Honors in the Major: Sarah Brophy & “The Privileged Ones: How Women’s Courage and the Fight for the Next Generation Saved Jewish Men in the Holocaust”

What made you want to be a History major at FSU? 

I love FSU because the university invests in their undergraduate students in a way that a lot of other top universities don't. This summer I was able to go for research to Germany for eight weeks, completely funded by the university. Last summer, I was able to intern in Washington, D.C., for two months, also funded by FSU. I have been able to do guided undergraduate research almost from day one. I have benefitted from numerous internship opportunities, and FSU’s proximity to the capital is a bonus for me as a political science and history double major.  

The quality of education that I receive in the History department is outstanding. It is always so much more exciting to learn when you can tell that your professor is also having fun. I've always been interested in history because it is how we can explain the present. Nothing just appears. There is always a reasoning behind it, and history explains that. On top of that, history tells the story of everyone that's come before us, the intricacies of their lives and cultures. That has a lot of impact today, and we can learn from it.  

You are working on an Honors in the Major project. What is it about?  

It's about mixed marriages in Nazi Germany; that means marriages between Aryan and Jewish partners. Some of these marriages were classified as privileged and others as non-privileged. The partners in a privileged marriage were still discriminated against, they lost their jobs and were shunned by society, but they could stay in their home, receive ration cards and were protected from deportation. In a non-privileged marriage, people were moved into a ‘Judenhaus’ and were not protected from deportation. In December 1938, a decree was passed that clarified what was a privileged mixed marriage and what was not. Despite the earlier Nuremberg race laws of 1935, which had outlawed mixed marriages, no specific guidelines had been established nation-wide as to how to deal with those that existed.  

All mixed marriages were considered privileged but for those in which either the children were raised Jewish, or the Aryan wife and Jewish husband were childless. The research question I was asking initially was: “Why this distinction? Why is one group of people in mixed marriages being targeted?” And quickly after starting my research, I realized that wasn't the right question to ask. The question I needed to ask was: “Why are Aryan women with children included in the category of privileged mixed marriages?” That’s when the date of the decree became important as the thinking of the Nazi government was already on the mobilization of Germany for war and was thinking about the manpower and social stability it would need to fight such a war successfully. Nothing depresses morale more than hearing a close family member has been sent to a concentration camp, been harassed, or received an even worse fate. 

How did you decide on this topic? What made you want to research that specifically?

I'm involved with the Rosenstrasse Foundation at FSU. I'm I was the president last year, and I'll be the President this year. The RF is concerned with commemorating the Rosenstrasse protests that took place in Berlin in 1943, in which Aryan wives demonstrated against the arrests and holding of their Jewish husbands in a Berlin police station. They eventually got them released. About three dozen of the arrested men had been in non-privileged marriages and they had been sent to Auschwitz, but they were also returned. In talking to my HITM mentor, Dr. Stoltzfus, I realized that we don’t know the legal justification for the decision to release or not release the men, for the distinction between privileged and not-privileged marriages. I decided I wanted to find the reasoning behind this division. 

What sort of documents were you consulting for your research?

I researched racial hygienists, philosophers and genealogists to understand their way of seeing things. Whenever I could, I looked for direct orders that were issued. I found notes on mixed marriages from different Nazi officers and also inter-office correspondence that dealt with questions about the implementation of the existing laws. And that’s where I got a lot of my answers when local offices sent queries to the head office in Berlin asking for explanations and guidance on decisions to be made.  

There were thousands of requests from people in German society to change their classification from mixed to Aryan or to be moved from the category of mixed person of second degree to that of first degree and so on.  Not every situation was as cut and dry as the law makers had envisioned.   

I did my research in Berlin in the Bundesarchiv in Lichterfelde. I had corresponded with them before I left to get all the permissions and releases to consult documents out of the way. There was a limit of ordering 50 files every three weeks. The tricky thing was that I did not know in advance how many documents were in each file! 

Sometimes it was difficult to find the material I wanted. A lot of material was destroyed during the war, and sometimes I came across files that were missing pages, so I did not know by whom they were written and when. I had to make do with the samples I could get my hands on. 

What did a regular day look like for you?

I stayed in the center of Berlin.  I started my day by going to a bakery to get breakfast, coffee, and lunch. I went to a different one every time. I loved all the baked goods! Then, I took a tram and a bus which got me by 9.30am to the archives that were in a suburb of Berlin. You have to sign in and leave your things in a locker. I was given a green basket in which to carry my computer to the reading room. Because I had only a limited time for my research, I concentrated on taking pictures of documents rather than translating material. I took a lunch break around noon. There was a lounge with comfortable sofas, free Wi-Fi where I could sit, eat my lunch and do a little bit of translation work. Then I went back to work again until 4.30pm. I took the bus and the tram back to my hostel. It all worked well, even though I broke my foot on the second day of my stay in Germany! 

What was it like living and working in Germany?

This was my first trip outside the United States. I spent the first part of my time having intensive German lessons and teaching English in a refugee center in Halle, a town about an hour from Berlin by train. The second part, I did research in Berlin.  

As I want to do my Ph.D. on the history of refugee rights in Germany, working at the refugee center was an amazing experience. I intern with the International Rescue Committee in Tallahassee, and the focus there is on providing support to refugees when they first arrive. The center in Halle gave me a new set of experiences beyond the initial offering of support. A friend of mine who worked there last year had recommended it. It gave me insights and contacts that I am hoping will help me with my dissertation research.  

What advice would you give to others who are thinking of doing an Honors in the Major project?   

I would say absolutely go for it. But make sure that you have a summer as part of your research period. That way you can dedicate the summer to getting your research done. Especially, if you have to go to foreign archives, you need enough time to get all your material together. It is important too to have lead time to prepare your stay and pre-organize your research. Make sure you start your research trip with a clear plan.  

The other piece of advice I have is for those working in a foreign language. In advance, prepare index cards with technical phrases that you might need in the archive.  I had two semesters of German at FSU, and also German lessons in Halle, but there are all sorts of specific terms that are important for archival research and historians that I did not know.  

How did the HITM project impact your career plans?

It changed my perspective completely. Before I had wanted to be a foreign service officer and be involved with foreign policy in Washington, D.C. The HITM project made it clear to me how much I love doing research. I had been wondering if I would like archival research because that is at the heart of being a historian. I fell in love with it. I found the tracking down of documents very fulfilling! I knew already that I liked writing, and through teaching a UROP seminar during the last year, I discovered that I liked teaching too. I love writing, I love the archives, I love teaching – I will like my life as a historian! 

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I would like to thank Dr. Mooney, Dr. Williamson and Dr. Stoltzfus for their support. Dr. Stoltzfus has mentored me throughout the whole project. Dr. Williamson provided valuable insights, and Dr. Mooney became my faculty advisor so that I could apply for an IDEA grant and go to Germany. Thank you all for your help.