Organizers of today’s Kristallnacht Commemoration event in Münzenberg, Germany sent me this photo and description of Gerda Katz’s home and town in 1938: “Street view of the Steinweg with the home of the Albert Katz family (second house on the left, with the large courtyard gate). Notably, this house – unlike most of the neighboring buildings – does not display a Nazi flag. The photograph poignantly documents everyday life and the exclusion of Jewish families in Nazi Germany.”
Gerda (my mother’s best friend on the ship from Germany to America — and another unaccompanied minor) told me in Three Stars in the Night Sky: “I was always afraid as a child. We had bad words written on our home, and the Nazis in brown shirts would march through the town. Jewish people — even my father and two brothers — were being picked up and released. But some never came back.” — including one of Gerda’s brothers.
First day of school photo of Gerda. She is in the center in the second row.
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