Wiener Strasse 85, “Jews’ House”

  • 1942, May 8, Friday midday – I was just coming back from the Marckwalds’; Frau Pick had told me I should pay them a visit; I would be doing a good turn. Villa in Wiener Strasse, close to Strehlen railway station. Divided up among a number of Jews, internal staircase, one reaches the various parties by way of a common room. Marckwald, whom I did not know, a paralyzed gentleman of seventy years of age, mentally altogether intact, but legs completely paralyzed by some mysterious illness, sits—as he has done for years—in an armchair, his sixty-year-old wife nurses him, tall crutches are close to his chair. Cut off from the world. He was a farmer, an official at the Saxon Chamber of Agriculture […]. **p49
  • 1942, June 19, Friday morning – After supper we now always sit for a while with Frau Pick, who is still very weak (and who gets on badly with Ida Kreidl—both complain about the other to us). The question arose of who would go to Friedheim’s funeral service—a long walk, since we are banned from tram and Great Garden and the cemetery is at the end of Füstenstrasse. Frau Pick is afraid of being alone. (“If they come …”). We promised to help, and so yesterday morning, after endless discussions with Frau Pick and Ida Kreidl and Katchen Sara had already taken place over breakfast, I walked over to the Hirschels’. Wiener Strasse 85, very close to the Marckwalds. A very elegant property, owner Frau Hirschel, nee Glauber, a very solid, elegant drawing room with two well-filled bookcases. Frau Hirschel, in her mid-thirties, two small boys, received me, it turned out there were curious connections. She had been an assistant to Walzel, with whom she still corresponded […]. **p81
  • 1942, July 24, Friday afternoon – It is three o’clock and Eva is still not back from town. Later she comes home without having eaten—there is hardly anything in the restaurants, especially given the lack of coupons at the end of the four-week period— exhausted, out of humor, with empty hands. That’s how it is now, like that or something like it, day after day. And hunger is a daily visitor, every slice of bread, every potato is counted. — I was over at Frau Hirschel’s at 85 Wiener Strasse, gave her back Herzl’s Zionist Writings, fetched new things from her good library: Sombart, The Jews and Economic Life; Ricarda Huch, Michael Bakunin und die Anarchie [Mikhail Bakunin and Anarchism]; Dubnow, Jüdische Geschichte, ein geschichtsphilosophischer Versuch [Jewish history, an essay in the philosophy of history]. Thus I am once again provided with study material for a week, if I have the time for it. **p106
  • 1942, August 19, Wednesday morning – On my way home, I bumped into the Hirschels (their villa: 85 Wiener Strasse, the Marckwalds’ lodgings: 95 Wiener Strasse). He came with me, he wanted to call on Frau Pick, his former tenant. He talked about the indescribable brutality of the Gestapo. In particular, the “Spitter” and the “Boxer,” whom we had also encountered, were devils. **p126
  • 1942, August 30, Sunday toward evening – There had been a house search at Wiener Strasse the previous evening. The Hirschels got off quite lightly (Spitter and Boxer were absent, no one was struck, only books were stolen), at the Marckwalds’ they boxed a few ears, particularly of the old ladies, but here, too, the thing passed without the complete ghastliness of other operations. **p135
  • 1942, September 19, Saturday afternoon – The Jew’s star was fastened on one year ago. What indescribable misery has descended upon us during this year. Everything that preceded it appears petty by comparison. — And Stalingrad is about to fall, and in October there will be more bread: So the regime will last out the winter; so it has time for the complete annihilation of the Jews. I am deeply depressed. — In addition the constant tiredness. Now off for a long walk over to Wiener Strasse. Farewell visit to Pinkowitz, cadging potatoes from the Hirschels. **p147
  • 1943, July 21, Wednesday midday – The military situation—I am listening to the radio again now—appears very depressing for Germany, and so the Jew-baiting is on the increase again. Feder came to work very down. A new poster has been stuck up on Wiener Strasse: A Sturmer caricature of a Jew wearing the star; legend: “Who is to blame for the war? — He is!” Abuse had been shouted at him twice on his way to Schlüter. Reporting the “terror attack on Rome,” the radio said the attack had been ordered by the Jews, it represented the war of Judaism against Christianity! **p246
Wiener Strasse 95, 1932
Image Credit: AltesDresden.de

“Jews’ Houses were set up in house #85 and #95
List of “Jews’ Houses” and their inhabitants (German)

Source: 

  • ** I Will Bear Witness, Volume 2: A Diary of the Nazi Years: 1942-1945, Victor Klemperer, Publisher ‏: ‎ Modern Library; Illustrated edition

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