(continued from last week)
Walking on the street was always accompanied by the danger of being attacked by gangs of Hitler Youth, in or out of uniform. Consequently, whenever possible, we used our bicycles, except naturally on the Sabbath and Jewish Holidays, when we had no choice but to walk. Often when viewing youths in the distance, we would back up and take a different route. Particularly dangerous was passing a building that displayed the “Stuermer,” a violent hateful anti-Semitic newspaper, on the wall or fence outside. We avoided those buildings at all costs.
Our school had been closed by the authorities after Kristallnacht. After several months the contents, or at least the essential parts of it, were transferred to the Philanthropin, which was the school building of the Conservative community. I helped my science teacher remove the stuffed animals from his old classroom, but I don’t remember where they went, since I never saw them again. Biology was not a priority anymore. Our classes and administration were all in the same building, but were conducted strictly separately. Emphasis was given to teaching the students a “Handwerk,” such as plumbing, woodworking or book binding, which they might later be able to use when emigrating, to help support their families.
One bitter-cold day, when the streets were covered with deep snow, the city did not want to use its street cleaning crew to remove the snow from streets where mostly Jews lived. All Jewish males were ordered out of their houses, told to bring their own shovels and brooms etc., to clean away the snow. Since boys were not excluded, Oma hesitantly let us go out, as well, and work. After a while, when Oma saw from the window that there was very little supervision, she called us in quietly, and told us to stay away from the windows.
The two large synagogues mentioned previously, that had been burned to the ground, had moved their services to another building on Hermes Weg, which already had services on the ground floor. As a result, with services on the ground floor as well as on the first and second floors, the building was packed to a dangerous level for services on Saturdays and Holidays.
One dark night, many months after Kristallnacht, when the ground where the two main synagogues had stood had been leveled and only rubble remained, I took my bicycle and drove secretly to each of the two locations and picked up a little stone from each. I do not remember whether then I knew why I was doing it, or even realized the danger I was in had I been caught. It was pitch black on the street since a blackout was already in effect against British bombers flying overhead. Nonetheless, I took the two little stones home, placed them into an AGFA film container, and there they remained until a few years ago, when I donated them to the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York.
I became a bar mitzvah in Frankfurt in March, 1940, while Opa was already in the US. My presents included a hand-painted bookmark made by my Hebrew teacher, who perished in the Holocaust with his whole family. Another present was a plastic cover for my passport. This was typical, since no one had money to spare for gifts. For our “lavish” bar mitzvah dinner, we had two chickens, which Opa had been able to order from Holland for us, shared by 10 men. (Sorry, none left for the ladies of the family.)
In 1940, the British started bombing the industrial zones across the river from Frankfurt. Although Frankfurt itself was not actually targeted, bombing in those days was even less precise than now, and stray bombs would fall once in a while on residential areas. Consequently, each house had a bomb shelter (actually only the building’s basement) into which all residents had to go whenever the air raid sirens sounded. All together we were in 72 air raids, always at night, during that year.
I had an uncle, Issy Halberstadt (brother of Willy and Jonas mentioned earlier), who, prior to Kristallnacht, had a good business in Frankfurt as an upholsterer and decorator. By 1938, not many people felt like fixing up or repairing anything or had money to spend for it, and consequently his business suffered. But once the war started, even before the air raids began, the authorities ordered everyone to install black paper shades on all windows to effectively black out the city and to prevent the lights from guiding bombers to their destination. That gave Issy an opportunity to make a living again. He was busy from morning until night installing blackout shades in Jewish homes throughout the neighborhood. Non-Jews were not permitted to give work to a Jewish business, and were also not permitted to work for a Jew. I became Issy’s apprentice (I was 12 years old) during any free time I had, first helping to cut the paper and rope into proper lengths, and then later doing complete installations, but under his supervision. Since anyone not having blackout shades could not put on any lights, Issy was under pressure to accept more and more orders. Eventually he allowed me to do complete installations even in his absence. He would deliver the material in his car and would go on to another job while I did the installation. I could hardly reach the top of the window, even when standing on a ladder. That was my first paid job, and I got paid (I don’t remember how much) for each window completed. That was my first employment.
As soon as Opa had received his visa to the US in late summer 1939, Oma expected that we would receive ours soon thereafter. After all, we had the same quota number, and moreover now had a relative in the U.S. Consequently, Oma immediately booked ship passage for the three of us, out of Bremen to New York.
But it was not to be. When on September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland, the western Allies declared war on Germany, resulting in the port of Bremen being closed to all passenger traffic. Promptly Oma booked passage on a ship out of Genoa, but it was not many months later that Italy joined Germany in the war, and Genoa was closed to passenger traffic as well.
On August 23, 1939, Germany and Russia, the arch enemies, had signed a secret “friendship” pact, the purpose being to divide Poland between them. Subsequently Russia invaded Poland from the east on September 17, 1939 and Germany invaded from the west. This “friendship” pact made it then possible for Jews to travel on the Trans-Siberian Railroad from Germany. Since now German and Italian ports were closed, Oma booked seats on the Trans-Siberian Railroad in August 1940 for travel via Koenigsberg (now Kaliningrad), through the Soviet Union to Japan, and then by ship from Yokohama to San Francisco and then by train to New York. My German passport, which I also donated to the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York, has in it the transit visa issued by the USSR, dated August 9, 1940.
But we still did not have our American visa and therefore could not make use of that escape route either.
By Norbert Strauss
(To be continued next week.)
Norbert Strauss is a Teaneck resident and has volunteered at Englewood Hospital for over 30,000 hours. He was general traffic manager and group VP at Philipp Brothers Inc., retiring in 1985. Prior to Englewood Hospital he was also a volunteer at the American Committee for Shaare Zedek Hospital for over 30 years, serving as treasurer and director. He frequently speaks to groups to relay his family’s escape from Nazi Germany in 1941.
