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Last update - 02:16 30/04/2008 Reading between the lines By Avner Shapira Tags: Germany, Jewish newspaper Describing the first moments of the Nazi regime at the end of his book "Goodbye to Berlin," author Christopher Isherwood fumes that "The newspapers are becoming more and more like copies of a school magazine. There is nothing in them but new rules, new punishments, and lists of people who have been 'kept in.'" That is how things were in Berlin not only in early 1933, but also in the 12 years that followed; more and more newspapers, in an increasing number of countries and territories, were forced to operate under the Nazi censorship restrictions and resembled "a school magazine." The same was true of the Juedisches Nachrichtenblatt (literally: Jewish news bulletin), the last Jewish newspaper that continued to be published in Germany even during World War II. Founded in Berlin on November 23, 1938, and closed June 4, 1943, the paper could not bring its readers all the Jewish news as it really was, but there were reports on the regulations and orders imposed on the Jews, and about the cultural life of the dwindling Jewish community. And as such, the paper was a unique oxygen tank of sorts for a dying community. Advertisement A look at the work of the Juedisches Nachrichtenblatt, and a look at the day-to-day life of Germany's Jews in that period, is provided by the book "To Be a Jew in Berlin: the Letters of Hermann Samter, August 19, 1939 - February 7, 1943," which is now being released in Hebrew by the Yad Vashem Publishing House. The book, edited by Dr. Daniel Fraenkel, features 19 letters sent by Samter, a young journalist who was the manager of the paper's classified and personal ads department, to various addressees in Germany and beyond. In the letters - which are being published for the first time - he writes of the attempts to survive in Berlin, of the mood in the shadow of the war, and of the restrictions and persecution as the capital of the Reich "cleansed itself" gradually from its Jews. "One time it should be documented in writing everything that could possibly occur in Germany in 1943," Samter wrote in his last letter, a month before he was sent to Auschwitz, where he died at the age of 33. A yellow patch over the heart On November 8, 1938, on the eve of the Kristallnacht pogroms, Nazi propaganda minister Josef Goebbels ordered the closure of dozens of Jewish papers, which had continued to publish in Germany up until that time. Instead of the newspapers, Goebbels decided to set up an information bulletin for the Jews published by "the Jewish Culture Alliance," which had been set up previously in order to oversee the Jewish cultural events that remained in Germany. Thus the Juedisches Nachrichtenblatt was created in late November 1938. It initially employed some 40 Jewish workers, who had previously worked for papers that had been shut down. Printed in German, the newspaper appeared twice a week during its first three years, printing between four to sixteen pages. Fraenkel, a researcher of German Jewry at the Yad Vashem Center, says that the "new paper inherited from the closed-down newspapers their thousands of Jewish subscribers, without the latter being asked if they wanted to receive it. The Ministry of Propaganda closely monitored the paper, and asked to approve in advance the content of the reports and articles. "For the regime, the paper was intended primarily to inform the Jews of the regulations and laws relating to them, only a minority of which were reported in the general media. The paper was not permitted to report directly on the Nazis' policy, and later on the battles going on in the war, and about the deportation of Jews to ghettoes and to the concentration camps in Eastern Europe." In its reports about the decrees, the paper added practical information in the hope it would help readers avoid entanglements. In September 1941, after the Jews were required to wear a yellow patch, the paper stressed that the patch should be worn on the left side of the chest, at the same height as the heart. The paper explained how the patch should pinned on top of clothing, and cannot be sewn onto the back side of a garment or hidden with a coat or a bag. Despite the restrictions, there were between the lines of the paper occasionally veiled references to the horrors of the times. Fraenkel notes that the articles by the editor in chief, the veteran journalist Leo Kreindler, dealt with the issue of emigration from Germany, and with the regulations that allowed it until the fall of 1941. In the October 24, 1941, issue of the paper, a week after the first deportation of Jews from Berlin to Poland, the headline of the lead article, written by the editor, asked: "Did they do enough?" According to Fraenkel, "This is a bitter article directed at world Jewry and international aid organizations, and it questions whether they did everything possible in order to save the Jews. The mass deportations are not mentioned in the article, but it is possible that Kreindler understood and tried to hint to his readers that this is a critical turning point." The cultural-communal role of the Juedisches Nachrichtenblatt is reflected in the section devoted to Jewish tradition, as well as in reports about and reviews of cultural events in the community, which continued to exist until late 1941. In addition, there was communal significance to the advertisement pages in the paper, which were Samter's responsibility. Inside the topsy-turvy world of Nazi Germany, it is perhaps no wonder that the original material in the Jewish paper is not found in the editorial sections, but actually in the advertising sections. "In light of the economic and communications siege imposed by the Nazis on the Jewish population, the paper's advertising section was perhaps the only platform that Jews could use," explains Fraenkel. "There, Jewish doctors or lawyers, who had been prohibited from dealing with 'Aryan' German clients, could market themselves to a Jewish audience, and there, job offers were also published." Marriages and suicides In a letter dating from November 1941, at the height of the deportations from Berlin, Samter noted that, "What typifies the present time here is not only the large number of suicides, but also the flurry of marriages. Just about every friendship formed leads now, just before our end in Germany, to marriage." These two contradictory paths, which were common among Jews in an attempt to cope with the despair and uncertainty, are reflected in the work of Samter's department which included obituaries for those who took their own lives, as well as wedding and birth announcements. There were also personals for singles to meet, and ads for vacated rooms to rent. In its last two years of operation, the paper was part of the Association of German Jews, which was subordinate to the Gestapo. Like the other workers in the association (some 1,500 people out of around 73,000 Jews who were in Berlin at the time the deportations started), the paper's employees and their families received immunity from deportation until a relatively later stage. But Samter describes in his letters how the Gestapo made surprise visits to Jewish institutions, and asked the managers to decide which of their employees would be fired on the spot and added to the groups being deported. In November 1942, the Gestapo informed the editor Kreindler of the arrest of newspaper employees. He suffered a heart attack, and died in the paper's offices at the age of 57. Samter's letters focus pri marily on a detailed documentation of the increasing decrees. What couldn't be printed in the newspaper, he allowed himself to write in his letters. Most of those that appear in the book were sent to two German women who placed their own lives at risk to help Samter. One of the notable aspects of the letters is the hope that Samter continues to cling to, almost to his last days. Even in late 1942, when it was already clear to him that he would not be able to avoid deportation, he does not give up: "Only the hope of returning to an other Germany after a few bad years in the east gives us the strength not to lose our spirit." Fraenkel stresses that the letter have vital historical importance. "Because the letters were delivered by contacts, Samter did not have to worry about the censor. Only in rare instances do letters remain from those days in which the writer reports directly about everything he knew. The letters also show how little the Jews of Berlin knew, including even the intellectuals and people with good sources of information, such as Samter, about the fate of the deportees. The paper's offices were located a few blocks away from Adolf Eichmann's headquarters in Berlin, but Samter and his colleagues hardly knew anything bout what was going on in the camps in the east." Toward the end of 1942, the newspaper's classified ads and announcements department closed, and Samter started working for the Association of German Jews. He was assigned "the worst possible activity imaginable," as he put it: he was part of the Jewish auxiliary force that was required to assist the Nazis in rounding up Jews for deportation. The commanders threatened Samter and his colleagues that they themselves might be punished and executed if the Jews designated for deportation ran away. In his last letter, Samter openly tells of how he was required on September 13, 1942, to come and evacuate the residents of a house at 15 Pastelucci, and "was overcome by a deathly fear, because this house was where my fiancee lived." His fiancee, Lili Landsberger, 24, was arrested that night but was not deported immediately. Samter wanted to find a way to marry her before then, "so that we could be sure we would be deported together." He managed to persuade a Gestapo man in the assembly camp in Berlin to free his fiance, and the two rushed to the population registry offices to register as a married couple. They did not manage to hold the wedding before being sent by train to Auschwitz on March 12, 1943, where they died a short time later. The more its readership shrank, the more the Juedisches Nachrichtenblatt waned as well. The paper began to be printed only once a week, and the number of its pages gradually decreased, until only one page was left. The paper's last issue was on June 4, 1943, after most German Jews had already been dispatched to their "death lines." Only a few thousand Jews remained in Berlin. Among the last deportees were the newspaper's few remaining employees. Given the circumstances under which it operated, it would be pointless to review the paper using standard journalistic criteria. And yet, at least in its early days, at least occasionally, the Juedisches Nachrichtenblatt managed to safely get around the close monitoring of the censor, and realize the most important journalistic value: exposing the truth. No hand moves In his book, "Nazi Germany and the Jews," historian Saul Friedlander cites an example of this. In early December 1938, a month after Kristallnacht, the paper published a review of the American film, "Chicago," which stated: "A city goes up in flames, and the firefighters stand by without taking any action. All the hoses are poised, the ladders have been prepared... but no hand moves to use them. The men wait for the command, but no command is heard. Only when the city has burned down and is lying in cinders and ashes, an order arrives; but the firefighters are already driving away. A malicious invention? An ugly tale? No. The truth. And it was revealed in Hollywood." Bookmark to del.icio.us   Under probe Olmert stays focused on work despite new allegations. Taxi Hamas Hamas police cars serve as taxis in fuel-starved Gaza.

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