My best remembered early days were unfortunately my years in Nazi Germany. When I was born, some years before Hitler came to power, my family was quite comfortable. They had a successful business, a live-in maid, and a girl to take care of me. But all of that came to an end when I was seven years old. The good, old days before Hitler only bring me fragmented memories, such as vacations at the beach, winter in the mountains, and my terribly spoiled existence at home—for example, when my mother chased me around the table with a spoonful of food that I refused to eat. That early experience did not seem to become seeded in me in any conscious way. What I most remember was the sudden change from living a carefree childhood to being an unwanted person, a so-called “second-class citizen” within the city that was my home.
The children whom I had played with no longer showed up to play with me because I was a Jew. To the non-Jews around me, the word “Jew” was a curse word. The children taught me that when they chased me after school yelling “Jew boy!” The graffiti that was painted on all the blank walls dictated that all the Jews, which included me, belonged in a concentration camp. I was not sure at the time what that was, but I knew that nobody wanted to go there. People talked about hard labor and beatings and that people were even killed there. Sure, there was an “out” for me: As long as I stayed within the Jewish community, nobody bothered me. I liked my Jewish friends, and I liked my Jewish soccer team. But as soon as I left those comfortable surroundings, the words ingrained in me by my parents were: “Behave. Behave. Behave!” I was never to make a scene and never to act in any way that could bring attention to the fact that we were Jews.
I surmised that I was obviously not a good person—not as good as all of the Germans around me. Even my beloved teacher suddenly showed up in a Nazi uniform. I had thought that he loved me, as I had loved him. He, a Nazi—and Nazis were the enemies of us Jews. All of the kids in my class suddenly stopped talking to me, the only Jew in the class, who had to stay seated while all the others sang their Nazi songs. It was all too hard to understand. But again, there was an escape of sorts, as I was transferred to a Jewish private school where all of the kids could be my friends.
Under these circumstances, an inferiority complex was an understandable result. I could not consider myself as good as anyone else. I was different. And when I escaped from Nazi Germany to the United States at age 13, I was again not up to par. I did not speak the language, and with that handicap, I was still an outcast. It took a long time to work that out. Even when my English improved, the reputation of a kid who was different remained.
I did not understand that none of it was my fault—that it was the politics and the situation around me that brought this on—so it became a personal problem. The simple explanation for me was that I was not a desirable person. The first ray of hope came when a redheaded Irish girl in my junior high school class, whom I liked from afar, turned to me and out of the blue asked me to help her solve a math problem. She had seen that I was way ahead in math due to my German schooling. I suddenly gained some stature—I was in heaven! Of course, I was much too shy to pursue this advantage, but maybe I was not really such a terrible person after all! Gradually, my shyness and self-consciousness dissipated, but it took quite a while. The gradual change quickened in high school, where my English had become fluent and the encounters with new kids became more positive, since they seemed to accept me as normal. My inferiority complex was not completely wiped out, but certainly much improved.
All of the above was before World War II even began. That brought drastic changes as I was drafted one month after my 18th birthday—sent away on my own, far from home.
My English was no longer a problem, but I considered myself an outsider, a Jew among all of the Christians in my unit. While no one commented on that, I felt it and thereby became isolated. Finally, I met another Jewish boy and was drawn to him. He could certainly be my friend—perhaps some of the others, but certainly not all!
I’m not sure when I shed my inferiority complex, but becoming a US citizen during basic training certainly helped. I was now no different from anyone else. I had shed my “enemy-alien” status. Slowly, I evolved to the point of assessing others beyond their religious status. It was more important to befriend a “nice” person, regardless of their religion. A nice person would never ask me if I was Jewish. That should never even become a question. But what I did not shed was the concept that I must always do the right thing. I must be a “good” person—a good example of a Jew who never falls into the alleged Jewish stereotypes of being pushy, cheating, or money-hungry. It is my mission in life to set a good example, I must “Behave. Behave. Behave.”
© 2024, Frank Cohn. The text, images, and audio and video clips on this website are available for limited non-commercial, educational, and personal use only, or for fair use as defined in the United States copyright laws.