Hitler's Jewish Neighbour

Imagine being a young son in a wealthy Jewish family in Munich in the early 1930's. Your family lives in the ritzy and fashionable Prinzregentenplatz, a prestigious neighborhood that attracts powerful and rich people. Hitler has just assumed power, and he is clearly on the rise. And he happens to live right next to you, having picked a flat right next to your family home!

To add to it, this boy's father wrote a popular satire mocking that same Nazi leader, which was called "Success!", and was, as the name would suggest, a success in it's day.

That is what happened in real life, in fact, in a case that illustrates that fact is sometimes stranger than fiction.

Of course, at the time, no one could know just how much destruction and horror this one man in Germany would ultimately bring. The little boy surely could not have expected a scenario where his family would flee Germany in fear.

Yet, that is exactly what happened, and this book apparently tells the entire story of that young Jewish boy, including his run-in with Hitler, who probably did not know that he was a Jew, and gave him a fairly pleasant smile.

In his own words, Feuchtwange recalls that run-in with the then newly installed Chancellor of Germany, Adolf Hitler:

"It so happened that just at the moment when we were in front of his door, he came out. He was in a nearly white mackintosh.

"We were in his way. He looked at me and there were a few casual bystanders in the street -- it was about half past eight in the morning and they of course shouted 'Heil Hitler!'. He just lifted his hat a little bit, as any democratic politician would do -- he didn't give the (straight-armed Nazi) salute -- and then he got into his car."

The name of that little boy back in the 1930's was Edgar Feuchtwanger, and he is obviously a lot older now. A man who has lived most of his life, and is now in the sunset of his days.

But he wrote a book about those times, titled "When Hitler Was Our Neighbour", and he is about to embark on a book tour of Germany.

It is a fascinating thought that the rabidly anti-Semitic Hitler, and soon the Nazi empire that he built Germany into, would soon force this, and many other Jewish families, out of their own country.

And to think, those were the lucky ones!




Here is the article that I got the information for this blog entry, including the quotes, from:

"Hitler's Jewish neighbour looks back in horror in new book" by Deborah Cole of AFP, May 10, 2014:

http://news.yahoo.com/hitlers-jewish-neighbour-looks-back-horror-book-035809248.html