Of #Kristallnacht and #MIGRATION: a🧵
My dad asked to be buried with his passport.
This was the one wish he expressed after his cancer diagnosis in May. We honored it when we buried him at the end of September.
Passport in his inner jacket pocket.
Strange, no?
Let me explain.
In the summer of 1938, my grandparents took my dad & aunt from their home in Frankfurt to Switzerland on vacation.
That should have been impossible. Jews had been issued passports stamped with a big red “J” (for “Jude,” or “Jew”). They couldn’t just waltz out of the country.
Due to some administrative snafu, my grandparents’ passports hadn’t gotten the “J” stamp yet. So they could travel to Switzerland unimpeded. They spent a few weeks vacationing in the gorgeous alpine village of @Adelboden_ch.
And then, come September, they went back home.
Yes, that’s right. This Jewish family, tucked safely away in the Alps, returned to Frankfurt. In September ’38. Unbelievable, right?
Well, my dad had to start school, y'know?
(German Jews were like this.)
Anyhow, that was a bad move. Two months later -- 84 years ago tomorrow night -- Frankfurt's synagogues burned.
My dad was awakened in the middle of the night by pounding at the door and watched the Gestapo take my grandfather from their apartment. A little while later they came back and pulled the telephone wire from the wall.
My grandfather spent several weeks incarcerated at Buchenwald (@Buchenwald_Dora).
This is a photo of thousands of arrestees lined up for roll call in November of 1938. He might be in there somewhere.
He was released at the end of November & told to be gone by year’s end or risk recapture. He headed back across the Swiss border w/my dad & aunt on 12/30/38. A Swiss friend pulled some strings to get them in. They returned to Adelboden.
This time, definitely not vacation.
My grandmother stayed behind in Frankfurt to tie up whatever loose ends she could. She joined the family in Adelboden late in February of 1939.
Realizing their chances of arranging migration from a little town high in the mountains were slim, they decamped to Geneva.
Two years later, passports tightly in hand, they boarded a train from Geneva to Lisbon, then a ship, the S.S. Exeter, from Lisbon to New York. They arrived on April 1, 1942. Their migration odyssey was over.
When my dad told me the one thing he wanted to be buried with was his passport, he was smiling.
I figured he was just playing with the absurdity of the idea.
Smiling back, I said, “Your passport, Dad? Do you really think you’ll need that where you’ll be?”
He looked me in the eye.
“You never know, Eric. You just never know.”
He'd been secure in the United States for 80 years, but he was a #refugee to the end.
And he was right.
You just never know. (photo: Kenny Holston/NYTimes)
He was released at the end of November & told to be gone by year’s end or risk recapture. He headed back across the Swiss border w/my dad & aunt on 12/30/38. A Swiss friend pulled some strings to get them in. They returned to Adelboden.
This time, definitely not vacation.
My grandmother stayed behind in Frankfurt to tie up whatever loose ends she could. She joined the family in Adelboden late in February of 1939.
Realizing their chances of arranging migration from a little town high in the mountains were slim, they decamped to Geneva.
Two years later, passports tightly in hand, they boarded a train from Geneva to Lisbon, then a ship, the S.S. Exeter, from Lisbon to New York. They arrived on April 1, 1942. Their migration odyssey was over.
When my dad told me the one thing he wanted to be buried with was his passport, he was smiling.
I figured he was just playing with the absurdity of the idea.
Smiling back, I said, “Your passport, Dad? Do you really think you’ll need that where you’ll be?”
He looked me in the eye.
“You never know, Eric. You just never know.”
He'd been secure in the United States for 80 years, but he was a #refugee to the end.
And he was right.
You just never know.
end of 🧵

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More from @elmunc

10 Jun
This nutshell of _Korematsu_in @JeannieSGersen's piece on Dred Scott is lawprof-standard--but it's also mistaken and perpetuates misunderstanding of the case and the history. First, _Korematsu_ did *not* permit the detention of Japanese Americans, even tho everyone thinks it did.
Korematsu "permitted" the *removal* of Japanese Americans from the West Coast. It said nothing about detention (or "internment" (on which more in a moment)). The Supreme Court did not uphold anyone's detention; in fact, it unanimously *condemned* detention the same day in _Endo_.
(Of course, there are law-review-worthy debates about the Court's duplicity in breaking detention apart from removal in Korematsu and Endo. It's fair to assail the Court for maneuvering to avoid ruling on detention in _K_. But it's wrong to say the Ct permitted detention in _K_.)
Read 6 tweets
9 Jun
A couple of thoughts.
1) Korematsu didn't "permit the Japanese internment." (a) Korematsu said nothing at about detention. (b) Korematsu didn't concern "internment," a lawful form of detention of enemy aliens. This misdescription is so common w/lawprofs who should know better!
2. In my view, starting a core 1st-year law school course w/Dred Scott is like starting a core 1st-year medical school course w/a case of gross surgical malpractice. I understand the instinct to do it (& the article summarizes it well), but I find it pedagogically ill-conceived.
These students are beginners. We owe them some familiarity with the rudiments of constitutional analysis before hitting them w/a moral & analytical monstrosity like Dred Scott. Show them the *construction* tools before deconstructing. Aren't more students likelier to have
Read 5 tweets
8 Jun
Lot of snark abt this from @NYMag Chua/Rubenfeld piece, but I'm gonna say it straight: this is @YaleLawSch's malignancy. I had 3 yrs of nauseous bafflement at the preening, scheming culture--the faux-chill battles for a rung on a supposed "natural hierarchy of achievement." /1 Image
This is professional education--the *formation* of new generations of people as lawyers with access (due to the pedigree) to wide possibilities and deep responsibilities--and a prof's seemingly unashamed metaphor for it is ... a horse race. /2
My memory of YLS is of a theater with two performances. The one you'd think mattered--the one in front of the curtain, the classes and the seminars--was (I came very belatedly to see) just engaging calisthenics. The one that mattered was happening backstage and in the wings, /3
Read 7 tweets
16 Dec 20
History's rhyming at #OleMiss with the apparently politically motivated firing of @garrett_felber, a scholar of race & incarceration. 60 years ago they sent lawprof Bill Murphy packing for defending school desegregation & the @ACLU. historynewsnetwork.org/article/45227 Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, Miss.), June 11, 1961, p. 15.
Bill Murphy had tenure, so instead of firing him, @OleMissRebels drove him away. Enterprise-Journal (McComb, Miss.), Aug 1, 1962, p. 8.
@garrett_felber is the author of THOSE WHO KNOW DON'T SAY from @uncpressblog, a history of the Nation of Islam that was shortlisted for the 2020 Museum of African American History Stone Book Award.
Read 5 tweets
19 Apr 20
OK, friends, in this thread I'm going to walk you through how to bake these #yummy lye pretzel rolls. #quarantineProject #recipe #baking #baker #bakingbread #homemade
Here are the ingredients: 2 cups of lukewarm water, a scant 6 cups of bread flour, a packet of yeast, 1 tablespoon of canola oil, 1 1/2 teaspoons of salt, and 3 teaspoons of sugar.
You'll also need food-grade lye. This scares people but it shouldn't. You need to take care when using it, but it's really not a huge deal. I've made dozens of batches over the years and never had any problem. You can order it online. I ordered mine from essentialdepot.com.
Read 29 tweets
12 Feb 20
Back at the Orange County Courthouse for #SilentSham, round 2. I'll be live-tweeting here.
We're at the lawyers-milling-around-and-yuckin'-it-up stage of the proceedings.
A neither-here-nor-there observation of this courtroom and this case: women are solidly represented in the student ranks of law schools and have been for a long time. But not this courtroom.
Read 56 tweets

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