The Blood Laws Blutschutzgesetz

These were invented in 1935. They determined whether  you were Jewish or not. here are some examples:

If your parents and grandparents were all German - you were safe - you were German.

If your parents and grandparents were all Jewish, you were not safe.  You were definitely Jewish.

If you had two grandparents and one parent who was Jewish you were a Mischling of the first degree. This applied to Renate. She had two Jewish grandparents and a Jewish parent. Her mother and her mother's parents were Jewish It didn't matter that her grandparents had converted to Christianity. They are Blut - bllod laws. 

Interestingly some orthodox Jews welcomed these as they gave a solid definition of who was Jewish.         

The Nuremberg Laws

Two new laws were created in Germany in 1935. They were known as the Nuremberg laws.

Blutschutzgesetz

Literally: “blood protection law” 

This defined how Jewishness was determined. Renate’s parents would not have been able to marry after 1935 and the divorce that they had in 1942 was really expected. Only pure Germans may marry other pure Germans and produce pure German children. If only one grandparent was Jewish, a marriage may be permitted. Renate had two Jewish grandparents so according to this law was a Mischling. If she’d have had three Jewish grandparents she would have been considered to be completely Jewish. If she had had only one, she might have been allowed to call herself German.  

            

Reichsbürgergesetz

Literally: Reich’s citizenship law

This robbed people who were not full Germans of many civil rights. This made legal former boycotts. Jews had lost the right already in 1933 to practise law or medicine.

Food for thought: 

Can you think of any other countries who have used or are indeed still using laws anything like this?  
Is there any way in which such laws could be protective? 
Why do you think the Germans wanted pure blood? 
  

 

Finished? Not without Molly the kitten

Yes, I think I’ve finished.  I’ve completed all edits, even the copy edit and the read out loud edit.  Very last minute I’ve put another tiny sub-plot in. A story about a kitten. Traumatised Kindertransport children often found it easier to relate to animals than to other humans, no matter how much kindness was shown. In fact, kindness by others often made them feel guilty. They felt unworthy, partly because they had been labelled as a disgrace by the Nuremberg laws and partly because they felt guilty as they were surviving whilst other friends and relations were not.

It was particularly difficult for Mischling children such as Renate, who felt neither as if they were German nor English and neither were they properly Jewish like the other Kinder.

Molly the kitten has to be bottle fed. She is the daughter of one of the two farm cats who gave birth within a few days of each other. Most of the other kittens feed from either mother without hesitation. Molly seems unable to decide which cat should feed her and is ultimately rejected by both mothers. She becomes attached to Renate who looks after her. Molly eventually goes to live in London with Renate after she has left school. She is initially as confused about her identity as Renate is. But she thrives because she is loved.

I’ve found out very recently that Renate adopted a cat while she was evacuated with the school. She took it everywhere with her, often hidden inside her jacket. It seemed like a thread that needed to be woven into the story. The word count has gone up now by a couple of thousand.     

                  

Ruth Barnett "Person of No Nationality"

Ruth came to England in 1939 with her older brother Martin. Her father was a Jew and her mother was German. She had a slightly different experience form our own Renate Edler, whose mother was a Jew and whose father was German, but there are many parallels.

Like Renate, she didn’t know whether she was German, Jewish or English. Renate had most problems with her Jewishness but perhaps Ruth had more problems with being German: she was very young when she first left Germany. Both girls forgot their German.

The uncertainty about identity caused both girls to become depressed. Both girls ended up sleeping for a long time when they finally gave into their tiredness.

Amusingly Ruth had the opposite problem from Renate when it came to beds: the German bed with its bed roll and square pillows puzzled Ruth when she went back to Germany for the first time. Renate was puzzled by the sheets, blankets eiderdown and bedspread when she first arrived in London.

Ruth’s story shows that though the Kindertransport was well-intentioned and though it did save many lives, it did not supply a happy-ever-after ending. Both girls had three different foster homes. Ruth had some bad experiences in her first foster home. Renate was well-treated everywhere. Both girls found their parents alive again. So in many ways they were more fortunate than some of the other Kinder.

The worst for both of them was the feeling of not belonging anywhere. Renate had her serendipitous German passport but returned to Germany in 1947 as a British citizen with a British passport. Ruth had to travel as a “Person of No Nationality”. But both girls suffered from confusion about whether they were English, German or Jewish and therefore lacked an identity.

The question is, is this resolved for Renate?

Ah, well, you will just have to read the book. While you’re waiting for it to be finished, you could read Ruth’s book. 

                            

Kinder Isolation

There are only actually about one thousand Kinder witness accounts. So, what we have actually only represents one tenth of the 10,000 children who were brought across on the Kindertransport. About 500 of those were treated well. Even they were not necessarily happy. Some were, however, only to have that happiness challenged again if they were reconciled with their parents. By then, six years or so on, they had become English and they had grown up; they were no longer little German children. And there was always the guilt. My mother-in-law was particularly isolated. She was not German, she was Jewish. She was not an orthodox or even practising Jew – in fact she was baptised as a Catholic. She was a Mischling. She was not separated from her parents – her mother came over to England two months after she arrived and she was reconciled with her father after the war. She never talked about any guilt but she did feel a lot of confusion. It was especially difficult for her when London and Nuremberg were being bombed. Her mother was in London. Her father was in Nuremberg. This is a major point in the novel. I hope I’m bringing it our well enough.

I Came Alone by Bertha Leverton and Shmuel Lowensohn

This is a set of accounts of people who arrived in the UK via the Kindertransport or had some connection with it in some way. Much of my research has led me to the thousands of such accounts. Only a few are in the form of letters or diaries written at the time – most are told through the mist of memory and toned by present day considerations.

Nevertheless, they are all useful and they are most certainly interesting.

I found several instances of similarities with the story of my mother-in-law, Renate Edler.  There was even another Renate who had an Uncle Rudi!

Several of the Kinder, as she did, also ended up living in North Finchley. Several also came across form Nuremberg in January 1939 as she did. We aren’t sure whether she came over on an organised Kindertransport or whether it was some sort of private arrangement.

Most of the Kinder in this book are very Jewish, but there are a few examples of “Mischling” children.

There are a few touches of humour, too. One young German girl gets very confused about the difference between marmalade and jam – the German for jam is “Marmalade”.   

I hope I manage to get some humour into my text.

There are also some examples of parents of the Kinder getting jobs and settling in the UK – just as Kathe Edler did. I still have to verify the facts about all of this. I need another stroke of luck like I had yesterday with Clara Lehrs.  

          

The Reichsbürgergesetz and the Blutschutzgesetz

These two important laws were really the foundation of the Holocaust. The first, the Reichsbürgrgesetz, coming into effect in 1935, defined a difference between people who belonged to the Reich and people who had German citizenship. This immediately declared that all Jews were not Reichs people. Those who had three or more Jewish grandparents were definitely Jewish. Those who had two or more Jewish grandparents were known as “Mischlinge” and could also not become Reichs citizens. This made Clara Lehrs and her three children definitely Jewish. Renate Edler thereby becomes a Mischling. In some way, being a Mischling is even tougher than being a Jew. A Mischling cannot enjoy solidarity with other Jews.

Clara Lehrs’ Catholicism and anthroposophism did not help at all because of the Blutschutzgesetz.  This was the law for the protection of racial purity. It forbade certain marriages. The marriage between Hans Edler and Kathe Edler, Renate’s parents, became illegal.

These two laws, taken to extreme, led to the Holocaust and the Final Solution. The Blutschutzgesetz also has implications for the Nazi ideal of the Master Race.