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Alice Shalvi escaped the Nazis and eventually made aliyah. Is Israel today the Israel she dreamed of? 'Most emphatically not'

On Israeli Independence Day, historian Colin Shindler interviews the pioneering educator whose story spans the entire history of the Jewish state

May 9, 2019 13:44
Alice Salvia at her home in Jerusalem in 2016
6 min read

Colin Shindler: In your book, Never a Native, you recalled that your parents went to see The Merchant of Venice in Essen in 1932 and were so appalled by the antisemitic comments in the audience that they left halfway through. What do you remember about the rise of Nazism in Germany at that time?

Alice Shalvi: I very clearly recall certain incidents which, in retrospect, were clear indications of the rise to power of Hitler and of Nazism.

Standing by the kitchen window, noticing what seemed like red flowers blooming in the snow and hearing my father tell my mother, “they got the Communists”; my brother returning from school with shirt tattered by a whipping from Hitler Youth members’ shoulder straps; a motorcade with Hermann Goering passing our house, cheered by the crowds lining the pavement; returning from school to find all my toys and books scattered in front of the cupboard as the result of a Gestapo raid in search of incriminating material.

CS: Having left for London in 1934, you heard Neville Chamberlain make his momentous speech on 3 September 1939 that “we are now at war with Germany”.