Character Is Destiny: The Autobiography of Alice Salomon

24. New Lease on Life

CHAPTER 24 New Lease on Life The secret police summoned me in May 1937 to appear the following morning for a “report on my trips abroad.” After four hours of questioning , I was ordered to leave Germany within three weeks. It might seem strange that I should not have expected this from the beginning of Nazi rule. However, so far, people who were in danger had either left of their own accord or disappeared suddenly into a concentration camp. This was before the bestial pogrom in the fall of 1938 and before the mass deportations. To be expelled and expatriated was still a mark of particular distinction, although it was meant as a humiliation . “For what crime? What have you done? Were you a citizen?” my friends abroad wanted to know. My German friends knew that there need not be any such excuses for Nazi actions; they asked merely what charges were made and whether the secret police had any material evidence on which to base their order—the recording of a telephone conversation , the photostat of a letter, the ‹nding of an “open letter” by Thomas Mann or Einstein,1 or any such contraband. They had nothing except the reproach of my frequent and lengthy sojourns abroad. Of course, though I had never been in party politics, I represented everything the Nazis detested. I was of Jewish “race”; I belonged to the ‹ghting Protestant Church; I was a progressive woman, internationally minded and therefore of paci‹st tendencies. Undoubtedly, they believed I would do less harm outside the country than within. They were mistaken. The son of one of my friends warned me of the danger of writing many letters on behalf of people who wanted to emigrate. I said, “If it’s no longer possible to do even that, I would rather not live.” But I did not expect trouble. The Nazis wanted non-Aryans to get out—my 220 activities should have been welcome. They had never searched or raided my home. When the summons came, I never even considered the possibility of being in danger. Individual mishaps have become rather irrelevant since the recent holocaust. I was, after all, not deported like my youngest sister, my brother’s youngest son, and so many of my friends. It would not be worthwhile to mention my inquisition by the secret police but for the futility of matters into which they pried, the stupidity of their accusations and judgment, that may contribute to the unsavory picture of totalitarianism. The iron gate of the huge red brick police building in central Berlin was locked behind me as I passed through, and I was asked to produce the summons. In a bare, characterless of‹ce room, a young of‹cial questioned me and noted down my answers, while an older one who pretended to be at work on some ‹les acted as watchdog and interrupted curtly several times. I remembered novels about czarist Russia that I had read in my young days, portrayals of distrust and suspicion in an atmosphere where even spies were spied upon. Incredibly, I now found in real life, in my own country, the same system with a secret police whose members were no less distrusted, watched and controlled by their own superiors from the highest down. I was questioned extensively about my various trips, their dates and routes, and the friends and places I visited. “How did you make that acquaintance?” was a favorite question. How does friendship begin? Sometimes with a glance, sometimes with an accord in the course of a conversation, sometimes through interest or cooperation in a common cause. . . . I explained each case. Apparently the names of my titled friends disturbed them, for these they took down when I produced letters of invitation. I had been collecting these “alibis” for years. Everyone did, during the Nazi regime, to protect themselves against possible charges of having spent money abroad. We were allowed to accept hospitality and railroad tickets from foreign friends, but no money even for the smallest expenses. The usual joke, when we commented on this ruling, was to say, “All right, but what about tips?” They pounced on the name of an American hostess, a Mrs. Johnson, after I had given the address of Mrs. Emilia Johnston, a Scottish friend. “You just told me that Johnston was in Scotland,” the of‹cer said, warily. New Lease on Life 221 “Johnson...