Erich Hartmann (photographer) - Life in Germany

Life in Germany

Erich Hartmann, was born 29 July 1922 in Munich, Germany, the eldest child of parents who lived in Passau, a small city on the Danube near the Austrian border in which they were one of a five Jewish families. Erich Hartmann's family belonged to the middle class, and his father, a social-democrat who served during World War I and been imprisoned by the British, was highly respected. In 1930, only eight years old, Erich took his first photographs.

Life became increasingly difficult after the Nazi takeover in 1933, including personal, financial, business, and family restrictions and the beginning of deportations of Jews to the first so-called 'labor camp' in the nearby village of Dachau.

In 1938, two days after the assassination in Paris of German diplomat, Ernst vom Rath (November 7), skillfully orchestrated anti-Jewish violence occurred all over Germany. In the early hours of November 10, coordinated destruction broke out in cities, towns and villages throughout the Third Reich. In a single night, Kristallnacht (literally Night of Crystal) synagogues were destroyed, and Jewish businesses and homes ransacked and their windows systematically broken (hence the expression crystal). In August, Erich's family accepted the opportunity to immigrate to the United States, with an affidavit from distant relatives in Albany, New York.