Figure 1.-- This family photograph was apparently taken in Hannover during 1935 or 1936. It shows how extensively many Jewish families were assimilated. They are a middle-class Jewish family by the name of Judenberg. The family looks to have survived the early NAZI years. Berhard Judenberg, the father, was a successful dealer in live stock. NAZI regulations would have eventually prevented him from trading livestock. He is shown here with his wife Frau Thekla and their two sons, Werner (about 15) and Horst (about 8).

Too often accounts of the Holocaust deal with statistics and numbers. The numbers are so large to be overwealming. Behind every single one of those numbers are individuals. Looking at these individuals it seems almost unbelievable the fate awaiting them. We are interested in how the Holocaustvaffected individual families. We are collecting information about some families. With many we do not have a full account, but these accounts provide details on how the Holocaust affect individuals and families. We will also include here photographs we have found of individuals even though we may not be able to identify them.

Ruth Bild (1935?- )

Ruth Bild's family was deported to Poland by the NAZIs in 1938. The family managed to reach Belgium, where they were interned in a dentention camp known as Marneffe Camp. When the Germans invaded Belgium (May 1940), the Bild family escaped from the camp and settled in Brussels, hiding from the NAZIs. Ruth was taken to Namur, under pretense of being an orphan, and housed in the Convent du Bon Pasteur with false papers, using the name of Monique Lannoy. Soon afterwards Ruth returned to Brussels to be baptized, but the priest would only baptize the child if her mother (who was in hiding) were present. Ruth returned to convent where she hid throughout the occupation.

Wendy Held

An American girl tells about his German Jewish mother who managed to get out of Germany. His mother met his American father in 1937 in London. He remembers the care packages sent to her mother and father and other relatives. The Red Cross replied that they could not be delivered because the addressees could not be located. He rembers his mother crying late at night when she thought he was asleep. The girl was 5 years old when the war ended. After the War her mother spent 10 years visying displaced person camps in a home of finding her family. She never found one relsative or friend. Devestated she took pills to end her life. [Held]

Judenberg Family

This family photograph was apparently taken in Hannover during 1935 or 1936. It shows how extensively many Jewish families were assimilated. They are a middle-class Jewish family by the name of Judenberg. The family looks to have survived the early NAZI years. Berhard Judenberg, the father, was a successful dealer in live stock. NAZI regulations would have eventually prevented him from trading livestock. He is shown here with his wife Frau Thekla and their two sons, Werner (about 15) and Horst (about 8). Werner wears a double breasted dark short pants suit with a wide-collared shirt open at the neck and folded over his lapels. He wears knee socks with a stripe around the top. Horst wears a white short-sleeved shirt buttoned at the neck, gray short pants held up with suspenders, and three-quarter length white socks. Horst attended a special school for Jewish boys. I am not sure if he began in this school or was attemding because he was forced to leave the state schools. Once the deportations began, the children and teachers were never sure who would be in clss the next day. abolished by the Nazis. Most included lessons in English, hoping that this would prove useful if the families managed to get visas. These Jewish schools were eventually closed by the NAZIs. The family was deported in 1942. A holocaust monument in Hanover states the following: "Judenberg, Bernhard, 49 J., deportiert am 31.3.1942, Warschau; Judenberg, Horst, 14 J., deportiert am 31.3.1942, Warschau; Judenberg, Thekla geb. Rothschild, 53 J., deportiert am 31.3.1942, Warschau." That means the family except Werner were deported to the Warsaw ghetto on March 31, 1942. This was just when the transports to the death camps were beginning. The family was probably muredered at Auschwitz. We have no information on Werner.

Karliner Family

The Karliner family was from Silesia, a province in eastern Germany disputed between Austria, Poland, and Germany. At the time of Worlld War II it was part of the Reich. Here we see Ruth and Herbert in 1937. The family attempted to escape from Germany as conditions for Jews in Germany deteriorated, especially after Kristalnacht (November 1938). The family was able to book passage aboard the illfated St. Louis to Cuba (1939). After the Cubans refused to allow Jews to debark, the Karliners returned to Europe. They were admitted to France. After the Germans invaded and occupied France (1940). Vichy authorities cooperated with the Germand to persecute Jews. The Karliners as foreign Jews were arrested and interned at Dancy. From there they were deported to Auschwitz. Somehow Herbert appears to have avoided deportment and survived the War.

Steven Muller (1927- )

Steven Muller was born in Hamburg. He remembers a pleant early childhood, but this began to change when the NAZIs came to power. Other boys began calling him rude names. Former friends now in Hitler Youth uniforms beat him up on the way home from school. Hi father was arrested on Kristallnacht, but was later released. As his mother was a gentile, authorities told his mother that if Steven and his brother were castrated, they could join the Hitler Youth and lead normal lives in Germany. The family managed to leave Germany only days before World War II began, after which exit was virtually impossible. Once in Britain, Steven and his brother were evacuaed with the other British children. Some of the boys wanted to fight when they found that Steven and his brother were Germans. Once in America, Steven was recruited to make movies, ironically because he had a British accent.

Erich Rosenberg (1924-41)

Erich Rosenberg was born in 1924 at Rotherbaum, Hamburg, Germany. We are not sure what happened to his parents, but Erich was orphaned. Erich at the time of World War II lived at an orphanage at Hamburg and was deported in 1941 with other Jewish orphans to Riga, Latvia. The NAZIs after the invasion of the Soviet Union (June 1941) set up a ghetto there for Jwws. Erich and the other orphans soon after their arrival were murdered by the NAZIs.

Edgar. E Stern (1928?- )

Edgar E. Stern was a Jewish writer born in Speyer, Germany. As a boy growing up in Speyer, Edgar was known as "Egon". Stern writes interestingly of his childhood in Speyer in a book entitled The Peppermint Train. His younger childhood was a happy one. He grew up in a loving, prosperous family. The family was forced to flee the country in 1936 because of Hitler's persecution of the Jews. Photographs in the book give a good idea of how he dressed as a boy of about 5 years in 1932.

Unidentified Bar Mitzva Boy

This German Jewish bow had his Bar Mitzva portrait taken in the 1930s. We suspect it was taken in the early or mid-1930s. By the late 30s, because of NAZI repression, conditions for Jews in Germany had become very difficult. There is writing on the back, but we can not make it out very well. Put your cursor on the image to see the back. A reader writes, "This is very difficult to read. I can only make out single words. It is written in old German handwriting. It is addressed to a girl named Rosa.

Sources

Held, Wendy. "A victim of survivor gelt," The Washington Post May 28, 2004, p. W11.

Stern, Edgar. E. The Peppermint Train (University Press of Florida, 1992).

Created: June 3, 2004
Last updated: 2:45 PM 9/12/2008