„I was not in the least afraid, not for a single minute.“

On May 26, 1937, Alice Salomon (1872−1948), a social work pioneer, women’s rights activist and academic from a Jewish family, was interrogated by the Gestapo and ordered to leave the German Reich within three weeks. Salomon wrote a memorandum of this interrogation four days after setting off on her forced emigration and reaching her first stopover in London. As far as we know, these notes are the only surviving evidence of the interrogation and no Gestapo protocol has been preserved.¹ Salomon’s estate has not survived either. Only a few letters spread across various archives remain as testimonies about her exile, which she spent in New York until her death in 1948. In addition, she only wrote a few paragraphs about this time in her autobiography “Charakter ist Schicksal” (Character is Destiny), which she also drafted in exile.² The memorandum is therefore one of the rare documents in which Salomon comments on how she herself experienced her expulsion.³

The 12-page typescript was intended exclusively – as Salomon noted in the document header – for her personal use and was written in English. At first glance, both the form of the document and the language chosen, seem to contradict this stated purpose. We are bound to ask what significance it has that Salomon did not write down her personal experiences in her native language – German – and how we can interpret the protocol-like form of the memorandum.

The decision to write the document in English could indicate that Salomon already considered publishing her experiences for an English-speaking audience at a later date.⁴ In her autobiography,⁵ that was not published until around 35 years after her death, she quoted extensively from the recorded interrogation.⁶ Its detailed transcription, which gives us the impression of a memory log, also points beyond a merely personal use and supports the hypothesis above.

Furthermore, the protocol form can be interpreted as an attempt by Salomon to record her “own version” of the interrogation and thus also the story of her expulsion in writing. She recorded how the Gestapo manipulated her statements: “What was the general feeling about Germany, kind or unkind? The attitude was not favourable, but no less so than during the years 1923 and 1924, when I was in U.S.A. (He notes in the report: -, The attitude is unkind.’) “.⁷ The detailed documentation can therefore be understood as a stylistic device with which she wanted to give her experience a political expression. Looking back, she wrote in her autobiography: “It would not be worth mentioning my interrogation by the Gestapo; but I think that the insignificance of the matter on which they concentrated, the stupidity of their accusations and assessments could contribute to the repulsive image of Totalitarianism.“⁸ These biographical reflections support the assumption that Salomon both personally appropriated the interrogation situation – as representative of her expulsion story – and wanted to record her own interpretation of her expulsion, which was resistant to the Nazis’ anti-Semitic attributions. For example, Salomon emphasizes in the document that she has belonged to Germany for centuries: “‘I belong to an old family whose members have been in Germany for’ 225 [sic] years. One of my ancestors got a safe-conduct by Frederic the Great [sic]. I would like to show it to you. you [sic] will never have seen such a document before.’ (He examines the document with interest). I was awarded the great silver medal for special services for the State, which as far as I know, no other woman in Prussia possesses.’ ”⁹

She also refers to her lifelong, close connection to Christianity, which manifested itself in her conversion in 1914,¹⁰ and emphasizes: “[u]ntil the very end I was not aware that any charge would be made against me as I knew that I had not acted incorrectly and had a clear conscience. ”¹¹

Despite this self-assured positioning, both the use of English and the character of the protocols point to the existentially threatening dimension of the experience. The fact that she did not write the document in her first language and did not give space to her emotional experience but rather focused on the detailed description of the interrogation can be interpreted as a strategy to distance herself internally from the incident. The form of the English-language document gives the impression that Salomon – consciously or unconsciously – placed herself in the position of an observer. This does not contradict the interpretation of the political appropriation of her expulsion story. On the contrary, if we follow the thesis of emotional distancing, this could have helped her in the process of appropriation, because in this way she was able to retain control over this dramatic situation.

Beyond this interpretation, however, the text also allows us to draw conclusions about how Salomon viewed her expulsion in the wider contemporary context of escape, expulsion and oppression and as well as in the preceding centuries, and how she saw her own future at this moment in time. Salomon commented on the Gestapo’s revelation that she had to leave Germany within three weeks in the typescript as follows: “This was like a lightning, coming from a clear sky – completely like a shell-shot. An emergency which I had never contemplated ever for a second in my worst dreams.“¹² While this reaction allows for the interpretation that the forced emigration hit Salomon completely unexpectedly and shook her emotionally, it contradicts her remark that she would have left Germany long ago if she had not been denied access to her assets ¹³. The following quote also indicates that Salomon was well aware of the grave realities of National Socialist persecution and expulsion. She writes: “A necessary period of my life has come to an end, necessary for the development of my moral strength. There is only one thing I ask from my friends: Do not make any fuss about me and my affairs! I am not the first and shall not be the last who has been persecuted. “¹⁴

The passage allows us to draw further conclusions about the way in which she interpreted her expulsion: By placing her story of persecution within the framework of an overarching, global history of persecution and oppression to which people have been subjected for centuries whether because of their origin, religion or class, Solomon relativizes (not only) her own expulsion. Whether she made this categorization out of conviction or to reassure and/or encourage her friends and herself cannot be reconstructed at this point. The embedding of her personal persecution in a global human history also gives the impression that Solomon categorizes her experience as a kind of inevitable fate and thus accepts it in a certain way. This impression is reinforced by the fact that Solomon concludes the memorandum with a quotation from the Bible¹⁵ and the confident statement that she will be helped because she too has been helping all her life. Solomon seems to have kept a strong belief in the good in people.

We also find this attitude in the description of her interaction with the interrogators. Salomon writes: “At about the beginning of this interrogation, – I cannot quite remember when it was, – he asked me whether I had met any Jews abroad, or something like that, and I answered that I am not Jewish but Lutheran. I had the impression as if he was rather glad and hoped that trouble might be averted from me, but I added instantly that I was of Jewish descent and, according to the terminology of the Third Reich, Jewish. “¹⁶

We can state the following: Although Salomon was removed from all her offices in the German Reich by the National Socialists in 1933 and was no longer allowed to enter the social work school she had founded, although she directly witnessed the persecution and expulsion of “non-Aryans” in her immediate and wider environment and was often involved in aid initiatives for those persecuted and expelled by the Nazi Regime, and although she herself was now ultimately exposed to the immediate threat, she does not describe herself in this testimony as a victim incapable of acting. On the contrary, she writes: “I was not in the least afraid, not for a single minute.”¹⁷ Thus, the reading leaves the reader with a very specific impression: Salomon was not afraid and was not intimidated, she neither felt threatened by the Nazis nor could she recognize any reason in advance on the basis of which she could be expatriated. She accepted the news of her expulsion without resistance, but she firmly rejected the attributions on which it was based.

The reconstructive examination of Solomon’s biographical document is a way of approaching the complexity of historical situations. Above all, it makes it possible to continue to understand those affected by persecution, violence and exclusion as subjects capable of acting. In this way, the manuscript not only shows itself to be resistant to the attempted dis-identification by the Nazis, but also to the forced positioning as victims of the regime.¹⁸

Translation: Nils Bergmann

References

The “Secret State Police Office” had been located at Prinz-Albrecht-Straße 8 since April 26, 1933. It had a “house prison” where up to 15,000 political opponents were imprisoned, interrogated and in some cases tortured (Sander, Andreas, Das “Hausgefängnis” der Gestapo-Zentrale in Berlin. Terror und Widerstand 1933–1945, in: Gedenkstätten-Rundbrief 127, 2005, pp. 9–12). Salomon writes in the memorandum: “Then I was sent to the corridor which had iron bars on both sides. I suppose that these gates can be automatically closed instantly in case somebody tries to escape. (But this is guess-work only. In any case people are not admitted to this corridor unless they present their summons. No one may accompany a person who has been summoned. However, I had never thought of bringing someone with me.”) (Alice Salomon: Memorandum. Notes about an interrogation by the “Gestapo” (German Secret Policie [sic]), June 16th, 1937, Leo-Baeck-Institute, AR 3875 / MF 1044 p. 5). The headquarters of the SS Reichsführer and Chief of Police, Heinrich Himmler, was located directly next door. The building was destroyed during the Second World War and most of the files were destroyed by members of the Gestapo shortly before the end of the war.
Salomon, Alice, Charakter ist Schicksal. Lebenserinnerungen, translated from the English by Rolf Landwehr, ed. by Rolf Landwehr and Rüdeger Baron, Weinheim & Basel 1983.
Wieler, Joachim, Er-Innerung eines zerstörten Lebensabends. Alice Salomon während der NS-Zeit (1933−1937) und im Exil (1937−1948), Darmstadt 1987.
In her autobiography, Salomon writes that she contacted her lawyer friend Curt immediately after the interrogation, who advised her to keep her experiences as secret and discreet as possible to protect herself from the Gestapo (see Salomon, Charakter, p. 302). If we include this information from Salomon’s biographical retrospective in the interpretation of the document, the explicit reference in the document header to an exclusively personal use could have arisen from the motivation of self-protection – the addition thus closes the document from the eyes of the public on a symbolic level.
Salomon also wrote her autobiography in English. She did not manage to publish the book during her lifetime. After it was long believed to have been lost, a typescript was found at the end of the 1970s at the home of Salomon’s great-niece Ilse Eden, subsequently translated into German and published. After another, more extensive script was found, an English-language edition based on it was published in 2004 (Salomon, Alice, Character is Destiny. The Autobiography of Alice Salomon, ed. by Andrew Lees. Michigan 2004).
Cf. Salomon, Charakter, pp. 296ff.
Salomon, Memorandum.
Salomon, Charakter, p. 296.
Salomon, Memorandum, p. 9.
Ibid, p. 4.
Ibid, p. 1.
Ibid., p. 10. The quotation is also remarkable in that it is one of the few passages in the document that allows concrete conclusions to be drawn about Solomon’s emotional world.
Ibid. p. 12.
Ibid.
Ibid., The quote reads: “By evil reports and good reports… As dying, and behold, we live. As sorrowful, but all way rejoicing. As having nothing and yet possessing all things.” It comes from 2 Corinthians 6:8–10.
Ibid, p. 4. At the time of their expulsion, Solomon could not yet have been aware of the extent of the National Socialist reign of terror.
Ibid, p. 9.
Further personal documents, newspaper clippings and correspondence from Alice Salomon between 1872–1937 can be accessed via this link. Page 70ff. shows Alice Salomon’s passport, which was issued to her by the National Socialists for the purpose of her deportation. It was valid for six months and had to be collected by Alice Salomon in person at the Dutch border in Bentheim. The passport shows the stages of her escape. There are stamps from the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Austria and Switzerland.

Downloads

Alice Salomon, Memorandum, Leo-Baeck-Institute, AR 38751 / MF 1044

Dayana Lau, Dr. phil., is an educational scientist and research associate at the Alice Salomon Archive of the Alice Salomon University of Applied Sciences Berlin. She conducts research on the historical relationship between social movements and social work, on transnational social work in the context of flight and displacement and on the colonial entanglements of social work in German-speaking countries. She also designs archival education courses. She is currently leading the BMBF-funded research project “Social work as a colonial knowledge archive?”.