Bubbe's Place: Stories

Memories of Growing Up Jewish in the Thirties

I am over seventy years old. It's time for me to stop and to reflect on the years when I was growing up. I want to tell you, my grandsons, about those years. I want you to understand how Judaism and world events influenced and shaped my life. I want you to understand the woman I became. In understanding me, I hope you will appreciate, accept, and continue to practice, my values and traditions. In this way I hope to link your generation with my generation and with the generations that preceded me.

When I was a child in the nineteen-thirties, there were two major figures in Europe that changed the lives of Jews everywhere. In Western Europe Adolf Hitler became the German chancellor and Fuhrer (leader). It was 1933 and I was three years old. Hitler wanted to make Europe Judenfrei, free of Jews. He preached that Jews were sub-human and had a polluting and corrupting influence on society where ever they lived. He said that anyone who had one drop of Jewish blood was a Jew and needed to be eliminated. Anyone who had a Jewish ancestor, anywhere in his family tree, needed to be killed. He and his followers established concentration camps, for social undesirables. The Fuhrer, Hitler, led the Axis powers in W.W.II from 1939 until 1945. During that period, they killed six million Jews.