Member Profile
Survivors
In observance of Krystallnacht, The Night of Broken Glass, we retell the compelling survival stories of three of our members: Marion Intrator, of blessed memory, Rose Rosman, of blessed memory, and Lotte Friedman. In addition to these survivors, we also pay tribute to TBS survivors: Ludovic Wurmfeld, of blessed memory, Helen Udkovich and Sarah Beldengruen. There are other survivors among our members and among the Jewish deaf community, whose stories we have yet to know; we hope they will someday share them with us.
Marion's Story
The convoy of war ships, made up of Merchant Marine vessels and conscripted ocean liners, that pulled out from an unnamed English port in December of 1944, had only recently arrived from the United States filled with American service men and much-needed supplies for the Allied Forces. The vessels were now returning to North America for another load and the return trip was not without passengers. Both injured and weary servicemen as well as many refugees from the horrors of war-torn Europe filled its decks and holds. Among the latter, was an attractive young fifteen year-old German Jewess, Marion Schlessinger. It had not been easy for her to win a place on one of the ships; she was bright and intelligent but she was also deaf and America had strict regulations on admitting people with handicaps, even children. They would not add disabled persons to its rolls of those who might need special help and could not be self-sufficient. But through the clever thinking of her father, Marion was granted passage on one of those vessels.
Marion Intrator
Marion was born in Stuttgart, Germany, in 1928, one of three children of Hugo and Selma Schlessinger. Her father was a prominent business man, dealing in textiles and well respected in the Conservative Jewish community and the German community at large. At the age of two, Marion suffered from a bout of scarlet fever and lost her hearing. Two years later, her parents sent her to a school for the Jewish deaf in Berlin (Israelite Institute for the Deaf), a top-notch and long-existing institution that educated Jewish deaf youngsters in the oral method of communication and at the same time gave them a wonderful background of their heritage as Jews. "I was able to come home only for long holidays and vacations because Stuttgart was 11 hours by train from Berlin," Marion told me and added, "The school was very Orthodox, very seriously observing the Sabbath to every letter of Jewish law. I was sometimes very confused when I got home and saw my parents do things on Shabbat that we never did at school. However my parents were happy that I was learning how to speak and write and could communicate with them so easily."
In 1939, a neighbor informed Mr. Schlessinger that he and his family were on a list slated to be deported to the infamous internment camps. Hugo and Selma realized the time had come for them to leave Germany with their family. Ten year-old Marion was miles away at school in Berlin, but her father called Dr. Felix Reich, the headmaster of the school, asking him to send Marion to Holland immediately and that they would pick her up there. Dr. Felix was leery about sending this young Jewish child out on her own so he traveled with her to Holland, hoping to put her safely into the arms of her family. As things would happen, the Schlessingers were nowhere to be found so Dr. Felix brought this sad youngster back to the school.
Dr. Reich had been negotiating with a school for deaf Jewish children in England to arrange transport and a safe haven for his young charges as it was becoming more and more dangerous and difficult to continue to run his school in Berlin. Almost a year later, Dr. Reich was successful in moving 11 deaf Jewish children, ranging in age from 2 to 11 years, from Berlin to England. Dr. Reich, died in 1950. Most of the 146 students from the school were killed in 1942. Marion was one of the lucky ones that he saved.
Life in the English school was similar to Berlin; they moved around a lot because of the bombing but the children learned to speak English and they continued their Jewish studies. "All this time," Marion said, "I wondered where my parents and sister and brother were and if they were still alive. I really had no idea, for all I knew, I might be an orphan. Still I had a lot of hope and dreams and perhaps said a lot of prayers too." Then in the winter of 1944 Marion heard from the International Red Cross that her parents and siblings were all safe in New York City and anxious for arrangements to be made for Marion to join them. Then came the difficult part...
The United States was willing to issue visas to persons who needed refuge but refused to do so if there was any disability which might keep them from earning their own living. Hugo Schlessinger had, just that week, read that there was a shortage of farm hands in the north central states because most of the farmers' helpers had moved to the cities to take better paying jobs in the munitions plants. Hugo Schlessinger, who had not seen Marion for almost five years, told the American consul, "My daughter is strong and big for her age. It matters not that she is deaf. She will work well in the fields." The coveted visa was issued. Thus, the convoy had 15 year-old Marion, amongst its passengers, in the personal care of the ship's captain.
As the boats stealthily crossed the north Atlantic, taking care not to show their lights and zig-zagging on sea lanes that were little used to avoid the U-boats of the enemy, Marion anticipated seeing the Statue of Liberty, which would represent a new life back amongst her family. After an arduous month-long journey, the ship finally landed at Halifax, Canada. A two-day train trip brought Marion to New York City where she was, to the delight of everyone, reunited with her family. Wise Hugo Schlessinger enrolled Marion in the Lexington School for the Deaf and even though he would have loved having her at home, he realized that she had to become used to American ways, make new friends and prepare herself for a life in America.
Rose's Story
A needle, a single needle, meant for Rose Steinberg the difference between living or dying. Rose, a slave laborer in a French fur factory during the occupation of the Nazis, was allotted five needles per day. The skins were tough and it was not easy to pull the needle though hour after hour, day after day. Many is the time Rose broke two or three or even four needles, but she never broke the fifth. Those who broke five were immediately sent outside to "the wagon" never to return. Rose's life was full of such escapes.
Rose Steinberg was born in 1917 in Pinsk, Poland to Michel and Tauba Steinberg. After five years in Pinsk, the family moved to Warsaw, where her father was a furrier. Rose attended a school for the deaf in Warsaw, but the Steinbergs were not happy with the quality of education they offered. Through a Russian doctor and friend of Michel's, he was led to Dr. Felix Reich, director of the Israelite Institute for the Deaf in Berlin and requested enrollment for his daughter. Rose worried at first that it was too far from home but rode the train with her father to see for herself. "I started to fall in love with the school when I saw big dolls in one of the classes," she said. Rose stayed at the school until she graduated in 1932, when she turned 15. Berlin seemed like home to her, so after graduation she returned, living in a home for girls, and entered a private high school to learn French. In 1933, as the Nazis began restricting the Jews, Michel Steinberg decided it was time for Rose to rejoin the family in Warsaw.
In 1935, as life for Jews became increasingly difficult, Michel and Tauba decided the best plan was to leave Poland, for Paris. Michel was first, taking with him several sewing machines to start a new fur business, and hoping later to get visas for the rest of the family to join him. Tauba was the next to leave, boarding a boat in the Polish port city of Gdansk, which took her through the Baltic Sea to the North Sea, and eventually to Paris and reunited with Michel. Rose and her two sisters, Clara and Sara, stayed behind to sell their house and furniture and for two more years lived with a kindly family while Michel managed to send them money to live on until it became possible for them to leave Poland. Meanwhile, things were escalating in Warsaw and after careful planning, the three sisters left by train for Brussels where their father had arranged a rendezvous with a famous Belgian movie actor who was a friend of his. On a stop-over in Berlin, Rose had a chance to look up Max Feld, an old friend from school, for whom she had a great fondness. Once arriving in Brussels, more planning was required so they stayed for ten days posing as tourists, and going to the World's Fair. But their real agenda was to purchase Belgian papers in order to secure safe passage. At the end of ten days, their Belgian benefactor drove Rose and her sisters in his "big beautiful car" (as Rose describes it) to Paris. However, their trip was not without incident at the German/Belgian border. They were ordered not to speak a word of Polish and even though their benefactor was recognized as a famous actor, the three girls were ordered to get out of the car and remove their clothing for inspection. Suffering only humiliation, they arrived safely in Paris later that evening and were all once again reunited.
Rose and Max
Rose continued to corresponded with Max after their short visit in Berlin and by the end of 1937, learned that the Felds were leaving Germany and heading for South America, but would stop in Paris on the way. In these times things happened quickly since one really didn't know what the next day would bring, so this stop-over resulted in an engagement between the two lovers. The Feld family wanted to take Rose with them to South America but the Steinbergs wanted them to stay in Paris, which they did. But, the Nazis were growing stronger and bolder and in 1939 occupied Paris. In the middle of a bombing attack Max and Rose were married. Three months later Rose realized she was pregnant and considered an abortion as the whole world seemed crazy to her. But Max convinced her otherwise. So amid all this chaos, on December 22, 1940, baby Esther Feld was born.
The Germans entered Paris and life changed quickly for the French people and especially the Jews who were forced to wear a yellow star on their clothes and live in a special part of the city. The Gestapo seized Michel Steinberg on the street in Villepine where he was arrested for not wearing his star when he went out for a pail of milk. His factory was seized and Rose was forced to work as a slave laborer in her father's fur factory while deaf non-Jewish friends of hers and Max's took care of their baby. Soon after her father's arrest, the Gestapo came to Rose's apartment and arrested Max. They both perished in 1942, Max in Birkenau and Michel elsewhere.
When it came time for Rose to renew her passport, she reported to the Immigration office. In spite of her short stature and her heart pounding in her chest, she stood her tallest and spoke with authority that she was deaf, Jewish, working hard for the Germans and wanted her passport back! They detained Rose for 24 hours without food or sleep until the proper Gestapo authority arrived to interrogate her. Upon his arrival, she held her head high, threw her keys to the floor and demanded to know why she was being detained. He must have been impressed by her demeanor and released her.
Friends urged Rose to hide since the Gestapo was actively arresting Jews daily. One day as Rose and her mother were walking to the factory, a French policeman staring at them, secretly signaled with his baton for them not to enter the factory. They went back to their apartment, gave Esther to a French family for safe-keeping and fled to the farmhouse of another friend where they lived in the basement until the war's end.
Rose and Esther
After many months of living in a dark, crowded basement, apart from everything familiar, the war was over. They slowly made their way back to Paris by horse and wagon and returned to find their home completely ravaged; everything was either stolen or broken, right down to bare walls. But their neighbors were so ecstatic to have them back safely that they provided necessities to stay in their home. Mourning the deaths of Max and Michel, they began to make plans to leave Europe for Venezuela.
In 1947, Rose, Tauba, Esther, and Sara were ready to leave. For many months, every day brought a new barrier to their departure. Changed destinations, canceled tickets, lots of waiting, broken promises, and a constant string of disappointments. Finally, they boarded a small freighter that they thought would take them to New York. Eighteen days later they arrived in Galveston, Texas, a surprise for everyone. Max's brother, Alfred, took a train from New York to pick up the family, but upon his arrival was arrested and jailed. After a police investigation they were all released and headed to New York with three month visas.
Three months passed in the blink of an eye. Rose was reunited with several Berliners from the Israelite Institute for the Deaf. Rose was astounded to find old friends who had survived and were now here together; it didn't seem real. But Venezuela beckoned, where they lived until 1950, when Rose and Esther made their way back to New York City on a visitor's visa which allowed her to stay in the US for another three months. While in New York, Rose met Ted Rosman, who offered to marry her so she could stay in America. In 1952 Rose became an American citizen.
Ten year later, Esther married and settled in Los Angeles. No more separations for Rose! She followed her to California in 1963. In 1979, Rose and Ted divorced, but they remained good friends until his recent death. Rose joined Temple Beth Solomon where she won the hearts of its entire membership with her strength, stamina and generous heart. She devoted much of her time working with the deaf-blind community in Los Angeles and currently resides in Carlsbad where, at age 84, she can be closer to her daughter.
Lotte's Story
In the spring of 1992, Lotte Friedman returned to the place of her birth, Aachen, Germany for the first time in 55 years. Since 1955, Aachen's Society of Christian-Jewish Cooperation had been endeavoring to create a Christian-Jewish dialog. Finally, in 1989 they were able to reach out and start gathering the names and addresses of former residents who lived in Aachen before the war and began to assemble a list of those to invite to a homecoming. They located about 270 former Jewish residents and in the end, 204 survivors accepted the invitation to return. Together, with spouses, some 300 people made the trip back to a past, they had tried to forget.
"When I was first asked to join the group, I must confess that I was, as were the immediate members of my family, rather reluctant to accept the invitation. In my own mind I was not sure that I really wanted to go back and relive the sights and scenes of my last memories of Aachen and Germany itself. My exit from Germany in 1938 had been a life-saving device for me and my family, an occurrence for which up to now I could not forgive the German people," Lotte said.
Lotte Friedman
Lotte Stern Friedman was born in Aachen in the early 1920's, the daughter of Max and Anna Stern. Struck with scarlet fever, when she was two years of age, left her deaf. After her younger sister, Liesel, was born, an influenza epidemic claimed their mother. Later their father remarried the wonderful Minna Buxbaum, who really steered Lotte toward the proper education she would need to survive in the hearing world. She helped her perfect her lip-reading and taught her to be independent. So successful was her education that by the time Lotte was 15, she was living on her own in a rooming house many miles away from her hometown. Lotte enrolled in the Art Academy in Berlin, learning sculpture, drawing and lettering that is still a large part of her life today. She thought she would stay in Berlin forever.
Then on the morning of November 10, 1938, as Lotte walked to her morning class at the Academy, she witnessed evidence of the horrors that the SS troops had comitted the night before. Not being able to hear the commotion the night before, she now saw the remnants of peoples lives; broken glass and destruction littered the streets and sidewalks, a terrorizing site of broken homes, stores, synagogues, and schools.
Soldiers were still searching for more Jews and as a soldier walked toward her, she knew immediately what she had to do. Not even returning to her rooming house for her possessions, she fled to the train station. As she counted the money in her purse, she discovered she did not have enough to get home to Aachen. Remembering her father had a friend in Cologne, she bought a ticket, got on the train and went there for help. She arrived in Aachen in time to join her family and escape to Holland. Lotte andher parents were held in a detention facility in Amsterdam for several months until Lotte's aunt managed to get them out and into an apartment. Lotte worked as a maid in a home, where each day the lady of the house would put on white gloves to run over the furniture to make sure it was dusted properly.
In 1940, their visas for the United States were granted and soon after the family arrived in New York.
Lotte received a grant to attend the Institute of the Deaf in St. Louis, where in exchange for room and board, she cared for a deaf spastic child. After two years, during which she learned English, she moved to Los Angeles and found employment at the National School as a textbook illustrator.
In 1947 her story appeared in the Volta Review along with her picture. It was seen and cut out by Irvin Friedman, who lived in Chicago. When young Irvin attended a convention of deaf people in Los Angeles, he showed the picture around and was able to obtain Lotte's address. It took only three months for Irvin to contact, meet, court, woo and finally ask for Lotte's hand in marriage. Two sons resulted and three loving grandchildren.
The Friedmans both devoted their Los Angeles years to Temple Beth Solomon. Irv passed away in 1996, but Lotte still remains an active member of the TBS Board.
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