By Karin Brennan
My mother was born in Germany in 1931. Her childhood was dictated, literally, by the rise of Hitler and the Nazi regime. Hitler’s Youth organization, which had 50,000 members at the beginning of 1933, had over 2 million members (children) by the end of that year. In 1936, the Nazis systematically shut down or banned all other youth groups, including the Boy Scouts.
Instead, all children had to join the Hitler Youth. Anyone who refused to join was punished, so by 1939, more than 90 percent of German children were members. My mother was 8 at this point, and an official member of the Hitler Youth. Her memory of this time was spotty … she recalls having to take physical fitness tests in the cold lakes of Bavaria, and some marching.
She remembers friends suddenly disappearing from her school and no one would ever say why. She was 13 when her city was bombed, near the end of the war. The city was Munich, and in very close proximity to the city was the longest running concentration camp, Dachau, which operated from 1933 to 1945. [Read more…]
