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Back to November 1938

During the night of November 8-9, 1938 stormtroopers from Nentershausen and Weissenhasel ransacked the premises and store of the Jewish shoemaker, Willy Katz located in the Elzebachstrasse. Willy Katz and his family sought refuge in the top floor of their home from where he called his neighbors for help. In spite of the neighbor’s protests Katz was taken to the street and beaten. The next day a member of the local police helped Willy Katz recover some of the stolen shoes. This was reported on September 26, 1991 in the “Hessisch-Niedersächsischen Allgemeinen” in a letter from a reader that at the age of 11 had been an eyewitness to the events.

Willy Katz’s son, Bert, remembered the event after 70 years. “My father was arrested, severely beaten by SA members, and incarcerated in the Buchenwald at Weimar Concentration Camp for several months. From there presumably he was released only because he had been a participant in World War I for which he was granted in 1935 “In the name of the Fuhrer and Imperial Chancellor” the “Cross of Honor for First World War Front Line Combatants”. The shoe store, which he ran together with his father in Nentershausen, was plundered and all its contents stolen or vandalized. They also dealt in sewing machines and bicycles, which were all stolen. In addition, our living quarters, which were in the same house, were destroyed and the furniture and its contents either destroyed, ransacked, vandalized or stolen. I am sure that the other Jewish families in town suffered a similar fate. My father suffered from headaches the rest of his life, due to the severe beating that was inflicted to his head”.