(Mirror.)

Along with harming millions of humans who were indisputably Jewish, the Third Reich’s antisemitism also harmed a significant number of people who either never or no longer identified as ‘Jewish’, in any meaning of the word. The German Fascists were well aware of these people, mentioning them in, for example, the children’s book Der Giftpilz, and they didn’t care; they treated them as Jews all the same.

Although there were certainly some commonalities, such as the ‘Aryanization’ of their businesses, the experiences of people who were legally ‘Jewish’ still differed quite substantially from those of Judaists and other self‐identified Jews:

Thus, by the late 1930s, the Eisigs, like all other ‘full Jews,’ had lost most of their ‘Aryan’ friends, and were practically alone, apart from several private relationships. Yet—and this is the primary focus of this article—unlike self‐identifying ‘Jews,’ they could not turn to their ‘fellow Jews.’ […] Self‐identifying Jews constructed a semblance of normality amidst the abnormality, through their interactions with one another.

On the other hand, non‐Jewish ‘Jews’ [meaning individuals who were ‘Jewish’ only according to the Nuremberg laws] like the Eisigs became truly isolated. Exceptional in their interpersonal relations within the ‘Aryan’ sphere, the Eisigs, like other non‐Jewish ‘Jews,’ could not maintain ‘normality.’

[…]

Yet, as can be seen through the examples of the Eisigs, Klemperers, and of Walter Blumenthal (discussed below), these patterns of interactions of non‐Jewish ‘Jews’ (including marriage choices and Lekebusch’s findings), combined with the reasons inherent to leaving the Jewish community entirely, support the claim that there existed a cohort of non‐Jewish ‘Jews’ which was minimally socially connected to self‐identifying Jews and was often uninvolved in Jewish organizations.

All these factors taken together suggest that the social loss experienced by all ‘Jews’⁸¹ was worse for non‐Jewish ‘Jews’ because the latter had a smaller pool of Jewish friends to turn to or, at least, were of a social disposition that inclined them toward shunning communal Jewish activities.

Integrating into a Jewish community was not an easy fix, and relatively few people attempted to do so, since it basically meant starting life all over:

Thus, even if some did attempt to take part in Jewish communalism after 1933, perhaps for pragmatic reasons, our starting points when analyzing their actions should be entirely different. Living an intentionally non‐Jewish life before 1933 would make any transition into a Jewish world after 1933 exceedingly difficult, regardless of the willingness of the individual.

An example of this was the difficulty that Judeo‐Christians (if you’ll allow me to use the term) had in adjusting to a Jewish school, where they felt incongruous:

[W]hile the Jewish school system was already in existence, it took time for the disparate collection of schools for the children of ‘Christian Jews’ to be set up.⁹² Equally, the Jewish community provided more than just schooling [but] for the majority of non‐Jewish ‘Jewish’ children who were forced to attend Jewish schools, the (inconsistent) provision of Christian lessons was no protection from the associated separation from the surrounding school. Where Jewish children finally found themselves in an environment in which they were not treated as different to their peers, non‐Jewish ‘Jewish’ children were segregated, yet again.

Jewish schools simply did not specialize in accommodating children of other faiths, for obvious reasons. While the placement in Jewish schools might have been better than nothing, it was still an awkward fit for Judeo‐Christian students who must have come across as incompetent and they likely did not wish to be there at all. Try to imagine forcing a neoclassical musician to attend heavy metal lessons (or vice versa) and hopefully you’ll understand the ordeal.

Sadly, few outsiders were interested in accepting legally ‘Jewish’ immigrants:

[A]s Kevin Ostoyich’s research on the Catholic St Raphael Society’s attempts to help non‐Jewish ‘Jews’ reveals, and as the society’s emigration representative in Germany, Johann Friedrich, realized: ‘no one wanted the Jews … the Catholic Church was mistaken if it believed the outside world would look past race and accept these persons as Catholics.’¹⁰¹ Even when Friedrich was finally able to help 3,000 Catholic ‘non‐Aryans’ escape to Brazil, this was in the context of repeated rejections from other consulates.

In the Eisig family memoirs, there is no evidence of international organizations proactively seeking to help them emigrate. Rather, Ludwig and Amalie managed to emigrate with the assistance of individual contacts. Gerhard was helped by an English Quakers group and their ‘Germany Emergency Committee.’ However, he only connected with them through his friendship with an individual he had met during his time studying in Manchester.¹⁰²

(Emphasis added in all cases.)

Unmentioned in Legg’s research is how some legal ‘Jews’ took their own lives, heartbroken that all of their hard work at assimilation had been for naught. Quoting Christian Goeschel’s Suicide in Nazi Germany, pages 110–1:

Take the case of the pensioner Dora G from Prenzlauer Berg, a working‐class district in the centre of Berlin. She gassed herself in her kitchen on 4 March 1943. She was due for deportation and announced her suicide to her non‐Jewish husband and her neighbours. She left a suicide note, written under great stress and almost unreadable, on the kitchen table. In it, she declared:

For forty long years I have been married to Aryans, in my first marriage in America […] For 34 years married to an Aryan, had no contact to Jews, brought up the children in an Aryan way and took them to holy Communion, exercised no Jewish influence on them […] did not marry according to Jewish faith, 1905 in America, married according to Protestant rituals […] never did any harm to anyone, always worked (as a girl and as a woman) […] I am only sorry for my dear ill husband, I like to die, there I am safe.⁶⁵

Events that happened today (September 5):

1876: Wilhelm Josef Franz Ritter von Leeb, Axis field marshal and war criminal, stained the world with his life.
1919: Elisabeth Volkenrath, SS officer, arrived to burden humanity.
1937: Llanes fell to the Spanish fascists following a one‐day siege.
1938: Chilean officials executed a group of youths affiliated with the fascist National ‘Socialist’ Movement of Chile after they surrendered during a failed coup.
1941: The Axis absorbed Estonia.
1942: The Empire of Japan’s high command ordered withdrawal at Milne Bay, the Eastern Axis’s first major defeat in land warfare during the Pacific War.
1943: The Axis lost the Lae Nadzab Airport (near Lae in the Salamaua–Lae campaign) to the Western Allies’ 503rd Parachute Infantry Regiment.
1953: Richard Walther Darré, Reich Minister for Food and Agriculture as well as Chief of the SS Race and Settlement Main Office, expired.