Teaching about Choices:

A Multiperspective Case Study about the Deportation

of German Jews from Düsseldorf to Riga

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„When people who enjoyed the same education than
me, who love the same books, the same music, the
same paintings than me – when those people are
by no means safe from the option to turn into
barbarians and to do things that we would not have
thought to be possible (except of some
pathological special cases), from where should I
derive the confidence that I myself am safe from
it?“

Max Frisch 1946

Jacob Cohen, Wilhelmine Cohen, Hermann Cohen, Ida Cohen, Paul David, Emma Cohen,
Dora Eichenwald, Gustav Cohen, Salomon Eichenwald, Erich Isaak, Martha Freund, Richard
Freund, Ludwig Cohen, Ella Nathan, Karl-Heinz Freund, Kurt Eichenwald, Henriette
Goldschmidt, Josef Nathan, Samuel Goldschmidt
Hilde Sherman (nee Zander)

September September October November December

Hitler approves German Jews Riga Beginning of Mass After the
the mass have to put Ghetto Execution of the killing of
expulsion of Jews the Yellow sealed inhabitants of the „Big 25.000-
from Germany Badge off Ghetto“ (Women, 28.000
(ORPO Children, Old, Sick) Jews, the
responsible for October „Big Ghetto“
securing Begin of Mass is filled with
deportation Deportation of German
trains) Jews from Jews
Germany

1923 1941 1945 1984 1994 1995 2011

Born in Marriage with Liberated in a Publishing her Giving Emigration Died in
Mönchen- Kurt Winter in workcamp near Memoirs in Testimony in to Israel Jerusalem
gladbach order to be Kiel German Language Yad Vashem
deported (videotaped)
together with May: Transfer to (Zwischen Tag und
him Sweden Dunkel.
(Red Cross Mädchenjahre im
11.12.41- Sweden) Ghetto,
14.12.41 Ullsteinverlag)
Deportation Emigration to
from Düsseldorf Bogota, Colombia
to Riga
Reading Hilde Sherman’s testimony
Statistics from Paul Salitter, following categories:
Gender , Age, Profession
Paul Salitter
Salitter’s options of action
 Escorting transports was an attractive mission, which was assigned only to a small
number of outstanding staff members. These jobs were usually not available for low-
ranking policemen. Salitter was allotted a vacation day on the day he arrived, which
was his birthday.
 Rejecting this mission would not have lead to any punishment of Salitter. However, it
could have had a negative effect on his carreer.
 In the German criminal code, saving/helping Jews was not an offense per se. Neither
the civilian nor the military penal codes categorized helping Jews as a crime.
 According to a new decree dated 24.10.1941, a person convicted of being friendly with
Jews could be punished with up to 3 months in a concentration camp „for educational
reasons.“
 The NS dictatorship was an abusive regime, which did not have to legitimize its action.
Sanctions like social defamation, exclusion, loss of work/social position were at any
stage feasable.

1898 1937 1938/39 1941 1942 1944

Born in Member of Working for SD Promotion to Captain Supervisory officer of Promotion
Ostpreußen NSDAP (Surveillance the Ukrainian unit of to major
agency of the Responsible for securing Schutzmannschaft 101
NSDAP and Transport No. Da 38 in Starokonstantinov.
Helped building the
SD) with 1007 Jews from police cordon in at
Düsseldorf to Riga least one mass
execution
Reading the Sources
Paul Salitter

„ ...I promise that also in

the new democracy I will
serve the cause with my
whole being, exactly like I
did under the regime of
Wilhelm II, Ebert,
Hindenburg and the Third
Reich. I am asking you to
let me work again as a
policeman, even at a rank
below chief inspector. (...)“

1945 1946/47 1951 1966 1972

Imprisoned Released because of good
by the Allies conduct
Classified into
Denazification Category III:
Lesser Offenders
Received reduced pension
of 150 RM per month,
forbidden from serving as a
policeman
Sentence was changed to New Died in
Category IV: Followers investigation Düsseldorf
opened against
Entailing full pension and Salitter by the
German State
possibility to work as a Criminal Police
policeman, but as a Office (LKA), no
former SD member, he imprisonment
was denied to work again
on grounds of age