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Troubled Schooldays:

Of course, parents did everything possible to protect their children from the ever unabashedly increasing Antisemitism. However, as soon as they entered Grade School this was hardly possible any longer. Alfred Strauss, who together with the ”Christian” children of Huenfeld started school after Easter in 1936, had to experience rejection as a six year old student.

Except for him there were no other Jewish students in his class, and his teacher was a notorious Antisemite. Alfred does not

recall any physical harm done to him, but he vividly remembers that his teacher ignored him totally. He was completely isolated

in his class, and nobody took notice of him. As of September 1939 Alfred and his older sister, Milli (Emilie)had to take the train to Burghaun day by day to attend school. After the Nazis

had started to force the Jewish students out of ”Christian” schools, the authorities had established a district school in the building of the former Jewish Grade School. This district school had to be attended by all Jewish students who were still living

in the county of Huenfeld. Classes were being taught by Hermann Adler, a certified teacher. Alfred Strauss remembers him rather well. ”He wasn’t from around here”, Alfred says. In the course

of the “Crystal Night” upheaval Mr. Adler had been incarcerated at the Buchenwald KZ, from where he had been released in January of 1939. Since then he taught the few remaining students in the county of Huenfeld at their respective homes, because the district school at Burghaun had been completely wrecked during the 1938 November pogrom.