The Art of Resistance: Defending Academic Freedom since 1933 | Page 90

1st January, 1935 So from Easter I shall have no more students
and have to retire, i.e. be reduced from
800M to 400M. But even now I can hardly meet
my obligations, the life insurance must
remain unpaid and when on earth Isakowitz
will see his money is quite uncertain.

2nd May, 1935 Lore Isakowitz also appeared and asked me
for books – she now wants to get a
qualification at the Department of Oriental
Languages in Berlin – which I promised her
for Tuesday.

11th June, 1935 After our meal on Sunday the Isakowitzes
picked us up in their handsome car and drove
us to the Bastei…. All three of the
Isakowitzes, father, daughter and mother are
very agreeable people, the wife is painted
and done up like a Babylonian whore trying
to hide her decline, but she has quite a
simple and obliging nature…

11th August, 1935 The three Isakowitzes were here in the
evening for coffee. He touchingly offered me
money, if my pension should not arrive.
He said his nerves were finished, and he is
thinking of emigrating.
6th October, 1935 It so happened that on two occasions in the
last few weeks we were with the Isakowitzes
twice in one day. Eva unexpectedly required
a supplementary repair, in the evenings of
the two days the three Isakowitzes were
first of all our guests for coffee, the
second time our hosts for supper, (which
unfortunately demands a return match) and
that on the Jewish New Year. It turned out
that the Isakowitzes are more orthodox than
we had realised; the man came from ‘temple’
(I have not heard that word for thirty
years), his head covered he read from the
Torah, a hat was put on my head too, candles
burned. I found it quite painful. Where do I
belong? To the ‘Jewish Nation’ decrees
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The Art of Resistance? Defending Academic Freedom

Hitler. And I feel the Jewish nation
recognised by Isakowitz is a comedy and am
nothing but a German or German European.
The mood on both evenings was one of extreme
depression. Isakowitz fears that at any
moment he will no longer be allowed to treat
insured patients and thus be deprived of a
living. He has been considering emigration
to Palestine for some time. An Aryan has
long wanted to buy his practice from him for
15,000M. He at last decides on this sale –
with the heaviest of hearts, because in
Palestine there is said to be at least one
doctor in every house – when at the last
moment such sales of Jewish practices are
forbidden. His wife has gone to Berlin to
make enquiries at the ‘Jewish town hall in
Meineckestrasse’ i.e. the advice centre of
the Zionists which now represent all
German-Jewish interests. Mood of panic,
crowds of people, broken windows from the
last rampage, which are ostentatiously left
unrepaired, strongly advised to emigrate,
more and more people fleeing. At the service
(the New Year celebration, the time of joy!)
the rabbi’s words had been deeply
depressing, he had spoken a prayer for the
dead, there had been many tears….
19th October, 1935 On the 8th we had the Wieghardts and the
Isakowitzes for supper. He is now trying to
find a living in England. His wife is there
at the moment to make enquiries. We are
prisoners without hope of rescue.
31st October, 1935 On Sunday afternoon the three Isakowitzes
were here. Frau Isakowitz was in London for
a week; there is a possibility that her
husband will be allowed to practise as a
dentist in England without sitting an
examination. She relates that the rabbis
preach the boycott of German goods from the
pulpit; they addressed the women:
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