NO JEWS OR DOS ALLOWED

Because anti-Semitism was rampant in America prior to the Holocaust, I feel extremely fortunate that my family was allowed to enter the U.S. in 1936

Thanksgiving Day has always had a particularly special meaning for me. I’m a very fortunate guy. I escaped the death camps of the Holocaust because my parents had the foresight in 1936 to leave Germany for America. And becoming an American is what makes the Thanksgiving Day holidays so special for me.

My father served in the Kaiser’s army during WWI. After recovering from wounds he received while fighting in Poland, he was sent to the Western Front where he served as a machine gun platoon leader until the end of the war. However, because he was Jewish, my father’s service to his country was not rewarded. Instead, he was fired from an executive position with Karstadt, a large department store chain, because the Nuremberg Laws forbade Aryans from employing Jews.

Many German Jews believed the persecution of Jews was just a passing phase and made no effort to leave, but my father was smart enough to see the handwriting on the wall. He wanted to take us to America. While the Nazis were only too eager to see us leave – after they confiscated most of our savings and personal property – it wasn’t that east to get into the U.S. We had to have a sponsor. Fortunately a distant relative who was an executive with Macy’s offered to sponsor us, and away we went with a few personal belongings and 10 silver dollars.

Before I go any further, let me say that to this day, I am thoroughly thankful for getting the opportunity to start life over in this wonderful and great country of ours. I enlisted in the U.S. Army on my 17th birthday during WWII as one way of showing my appreciation for that. And as a small gesture, I proudly fly the Stars and Stripes in front of my home 24/7.

My family was one of the lucky ones. Other Jews were not as fortunate because anti-Semitism was rampant in this country and Americans simply did not want any damn Jews coming over here.

In 1939, a ship – The St. Louis – left Germany with 935 passengers aboard, almost all of them Jews fleeing persecution by the Nazis. They were supposed to embark in Cuba, but when they arrived, the Cubans changed their minds. The ship then left for Miami, but the government sent a Coast Guard cutter to keep the ship out of American waters.

The ship then returned to Europe where England took in most of the Jews aboard, while France, Belgium and the Netherlands took in the remaining 254 Jewish passengers. Unfortunately for them, the Nazis overran those three countries and shipped each of them to the death camps in Poland. The 254 were not only victims of the Nazis, but they were also victims of American anti-Semitism.

My early impression of America was not a particular good one. There were those signs I saw in front of upscale apartment complexes in Manhattan and Brooklyn. “No Jews or Dogs Allowed.” They were commercially produced billboards, not words scribbled on cardboard.

My parents enrolled me in a Brooklyn elementary school, but because I could not speak any English, I was placed in the first grade. There was no bilingual education then. Within a few months, I spoke English well enough – I learned it on the streets, not in school – to be placed in the fourth grade. I had a black girl sitting next to me. One day we got into some sort of argument and she snapped at me, “You damn Jew.”

I also learned quickly that Banks (unless they were owned by Jews), insurance companies and oil companies refused to hire any Jews above the janitorial level. The thinking must have been that it takes trash to find trash.

Later on while I was in the army, I heard the expression that “a Jew is nothing but a nigger turned inside out.” And I was often called or referred to as that “Jew boy.” Of course, overseas we were all brothers in arms.

For a time, before WWII, my family also lived in Ardmore, Oklahoma and Marshall, Texas where there was little anti-Semitism. I suspect that was because there were only a handful of Jewish families living there. As a matter of fact, Louis Kariel, my father’s employer, served as Marshall’s mayor from 1937-1953 and his daughter-in- law was mayor from 1994-2001.

However, in the 1960s when I was a law enforcement officer in California, I continued to experience some anti-Semitism. A good friend, San Bernardino Police Chief Neal Pyatt, tried to get me into the San Bernardino Elks Lodge, but they blackballed me because I was Jewish. (Some FBI agents did get me into the Riverside lodge some time later.)

And another one of my friends, a doctor, owned a cabin at an exclusive club in the Big Bear area. He invited my family to spend a weekend there with his family. In order to have any guests, he had to get the club’s permission ahead of time. When he submitted my name, he was told the club did not allow any Jews on its premises. (I wonder if they also did not allow any dogs there.)

Anti-Semitism in this country did not subside until the advent of the civil rights movement when the hate mongers and those opposed to integration of the races turned their focus away from Jews and onto African-Americans.

Ironically, surveys have consistently shown that blacks as a group are the most anti-Semitic people in this country. Apparently it doesn’t matter that Jews were among the most prominent and active supporters of the civil rights movement. Nor that two Jewish college students gave their lives in Mississippi so that backs could achieve equal rights. And it didn’t help when Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Obama’s mentor Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Louis Farrakhan and their ilk kept carping about Jewish store owners in black neighborhoods selling inferior merchandize at inflated prices and other anti-Semitic rhetoric.

Make no mistake about it though, America truly is the land of opportunity if you’re willing to work for it. My father was never without a job. Because he could speak no English when we arrived in New York, the former department store executive took a job as an elevator operator in a Manhattan building. Eventually he became the simultaneous manager of two shoe stores in Galveston County, one on Galveston Island and the other in Texas City.

And what about those ‘no Jews or dogs allowed’ apartment complexes? As a slap to the face of the bigoted owners and renters, some of the complexes were bought out by wealthy Jews.

I’ve fared fairly well in this great land of ours. I obtained a good education, married a wonderful woman and raised two children. And I loved my career in law enforcement. I am especially proud of the fact that I founded the Texas Narcotic Officers Association and that I was elected to the board of directors of the International Narcotic Enforcement Officers Association. Not too bad for someone who is nothing but a nigger turned inside out.

And despite the anti-Semitism, my fellow Jews have done well in this country. They didn’t wallow in victimhood. They did not allow demagogues like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton to represent them. They succeeded because Jewish families put a high premium on education. Instead of being school dropouts, Jews obtained a good college education – none of that ethnic and gender study crap – and went on to achieve recognition in medicine, science, technology, law and business.

There is no doubt that had we not come to America, my parents and I would eventually have been shipped off to one of the Nazi extermination camps in Poland – Auschwitz, Treblinka, or Sobibór. That’s the fate that befell some of my family members, including one of my grandfathers.

Having been a refugee myself, I have to disagree with those who oppose letting any Syrian refugees enter this country. With the proper screening to weed out any potential terrorists, those refuges pose little if any risk. Where Donald Trump sees the Syrian refugees as strong young men, I see them as pitiful parents carrying little children in their arms or on their backs. To deny them the chance that my parents and I got back in 1936 is just plain un-American!

Despite its flaws, America the Great is an opportunistic and generous land. I love it! May God protect America from its enemies, both foreign and domestic. And may the voters smarten up and elect a president with the smarts to keep our country safe with our freedoms still in place. God bless America!