ABSTRACT
Never in history has a community on the eve of its destruction left behind so precise a stock-taking as did the Jews of Germany, in the form of a statistical tabulation, a snapshot of conditions at the outset of the war. 1 In the Altreich there were still 185,242 Jews who lived in towns and cities. Now there were many more women than men – 107,627 as against 77,595. The incarceration in concentration camps of the men in 1938 and 1939 had made their needs seem more urgent, so more had been able to escape abroad. Would their wives and the elderly left behind be safe? Adult men had suffered physical abuse; the old, women and children would surely not be hurt. The age structure of the community was even more abnormal than before, with one in three over the age of sixty. No country had wanted to admit old people without means. Most Jews were out of work, and only one in five received an income from employment. This number included those on poverty pay, forced to work in separated groups in factories by the Nazi employment office in Hamburg under Gestapo control. The working conditions were atrocious, with rare humane exceptions, threats of the concentration camp hanging over anyone judged not to be performing adequately or arriving a few minutes late for work. When in 1940 Jews were forbidden to use public transport, this could mean a start from home at 4 a.m. and only few hours’ sleep after a long day.
