More than 70 years after the Berlin Zoo forced Jewish shareholders out of its ranks, the institution is trying to come clean about its own dark chapter during the Nazi era.
A Berlin historian is combing through thousands of names to identify members made to sell their shares back to the zoo at a loss under the Third Reich, and has begun tracking down their descendants ahead of publishing her findings.
“Jews were very important for the zoo,” said historian Monika Schmidt, who estimates up to a quarter of the zoo’s 4,000 shareholders in the 1930s were Jewish. “But they were pushed out step by step by the zoo itself, before the Nazi state asked any institution to do those things,” said Schmidt.
Photo: EPA
照片：歐新社
Their exclusion is just one example of how Jews were pushed out of public life in 1930s Germany and stripped of their assets.
The zoo’s actions pale in comparison to other atrocities committed in Hitler’s Germany, but historians say there is value in documenting them.
“It’s very important to see that this discrimination and these Nazi crimes were not only done by some people, but in all parts of society,” said Johannes Tuchel, a professor of political science at the Free University of Berlin.
(Liberty Times)
在柏林動物園強迫猶太股東出脫持股逾七十年後，園方正試圖找出動物園在納粹時代的黑暗章節真相。
一名柏林歷史學者正仔細查閱數千筆姓名，以找出在第三帝國時期被迫虧本把股份賣回給動物園的股東，並已開始在研究結果出版前追查其後裔下落。
「猶太人對動物園非常重要，」歷史學者莫妮卡‧史密特說，她估計一九三０年代動物園的四千名股東中，有高達四分之一是猶太人。「但他們卻一步步被園方逼退，當時納粹政權甚至還沒開始要求政府機關這麼做，」史密特說。
猶太股東被動物園排擠只是一九三０年代猶太人在德國被逼出公眾生活、剝奪資產的例子之一。
與德國在希特勒統治下所犯下的其他暴行相比，動物園此舉算是小巫見大巫，但歷史學者認為，記錄這些行動仍有其價值。
「認清這種歧視及這些納粹罪行不僅是由少數人所犯下，而是社會所有層面都曾參與，這是非常重要的，」柏林自由大學政治學教授杜赫爾說。
（自由時報／翻譯：俞智敏）
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