Jewish Victim Primary Source:Victor Klemperer's I Will Bear Witness

Victor Klemperer was in many ways atypical of many Jewish victims of the Holocaust. He had a relatively privileged position as an academic, writer, and journalist. His identification with the Jewish community was rather tenuous. As noted by Martin Chalmers "Preface" to Klemperer's journals of the period entitled I Will Bear Witness, "Observance and the Reform Synagogue" that Klemperer attended as a child "was extremely liberal" and entailed no dietary restrictions; no bar mitzvah, and in contrast to Reform Judaism today, it was regarded as a "halfway house" between conversion to Protestantism and Judaism.[footnoteRef:1] Klemperer's beloved wife of forty-five years was a Protestant and this gave him a somewhat protected status when the Nazis came to power. Klemperer's area of academic interest was Voltaire, not anything pertaining to Jewish theology. Thus, his life experience is particularly illustrative of the extent to which even relatively educated, assimilated and privileged Jews were affected by Nazism. Klemperer's life also shows how relatively assimilated many Jews were and the extent to which Hitler's rise to power came as a surprise. "Again it's astounding how everything collapses," mused Klemperer.[footnoteRef:2] [1: Martin Chalmers, "Introduction," to I Will Bear Witness, Volume 1: A Diary of the Nazi Years: 1933-1941 by Victor Klemperer (New York: Modern Library, 2016), viii.] [2: Victor Klemperer, I Will Bear Witness, Volume 1: A Diary of the Nazi Years: 1933-1941 (New York: Modern Library, 2016), 5.]

When Hitler was declared Chancellor, Klemperer was far from complacent about what this meant for the Jewish people of Germany. "How long will I keep my post," he wrote in his diary, and confessed to a "constant thinking about death."[footnoteRef:3] Klemperer acknowledged the tremendous volatility which existed...

During the early years of Hitler's ascendency, Klemperer's memoirs are a mix of ordinary, typical observations about everyday life and fear of what is to come. In one entry, he notes: "I do so enjoy going to the cinema; it takes me out of myself. But it is so difficult to persuade [his wife] Eva to go."[footnoteRef:5] This mundane discussion of a common conflict between husband and wife ends with his statement: "Fatigue and lethargy. Weariness of life and fear of death."[footnoteRef:6] [3: Ibid., 6.] [4: Ibid., 8.] [5: Ibid., 8.] [6: Ibid., 8.]
One turning point in the status of Jews in Europe was when Jews were forced to wear a yellow star to mark their status as inherently 'other.' Klemperer dreaded this for weeks, finally noting: "The Jewish armband came true as Star of David, comes into force on the nineteenth."[footnoteRef:7] As a result of being marked in such a manner, Klemperer reports experiencing serious depression, and only wanting to leave the house when it was dark, leaving Eva to do most of his errands. This sensation highlights how even though Klemperer, as a result of his marriage, was initially somewhat insulated from some of the worst fates suffered by some Jews in Germany, including being relegated to ghetto areas and economic destitution from being deprived of their livelihood. But he still experienced profound depression as a result of his stigmatization. His writings during the early years of Nazism shows how prejudice has debilitating psychological effects upon those who suffer it as well as material political and economic effects.…