Summary of Bruce Henderson's Sons and Soldiers

Everest Media

Description

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.
Sample Book Insights:
#1 Günther Stern, the eldest child of Julius and Hedwig Stern, had a idyllic childhood in Hildesheim, Germany. He was four years older than his brother, Werner, and twelve years older than his sister, Eleonore. The family was middle class.
#2 In 1933, Hitler became chancellor of Germany, and within two months, the government called for a nationwide boycott of Jewish-owned businesses. Many Jewish proprietors began losing their non-Jewish customers.
#3 Günther was a victim of Nazi Germany, and he was completely cut off from his former friends. He was forced to cut out pages from his history book and replace them with new pages, because the teacher thought the old pages were filled with Jewish information.
#4 As the violence and hatred mounted around them, the Stern family decided it was time to get out of Germany. They began writing to Jewish organizations, seeking information about emigrating to America. The Nazis had reduced the amount of money that Germans could transfer out of the country, which was a major impediment for Jews wanting to immigrate to America.

Sujets

• Général
• World War II

Informations

• Publié par: Everest Media LLC
• Date de parution: 21 mars 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781669356721
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Insights on Bruce Henderson's Sons and Soldiers
Contents Insights from Chapter 1 Insights from Chapter 2 Insights from Chapter 3
Insights from Chapter 1

#1

Günther Stern, the eldest child of Julius and Hedwig Stern, had a idyllic childhood in Hildesheim, Germany. He was four years older than his brother, Werner, and twelve years older than his sister, Eleonore. The family was middle class.

#2

In 1933, Hitler became chancellor of Germany, and within two months, the government called for a nationwide boycott of Jewish-owned businesses. Many Jewish proprietors began losing their non-Jewish customers.

#3

Günther was a victim of Nazi Germany, and he was completely cut off from his former friends. He was forced to cut out pages from his history book and replace them with new pages, because the teacher thought the old pages were filled with Jewish information.

#4

As the violence and hatred mounted around them, the Stern family decided it was time to get out of Germany. They began writing to Jewish organizations, seeking information about emigrating to America. The Nazis had reduced the amount of money that Germans could transfer out of the country, which was a major impediment for Jews wanting to immigrate to America.

#5

By spring 1937, school had become so fraught with anxiety and danger that Günther’s parents pulled him out of all his classes. They hired a tutor to improve his English.

#6

Günther was sent to America alone to join his family. His mother and father could not afford to travel with him, so they sent him to live with his uncle and aunt in St. Louis.

#7

In early October 1937, Günther stood before a U. S. official who, unbeknownst to the youth, held his future in his hands. Günther was lucky that his visa application had been assigned to Burke, who was a strong believer in having the resources of the friends and relatives who signed the affidavits investigated in the United States, rather than overseas officials making arbitrary judgment calls.

#8

Günther’s friends gathered to celebrate his departure, but he was still nervous. He knew that not a single non-Jew had attended the event. Gerhard’s father was a customs official, which could make things difficult for the Sterns.

#9

Günther and his family were forced to leave Germany in 1937. They went to the boardinghouse where they would wait for the ship that would take them to America. Günther promised his mother that he would find someone in America to sponsor them, and that they would be reunited in America no matter what.

#10

Manfred’s father died when he was six years old, leaving his wife, Paula, with their three children. They were living in the house of her mother-in-law, Johanna Hanschen Steinfeld, who helped Paula take care of the children.

#11

The changes brought by the Nazis to Josbach were slow, but they eventually arrived. In 1933, Germany held its first national election since Hitler had taken control of the government. The voting was not by secret ballot, and voters had to hand their ballots directly to party officials.

#12

In 1935, the Nuremberg Laws were enacted, making Jews second-class citizens and revoking most of their political rights. Only Germans with four non-Jewish German grandparents were deemed racially acceptable, and Judaism was now defined as a race rather than a religion.

#13

In 1930s Germany, the mayor of a town had a lot of authority over outside officials. When two men in Nazi uniforms came to threaten his grandmother with arrest, the mayor asked to see their credentials, and when they couldn’t provide a court-issued arrest warrant, he kicked them out.

#14

In 1937, Paula Steinfeld decided it was time to get her family out of Germany. She heard about the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, an organization that helped unaccompanied children get out of Germany. They only took one child per family.

#15

In June 1938, Manfred’s US visa came through, and he was set to leave for America in July. His mother bought him a one-way ticket on the express train to Hamburg. He was to meet an HIAS escort there, and then join other German Jewish children on an ocean liner for the trip to America.

#16

When his mother had no more instructions for him, she began to cry. She kissed him and hugged him tightly, but she also sent him away alone to a foreign land to live with others. He was deathly afraid he would never see her again.

#17

Arthur’s father died in 1902, leaving him the only surviving member of his family at the age of nine. He was drafted into the German army in 1914 and saw combat on the western front, including the second Battle of Ypres in Belgium.

#18

When Arthur was discharged from the army following the armistice, he was invited to a dinner party by an army buddy. There, he met Gertrude, who fell in love with him. They were married several months later.

#19

The children were raised in an orphanage, and when they heard about the anti-Semitic laws, they worried about their fathers. They didn’t know what socialists meant, but they knew it was a term used to describe people who were being rounded up by the Nazis.

#20

Stephan’s father, Arthur, was arrested by the Nazis and sent to a concentration camp. He was released in 1935, and came to see his son at the orphanage. However, his appearance was deeply alarming.

#21

In 1938, Stephan’s father remarried. His new wife was Johanna Arzt, and Stephan grew close to her. He called her Mutter without hesitation.

#22

On November 7, the day after the assassination, Hitler and his minister of propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, planned a pogrom against the Jews. They ordered mass arrests and detentions of Jews, and the burning of synagogues and Jewish businesses.

#23

The children were directed by staff members to return to school two days later. The sights they saw on their walk to school would stay with them for the rest of their lives. Jewish students were no longer allowed to attend Aryan state elementary schools.

#24

The family decided to get out of Germany. They would be applying for visas to the United States through the American consulate. It was still possible for Jews to leave Germany as long as they didn’t take any money or other assets. But the emigration doors could close at any time.

#25

In July 1939, Arthur took Stephan to Berlin’s Anhalter Bahnhof train station, where they found a group of about forty boys and their chaperons off in one corner. Stephan knew a dozen of the children from the orphanage. As relatives said their good-byes, none of the adults revealed to their children any foreboding that they might not ever see each other again.

#26

By 1939, hundreds of the Jews interned at Dachau concentration camp had died, victims of SS brutality or the vile conditions. Martin Selling was the last of the nine men who had come in with him on the transport from Nuremberg still at Dachau.

#27

After being released, the prisoners were given their clothes back. The SS officer warned them not to speak about Dachau outside of Germany, as they would be difficult to believe if they spoke out.

#28

In 1935, the Nazis passed the Nuremberg Laws, which stripped Jews and other non-Aryans of their German citizenship. The laws were designed to keep the Aryan race pure by outlawing racially mixed marriages between Germans and Jews.

#29

In late June 1939, Martin joined a group of eighty German Jews assembled in Cologne by an international relief agency. The plan was for the men to travel together in a special passenger rail car attached to an express train, cross into Belgium, and head directly to the coastal city of Ostend.

#30

When Werner was ten years old, he asked his father what it meant to be Prussian. His father told him responsibility, honor, and thrift. However, when he went to school the next day, he was singled out by his Hitler Youth classmates because of his blond hair and blue eyes.