The Jewish German citizens of Germany, citizens with equal rights and obligations 120 years before the rise of the Nazis to power, who were integrated into its economy and culture and served in its wars with a sense of loyalty, were presented after the rise of Nazi rule as an internal enemy that should to be fought and eliminated. Their coping with the harsh reality created is presented in this study through a description of the coping of the Jewish community in Breslau.

The immense mental breakdown, the need to extend assistance to those who have been harmed financially, including artists excluded from the stages, a Jewish audience that has become “expelled from the cultural homeland,” have led to the creation of new frameworks for community activity. Concerts, lectures, evenings of community holidays were a tool for maintaining mental resilience. Economic assistance and retraining were a way of enduring and preparing for immigration in front of locked gates around the world. The care of the many elderly people who were left in the community alone after the migration of their children because no country was adequate to receive them, was an important focus of activity. The organizational infrastructure of the community, various welfare institutions and a tradition of good administration, which have been a source of strength for dealing with the difficulties, can serve as an example and role model.