After being harassed as a Jew by classmates following the Nazi take-over in 1933 , Levin 's parents enrolled him in the Zionist Theodor Herzl School , where the musicologist Willi Apel was among his teachers , an experience that he later recalled as akin to Thomas Mann ’s portrayal of the piano teacher Wendell Kretschmar in his novel Doktor Faustus . Levin 's parents joined the Kulturbund Deutscher Juden , the Nazi organization for segregating Jewish musicians and performing artists , when it was founded in 1933 , which was able to maintain a high level of concert life in Berlin despite the increasingly vigorous ban on Jewish performers . Levin 's parents were slow to recognize the mortal threat that the Nazis represented : only in the aftermath of the Kristallnacht of 9 – 10 November 1938 , did they undertake to emigrate , departing Berlin for Palestine in December , 1938 , having forfeited most of their fortune to the infamous Reichsfluchtsteuer , the exit tax imposed on emigrating Jews by the Nazis
Kristallnacht
Kristallnacht
Walter Levin