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This photo of Ruth and Herbert Karliner of Silesia was taken in 1937. Silesia at the time was German. It was a province fought over by Germany (Prussia), Austria, and Poland. An Ameican reader writes, "This photograph reminded me of my dress-up clothes as a boy. Herbert is wearing the same kind of single breasted wool suit with short pants, collar and tie, and long stockings that I wore at his age. He is about 11 or 12 in this picture. His sister Ruth is about 10 years old. The only real difference from my childhood clothes was that my stockings were a lighter tan or beige. Herbert is wearing rather dark stockings, although I am not sure about the color. And I think my trousers might have been just a bit shorter by a couple of inches." The photo was taken in Peiskretscham, Germany, during the NAZI era. After World War II, Silesia was transferred back to Poland. The Karliners would have had to moved west to Germany. Many followed the retreating Wehrmacht in 1945. Most of those who remained were expelled by the Poles after the War. While that was the fate of most Germans in Silesia, a reader tells us that this was not what happenef to the Karliners.
This photo of Ruth and Herbert Karliner of Silesia was taken in 1937. Joseph and Martha Weissler Karliner of Peiskretscham (Silesia) owned a grocery store which Martha mostly operated. Joseph was engaged in the horse trade. Germany was not nearly as motorized as America in the 1930s. The couple had four children: Ilse, (1923), Walter (1924), Herbert (1926) and Ruth (1927).
Silesia at the time the photograph here was taken was in Germany. It was a province fought over by Germany (Prussia), Austria, and Poland. The photo was taken in Peiskretscham, Germany, during the NAZI era. After World War II, Silesia was transferred back to Poland. The Karliners would have had to moved west to Germany. Many followed the retreating Wehrmacht in 1945. Most of those who remained were expelled by the Poles after the War. While that was the fate of most Germans in Silesia, a reader tells us that this was not what happenef to the Karliners--they were Jewish.
An Ameican reader writes, "This photograph reminded me of my dress-up clothes as a boy. Herbert is wearing the same kind of single breasted wool suit with short pants, collar and tie, and long stockings that I wore at his age. He is about 11 or 12 in this picture. His sister Ruth is about 10 years old. The only real difference from my childhood clothes was that my stockings were a lighter tan or beige. Herbert is wearing rather dark stockings, although I am not sure about the color. And I think my trousers might have been just a bit shorter by a couple of inches."
The NAZIs on Kristallnacht destroyed the family grocery store.
Herbert recalls their store being ransacked and the synagogues burning to the ground. “A Brown Shirt made a bonfire with books and a Torah,” Karlinger recalls. “My father tried to retrieve it. He was kicked.”
Men and older boys were arrested. Joseph was sent to the Buchenwald concentration camp. Martha managed to secure his release. She obtained a visa for him to travel to Shanghai. The visa was, however, for Joseph only. Thus the family sought an alternative allowing them to emigrate together, They obtained what they thougt were valid visas to Cuba. The Cuban consul in Hamburg was selling visas to desperate Jews. They then booked passage on the St. Louis (June 1939). They were passengers on the illfated St. Louis, because they wanted to emigrate to Cuba in 1939 (and then evebntually to the United States). Herbert remembers the exhilaration he felt as the family boarded the ship which was a luxury liner. “For us children it was very exciting, a big adventure. We had a wonderful trip. The weather was beautiful, the food was good. The German captain was fantastic.” The ship arrived in Havana, and this is where Karliner says that he learned his first Spanish word: mañana. “But mañana never came.” After seven days the ship was ordered to leave Havana. “Outside Miami, I remember well,” Karliner reflects. “I saw beautiful homes. I was 12½ years old, ‘This place, I’m going to come back some day.’” The Cubans refused to honor their visas. They were not allowed to leave the ship in Havanna and so the whole ship was sent back to Europe.
The Jews on the St. Louis obtainThe refugee in England, the Netherlands, and France. The Karliners were given refuge in France. The three younger children were taken in by an OSE children's home near Paris called the Villa Helvetia. They stayed there until September when World War II broke out.
After the NAZIs invaded Poland and World War II began, the children were removed to the Chaumont home in Creuse. Walter worked for a cabinet maker and Herbert, for a baker. Ruth was returned to her parents and
Ilse.
The NAZIs struk in the West (May 1940). They invaded France and after entering Paris, the French asked for an Armistice (June 1940). The Vichy regime quickly passed anti-Semetic laws and began handing over foreign Jews to the NAZIs.
Vichy officials arrested their parents and sisters and interned them at Drancy near Paris. This was the primary transit camp for the foreign Jews. Martha and the girls were deported to Auschwitz (October 1942). Their father was deported (1943).
Walter moved from Chaumont to Montintin, another OSE home (1941). Here he studied cabinetry. The NAZIs in 1942 began conscripting French workers for war work in the Reich (1942). French gendarmes told authorities at the home that boys over 16 years old would be sent to Reich for war work. Realising that he would surely be identified as Jewish in a camp environment, Walter left the home (August 1942). He was on his own fr a while. He spent the 2 years until Frnce was liberatd by the allies in several different locations. He had the advantage that he did not look Jewish and apparently learned to speak French very well. His refuges included a mental asylum in Narbonne and a farm in Castelsarrasin. The Eclaireurs (Scouts) Israelites de France underground came to Walter's assistance and sent him to Saint Junien [Haute Vienne] to live at a boys' home operated by the Vichy paramilitary youth movement (late 1943 or early 1944). I am not sure how this was possible. The Vichy authorities were cooperating with the NAZIs, especially as regards foreign Jews. This of course does not mean that all the individuals in Vichy institutions cooperated in anti-Jewish actions. Walter was obe of about 6 Jewish boys among the 80 boys cared fr at the camp. To what extent the boys and staff knew about the Jewish boys, I do not know.
Herbert and Walter were together for a while. They were take in by a Jewish Children’s home. He was sent to work at a bakery in a small village. He reports “One morning the French police came and arrested me and took me to a camp where all the Jews were taken. They took boys over 16 and it was one week from my 16th birthday. Those boys were taken and they never came back.”
After the liberation (August 1944), Walter was reunited with Herbert in Paris. The brothers were taken in at the Hotel du Moulin, a home for boys operated by the Eclaireurs Israelites in Moissac. There Walter worked as a cabintry instructor. The boys emigrated to the United States (December 1946)..
Olawsky, Gregor. E-mail message, January 6, 2008.
Wiesel, Elie. "Holocaust Memorial Dedication", Yizkor: Survivor Narratives at the Miami Holocaust Memorial, February 4, 1990.
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Karliner’s uncle sent a visa for him to come to the U.S. and in 1947 he went to Hartford, Connecticut and then to Florida.
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