Hello there!
Half Notes from Berlin launched this Tuesday! it is currently the number one release in the German Literature category on Amazon! Thank you for your support to everyone who has purchased the novel.
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Alright, on to the important stuff:
Many of the people in our reader group whom I’ve spoken with value history books not only for educational purposes, but as a lens from which we can glean insights about current events. A few have suggested that since my novels immerse readers in various moments of history, this newsletter could explore current events from a historic perspective.
One of the lesser-known historic events that I researched when writing Half Notes from Berlin was the Rosenstrasse Protest. I had originally envisioned Half Notes as a trilogy, the last part of which put Hans as a participant in this protest; it was the only successful protest in Nazi Germany against the deportation of Jews.
After the German defeat in the Battle of Stalingrad, Goebbels proclaimed a policy of “Total War.” He argued that the threat of a second “stab-in-the-back” from a fifth column required the “internal security” situation of the Reich to be improved. That translated into a plan to deport all remaining Jews from Austria and Germany, starting with their capitals.
Following the deportation of all Viennese Jews, the Gestapo arrested more than 10,000 Berliner Jews on February 27, 1943. Out of the 10,000 arrested Jews, there were 1,800 Jews who were married to Germans and lived in privileged mixed marriages. Those 1,800 Jews were held in the Jewish Community Center on Rosenstrasse. The majority of the Jews at Rosenstrasse were men, for it was mostly German women who did not succumb to social pressure to divorce their husbands. Most historians attribute socio-economic factors to this: women did not hold government jobs and even if they were fired for being married to Jews, it was easier for women to join the informal economy and perform odd jobs to support the family.
These German wives quickly discovered where their husbands were being held, and they gathered at Rosenstrasse. Most of these women knew one another. They had created informal support networks with others in similar circumstances, and were well-versed in performing various acts of social disobedience; they had had a lot of practice over the decade during which they defended their choice to remain loyal to their Jewish husbands.
The women kept vigil at the community center, monitoring all exits, day and night. At first, there were dozens of them, then hundreds, then thousands of women. And they chanted in unison: “Give us back our men!” Guards were bribed to pass notes back and forth, and the fact that the husbands could squeeze next to a window and be seen by their wives encouraged the women.
The Gestapo wanted to disperse the demonstrators. They brought in machine guns and aimed at the women. The women would run for cover when the machine guns were loaded, but since no one dared to fire, they would quickly return. The protestors were soon joined by relatives, some of whom were Mischlinge, home on leave from the front. Seeing soldiers as part of the crowd worried the Gestapo. And then Goebbels did the unthinkable: he ordered the release of the 1800 Jewish men on March 6th.
The Rosenstrasse Protest did not bring down the Nazi regime or end the war. But after the protest, the Nazis never tried to deport Jews married to Germans again. In 1945, when Berlin was liberated, there were more than 5,000 Jews in the city–all married to Germans.
If you are interested in an in-depth analysis of the Rosenstrasse protest check out Nathan Stolzfus’s Resistance of the Heart. I highly recommend it.
As I read the news today, the Rosenstrasse Protest reminds me of the protests happening across Russia, and in far-flung regions like Dagestan. Like their counterparts in Nazi Berlin, these wives, mothers, and sisters are protesting the draft, because they understand that a draft into Russia’s army is a death warrant for their husbands, sons, and brothers. They’ve come out with their men to the military recruitment centers and have taken up the chant: “No to war,” and my favorite: “Our children are not fertilizer.” They’ve blocked cars, chased down policemen, and held on to their men to prevent them from being taken away.
Like the German women in Nazi Germany, these women are disenfranchised. They live in poor regions of Russia without much economic opportunity; as religious minorities in Russia, they are discriminated against and excluded from many opportunities. But they have deep kinship ties to extended family members who live close by and have created their own informal support networks. This is why they were able to prevent family members from forced conscription.
As in Nazi Germany, the Russians are hesitant to violently disperse crowds of women, and as there are too many women in one place they can’t arrest them all. Besides being woman-led, the reason these protests have been successful is because they do not have the political aim of overthrowing the regime. The authorities can always claim that local bureaucrats drafted the wrong people and everything can go back to normal. Regardless, the protests have sent a strong and clear message to the regime to never try drafting men from those regions again.
That’s why I believe the draft in Russia within certain regions with non-Russian ethnic majorities has failed. Putin’s regime will be very reluctant to start drafting people from there again, for the women will be even more emboldened by their previous success.
But like Rosenstrasse in Nazi Germany, these protests in Russia will not bring about the end of the war or the collapse of Putin’s regime. In fact, I believe that wishing for the collapse of Putin’s regime through a peaceful protest in the hope that it will end the war is foolhardy. The history of the Russian Revolution shows otherwise.
The Russian Revolution started on March 8th, 1917 (International Women’s Day), and it, too, was led by women.
Many things created fertile ground for the revolution: Russia’s poor performance in World War I, widespread corruption, reshuffling of military and political ministers, Rasputin’s influence, and the total incompetence of the Czar–all circumstances that with echoes of the ones unfolding today.
But the event that set off the Russian Revolution was something far more basic: bread rationing. On International Women’s Day, mostly women marched across Petrograd (then the capital of Russia) to protest the lack of bread. Nearly 100,000 women showed up on the streets. When the government called in the Kossacs–Imperial Russia’s version of riot police–they didn’t dare disperse the crowd. They would charge at the throng and then turn back. It later turned out that the Kossacs were young recruits who had not been trained in the art of suppressing protestors. Furthermore, they were not armed with whips–Imperials Russia’s version of batons. Unwilling to fire at unarmed women, the Kossacs allowed the protest to swell.
Czar Nicolas abdicated the throne a week later.
A provisional government was formed. But crucially, the provisional government continued to support Russia’s deeply unpopular involvement in World War I. It organized another offensive against the Central Powers in the summer of 1917. The hope was that a Russian victory against the Austrians and Germans would not only boost morale, but provide the needed legitimacy for the provisional government. The Kerensky Offensive, as it was called, failed spectacularly. And with its failure, the fate of the provisional government was sealed, and the Bolshevik Revolution was all but inevitable.
So even though I don’t believe peaceful protest in Russia will end the war, I am moved by the human spirit and the willingness of a few women, joined together across time and history, to show courage in the face of oppressive regimes.
Here’s to always learning from history!
B.V. Glants