"An evocative, thoughtful, and otherwise impressive combination of memoir, oral history, and reflection on the nature of memory by a child of Viennese Jews who immigrated in 1939 to the exotic, landlocked South American country." from Kirkus Review
Leo Spitzer, a historian, was born in Bolivia in 1939 shortly after his parents escaped from Vienna, Austria. This book is a combination of memoir and history, a fascinating and very informative portrait of a Jewish community that numbered more than 10,000 predominantly German and Austrian refugees right before and during World War II.
Spitzer’s first chapter, called “Desperate Departure,” is a concise, interesting and valuable historical survey of Austria and World War II which provides a rich context for the situation of Austria’s Jewish citizens. He demonstrates how difficult it was to get out: countries had quotas, there was much bureaucratic paperwork, and ports started closing. The author’s family ended up fleeing to Bolivia when his mother’s younger sister’s former boyfriend, who had managed to get to Bolivia, offered to get a visa for her and for her parents if she promised to marry him when she got there. Once she arrived in Bolivia, she applied for visas to bring more family members over.
Living in Bolivia was not easy for the new immigrants. Its population was mostly indigenous Indian. La Paz, the major city, was at an altitude of over 13,000 feet which made many of them sick. At lower altitudes the tropics were not hospitable either, and because getting from one place to another was difficult, smaller towns were isolated from each other. In addition, the Bolivian government was unstable and the refugees encountered some latent anti-Semitism.
But the refugees made a life for themselves there, recreating, as best they could, the European culture they had left behind. For example they opened coffee houses, bakeries, stores selling European style clothes, and held chamber music concerts and evenings of cabaret theater. Spitzer has wonderful memories of going to the Austrian Club with his parents each Sunday where they would socialize with other refugees, all speaking in German, and he would delight in having a “typical” Austrian meal. He also notes that the Austrian/German Jewish community established a community center to minister to their needs as well as a school, Escuela Boliviana-Israelita, where the author was a pupil. Teachers were refugees who taught a largely European-style curriculum.
Spitzer has an informative chapter called “Buena Tierra” the name of a doomed agricultural community that was funded partly by the American Joint Distribution Committee and partly by the mining tycoon and Bolivian resident Moritz (Maurizio) Hochschild. He explains in detail how the plan emerged, what its goals were, and why it failed.
Hotel Bolivia was the name many refugees called their new country. They clung to each other, didn’t really work at assimilating, and once the war was over most left. Some had family who had immigrated elsewhere and they went to join them; others saw better opportunities in countries that did not feel so “foreign.” In 1950 when Spitzer was 10 years old his family left for America where his mother’s sister had already settled. Despite the hard times they’d experienced living in Bolivia, when Spitzer conducted interviews with those who left, he found they all looked back at the years in Bolivia as good years. After all, they had escaped a terrible fate.
This memoir includes photos and reproductions of documents, a Preface and a Postscript by the author, chapter end notes supplying information about sources, a section called "Personal Sources" which is list of all of the people Spitzer interviewed, and an Index.
To read an article about the history of the Jewish refugees in Bolivia, click here.
People
Family on father’s side
Leopold Spitzer – married to Lena
Jeno (Eugene) Spitzer – son of Leopold and Lena; married to Rose
Leo Spitzer – son of Eugene and Rose; married to Marianne (Manon) Hirsch; author
Alexander, Oliver, Gabriel - children of Leo and Marianne
Elly Spitzer Shapiro – daughter of Eugene and Rose
Tony Spitzer – son of Eugene and Rose
Carl – son of Eugene and Rose
Mindy, Erik, Jessica - children of Leo Spitzer's siblings (not clear which child belongs to which parent)
Kathe Spiegler – Eugene’s half-sister
Gisi – Eugene’s half-sister; married to Leopold Kohn
Frieda Kohn Wolfinger – daughter of Gisi and Leopold
Rosi Kohn - daughter of Gisi and Leopold
Hilde Kohn – daughter of Gisi and Leopold
Ferry Kohn– son of Gisi and Leopold
Family on mother’s side
Nathan Wolfinger – married Bertha
Regi Wolfinger – married Ernst Frankl
George Frankl
Rose Wolfinger - married Jeno (Rose) Spitzer; parents of author (see above)
Julius Wolfinger - relationship not clear
Ella Wolfinger - relationship not clear
Sigi Schneider – Rose’s cousin
Ida – Rose’s aunt
Dolfi Schneider – Ida’s son
Friends, acquaintances, and sources
Simon Aizencang (Eisenzang)
Marek Ajke
Susana Goldbaum de Ajke
M.S. Aspis
Louisa Saperstein Badner
Aron Balbaryski
Jacabo Blankitny
Eduard and Trude Blumberg
Walter Blumenau
Otto Braun
Alfred Brecher
Ludwig Capauner
Alexander Deutsch
Stephen Fisch
Naftali Fischzang
Walter E. Fried
Salo Frischman
Max Gans
Susan Gara-Frei
Jaime Gottleib
Werner Guttentag
Eva Renata Guttentag
Enrique Ellinger (relative of Mauricio Hochschild)
Trude Hassberg
Otto and Gisi Helfer
Ilse Herz
Herman Hirsch
Moritz (Mauricio) Hochschild
Hans Homburger
Marcos Iberkleid
Heinz Jordan
Hans Jungstein
Fritz, Ernst, and Heinz Kalmar
Mia Kalmar
Alicia Kavlin
Walter and Stefi Kudelka
Graciela “Leli” Kudelka
Hans Kulka
Rosl Kupferstein
Heini and Liesl Lizczenko
F.D. Lucas
Heinz Markstein
Eva Markus
Julio Meier
Samuel Mejer
Heinrich Neumann
Josef Pasternak
H. Peiser
Heinz and Hanni Reigler Pinshower
Theresa Blau Rechnitzer
Lizi Rosenfeldt
Werner Schein
Egon Schwarz
Renata Schwarz
Werner Selo
Gunter and Susi Siemons
Andres Simon
Abel Solis
Max Sommer
Bruno Stroheim
Fiszel Szwerdszarf
Egon Taus
Ursula Lowenstein Taus
Erna Terrel
Alfredo Weinhaber
Guillermo Wiener
Lotte Weisz
Manfred Wihl
Places and Institutions
Rechnitz, Austria
Vienna, Austria
Le Paz, Bolivia
Buena Tierra Agricultural Colony, Bolivia
Cochabamba, Bolivia
Sucre, Bolivia
Comunidad Israelita, Bolivia
Circulo Israelita, Bolivia,
Escuela Boliviana-Israelita, Bolivia
Monday, January 31, 2011
Monday, January 24, 2011
The Terezin Diary of Gonda Redlich, Saul S. Friedman editor, published in Hebrew in 1982, in English in 1992
"The book offers a poignant, detailed record of the inmates' daily struggle for survival and their painful pretense of leading a normal life." from a review in Publisher's Weekly, October, 1992.
Egon “Gonda” Redlich, born in 1916, was deported from Prague to Terezin, the "model" ghetto, late in 1941 and started his diary on January 1, 1942. Having been an active Zionist, a school teacher and soccer coach he was chosen to be the head of the Jugendfursorge, the Youth Services Department, making him responsible for the 15,000 children who passed through Terezin. He was also a member of the Transport and Appeals Committee.
Redlich serves as an important eye-witness to day-to-day life in Terezin, including the 1944 visit by the International Red Cross that the Nazis had prepared for by staging the event. Redlich made entries almost daily and they are usually terse. He despaired about the living conditions and he felt burdened by his responsibilities, but he also expressed great love for Gerta Beck who was still in Prague at the start of his diary. Soon she joined him in the ghetto. When their baby was born it is heartbreaking to read of their excitement at his birth, their fears, their hope. The book includes a short diary written for the baby.
Redlich’s diary reveals what it was like to be part of the ghetto administration. The Nazis used the Altestenrat, the Jewish Elders Council, to run the ghetto, and he makes us feel the tension that they lived with every day. Ghetto life exacerbated fault lines amongst members of the administration as well as amongst the residents. Zionists had differences with assimilationists. There were disagreements when it came to sharing space between a group working on cultural affairs and others who wanted the space for religious observance. Practicing Catholics and Protestants who had been deported to Terezin because they were converts from Judaism or the descendants of converts caused dissension because they wanted to celebrate Christmas. And there was long-standing friction between German Jews and Czech Jews that erupted under the difficult ghetto conditions.
To the general discomfort and fear caused by overcrowding, disease, infestations, and meager food supplies, was added the fear of the unknown – who would be transported next and where would the transports be going? What was particularly devastating and what took its toll is Redlich’s role in obeying the Nazi orders to help fill transports with children. When the Nazis said they needed a certain number, it was his job to work with others to come up with a list.
It was agonizing for Redlich to be a member of the Transport and Appeals Committee. It didn’t take him long to realize that people did whatever they could to pull rank; some had friends in high places, some used bribery to buy themselves off of transport lists. Redlich himself was approached by family members and friends of family who asked for his help. When he couldn’t help them, they accused him of disloyalty. He did manage to exempt his mother-in-law and brother-in-law from being transported early on. But all these exemptions did in most cases was buy time. None of his administrative positions helped him from being transported. Gonda, his wife and seven-month-old son were sent to Auschwitz in October of 1944.
The Diary of Gonda Redlich includes extensive footnotes with rich in information including other sources to consult. Many entries refer to the Hebrew University Oral History Project and the Beit Terezin archives in Israel. There is a Foreward by Nora Levin in which she writes about the founding of Terezin by the Nazis and the role Gonda Redlich played in its administration. In the Introduction Saul S. Friedman draws a fuller portrait of Redlich. Also included are a map of Terezin, Bibliographic Notes, an Index, and a photo of Gonda Redlich.
To watch a short clip from CNN on a special Monopoly board created at Terezin that includes an interview with two brothers who survived, click here.
For an interesting discussion of Terezin, its conditions, and some discussions of health issues there, click here.
To read a review in a previous post of a cookbook put together by women in Terezin, click here.
People
Max Redlich – Gonda’s father
Egon “Gonda” Redlich – “married” Gerta Beck; author
Dan Peter Beck– their son
Robert and Hugo Redlich – Gonda’s brothers
Wilma Goldstein – Gonda’s sister
Bohusch Goldstein – Gonda’s brother-in-law
Vitek Beck – Gerta’s brother
Medah Beck – Gerta’s sister
Carolina – Gonda’s aunt
Bertik – Gonda’s uncle
Eli Bachner
Stella Berger
Rudolph Bergman
Dita – Stella’s sister
Leo Baeck
Ruth Baeck – relative of Leo Baeck
Honzo Brammer
Fredy Hirsch
Jacob Edelstein – married to Miriam Olliner
Arieh Edelstein – their son
Dominik Eisenberger
Honza Eisenberger – his son
Walter Eisinger
Arthur and Rosa Englander
Paul Eppstein
Nimka Federer
Ada Fischer
Desider Friedmann
Walter Freud
Tm Fritta
Ruth Gaertner
Willy and Manya Groag
Leo Janowitz
Franz Kahn
Egon Kisch
Heinrich Klang
Gideon Klein
Ota Klein
Sigi Kwasniewski
Egon Loebner
Karl Lowenstein
Walter Lowinger
Paul Morgenstern
Aaron Menczer
Erich Munk
Benjamin Murmelstein
Trude Herzl – married to Richard Neumann
Erich Oesterreicher
Sonya Okun
Edith Ornstein
Freidrich Placzek
Karel Polaczek
Ela Polak
Egon Popper
Fritz Prager
Dov Revesz
Kamila Rosenbaum
Igo Rosenfeld
Dita Saxl
Rudy Sachsl
Heinze Schuster
Zeev Shek
Willy Schoenfeld
Vlasta Schoenova
Berthold Simonson
Henrich Stahl
Richard Stein
Hanus Sylvester
Zikmund Unger
Giri Vogel
Robert Weinberger
Grete Wiener
Yaakov Wurzel
Gershon Zetner
Otto and Fritzi Zucker
Places
Terezin, Czechoslovakia
Olmutz, Moravia
Egon “Gonda” Redlich, born in 1916, was deported from Prague to Terezin, the "model" ghetto, late in 1941 and started his diary on January 1, 1942. Having been an active Zionist, a school teacher and soccer coach he was chosen to be the head of the Jugendfursorge, the Youth Services Department, making him responsible for the 15,000 children who passed through Terezin. He was also a member of the Transport and Appeals Committee.
Redlich serves as an important eye-witness to day-to-day life in Terezin, including the 1944 visit by the International Red Cross that the Nazis had prepared for by staging the event. Redlich made entries almost daily and they are usually terse. He despaired about the living conditions and he felt burdened by his responsibilities, but he also expressed great love for Gerta Beck who was still in Prague at the start of his diary. Soon she joined him in the ghetto. When their baby was born it is heartbreaking to read of their excitement at his birth, their fears, their hope. The book includes a short diary written for the baby.
Redlich’s diary reveals what it was like to be part of the ghetto administration. The Nazis used the Altestenrat, the Jewish Elders Council, to run the ghetto, and he makes us feel the tension that they lived with every day. Ghetto life exacerbated fault lines amongst members of the administration as well as amongst the residents. Zionists had differences with assimilationists. There were disagreements when it came to sharing space between a group working on cultural affairs and others who wanted the space for religious observance. Practicing Catholics and Protestants who had been deported to Terezin because they were converts from Judaism or the descendants of converts caused dissension because they wanted to celebrate Christmas. And there was long-standing friction between German Jews and Czech Jews that erupted under the difficult ghetto conditions.
To the general discomfort and fear caused by overcrowding, disease, infestations, and meager food supplies, was added the fear of the unknown – who would be transported next and where would the transports be going? What was particularly devastating and what took its toll is Redlich’s role in obeying the Nazi orders to help fill transports with children. When the Nazis said they needed a certain number, it was his job to work with others to come up with a list.
It was agonizing for Redlich to be a member of the Transport and Appeals Committee. It didn’t take him long to realize that people did whatever they could to pull rank; some had friends in high places, some used bribery to buy themselves off of transport lists. Redlich himself was approached by family members and friends of family who asked for his help. When he couldn’t help them, they accused him of disloyalty. He did manage to exempt his mother-in-law and brother-in-law from being transported early on. But all these exemptions did in most cases was buy time. None of his administrative positions helped him from being transported. Gonda, his wife and seven-month-old son were sent to Auschwitz in October of 1944.
The Diary of Gonda Redlich includes extensive footnotes with rich in information including other sources to consult. Many entries refer to the Hebrew University Oral History Project and the Beit Terezin archives in Israel. There is a Foreward by Nora Levin in which she writes about the founding of Terezin by the Nazis and the role Gonda Redlich played in its administration. In the Introduction Saul S. Friedman draws a fuller portrait of Redlich. Also included are a map of Terezin, Bibliographic Notes, an Index, and a photo of Gonda Redlich.
To watch a short clip from CNN on a special Monopoly board created at Terezin that includes an interview with two brothers who survived, click here.
For an interesting discussion of Terezin, its conditions, and some discussions of health issues there, click here.
To read a review in a previous post of a cookbook put together by women in Terezin, click here.
People
Max Redlich – Gonda’s father
Egon “Gonda” Redlich – “married” Gerta Beck; author
Dan Peter Beck– their son
Robert and Hugo Redlich – Gonda’s brothers
Wilma Goldstein – Gonda’s sister
Bohusch Goldstein – Gonda’s brother-in-law
Vitek Beck – Gerta’s brother
Medah Beck – Gerta’s sister
Carolina – Gonda’s aunt
Bertik – Gonda’s uncle
Eli Bachner
Stella Berger
Rudolph Bergman
Dita – Stella’s sister
Leo Baeck
Ruth Baeck – relative of Leo Baeck
Honzo Brammer
Fredy Hirsch
Jacob Edelstein – married to Miriam Olliner
Arieh Edelstein – their son
Dominik Eisenberger
Honza Eisenberger – his son
Walter Eisinger
Arthur and Rosa Englander
Paul Eppstein
Nimka Federer
Ada Fischer
Desider Friedmann
Walter Freud
Tm Fritta
Ruth Gaertner
Willy and Manya Groag
Leo Janowitz
Franz Kahn
Egon Kisch
Heinrich Klang
Gideon Klein
Ota Klein
Sigi Kwasniewski
Egon Loebner
Karl Lowenstein
Walter Lowinger
Paul Morgenstern
Aaron Menczer
Erich Munk
Benjamin Murmelstein
Trude Herzl – married to Richard Neumann
Erich Oesterreicher
Sonya Okun
Edith Ornstein
Freidrich Placzek
Karel Polaczek
Ela Polak
Egon Popper
Fritz Prager
Dov Revesz
Kamila Rosenbaum
Igo Rosenfeld
Dita Saxl
Rudy Sachsl
Heinze Schuster
Zeev Shek
Willy Schoenfeld
Vlasta Schoenova
Berthold Simonson
Henrich Stahl
Richard Stein
Hanus Sylvester
Zikmund Unger
Giri Vogel
Robert Weinberger
Grete Wiener
Yaakov Wurzel
Gershon Zetner
Otto and Fritzi Zucker
Places
Terezin, Czechoslovakia
Olmutz, Moravia
Monday, January 17, 2011
Family Matters: Sam, Jennie and the Kids by Burton Bernstein, 1982
"Family Matters is an endearing and intimate portrait of a close-knit Jewish family..." from an article by Bill Gladstone about memoirs by Jewish writers published in the Canadian Jewish News, October 2010
This engaging memoir written by the younger brother of the composer/conductor Leonard Bernstein is the classic story of immigrants making a life in America. The focus is on Sam and Jennie Bernstein, the immigrant parents of Leonard, Shirley and the author, Burton. Burton Bernstein has divided his story into two halves: the title of Part I is Sam and Jennie. Part II is called The Kids.
Bernstein starts the story back in Ukraine before Sam and Jennie met. Sam’s parents wanted him to become a scholar of the Talmud, but when he saw an opportunity as a teenager, he ran away to America. Jennie’s family was very poor; her parents expected that going to America would improve their living conditions and their prospects. Sam got right to work cleaning fish in the Fulton Fish Market, but restless and ambitious, he soon found a better job selling beauty and hair products and eventually moved to the Boston, Massachusetts area where he met Jennie.
Bernstein has wonderful descriptions of their wedding and vivid narrations of the early difficult years of their marriage. Sam eventually started his own beauty and hair products business and did very well, but life wasn’t easy for him. He was always worried about money even when he was doing well, and his moods would darken also when he fretted over the direction his children’s lives were taking.
Part II, about Sam and Jennie’s growing family, spends, understandably, the lion’s share of the narration on their gifted son Leonard. Sam was opinionated, stubborn and upset at his oldest son’s obsession with music. This was not a career option as far as he was concerned; his idea of a musician was a “klezmer,” an itinerant shtetl musician. He didn’t come to America and build up a thriving business to see his child have that kind of a future.
Although Sam never got over the fact that none of his children were interested in the family business, what they called his "fourth child," he eventually was won over by Leonard Bernstein’s growing success and fame. The author describes with animation Leonard Bernstein’s big break: the November 1942 Carnegie Hall concert where on short notice he took over for an ailing Bruno Walter, his family in attendance in the conductor’s box. At Leonard Bernstein’s insistence Sam traveled to Moscow to watch his son conduct and was reunited with a brother and a nephew he hadn’t seen since he’d left Ukraine as a teenager. Bernstein sensitively describes the irreconcilable generational divide in this immigrant family. Although this is a story of a family with a very famous son, its concerns are the concerns of many families of immigrants and their American born children.
To go to a virtual exhibit created by the Library of Congress about Jewish immigration to America, click here.
(Thanks to Bill Gladstone and Avotenu for calling this memoir to my attention.)
People
Author's family on his father's side
Bazalel Bernstein
Yehuda (Yudel) Bernstein – Bazelel’s grandson; married Dinah Malamud
Samuel Joseph (first named Ysroel Yehuda) – son of Yehuda and Dinah; married Jennie Resnick
Leonard (changed from Louis) Bernstein – son of Samuel and Jennie; married Felicia Montealegre Cohn
Jamie, Alexander, Nina – children of Leonard and Felicia
Shirley – daughter of Samuel and Jennie
Burton Bernstein – son of Samuel and Jennnie; married to Ellen (divorced); author
Karen and Michael - children of Burton
Khaye (Clara) – daughter of Yehuda and Dinah
Sura-Rivka – daughter of Yehuda and Dinah; married Srulik Zvainboim
Mikhoel – son of Sura-Rivka and Srulik; married Lena Neishtat
Aleksandr – son of Mikhoel and Lena
Meir, Bezalel, Mendel; sons of Sura-Rivka and Srulik
Shlomo (Semyon) Bernstein – son of Yehuda and Dinah; married to Fenye
Aleksandr Bernstein – son of Shlomo and Fenye
Hilda Malamud
Dina- daughter of Hilda; married Yehuda Bernstein
Herschel Malamud (Harry Levy in America) – son of Hilda; married Polly Kleiman
Shlomo – son of Hilda
Abraham Malamud (Miller) – Samuel’s first cousin; married Annie
Blanche Brenner – a cousin
Roy Cohn – father of Felicia Montealegre Cohn
Author’s family on his mother’s side
Eliezer Zorfas – married to Charna
Perel (Pearl) Zorfas – daughter of Eliezer and Charna; married to Simcha (Samuel) Resnick
Charna (Jennie) – daughter of Simcha and Perel
Malka Leah (Elizabeth) – daughter of Simcha and Perel
Yosef (Joseph) – son of Simcha and Perel
Louis – son of Samuel and Pearl
Bertha – daughter of Samuel and Pearl
Dorothy – daughter of Samuel and Pearl
David Resnick – brother to Simcha
Friends and Acquaintances
Victor Alpert
Moris CitrinIsadore Finkelstein
Morris Finn
Berthold, Max,and Milton Frankel
Elaine Golden
Beatrice Gordon (related to the Finn family)
Adolph Green
George Hochman
Isaac Hochman
I.M. Kaplan
Jean and Thelma Kaplan – twins
Freida and Sarah Karp – sisters
Ben Marcus
Grace and Sumner Marcus – children of Ben
Samuel Pearlman
Ruth Potash
Sid Ramin
Charles Revson
H.H. Rubenovitz
Eddie Ryack
Benjamin Sacks
Daniel Salamoff
Dana Schnittkind
Meyer Schwartz
Rose Schwartz
Doris Smith
Rachael Stein
Bessie Zarling
Harold Zarling – Bessie’s son
Ruthie and Nettie Zion
Places
Beresdiv, Ukraine
Korets, Urkraine
Shepetovka, Ukraine
Sudilkov, Ukraine
Mezhiritsh, Ukraine
Dnepropetrovsk
Novosibirsk, Siberia
Moscow, Soviet Union
Newton, Massachusetts
Sharon, Massachusetts
Chelsea, Massachusetts
Brookline, Massachusetts
Lawrence, Massachusetts
Boston, Massachusetts
Revere, Massachusetts
Hartford, Connecticut
Mishkan Tefila, Roxbury, Massachusetts
Hebrew Home for the Aged, Dorchester, Massachusetts
Congregation Adath Sharon, Sharon, Massachusetts
Camp Onota, Western Massachusetts
Singer’s Inn, Sharon, Massachusetts
“The Grove,” Sharon, Massachusetts
This engaging memoir written by the younger brother of the composer/conductor Leonard Bernstein is the classic story of immigrants making a life in America. The focus is on Sam and Jennie Bernstein, the immigrant parents of Leonard, Shirley and the author, Burton. Burton Bernstein has divided his story into two halves: the title of Part I is Sam and Jennie. Part II is called The Kids.
Bernstein starts the story back in Ukraine before Sam and Jennie met. Sam’s parents wanted him to become a scholar of the Talmud, but when he saw an opportunity as a teenager, he ran away to America. Jennie’s family was very poor; her parents expected that going to America would improve their living conditions and their prospects. Sam got right to work cleaning fish in the Fulton Fish Market, but restless and ambitious, he soon found a better job selling beauty and hair products and eventually moved to the Boston, Massachusetts area where he met Jennie.
Bernstein has wonderful descriptions of their wedding and vivid narrations of the early difficult years of their marriage. Sam eventually started his own beauty and hair products business and did very well, but life wasn’t easy for him. He was always worried about money even when he was doing well, and his moods would darken also when he fretted over the direction his children’s lives were taking.
Part II, about Sam and Jennie’s growing family, spends, understandably, the lion’s share of the narration on their gifted son Leonard. Sam was opinionated, stubborn and upset at his oldest son’s obsession with music. This was not a career option as far as he was concerned; his idea of a musician was a “klezmer,” an itinerant shtetl musician. He didn’t come to America and build up a thriving business to see his child have that kind of a future.
Although Sam never got over the fact that none of his children were interested in the family business, what they called his "fourth child," he eventually was won over by Leonard Bernstein’s growing success and fame. The author describes with animation Leonard Bernstein’s big break: the November 1942 Carnegie Hall concert where on short notice he took over for an ailing Bruno Walter, his family in attendance in the conductor’s box. At Leonard Bernstein’s insistence Sam traveled to Moscow to watch his son conduct and was reunited with a brother and a nephew he hadn’t seen since he’d left Ukraine as a teenager. Bernstein sensitively describes the irreconcilable generational divide in this immigrant family. Although this is a story of a family with a very famous son, its concerns are the concerns of many families of immigrants and their American born children.
To go to a virtual exhibit created by the Library of Congress about Jewish immigration to America, click here.
(Thanks to Bill Gladstone and Avotenu for calling this memoir to my attention.)
People
Author's family on his father's side
Bazalel Bernstein
Yehuda (Yudel) Bernstein – Bazelel’s grandson; married Dinah Malamud
Samuel Joseph (first named Ysroel Yehuda) – son of Yehuda and Dinah; married Jennie Resnick
Leonard (changed from Louis) Bernstein – son of Samuel and Jennie; married Felicia Montealegre Cohn
Jamie, Alexander, Nina – children of Leonard and Felicia
Shirley – daughter of Samuel and Jennie
Burton Bernstein – son of Samuel and Jennnie; married to Ellen (divorced); author
Karen and Michael - children of Burton
Khaye (Clara) – daughter of Yehuda and Dinah
Sura-Rivka – daughter of Yehuda and Dinah; married Srulik Zvainboim
Mikhoel – son of Sura-Rivka and Srulik; married Lena Neishtat
Aleksandr – son of Mikhoel and Lena
Meir, Bezalel, Mendel; sons of Sura-Rivka and Srulik
Shlomo (Semyon) Bernstein – son of Yehuda and Dinah; married to Fenye
Aleksandr Bernstein – son of Shlomo and Fenye
Hilda Malamud
Dina- daughter of Hilda; married Yehuda Bernstein
Herschel Malamud (Harry Levy in America) – son of Hilda; married Polly Kleiman
Shlomo – son of Hilda
Abraham Malamud (Miller) – Samuel’s first cousin; married Annie
Blanche Brenner – a cousin
Roy Cohn – father of Felicia Montealegre Cohn
Author’s family on his mother’s side
Eliezer Zorfas – married to Charna
Perel (Pearl) Zorfas – daughter of Eliezer and Charna; married to Simcha (Samuel) Resnick
Charna (Jennie) – daughter of Simcha and Perel
Malka Leah (Elizabeth) – daughter of Simcha and Perel
Yosef (Joseph) – son of Simcha and Perel
Louis – son of Samuel and Pearl
Bertha – daughter of Samuel and Pearl
Dorothy – daughter of Samuel and Pearl
David Resnick – brother to Simcha
Friends and Acquaintances
Victor Alpert
Moris CitrinIsadore Finkelstein
Morris Finn
Berthold, Max,and Milton Frankel
Elaine Golden
Beatrice Gordon (related to the Finn family)
Adolph Green
George Hochman
Isaac Hochman
I.M. Kaplan
Jean and Thelma Kaplan – twins
Freida and Sarah Karp – sisters
Ben Marcus
Grace and Sumner Marcus – children of Ben
Samuel Pearlman
Ruth Potash
Sid Ramin
Charles Revson
H.H. Rubenovitz
Eddie Ryack
Benjamin Sacks
Daniel Salamoff
Dana Schnittkind
Meyer Schwartz
Rose Schwartz
Doris Smith
Rachael Stein
Bessie Zarling
Harold Zarling – Bessie’s son
Ruthie and Nettie Zion
Places
Beresdiv, Ukraine
Korets, Urkraine
Shepetovka, Ukraine
Sudilkov, Ukraine
Mezhiritsh, Ukraine
Dnepropetrovsk
Novosibirsk, Siberia
Moscow, Soviet Union
Newton, Massachusetts
Sharon, Massachusetts
Chelsea, Massachusetts
Brookline, Massachusetts
Lawrence, Massachusetts
Boston, Massachusetts
Revere, Massachusetts
Hartford, Connecticut
Mishkan Tefila, Roxbury, Massachusetts
Hebrew Home for the Aged, Dorchester, Massachusetts
Congregation Adath Sharon, Sharon, Massachusetts
Camp Onota, Western Massachusetts
Singer’s Inn, Sharon, Massachusetts
“The Grove,” Sharon, Massachusetts
Monday, January 10, 2011
A Lucky Child: A Memoir of Surviving Auschwitz as a Young Boy by Thomas Buergenthal 2009
" [Thomas Buergenthal's] plainspoken autobiography demonstrates that it is still possible for a Holocaust memoir to astonish." from a review by Nora Krug in the Washington Post on October 10, 2010
Thomas Buergenthal, currently American Judge in the International Court of Justice in The Hague, has written a moving memoir about his childhood. Buergenthal was born in 1934 to parents who each had left Germany because of the rise of Hitler and met and married in Lobochna, a resort town, in what was then Czechoslovakia. The family ended up trying to outrun Hitler, but did not succeed. When Czechoslovakia was invaded, they fled to Katowice in Poland which had a large German Jewish refugee population. There they expected to procure exit visas to England but before they could get out, Poland was invaded and they were on the run again. They spent four years in the Kielce ghetto in Poland, and when it was liquidated they ended up in Auschwitz.
A family of three up until then, they were now split up and Thomas Buergenthal, only ten years old, had to fend for himself. Despite his tumultuous childhood and the cruelty and deprivation he experienced, Buergenthal was a “lucky child” in many ways. He was street smart and kept his wits about him. He was blond and spoke German. He had adults in the various camps, even some Germans, who took a liking to him and protected him. And, considering that the odds were stacked against his survival, he frequently just happened to be in the right place at the right time and avoided annihilation.
His survival, in fact, was astounding. He was part of the death march from Auschwitz as was Elie Wiesel (separate post); after walking for days, those who survived were then packed into cattle cars and transported for days until they got to the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp in Germany. There he entered the infirmary where two toes were cut off because of damage from frostbite.
Shortly after the war was over he became a resident of a Jewish Orphanage in Otwock, and 1 ½ years after the war ended he was reunited with his mother who had moved back to Gottingen, Germany, her home town and had been searching for him ever since she had been liberated. The story of their being reunited includes the suspense of fiction. It involved many agencies including the American Joint Distribution Committee, the Jewish Agency, and Bricha, and was aided by many people including Thomas Buergenthal’s mother’s brother Eric who lived in Patterson, New Jersey. To get Buergenthal from Poland to Germany across borders without the right papers a circuitous trip was devised where he was taken from border to border and handed over at each border to a different courier who would take him on the next part of his journey.
In a Preface Buergenthal explains that he is writing this memoir for his children and grandchildren who have never heard the whole story of his childhood and for those in the wider world who tend to reduce the Holocaust to a “neat” number of victims which he feels denies those victims their humanity. He feels it is important for eye witnesses to continue to publish their stories.
Buergenthal also includes an Epilogue about his work as a human rights lawyer. He is sure that his experience of human rights abuse prompted him to specialize in that area of the law. He wants to continue to work to prevent what happened to him from happening to anyone else. He is convinced that we must be ever vigilant and fight against genocide. He knows that after the war he wanted to kill Germans but that eventually those feelings disipated. He understood that killing Germans would not bring back Jewish victims. He continues to ponder the question: Why do people hate?
This memoir includes a Foreward by Elie Wiesel, a war-time map that includes the towns and concentration camps important in this memoir, and photos of family members and places associated with the family.
To watch a very interesting video of an interview with Thomas Buergenthal talking about the writing of this memoir which includes photos of his family and scenes from the Holocaust, click here.
To read a 2/18/11 New York Times article on current thoughts about the need for new kinds of exhibitions at Auschwitz written by Michael Kimmelman, click here.
People
Paul Silbergleit - married Rosa Blum
Gerda – daughter of Paul and Rosa; married Mundek Buergenthal; 2nd husband Leon Reitter; 3rd husband Jacob (Jack) Rosenholz
Thomas Buergenthal – son of Gerta and Mundek; married to Peggy; author
Eric Silberg (Silbergleit) – son of Paul and Rosa; married to Senta
Gay – daughter of Eric and Senda
Erich Godal
Freda Cohen Koren
Richard Grafenburg
Places
Lobochna, Czechoslovakia
Auschwitz, Poland
Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, Germany
Zilina, Czechoslovakia
Katowice, Poland
Kielce, Poland
Otwock, Poland
Ravensbruck, Germany
Flossenburg, Germany
Patterson, New Jersey
Gottingen, Germany
Thomas Buergenthal, currently American Judge in the International Court of Justice in The Hague, has written a moving memoir about his childhood. Buergenthal was born in 1934 to parents who each had left Germany because of the rise of Hitler and met and married in Lobochna, a resort town, in what was then Czechoslovakia. The family ended up trying to outrun Hitler, but did not succeed. When Czechoslovakia was invaded, they fled to Katowice in Poland which had a large German Jewish refugee population. There they expected to procure exit visas to England but before they could get out, Poland was invaded and they were on the run again. They spent four years in the Kielce ghetto in Poland, and when it was liquidated they ended up in Auschwitz.
A family of three up until then, they were now split up and Thomas Buergenthal, only ten years old, had to fend for himself. Despite his tumultuous childhood and the cruelty and deprivation he experienced, Buergenthal was a “lucky child” in many ways. He was street smart and kept his wits about him. He was blond and spoke German. He had adults in the various camps, even some Germans, who took a liking to him and protected him. And, considering that the odds were stacked against his survival, he frequently just happened to be in the right place at the right time and avoided annihilation.
His survival, in fact, was astounding. He was part of the death march from Auschwitz as was Elie Wiesel (separate post); after walking for days, those who survived were then packed into cattle cars and transported for days until they got to the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp in Germany. There he entered the infirmary where two toes were cut off because of damage from frostbite.
Shortly after the war was over he became a resident of a Jewish Orphanage in Otwock, and 1 ½ years after the war ended he was reunited with his mother who had moved back to Gottingen, Germany, her home town and had been searching for him ever since she had been liberated. The story of their being reunited includes the suspense of fiction. It involved many agencies including the American Joint Distribution Committee, the Jewish Agency, and Bricha, and was aided by many people including Thomas Buergenthal’s mother’s brother Eric who lived in Patterson, New Jersey. To get Buergenthal from Poland to Germany across borders without the right papers a circuitous trip was devised where he was taken from border to border and handed over at each border to a different courier who would take him on the next part of his journey.
In a Preface Buergenthal explains that he is writing this memoir for his children and grandchildren who have never heard the whole story of his childhood and for those in the wider world who tend to reduce the Holocaust to a “neat” number of victims which he feels denies those victims their humanity. He feels it is important for eye witnesses to continue to publish their stories.
Buergenthal also includes an Epilogue about his work as a human rights lawyer. He is sure that his experience of human rights abuse prompted him to specialize in that area of the law. He wants to continue to work to prevent what happened to him from happening to anyone else. He is convinced that we must be ever vigilant and fight against genocide. He knows that after the war he wanted to kill Germans but that eventually those feelings disipated. He understood that killing Germans would not bring back Jewish victims. He continues to ponder the question: Why do people hate?
This memoir includes a Foreward by Elie Wiesel, a war-time map that includes the towns and concentration camps important in this memoir, and photos of family members and places associated with the family.
To watch a very interesting video of an interview with Thomas Buergenthal talking about the writing of this memoir which includes photos of his family and scenes from the Holocaust, click here.
To read a 2/18/11 New York Times article on current thoughts about the need for new kinds of exhibitions at Auschwitz written by Michael Kimmelman, click here.
People
Paul Silbergleit - married Rosa Blum
Gerda – daughter of Paul and Rosa; married Mundek Buergenthal; 2nd husband Leon Reitter; 3rd husband Jacob (Jack) Rosenholz
Thomas Buergenthal – son of Gerta and Mundek; married to Peggy; author
Eric Silberg (Silbergleit) – son of Paul and Rosa; married to Senta
Gay – daughter of Eric and Senda
Erich Godal
Freda Cohen Koren
Richard Grafenburg
Places
Lobochna, Czechoslovakia
Auschwitz, Poland
Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, Germany
Zilina, Czechoslovakia
Katowice, Poland
Kielce, Poland
Otwock, Poland
Ravensbruck, Germany
Flossenburg, Germany
Patterson, New Jersey
Gottingen, Germany
Monday, January 3, 2011
The Diary of Petr Ginz 1941-1942 by Petr Ginz, edited by Chava Pressburger, published in English in 2007
"While the diary itself is mainly recitations of the personal and political events of his days, his art and the brief excerpts of his journalism (he founded and edited a magazine in Theresienstadt) and novels reveal a burdened though delicate heart, and a fine mind and hand that were never allowed to grow so much finer." from a review by Daniel Jonah Goldenhagen in the Washington Post, May 13, 2007
Petr Ginz was 14 when he was transported to the Thereisenstadt concentration camp from his home in Prague and 16 when he was killed in Auschwitz. In 2003 a Prague resident came forward with Petr Ginz’s diary and exercise books that contained fiction and drawings which had been hidden and forgotten. Petr’s sister, Chana Pressburger, a resident of Israel who had also been interned at Thereisenstadt, authenticated the two notebooks and the handwriting and then served as the editor for the first Czech edition and subsequent translations of the diary.
Petr wrote in the diary from February, 1941 to August, 1942. He made his last entry two months before being deported to Thereisenstadt. Even though his mother was not Jewish, his family observed the Jewish holidays and seemed very close to Petr’s father’s large extended family.
Petr’s entries are often terse. They frequently come across as merely a record of what he did or saw that day. In print he does not speculate about the war, bemoan his fate or that of his family. But in his recording of what was happening you know that he was fully aware. For example, one minute he is reporting about his report card grades, then he writes about his being fitted for glasses, then of his being elected class president, then about school pranks involving mischievous science “experiments.” But on the same pages that he has recorded these normal childhood preoccupations, he also delineates increasing restrictions leveled against the Jewish community, he “mentions” an especially loud explosion of shellfire, and he describes witnessing the constant tearful farewells between his family and relatives who were being deported. The juxtapositions of the childlike and the horrific – we know how it’s going to end – are heartbreaking.
It is clear from the full life he led which he records in his diary as well as from his artwork, poetry and an excerpt from his fiction included in this volume, that Petr Ginz was very talented. His sister Chava Pressburger has written a substantial introduction that fills in a lot of the details of their life together and Petr’s life in Thereisenstadt where he created and contributed to a literary journal. At the end of his diary she includes a few very moving entries from her journal describing the time leading up to Petr's being deported from Thereisenstadt to Auschwitz. And she includes end notes that explain some of the history of the war that Petr alludes to in his diary.
To read an abridged version of Pressburger's introduction, click here.
To see several photos of Petr Ginz and several of his drawings created in Theriesenstadt, click here.
To see a trailer for a 2012 movie made about Petr Ginz, click here.
To read a previous post of a review of a cookbook assembled by women in Theriesenstadt, click here.
People
Josef Ginz – married Berta
Otto Ginz – son of Josef and Berta
Petr Ginz - his son; author of diary
Eva (Chava) Ginzova – his daughter; married Avram Pressburger; editor of diary
Tami and Yoram – daughters of Chava and Avram
Emil (Milos) Ginz – son of Josef and Berta; married to Nada
Pavel- son of Emil and Nada
Victor (Slava) Ginz - son of Josef and Berta
Herma Ginz – son of Josef and Berta; married Karel Leviticus
Anna (Anda) Ginz – son of Josef and Berta
Miluska – married Otta Hansel; a cousin of Otto
Jirina – married Pavel Hansel; a sister of Miluska, a cousin of Otto
Pavlicek and Jozka – the children of either Miluska or Jirina
Hana Ginz Skorpilova – Petr’s cousin; exact relationship not clear
Friends and acquaintances
Wolfgang Adler
Gertruda Baer (ova)
Felix Bardach
Hanus Baum
Emil Bondy
Ivan Dusner
Jakub Edelstein
Richard Erlich
Edita Fischhoff (ova)
Ota Fiser
Rita Goldmann (ova)
Zdenek Hayek
Petr Heim
Martin Heymann
Renata Hirsch (ova)
Heinz Kaufmann
Lianka Kohner
Emil Kolben
Felix Lederer
Ervin Mautner
Egon, his nephew
Karel Mautner (relationship to other Mautners not clear)
Milos Mautner (relationship to other Mautners not clear)
Karel Muller
Berthold Ordner
Harry Popper
Karel Reich
Slavek Stein
Tomas Stein
Elisa Stein
Hanka Steiner
Hanus Stern
Ann Storz (ova)
Vilma Tapfer (ova)
Mila Weisbach
Erich Zinn
Teachers at the Jewish school Prague
Jiri Glanzberg
Elisa Stein
Robert David
? Weislitz
Jan Beinkoles
Irma Lauscher (ova)
Places
Prague, Czechoslovakia
Theresientstadt Concentration Camp, Czechoslovakia
Auschwitz Concentration Camp, Poland
Petr Ginz was 14 when he was transported to the Thereisenstadt concentration camp from his home in Prague and 16 when he was killed in Auschwitz. In 2003 a Prague resident came forward with Petr Ginz’s diary and exercise books that contained fiction and drawings which had been hidden and forgotten. Petr’s sister, Chana Pressburger, a resident of Israel who had also been interned at Thereisenstadt, authenticated the two notebooks and the handwriting and then served as the editor for the first Czech edition and subsequent translations of the diary.
Petr wrote in the diary from February, 1941 to August, 1942. He made his last entry two months before being deported to Thereisenstadt. Even though his mother was not Jewish, his family observed the Jewish holidays and seemed very close to Petr’s father’s large extended family.
Petr’s entries are often terse. They frequently come across as merely a record of what he did or saw that day. In print he does not speculate about the war, bemoan his fate or that of his family. But in his recording of what was happening you know that he was fully aware. For example, one minute he is reporting about his report card grades, then he writes about his being fitted for glasses, then of his being elected class president, then about school pranks involving mischievous science “experiments.” But on the same pages that he has recorded these normal childhood preoccupations, he also delineates increasing restrictions leveled against the Jewish community, he “mentions” an especially loud explosion of shellfire, and he describes witnessing the constant tearful farewells between his family and relatives who were being deported. The juxtapositions of the childlike and the horrific – we know how it’s going to end – are heartbreaking.
It is clear from the full life he led which he records in his diary as well as from his artwork, poetry and an excerpt from his fiction included in this volume, that Petr Ginz was very talented. His sister Chava Pressburger has written a substantial introduction that fills in a lot of the details of their life together and Petr’s life in Thereisenstadt where he created and contributed to a literary journal. At the end of his diary she includes a few very moving entries from her journal describing the time leading up to Petr's being deported from Thereisenstadt to Auschwitz. And she includes end notes that explain some of the history of the war that Petr alludes to in his diary.
To read an abridged version of Pressburger's introduction, click here.
To see several photos of Petr Ginz and several of his drawings created in Theriesenstadt, click here.
To see a trailer for a 2012 movie made about Petr Ginz, click here.
To read a previous post of a review of a cookbook assembled by women in Theriesenstadt, click here.
People
Josef Ginz – married Berta
Otto Ginz – son of Josef and Berta
Petr Ginz - his son; author of diary
Eva (Chava) Ginzova – his daughter; married Avram Pressburger; editor of diary
Tami and Yoram – daughters of Chava and Avram
Emil (Milos) Ginz – son of Josef and Berta; married to Nada
Pavel- son of Emil and Nada
Victor (Slava) Ginz - son of Josef and Berta
Herma Ginz – son of Josef and Berta; married Karel Leviticus
Anna (Anda) Ginz – son of Josef and Berta
Miluska – married Otta Hansel; a cousin of Otto
Jirina – married Pavel Hansel; a sister of Miluska, a cousin of Otto
Pavlicek and Jozka – the children of either Miluska or Jirina
Hana Ginz Skorpilova – Petr’s cousin; exact relationship not clear
Friends and acquaintances
Wolfgang Adler
Gertruda Baer (ova)
Felix Bardach
Hanus Baum
Emil Bondy
Ivan Dusner
Jakub Edelstein
Richard Erlich
Edita Fischhoff (ova)
Ota Fiser
Rita Goldmann (ova)
Zdenek Hayek
Petr Heim
Martin Heymann
Renata Hirsch (ova)
Heinz Kaufmann
Lianka Kohner
Emil Kolben
Felix Lederer
Ervin Mautner
Egon, his nephew
Karel Mautner (relationship to other Mautners not clear)
Milos Mautner (relationship to other Mautners not clear)
Karel Muller
Berthold Ordner
Harry Popper
Karel Reich
Slavek Stein
Tomas Stein
Elisa Stein
Hanka Steiner
Hanus Stern
Ann Storz (ova)
Vilma Tapfer (ova)
Mila Weisbach
Erich Zinn
Teachers at the Jewish school Prague
Jiri Glanzberg
Elisa Stein
Robert David
? Weislitz
Jan Beinkoles
Irma Lauscher (ova)
Places
Prague, Czechoslovakia
Theresientstadt Concentration Camp, Czechoslovakia
Auschwitz Concentration Camp, Poland
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