Figure 1.-- Here Cesar and Roman with mother waiting for the tram to take them to the gymnasium, where they are new students. The date here is meant to be 1935. This is the same time that Jewizh children wjo have not already withdrawn are being expelled from German schools.

The family believes strongly in education. The Bertinis encourage the boys academically. We see the boys leaving home for primary school on a dark morning and returning home at night with stocking caps to keep their ears warm. The scenes involving primary school occur in 1932-33 just on the threshold of Hitler's seizing power in 1933, but at this point the family is only peripherally aware of the NAZI menace. But when the boys are old enough to go to the gymnasium a couple of years later, it is already 1935, and the Nuremberg laws have gone into effect (September 1935). Each of their three suceed in gaining admission to a good gymnasium (selective secondaty school). Most German children at the time only went to primary school. Children had to do well academically to gain admission to gymnasium or other secondary school, which before World war II were mostly single-gender schools. Just before the boys (shown with their mother in the picture) enter the gymnasium building, they ascend an outdoor staircase and are almost prevented from moving up the stairs by a large group of men in Nazi uniforms with red arm bands who rush down the steps and almost knock them down. The person who a few minutes later interrupts their class is some sort of NAZI official, though he is not in uniform. The two boys entered their gymnasium before the NAZIs seized power. After the NAZIs began to govern, political reliability and not just academic achievemdent became a factor in gaining admission to secondary schools. Applicants would present information about their perforance in the Hitler Youth. And parents had to sign documents affirming their Aryan staztus. Mischiling's would have difficulty gaining admissiin to most schools. University admissiin was almost impossible. It is not clear how the boys managed to get into their gynasium. It may haave been that 1935 was still relatively early in the NAZI era and not all the regulations had been promulgated or the anti-NAZI teachers dismissed from the schools.

Created: 8:50 PM 12/20/2008
Last updated: 8:50 PM 12/20/2008