A s a child, I often accompanied my mom when she went food shopping. There was no kosher supermarket, and chain stores did not have a largeAs selection of kosher products, so my mom frequented stores like Liebes, Jack’s grocery, Wasserman and Lemberger butcher, and Friedman’s Fish and Produce. I loved going with my mom and buying my favorite culinary delicacies. Jack’s grocery was located in the Pimlico area near the race track. Surrounding it were other shops, like Frank’s shoe store, Lipnick’s Hardware, Liberty TV, Froehlich’s Schubert Music, Brafman’s Rembrandt Art and Frames and, later, the Hobby Shop, Max Jacob’s Upholstery, Bernard Shear Optical, Pep Boys. Himmelfarb’s and Luskins appliance were a few blocks away. There was no Reisterstown Road Mall yet, so Pimlico served as a main shopping area for those in the Upper Park Heights corridor.
Jack’s Grocery on Park Heights
Let’s focus, now, on Jack’s grocery. As you entered the small store, there was a small produce case on the left filled with boxes of plums, peaches, apples, oranges, grapefruits, and, on the side, bananas. All fruits and vegetables were available when in season. To the right were the cash register and an always-smiling lady behind the register. Behind her were the cigarettes, but most important (to me) were the Schmerling Swiss kosher chocolate bars. Next to the smiling lady was a green index card box. In those days before credit cards, people who did not have cash could “charge” their groceries at Jack’s, and, before computers, their accounts were kept on cards in the little green box. I did not know it then, but now I know this little green metal box was also a chesed box. If they were unable to pay, their balance would build, but no one was ever turned away because his balance was too high.
You see, the store was owned and run by two precious Holocaust survivors: Jack (Yaakov) and Rose (Rochel) Boehm. It was Jack who went to the produce market two or three times a week to handpick the produce, and it was Rose, his beloved wife, who dealt with the customers and the cooking. She prepared ready-to-eat foods and worked the register. Jack Boehm managed all store operations and purchasing.
Rose’s famous kugel was always available in the deli meat case at the back of the store. Years later, when I married my wonderful wife, I confessed and told her that when I sang Aishes Chayil, I included in my thoughts hakaras hatov to Mrs. Rose Boehm as her luscious potato kugel graced our table every Friday night. My wife loved shopping at Jack’s, and the Boehms treated her, the new bride, with the friendly customer they afforded to all their loyal customers.
The Boehms worked together as a team for over 30 years. At Rose’s recent levaya, Rabbi Heinemann said, “It was a business of a chesed center.” No one left Jack’s hungry. Rose and Jack always made sure everyone could purchase what they needed, with or without money. The chesed stories abound. Once, a woman with no money charged her order on credit, but Rose was so concerned she gave the woman some extra cash as she feared she had no other spending money. Another time, a family placed a large order for a sheva brachos. When the customer came pay, Rose told them they got a super discount because the Boehms wanted to partner in the simcha.
Jack and Rose were the nicest, warmest people, and a couple that exemplified a home of shalom bayis and chesed. Together, they built a magnificent mishpacha and a good business, always doing chesed. Hashem gave the Boehms a bracha to accomplish all they would do, after escaping the tragedies of Nazi Europe and beginning a new life here in Baltimore. Here is their remarkable story.
Growing Up in Prewar Europe
Rose Rochel Boehm was born in a tiny mini shtetl of Lokit, which was at that time part of Czechoslovakia. It would later become part of Hungary, and today it is in Ukraine. She was one of 16 children. Lokit had only four shomer Shabbos families, and as a result, not even a regular minyan. Yiddish was the main language of their mishpacha. Lokit was approximately 35 kilometers from Mukachevo (Munkatch). In small town nearby, Vlosk, Jack Yaakov Boehm grew up. The two families actually knew each other. Rose took sewing lessons from Jack’s sister. Rose’s father would pasken a shaila in Lokit, but if it was a difficult shaila, he would seek advice in Vlosk from another talmid chacham, who happened to be Jack’s father.
The War
The Jews’ idyllic existence in the Czech countryside changed in 1943 as the Nazis took over Hungary and spread their evil destruction to Hungarian Jewry. Rose lost most of her family, and she and three sisters went through Auschwitz and Bergen Belsen. Rose bore the number A-8603 on her arm, but chasdei Hashem, she survived. She and three of her sisters emerged from the camps and the horrible treacherous death marches.
The Boehms retell some of their mother’s stories. In one, Rose was overcome with extreme weakness during a brutal death march. Unable to continue, she told her two sisters to leave her behind. She pleaded with them to move on without her so as not to jeopardize their lives. Hashem must have heard their cries, and a miracle occurred. A Nazi soldier offered to get a wheelbarrow and told them he would allow them to transport her in it. But, he warned, she needed to get out of the wheelbarrow before they reached their destination as the Nazis would kill the feeble. Who was this Nazi soldier who, in the midst of such evil, showed compassion never to be imagined? Was he a shaliach from Hashem? Was he a malach (angel) in disguise?
Rose also survived typhus and starvation. Someone once asked her if they fasted in Auschwitz on Yom Kippur, to which she replied, “Of course. We fasted not only Yom Kippur but almost every day.” Thankfully, Hashem watched over Rose and her sisters, one of whom is Mrs. Leah Friedman of Baltimore. One day, the Nazi monster, Dr. Josef Mengele, inspected a row of young girls to decide who would be assigned to work in a factory and who would go to the gas chamber and crematorium. Leah was sent with other girls to work in a factory. On arrival, the girls were again screened by the factory foreman. Seeing that Leah was weak, he immediately ordered her to leave the factory, which would have meant certain death. A brave Jewish woman interceded and told the foreman she would guarantee that Leah could do the work. The foreman agreed to let her try and said that if she failed, both she and the Jewish woman, who guaranteed her work ability, would have to leave. Baruch Hashem, Mrs. Leah Friedman was able to do the work and both she and her guarantor were spared. Some 50 years later, Rose and her sister Leah, attended a birthday party for that lady in New York, as hakaras hatov for saving her life.
Liberation
Rose used to say that being in the camps was gehenom (hell), but emerging from the camps after liberation, in 1945, was almost as bad. While the concentration camps and slave labor were absolutely horrific, and life was always in jeopardy, at least there was an infrastructure. In freedom, there was no structure at all. The four sisters wandered around starving, terribly cold, and homeless, with absolutely nowhere to go. They returned to their hometown, Lokit, but their house was occupied, and all their possessions were gone. Worst of all, they discovered that their large family had perished. Eventually, in late 1946, the sisters went to a DP (displaced persons) camp in Dagendorf, Germany.
It was in the DP camp that Rose met another precious survivor, Jack Boehm. The camp was supposed to have a kosher kitchen but it did not, so Jack arranged to kasher the kitchen and make sure kosher food would be available to those who wanted it. Jack also taught in the camp in a small Talmud Torah he created, and the children called him Rebbe. On a tape Jack Boehm recorded for Yale University about his experiences in the DP camp, Jack said that married women from the DP camp would travel by train to a mikvah in the town of Feurth, a few hours away. Jack was responsible for arranging the building of a mikvah in the camp in 1947. His hishtadlus (efforts) provided for kashrusr, taharas hamishpacha, and limud Torah in Dagendorf after the war.
Jack knew Rose’s yichus, and they married in the DP camp of Dagendorf in 1946. A year later, their firstborn, Alvin, was born in the camp. In 1949, with the help of distant relatives, Max and Lena Green of Baltimore, whom they fondly called Uncle Max and Aunt Lena, the Boehms with son Alvin came to America. In 1950, a second son, Herschel, was born, and in 1955 a daughter Chana, now Chana Retter, was born. Uncle Max, a butcher by trade, had a grocery store called Sid’s. The Boehms give the Greens the credit for getting them into America and to Baltimore.
Making a Living in America
At first, in 1952, Jack and his brother-in-law Lipa Leopold Friedman, opened a grocery, fish, and produce store. It was a small market at 3500 Park Heights Avenue in Lower Park Heights near the old Shaare Zion shul and Schmell’s Bakery, Shavrick butcher shop, and Central Hebrew bookstore. Their good partnership lasted for eight years, and eventually, in 1960, both Jack and Leopold opened their own small markets.
Two or three times a week, Jack went to Baltimore’s wholesale produce market at 4 a.m. to pick fruits and vegetables for his discerning customers. Both he and his aishes chayil worked extremely hard building the business. The customers loved not only the store but also the friendly personalities of this friendly couple.
Jack established a strong business relationship with World Cheese and some other New York kosher manufacturers and distributors. As a result, he was able to provide chalav Yisrael dairy products to his customers. Along with the basics, he carried unique kosher products. As the small business grew, he would move his business to Reisterstown Road, in 1972, to the building now occupied by Tov Pizza. Jack’s store was now larger and growing fast. The business was changing but the chesed was always the same. Customer loyalty was strong and everyone enjoyed the shopping. Most of all, they loved Rose’s potato kugel and salads, which were sold in the deli area.
The Children
Alvin Boehm, the eldest son, attended yeshiva and went on to Columbia University, where he studied engineering. His sister Chana went to Barnard College, another Ivy League university, and became an IT professional. Son Hershel, a talmid at Ner Yisrael, joined his parents in the grocery business. With the new young management, things took off, and in 1988, Hershel paired up with partner Josh Gutman, and 7-Mile Market was born. This all-kosher supermarket had its start with the small business that Jack and Rose modestly built over the years. 7-Mile grew even greater when Shapiro’s Kosher Market sold their property on the corner of Reisterstown Road and Old Court to office store Staples. Now, with Herschel’s son, Moishe Boehm, and Chana Retter’s husband, Simcha, working as part of the management team, 7-Mile is one of America’s premier and largest kosher grocery stores.
A Simple Lifestyle
Jack Boehm learned regularly and after his retirement, attended the Daf Yomi shiur at Sternhell’s given by Reb Yankel Herskovitz. Jack went through Shas at least twice, and in retirement he spent many hours of the day learning. He attended the Siyum Hashas in New York twice. Jack was one of the leaders in forming the Shearis Hapleita cheder way back in 1952, and Rose was active in the Shearis Hapleita ladies auxiliary.
Rose, “Babbi,” as she was called by her family, continued to make her famous potato kugel and other special delicacies with her aide up to a month before she was nifteres. Rose was a master chef producing the most delicious heimishe cuisine from her wide array of family recipes.
The Boehms lived a simple and very modest life as Rose had no interest in furniture or material possessions. She cherished family photos and family relationships and memories. Family, the children, a loving home of shalom bayis, Torah and mitzvos, chinuch (Jewish education), ehrlichkeit (honesty), and chesed were the family goals. Many would seek advice and counsel from Jack and Rose. They were very smart individuals, and both possessed common sense. They shared it with whoever sought their help. The Boehms had tremendous emuna (faith) and lived a life of yiras Shamayim. They were very close to the Taub family, and Jack served as a gabbai in 1960, when Rabbi Taub moved the shul to Rogers Avenue next to the mikvah. They were also close to the Sternhell family. In later years, the Boehms davened at Rabbi Dinovitz’s shul on Glen Avenue. These were three distinct and very different holy kehilos (congregations), but the Boehms were flexible and fit in with any Torah community. They possessed a special sweetness and chein (grace), always charming to customers and friends, making a kiddush Hashem with everyone they met.
Jack and Rose used to take a week’s vacation in the Catskills in the summer, but leaving the store was always a great challenge as the community depended on the store. Once retired, the Boehms spent time in Miami in the winter and in the Catskills during the hot summer months.
Jack Boehm was niftar in 2014, and just a few weeks ago, we observed Rose Boehm’s shloshim. We remembered this special couple and how they led their lives. They were soft-spoken, humble, unassuming, honest, G-d fearing, completely involved in Torah and mitzvos, and always performing great acts of chesed. They were never judgmental but were, instead, accepting of all. They were truly from the holy shearis hapleita, a precious remnant of a terrible time in our history. But with their tremendous emuna, they went on to accomplish so much. Hashem rewarded them with Yiddishe nachas, a beautiful mishpacha. As for the rest of us in Baltimore, we had the zechus to know and enjoy these two special individuals.
Eli W. Schlossberg is a longtime contributor to the Where What When and author of My Shtetl Baltimore.
