Making it Real

 6.  Rosenstrasse 1943

 

SS soldiers and the Gestapo began seizing the Jews of Berlin in "The Final Roundup" in the winter of  ‘43.  Jews who had German spouses were  taken to Rosenstrasse, the detention centre in the heart of the city, to await transportation.   

 

At first 150 wives gathered outside the collection centre demanding news of their husbands.  As the news spread, soon over 1000 non Jewish German protesters chanted  demanding the release of the prisoners, holding hands and singing in the winter cold around the clock.  SS troops were ordered to fire warning shots,  scattering the crowd. 

 

But the protesters returned and held their ground.  According to Nazi theories, women were intellectually incapable of political action. 

 

So women dissenters were the last thing the Nazis wanted to have Germans hear about, and killing them would have ruined the Nazis' self proclaimed image as the protector of motherhood. 

 

By the end of a week of protest the Nazis saw no alternative but to let 1700 Jewish prisoners go free. Some thirty-five men, who had already been sent to Auschwitz, were ordered to board a passenger train back to Berlin. 

 

For the Nazis, maintaining social control was more important than making sure every last Jew made it to the gas chambers.