Figure 1: Rosenstrasse in 1943 Figure 2: Rosenstrasse today
by Najeep Farajj, Bethlehem
An article on the International Middle East Media Centre, The Israeli army attacks a village near Bethlehem and kidnaps a man and his Jewish wife describes how the Israeli army invaded the village of Hussan located near Bethlehem city in the southern part of the West Bank.
During the invasion on Thursday morning the soldiers kidnapped a Palestinian man and his wife, who is Jewish origin. Hamamerh, 25, met his wife Melissa, 23, several months ago when he used to work at the settlement of Bitar Illit, an Israeli settlement built illegally on the land of Hussan village. When the young couple decided to get married, they came to Bethlehem city were Melissa converted to Islam. They were married last month during a large wedding at Hussan village, Hamamerh’s family reported.
The settlers of Bitar Illit attacked the village of Hussan, demanding that Melissa was kidnapped and forced to get married, which the family of Hamamerh denies.The village told media sources in Bethlehem that the settlers threatened to send the Israeli army to get Melissa out using force, which was done today. Witnesses said that the army surrounded the couple’s home and then kidnapped the two, and took them to an unknown location.The Hamamerh family said that the settlers are using the army forces as a tool to force their son to divorce his wife.
Translated by: Ghassan Bannoura – IMEMC News© 2001-2008 IMEMC NEWS.
This is absolutely unbelievable. For those who have any sense of historical perspective, then one and only one analogy comes to mind. The repeated attempts of the Gestapo to ‘persuade’ the ‘Aryan’ partners of Jews to divorce them in Nazi Germany post the 1935 Nuremburg Laws.
In Germany, post-Nuremburg it was impossible for Jews and Germans to marry, but although subject to much villification it was legal prior to September 1935 if you could find a willing marriage registrar.
Post Nuremburg there were 2 classes of intermarriage between Jews and Germans. One where the husband was German and the woman was Jewish and the other where the husband was Jewish and the women ‘Aryan’ . With some exceptions, including being part of the Jewish community or having children brought up as Jewish, the former were considered Privileged mixed marriages and the partners were left alone. This is because women were considered simple things who would naturally be under the domination of the man.
But in the case of the latter, where the husband was Jewish, it was assumed that he was the dominant partner and that the family would hence be Jewish. Hence considerable wiles and threats were used to effect a divorce. Contrary to Zionist fiction writers like Daniel Goldhagen, the vast majority of German women marriage partners, who underwent very considerable pressure, including horrendous personal attacks, loss of job, house etc. refused to buckle. The stakes were of course high. Where a woman did buckle and agree to divorce, within 24 hours the man was arrested and deported to the death camps.
But underlying this pressure was the assumption that the wily, lecherous, predatory Jew had ensnared the poor innocent German frau into marriage. The task of the Gestapo was to ‘liberate’ her and help her regain her position in Aryan society.
This is documented at length by Prof. Nathan Stoltzfus in ‘Resistance of the Heart – Intermarriage and the Rosenstrasse Protest in Nazi Germany’. After many years of unsuccessful ‘persuasion’ the Gestapo simply rounded up, on 27 February 1943 the Jewish partners of mixed marriages and held them pending deportation.
What took place was the most remarkable of demonstrations during the entire Nazi era, in the centre of Berlin when first a few and finally thousands of women and relatives howled, screamed and shrieked for the return of their men. And for a whole week they kept this up. The street was crammed with people and the RSHA (SS Main Office) was thrown into a panic. ‘We want our husbands back’ was the chant. The top leadership of the Nazis, Goebbels in particular as Gauleiter of Berlin, ordered that the men should be released because what was taking place threatened to expose the Final Solution and the deportation of Jews from Berlin, which reached its apex in 1943.
All this is documented in ‘Resistance of the Heart – Intermarriage and the Rosenstrasse Protest in Nazi Germany’ by Nathan Stoltzfus, 1996.
To see that the Israeli state is now also interfering in mixed marriages, between Palestinians and Israeli Jews, should remind people just what the political antecedents of Zionism and Israel are.
Tony Greenstein
