General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Post removed [View all]MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)Jews were as integrated into German society then as we are in American society today. Germany was the most-tolerant country in Europe, before it wasn't.
A family friend, Jewish, was born in Köln in the late 1920s. Growing up, all of her friends were Jewish. Her father owned a butcher shop that specialized in pork sausages. Intermarriage rate was about 50%, as it is here today.
She was lucky - her father was one of the earlier Jews grabbed by the Nazis, he was roughed up and accused of poisoning his non-Jewish customers. He realized how fucked up things were and pulled his wife and children out, first to France then the US. His extended family told him he was making too big of a deal of things, that it would blow over.
Almost all perished in the camps.