On our vacation down the Danube River, we spent considerable time in Austria, one of the most beautiful countries in the world. We visited Salzburg in which the famous story of the Von Trapp Family transpired, popularized by The Sound of Music. The Von Trapp Family made glorious music until the Nazis forced their exodus.

The Salzburg Music Festival is one of the most prestigious and long-lasting in the world. But one of its founders, Max Reinhardt, was forced to leave like the Von Trapps, solely because he was Jewish.

We visited Linz, the third largest city of Austria and Hitler’s birthplace. This beautiful city which has maintained its medieval tradition while providing twenty-first attractions and amenities is the infamous birthplace of Adolf Hitler. We viewed the balcony at which he greeted 60,000 citizens of Linz in its main square after the Nazi “Anschluss .” Rather than protesting the rise of Nazism, most Austrians welcomed it despite the Nazis incarceration of thousands and the incessant persecution of Jews.

Later we visited Vienna, the birthplace of many famous musicians and composers led by Gustav Mahler, whose 150^th birthday we celebrated this year. Mahler was one of the great conductors of the Vienna Opera, but could not serve in this capacity unless he converted to Catholicism. This during the last decade of the nineteenth century. Mahler’s nine symphonies and his uncompleted tenth are among the most popular canons in Western music and were popularized by Leonard Bernstein during the 1960’s. It is beautiful and passionate music, displaying Mahler’s brilliance and neuroses. He was, after all, one of the first patients of another Vienna native, Sigmund Freud, whose house now serves as a museum.

Another composer, Arnold Schoenberg, the father of modern music, also converted to Catholicism in order to advance his career in Vienna. Later, he converted back to Judaism, after he arrived in the United States, fleeing from the Nazis. His last composition was the opera, Moses Und Aron, chronicling the drama surrounding the Golden Calf.

We visited the Jewish Museum, which is an excellent small museum that has twenty-first century technology to tell the story of the vibrant, once populous Jewish community.

There was a special exhibit on the great composer, Ernst Toch, a Viennese native, and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for his Third symphony. Like other “lucky Jews,” he fled the country when “the final solution” was being implemented and went to the United States. He like many of his contemporary, Jewish composers, such as Eric Korngold, Kurt Weil and others left promising careers in classical music to compose for the movies. Toch was nominated for three academy awards for his compositions.

Others who fled Austria and Germany for Hollywood included Otto Preminger, Ernst Lubitsch and Billy Wilder.

One of the interesting archival items in the Jewish Museum was a letter by the aforementioned Arnold Schoenberg trying to convince Ernst Toch to become a Zionist.

And so we had these creative geniuses of American cinema and concert halls. Can you imagine the treasure trove of cultural gifts to humankind had not millions of our co-religionists perished during those dreadful days of “the final solution?”

It was indeed a time when the sound of music was dissonant and ugly.

My wife, Gail, and I just returned from visiting Eastern Europe on a river cruise down the Danube River. Prior to embarking on the ship, we visited Munich and the neighboring Dachau concentration camp. Below is some of the correspondence which predated our visit:

To: Info@Dachautour.com

My wife, Gail, and I will be in Munich on August 12-13th and plan to visit Dachau. My father, Eli or Elias Kleinman, was a prisoner in Dachau for some weeks before he was transported to another camp. Would it be possible to have documentary evidence of his incarceration there that we can receive during our visit. Please advise.

Thank you in advance. Max Kleinman

Hi again Max,

With the help of the staff at the Memorial Site, I found your father’s name in the archive of records kept by the SS at Dachau. According to the records, he was registered as arriving from the Flossenburg Concentration Camp on 23.10.1944 and was registered as prisoner number 118555. He was then transferred to Natzweiler Concentration Camp on 02.12.1944.
He was registered as Jewish and “Schutzhaftling” or in English “Protective Custody Prisoner,” a euphemism commonly used in the camps. The camps themselves were euphemistically called “Protective Custody Camps.”

These camps, like the sub camps of Dachau, were used to work prisoners to death while producing armaments for the German military.
When you visit the Dachau memorial site, I would recommend calling to the archive yourself to have a look at the records personally. Just tell them who you are looking for and they will pull the records for you in a few minutes. They are open Monday to Friday 09:00 to 17:00.
I received the record of his incarceration.

Translation:
Name: Kleinman, Elias
Date of Birth: 23.02.1925
Category: Jew
Protective Custody Prisoner
Date of Arrival From Transferred To
23.10.1944 Flosenberg
(Slave Labor Camp)
02.12.1944 Natzweiler
(Slave Labor Camp)

Click here to view the document.

So like a piece of chattel, my father’s incarceration at the Dachau concentration camp for 40 days, was recorded by the Nazis on a simple form. But he was one of the lucky ones.

There were over 30,000 known deaths at Dachau, many more thousands unrecorded. One of the smaller concentration camps, Dachau was the only one that existed during the entire tenure of The Third Reich. Shortly after the Reichstag burning in 1933, Hitler and his henchmen established this camp, initially for political prisoners, but then for Jews, homosexuals, Communists, Gypsies, and other “undesirables.” The prisoner barracks were similar to those witnessed at other concentration camps. The crematoria were located close by together with gas chambers.

Dachau is a suburb of Munich and is part of the Munich Metro system, which we used to ride to the camp. How the residents of Dachau and Munich could not have known what was going on, in general terms, if not specifics, would defy any rational explanation! Munich was where Hitler received his political start, and after a failed overthrow of the Municipal Government, he was confined to Landzberg Prison, nearby, where he wrote Mein Kampf. Many of the massive Nazi rallies also took place in Munich. Ironically, my parents met and were married at Landzberg after the War, where my brother Abraham was born.

But, after the war, the citizens of Dachau refused to change the name of the town, even though it had been widely known as a Death Camp. By the mid-1960’s, the Dachau Death Camp was transformed into the memorial and museum which we visited.

Most of the visitors of Dachau the day we visited were not part of Jewish groups, and many young individuals participated. While the Nazis promulgated the most inhuman atrocities known to mankind, we can not blame the children for the sins of their parents. On the contrary, Germany has institutionalized the teaching of The Holocaust for its students and preserved and established museums to inculcate its horrors in very tangible human terms. Germany is also one of Israel’s best friends.

As we left the Jewish memorial, we read the inscription to the entrance of it from Psalms 9-21: Strike fear unto them O Lord, let the nations know they are only men.

Germany, birthplace of Beethoven, wellspring of the highest cultural, technological and scientific achievements channeled those energies and talents to systematically murder their fellow human beings.

Strike fear unto them O Lord – they are only mere mortals.

Arthur Sandman is this week's guest blogger. He is Assistant Vice President of External Affairs for Jewish Agency for Israel (JAFI).

 

Some time ago, I attended Shabbat services at the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue in Manhattan. The grandeur of the service at New York's first Jewish congregation, conducted by men in colonial-era vestments accompanied by a professional choir, amid Tiffany windows and antique furnishings, recalls an earlier time. The service evokes the prosperity that community attained in America and the Sephardic traditions of Spain. But in its name, Congregation Shearith Israel recalls something so different.

 

Shearith Israel, the Remnant of Israel, evokes the tide-cast refugees who landed in New Amsterdam after escaping the Inquisition, which spread its odious tentacles from the Iberian Peninsula to colonies in South America. Shearith Israel—the shattered remnants of a community that had lived but lost its Golden Age.

 

The congregation did not draw its name from the air. In the weekday service, we implore God: Shomer Yisrael, Shmor Shearith Yisrael, v'al yovad Yisrael, ha-omrim Sh'ma Yisrael. Guardian of Israel, watch over the remnant of Israel, and do not abandon Israel, those who recite "Hear, O Israel."

 

The image of Shearith Yisrael is embedded in Jewish history. From the Babylonian exile, to the destruction of Judea by the Romans, to the expulsions and massacres of the Crusades, to the Shoah, we see the Jewish community as a community of survivors—the remnants of destruction.

 

Today, in our own Golden Age of American Jewish life, we fear the dissipation of our community and people. We continue to live the psychology of Shearith Yisrael—imagining ourselves to be a dwindling remnant who choose to preserve traditions or connections to Jewish life. A seismic shift is taking place in the demographics of our community, with a large, aging population of Jews who knew first-hand of waves of immigration, the Holocaust, and the birth of Israel, giving way to a far smaller generation of younger Jews whose commitment and identity flowers only if cultivated. Our traditional institutions are challenged, even threatened. Those of us who involve ourselves in Jewish organizations, agencies, federations, and congregations cannot afford to be sanguine; we must reposition and even reinvent our institutions if they are to survive.

 

The concept of Shearith Yisrael is not, however, one of gloom; it is, rather, one of redemption. The future of our people is not predicated on numbers, but on the survival and commitment of the few. The apparent opulence of the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue is, in the end, intrinsic to the meaning of its name—for the Remnant of Israel that landed from Recife prospered. We face enormous communal challenges—we always have. But the notion of Israel's Remnant, Shearith Yisrael, serves to remind us that we will endure, and we will flourish.

Max Kleinman, Andy Stamelman, and kids on the Black Sea

We visited Odessa in the Ukraine last month. There are about 35,000 Jews living there; with thousands of others in surrounding areas. Before the Holocaust, Odessa’s population was disproportionately Jewish and was the center for the Haskalah movement, Jewish Enlightenment, and Zionism. Natives of Odessa include Ahad Ha’am and Vladimir Jabotinsky, giants of Zionism, and Chaim Nachman Bialik, arguably the greatest Jewish poet of the twentieth century.

For many decades under Communist rule, Jewish life in Odessa was suppressed. Today, there is a renaissance in the city, initially spearheaded by the Joint Distribution Committee and the Jewish Agency for Israel.

Tikva graduation, Andrew Stamelman, immediate past President of JCF & Tikva Board member

However, the linchpin of these efforts is Tikva, the largest Jewish school in the Ukraine with over 1,000 students. What makes this school unique is that twenty-five per cent of its population are orphans or children with dysfunctional parents, who could no longer live with them. For years, Tikva has provided extraordinary residential, nutrition, psychological services and Jewish education for thousands who would otherwise be lost to the Jewish people.

Tikva also houses the University of Odessa with approximately two hundred students, and runs a nutrition program for the elderly, which our UJA dollars support.

The dedication of Tikva’s leadership, led by Ed and Leah Frankel (MetroWest residents), Andy Stamelman, immediate past chair of our Jewish Community Foundation and staff, led by Refael Kruskal, Tikva’s CEO is extraordinary. This was manifested by the airlifting of a young woman from Odessa to Israel to get a liver transplant. No expense was spared to save this one life.
During my visit, Tikva had just “adopted” a six-month old baby, for whom the school has accepted responsibility until he reaches adulthood. We witnessed basketball clinics, led by Stephen Pearl, a starter at the University of Tennessee basketball team, who was also on the gold medal winning American Maccabi basketball team. He received more than he gave by meeting with these young people who worshipped him and for the effort he made on their behalf.

Later, we participated in services at the synagogue in Odessa, beautifully restored, and were honored guests at a wedding of a Tikva graduate to another Ukrainian, in an extraordinarily Jewish wedding ceremony, with Ruach (spirit) that could illuminate any large hall.

Tikva graduation

We have worked with Tikva, in terms of insuring that as many of them as possible have an Israel experience. Several years ago, through the generosity of Ed and Leah Frankel, we facilitated a six-month pilgrimage for 55 students from the University of Odessa via the MASA program at which they studied in Israel for six months. Over 70 percent subsequently made Aliyah.

The Zionism espoused by Ahad Ha’am and Vladimir Jabotinsky are witnessed daily within the halls of Tikva, so that the connection between Tikva and Hatikva, Israel’s national anthem, is seamless.

Tikva means hope. And this extraordinary institution provides it on a day to day basis to its students and the residents of Odessa.

I’m proud that Tikva is our newest partner.

I recently received information about the 40th Anniversary celebrations for the class of 1970 of the City College of New York. (I should have graduated in 1971, but I skipped second grade. Those who are exposed to my penmanship know that was not a very good idea.)

I remember my college days at CCNY. About 65% of the student population was Jewish, probably a higher proportion than any other college with the exception of Yeshiva. My wife, brother, sister-in-law, two brothers-in-law and my daughter's-in-laws all graduated from CCNY, the school colors of which are lavender and black. In fact, Joe Fleischer, my daughter’s father-in-law, is the immediate past president of the City College Alumni Association.

We received a great education, with free tuition. This was a sound investment by the taxpayers of New York City because so many of us have gone on to very successful careers. And CCNY is making a great comeback, educating a new cadre of the children of immigrants.

My days at City College also reminds me of my friendship with David Twersky, of blessed memory, who died last week. He was active in Labor Zionist politics on campus, a leader of the Jewish Student Press movement and National Chair of Network, the umbrella of all Jewish student organizations in the United States.

He was a firebrand on the college campus because he was passionate about his politics. His activism, together with others, including, yours truly, helped to establish the first Jewish Studies Department at CCNY, headed by Rabbi Yitz Greenberg.

During the ensuing years, he had a brilliant career as a journalist at The Forward, editor of Shdemot, the magazine of the Kibbutz Movement in Israel, where he lived for a dozen years. He also edited the magazine for the Israeli Labor Party, Spectrum.

During his years as editor of the MetroWest Jewish News, he blazed new journalistic standards, making it one of the flagship Jewish papers of the country. With Amir Cohen, business head of the Jewish News and the presidents at the Jewish News, Marsha Atkind, Michael Miller, Rob Steinbaum and Beth Levithan, and the Federation, the paper expanded into to five editions. Over the years we had our differences, most of which we resolved. However, he had quite an artistic temperment. The New Jersey Jewish News is currently produced under the able leadership of Andrew Silow-Carroll and Mollie Leitzes. 

During his middle and late years, he was as much a firebrand as he was on the college campus. It was his intellect and persistence that helped him to achieve excellence in editorial writing, securing journalistic scoops and networking with the political elite of the State.

David had an encyclopedic knowledge of politics, both American and Israeli, and was a brilliant lecturer. During his later years, he was able to listen to other viewpoints and perspectives and had a successful tenure at the American Jewish Congress where he was able to facilitate a dialogue between President Musharraf of Pakistan and American Jewish Congress Leadership.

Like a comet, his life on this planet was intense, but expired too quickly. David should have had many more years to contribute to his craft, the Jewish community, Israel and the Jewish people. I am grateful to have known him for so many decades and part as friends.

He is in a line of an illustrious group of alumni who make us proud of CCNY.

Go Lavender!