This story is written in loving memory of my father, Werner Victor Cohen (Avigdor ben Avraham Hakohen), who passed away on June 11, 2021.
My father, Werner
Victor Cohen, was born in Essen, Germany, on December 8, 1921. In addition to
himself, my father’s family consisted of his parents, Albert and Hedwig Cohen,
and his sister, Lore.
During the Kristallnacht
attacks on Jews, on Nov. 9 and 10, 1939, my dad and his father, Albert, were
taken from their home by the Nazis. His father was incarcerated at a city jail
and released, but my Dad was taken to Dachau concentration camp. He was one of
the youngest sent there. He spent several brutal weeks in the camp while Hitler
(yemach shemo) used this opportunity
to test whether there would be any international condemnation. There was
deafening silence.
My dad’s mother
was greatly alarmed and managed to arrange for him to be included on a Kindertransport
to England. She had contacted Dr. Erich Klibansky, principal of the Yavneh
School in Cologne, where my father was a student. Dr. Klibansky helped arrange
for classes of his German Jewish students to be hosted by Jewish organizations
in London and Manchester. Although, my dad was 17 years old in January, 1939,
when he left Germany, he had been registered while still 16 years old, thus
qualifying him for inclusion on the Kindertransport, bechasdei Hashem. After arrival in England, my father also somehow managed
to arrange with the appropriate German Jewish and English rabbinic authorities
to bring his younger sister Lore to England before the war broke out on
September 1, 1939.
My grandmother, Hedwig, managed to ship to
England two sturdy, old, wooden packing crates filled with linens and household
goods, with silver flatware and silver dishes and bowls hidden inside. It was
my father’s job to keep them safe. I believe those crates had originally
started life as wine storage crates. My grandmother expected the family to soon
be reunited in England. She admonished my dad to take good care of them as they
were to be used for barter or other needs when restarting their lives in
England.
Fast forward
through the agonizing war years. My father and his sister survived in England.
Their parents and members of their extended family were killed by the Nazis. My
father worked and attended the University of London while bombs rained down. After
the war, in 1946, Lore arrived in Baltimore, and he soon followed. The packing
crates were still firmly in Dad’s possession. Soon his arrival in Baltimore, Aunt
Lore introduced him to her friend Hilda Stern, who later became his wife and
our mother.
My parents left
Baltimore upon Dad’s graduation from Johns Hopkins University. My father got a
job with E.I.DuPont Co., one of its first Jewish employees. Three girls were
born, and my parents bought a home in Newark, Delaware, and then in Cecil
County, Maryland. As we grew, however, it became clear to my mother, who was
also a Holocaust survivor, that her kids were not growing up with any knowledge
of Yiddishkeit. She felt that if we became like goyim, Hitler (y”sh) would
have won. Though not very Jewishly knowledgeable, she had grown up in a
religious home and had some advanced Jewish education at a Jewish teacher’s
seminary from age 13 to 15. She proceeded to kasher our home and observe the
Shabbos and Yomim Tovim. Although my father’s family was secular, he respected
my mother and understood the disadvantages of not having a religious
background. My parents moved many times because of Dad’s career goals: We lived
in Newark, Delaware; Cecil County, Maryland; Wilmington, Delaware; Raleigh,
N.C.; Chattanooga, Tennessee; and Waterbury, Connecticut. At every new address,
my mother would set up camp, so to speak and, like Sara Imeinu, would create a
religious Jewish home.
Those packing
crates accompanied us from state to state, although in altered form. (Over the
years, the contents of the crates were shared with Dad’s sister, Lore.) They
were repurposed and made into a work bench and used to store old house paints,
turpentine, and other home repair paraphernalia. A vise for holding wood for
sawing was attached, too. It was a reliable, simple, if slightly beat-up-looking
old work horse, always located in the basement.
Many seasons and
many years passed. We girls grew up, and started families of our own. My
parents moved back to Baltimore, and my father retired from his job. My mother
passed away in 1997, and my father soldiered on alone for another 24 years. He
managed as well as anyone could expect. Both he and my mother loved the Jewish
community, particularly the Shomrei Emunah synagogue that they attended. After
my mother died, my father really embraced the shul, and the members
reciprocated magnificently.
In the spring of
2018, Dad was moved to an assisted living facility in Silver Spring to be near
our sister, Debbie Katz. His home in Baltimore was sold, and the furniture and
other assorted items were given to family members. One of my nephews, who lives
with his family in Israel, requested the workbench. This nephew hired two young
Hispanic fellows to pick it up and transfer it to a container to be shipped to
him. Before they lifted it, though, I stopped one of them and told them a
little bit of its history.
“This old
workbench started out life as two packing crates in Nazi Germany almost 80
years ago. They were brought to England and then taken all over the United
States. And do you know where it is heading now?”
The young man
shook his head. Home, I mused. But to him, I said only, “To Jerusalem.”
