Summary: Mr. Wasserman, one of the founders of the iconic Wasserman and Lemberger butcher shop in Baltimore, was born in 1923 in a village in Germany. In part one, he described his family’s life, his schooling, and the cycle of the Jewish year. When he was about 10 years old, the Nazis came to power, and the harassment of Jews began. There was street violence and arrests. He could no longer attend public school, and the family began to think of leaving Germany.
Well,
things went from bad to worse. We children were kept in the dark about a lot of
things as our parents tried to protect us. I recall one incident where our
next-door neighbor shot into our bedroom; the slugs hit just above my brother’s
bed and became embedded in the wooden beam. Fortunately, no one was hit, but we
knew then that we had to somehow make plans to leave. This neighbor’s brothers were very big Nazis.
They always claimed they wanted part of our property. Whenever we had visitors,
either Jews from out of town or relatives, they used to sing “When the Jewish
blood drips from the knife, then everything will be better” and other Nazi hate
songs, which were directed against Jews without any cause or reason. They were
indoctrinated to such an extent, there was so much hate in them, that they did
whatever they could to make our lives miserable without actually outright
shooting someone – so that, if you didn’t leave voluntarily, you were really
forced to go sooner or later.
I got my
beatings after school, either with snowballs or with dirt. They tore my
clothes, tore my school bag from my back. You had a dozen guys run after you,
push you down. Everything was rocky on the ground. It’s very hard to describe
ordeals like that, being afraid and being pushed around all the time for no
apparent reason. If you complained to their parents, either they didn’t care,
denied it, or just didn’t give a hoot about the whole thing. And if you
reported it, it didn’t mean a thing. In other words, this was free season on Jews.
Of course, some were better and didn’t participate in this, but it takes only a
few. The other ones didn’t hurt you, but they didn’t help you either.
* * *
In order
to do business in Germany, every tradesman had to have a license. So, the first
thing they did was to curtail the licenses. That meant you had to do business
without a license, which was against the law. If the farmer you dealt with
wanted to turn you in, he could. Either you got fined, or they locked you up, or
they shipped you to a concentration camp.
Competitors
watched the people who were known to do business with a Jew. People were afraid
to help. Some had youngsters who were in the party or in the SS or in the
Hitler Youth, and the parents were afraid of being reported by their children.
They were afraid of being reported by the neighbors. In order to trade, you had
to do it in a marketplace. In the marketplace, everyone had his stall. Then
they erected big signs: This stall is for Jews only. And usually, the non-Jews
who bought merchandise from Jews were afraid to go there. The threat of being
seen doing business with Jews was so prevalent that very few people were
willing to risk it or were able to afford it. Oh, there were some very nice
people who did business with my father for a long time; they had to do it on
the QT. You had to send the steer to someone else, and he picked it up from
there, and vice versa.
Gradually,
the Jews were squeezed out of whatever means of livelihood they had. Either
they were sustained by the Jewish community, which I understand my parents were
later on, or by relatives who had the means. The communities had great assets
because of the church tax in Germany. Everyone, including Jews, had to pay it
according to their income, and the money was distributed to the Jewish
communities. But in general, the wealth of the German Jews was confiscated, and
they were heavily fined by the government for certain acts.
A lot of
Jews emigrated. Some went to Israel, Palestine at that time. Some went to South
America. It was not easy to get a visa to America. They went wherever they could
find a haven or someone who would take them in. As things got worse, the Nazi’s
stopped allowing emigration, and people couldn’t leave at all.
There was
a huge propaganda campaign against the Jews. Villages put up signs: “Juden Ungewolt,” meaning Jews are not
wanted in this town. In the Gastheiser,
small pubs, where the local people congregated to do their drinking, some of
the patrons were more conservative people, and some were real Nazis. Of course,
some of these bars were frequented by Jews, and of course, Jews were harassed
and forced not to come in anymore to drink beer or play cards. The hotels, the
bathing places, the resorts – they were all restricted, even if it was a Jewish-owned
establishment.
Things
were especially bad during and after the massive rallies Hitler held in
Nuremberg, which was not far from us. Jews moved out of the city and sent the
children away, and they stayed clear as well as they could, but this did not
prevent the propaganda and hate from affecting whoever was nearby. Although
there were various means of harassing Jews, during the time I was still in
Germany, there was no fear of elimination – except for the people whom they put
into concentration camps. Very few of those people ever came out of the
concentration camps. If they died there, they were sent home in a coffin, and
it was forbidden to open the coffins because someone from the party was there
and saw to it that the Jew got buried without it being seen what happened to
him.
* * *
I never actually saw anybody get killed, but my mother told me things that
happened, which she heard from people in other towns. Things got progressively
worse, but as I said before, our parents tried to hide this from us. As the
oldest, I may have gotten wind of more things than my brothers and sister did.
Don’t forget, I was only ten, eleven, and twelve years old when these things
happened. We knew already a few years before that we had to get out of Germany.
My mother used to write to people she knew in Baltimore that she wanted to get
the children out first. Because I was the oldest, I was selected to come out
first. I was supposed to then get affidavits for the rest of the family. But
this was not so easy. It was a difficult thing because a person who gave an
affidavit had to be responsible for you, and we were not a small family. We
were a large family, and evidently either they couldn’t or they wouldn’t give
affidavits to get the whole family out. So my mother figured we would do it person
by person.
* * *
Sylvan
Senker in Baltimore sent me an affidavit. I had to go to Stuttgart to get the
visa, and I took the opportunity to visit my grandmother and my aunt in
Portheim and in Kernersbach. I was just about 14 years old. When it came time
to leave, my mother took me to the train from Bamberg to travel to Hamburg,
where I would board the boat to America. I remember my father bentching me, but he did not go to the
station with us. I don’t know why, but my mother and my brothers and my sister
came. As we parted, she was very shaken, and so was I – because we didn’t know
if we would see each other again.
Of
course, my parents were very apprehensive, and I was too. I was very young. I
was going to a strange country. I didn’t know the language. I didn’t know
people, even the ones who were close to me, and I was very scared, very scared.
I was trying not to be; I knew I had to go. It was the only way we could save
ourselves. My mother had always told us stories about America, where she had
lived as a young woman. She said it was a good country, but I did not know anything
else about the life there.
A fellow
we knew in Bamberg was also going to America. He was older than I and promised
my mother that he would watch out for me. Well, I traveled with this fellow to
Hamburg, but I never saw much of him after that. In other words, as a 14-year-old
kid, I had to take care of myself. On the way from Bamberg to Hamburg, I had
sandwiches, and I sustained myself on that. In Hamburg, we stayed one night in
a hotel, and the next day we got on the boat, where you could get kosher food.
I recall the SS took a family off the American boat because they found
something they had hidden in wooden kitchen spoons. And they took the whole
family off the boat. Whatever happened after that, I don’t know.
* * *
I boarded
the USS Manhattan in January ’38. I was put in a cabin with a German who, in my
opinion, was a Nazi. I was seasick from Hamburg to New York. We were served
good food that I hadn’t had for a long time in Germany, but I couldn’t eat the
meals we were served. I fed the fish with it. I think the boat ride was about
five or six days. I arrived in New York with four dollars in my pocket. That
was all we were allowed to take. Myer Strauss from Baltimore picked me up,
along with a girl who came on the same boat. I was hungry as a horse since I
had been so seasick. Mr. Strauss took us someplace in New York, and I ate
pancakes. That’s all I remember.
Mr.
Strauss took us to Baltimore. This girl went home with him, and I went to the
Senkers. It was in the middle of the night. I was crying. I was confused. I
wanted to go home; it was a sad situation. The Senkers – there was Sylvan
Senker and Sol Senker, two brothers – were cousins of my mother. Their mother
and my mother’s mother were sisters. I stayed with Sylvan Senker, who had sent
me the affidavit. He had a sick wife and two sons. I shared a bedroom with his
sons. When I came here, they lived on Menlo Drive. He had a carpet cleaning
business, which he inherited from his father, who had inherited it from his
father. They took me in, and believe me, it was an act of mercy that he took me
in because he had problems with a sick wife.
My mother
had a brother here, who lived on Auchentoroly Terrace in Lower Park Heights. He
came to visit me and brought me some clothing. I couldn’t live with them
because they weren’t kosher. And they resented that I didn’t look to them for
help. A couple of nieces also came to see me.
After
about two weeks, the Senkers sent me to school, Garrison Junior High School. I didn’t
know a word of English, and the teachers and kids didn’t talk any German. It
was very hard to understand what was going on. All I remember is that they told
me to follow a certain kid. Wherever he goes, I should go. When he went in the
bathroom, I went in the bathroom, whether I had to go or didn’t have to go.
After a while, I started to learn English.
In the
morning, I got a ride to school with a fellow named Ed Doblitz, who drove Sol
Senker’s daughter and another girl to school. In the afternoon I had to walk
home, which took about a half or three-fourths of an hour. I did chores around
the house, whatever had to be done, like mowing the grass.
* * *
My mother
had a sister who lived in New York and another one in Baltimore. She had
married a non-Jew, a steel worker, and lived in Curtis Bay. This happened when
my mother was still in America. The siblings lost all contact with this sister.
No one knew where she was or anything about her family. When I came here, my Uncle
Sigmund decided that he wanted to go and see his sister, and he contacted her.
So, we went to Curtis Bay in Baltimore one Sunday afternoon. I believe his
daughter and his son were with us. The sister lived on Pennington Avenue. She
resembled my mother and my uncles, but the children looked like complete
non-Jews. She prepared all kinds of cakes and refreshments, but for some reason
I can’t explain, I just sat there; I felt like somebody was tying my throat. I
couldn’t eat anything. I couldn’t say anything. I couldn’t wait to get out of
there. This was the only time I saw this aunt, but later on, I sent her money
when she was sick. I was told by Uncle Sigmund that she was giving the money away
to her children, so we shouldn’t send any more money. In other words, she was
using us. And then, for some reason or other, we lost contact. Someone told
that she died and was buried on a Shabbos in a cemetery in Maryland.
* * *
I had
letters from my mother and my father, not too many. After the war started in ’39,
there was not much mail at all. And in the mail I did get, my parents told me
the same thing as before I left
– I should try to get them out, because
I knew how bad the conditions were for them. Then, in 1941, mail just stopped
coming, and I didn’t hear anything more.
Before I
left Germany, I distinctly remember my mother telling me that I should go to certain
people and do my best to get the rest of the family affidavits to bring them to
America. I did try various ways to get affidavits, but it seemed like no one
wanted to be responsible for a whole family, and ours was quite large.
Once the
war started, my parents were trying to get the children out. The only way was
to go through Spain and Portugal, and this required an immense amount of money,
which my family didn’t have. People in Baltimore weren’t willing to give. I
promised I would pay them back but to no avail, and I couldn’t secure the
papers. [Here, Mr. Wasserman sobs] I went to different people, but I just
couldn’t do anything.
* * *
I
continued to live with the Senkers. They lived in a crowded apartment, and Mr.
Senker’s wife was a very sick woman. She had MS and was in a wheelchair all
this time. There was a lot of contention there with the children. It wasn’t
easy to live there, but as far as I was concerned, they were very good to me.
They gave me a home, and I had the same rights and privileges as the children
did. I helped with chores around the house. I went to day school and night
school. Finally, after I turned 16, I got a job. My mother had worked for Mrs.
Benno Kohn. One of her daughters was married to Lester Levy, who was one of the
owners of the hat company, M.S. Levy. I got a job there as a helper, doing
whatever had to be done, at 25 cents per hour.
Now that
I was earning money, I felt that I wanted to pay the Senders for my upkeep, but
Sylvan Senker wouldn’t take a penny from me. I made $10 a week. He told me I
should put eight dollars in the bank. I couldn’t spend the money; I had to save
it. And I should keep two dollars for spending money. That, he said, was my “room
and board.”
I dropped
out of school when I was 16 and went to City College night school. I went out
with friends I had met in the neighborhood and through the shul there. After
about a year I moved out of the Senkers. I got myself room with board in the
home of Sidney Marks on Whittier Avenue. I lived with the Marks’ for about a
year and then moved to the Kleemans on Smallwood Street. I shared a room with
Albert Bamberger, who was a nephew of theirs. I met other German Jews who had
moved to Baltimore. I joined a club called the Topaz Club, where most of the members
were American-born boys. I had various jobs. After the hat company, I sold
shoes: ladies’ and men’s shoes. It was a tough struggle, but I made it. I grew
up with the rest of the Baltimore kids, mostly in a Jewish crowd and in a
Jewish neighborhood.
At one
point, while the war was still in progress, I was contacted by the Red Cross;
they received a letter from my mother from the Lublin-Majdanek district in
Poland asking me for food and clothing. In the same letter, she wrote that my
father had passed away in 1943 and was buried in Nuremberg. My mother was living
in Nuremberg at that time, and after my father died, they deported her. I did
not know this until later on, after the war.
I also found
out after the war that when they start burning the synagogues in 1938, there
was a pogrom in Emeruth, my birthplace. I was told that Nazis from the
surrounding villages came and wanted to burn the shul. They were not able to
burn it, though, because it was sandwiched between houses of non-Jews, which would
endanger the properties of the non-Jews. Instead, they dismantled the interior
of the synagogue. They tore out the aron
koshesh, all the seats, all the books. They carried them outside the village
and burned them – the sefer
Torahs, the books, and whatever was moveable.
When we
traveled to Germany many years later, we saw the shul, which now serves as a
fodder warehouse for grains. On the interior, we saw the place where the aron kodosh and been ripped out. According
to what witnesses told me, at the time of this pogrom, they broke into my
parents’ home, and my father tried to escape but was caught and beaten
mercilessly by those Nazis. He sustained internal injuries and was put in a
hospital in Furth. It was as a result of those injuries that he died. After this
episode, it was agreed that Jews could no longer live in Emeruth. When we were
on our trip to Germany, witnesses told us that they put the Jews on a truck and
moved them to Nuremberg, where Jews still lived.
To
summarize, after my father died, my mother, my brothers, and my sister were
deported to the Lublin-Majdanek and Treblinka, where, I presume, they died. My
father’s sister was deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto, from where she never
returned. And, after that, I did not hear from anyone anymore. Sam Senker, who
was a soldier in the American Army, tried to trace things through the Red Cross
and verified what I said.
To be continued…
