashing was deafening. Her husband, with utter disregard for his life, went downstairs to face the criminals:
"You've no right to do this! My parents-in-law are good people. They've never done any wrong."
"Shut up!" they screamed, "We didn't ask you to marry a
Jewish sow!"
After these Nazis had gone, silence enveloped the house. Thoughts of her parents' lives flashed through her mind. The fruit of fifty years of work and toil lay in ruins.
With horror they heard the coming of the third wave. The final destruction was ghastly: bottles were thrown on the eggs and potatoes, apples and preserves on top of all.
Again, her husband went downstairs, trying to stem the onslaught. Strangely enough, he found one beautiful antique wardrobe still intact. He kept his raincoat in it, but the rest of the clothing belonged to his wife and her parents. A huge man was just going to overturn this wardrobe, when her husband called out:
"Don't touch it! That's an Aryan wardrobe."
It seems absurd: this was their only piece of furniture left untouched.
After midnight, calmness and stillness descended on the house. Nothing in life seemed to her to be of any importance or value. She went downstairs and saw the sickening shambles.
CRYSTAL NIGHT
4
The morning dawned and the air was crystal clear.
One sleeve of her fur coat lay under the steps, the other sleeve in the snow. But she found the rest of the pieces and sent them to a furrier's, asking if the coat could be restored. Weeks later, it came back, beautifully tailored, accompanied by a note: "Considering the circumstances this repair is free of charge."
On the 10th of November she went for a walk. People who saw her coming looked the other way, or they crossed over to the other side of the street or they stared right through her.
She felt alone, like somebody in an isolation ward afflicted with a horrible disease. Then she recognized her former professor, who was approaching from the opposite direction. He gazed intently at her. For some moments they looked at each other and she thought she perceived shame and sorrow in his eyes. He raised his hat, bowed deeply and walked on. Had somebody seen this and denounced him, he would, at the very least, have lost his position.
"No, life is not over at twenty-eight,” she thought. Her little girl needed her. Could she match her husband’s courage?
Peter Aldhamland
They decided to emigrate. She had no choice. He went with her voluntarily, which is much harder. He left his old father, his sisters, his friends, his position.
She made a resolution, always to remember her husband's courage and loyalty. On the evening of every 9th of November she recalls his devotion to her and her family and she sometimes is tormented by her failure: does she spoil him enough?