We Were So Beloved: Autobiography of a German Jewish Community

About this book

The massive terror of November 9 1938 Kristallnacht forced the German Jews to finally abandon their unrealistic hope that the Nazi persecution would cease. Those who were able to flee their country the land where they were so beloved and proud of their German heritage. More than 20 000 of these German Jews came together in Washington Heights in New York City and created a German Jewish enclave nicknamed the Fourth Reich by their American neighbors. We Were So Beloved takes Manfred Kirchheimer on a personal quest for answers from his family and friends in Washington Heights. In a series of interviews they recount their stories; stories of bewilderment at betrayal by friends and neighbors of terror and grief as relatives disappear and families are uprooted of amazement that this could happen in the highly civilized culture of Germany. We see the struggle of an indomitable group to rebuild as they create a new community born of suffering. We watch a people torn from their roots as they transplant their culture and habits to a new land--and succeed. We come to a greater understanding of what happened in those terrible years and perhaps ask ourselves What would I have done?