My German question : growing up in Nazi Berlin / Peter Gay.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gay, Peter, 1923-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Gay, Peter, 1923---Childhood and youth.

Gay, Peter.

Jews--Germany--Berlin.

Jews.

National socialism--Germany--Berlin.

National socialism.

Jews--Germany--History--1933-1945.

Jews--Persecutions--Germany--Berlin.

Physical Description:

xii, 208 p. : ill.

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

New Haven : Yale University Press, c1998.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

In this poignant book, a renowned historian tells of his youth as an assimilated, anti-religious Jew in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1939-"the story," says Peter Gay, "of a poisoning and how I dealt with it." With his customary eloquence and analytic acumen, Gay describes his family, the life they led, and the reasons they did not emigrate sooner, and he explores his own ambivalent feelings-then and now-toward Germany and the Germans. Gay relates that the early years of the Nazi regime were relatively benign for his family: as a schoolboy at the Goethe Gymnasium he experienced no ridicule or attacks, his father's business prospered, and most of the family's non-Jewish friends remained supportive. He devised survival strategies-stamp collecting, watching soccer, and the like-that served as screens to block out the increasingly oppressive world around him. Even before the events of 1938-39, culminating in Kristallnacht, the family was convinced that they must leave the country. Gay describes the bravery and ingenuity of his father in working out this difficult emigration process, the courage of the non-Jewish friends who helped his family during their last bitter months in Germany, and the family's mounting panic as they witnessed the indifference of other countries to their plight and that of others like themselves. Gay's account-marked by candor, modesty, and insight-adds an important and curiously neglected perspective to the history of German Jewry.

Contents:

Front matter

Contents

Preface

ONE Return of the Native

TWO In Training

THREE The Opium of the Masses

FOUR Mixed Signals

FIVE Hormones Awakening

SIX Survival Strategies

SEVEN Best-Laid Plans

EIGHT Buying Asylum

NINE A Long Silence

TEN On Good Behavior

Acknowledgments

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

ISBN:

9786611731342

9781281731340

128173134X

9780300133141

0300133146

9780585347578

0585347573

OCLC:

952733556