James F. Tent. In the Shadow of the Holocaust: Nazi Persecution of Jewish-Christian Germans.
Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2003. xvi + 280 pp. $29.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-70061228-4.
Reviewed by Kyle Jantzen (Faculty of Arts and Science, Ambrose University College)
Published on H-German (April, 2004)
Forgotten Victims of the Holocaust: Germany’s “Mischlinge”
Forgotten Victims of the Holocaust: Germany’s Mis- archives in Hesse, Berlin, and North Rhine-Westphalia.
chlinge
In successive chapters, he follows the lives of these Germans of partial Jewish descent, who were (generally
James F. Tent’s monograph, In the Shadow of the Holo- speaking) driven from their schools, occupations, and
caust, emerges explicitly out of his encounters with Ger- social networks, and eventually compelled to perform
mans of partial Jewish descent who survived the Holo- forced labor during World War II. Lastly, he tries to uncaust. The book is essentially an account of the expe- derstand the impact of the marginalization of Germans
riences of some of the roughly 72,000 Mischlinge, Gerof partial Jewish descent as they restarted their lives folmans with either one or two Jewish grandparents, durlowing the collapse of National Socialist Germany. Each
ing the Third Reich. In the preface, Tent explains how chapter consists of a synopsis of the issue at hand, folhe was led to pursue this topic of research by an en- lowed by roughly twenty to twenty-five accounts of incounter with a retired East German professor, during a dividual experiences. In a short conclusion to the book,
1978 train journey, and by subsequent friendships with Tent highlights the difficult choice most Germans of
other Germans of partial Jewish descent who had surpartial Jewish descent made to stay in Germany after
vived the Holocaust and gone on to study at the Free Uni1945, and reiterates his motivation for writing the book,
versity in Berlin. These relationships motivated him to which was “to utilize the oral histories that only such
write “a history that showed how people of partial Jew- eyewitnesses can provide.” He goes on to praise their
ish ancestry coped with conditions on a day-to-day basis courage: “By volunteering such information, they have
from the time the Nazis seized power until they were van- bequeathed to future generations further proofs of the
quished, and then to show how the legacy of that antihuman cost of the Holocaust” (p. 241).
Semitic hatred has lingered in the minds of the victims
Tent’s case studies are the strength of this book.
ever since” (p. xii). Rather than replicate the comprehensive studies of Nazi policy concerning the Mischlinge Indeed, the stories of these Germans–many of whom
(the term he uses throughout the book), Tent acknowl- would not have identified themselves with respect to
edges the groundwork done by other historians and de- their Jewish heritage before 1933–are poignant. Young
clares that his interest lies in “personal accounts and case men and women, most of them school-aged at the time
of Hitler’s seizure of power, generally lost their opportuhistories” (p. xii).[1]
nities for education, careers, marriages and families. InTo this end, Tent bases his work largely on extenstead, most were forced to eke out a living performing
sive interviews with twenty surviving Germans of partial menial jobs, living as quietly and privately as possible,
Jewish descent, supplemented by other cases drawn from coping with denunciations and police surveillance, and
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eventually serving in some form of forced labor, whether
they were men toiling in heavy construction camps or
women struggling in war-related industries. Their stories
demonstrate the dreadful loss of opportunity suffered by
Germans of partial Jewish descent, often forgotten beside
the greater tragedy of the slaughter of their Jewish relatives at death camps like Auschwitz. Many of Tent’s subjects managed to rebuild their lives after the war, though
most, he argues, tended to live quietly and privately, just
as they had in the years before 1945.
tramarital sexual relations in National Socialist Germany
as “frowned upon by large segments of society” and “not
the done thing,” while four pages later, in another case
study, he argues, “in the normal… scheme of things, such
a relationship would have aroused little comment” (pp.
112 and 116). Later, there are conflicting signals about
how determined Hitler was to be rid of the Mischlinge
(pp. 142-150). In the same section, before a series of two
dozen stories of Germans of partial Jewish descent who
survived forced labor, Tent asserts that the labor camps
were “an unmistakable indication of the steep descent of
Germany’s Mischlinge into the category of outcasts being
readied for slaughter just like Germany’s hapless Jewish
citizens” (p. 149).
In the Shadow of the Holocaust is not an analytical
study of Germans of partial Jewish descent in National
Socialist Germany. As Tent notes, the cases he studied
were of too narrow an age and educational bracket to be
representative (p. 18). If anything, at times Tent tries
too hard to read meaning into each story he tells, causing him to make conflicting generalizations or generalizations based on only one or two cases. The result is
that one often feels that the condition of Germany’s partially Jewish citizens rises and falls from page to page.
For instance, in the chapter on education, after only one
case involving a brother and sister, he concludes, “all
over Germany similar scenes were taking place.” One
case later he asserts, “a pattern of social exclusion for
Mischlinge was emerging all over Germany as National
Socialism permeated the educational system” (pp. 2930). Later still, Tent adds that one student’s “school experiences demonstrated that teachers could inflict terrible emotional damage on children” (p. 36). In contrast
to these assertions, other cases within the same chapter
demonstrate that conditions did not worsen for every one
of Tent’s subjects, and that a few of their teachers and
school administrators were kind and helpful. As a result, the conclusion at the end of the chapter–that “when
the issue turned to multiethnic minorities, as far as the
Nazis were concerned, Germany’s Jewish-Christian citizens had become by far the victims of choice in 1933”–is
not especially convincing (p. 59). Both the Roma people
and Afro-Germans suffered racial persecution at least as
severe as Tent’s subjects, many of whom received nominal protection thanks to the presence of their “Aryan”
parent. It would have been far more effective for Tent
to have argued that educational opportunities for Germans of partial Jewish descent depended largely on the
attitudes and actions of their teachers and local school
administrators. A few managed to earn an Abitur, but
most were pushed out of the system far earlier.
As a result, In the Shadow of the Holocaust is a book
that succeeds in spite of the author’s analysis, simply on
the strength of the stories he tells. Though difficult at
times, it is worth reading for the same reason that it was
written–to put a human face on the suffering of the thousands of Germans of partial Jewish descent who were
caught in the racial politics of the Third Reich.
Note
[1]. Tent recognizes many of the newer works relating to Germans of partial Jewish descent in Nazi Germany, including: Jeremy Noakes, “The Development
of Nazi Policy towards the German-Jewish ’Mischlinge,’
1933-1945,” Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook 34 (1989): pp.
291-354; Beate Meyer, “Juedische Mischlinge”: Rassenpolitik Verfolgungserfahrung, 1933-1945 (Hamburg: Doelling
und Galitz, 1999); Sigrid Lekebusch, Not und Verfolgung der Christen juedischer Herkunft im Rheinland, 19331945: Darstellung und Dokumentation (Koeln: RheinlandVerlag, 1995); Gerhard Lindemann, “Typisch juedisch”:
Die Stellung der Ev.-luth. Landeskirche Hannovers zu
Antijudaismus, Judenfeindschaft und Antisemitismus,
1919-1949 (Berlin: Duncker und Humblot, 1998); Bryan
Mark Rigg, Hitler’s Jewish Soldiers: The Untold Story
of Nazi Racial Laws and Men of Jewish Descent in the
German Military (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas,
2002); Nathan Stoltzfus, Resistance of the Heart: Intermarriage and the Rosenstrasse Protest in Nazi Germany (New York and London: W.W. Norton and Company,
1996); and Alexandar-Sasa Vuletiae, Christen Juedischer
Herkunft im Dritten Reich: Verfolgung und Organisierte
Selbsthilfe, 1933-1939_ (Mainz: Institut fuer Europaeische Geschichte, 1995).
Along with too many such unsubstantiated generalCopyright (c) 2004 by H-Net, all rights reserved. Hizations, there are frustrating inconsistencies and over- Net permits the redistribution and reprinting of this work
statements in the text. For instance, Tent describes ex- for nonprofit, educational purposes, with full and accu2
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Sciences Online. For other uses contact the Reviews editorial staff: [email protected].
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Citation: Kyle Jantzen. Review of Tent, James F., In the Shadow of the Holocaust: Nazi Persecution of Jewish-Christian
Germans. H-German, H-Net Reviews. April, 2004.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=9195
Copyright © 2004 by H-Net, all rights reserved. H-Net permits the redistribution and reprinting of this work for
nonprofit, educational purposes, with full and accurate attribution to the author, web location, date of publication,
originating list, and H-Net: Humanities & Social Sciences Online. For any other proposed use, contact the Reviews
editorial staff at [email protected].
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