Decrees Of Nazi Brutality Dresden (WWII 1942-1945)

1. The Victor Klemperer Diaries: Volume 2 (1942-1945). On Page 98 of this classic record on WWII, ‘I Shall Bear Witness’, Professor Victor Klemperer recalls a list of the decrees of bans valid on Jews in Dresden in 1942:

♦ Home after 8pm or 9pm: Inspection!

♦ Expelled from one’s own house to live in Jewish ‘commune’/’ghetto’.

♦ Ban on radio & telephone, theatres, cinemas, concerts, museums.

♦ Ban on subscribing to or purchasing periodicals.

♦ Ban on using public transport, buses & taxi-cabs: Three phases: 

  a. busses banned, only front platform of tram permitted; 

  b. All use banned, except to work; 

 c. To work on foot, unless one lives 2.5 miles away or is sick. Difficult to get doctor’s certificate.

♦ Ban on purchasing ‘goods in short supply’ & on purchasing cigars & any smoking materials, purchasing flowers.

♦ Withdrawal of milk ration card.

♦ Ban on going to the barber and the call-out of a tradesman without permission from ‘Community’.

♦ Compulsory surrender of typewriters, furs & woollen blankets.

♦ Bicycles forbidden on Sundays; only allowed its use to ride to work.

♦ Ban on deck chairs, dogs, cats & birds.

♦ Ban on leaving Dresden, entering market halls & entering railway station, setting foot on Ministry Embankment & in parks or using Burgerwiese Street and roads bordering Great Garden.

♦ Mandatory sewing on and displaying of (Yellow) Jew’s Star in public (since Sept.19).

♦ Ban on reserve foodstuffs at home and use of lending libraries.

♦ All restaurants closed to Jewish Star patrons.

♦ No clothing card, no fish card or special rations (coffee, chocolate, fruit, condensed milk).

♦ Mandatory ‘special taxes’.

♦ Constantly contracting disposable allowance (600marks>320m>185m).

♦ Shopping restrictions: One hour  (3-4pm; Sunday 12-1pm).

♦ Constant house-searches (often accompanied by assault and diverse kinds of petty brutality on respondents).

   “The tender mercies of the wicked are cruel.” [Proverbs 12:10b].

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