MK: My great-grandmother's letter from Hitler
MK Rachel Azaria presents a letter written by her great-grandmother to President Hindenburg expressing concerns over anti-Semitism and violence; Hitler wrote a handwritten response calling her claims 'ridiculous lies.'
The letter was originally penned to then-President of Germany, former Field Marshall Paul von Hindenburg in 1933, just as Hitler was rising to power.
In it, an incredulous Frieda Friedman expressed her concerns about incitement against Jews in Germany, asking, "Is incitement against Jews a sign of courage or cowardice, while Jews are only one percent of the German people?"
Friedman went on to detail the sacrifices her and her family had made for Germany in the First World War. "I was engaged in 1914 and my fiancé was killed on the battlefield," she said. "My brothers Max and Julius Cohen were killed in 1916 and in 1918. My only brother who survived, Willie, returned blind from the war…all three received the Iron Cross for service to their country.
"But now things have gone so far that in the streets of our country leaflets are distributed saying 'Jews out!' And there are open calls for pogroms and acts of violence against Jews."
Hindenburg responded to Friedman two days later saying he was opposed to violence and even included a handwritten response from Hitler on the letter, who claimed, "The claims of this woman are ridiculous lies. There was never any call for pogroms."
The Friedman family ultimately left Germany in the months prior to the outbreak of the Second World War.
"This letter is spine-tingling for me. For years we didn't even know it existed and reading it is almost impossible to comprehend," MK Azaria said.
"I think about Frieda, my great-grandmother, who wrote to the President of Germany and hoped and expected that someone would help her. After her two brothers were killed in the First World War as soldiers in the German Army, she didn't believe or imagine that Germany would desert her like that," she continued.
"Her letter and Hitler's shocking reaction clearly explain what my grandparents had taught me since I was born. The fact that we have been privileged to live in the State of Israel is an inconceivable miracle. And therefore we have a tremendous responsibility to act day by day for the benefit of the state," Azaria concluded.
(Translated and edited by Fred Goldberg)
