Anti-Semitism

Friedrich shows German society between the world wars harboring the medieval uneasiness of having Jews living in their midst. Even the narrator's mother feels compelled to notice Friedrich's circumcision when she gives the two boys a bath. Her father and the landlord are openly prejudiced against Jews, and shopkeepers use their department stores as excuses for not prospering themselves. As Nazi policy strengthens, prejudices emerge more strongly. The landlord tries to evict his Jewish tenant, because it is inconvenient for a Party member to have his house defiled. A just judge thwarts him for the moment. To prepare his students for Friedrich's forced transfer to a Jewish school, a teacher outlines 2,000 years of history, from the Roman expulsions to the Polish and Russian ghettos, and claims the Jews must excel in business to survive the onslaughts against them.

A hunted old rabbi relates how, in the Middle Ages...