A bar mitzva curates the moving story of his grandfather’s life in Holocaust and beyond

by Johanna Ginsberg
NJJN Staff Writer

Now installed in the Holocaust museum in an alcove just outside the sanctuary of Temple Emanu-El in Livingston is an exhibit chronicling the life of one Holocaust survivor, Ludvig Muhlfelder.

Photos and objects tell his story. There is the menora his family lit on Hanukka when he was a boy; there is the Kiddush cup they used every Friday night. One photograph shows his childhood village and his school, another his hometown synagogue in Suhl, Germany, burning on Kristallnacht. The exhibit also includes a photograph of his father at Buchenwald, where he was interned briefly before the family escaped to America, and one of “Lu” in his U.S. Army uniform.

The exhibit, however, documents not only Muhlfelder’s experience before and during the Holocaust, but his engineering career after the war and his progeny.

Lu Muhlfelder died in January 2004.

Among his descendants is 13-year-old Jeremy Muhlfelder, who celebrated becoming a bar mitzva in the Emanu-El sanctuary on Jan. 15. The exhibit was his mitzva project, a kind of love letter to his grandfather.

Jeremy spent countless hours sifting through the photos in his grandmother’s home, trying to select the most important ones and then choosing just a few for the installation.

The exhibit, which has been up since the fall, was his grandmother Beatrice’s idea, something she had wanted to do since before Jeremy’s sister Joanna became a bat mitzva two years ago. Bea and Lu together had established the temple’s museum 15 years ago and sat on its Holocaust committee, which is now chaired by Wendy Lubin. Joanna also helped put the exhibit together.

It includes five enclosed panels that chronologically chart Lu’s life, from birth and childhood through Kristallnacht and his service with the U.S. army, including his participation in the Battle of the Bulge, and on through his career as an engineer — he acquired numerous patents and worked for General Electric and RCA — until he came full circle, returning to Suhl, which he visited toward the end of his life.

For Jeremy, there was plenty to learn. He hadn’t known his grandfather had written his book — Because I Survived, a memoir — first in German or that members of his family had spent brief periods of time in concentration camps before escaping. “I thought they got out right before the Holocaust started.”

His pride in his grandfather’s accomplishments deepened. “He must have been really smart to have worked with GE and RCA and have gotten 16 patents.” For Jeremy, the section depicting Lu’s career is one of his favorites.

Working with the exhibit also taught Jeremy something about the role of a curator — not only the process of selecting the items to be displayed, but making sure they are set up properly and safely. At one point, there was a leak from a pipe and the exhibit had to be removed, then reinstalled.

He’s also enjoying watching his friends as they explore the exhibit. “During Hebrew school my friends walk by. They come in and look around,” Jeremy said. “And usually at first they don’t make the connection. But they say, ‘Wow, cool,’ when they look at the various objects and documents displayed. Then they come over here and see the family tree and they see me.”

In preparing his bar mitzva d’var Torah, Jeremy said he would focus on the idea of not taking things for granted, applying the perspective of the biblical characters Jacob and Joseph and their progeny to his grandfather and his own life. “My grandfather used to bless me and I would just sit there. Now I wish I’d listened…. We went over to my grandfather’s house a couple of times a week. He encouraged me in everything I did. Whenever I thought I couldn’t do something, he told me I could. Everything he did was so amazing,” Jeremy said.

Apparently the feeling was mutual. As his grandmother said to her grandson, “He thought you were pretty amazing too.”

Johanna Ginsberg

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