I'd Like to Tell Meinhard's Story
2002 Boaz Rauchwerger
PLEASE NOTE: The following column is in no way intended as a criticism of the many good and decent German citizens who revile and reject the actions of previous generations.
May I introduce Meinhard? He is Jewish and was born in Vienna on the 8th of March in 1921. Better yet, I'll let him tell the story by quoting from a presentation he gave last year on the Jewish Yom HaShoah - the Day of Remembrance. He wrote these thoughts with the help of his daughter, Tina.
September, 1931; Vienna, Austria: "My mother - well-educated, deeply religious, a former schoolteacher who had struggled to feed 6 children after my father's death - was finally defeated by illness and hunger. She died on the second day of Rosh Hashanah. I was 10 years old and severely malnutritioned. In fact, I learned of my mother's death as I lay in a hospital bed, crippled by rickets.
After an operation, I was sent to a town not far from Vienna, which I would come to know for two reasons: it had a rehabilitation center where individuals like me could be sent to recuperate, and it functioned as the headquarters for an illegal political party, whose members were being trained to brutalize their enemies.
Near the hospital where nurses were training my legs to walk, Brownshirts were being trained to beat, humiliate, and degrade human beings. The leader of the prohibited political party was Adolf Hitler. He began giving speeches in beer halls, railing against Jews, communists, the French and the British.
Street hooligans began carrying weapons, wearing brown uniforms, and organizing small demonstrations during which naysayers were beaten. Eventually the demonstrations grew larger, and the Nazi party itself became strong enough to demand full representation in the Parliament. President Hindenburg himself accepted Hitler as the new Chancellor.
Now I will tell you what I personally witnessed in perhaps the most cultured, cosmopolitan city in all of Europe, where Jews were fully integrated into the intellectual, cultural, and economic life of the community, assimilated as any modern American Jew is assimilated, represented in all of the professions, free to work, live and worship freely and productively in the home country of Mozart and Shumann.
All Jews lost their citizenship. Their properties and businesses were simply stolen from them and handed over to openly professing anti-Semites. Bank accounts were closed and Jews were summarily fired from their jobs. Nazi hoodlums were given carte blanche to harass, humiliate, or kill any Jew: it was perfectly legal.
Jews were declared "Vogelfrei:" people who were open game for abuse of any sort. Anyone could kill a Jew without fear of arrest. Jews were not admitted to hospitals.
I witnessed in my district how uniformed bicycle riders deliberately tried to run over an old man who was trying to cross the street. The riders stopped in anger and threw the man over the bridge rail.
November, 1938: I was 17 years old. I heard sirens of many, many fire trucks. All the Temples in Vienna were on fire. The rumor was spread that many Jews were put into potato sacks and thrown into the Danube River. Jews were rounded up from their homes and from the street, taken to assembly centers for interrogation and to be humiliated and beaten. Some days later, they were transported to a concentration camp.
My oldest brother David did not return home. A month later we received his letter requesting some money and a food package. The letter was sent from a place called Dachau.
In those early days of the war, it was still possible to get a Jew released from a camp if the prisoner could show that some country would take him in. A brother of ours who had immigrated to America a few years earlier, Sigi, desperately searched for a country who would take in a Jew.
America and numerous countries denied David entry, but finally my brother in America scrounged together enough money to buy a permit for David to enter Cuba, and a ticket aboard a ship headed for Cuba. David was released from Dachau and boarded the ship. But when the ship arrived in Cuban waters, the Cuban authorities suddenly revoked David's visa as well as the visas of hundreds of other Jewish refugees on the ship.
Sigi frantically tried to get him into America, but David was again refused entry. The ship was forced to return all the passengers to Europe. David was admitted to France, but when France was occupied shortly thereafter, he and many of the other refugees from the ship were taken to another concentration camp. He managed to escape and join the French Underground, and he remained in hiding until the end of the war. Three other brothers survived by making their way through the British blockade into Palestine.
I was luckier. With the help of my sister-in-law and her family, I was able to hide from the Nazis until I got my immigration visa to enter America. Life as a teenage immigrant who did not speak the language was not easy, but I was so grateful to be alive and living in a free country. I married and raised a family, and now my two children, who have never known hunger and fear, are grown and have families of their own."
Meinhard, in America, is Mike Rauch, my uncle and my father's brother. His wife is my Aunt Mary. She endured three years of hell in a concentration camp. Their children, my cousins, are Harry and Tina. After many years apart, we recently all came back together and it was a joyous occasion.
I have shared Uncle Mike's story in order to emphasize the horrific effects of ignorance, religious fanaticism, cultural intolerance, envy, and simple greed. Unfortunately, these traits still exist today. 9-11 proved that no one is immune. Through this newsletter I want to promote the opposite traits. Uncle Mike would like that.
A Daily Affirmation of Tolerance
I realize that the differences between people make us a great nation.
Article reproduced with permission from Boaz Rauchwerger. You may reprint any of these articles in any publication or Web site so long as you credit Boaz Rauchwerger as the author and include this Web site address, www.Boazpower.com.