I was 6 years old in 1932 when the German people went to the polls to choose between Hitler and President Hindenburg, the incumbent. My parents were afraid to vote in their small home community in which the citizens all knew each other by name. They feared reprisal because they could easily have been identified as anti-Nazi voters. As a family we drove to a distant, larger town, where my mother and father voted. They took clean handkerchiefs with them into the booth and after voting used them to carefully wipe their hands, because it was rumored that the Nazis had put chalk on the pencils used for voting, red chalk if you voted for Hitler, white for Hindenburg. The political bent of the person who exited the voting booth could be identified by the color of their hand.
My two sisters and I waited in the car while my parents voted. We did not speak. We were terrified, without knowing why. An atmosphere of danger and secrecy held us in its grip as we watched the Nazi guards march up and down in front of the poll in their brown uniforms with the swastika arm band.
Warily we drove away when my mother and father finished. I noticed that they sent frequent glances into the rear view mirror to reassure themselves that no one was following us. I did not understand why my parents risked being apprehended just to cast their ballot. In the car, on the way home, my father undoubtedly talked to us about voting, its imperfections, about consensus and politics. I do not recall any of that. I only recall my parents’ civic courage and brave dedication in their attempt to save Germany from disaster by casting their vote, inviting imprisonment. As Jews, this was the last time they were allowed to vote — to make their voices heard — as German citizens.
I remember vividly the first time I was allowed to vote as an American citizen in 1948 — Thomas Dewey vs. Harry Truman. This was the election when all the predictions were wrong and the newspapers had to revise their headlines: Truman, not Dewey, won. After I closed the black curtain of the booth and punched the buttons, I had to pull a lever to record my vote. I was awed by what this simple gesture implied: I was responsible to my country, to the world, for influencing the outcome of the election. In the privacy of the curtained space I burst into tears, grateful that I was permitted to record my opinion without fear of retribution — that my vote would be counted among millions to determine the political future which American citizens would accept.
When I left the voting booth there were no soldiers in uniform visible, no swastikas in sight. I was safe. My vote was secret. No one knew or wanted to know for whom I voted.
As William James said: “The nation blessed above all nations is she in whom the civic genius of the people does the saving day by day … by speaking, writing, voting reasonably.”
Renate G. Justin, M.D., lives in Fort Collins. A version of this essay was previously published in The Coloradoan.
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