Mr. Leyser, the store owner, treats you well. To him, you are like another member of the family, no different from his own daughter, Gerta. As he grows older, he arranges for you to purchase the store, and you suddenly find yourself a leading merchant in Collinsville, Illinois. You are well respected by the leading citizens of the city, and you spend a great deal of time trying to help them understand Jews and, especially, what has happened in Europe. You even bring the Midwest representative of the Anti-Defamation League to the Rotary Club meeting. He speaks about the strong bond between Jews and the new State of Israel. When you relate your own story on the Saint Louis, your non-Jewish friends begin to understand why the Jews need a guaranteed refuge.
So, it is a great surprise to you when one of your non-Jewish friends
tells you he has received an invitation from another business leader to
join the local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan. The business leader tells your
friend that the leading citizens of the city are signing up, trying to
keep those people
from taking over the town. You are shocked. You
tell your friend to remind the person who issued the invitation that
Pastor Martin Niemoller in Germany also thought discrimination
against others was alright until, suddenly, it became an attack directly
on him. Then, he realized that antagonism toward anyone can easily turn
into hatred toward others — even self-hatred. However, you are
alarmed by the overtones of prejudice in your own community.
If you stay in business in Collinsville, continue to page 159.
If you choose to leave the city, continue to page 160.