Free Alex's Wake by Martin Goldsmith Page B

lapel pin signifying that he had been a member of the National Socialist Party since before Chancellor Hitler assumed office in 1933. As a part of his curriculum, students at the AGO were required to read and discuss a biology textbook that elucidated the tenets of Rassenkunde , or “racial knowledge,” promoted by a scientist from Leipzig named Otto Steche. According to Dr. Steche, “the Jewish race is foreign to European races” and “mixtures” between Jews and Gentiles are “harmful” and thus to be strenuously avoided. In literature courses, both subtle and overt attacks on the Jews were a regular part of classroom instruction. When an English class studied Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice , the teacher made sure his students understood that the character Shylock was proof that the Jew was both inferior and dangerously conniving, unfit to live among and engage in commerce with his Aryan betters. The Abitur , the final examination, of 1938, was replete with anti-Semitic slogans and undisguised notions about racial purity.
    Through it all, Helmut’s grades remained, as his teachers wrote, commendable. The AGO maintained a grading system based on the numbers 1 through 6, wherein a “1” was considered outstanding and a “6” indicated a failing grade. Throughout his years at the AGO, Helmut received only 1s and a single 2 in conduct, and 1s, 2s, and a single 3 in attentiveness. He earned his best grades in language courses, with 1s and 2s in German, 2s and 3s in Latin, 2s and 3s in Greek, and 2s and 3s in French. But his grades in nearly all of his subjects were commendable: 1s, 2s, 3s, and a single 4 in history; 2s and 3s in geography; 2s and 3s and a single 4 in biology, arithmetic, and mathematics. Perhaps surprisingly, given his musical brother, Helmut was a bit less accomplished in his arts classes, receiving a consistent reckoning of 3s and 4s in music and drawing. His handwriting was also judged to be nothing special, with 3s and 4s his usual reward.
    Helmut’s greatest difficulty at school was physical education, and his most implacable adversary was the teacher of that class. As his early evaluation at the AGO stated, he suffered from rickets, a softening and slight deformity of his leg bones, and was thus exempt from physicaleducation for his first years at the school. Beginning with the autumn term of 1936, however, Helmut’s legs had strengthened and he began taking part in the classes. But Helmut was a bookish boy, more at home in the classroom than in the gym or on the playing field, and the results were predictably dismal. His grades in physical education never exceeded a 4, and his written evaluations always made note of his shortcomings. Fall 1937: “In physical education, Helmut needs to make a greater effort.” Christmas 1937: “His poor results in physical education have not yet improved.” Easter 1938: “It is regrettable that he still has no achievements in physical education.” Fall 1938: “In phys. ed. Helmut was without accomplishment, and his physical abilities are generally very low.”
    Those frank assessments were probably difficult for Helmut to read three times a year, but they were nothing compared to the almost daily abuse he suffered at the hands of his teacher, a committed National Socialist and, apparently, an unreconstructed bully. He made no secret of his contempt for Helmut’s weakness and lack of speed and coordination and lost no opportunity to contrast the shortcomings of this miserable human specimen, a representative of the entire Jewish “race,” with the strength, endurance, grace, and overall physical beauty of the Aryan Master Race. Helmut’s wretched attempts at soccer, swimming, handball, fencing, gymnastics, and track and field were all brass-plated opportunities for the teacher to gleefully spout his racial theories in front of Helmut’s schoolmates, most of