Quite some time ago, I had a very dirty job, and I mean, literally dirty. I had to read Nazi files archived by a German authority called Hauptstaatsarchiv Wiesbaden in the Federal Land of Hessen. These files were not only literally dirty, that is to say, they were full of decades of dust. They were also absolutely filthy on the inside, since they dealt with the murder or banishment of many Jews.
We were a team of freelancers looking for certain documents in order to pass on valid compensation data to a Jewish organisation.
Even with this horrible working material we had to read, we had to develop some routines since we were short in time. And therefore, one day, I opened the umpteenth file, hurrying from Nazi order to Nazi order, which were getting worse page by page. I browsed through the file and found, amongst other cruelties, the order to call themselves "Sara" or "Israel", to hand over their insurance money or savings, or their silver cutlery.
This time I stopped, reading:"Confiscation of silver goods, including one golden medal." And after that succinct statement, in brackets, I read: "(Nobel Prize)".
My brain did not function for a few seconds. Still rather frozen, I slowly closed the folder and read: "Hedwig Ehrlich".
In this very moment I got hit by a virtual bullet. Those bastards had deprived Paul Ehrlich's widow of her late husband's greatest honour.
One will of course know that this is a minor incident compared to the many, many brutal murders in the Shoa, considering that the Nazi murderers, for once, did not dare to lay their hands on Hedwig Ehrlich. But to me, this experience was so very much significant since it showed the inhumanity as well as the stupidity of this fascist and racist regime and its followers most accurately.
They were vermin stopping at nothing, and so this outrageous confiscation of the honour medal of one of the first German Nobel Prize winners is another very shameful part of German history. A Nobel Prize lost in history. Again, there is nothing to be proud about. And no bank note, or stamp, with Paul Ehrlich's face on it will be able to compensate this absurdity.
To the best of my abilities, I have written down this memory. May it make an impact.