More on Lili and Heinele

So what happened to Lili and Heinele?  (I have gotten several queries.)

Here is a partial answer:

Yes, “Heinele” DID get to the USA, in August, 1946.  His new name was Charles or Charlie.   My parents took him in, which must have been something of a challenge to them, though when I asked about this, my mother said, no it wasn't...it was something they knew they had to do.  There was never a question about it. (Besides, she added, she got rid of my Aunt Regina, who I hadn't realized was living them up until then, and MUCH more difficult than Charlie.)  I was a toddler and my mother was pregnant with my sister and we all lived in a one-bedroom apartment in the Bronx!  Charlie slept on the sofa in the living room.  He didn’t speak any English, didn’t want to speak German, and nobody else knew any Czech.   But Charlie was as wonderful as his Aunt Lili said – he quickly learned English, caught up in school and lived with us (we eventually moved to a house in Queens) until he got married and went into the Army and then got his BS and MS degrees at night, and had a career as a research chemical engineer.  One of his batteries was on the lunar landing module for the Apollo shot to the moon.  

More important, he was a real “mensch” – a wonderful, kind and thoughtful family person (he had three daughters and 6 grandchildren), whom everybody liked and who always made the effort to make sure that everyone in the family was okay.  He and his family lived in Matawan, NJ. 

A dedicated runner and fitness person, he died unexpectedly of a heart attack when he was out for a run one morning in 2000, at the age of 68.   Since he was thought to be the healthiest person in the family, this was a total shock to everybody, and it is one of the few deaths I have never really gotten over.

Interestingly, Charlie never talked about his experiences during the war, and nobody ever asked him.  I think everybody assumed  that was the right thing to do.  It wasn’t until the movie Shindler’s List came out and his synagogue asked him to give a little talk as part of a Holocaust memorial program that he wrote down his experiences, and so far as I know, that talk was the only time he spoke of them.  In that talk he said:  “Some maxims I try to live by:  ‘The harder one works, the luckier one gets.’  And,  ‘It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness,’ which you will recognize as a quote from Eleanor Roosevelt.”  I think that combination of optimism and hard work was what enabled him to create his new life. 

I think that fills you in about “Heinele.”  His aunt Lili (Leonie in the letters) and her husband also eventually came to the US.  For some reason, they wound up in Seattle, Washington, and I don’t think I ever met them.  They are both dead now.

A Letter from Lili

I'm back to the family history blog!  One of my summer projects was to get back to this, and to try to organize all the material I have (a major challenge, especially since organization isn't one of my core competencies.....).  In the process I uncovered this letter from Charlie's Aunt Lili in Czechoslovakia to my father.  It also has an added note to Regina, who had just emigrated to the US from Palestine and a brief note from Charlie.

I managed to get this translated from the German, with the help of an acquaintance and Google translate.  I've left most of the awkward phrasing because I'm afraid of changing the meaning, some of which I may have unintentionally done anyway.

November 19, 1945

Dear Dago  –

Many thanks for your long letter.  First I want to tell you that Heinele is well.  As I told you he goes in the third grade in the elementary school, plus he learns Jewish [Yiddish?] and English in private and evening classes.  He picks up very quickly and the learning goes easy. 

On Saturdays once in a while he is called to the Torah, and we eat lunch in the Folkskitchen.  He often helps out there.  He speaks German in a dialect that he learned at home in Beuthen, but he prefers Czech.  This he learned in 1939 after deportation to Prague, and he kept it as his mother tongue.  With me and my husband he speaks Slovak or Czech, but in a short time he will also learn English.  

As of December 1, we hope that we will all live together.  Up till now he lives with my brother-in-law, Backer, who is out of  town. I myself have only a small room on the 7^th story far behind the city, but the child is in his free time mostly in my office, which is in the city center and very close to his apartment.  It is all very difficult because he was supposed to go to Gusti [her sister], but it is not working out.  Like I already told you I am trying to get Heinele to London. But this has to be done from the outside.  I have seen cases where it was successful, but in my case my hands are tied because I am here.

He writes his name “Jindra” or “Jindrich.”  We are using no German names because everything reminds us of Germany, and we are eradicating the language.  The child likes to go to the movies, normally on a Sunday afternoon.  We haven’t been in the movies in 6 years, and we do not miss it.  We are so tired and we have hardly lived. 

Chaskel [Uncle Henry] writes that they have a small jewelry manufacturer.  Here you see it in masses, these articles, there are such things, so it is not of value, but Chaskel says he is doing fine.  And Chaskel writes often and writes very well, and I like to hear from him.  Gusti writes me and we are happy to get posts from all these people.

Did you ever meet my sister Gusti?  She does not write well, but she is a beautiful person, of which there are few.  Even her husband is very steady and nice.  He wrote me that he has all the Saturdays and holidays free.  This has us very happy and it is my outspoken wish that our child is brought up in the Jewish sense, and so remains. We have seen the big businesses and the wealthy firms  that collapsed like a house of cards overnight and the original owner who fought to keep the business going and then collapsed. 

There is a lot to talk about, but we will keep it for ourselves, until we can speak in person.  I fear that our opinions may differ, but our views are still unchanging even after all we had to live through. 

Today I got news that a parcel that was sent by you from NY arrived here.  I do not have it yet, but in a few days I will pick it up.  Many thanks for sending that.

Now I have another worry, Gusti [her sister] writes that they sent a package to the address of a nephew of mine, Capitan Bernat Grun, Praha Karlin, Kralovska 59. Now, however, he was transferred and I do not know where he is. Actually my older brother who came from Russia was living with him, but it is possible that the son has taken the father, and both are no longer in Prague and the package has gotten into the wrong hands. This will make me very sick, because there are things that are very important for me:  winter coat, boots, and hats, which we need just as much as a bit of bread.

For now I close with many kind regards to all.

Send me please some pictures of yourself and especially of little Frances.  We sent you a picture of Heini and one of my husband and myself, which hopefully have come. 

Again warm regards,

         (signed)               Leonie

[Leonie continues….]

Here are a few lines from Heini. He writes in Czech, because he does not like to write in German:

Translation [into German, provided by Lili]:

Dear uncle.  I am very glad about your news.  Whenever I go to aunt, the first thing I ask about you.  I’m in the third grade in school.  I am busy learning and I am healthy.  I am happy that you are healthy and have good wives [sic!].  I would love to be with you, but it is very difficult, and God knows how long it will take.  I must learn a lot, because I missed four years, but it is easy and I hope it will all be for the best.

Otherwise I am healthy.  I have a coat, a lumberjack and a leather cap.  And now I am closing.

                        Jindrich Grun, /Heini/

[And Lili continues with this note to Regina]

My dear Ryfka 

From the previous lines you'll see everything concerning us and the child.  Heniele would very much like to know why you left Erez [Palestine] and if it is so that one cannot exist there. Since then, he heard that his uncle is not for Erez, he will not hear of seeking anything there, even though he initially showed interest in it. He is a wonderful child and is recognized by everybody because he is particularly beautiful ["schon" -- "nice" may be a better translation?].  He resembles Chaskel and Dago.  I love him very much and will give him the base to be a good person.  He’s very outgoing and we do not speak about the past, even though many times he is asking for his parents.  I cannot imagine a life without this child, but it is my strongest wish that he soon find a place that will be best for him.  Chaskel writes that he is fighting to get the child, but I want to make sure that I give him the basic education before we do anything else. 

Otherwise I don’t have much to tell, I am happy for you that you are happy and hope that you will find a nice man. 

My husband [Isidore] has a good character.  He is one of six brothers.  He’s the only one that survived.  God help me to protect him.  It was only by a small margin that we would have been destroyed, too.

Now, in conclusion, I remain sincerely,

        (signed)             Leonie   Isidor    Heini


And now some background and commentary from me:



Most of you will remember that it was Charlie's Aunt Lili (aka Leonie Schwarz) who tracked him down after the war ended, and then managed to contact his uncles and get him to United States.

Here's how Charlie describes the experience in his document "A Remembrance:"

In the papers that Charlie left are letters written by Lili to my father ("Dago"), Regina ("Ryfka") and Henry ("Chaskel") between May, 1945 and June, 1946. 

There are 25 of them, mostly typewritten, but written, of course, in German. I've managed to get two translated, this one, which I chose because of the note from Charlie, and the very first one I have, which is dated May 15, 1945, and which I'll reserve for a future post, because this post is getting too long.

I'll end, though, with a photo of "Heinele" and Lili and her husband Isidor, labeled "Bratislava, 1946."  

A Letter from Erna

This is probably the last letter my father got from his sister, Erna.

Or, at least, it's the last (and only) letter I've come across so far.

-------------------

Erna was my father's younger sister.  (But older than Regina.  The birth order was Marta (1905), Dago (1908), Erna (1909), Henry (1913), Regina (1915), Sam (1917).)  She married her half-cousin, Jecheskel Hochbaum (Tamar's uncle) and had a son Chaim Hirsch in 1936.  She's clearly a "Hochbaum"  - a cross between my aunt Regina and the Hochbaum brothers. 

Here are some pictures, taken in Beuthen, probably in 1938, after Regina had left for Palestine but before my father, Sam and Henry came to the States.  (The actual photos are tiny.)

Erna and her husband and son

Erna and her baby

Chaim Hirsch, Jecheskel, Erna, Henry, Marte and David Green (Grun)

That's Charlie with his tongue out...
Jecheskel, Chaim Hirsch, Charlie, Henry

Erna, my father and Marte

Back row - Jecheskel, Erna, David and Marte, Charlie's Aunt Lily (I think)
 Front row - Sam, my father, Charlie, Henry


 

Regina used to say, "Wasn't she a beauty?   So nice and zaftig."  I don't think she was being ironic.

 

And, from Andrea's collection of pictures, here's a picture of Chaim Hirsch, dated September, 1938.

 

 

 

 

The letter we have -- it was in Charlie's files -- is dated April 15, 1941.  It is actually from Erna's husband  Jecheskel Hochbaum and Erna, and has postscripts from 3 other people -- Miriam Rauchwerger, Helene Rauchwerger and "Chaskel." 

Here's the original followed by the translation.  As you can see, they are responding to a letter from my father, announcing his engagement, and sending their congratulations, but the letter also tells us a little bit about what life was like between 1939, when I think they were deported from Germany, and 1941.

Here's the translation, with some notes from me in the square brackets.

Brzesko 15th April 1941

My Dears!

Your letter from March 13th of this year we have very gladly received.  We also are glad that Dago has gotten engaged. -  Now, dear Dago, I wish you to your engagement much luck and everything good.  All the best!  Your bride, unknown to us, I wish a happy future and the most fervent felicitations. Although we do not know her personally but as you dear Dago has chosen her as your chosen one, we are very very satisfied. -  Your letter with your picture we have not received yet, however hope that it will arrive soon.  From Marte we receive mail regularly.  They are doing well.  Many thanks for the congratulation for Heini's birthday; he is almost 5 years old and is quite a guy. 

 

Now I wish you all the best and remain with fervent greetings,

 

Jecheskel  Hochbaum

 

Dago, please transmit to your dear bride from me the wishes as well as the most fervent greetings.

 

 

 

My Dears!

We have received your letter of 3.13 which we enjoyed very much, because we have had no mail from you for a very long time.  Cordial Mazel tov for Dago's engagement.  May God give that he will be very happy and have a future without worries.  We were very happy with this news  and dear Marta sent us the picture of you which is very nice and the bride is a sympathetic,  pretty little woman and the other misses are very nice and pretty.  You too look very good.  One can see that you have good taste.   Are that already your brides? [??  This could be, are they already married?  Or, are they your bridesmaids?  ]

 

With us, thank God, everyone is well; dear Heini is already a big boy and next week will be 5 years old.  He is adorable and vibrant and goes to playschool and asks often about you. 

 

From Marta we receive mail weekly and we are glad that she is fine.  Also she sends us your mail.  We are also glad that dear Thea (?) is fine.  Nitek Kurta [Kuntz?]  has also married and Srulek [Smulek?]  is at home.  

 

Uncle Aaron [I assume this is Aaron Hochbaum, Regina Rappaport and Duftsha Schoenberg’s father]  is well and the dear aunt is healthwise better because she was very sick.  Their address is: Borek - Falecki near Krakow - Chrulstrasse 277.  They would be very happy if they got a letter from you.  They were the first to congratulate us on Dago's engagement and cordially enjoyed that he remained in the family.  [This is clearly a reference to my mother and father being first cousins, once removed.  The immediate cousins had the same father but different mothers, so it is not QUITE as bad as it sounds.]. 

 

The Rauchwergers are now here also and we live in the apartment together. [Miriam Rauchwerger was Jecheskel's sister, I think.] Otherwise we are satisfied and we all look well and don't worry about us.  What is with you my dears and what are the relatives doing and who takes care of your household when you are occupied, and how is the family Schaufeld?  Do you get together with Rosa [Rose Schaufeld, Jerry's mother] frequently?   Regina wrote that she does not get any mail from Rosa and that they now live in Tarnow - Krakowska 24.  You should write to her at this address. [I assume the Regina referred to here is Regina Rappaport, but it could also be Regina Singer...or yet another Regina.]

 

Now I have written and today we have Halemod [?] so I want to close with the most cordial greetings and kisses  as well as wish you all the best from all my heart.

                                                               Erna

 

To the dear bride cordial regards and mazel tov and a happy future.

For  Mr. Weisberger,  Ulreich, and  Redner cordial regards.   [Oscar Weisberger, Dave Ulreich and Dave Redner were partners with the Hochbaum brothers in a business called Midtown Novelty.  Dave Ulreich and Dave Redner later became my father's partners in the Elvee Pearl Company.]

 

  

My Dears!

As you see we are together again so receive many cordial regards from me, my dear husband and children.  You dear David, we congratulate cordially as well as your dear bride, because I belong also to the relatives.  Give her also from us cordial regards.

Miriam Rauchwerger

Greet you cordially and wish dear Dago all the best from all of our heart.

Your Helene Rauchwerger

 

Also from me best regards,

Chaskel

-------------------

We don't have the pictures that my father sent, but here are two in my files that date from 1941.  I don't know what the occasion for the second picture was (someone's engagement party?), but the contrast with what was happening in Europe is a little breath-taking.

 
----------------------------

I've been trying to track down what happened to Erna and her family.  There is a tracing service called ITS that has the German archive records and will provide information, but the only thing they could tell me, which I already knew, was that Erna died of typhus, in Bergen-Belsen, on April 26, 1945, less than two weeks after liberation. 

They didn't have any records of her husband or son.

In the Yad Vashem database, there is a record for Jecheskel, provided by his cousin Esther Gros (who provided a lot of records of our family) that says he died in Auschwitz in 1942.  

The letter translated here gives us an additional piece of information that may be useful in finding out what happened to the family.  The letter was written from Brzesko, a town in Poland east of Krakow.  If I feed that back into the archive search they may have additional information.  In the meantime, though, here is what I could learn about Brzesko.  The source is from a book about Oskar Schnindler (thank you, googlebooks....):

"About 4000 Jews lived in the Brzesko ghetto, which the Germans had opened in 1940.  Over the next two years, the Germans would send another 1000-1500 Jews there.  In September 1942, 2000 Brzesko Jews were sent to the Belzec death camp 150 miles to the northeast.  A year later, the Germans ordered the Brzesko ghetto closed and sent its remaining 5000 Jews to their death in Auschwitz.  In the midst of these horrors, the Germans also massacred another 500 Brzesko Jews.  Today, a monument in the Jewish cemetery marks the site of their mass grave."





 



Testimonials: An Introduction

In 1994, just about the time that Schindler's List was released, Steven Spielberg started sponsoring a program to collect the oral histories of Holocaust survivors.  The goal was to collect 50,000 testimonials.  They now have 52,000.

Those include at least four testimonials by our relatives:  Lena and Joe Mandelbaum,  Morris Barber (Lena's brother) and Feigusha (Fela) Lewkowitz, a cousin to both Jerry Schaufeld and Aliza Link. If you have Hochbaum or Schorr blood in you, these four relatives are probably first or second cousins, though for some of you they are several generations removed.

The testimonials are maintained by a program at called the Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive at the University of Southern California.  They can't be viewed online or accessed remotely,  but they are available for viewing at various places around the country -- mostly universities. Paula Barber gave me a copy of Morris' testimonial.  I spent a couple of days at a library at Rutgers watching Lena, Joe, and Feigusha's testimonials, and now have gotten copies of these from the Shoah Foundation.

The videos are pretty amazing.  It helps to have some background on the family and geography before you watch them, but they give us as good a picture as we can get of what actually happened before, during and after the war.

And they also give us a good picture of the different circumstances families were in  -- even those in the same family.  Lena and Morris came from a middle class family with a business over the German border, in Beuthen, a city of over 60,000 people.  Joe came from a poorer, very religious family in a small town in Poland (Szczakowa -- even harder to spell than Chrzanow), and Feigusha came from a wealthier, more cosmopolitan family, doing business in Katowice -- a city like Beuthen, but on the Polish side of the border --  and living in Chrzanow.

The experiences of Lena and Morris were probably similar to those of other members of our family who were living in Germany before the war.  These include Charlie and his family, Tamar and her family, Erna Hochbaum Hochbaum (my father's other sister) and her family,  and others.  Once productive, middle-class business people in Germany, they experienced increasing discrimination and tightening restrictions under the Nazis, and in most cases, lost their businesses and their livelihood.  Then, since the parents were Polish Jews, the family was deported back to Poland even though the children had been born in Germany.  Once in Poland, they lived a much more difficult existence as the war threatened and Germany invaded Poland. Eventually, most members of the family either wound up being selected to work as forced laborers in a labor camp, or sent to the gas chambers, frequently to Auschwitz.


The testimonials are, of course, the stories of the survivors.  There are exceptions, but for the most part, those who survived shared two, or possibly three, characteristics: 1) they were young, resilient teenagers, capable of hard work, sustained hardship and the ability to fight the diseases that almost killed them, and 2) they were sent to the labor camps, where their lives were of value to the Germans, rather than to the extermination camps.   Additionally,  3) they often were in the camps with a family member or friend who helped them survive. 

Thus, Lena, her brother Morris and her sister Regina were 14, 16, and 18, respectively, when the war broke out. Joe was 17. Other family members who survived were Regina Rappaport,  who was 13 when the war broke out, and her brother Duftsha Schoenberg, who was 21.  Charlie, Tamar and Feigusha were pre-teens when the war broke out.  "Older" survivors were Regina Singer (27 when the war started) and Feigusha's mother Esther Singer, who was 33.  "The people who were 40 years old," Lena says in her testimonial, "did not survive."  Her father was 40.

I'll spend some time in a future post on the labor camps, but, in short, there were hundreds of these labor camps, and most of them you have never heard of.  There were camps where all the workers were women -- spinning flax and making cloth and sewing uniforms, and camps where all the workers were men, building the Autobahn, converting the Russian rail tracks so German trains could run on them, building Krups factories and bunkers for SS officers, and camps where the populations were mixed, making armaments, for example.  Conditions varied, but were almost always difficult at the start and became increasingly abysmal as the war went on. 

Lena and her sister spent the war in one camp, in Czechoslovakia, and Lena attributes being alive to her sister's protection.  Joe and Morris, who had come from the same town, started out in the same camp, but then each was moved to different camps -- 6 different camps for Joe, 5 for Morris.  Feigusha and her mother were together for the entire war, with Feigusha increasingly taking on the parental role, even though she was barely a teen-ager.  Margie Danziger says that she met women who were in the same camp as her mother, Regina Rappaport, who said they were envious of her having an older woman (her cousin, Regina Singer) to take care of her.

I'll use the testimonials to help capture some of the survivor's experiences in future posts, and, if I can figure out how to do it, I may even be able to include some excerpts from the videos. 

Regina Goes to Palestine

We have some neat documentation of Regina's emigration to Palestine.

I always wondered whether Regina went to Palestine legally or illegally, but from these papers it looks like everything was on the up-and-up, at least on the German/Polish end.

Here is her receipt for the boat trip from Hamburg to Haifa/Jerusalem:

And here is what she took with her!! 

 

 



Thanks to Google translate, we can see what much of this means.  There were two "travel gear baskets"  (trunks?  suitcases?) containing the following items.  Note the tennis racket, which she actually talked about, so I believe that's real.  I'm not sure I believe she took 16 aprons, but who knows?

 First travel gear basket.  Containing the following items
2 Bath Towel
5 pajamas
18 Blunt and some bags
7 Blouses
15 Schlupfer and Bras
8 table cloths
3 nightgowns
1 bathrobe
16 aprons
8 Pair of work pants
2 coat
2 coat hanger
1 raincoat
80 pieces towels, kitchen towels, Wipe and Glaser towels
54 pieces bed linen
9 Skirts and dresses
6 Shirts
3 petticoats
5 Polo shirts
3 curtains
2 curtains
4 Dresses
2 Sweaters
1 pair of shoes
------------------------
Second travel gear basket.  Containing the following items

2 Jackets
9 Dresses
2 Costumes, coat hanger
6 Belts
18 Textbooks and 11 notebooks
3 pencils
1 tennis rackets
1 mosquito net
1 pair of rubber boots
27 handkerchiefs
1  clock
1Toilent tenartikel
9 Kopftucher
7 petticoat
1 biscuit package
11 pair of Schlupfer
1 swimsuit
3 Shirts
darning wool
15 pair of socks
10 pairs of Sackechen
4 Pair of knee trumps
2 pair of shoes
2 Sweaters
4 Tablecloths
6 napkins
3 blouses
1 hat
4 pair of peasant shoes
2 Pair of slippers
2 Mutzen
1 coat, bedclothes, Compline (feathers)
1 Quilt

I couldn't read or translate the handwritten stuff on the bottom.  Note that all these items got checked off by someone, and there's a sign-off on the back of this list that I also can't understand:

 

 

Regina needed approvals by the Beuthen city administration that she had paid all her taxes, etc.  There are a bunch of these.  Here's one:

 

 



And here's a Palestine Immigration Certificate, issued in Warsaw, that seems to imply she was legal on the Palestinian side also:

And, lastly, here's her Palestine Identity Card, issued a year and a half later, where she looks like a real sabra.  She was in an agricultural community (a moshav) called Nahalal.

Kristallnacht

In the papers the Jeannie gave me is a letter from her grandfather, David Grun or Green (actually Grun with an umlaut), written two weeks after Kristallnacht, and providing an eye witness account of what happened in their town of Beuthen that night.

It is a handwritten letter, four pages long, and I have been trying for months now to get it translated.  The major problem is that it is not only hand-written, it is written using "Alt Deutsch"   -- an "Old German" script that was used from the 15th century through the 1930's or 40's.  Here's page 1 of the letter so you can try your hand at it:

And the entire original letter is here.

I finally managed to get the letter translated by finding a translator through an organization called the Leo Baeck German-Jewish Institute in New York.  There are still some names we can't figure out, and a couple of phrases, but the essence is all here.

First, though, some background:

David and Marta and Charlie ("Bubi Grun") were living in Beuthen, in Germany,  in November, 1938.  Daddy and Sam and Henry had emigrated to the US in August, 1938, and Regina had gone to Palestine earlier in 1938.  The Nazis had forced the family to sell its business for a pittance early in 1938, and I have no idea how anybody was earning a living.  The Germans expelled all Polish Jews from Germany on October 27, 1938, and from this letter, it sounds like Erna (my father's other sister) and her family (her husband and young son) had gone back to Poland, probably to Chrzanow.  But Charlie's father was a Czech citizen which probably put him in a different category and they were still in Beuthen.

Kristallnacht ("The night of broken glass") took place on November 9 and 10, 1938.  Allegedly a series of spontaneous riots, these were in fact carefully orchestrated by the SS, so that synagogues were burnt, but nearby buildings weren't, and Jewish businesses smashed, but non-Jewish businesses weren't.  According the US Holocaust Museum, 267 synagogues were destroyed throughout Germany, Austria and the Sudetenland.  And Kristallnacht is considered a major turning point in Germany's anti-Semitism policy, culminating in the attempt to make German "judenrein" -- free of Jews.

Here's a map of the synagogues destroyed in Kristallnacht.  Beuthen isn't labeled on the map, but is not far from Gleiwitz.

Charlie and his family all lived through this, and his father's letter provides an eye-witness account -- both of the events themselves and his attempts to figure out how to keep his family safe. 

The translation below is a literal translation from the German, so it reads somewhat awkwardly, and takes a little work.  I've put some clarifying comments on who some of the people are in square brackets. 

If you have trouble with this, I've tried to provide a more readable version in this link, but I am a little concerned that I may have changed David's meaning in some cases, so try this one first:

Saturday 28th November 1938

My Dears!

Transmit to you that I am since last week Wednesday in Czechoslovakia. I was on Thursday in Bruenn [Brno, Czechoslovakia] and went on Friday to Bratislavia to visit Lili [his sister] and Ida there and I was there over Saturday and go today to Prague where I will probably stay one week.  I would like above all to move to Prague and perhaps wait there for the quota.  Whether this possibility will be available I will only see this week but I hope yes.  In any case I shall still write this week about the result.

 

What we went through in the last few weeks cannot be described in words, because      
finally you too will have heard the different reports but all that is nothing.  About the mass-deportations and over the Polish border sent people, Lev Geiger will certainly have told you because he suffered it also. 
 

Except for Merin [??] and Redner nobody of the Polish is left in Beuthen.  It goes already so far since last week that the police confiscated all the apartments that were left behind and moved the furniture and everything out, ostensibly for the N.S.V., [Nationalsozialistische Volkswohlfahrt, or "National Socialist People's Welfare" organization] and one cannot do anything about it.  You will certainly have heard that all synagogues have been burned down to the ground, among them the synagogue in Beuthen, Gleiwitz and in the whole German Reich.  On this day, at 6 o'clock in the morning, the police and S.S men got all Jews out of bed, men, women and children and did not even let them get dressed and one had to stand in front of the synagogue and watch the fire.  One stood thus under the watchful eye of the police and thousands of onlookers 3 - 4 hours. Among them were also Marta and Bubi and all others, no matter whether locals or foreigners. 

In all the apartments all the furniture, crystal, porcelain, lamps, pictures and anything else of value was smashed to pieces, carpets torn, stolen and plundered, also gold and jewelry.  Also at Merin [??] the apartment was completely destroyed and stolen. But thank God, with us nothing happened.   

 

We were then at 9 o'clock in the morning marched through the streets and delivered to the prison.  That was for me the worst hour of my life because it was not on my account but for dear Marta and dear Bubi.  But still the same day in the afternoon the women and the children were let out and that was for me a relief.  On the other hand the men had to spend the night there and were only let out the following day.   I was in a cell with 34 others like for instance: Dr. Sonnenfeld,  Dr. Kennen. Dr. Norwick, Gilbert, Professor Solinsky and persons the likes.  The next day all foreigners were dismissed, also many locals, on the other hand about 130, among them Professor Solinsky, Dr. Freankel, Dr. ??  and so on sent to a camp; one does until today not know where they are.  I believe if you can have an idea of this it is “dayenu” but one cannot imagine anything like this. 

 

Also all Jewish businesses had their windows destroyed and the merchandise thrown about.  The Jewish businesses are not allowed to reopen but have to be sold as a whole.   

But in spite of everything one must not lose one's head.  I was last week in Berlin on account of Cuba because new laws have come out and at the present time per person $800.- have to be deposited and for children up to 10 years $400.-. we would have to have deposited $2,000.-; the money has to be paid  to the firm Eiffe & Co., Antwerpen, Belgium, 240 Meir Agentur of the Hamburg - American Line.

Please however in this case nothing yet to instigate as we are not yet decided because in the end in Cuba one has to wait an uncertain time until one gets the copies taken care of; it can take a year and more and perhaps we would prefer to have the waiting period in Prague because in Cuba one is not allowed an occupation during the waiting period.  However, I do not know what and how will be, perhaps like in Cuba, but one is in Europe.  By the way, one does not know anymore what to do because one always recognizes the mistakes only later.

Well, one cannot reproach anyone because first of all everything occurs sporadically and secondly no one could think that in such a short time such a reversal could come into such a nice life.   

We are however glad that you are out and that Erna went in the last moment     

and will also hope for the best for us.  I talked in Bratislava with a woman who wants to provide the visa for Cuba without depositing money, I believe in the same manner as with Wohl.  She also promised to perhaps be able to help me with the American Consulate in Prague.  In any case I would have to apply in Prague and let the affidavit from Berlin sent to Prague.  It bothers me however that the second affidavit is not here yet.  Also this woman wants to apply for a visa for Panama or a tourist visa for U.S.A.  What do you think of it?

 

What does Wohlen say, did you talk with him? Maybe he has a trick.   As I hear one can also go to Uruguay.  I am now going to Prague and have several recommendations by big people with me and will hope that I get a result. 

 

What else does one hear with you?  When do you think to begin something?  What are the other Weissbergers, Dolly [Dave Ulreich] and Redner [Dave Redner] doing?  What is Lev Geiger doing?  Do they already have an occupation?  Where is Frau Weissberger and how far is she with her affidavit?  From Ryfka [Regina] and Erma we have continuously  mail; self understood that it is there also not easy.  Did Tina [Charlie’s cousin, Tina Green, who was here in the US] make out the affidavit for Lili? In case she did not so speak with her about it and see to it that it will be taken care of. As I wrote to you already the husband of my sister Gusti ? is in ??, look perhaps one can there stay or is there a possibility through HIAS to speed up the affidavit in Vienna. 

 

I think that for today it will be sufficient.  So be cordially greeted and be well and write me your opinion.

 

Best regards,     

              David

For the Weinbergers,  Dolly and  ?? many regards.

Be so good and see to it that the second affidavit possibly is sent right away direct to me in Beuthen.

 Best regards,

             David

________________

Here's a picture that includes most of this cast of characters, taken in Beuthen before Daddy, Sam and Henry left:



 

Standing (L to R):  Erna's husband Yesheskel (Henry) Hochbaum, Erna, David and Marta, Lili (Leonie) Green
Sitting:  Sam, Daddy (Dago), Charlie, Henry

And one of Charlie's Aunt Lili and her husband, Isidore Schwarz, taken in 1943:

 

Lili, you will remember, was the person who tracked down Charlie after the war ended, and got in contact with Daddy to get him to the US.

Charlie's father was trying to get affidavits to get his family out of Europe from this time on. I have a letter from March, 1941, that just talks about the logistics and frustrations of trying to get affidavits.  It may be the last letter my father received from him.  There are two more letters -- short ones, and undated -- that I will try to get translated.