Pierre Piprot D’Alleaume

France

A devout Catholic and a highly educated man, PIERRE PIPROT D’ALLEAUME opened a hotel school in Marseilles to save about 15 Jewish girls whom he took in as employees. Among them was LORE BEITMAN, who now lives in Wilmington.

She was born Lore Bermann in Ludwigshafen am Rhein, in what is now West Germany, in 1925. In the first deportation in Europe, Lore was deported from the Pfalz region with her mother and other relatives, and sent to the Gurs camp in the Pyrenees, where her grandmother died of malnutrition.

When the large deportation started in September 1942, Lore’s mother was sent to Auschwitz, and died either there or along the way.

In early 1943, Lore was taken in by Pierre Plprot D’Alleaume and given an assumed name to make it seem that she had come from the Alsace-Lorraine region. Lore became Jeanne Durst. She was 18.

To cover up his employment of the Jewish girls, Piprot took in an equal number of French non-Jews. Piprot’s hotel was an island of sanity and freedom amidst a sea of horror. With the Germans positioned on the mountains overlooking Marseilles, Piprot nonetheless was able to protect Lore and the others from even hearing of the Nazi barbarism and slaughter of the Jews. The girls felt completely free.

The Unknown Righteous Gentile

Among untold numbers of Jews who survived the Holocaust because of the actions of Unknown Righteous Gentiles, DOROTHY KRAUSE FINGER of Wilmington was hidden by a Christian man in a barn in Stanislavov.

Most Righteous Gentiles remained anonymous for self preservation: If they had been found out, the Nazis would have killed them and their families. Others wished to stay anonymous for various personal reasons.

Born in Stanislavov in August 1929, Dorothy Krause was locked up in the attic of a barn for three days in March 1943 while the city was being rid of Jews. She and 11 other Jews, including her mother, had paid the man to hide them there.

Their lives thus having been spared during the Nazi purge of their city, Dorothy and the other Jews left the man’s house at night and ran to another small city which still had a ghetto.

Dorothy subsequently survived through the war in three ghettoes, a labor camp and the forest near Przemyslany in Galicia.

Living a nomadic forest existence, she lived in the forest with six other Jews for exactly a year, from July 27, 1943, until the area was liberated by the Russian army on July 27, 1944.

Odille Ceulemans-Gryson and Betty Shain

Louis And Odille Ceulemans-Gryson

Belgium

LOUIS CEULEMANS, a carpenter, and his wife, ODILLE CEULEMANS-GRYSON, lived in the countryside near Brussels, where they saved a Jewish baby named Betti Blaugrund, who grew to become BETTY SHAIN of Wilmington.

Betty was born in Brussels in July 1942. A month later, the Nazis began raiding and rounding up the Jews of Brussels, storming into their homes and removing them in masses to be taken to their deaths.

To survive, Jews went into hiding. Because babies cry and make noise, it became dangerous for  Betty’s parents to keep her with them. They were advised to hide her.

Through some friends, Betty’s parents located a police chief who had a sister-in-law living in Aaroschot, a small country village in the Belgian province of Brabant. Her name was Odille Ceulemans-Gryson. She and her husband, Louis—who were in their 40s and had a married daughter who was about 20—were willing to take in a child.

The couple fed Betty well, gave her the best care. Every month, at the risk of their lives, the couple took Betty to her parents, who were hiding in Brussels, so they could see her.

The couple told others that Betty was a child of working people in the city. They could never tell a soul that Betty was Jewish.

The couple kept Betty until the war ended, constantly showing her the photographs of her real parents. The pictures were kept in a cupboard in the house. Betty began referring to her parents aMother s Cupboard and Father Cupboard.

Betty was 2 years old when Belgium was liberated in September 1944.

Many documented cases exist of Christian families who adopted Jewish children during the Holocaust, in order to convert them from the religion of their birth. But Louis and Odille Ceulemans-Gryson, both of whom were Catholic, never attempted to convert Betty. As soon as the war ended, they willingly returned her to her parents.

Louise Ceulemans passed away a few years ago, but his wife is still alive in Belgium.

Noel Barrot

France

In the small town of Yssingeiux in the Haute Loire region of central France, a pharmacist named NOEL BARROT took the responsibility to save BLANKA FALEK and her son, GEORGE, from the hands of the Nazis.

Born Blanka Israelovitch in Tarnow, near Karakow, Poland, she studied at the University of Krakow, then moved to France in 1935.

With George, who was 4 years old, Blanka moved from place to place in 1942 as the Nazis began deporting Jews from France. In the mountains around Marseilles, Blanka  befriended a Mr. Malecinski, a Polish diplomat who had been a military attaché in Moscow before the war, and his wife. Because he was a high military of­ficial, he and his wife were protected in a Polish camp in Marseilles. Mrs. Malecinski, a Polish aristocrat, told others that Blanka was her cousin.

Through Mr. and Mrs. Malecinski, Bianka and George met Noel Barrot, who gave them a room next door  to his pharmacy in Yssingeiux, where they stayed in 1943 and 1944. In addition to making sure they had  enough to eat, Barrot provided moral support to the young mother and her child. Barrot saw to it that  Blanka  obtained a document saying her name was Irakovitch. No one bothered her, because she was in the company of Barrot.

Barrot instructed Blanka to knock on the wall between the two buildings if trouble approached, and he would come to her aid. Several times, the Gestapo came to the town. But they did not bother Blanka and her son.

Bianka’s  brothers,  sisters,  and about 70 other members of her family, all were murdered in Poland. But Bianka and George were saved because of the courageous action of Noel Barrot.

After the war, Barrot became mayor of Yssingeiux, then was elected congressman from the Haute Loire region in the De Gaulle government. His son, Jacques Barrot, became minister of health under Giscard-D’Estaing.

During a 1964 session of the French National Assembly, Noel Barrot suffered a heart attack and died in the arms of a colleague.

Blanka Falek lives in Dover, where she is retired from a teaching career at Dover High School. Her son, George, lives in Wilmington.

Leopold Socha and Stefan Wroblewski

Poland

Under the city of Lvov, ten Jews lived in a sewer for fourteen months, never able to stand up, never seeing the sun. Although the sewer systems of European cities served as hiding places and passageways for many Jews during the Holocaust, these 10 Jews constitute the only group known to have survived such existence for that length of time. They are probably the only group ever to have lived in a sewer for so long.

Among them was a young lady, barely in her 20s, named Halina Wind. Although she weighed 70 pounds when she emerged from the sewer on July 27, 1944, her strength gradually returned to her. It was that strength which enabled her, as HALINA WIND PRESTON of Wilmington, to  teach the Holocaust to all who would listen, for more than 30 years.

She never forgot those who perished. Likewise, she never forgot those Righteous Gentiles who risked their lives to save Jews. And so, in November 1981, when she arranged a tree-planting ceremony in front of Wilmington’s Jewish Community Center to honor Righteous Gentiles, she saw to it that two of the trees honored two Christian sewer workers who  had   saved   her:   LEOPOLD SOCHA and STEFAN WROBLEWSKI.

Socha was the leader of a three-man sewer worker team that toiled in the area of the Jewish ghetto of Lvov. A deeply religious Catholic, Socha made a deal with a Jew named Ignacy Chigier to save a small group of Jews, including Chigier’s wife, Pepa, and their two children, Pavel, 4, and Kristina, 7.

On the night of the liquidation of the Lvov ghetto, Halina Wind found herself among more than 200 people who went down into the sewers. Most of them drowned, or were caught and shot. On the following day, Halina was among the 21 survivors.

For 14 months, Socha and Wroblewski faithfully provided for their Jews, moving them when their safety was danger, feeding them, washing their clothes, visiting them every day except Sunday.

“Finally, the money ran out. Someone suggested that since it had been Chigier’s money, he should stay in the sewer with his family, and the others should go. But Socha said: Either you all survive, or nobody. As long as you are under my jurisdiction, and I am responsible for you, you are all equal. How do you know which one of you is destined to survive?’

Only 10 of the original 21 survived the 14-month ordeal. A few were unable to take it anymore, and chose to be shot on the outside rather than to live with rats in the sewer. The oldest among   them, a  grandmother died quietly in the night, and they let her body  float  away.  The  youngest, a baby who was born in the sewer, was left to die because they could not risk the noise of a crying infant.

After the Russians liberated the city, Socha came to liberate the 10 Jews from the sewer.

“They came out slowly. When it was Pavel’s turn, he began to cry. He was now little more than 5 years old, and he had forgotten what the sun and sky looked like. ‘I’m afraid, I’m afraid,’ the boy said. ‘I want to go back to the sewer.’*

But none of them ever had to spend another night in a sewer.

Socha and Wroblewski are honored at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem as Righteous Gentiles.

Socha was run down by a truck in Gliwice, Poland, in 1946. His wife still lives there.

Wroblewski and his wife also are living in Gliwice.

Halina Wind Preston died a year ago, on Dec. 2 1982, after open-heart surgery at Hahnemann Hospital in Philadelphia. She was 60 years old.

*©  1983   The Philadelphia  Inquirer. From  A  Bird  in the Wind  by David Lee Preston, The Philadelphia Inquirer Magazine, May 8, 1983.

King Christian of Denmark, the Danish Church and the Danish People

Denmark

Copenhagen’s Freedom Museum stands today to tell the dramatic story of the Danish resistance during the German occupation from April 9, 1940 (when the Nazi newspaper Volkischer Beobachter headlined the news of the invasion “Germany Saves Scan­dinavia”) until the Allied victory in 1945.

When the Danes were not blowing up ships and railroads, radioing intelligence to the Allies and otherwise defying the Nazis, they were busy smuggling Jews out of the country or hiding them in the homes of Christians.

Because of the heroic stand by the Danish king and his countrymen, most of Denmark’s 8,000  Jews escaped arrest by the Gestapo and deportation to the concentration camps.

Raoul Wallenberg

Hungary

Because of the great numbers of Hungarian Jews whom he saved through personal intervention with the Nazis, the Swedish diplomat RAOUL WALLENBERG stands alone among Righteous Gentiles, occupying a special place in the annals of heroism and in the hearts of our people.

In Wallenberg’s name, a tree stands in Wilmington’s               Garden of the Righteous Gentiles, planted by VERA LORANT of Wilmington, one of the estimated 100,000 Jews whom he rescued from certain death in Budapest at the hands of SS Colonel Adolf Eichmann, chief logistician of Hitler’s Final Solution.  Wallenberg performed a heroic role of legendary proportion in what was the last substantial urban Jewish community left alive in Nazi-dominated Europe. Eichmann was determined to  deport all the Jews to the gas chambers of Auschwitz;  Wallenberg was equally resolved to rescue as many as possible—a task he had volunteered to carry out on behalf of the U.S. War Refugee Board.

In a bitter twist of fate, this fearless young man was arrested as spy by the advancing Russian liberators on Jan. 17, 1945, while trying to approach them about helping the Jews of Budapest. According to reports, he may still be alive today in the Siberian Gulag. If he is, he would be 71 years old.

Sent to Budapest by the Swedish. government to extricate as many victims from Hitler’s grasp as possible, Wallenberg created special passports—which he designed—and for a time the Nazis were thwarted. Soon he had a staff of 400 “protected” Jews working for him, their offices spread throughout the city.

Wallenberg biographer Kati Marton provides a glimpse of one confrontation between the Swede on the one side and Eichmann and Dieter Wisliceny, Eichmann’s deputy in Budapest, on the other:

“…A voice, unemotional, strong, with just a trace of an aggressive edge, a voice ready to do battle, had spoken. Eichmann and Wisliceny spun round. ‘I’m Wallenberg, Swedish Legation” was all the explanation he provided.

” ‘You there!’ The Swede pointed to an astonished man, waiting for his turn to be handed over to his executioner. ‘Give me       your Swedish passport and get in that line,’ he barked. ‘And you, get behind him. I know I issued you a passport.’ Wallenberg continued, moving fast, talking loud hoping the authority in his voice would somehow rub off on these defeated people. Eichmann did no relish public confrontations. He preferred             a quiet, well-ordered passage from life to death. He would have to spare a few bodies for this strange, determined Swede.

“The Jews finally caught on. The started groping in pockets for bits of identification. A driver’s license or birth certificate seemed to do the trick. The Swede was grabbing them so fast; the Nazis, who couldn’t read Hungarian anyway, didn’t seem to be checking. Faster, Wallenberg’s eyes urged them, faster, before  the game is up. In minutes he had several hundred people in his own convoy. International Red Cross trucks, there at Wallenberg’s behest, arrived, and the Jews clambered on. Wisliceny resumed his interrupted head count. ‘Funf and vierzig, sechs and vierzig…’

“Wallenberg jumped into his own car. He leaned out of the car window and whispered, ‘I am sorry,’ to the people he was leaving behind. ‘I am trying to take the youngest ones first,’ he explained. ‘I want to save a na­tion'”**

By January 1945, Eichmann had fl­ed the city.

Oct.5, 1981,President Reagan signed the resolution by which Wallenberg joins the Marquis de Lafayette’s descendants and Winston Churchill in being thus distinguished. It is more than a symbolic memorial. The members of Congress hope to have more impact on the Kremlin when pressing for further information regarding the whereabouts of an American citizen.

Born Veronika Scheer in Debrecen, Hungary, in 1926, VERA LORANT of Wilmington owes her life to the personal intervention of RAOUL WALLENBERG.

Living with her parents in suburban Budapest, Vera was in her final year of gymnasium when her father received a call from a Jewish friend in the early morning hours of March 18, 1944.
The message was deliberately cryptic. The professor had found out that the Germans were on their way to Hungary, and he wanted Vera’s father to bring his family out of the suburbs immediately.

Vera’s parents did send her to Budapest on the first train, but unfortunately they decided to stay behind for a couple of days to put their house in order. Vera, who was 17 and an only child, never saw her parents again.

In Budapest, Vera took a job in the professor’s hospital, where he trained her and his daughter as surgical nurses.

Vera’s cousin, his wife and their son rented a house from the Swedish embassy in Budapest, next-door to the
embassy. They knew Wallenberg well. When they told him that Vera’s mother had been arrested, Wallenberg went to find her. He went to a camp in the outskirts of Budapest where Jews were being gathered for transport to Auschwitz. Armed with schutz-passes, or passports, which he had created to make all the Jews in the camp Swedish citizens, Wallenberg arrived at the camp — only to find that the previous night the Germans had moved 1,500 people to Auschwitz. Among them was Vera’s mother.

Vera   continued  working  at the hospital until the Germans  took  it over in August 1944. Vera’s cousin then brought her to the Swedish embassy set up by  Wallenberg,  where she took a job.

Wallenberg twice saved Vera from death at the hands of the Arrow Cross. One of the close calls happened as follows:

Wallenberg had set up his organization to assist with food and medical care and security at Swedish protected homes along a five-or six-mile stretch from his embassy. Vera and the other workers were expected to arrive at checkpoints along the way for security reasons. If someone did not show up, a search party would be sent out.

In late December 1944, Vera was two blocks from her destination in this area when she was caught by Arrow Cross thugs who refused to accept her identification. They took her to the banks of the Danube, where Jews were being shot.

Wallenberg, alerted to Vera’s absence from the checkpoint, rushed to the river, where he was able to rescue her.

Acknowledgements:

© 1981 John Bierman, Righteous Gentile: The Story of Raoul Wallenberg, Mission Hero of the Holocaust (The Viking Press, New York)

** © 1982 Kati Marton, Wallenberg (Random House, New York)

Ger And Gerard Van Raan

Holland

“We did it because we felt we ought to do it.”

That is how GER VAN RAAN matter-of-factly sums up the valor of herself and her husband, GER, during the Nazi occupation of their native Holland, when they protected two Jewish boys in their home in The Hague.

The Van Raans, who now live in Ardentown, Del., north of Wilmington, are true heroes in our midst, and they are honored with a  tree  in our Garden.

In 1942, the Van Raans were newlyweds.

Ger was a nurse, and one of her friends was a nurse in the Underground. This friend, who found shelter for Jewish children and took food coupons to people who harbored Jews, approached Ger and Gerard and asked if they would care for a Jewish child.

Despite the tremendous risk involved, the newlyweds said they would.

RUDOLF KLYNKRAMER was 8 years old when the Van Raans picked him up from his parents in Amsterdam.

Then a couple of months later, the young couple were asked whether they also would take in an 8-month-old boy, RUDOLF LIEBKNECHT. The Van Raans agreed to accept this add­ed responsibility.

The Van Raans told others that these two children were sons of Gerard’s oldest brother, who they said was in Indonesia and unable to return to Holland because of the war. They said the man’s wife was ill in a hospital and thus unable to care for the boys.

Because both boys were named Rudolf, the Van Raans gave the baby the name of Peter to distinguish him from his “brother.”

Still, there were many close calls.

The Van Raans had a friend who was engaged to a Jewish man, to whom they gave Gerard’s identification card in case the Nazis should grab him.

One day, while Gerard was in bed with pneumonia and Rudy was fishing in the park, this friend came to the Van Raan house in tears.

“Last night my fiance was picked up from a trolley car and sent away,” she said urgently. “You have to go.”

Because the man had been holding Gerard’s identification, it would be unsafe for the Van Raans to remain. They picked up and went to stay with an aunt of Ger’s in a little village for a few days.

Later, after they returned home, they found out that the Jewish man produced no papers at the police station. Wisely, he had discarded Gerard’s identification. This man never was seen again. His name was Sigmund Boekdrukker.

And so, in an ironic twist of fate, the Van Raans owned their lives to a Jew whom they had tried to save. When they had a son of their own later, the Van Raans named him Sigmund.

The baby, Peter, now resides in Israel, where he is known by his true name of Rudolf.

Also honored were Terry Danemann of Dover, Josef Tunkewicz, now deceased, of White Russia, an Mr. Krivienko of Poland.

Mrs. Dannemann, born in Przemysl near the Carpathian Mountains in Galicia, was saved by an unknown Christian. Tunkewicz saved the live of at least 10 Jews. Krivienko and his wife saved the life of Minna Kassow Kraut, now living in Philadelphia.

Thanks to many contributors to the Halina Wind Preston Holocaust Education Committee who made this memorial possible.

Yad Vashem, the Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority in Jerusalem, was established in 1953 as a museum and resource center to honor the memory of the Six Million. One of its features is an avenue of more than 600 evergreen carob trees through which visitors walk to reach the museum. It is called the Avenue of the Righteous.

The commemoration is not bestowed lightly. Much documentation is needed before the authority awards the title of Righteous Gentile. More than 2,000 additional cases are awaiting consideration by a special committee headed by an Israeli Supreme Court justice. In addition to a tree honoring a Righteous Gentile, Yad Vashem bestows a medal with the Talmudic inscription:

“Whoever saves a single life, it is as if he had saved the whole world.”

THE GARDEN OF THE RIGHTEOUS GENTILES is a project of the Halina Wind Preston Holocaust Education Committee of the Jewish Community Center. The idea for the Garden, patterned after the Avenue at Yad Vashem, belonged to Halina Wind Preston.

Mrs. Preston was a Jewish educator and lecturer on the Holocaust for more than 30 years. As a young lady barely in her 20s, Halina Wind hid from the Nazis for 14 months in a sewer in Lvov, Poland. She dedicated her life after the war to keeping alive the memory- of the six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust.

Mrs. Preston located Holocaust survivors living in Delaware—and in one case a Christian couple who had saved Jews—and compiled a list of area Jews who owed their lives to Righteous Gentiles. The 1981 tree-planting ceremony coincided with an Expo celebration at the Jewish Community Center, during which various elements of Israeli life were recreated.

In filing a 1981 report to the board of directors of the Jewish Community Center on the success of the tree-planting ceremony, Mrs. Preston wrote:

“… The trees, planted in honor or memory of those valiant Christians who saved Jewish lives during the Nazi era, will remain — we trust — an eternal symbol of unity between Jew and Gentile, then, now and for all time; a veritable Garden of the Righteous on Garden of Eden Road.”

It was her dream that the Garden eventually would be enhanced into a permanent monument, which would serve as a focal point for educational programs on the Holocaust.

In March 1982, the board of directors of the Jewish Community Center approved the idea of making the Garden of the Righteous Gentiles a permanent memorial.

Mrs. Preston died a year ago, on Dec. 2, 1982, at the age of 60 following open-heart surgery at Hahnemann Hospital in Philadelphia. After her death, the Holocaust Education Committee which she founded was renamed in her honor. Harriet Wolfson assumed the chairmanship, and the committee voted as its most urgent priority to formally dedicate the Garden as a permanent monument to the Righteous Gentiles of the Nazi era.

Some of the funding came from the contributions of more than 300 individuals and organizations locally and around the world in memory of Mrs. Preston.

Benjamin K. Raphael
Newark, Delaware

Reading Dr. Howard Berlin’s article “Essen’s Alte Synagoge that Survived Kristallnacht” in the December 2nd issue of the The Jewish Voice excited me and I feel that I must add to Dr. Berlin’s account.

I was born in Essen in 1929 and my family belonged to the “Alte Synagoge”. Why it was called that, I don’t really know. It was known as the “Neue Synagoge” when it was built in 1913, and usually, European buildings have to be around for hundreds of years before they are considered old. But it looks like the “Alte Synagoge” and that’s what it is called.

The day before Kristallnacht in November of 1938, my father was arrested and taken to the local jail. The reason became apparent the next morning when a band of hooligans broke into our home. and demolished everything in sight, sparing only the canary. My mother tried to explain that the house had been sold, but had no proof on hand. However, this may have been enough reason to keep them from setting our house on fire. Our Catholic housekeeper stayed and saved some of our belongings. My mother and I fled with our Scottie, wandering through the city. We eventually ended up at my uncle’s former home, where we lived for about a month. The main part of that house had been burned, but the rear of the house was habitable. My uncle and his family were living in Italy at the time, but his mother-in-law and sister-in-law lived there and were kind enough to let us stay with them. Due to the efforts of our (Gentile) family doctor, my father was released from jail after about a week. About a month later, after being turned back at the border once for lack of another newly enacted huge “exit tax” we went to Holland, where we stayed about three months before emigrating to the U. S. After living in Yonkers, NY for a couple of years, we settled in Wilmington.

I don’t remember much about those weeks in Essen after Kristallnacht. My school, the Jewish Community Center, and most Jewish private homes had been burned. I visited the synagogue and saw the devastation after it had been burned.

The first time I returned to Germany after the war was in 1966. My father had died two years earlier, and my mother, my former wife, and I stayed in Essen for three days. The synagogue was still there, of course, but the Jewish population was so small that it could not begin to support a building of that size. It was now a museum dedicated to German industry. We took the guided tour. The very young tour guide explained that the building had been “damaged during the war”. I didn’t bother to correct her. There was no remorse or admission of guilt. On the exterior there was a plaque with inscription that illustrates the mood at that time:

“MEHR ALS 2500 JUDEN DER STADT ESSEN MUSSTEN IN DEN JAHREN
1933-45 IHR LEBEN LASSEN.”

(My translation: “More than 2,500 Jews of the City of Essen lost their lives during the years 1938-1945”)

One thing happened that I will never forget. My mother wanted to visit a former friend, a lady who had lost her husband and two sons fighting for Hitler. Both my wife and I rebelled. Neither of us wanted any contact with any followers of “Der Fuehrer”. But Mother insisted, and, as usual, she got her way. We arrived at the lady’s house unannounced and rang the bell. Mother’s friend answered the door and the two women just stared at each other for moments. Neither spoke a word. Then they fell into each other’s arms, sobbing.
I was back again in 1989. The Alte Synagoge was still a museum, but now it was dedicated to Essen’s Jews. My grandfather’s business (M. Stern A.G.) was mentioned. There was a monument inside as a tribute to the Christian gravediggers who, as they were working during the day of Kristallnacht, saw what was happening and hid the torahs from the synagogue in an empty grave to save them from being destroyed. And there was a new plaque on the exterior:

“DIESES HAUS DER EHEMALIGE SYNAGOGE DER JUEDISCHEN GEMEINDE IST EIN STUMMER ZEUGE EINES FURCHTBAAREN GESCHEHENS DAS WIEDERGUTZUMACHEN UNS ALLEN AUFGETRAGEN IST.“

(My translation: “This house, the former synagogue of the Jewish community, is a silent witness to terrible events for which we must all atone.”

In 2002, I was back again. This time I was a guest of the City of Essen, as part of the atonement for the Holocaust, an annual event in cities all over Germany. My present wife and I, along with a couple of dozen others from the U. S., Israel, and South America, were wined and dined beyond belief. The first evening we were feted at a welcoming dinner, hosted by the Oberbuergermeister (Lord Mayor) and a number of city officials. We were seated with a Catholic priest and a retired Bishop of Essen, Heinrich Gehring. It was Herr Gehring who had caused the plaques on our synagogue to be changed, and made many similar attempts to atone for the sins of the Nazis. He also had a historical marker erected in the center of the city, across the street from the railroad station.

My translation: “During the period from October 27, 1941 to September 9, 1942, over 2,000 of Essen’s Jews were transported on trains from Essen’s main railway station and its freight station to ghettos and death camps in eastern Europe. Almost all were murdered there. The transport took place during daylight hours, in full view of townspeople and other passengers. Armed guards made any escape efforts impossible. Normal train service was not interrupted.”*
He, more than any others we met, truly regretted the sins of his fathers. As a token of our appreciation, we gave him a memento of ours, an iron medal which had been presented to my mother by the German government during WWI in gratitude for some of her gold jewelry which she had donated to the war effort.
In addition to the museum, the building hosts a research team that will continue to collect data and oral testimonies from Holocaust survivors and refugees for a few more years in order, I assume, to reconstruct records of the lives and fates of Essen’s Jewish citizens. The team consists of Jews and Gentiles, working together. Graduate students host the returning “Wandering Jews”.
Essen had been bombed heavily during WWII. The Krupp industries were prime targets for Allied bombers. Our former house was hit and, after the war, was replaced with an apartment house. The area around the synagogue was devastated. Almost every building in downtown Essen had been rebuilt or newly erected after the war. Miraculously, the synagogue survived the Nazi terror and the air raids. The damage from the Krystallnacht fire had been limited to the interior and the windows. To the Nazis the empty building was an eyesore, and preparations were made to raze it. However, the structure was so massive that they were unable to allocate the necessary explosives to demolish it.
Will the “Alte Synagogue” ever be used as a house of prayer again? Probably not. In 2002, Essen’s Jewish population consisted largely of Russian immigrants, too few to support such a large building. But, the climate has changed and slowly, more Jews are returning to Germany. Maybe some day.

This article was originally published in The Jewish Voice on January 20, 2008.
Addendum:

* My wife and I returned to Essen for a brief stay in the summer of 2015. The plaque had been removed. However, On the adjacent sidewalk there was a small Stolperstein, one of many (presumably) all over Germany. Translated literally, it is a stone over which one can stumble or trip. Actually, it is anything but. It is a small brass plate which has been substituted for a brick or cobblestone in the sidewalk, and it bears the inscription of the name of the Jewish family which resided there before the Nazi era.

Artistic Wilmington Family Featured In Art Show

The Delaware Jewish community has long been engaged with the Arts.  Twenty-five years ago, one family’s creative legacy was recognized in an exhibition, “Artistic Connections: One Century of a Family’s Involvement in Art.” Learn more about these artists, and other noteworthy contributions to the arts scene by visiting the Jewish Historical Society of Delaware’s website, http://jhsdelaware.org/jewish-voice.

Artistic Wilmington Family Featured In Art Show At U.D.’s Arsht Hall thru Oct. 29

By BETH THOMAS

Three generations of artists from one family are represented in “Artistic Connections: One Century of a Family’s Involvement in Art,” an exhibition at Arsht Hall on the University of Delaware’s Wilmington campus, 2700 Pennsylvania Ave.

The exhibition includes paintings by Delawareans Ruth E. Berger, Dr. Norman L. Cannon, Maura E. Golin and the late Clara Finkelstein, an early member of the Wilmington Studio Group. Sculpture by Carol Berger Hershman, now a resident of Seattle, also is featured in the show.

A time span of nearly 100 years is represented by this multi-generational art exhibition. Finkelstein who immigrated to the United States from Russia with her parents in 1893 studied at the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts and with M.A. Renzetti and N.C. Wyeth.

A summer resident of Arden, a creative center for artists and writers in the early decades of this century, Finkelstein painted memories from childhood and from the stories of her parents’ experiences in Russia. She demonstrated her interest in the arts to her nieces and nephews and imparted in them a passion and talent that has, in tum, been inherited by succeeding generations.

Paintings by Berger, Cannon and Golin, members of the second generation who are nieces and a nephew of Finkelstein, also are included in the exhibit. All three artists are Wilmington natives, and their work has been exhibited frequently throughout the area.

Berger’s paintings have been shown exclusively in the Philadelphia area. She is a graduate of the University of Delaware and also studied at the Corcoran School of Art and the Tyler School of Fine Art in Philadelphia. She also works in printmaking and fiber art.

Golin’s work is owned by several embassies throughout the world. She studied art history at the University of Pennsylvania, graduated from the Philadelphia College of Art and did graduate work at the University of North Carolina. In her painting, she works through relationships of color forms to express the poetry of seemingly commonplace items.

Cannon, also a graduate of the University of Delaware, earned his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania. He has pursued his study of art for over 30 years. He has combined sketching and painting with travel, and some of his outdoor paining experiences in Wilmington, Canada and New England are reflected in this exhibit.

Hershman, a sculptor, represents the third generation of artists in this family. A Philadelphian since early childhood, she graduated from the Tyler School of Fine Arts and did postgraduate work with Gerd Utecher. Hershman works in a variety of media, including bone, stone, epoxy resin, cast aluminum and mixed media. Her work has been exhibited throughout the United States and Europe and is included in many private and corporate collections.

For more information, call (302) 831-8839.

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ARTISTIC CONNECTIONS:

ONE CENTURY OF A FAMILY’S INVOLVEMENT IN ART

OCTOBER 3-29, 1993

S. SAMUEL AND ROXANA C. ARSHT HALL
UNIVERSITY OF DELAWARE
WILMINGTON CAMPUS

 

 

 

 

THIS EXHIBITION HAS BEEN MADE POSSIBLE BY A GENEROUS ANONYMOUS DONOR TO WHOM THE PARTICIPANTS AND THE UNIVERSITY OF DELAWARE ARE EXTREMELY GRATEFUL.

YOU ARE CORDIALLY INVITED TO ATTEND A
RECEPTION FOR THE ARTISTS
ON
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 3, 1993
FROM
3-5 P.M.
S. SAMUEL AND ROXANA C. ARSHT HALL
PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE, WILMINGTON, DELAWARE
LIGHT REFRESHMENTS WILL BE SERVED.

The exhibition is being held at the S. Samuel and Roxana C. Arsht Hall in commemoration of the second anniversary of the opening of the building.  Arsht Hall was named for Judge Roxana C, Arsht, a member of the artists family and niece of Clara Finkelstein, and her husband. Mr. S. Samuel Arsht.
Arsht Hall is located on the University of Delaware’s Wllmmgton Campus. 2700 Pennsylvania Avenue (Route 52 North) in Wilmington Delaware. Arsht Hall is Just a few miles from 1-95 approximately 60 minutes driving time from Philadelphia. For additional information call 302/83 1-8839.

ARTISTIC CONNECTIONS: ONE CENTURY OF A FAMILY’S INVOLVEMENT IN ART

A time span of nearly one hundred years is represented in this multi-generational art exhibition showcasing the creative outpourings of one family.
Five artists from three generations in this artistic Delaware family share a lifelong appreciation and study of art and a passionate interest in creating it. Though these artists are connected by family bonds, their work is quite diverse and truly represents five individual artists.

Clara Finkelstein, who immigrated to Delaware from Russia with her parents in 1893, represents the first generation of artists exhibited here. As a newcomer to the United States, Mrs. Finkelstein recalled her family’s experiences in Russia and as immigrants in a new country, and translated these into painting. A painter and supporter of the arts, Clara Finkelstein demonstrated to her nieces and nephews a genuine appreciation of artistic endeavors. They in tum passed that appreciation on to the following generation.

The four other artists-Ruth E. Berger, Norman L. Cannon, Maura E. Golin and Carol Berger Hershman-represent the second and third generations of family artists. They have each pursued the study of art in formal settings, which in part accounts for the quality of their work. They also learned from previous
generations, perhaps by example, that painting, drawing, and sculpting can serve as a profound means of expression. Through their work, they translate life’s experiences into an aesthetic and narrative object, like their aunt, Clara Finkelstein, did before them.

CLARA FINKELSTEIN
Born in Russia in 1885, Clara Finkelstein immigrated to the United States with her parents in 1893 and settled in Wilmington, Delaware. In the 1920s she and her husband, I. B. Finkelstein, bought a summer home in Arden. Delaware. It was in Arden. known then as a haven for writers and artists, where her interest in art was able to flourish. She started painting seriously and to study at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia and with M . A . Renzetti and N. C. Wyeth.

An active member of the Wilmington Society of the Fine Arts, Clara Finkelstein was also one of the early members of the Studio Group in Wilmington. Her work was frequently exhibited locally and in Philadelphia, where she was a member of the Philadelphia Art Alliance. Clara Finkelstein and her husband were also instrumental in the development of the Brandywine Arts Festival.

Mrs. Finkelstein painted from life and was influenced by the naturalism of the Ashcan School d social realist painters of the 1930s. She drew upon her lifetime experiences for her painting subjects; personal stories and memories from childhood w ere among her favorite themes.

RUTH EUSTER BERGER

A native of Wilmington, Ruth E .. Berger graduated from the University of Delaware with degrees in art and education. After graduation, she taught art in the Wilmington public schools. She studied painting at the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, D.C. , and print making at Temple University’s Tyler School of Fine Art and at the Philadelphia Museum school.

Ruth Berger has had many solo exhibits and her paintings, prints, and fiber art have been widely shown in galleries and museums in the Philadelphia area. Through her art, she seeks to express a concern for the human experience in all of its variety.

NORMAN L. CANNON

A retired Wilmington doctor and medical administrator, Dr. Norman L. Cannon has always insisted on reserving time for his painting. At an early stage of this
lifelong interest, he showed some work to his aunt, Clara Finkelstein. who encouraged him and suggested that he continue with lessons. So began his thirty-eight year involvement with painting.

A graduate of the University of Delaware in 1933, Dr. Cannon earned a masters degree and a medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1933 and 1937, respectively. His artistic education began in Arden, Delaware where he took children’s art classes, studying sculpture with M.A. Renzetti and painting and drawing with Walter Kumme.  Since this early exposure to painting and sculpture, Dr. Cannon has pursued his artistic education at the Delaware Art Center and at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, where he took evening sculpture classes. For the past twenty-five years he has studied painting with Ed Loper, Sr. traveling, sketching, and painting whenever he had an opportunity, painting became an absorbing and exciting hobby for Dr. Cannon. Outdoor painting experiences in Wilmington, Quebec City, and New England are represented in this exhibit, along with painting scenes in Puerto Rico
and Antigua.

Dr. Cannon’s work has been shown in exhibits at Luther Towers, the Wilmington Public Library, and in a group exhibition at the Warehouse Gallery in Arden. Several of his works are displayed at the Medical Center of Delaware.

CAROL BERGER HERSHMAN
A former Philadelphian, Carol Hershman now lives and works in Seattle, Washington. As a sculptor, she works with a variety of materials including bone, stone, epoxy resin, cast aluminum, and mixed media. Two of Mrs. Hershman’s jewelry pieces also appear in the exhibition. The necklaces include hand-blown glass beads and hand-carved bone figures.

A graduate of Tyler School of Fine Arts at Temple University, Carol Hershman has also studied at Bard College and did post graduate work with the sculptor Gerd Utescher. Her work has been exhibited throughout the United States and Europe and is included in many private and corporate collections.
Her daughter, Carla Hershman, is continuing the family tradition by studying painting at Mills College in California. Her paintings represent the fourth generation of artists in this family.

MAURA EUSTER GOLIN

Born in Wilmington, Delaware, Maura E, Golin began painting as a scholarship student in the children’s art classes at the Delaware Art Museum She pursued her interest in art at the University of Pennsylvania where she studied Art History, and graduated from the Philadelphia College of Art. She did graduate work at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and has studied with Sam Feinstein in Philadelphia.

Maura Golin’s woodcuts and paintings are included in numerous private collections, as well as the University of Delaware and embassies in Greece, Japan, Panama, and the Peoples Republic of China.

As an artist, she strives to build a radiant, harmonious image through relationships of color forms. Using painting as her vehicle of expression, she extracts and reveals the poetry of her world.