LETTERS Germans and anti-Semitism
From Mr David Kernek Sir: If George Szamuely (`The evil of banal- ity', 4 September) is right, my mother and uncle were forced to leave their home and family in Austria simply because of the `accident' of Hitler's personality. In their case it meant lives turned upside down. For millions more, it was fatal. Some accident!
Anti-Semitism has tainted the histories of most European nations, but there are no grounds for pointing to pre-1914 Germany as 'one of the most philo-Semitic countries in the world'. Of what world can Mr Sza- muely be thinking? Violent anti-Semitism surfaced there with trainee Crusaders in 1096 and continued with varying degrees of severity for seven centuries. The Enlighten- ment — during which married Austrian Jews were no longer compelled to wear beards — brought great relief, but normali- ty returned in 1873 when Jews were blamed for the stock market collapse which fol- lowed the Franco-Prussian war.
Far from being a 'dying' creed in the 19th century, anti-Semitism was enjoying a strong revival in the mountains and valleys of Germany and Austria, if not in the salons of Berlin and Vienna. If Hitler was the sole, accidental agent of the Holocaust, he couldn't have happened at an icier bend in the road.
As for my mother and uncle, they were baptised as Roman Catholics at birth and never set foot in their town's synagogue. Their problem was that they had three Jew- ish grandparents — another of life's unforeseeable accidents.
David Kernek
1 Coburg Villas, Camden Road, Bath
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