Iconic photo of the author’s parents, Hala and Ignas Krakowiak, at 1936 Nazi Olympics - Winter Venue
What were they thinking?
Response by Dr. Mordecai Paldiel -
You ask “What were they thinking?”
We don’t know, but I will guess the following:If they allowed us Jews to enter Nazi Germany in order to view the Olympics games, and we saw no anti-Jewish signs on the streets of Berlin [they had been purposely removed by the regime before the Olympics], and other than isolated anti-Jewish violence, no Jews were as yet sent to concentration camps, only political opponents of the regime — then the situation is not so bad; or, it can’t get worse than this. So let us not worry too much, and hope for the best.
If your parents had felt otherwise, they may already have made plans to leave Belgium much before 1940. But, who can blame them? No person in his sane mind could predict the Holocaust.
Dr. Mordecai Paldiel is a lecturer at Stern College and Queens College in New York, the former Director (1984-2007) of the Department of the Righteous Among the Nations at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, and a member of the Board of Directors of the Sousa Mendes Foundation.
This article in the Jewish Telegraph Agency may have some answers. Click to read: JTA April 9, 1936 - Berlin, Preparing for Olympics, Removes Last Anti-Jewish Signs
Hala and Ignas Krakowiak changed their names to Helene and Robert Arnay when they became United States citizens.
A Class from the Colegio Evangelico Capitan Correa, Yoma, PR visits the USHMM. Author Joan Arnay Halperin holding book, My Sister’s Eyes, and Joan’s brother Richard Arnay standing to her left.
