Firemen rescue the star of David from atop the old Dresden synagogue after it was set ablaze during Kristallnacht. The rescued star is above the entrance to the city’s new synagogue, whose cornerstone was laid on Nov. 9, 1998, exactly 60 years after Kristallnacht.
Sidebar
November 4, 2008
Two German Holocaust survivors will recount the terrors of Kristallnacht during a Nov. 9 program sponsored by the Henry Ricklis Holocaust Memorial Committee.
The two Monroe residents, Bill Schrimmer and Esther Clifford, will speak of the horror and fear during the “Night of Broken Glass” — Nov. 9-10, 1938 — when thousands of synagogues, Jewish businesses, and homes were set ablaze or destroyed in Austria and Germany.
The free program — at 1 p.m. in Monroe Township High School — will mark the 70th anniversary of the event that is widely seen as the unofficial start of the Holocaust, according to committee chair Jay Brown.
“That six million died and so many of them were children is something that must be remembered, or else we are doomed to repeat the past,” he said. “Our mission is to make sure this never happens again to any people.”
The event will also feature a video made by another Monroe survivor, Ilse Loeb, about her experiences during the Shoa.
Schrimmer, a Dresden native, will speak of the deportation of hundreds of Jews of Eastern European origin to Eastern Europe in October 1938 and his return visits to his hometown (see sidebar).
Clifford’s Polish-born parents and their five children were ordered deported from Frankfurt to Poland. At the time, an older sister had fled to France; another had papers to go to Shanghai. Both survived the war.
Clifford, her parents, brother, and another sister were ordered to leave. “But I was sent back at the border and put in prison as punishment because I disobeyed a command to raise my hands,” she said. “That saved my life.”
The rest of the family would later die “in some camp.” Clifford went back to Frankfurt after her release, finding herself a frightened 16-year-old on Kristallnacht.
“I covered my face and ran out of the house,” she recalled. “I was running through the streets…. No one recognized me or realized I was Jewish.”
Afraid to return home, she became a beggar on the streets, seeking shelter in cellars and attics. Weeks later, a friend’s mother, whose husband had been taken to a concentration camp, took her in. Clifford later went to England, using a visa that was meant for her friend. “This girl’s mother gave me the visa because she didn’t want to be left alone when her husband was in the camp,” said Clifford. “They both stayed behind and perished.”
Working as a maid, she lived through the bombing of London. She met her husband, Rudy, a Holocaust survivor from Berlin who served six years in the British military (his last name was Anglicized to protect him in case he became a German POW).
The couple came to the United States in 1948, settling in Manhattan, and later moved to Spring Valley, NY. Clifford came to the Clearbrook adult community 17 years ago.
For information about the program, call Brown at 732-251-6498.
The Kristallnacht star
I have revisited my German hometown, Dresden, a number of times over the years. Each time, I followed a ritual of order. First I would visit our Jewish cemetery, which, amazingly, remained untouched by the atrocities of the Nazi regime and the firestorm air raid of Feb. 13, 1945.
After visiting the graves of my mother, grandparents, and others, I would go for reflection to the memorial on the grounds where our famous synagogue once stood. It was built by Gottfried Semper, the same architect who built the city’s famous opera house.
From there I would go to the Jewish community center and the city’s new synagogue.
On one trip, I went to the Newtown Railway Station. On the sidewalk, I looked down and saw a large magen David chiseled into a concrete slab. I also noticed a plaque mounted on the wall in memory of the more then 700 Jews of Eastern European origin who were deported from Dresden to Poland and other areas of Eastern Europe in October 1938.
I recalled that day very well. In the early night hours, the Nazis had gone to their homes and told these poor people to quickly get dressed and pack only essentials. They were then taken to the railroad station and herded onto trains. We — our scout troupe and many others from the Jewish community — were on the platform, handing out beverages, sandwiches, and other food in the early-morning hours.
Little did I know this incident would precipitate a campaign of terror that would result in the burning of hundreds of synagogues and mass deportations to the death camps.
Among the Polish-born Jews being deported that day was the Grynszpan family, a couple and their two daughters. Unfortunately, they and other families were stranded in no-man’s-land because the authorities would not allow them to enter Poland.
The Grynszpans had a 17-year-old son, Herschel, an illegal immigrant living in Paris, who was told of his family’s plight. The boy was able to acquire a gun. On Nov. 7 he went to the German embassy in Paris, gained entry, and shot and killed Ernst vom Rath, the first secretary of the embassy.
The Nazi officials used this as an excuse to unleash waves of terror against the Jewish population in most large German cities, including Dresden. This was Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass, Nov. 9–10, 1938, which resulted in the murder of 92 Jews, the deportation of tens of thousands to concentration camps, the destruction of more than 200 synagogues, and the widespread ransacking of Jewish businesses and homes.
In Dresden, Nazi sympathizers amassed and orators delivered inflammatory speeches to arouse those assembled. Soon after, mobs began a rampage through the city, breaking windows and wrecking goods in Jewish-owned businesses, which had been marked with painted signs reading “Owned by Jew.”
The mobs finally — obviously on orders from a higher authority — reached the synagogue. Nazi stormtroopers had broken in and poured gasoline on the altar and throughout the interior and set the synagogue ablaze.
The Dresden fire brigade, including a fire boat on the Elbe river, arrived, ready to extinguish the flames but were prevented by Nazi hoodlums surrounding the synagogue. Only after most of the inside of the building was charred and destroyed were the firemen allowed to turn on their hoses.
The tradition among German firemen is that after extinguishing a fire, a memento — some would say a “trophy” — would be retrieved to add to the engine’s collection. The Dresden fire-fighting brigades consisted mainly of former German Social Democrats and most were not indoctrinated in the Nazi ideology. Thus, when two firemen removed the magen David from the synagogue’s tower, which, like the foundation, had withstood the flames’ wrath, it was taken to the firehouse. Rather than being displayed as a trophy, however, the star was placed in a crate filled with sand to protect it from further damage.
In the spring of 1939, fireman Alfred Neugebauer took the magen David and hid it in the crawlspace of his home. He had known many Dresden Jews since his childhood, was no friend of the Nazi regime, and wanted to save some remnant of the magnificent synagogue built by the famous architect Semper.
After the war, Neugebauer remained in the fire department, and in 1949, he and his director presented the magen David to the surviving members of the Jewish congregation.
The star was placed on top of the temporary sanctuary at the Jewish cemetery and now, after dedication of the new synagogue, it proudly stands as a symbol of faith, redemption, and survival.
Bill Schrimmer, who lives in Greenbriar/Whittingham in Monroe, is a member of the Henry Ricklis Holocaust Committee. He thanks Sheila Sugerman for her assistance in preparing this article. He will speak at the committee’s Kristallnacht commemoration on Sunday, Nov. 9, at 1 p.m. at Monroe Township High School.
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