Lucy Glaser Merritt - July 8, 1991
Reminders
When you think back on this,is there any, are there any memories that stand out more than others? Thingsthat maybe you.
About the Anschluss or about.
About the whole period.Your experience staring uh, starting.
Well, the worst thing I ever saw was somebodybeating a little boy who was bleeding and bleeding a blind man. It was a blindman with a beard you know, payes and everything, and the caftan, and so clearlya, a Eastern Jew and some kids who were hitting and kicking a little boy. Andthe worst of it was, I was afraid. I could have helped him and I was soparalyzed with fear and I just stood there and watched it. And this wasn't anSS-man. It was not somebody big against whom I couldn't fight. But by then youhad become so immobilized. I just stood there and watched them plague the poorlittle kid.
This was after theKristallnacht?
Pardon?
After the Anschluss?
Yeah. Oh yeah, they wouldn't have done that beforethe Anschluss. I never saw any uh, act of hostility before that. My parents didrun into something in '34. We had always gone to stay with farmers in thesummer for a couple weeks for vacation. And in '34 he wrote us and said thatuh, the neighbors were getting after him, that he is being taking in Jews. Andso he didn't want to take in the family. And so you see that they were alreadyresponding to what was practiced in Germany. Now that was voluntary on hispart. And we had come there for many years and they knew us well. So we wentsomeplace else. Another part of Austria. But that was the only thing I rememberthat came up before that.
What when you. On anormal day, are there any things that maybe touch off an association tosomething that happened in that.
No.
five to ten year period?
In the period before the Anschluss, no. We werealways engaged in many hypothetical arguments about uh, the importance of ???and ??? or whatever they were thinking at that time. But uh, it didn't stop usfrom going out on a hike together, for instance. I have many pictures and I seesome of them where the people, especially one of them, was very a.active in themovement, the Nazi movement. But we always went out together as a group andit... It didn't seem to bother him at that time. And now he doesn't recallanything ever having been anything but a very good friend. [laughs]
© Board of Regents University of Michigan-Dearborn