In August 1941 Goebbels received a promise from Hitler that the deportation of Berlin’s Jews would begin as soon as the means of transportation became available and arrangements for their expulsion could be worked out. He ordered a survey to determine which Jews might be employed in work crucial to the war effort and which where “ripe” for deportation. In the meantime, in September 1941, the Gauleiter was authorized to make life even more miserable for the capital’s remaining Jews by forcing them to wear a yellow Star of David patch on their clothing. Beginning in October 1941, Jews could use Berlin’s public transportation system (but not the seats) only with special permission, and in April 1942 they were banned from it entirely. During air raids they were obliged to go to their own shelters, separate from those of the Aryans. They were also barred from shopping in “German” stores or employing the services of “German tradesmen.” They could not walk in the public parks or appear in the streets after 8:00 P.M. A decree of December 21, 1941, prohibited Jews from using public telephones. As of early 1942, Jews were required to turn over to the state such “luxury” items as radios, bicycles, typewriters, gramophones, electric stoves, and hand mirrors. To ensure that all Jews would live in the “harsh climate” that the Nazis said they deserved, monthly support payments for the sick and elderly were drastically reduced.
Many Jews evaded the regulations as best they could. Young Inge Deutschkron had no intention of abiding by the restrictions concerning freedom of movement and association. “I wasn’t ready to spend my life without occasionally going to a play or concert or for a walk in the park. I couldn’t bear the thought of spending all my time in the company of Jews exclusively. All they ever talked of was Nazi persecutions and their own anxieties—a litany of fear, apprehension, and self-torture.” Nor did she always wear her stigmata—the Star of David—when out in public. She carried a second jacket without the star and furtively changed into it before riding the subway or entering stores where Jews were not allowed. As she recalled, “I went through my coat-changing routine often, not only because Jews were barred from using public transportation except when going to and from work, but also because our grocer would not have been able to wait on us if I had come in wearing the star; nor would Mrs. Gumz have been allowed to do our laundry or give me the meat she got for us at the butcher’s.” As Deutschkron’s account makes clear, she and other Berlin Jews relied on the help of non-Jewish friends and neighbors to get around some of the Nazi rules. They obtained food beyond their official rations from grocers who slipped them “a little something extra” under the counter. They stored their valuables in the basements or attics of gentile acquaintances.
The number of people affected by the anti-Jewish regulations was finally shrinking significantly, however, for an order to begin the deportation of Berlin’s Jews was signed by Kurt Daluege, chief of the city’s Order Police, on October 14, 1941. Having waited impatiently for this moment, Goebbels was jubilant. By way of justifying this measure to the public, he recalled Hitler’s prophecy, delivered in a speech to the Reichstag in January 1939, that “if the Jews involved in international high finance were to succeed in dragging the peoples of the world into another war, the result would be not the bolshevization of the earth and thereby the victory of Jewry, but rather the extermination of the Jewish race in Europe.” The world would now witness the fulfillment of this prophecy, the Gauleiter wrote. He added that if the Jews were in for a “harsh” time, this was simply what they deserved. “Pity or regret is completely out of place here.”
