Lucy Glaser Merritt - July 8, 1991
Persecution
Um, when the Germansmarched in um, after the Anschluss because this was the Austrians, they, um.
Will thismar your table?
No, don't worry. Theydid terribly degrading things to Jews.
Yeah, you, you had to wash the sidewalk.
Did you or your familyever experience any of that?
No, for some reason they never picked on me. I, Iguess I was not fashionable enough. They picked on the people, you knoweveryone has their ideas of what a Jew should look like and they thought theywould be very fashionably dressed and I was not. So they never stopped me. Butthey-I, I saw them stop people and uh, scrub, make 'em scrub the sidewalk anduh, that contained very strong soap because it seemed to ??? on their hand veryquickly. And I saw them attack a man for no reason at all. He was just walkingthere and they had these troops. Now I know what they were, the Einsatzgruppen.And they would step in front of you and then you couldn't help but touch 'em.And then they say oh, you bothered them. And so they attacked this man. Andsomeone attacked my mother. My mother was so little I couldn't believe anyonewould do that. She was only four foot, eleven. He hit her on the head with aboard. But then he let her go so she came home. And my father was arrested ofcourse on the Kristal...Kristallnacht. Because he was out trying to buy a paperand they nabbed him there. But my brother had not run into anything and Ihadn't. It was lucky.
And you observed allthis?
Yes.
What,seventeen-year-old, six.seventeen year old?
I was uh, I was eighteen, I just turned eighteen.
So what ran through yourmind during all this?
Well I was very confused. I couldn't believe thatpeople would do that. And I had thought these people were my friends. Well,some of them were. And it was confusing and frightening and... Mainly a feelingwas one of being scared. I remember one, waking up at night and they weresinging this, uh. [singing in German]
Yeah.
Uh, you ??? wait for the night of long knives. Andit occurred to me that they might actually mean that. I, until this time Ididn't believe it, that they would actually go kill people, but then itoccurred to me that's exactly what they were going to do. That obviously thatwas our prospect, so you better do-try and get out if you can. And if not thatlook at just the alternative.
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