Inside Nuremberg Prison: Hitler's Henchmen Behind Bars

by Helen Fry

  Howard recalls: ‘No Gestapo officers were after us, so we returned to Munich. That was one of the mistakes he made. If we had stayed in Luxembourg my father would have lost his factory but kept his life.’

  EXPANSION OF THE NAZI REGIME

  The following summer of July 1936, there was a further erosion of the terms of the Treaty of Versailles when German troops were ordered to occupy the Rhineland. The area had been declared a de-militarized zone under the Treaty. While the political face of Germany was changing, Howard has happy memories of his early childhood and life under the Nazi regime, but that would soon change. Up until 1937, the family still enjoyed holidays in Italy and Karlsbad, a mineral spa in Czechoslovakia. The effects of the Nazi regime became much more noticeable to Berthold who began to see ‘the writing on the wall’, but it was becoming ever more difficult to get out. It was not a matter of just leaving everything behind and getting a ticket out.

  Maybe deep down, Berthold still harboured an unrealistic hope that it would all change. Through all this, the young Howard and Margot still managed to live a relatively sheltered life from the effects of the Nazis until 1938. That was the year that everything changed and emigration was the only way out.

  Fifteen years after Hitler wrote his vision for Germany in his book Mein Kampf, he fulfilled the next stage of his expansionist dream. On the night of 12 March 1938, he ordered a massive military force to cross the border into Austria and annex the country in what became known as the Anschluss. Two days later, he entered the capital Vienna in an impressive procession to messianic acclaim by the population. The anti-Jewish laws which had come to pass gradually in Germany over a number of years, and which the young Howard witnessed, came into immediate force for the Jews of Austria. He comments: ‘The invasion of Austria was expected, a test of how England and France would react. They did not react and so Czechoslovakia would be next. I lived in Nazi Germany, a country where anything could happen at anytime. Hitler was an Austrian; it was a time of persecution and surprises. Nothing surprised us except the inaction of the West and Russia.’

  Berthold’s business began to decline rapidly that summer of 1938. Germans refused to trade with him because he was a Jew. Berthold tried to continue with the factory under increasingly difficult circumstances but it became quite hopeless. A once-thriving business began to rapidly decline under the boycott of his goods. Berthold’s business partner, also a Jew, had died young and left his share of the business to Berthold. Now as sole owner of the business, Berthold had little choice but to sell. Howard is philosophical about his father’s decision and says: ‘Selling the business may have been a stroke of luck because if father had kept it, the Nazis would have destroyed it on Kristallnacht when they burned down Jewish businesses. At least he sold the factory and got some money for it.’

  Berthold sold out to a man called Paul Povel whose family owned large weaveries in Nordhorn near the German/Dutch border. It was a distressing time to let go of the business which he and his partner had so successfully built up: ‘The loss of the factory hit hard because my father became dismayed that it should have come to that. Again, he felt that as a patriotic German who had fought for Germany in the First World War surely this could not be happening to him. For the first time since Hitler came to power five years earlier, the Nazi regime was affecting our daily lives. Now it became a matter of survival.’

  Having sold the business, there was no way Berthold could get other employment. He was 52 years old and Jewish. Time was spent feverishly contacting relatives and friends in the United States and other countries to try to get a visa for him and the family to get out of Germany. He realized now that they had to get out, but had probably left it too late:

  ‘For so long my father thought someone would conquer Germany and make it all good again, but as time went by his hopes were shattered. If he had realized this earlier, maybe he would have got us out in 1934 or 1935 and not left it to the very last days. Then he and my mother would have survived the Holocaust.’

  MUNICH AND ‘PEACE IN OUR TIME’

  In the autumn of 1938, all eyes again focused on Munich. From 22-24 September, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain flew to the city for face-to-face talks with Hitler in an attempt to avert war. The crisis concerned Hitler’s expansionist eye on the Sudetenland, the areas along the Czech border which were mainly inhabited by ethnic Germans but belonged to Czechoslovakia. The emergency situation threatened to slide Europe into war.

  The Munich talks were portrayed publicly as a last attempt to avert another war. All seemed hopeful when Chamberlain stayed at the Petersberg Hotel on the banks of the Rhine, not far from the city of Bonn. The German dictator stayed at his favourite hotel nearby, the Hotel Dreesen. The two leaders met at the Petersberg Hotel to discuss the deepening crisis over the Sudetenland. On the agenda was Hitler’s threat to annex both the Sudetenland and Czechoslovakia. At the end of the month, on 30 September, after intense discussions, the Munich Agreement was signed by Germany, Britain, France and Italy which allowed for the German annexation of the Sudetenland. Czechoslovakia, which had not been part of the negotiations, viewed it as the ultimate betrayal.

  Chamberlain returned to Britain and confidently declared: ‘we have saved Czechoslovakia from destruction and Europe from Armageddon.’ He promised the British people ‘Peace in our Time.’ Britain was not ready for another war, the memories of the horrors of the First World War and the loss of millions of lives still deeply affected the nation. However, one British politician and future Prime Minister was under no illusions about the implications of appeasement. Winston Churchill denounced the Agreement in the House of Commons, saying:

  ‘We have suffered a total and unmitigated defeat … you will find that in a period of time which may be measured by years, but may be measured by months, Czechoslovakia will be engulfed in the Nazi regime. We are in the presence of a disaster of the first magnitude.’

  In the end, Churchill was proved right. The Munich Agreement was a temporary appeasement and nothing but Hitler’s relinquishing of his expansionist ideas could prevent Europe’s descent into another world war.

  THREE

  KRISTALLNACHT

  WHILE BRITAIN SAVOURED the renewed optimism after the Munich Agreement, it was just a matter of weeks before the situation for Europe’s Jews dramatically deteriorated. It was to affect the Triest family. At the end of October 1938, Hitler ordered the deportation of all Polish Jews from Germany to Zbuczyn, a border town in no-man’s-land between Germany and Poland. The ramifications of this policy were soon to have devastating consequences when the actions of one man in Paris in early November gave Adolf Hitler the excuse he was looking for to unleash unrestrained violence and destruction against the Jews across the Third Reich.

  On 7th November 1938, German diplomat Ernst vom Rath was shot in Paris by a Polish Jew Herschel Grynszpan in retaliation for the deportation of his family to Zbuczyn the previous month. Rath remained in a critical condition in a French hospital. Retribution came two days later and was exacted without mercy across the German Jewish community. On 9th November, vom Rath died from his wounds. That same day happened to be the fifteenth anniversary since Hitler’s failed Putsch in Munich in 1923. Hitler used the death of vom Rath to carry out a tirade of violence against the Jews. His propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels ordered a violent pogrom against the Jews of both Germany and Austria but claimed that these attacks were never orchestrated by the State.

  During the day of 9th November and the night of 10th November, the Nazis unleashed Kristallnacht - the Night of Broken Glass. In towns, villages and cities across Germany and Austria, Stormtroopers and Brownshirts smashed the windows of Jewish businesses, looted Jewish shops and torched their buildings. Synagogues were set on fire and with it, the scrolls of the Torah (the first five books of Moses)

  Over a thousand synagogues were destroyed that night, many becoming burnt-out shells of their former glory. The main synagogue in Munich’s Herzog-Max-Strasse wher
e Howard had celebrated his bar mitzvah at the age of 13 had already been razed to the ground by the Nazis in June that year to provide a car park. On Kristallnacht, other Munich synagogues were destroyed, including the orthodox synagogue Ohel Jacob on Herzog-Rudolf-Strasse. The synagogue near Berthold’s factory remained untouched and still operates today. For those Jewish inhabitants who lived close or within the districts where the violence was carried out, it was a night of terror. The end result could not be determined except that it intensified panic for Jews trying to leave the country.

  That night, many remained behind closed doors for fear of their lives, terrified that the Gestapo would come for the males in their household. Thousands of Jewish males were rounded up and sent to concentration camps. In total, nearly a hundred Jews were killed, with 25,000 arrested and sent to concentration camps. That night was an ominous sign of worse to come for Europe’s Jews. If ever they were in doubt about Hitler’s power to last as Chancellor of Germany-Austria, the actions that night proved them wrong. Adolf Hitler had unprecedented hold on power and had singled them out, although the full policy of the Final Solution was not formalized until 1942.

  THE RIVER ISAR

  Then aged fifteen and still living in Munich, Howard knew nothing of the events of Kristallnacht until the following morning. The Triests lived in a suburb away from the area where the violence occurred and were completely oblivious to the horror being perpetrated in the centre of Munich. They walked the short distance to a tree-lined path along the river Isar which Berthold knew would be deserted. They walked around the park for some time. Then Berthold came across a business acquaintance and chatted by the river for a while about the events of the previous night. It was then that Berthold learned more about the destruction of the synagogues and Jewish businesses and that his old factory escaped damage because it was no longer owned by a Jew.

  Howard took it all in and listened silently. Finally, the men parted. Howard glanced back and saw two Gestapo approaching the acquaintance and arresting him. That day is a vivid today for Howard as it was in 1938:

  ‘We continued walking and were passed by SS officers. My father and I were not arrested because we did not look Jewish. Also, my father was wearing a miniature emblem Iron Cross from the First World War that was issued to German veterans. It was a replica of the real one he had been given. He wore it that day to signify he was a German war veteran and that he had fought for Germany. He felt that if he had fought in the war, how could anyone say he wasn’t a German? I still believe it was my father’s Iron Cross that saved us that day.’

  Howard and his father spent the rest of the day between different addresses so the Gestapo or SS could not catch up with them after failing to pick them up at their own apartment. They walked to his father’s sister who was a widow with no males in the house except Howard’s old grandfather who was in his 80s. They knew they would be safe there. After a while Berthold telephoned Lina and told her to meet them at another address which belonged to the aunt’s sister. Howard recalls:

  ‘We figured the police wouldn’t call if there were no males registered at a particular address. We managed to get through the day without being arrested like other Jewish males. We finally returned home that evening and learned from our maid that no one had called to arrest us. Our family doctor who was also Jewish came over to our apartment to see how we were.’

  The day after Kristallnacht, Berthold asked one of Howard’s aunts to call at the apartment because he had an urgent task. He did not want anything in the place that resembled a weapon if it was raided by the Gestapo. From a cupboard, he took out a dagger and helmet from his days in the army in the First World War and gave them to her. She hid them under her coat, walked down to the River Isar and threw them in.

  A few nights later, the Triest family received a knock at the door. SA troops stood on the doorstep ready to search the apartment. Howard’s mother told them that her husband was extremely sick in bed. They pushed their way in, searched the apartment but mercifully left Berthold alone. Books which they deemed anti-Nazi were confiscated, including one called The Whole Complete Marriage. In their view, there was no such thing as a complete marriage.

  During the search, Howard recognized one of the SA men as living only a block away from them. He recalled: ‘From our balcony we could see his balcony. I never did find him after the war or what happened to him. It is possible that he died fighting for the Nazis.’

  A MATTER OF TIME

  In the immediate aftermath of Kristallnacht, it was dangerous for Jews to go out for fear of attack or arrest. Howard somehow felt that he would be fine because he did not look Jewish. A couple of days after Kristallnacht, he ventured out dressed in his lederhosen. He was desperate to buy a new autograph book and believed, as before, that he would be safe because of his Aryan looks. Maybe it was a little foolhardy because Jews were forbidden to use public transport, go to the movies or into certain stores. If he had been caught, the consequences would not bear thinking about. There was one particular shop where he could buy the book he wanted. With confidence he walked into town and succeeded. He returned home safely, but around him he did witness Jews being arrested.

  After Kristallnacht, Jews were complete outcasts in the eyes of the regime and had no rights in Germany. They were no German citizens. Jewish passports were withdrawn to be stamped with a red J for Juden. Jewish males had ‘Israel’ added in front of their name and women the name ‘Sarah’. With a J in their passports it would not be possible for the Triests to go on holiday abroad anymore even if they had wanted to. Kristallnacht was the turning point when the fifteen-year old Howard fully realized the implications of the Nazi regime and that things could only get worse for the Jewish community. Although he still did not feel that anything terrible would ever happen to him personally, the events of that night left a lifelong indelible mark of insecurity: ‘Although I personally never suffered any attacks by the Nazis, since that terrible night I have been left with the feeling of immediacy and urgency – let’s do such and such today because tomorrow may never come. It may be too late.’

  In November 1938, the same thought was now on the mind of Howard’s father as on that of every other Jew – how to get out of Germany. Every attention was given to trying to secure visas to leave the country urgently. any of Howard’s school friends had already gone; others were arrested on Kristallnacht and released after a week or two in a concentration camp. They returned home with their heads shaven. Others never came back. Howard kept company with whatever Jewish teenagers were still left in Munich, most of them older than him.

  Leaving Germany was still possible. The Triests could leave at any point as long as they had a visa, but it was getting a visa that was becoming increasingly difficult. The problem was being accepted by another country for emigration. Options were limited. Britain and Palestine had fixed quotas and America had a long waiting list. Berthold intensified efforts to get his family out. He looked to America for emigration. For that the family needed an Affidavit from relatives in the United States. Fortunately help came from a cousin in New York whom the family had not seen or spoken to for years. Contacting him became a necessity for survival.

  By early 1939, Howard’s family was on the waiting list for emigration to the United States; a list containing tens of thousands of names. Berthold knew it could take years for their number to come up and hopes soon faded of gaining a quick entry there. The Triests’ number on the waiting list never actually came up while they were living in Germany.

  In the spring of 1939, Hitler expanded the German borders by annexing the Sudetenland as agreed in the Munich Agreement. In March 1939, he occupied Czechoslovakia and it became ever clear that he did not want peace at any price. Later that summer, on 22 August 1939, Hitler told his Generals: ‘the enemy did not expect my great determination. Our enemies are little worms. I saw them at Munich [reference to the Agreement]. Now Poland is in the position I wanted … I am only afraid some bastard will present me with a me
diation plan at the last moment.’

  There was no mediation plan but an ultimatum issued by British Prime Minister Chamberlain that if Hitler invaded Poland, then Britain would declare war on Germany.

  As Europe slid ever closer to war, a wealthy and influential cousin in Luxembourg threw the Triest family a lifeline. The cousin succeeded in securing them a temporary visa to stay in Luxembourg until their America visas came through. The future was uncertain but at least there was hope.

  FOUR

  FREEDOM AND AMERICA

  ON THE LAST day of August 1939, sixteen year old Howard Triest left Nazi Germany ahead of his parents and sister Margot for Luxembourg. Their exit permits were due any day. Howard was anxious about getting out of Germany safely, knowing that he risked being arrested at any station where groups of SS officers randomly searched trains. War was in the air as Howard travelled by train via Trier to the border with Luxembourg. The train was packed with vacationers returning home because of the threat of war. That evening Howard arrived at Wasserbillig, a German border town with Luxembourg. The next train into Luxembourg was not scheduled until the following morning. That night he had no option but to sleep on a bench on the station platform.

  Dawn broke the next day to a very different world. Overnight, Germany had invaded Poland. While Howard had slept on a bench ‘under the stars’, the war had started on the Polish border. Adolf Hitler had defied any warnings from Britain and ordered his troops into Poland.

  That morning of 1st September 1939, Howard passed through German customs not yet aware of what had happened. Only when he crossed into Luxembourg did he hear the announcement about Poland. He checked into a small hotel in Diekirch.