Journey to Freedom: Based on a True Story

By Herb Rothman

Yehuda Roitmentz is a boy growing up in pre-World War I Germany. His father is one of the few Jewish officers who served in the Kaisers army. His mother and uncle are determined to instill in Yehuda all the knowledge and traditions of his Jewish religion. He grows into an ambitious, well-educated man who takes over his fathers clothing factory and makes it thrive.

However, everything changes when the Nazis come to power. Life becomes stressful, difficult, and even dangerous as anti-Semitic laws make earning a living almost impossible for Jews. Yehuda is soon forced to manufacture uniforms for the German army, even as he joins the resistance movement in the hopes of disrupting the Nazis as much as possible.

Yehudas resistance earns him a place in a concentration camp, but he is able to flee to Poland. Now, he must find a way for his wife and their baby to travel across Germany to join him. How can one man stand up to the Nazi agendaespecially when the Gestapo has put him on their Most Wanted List? It will take ingenuity, heroism, but most importantly, love to triumph over those who wish him dead and to find the freedom he seeks.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: May 17, 2017
• ISBN: 9781480845756

Herb Rothman

Herb Rothman published a group of community newspapers in New York City after leaving the U.S. Air Force, winning more than 150 national and local awards for outstanding journalism. For the past quarter century, he has been President and CEO of American Talent Management. He lives in the Gramercy Park section of New York City with his wife of forty-five years.

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Copyright © 2017 Herb Rothman.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Cover Graphics/Art Credit: Julene Mays

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Archway Publishing

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

ISBN: 978-1-4808-4573-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4808-4574-9 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4808-4575-6 (e))

ISBN: 978-1-4808-4800-9 (sc, small paperback)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017906685

Archway Publishing rev. date: 05/16/2017

Contents

Foreword

1 A Boy in Altona

2 The Cheder

3 The War Continues

4 Es ist schwer, ein Jude zu sein

5 Celebrations

6 The End of the War Is in Sight

7 Father Knows Best

8 Rebirth of a Nation

9 Vanishing Youth

10 Deutschland, Deutschland über Alles

11 Persecution Continues

12 Out of the Frying Pan …

13 The New Beginning

14 Welcome to America

15 War

Epilogue

Glossary

About the Author

I

dedicate this book to Harriet, my beloved wife of more than forty-five years, without whose unfailing love and support my life would be empty, and also to my parents and all the others who survived the Nazi years in Germany.

We have still not reached the end of our trials. One more labor lies in store.

—Homer, The Odyssey

Foreword

I have grown up listening to my parents and other family members talk about what it was like to grow up as a Jew in pre-Nazi Germany. While Jewish, my family did not fit typical Nazi propaganda stereotype of Jews. My father had wavy black hair, did not wear a beard or long, curly sideburns known as peyas, and was quite an athlete. My mother had movie-star good looks. In fact, she bore a strong resemblance to a young Greta Garbo. My mother’s middle brother looked like the perfect Aryan. He was over six feet tall and blond, with an athlete’s body.

Both my father and my mother came from large families. My dad had three brothers and two sisters, and my mom had one sister and three brothers. Keeping in mind the deprivations that any family in Germany suffered during World War I, their childhoods were no different from those of other children growing up at that time in Altona, Germany.

This fictionalized account, based on the story of Julius and Sara Rothman’s escape from Nazi Germany, tells the tale of their real-life courage in the face of adversity and danger. It was that courage, plus the heroism and sheer audacity that my parents exhibited after the Nazis came to power, that makes them, in my opinion, extraordinary people.

Those of us growing up decades later in the comfort of America can only imagine what it was like to live during those times. More than six million Jews died in the Holocaust. Fortunately for me, my parents were not among them.

1

A Boy in Altona

Parents can only give good advice or put them on the right paths, but the final forming of a person’s character lies in their own hands.

—Anne Frank

IT WAS AN UNUSUALLY WARM DAY FOR THE MIDDLE of April. Frieda Roitmentz had already been in labor with her first child for eight hours. The midwives kept assuring her husband, Hershel, that this was not unusual for a first child. Nonetheless, Hershel was a nervous wreck.

His younger brother, Karl, tried to calm him by telling him that when Karl’s first son, Yonkel, was born, Blima, his wife, was in labor for fifteen hours before she delivered him. Then, before Moishe, his second son, was born, she went through ten hours of labor. This history, of course, did nothing to calm Hershel down. Although Blima and Frieda were almost the same age, Blima had married earlier and had been two years younger when she gave birth for the first time.

The midwives told Hershel to go downstairs, sit in the parlor, and let them do their jobs. They requested that Blima be in the bedroom with them to help calm the mother-to-be.

An hour later, a baby’s cry was heard in the room downstairs as Yehuda Roitmentz was born. Blima ran downstairs to inform her brother-in-law. Mazel tov! she shouted. You have a son.

I can’t believe it, Hershel said. A boy! I’m going to name him Yehuda, after our late father.

His brother, Karl, approved of the name. Their father had died the year before, leaving his clothing factory to Hershel even though they had an older brother, Jacob. Jacob had left Germany right after their father’s funeral, having had a major fight with him before the senior Yehuda succumbed to an old war injury and died.

After Hershel had seen Frieda and his newborn son, he came back downstairs and said to Karl, I have to go to the synagogue and arrange for the bris and the pidyon haben.

You don’t have to go right now, Karl told him. The bris will not be until next Tuesday, and the pidyon haben is a month away. You can make the arrangements after the Sabbath services this week. Now you should go and be upstairs with your wife and child.

"Would you and Blima be Yehuda’s kvater and kvaterin?" Hershel asked Karl.

Yes. We would be honored, he answered.

The bris or circumcision—the cutting away of the foreskin of the penis—took place eight days after the birth of a male child. In Genesis, God commanded the patriarch, Abraham, to be circumcised. From time immemorial, each of Abraham’s male descendants was commanded likewise. In Leviticus, it was written, And in the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised. A mohel had to be hired to perform the circumcision. A mohel was a Jewish person trained in the practice of the covenant of circumcision.

While it was customary for the bris to be held in a synagogue, it could also be held at home. A bris was traditionally performed in the morning, but it could be performed at any time during daylight hours.

The kvater (male) or kvaterin (female) was the person who carried the baby from the mother to the father, who in turn carried the baby to the mohel. The origin of kvater may simply have been gevatter, an archaic German word for godfather, but it was also said to be an erroneous combination in Yiddish of the words kavod (Hebrew for honor) and tor (Yiddish for door), meaning the person honored by bringing the baby. Another source posited a mix of Hebrew and Yiddish that meant like the father.

The Shulkhan Arukh, or Jewish law, stated that when a Jewish woman gave birth to a firstborn male by natural birth, then the child had to be redeemed. The father of the child redeemed the child from a known kohen, representing the original temple priesthood, for the sum of five silver sheqalim or their equivalent in German coinage. Jewish law required that the silver coins used must weigh 100 to 117 grams. If the coins did not weigh that much, they were not considered a valid redemption.

The ritual was not required when the father of the child was a kohen or a Levite, and did not normally apply when the mother was the daughter of one. Because neither Hershel nor Frieda fell into this category, they had to have a pidyon haben.

This redemption ceremony was performed when at least thirty days had passed since the child’s birth. Because Yehuda was born on Monday, April 15, 1912, the ceremony was scheduled for Wednesday, May 15.

In the traditional ceremony, the father brought the child to the kohen and responded to ritual questions, indicating that this child was an Israelite mother’s firstborn son, and the father had come to redeem him as commanded in the Torah.

The kohen asked the father which he would rather have, the child or the silver coins that he would have to pay. The father stated that he preferred the child to the money. Then he recited a blessing and handed over the silver coins—which in Hershel’s case were two silver two-mark coins. The kohen held the coins over the child and declared that the redemption price had been received and accepted in place of the child. He then blessed the child.

The ceremony traditionally took place in the presence of a minyan, which consisted of at least ten Jewish males over the age of thirteen. The child was sometimes presented on a silver tray, surrounded by jewelry lent for the occasion by women in attendance. This practice offered a contrast with the biblical tale of the golden calf. Then, gold and jewelry were used to build an idol for sinners to worship, breaking the first of the Ten Commandments.

Unlike the bris, where a meal followed the ceremony, the pidyon haben began with a festive meal. In some places, guests were customarily given cloves of garlic and cubes of sugar to take home with them. These strongly flavored accents could later be used to flavor large quantities of food, which extended the mitzvah of participation in the ceremony to all who ate them.

At the end of the ceremony, the kohen who officiated gave Hershel a pidyon haben certificate. Two witnesses, the rabbi from the synagogue and Hershel’s brother Karl, affixed their signatures. Hershel had the certificate framed and hung it in Yehuda’s room, showing that the transaction had been done according to Jewish law and that the kohen was not pressured into returning the coins.

Yehuda did not remain an only child for long. Within months of his birth, his mother was pregnant again, this time with his brother Beryl. Soon after Beryl’s bris, she again conceived. However, Hershel would not be around to see the birth of his first daughter.

Hershel embraced his pregnant wife at the station from which the train taking him to meet the rest of his company was about to depart. There were tears in her eyes as she said good-bye. As any wife would when seeing her husband off to war, Frieda worried that she might never see him again.

I have arranged with my brother Karl to look after you while I’m gone, he said. There will be enough money from the factory to keep you and the boys comfortable. I have also provided money for the doctor to see you when you are in labor. I am hopeful this war will be over soon, and I shall return shortly.

I will miss you so much, she replied. Until you return, I’ll see to it that Yehuda is raised to know all the traditions of our faith.

After another quick good-bye kiss and a prolonged embrace, Hershel turned from his wife to board the train.

Germany was once again fighting in a war, and Hershel had enlisted in the Kaiser’s army. He left behind Yehuda, Beryl, and a pregnant wife to fight Germany’s enemies, the same way that his father had in the past century.

All Jews who fought in World War I were successful soldiers. Highly motivated to fight for their country, they held out hope for complete religious integration in the army. Soon after World War I began, Jewish soldiers were promoted to be reserve officers, and the military leadership started to think about making them commissioned officers. During the war, 2,022 Jewish soldiers were appointed officers, Yehuda’s father among them. In addition, 1,159 were named medical officers and military civil servants having the rank of officer.

Hershel was sent to France with his regiment. A few days after he arrived, the English sent an army to France to fight them. He distinguished himself during the Battle of the Frontiers and was awarded the Iron Cross, Second Class, for his bravery. Hershel was also promoted to captain, a great honor for a Jewish soldier.

While Hershel was away, Frieda gave birth to Rebecca.

The war was hard on people living in Germany. Rationing was widespread. Hunger stalked the civilian population. Agriculture and food distribution suffered from strains imposed by the war, and naval blockades reduced food imports.

The war took men and horses away from farm work. Even the importation of nitrate fertilizers took a hit. Reduced agricultural output forced up prices and encouraged hoarding. The German government responded by putting price controls on all types of food and material. Breadlines composed of women and children became a common sight in cities across Germany.

Germany introduced numerous government controls on food production and sale, but these proved to be badly thought out and worsened by the effects of the British naval blockade. Substitute foodstuffs were produced from a variety of unappetizing ingredients, but their nutritional value was negligible. Germans became increasingly malnourished beginning in 1916.

Yehuda was a lot more fortunate than his fellow Altonians. Because his father was an officer in the army, his family received a cash stipend. Also, his late grandfather’s clothing factory manufactured army uniforms and therefore was considered essential to the war effort. His uncle Karl was running the factory in his father’s absence and also giving his mother a generous allowance, considering the circumstances.

But Yehuda missed his father. Although he was only two years old when Hershel went off to war, he remembered how his father had taken him to the synagogue on the Simchas Torah holiday before the war, hoisting Yehuda up on his shoulders as they marched around the synagogue, singing and dancing. He even remembered the sesame honey candy he had been given and how sweet it tasted. He couldn’t wait for the war to be over so that he could be with his father again.

Yehuda also remembered that his father had been absent when he got his first haircut on L’ag B’Omer, 1915, at age three. Beryl had laughed at his nearly bald head when he and his mother returned home from the barbershop on Grossen Bergstrasse.

Every day when his sister and brother were napping, Yehuda’s mother would sit him down in the parlor in the house on the Adolfstrasse and give him a reading lesson. Yehuda loved those times. He loved the way the letters formed words. He loved to look at the illustrations and try to piece the action in the story from them. His mother showed him the Hebrew alphabet and explained what each letter was. But his favorite books were in German and written and illustrated by the brothers Grimm, who were also German born and had grown up in Hanau, a village not very far from Altona.

His uncle Karl lived in a large house on the Grosse Freiheit, near the Saint Joseph Roman Catholic Church. The house had a big front yard that was surrounded by a stone fence with a wooden gate. Planted in front of the fence were azalea bushes of various hues and heights. The tallest bushes obscured the view of the house, which could only be seen from the road when the gate was open.

A cobblestone walkway led to three front steps, which in turn led to a large porch that ran the full length of the front of the house. On the porch were a wooden bench and two rocking chairs.

Entering through the front door, one found oneself in a foyer. A large, formal dining room was on the right and a family room was on the left. Straight ahead, a stairway led to the six bedrooms on the top floor. Behind the stairway was the entrance to the kitchen, which was opposite Uncle Karl’s study. At the end of the foyer was a door leading to a very large backyard.

Uncle Karl lived with Aunt Blima and their three sons, Yonkel, Moishe, and Chaim. Yonkel was two years older than Yehuda and was already enrolled in the Bet-ha-Safer (primary school) in the synagogue on the Kleiner Papagoyenstrasse. Moishe was a year older than Yehuda, and Chaim was a year younger. Aunt Blima had almost died while giving birth to Chaim, and the doctor had told them that they wouldn’t be able to have any more children.

Karl would have liked to have had a daughter. Instead, he doted on Yehuda’s sister Rebecca. He even went over to the toy store on the Bornplatz, next to the big synagogue, and bought her a beautiful doll whose eyes opened when it was held up and closed when it was laid down.

As the years passed, Yehuda wished he were finally old enough to go to cheder, or religious school, and learn a lot more than the aleph bas (ABCs) that his mother taught him. Then, suddenly, he was going to start cheder in less than a month. He hoped he would be a good enough student to be admitted to the beis midrash, the high school or house of learning. This was the place where students of the Torah gathered to listen to the Midrash, the interpretation of the Torah as discussed for millennia by thousands of learned rabbis and their students. Yehuda yearned to be part of it. It would be a step up from the Bes ha-Safer, where children under thirteen learned the Scriptures.

While Yehuda was a good student, a life of study was not his chosen path. As the oldest son, he knew that one day he would inherit his father’s clothing factory. His brother Beryl had no desire to go through the six years of apprenticeship required to become a master tailor, which was one of the requirements for owning a clothing factory in Germany. In fact, Yehuda hoped he could start his apprenticeship part-time after his bar mitzvah in seven years’ time.

Yehuda thought about the last five years of growing up on the Adolfstrasse. Everyone who knew of his birth in that seafaring town remarked about the fact that he had been born on the day the English ship, Titanic, hit an iceberg and sank into the waters of the North Atlantic. Quite a few Altonians had gone down with the ship, both as crew and as passengers. One of the members of his uncle’s synagogue had lost a brother; he recited the kaddish, or prayer for the dead, for his brother every year on the Sabbath before Yehuda’s birthday.

Every Friday night, Yehuda, Beryl, and Rebecca went with their mother to his uncle’s house for a Sabbath dinner. Uncle Karl and his eldest son Yonkel would come home from services, and his uncle would recite the blessings over the wine and challah before they all sat down for the meal.

Although rationing was restrictive, his mother and aunt managed to pool their coupons and prepare a wonderful meal to welcome in the Sabbath. They always started with chicken soup that had luchen (noodles) in it. Then they ate the stewed chicken with beets and roasted potatoes, and followed that up with a dessert that his mother made and brought with her.

Sometimes dessert was an apple cake, sometimes a compote made from fruit that was often overripe. But Yehuda’s favorite desert was rote Grütze, a red berry pudding served with or without cream, which was the hallmark dessert of Denmark. His father’s family had lived in Altona for several generations, and before it became a German principality, Altona had been under the administration of the Danish monarchy from 1640 to 1864.

After dinner in the spring and summer, Yehuda’s family would walk home to their house on the Adolfstrasse. Most of the time in the fall and winter, they stayed overnight at their uncle’s house and went home on Saturday. Rebecca and Beryl rode in the stroller while Yehuda walked next to his mother. Sometimes she would let him push the stroller, and sometimes he would walk beside it while his mother pushed it.

On July 1, 1917, the Battle of the Somme began. In just four months, the British suffered 420,000 casualties. The French suffered 200,000. And the Germans suffered the largest number—half a million or more.

Yehuda’s mother received word in mid-October that his father had been wounded. The war office told her that Hershel had been shot in the leg as he was rescuing five fellow soldiers who had been ambushed by a French patrol.

While the exact details were sketchy, his act of bravery did not go unnoticed by the German high command. He was awarded the Iron Cross, First Class, and promoted to the rank of Korvettenkapitän (major). Frieda thought her husband might be sent home at that time. But the wound proved to be a minor one, and after a brief period of recovery, he was sent again to the front.

The weather began to get warmer as spring turned into summer. This was Yehuda’s favorite time of year. Sometimes his mother would take him and his siblings on a walk along the Elbestrasse, where he could look at the freighters and the ocean liners wending their way up the river to the port or even out to sea, to America and beyond. He often dreamed that one day he would go on an adventure on one of those ships. He knew, though, that as long as the war continued, that would be impossible.

The summer of 1917 went quickly for Yehuda. With the exception of his father’s absence, the war didn’t really affect him. Between the stipend that his uncle gave his mother, his father’s army pay, and the produce that his mother’s cousin, Heinrich, who lived on a farm outside of Hamburg, gave them, they really didn’t want for anything.

Rosh Hashanah 1917 was uneventful for most of the Jewish community. It was the Jewish year 5678. Everyone prayed that their husbands, sons, and neighbors would soon be back safely from the war and that, along with peace, prosperity would return to Germany.

For Yehuda, the holiday was anything but uneventful: he would be spending the week with Uncle Karl and his family.

Before they left for the synagogue, his uncle told him that there were twelve words that every Jew had to recite on a daily basis. They were known as the Shema. They served as the centerpiece of the morning and evening prayer services. The words were the essence of Judaism: Hear, O Israel: the Lord is our God, the Lord is one. It was traditional for Jews to say the Shema with their last dying breath and for parents to teach their children to say it before they went to sleep at night. His uncle told Yehuda that he must memorize these words and recite them every morning when he awoke, as well as every evening before he went to sleep. Yehuda promised him that he would.

After the synagogue service, he and his cousins were going to go with his uncle Karl to the Elbe River for tashlikh. As a boy of five years, this would be his first time attending. Tashlikh, meaning casting off, was a long-standing Jewish tradition performed on the afternoon of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. The previous year’s sins were symbolically cast off by reciting a section from Micah. The pertinent section make the allusion to the symbolic casting off of sins into a large, natural body of flowing water, such as the Elbe River. The name tashlikh and the practice itself are derived from the Old Testament passage recited at the ceremony: You will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.

Uncle Karl gave each of the boys a piece of paper, folded, with small portions of stale bread crumbs inside. He instructed the boys that when they got to the river, each should toss his bread upon the waters and repeat after Karl: Who is a God like you, who pardons iniquity and forgives transgression for the remnants of His heritage? He does not maintain His wrath forever, for He desires to do kindness. He will again show us mercy, He will suppress our iniquities; and you will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea. Show kindness to Jacob, kindness to Abraham, which You have sworn to our fathers from the days of yore.

His uncle continued, In from out of distress I called to God; with abounding relief, God answered me. The Lord is with me, I do not fear. What can man do to me? The Lord is with me among my helpers, and I will see the downfall of my enemies. It is better to rely on the Lord than to trust in man It is better to rely on the Lord than to trust in nobles.

Each boy recited the prayers and opened his piece of paper. They then tossed the bread crumbs into the Elbe. They watched in amazement as fish swam up to the top and hungrily ate the crumbs. Yehuda asked his uncle abut the significance of the tossing the crumbs into the water.

The bread crumbs represent our sins, his uncle replied. By tossing them into the water, we are casting away our sins, so when we go before the Almighty prior to the Day of Atonement, we are without sin. By feeding the crumbs to the fish, we are helping to sustain their lives, so when they are caught, others might stave off hunger by eating a fattened fish.

But uncle, Yehuda asked, aren’t those who eat the fish eating our sins as well?

Yes, his uncle replied with a hearty laugh. "But the Lord in His wisdom makes sure that only the goyem (Gentiles) eat those fish!"

After tashlikh, Uncle Karl and the boys headed back to the synagogue for an afternoon and evening of prayer. Although he was getting very tired from all the walking and praying, Yehuda would not let sleep overcome him.

This evening would be his first Selichos service. His cousin Moishe had told him that this was a very joyous prayer service, and in the Ashkenazi tradition, many women and girls, as well as men and boys, attended the late-night service.

The cantor, the man who led the congregation in song, wore a kittel, a white linen robe, to signify purity, holiness, and new beginnings. Traditionally, a Jewish man first wore a kittel on his wedding day. Thereafter, it was worn on certain Jewish holidays, like Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and Passover, and, ultimately as a burial shroud. In Jewish tradition, the color white represented purity and humility.

Uncle Karl explained, In modern times, one of the readings on Rosh Hashanah is the saying of Isaiah: ‘Though your sin be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.’ In the time of the Temple, when the high priest entered the holy of holies on Yom Kippur, he wore simple linen garments instead of his usual golden vestments.

The custom of wearing white on the high holy days endured, and observant Jewish men still word a kittel to synagogue on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Women often dressed in white on those days as well, and the ark’s curtain, Torah mantles, and other synagogue items were also replaced with white versions.

The cantor sang elaborate melodies. At Uncle Karl’s’ synagogue, it was not unusual for a choir to participate in this first night’s service. This night also had more Selichot than any other night prior to Rosh Hashanah eve.

Uncle Karl gathered his sons and his nephew around him and, with great solemnity, explained the various categories of the Selichot. The first he explained was the selichah, which comprised the majority of the service. The word selichah was Hebrew for forgiveness, and the prayers asked God to forgive all the sins that were made against God. We cannot ask God to forgive us for any sins we might have committed against our fellow man, he explained.We have to get that forgiveness from the person we have sinned against.

Yehuda asked his uncle what he meant by that, and his uncle explained, If we break God’s commandment and steal from our neighbor, the sin of breaking the commandment is God’s to forgive, but the sin of stealing from our neighbor is only forgiven if the neighbor agrees to pardon us for it. So if the neighbor doesn’t pardon us, we can still be punished on earth for stealing, but we will be forgiven by God in heaven.

The second part of the service was pizmon, Hebrew for chorus. These central Selichot varied according to the day and contained a chorus that was repeated after each stanza.

The third was akeidah, Hebrew for binding, a word that specifically referred to the binding of Isaac. This selichah contained the theme of the akeidah, as a merit for God answering prayers. It began to appear on Rosh Hashanah eve and was placed immediately before the pizmon.

The fourth was the chatanu, Hebrew for we have sinned. Starting on the evening before Rosh Hashanah and continuing through Yom Kippur, this selichah was said after the final recitation of the Thirteen Attributes and before the confessional. It contained as its refrain, We have sinned, our Rock, forgive us, our Creator.