- 1942, May 7, Thursday lunchtime – From the currency office I went to the only Jewish cobbler, in Sporergasse. The man has to work for all star-wearers and is overwhelmed. He refused to accept more than one pair, as an act of charity it will be ready in four weeks time; in general he requires eight weeks, and in the next few days he will have to stop taking on new work altogether. In Holitscher’s Palestine Journey , there’s a verse from a Yiddish folk song: “Ich bin a armer Chaluz, /a Chaluzl aus Poilen;/ich lauf auf Stiefelach,/Stiefelach ohn’ Soilen” [I’m a poor lad,/a poor lad from Poland;/the boots I walk in/are boots without soles]. I recite it all the time now. **p48
- 1942, June 23, Tuesday afternoon – News of the day: Almost six weeks ago I gave my shoes to the only Jewish cobbler, a “Russian bear,” as Eva always says, in Sporergasse — the house belongs to the Community and is inhabited by Jewish proletarians. I am waiting desperately for these shoes; only when they are fetched can I give the overworked man another pair, and there are almost no heels left on my much-patched boots. Eva, who has frequently inquired about them, was at last supposed to be able to collect them tomorrow. Now there was a house search at 3 Sporergasse, and the cobbler has been arrested (supposedly because cigarettes were found). So I shall have to go on walking in shoes without heels. **p84
- 1942, December 11, Friday morning – Solamen miserum, miserrimum: Because even in a single room, even in the proletarianized and bug-ridden city house in Sporergasse, we would still be better off than the people in the Jews’ camp. On the eighth I went to see Seliksohn in Dr. Katz’s diathermy room, at the same time Eva spoke to Frau Voss at Simon’s. Their complaints are the same; Seliksohn looked wretched and ill, Katchen Sara is also said to have shrunk greatly. **p174
- 1943, March 4, Thursday evening – The next dangers, which hang over us are a) the crowding together of the mixed marriages in the proletarian (and probably bugridden) tenement in Sporergasse, in which months ago I once called on the meanwhile suicided Jewish cobbler; b) labor service for me, ten hours of daily tedium engaged in the most mechanical employment. A further, ever more urgent worry is food. We are ever more exclusively dependent on potatoes and even with everything we have managed to beg and haul up here, we shall not get past April 1. But who knows what will have become of us by April 1? **p207
- 1944, August 26 , Saturday afternoon – I had to have my wretched shoes sewed up again. I went to the third Jewish cobbler. The first, a giant Russian Jew, who had his workshop in Sporergasse, hanged himself in prison. The second, Frischmann, has been inside for weeks — I made a note of the affair in which he was involved. The third, Saslawski, has set up his workshop next door to Waldmann; I made his acquaintance yesterday, saw and listened to him while he was working. A lean, dark man, fifty-one years of age, eastern Jew, an eastern accent to his speech — that is what a Galician craftsman must look like and talk like. **p349
Credit: AltesDresden.de
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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