A Berliner's Luck: Surviving the Third Reich and World War Ii

By Fred A. Simon

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 11, 2004
• ISBN: 9781469115429

Book preview

A Berliner’s

Luck

Surviving the Third Reich

and World War II

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Fred A. Simon

Copyright © 2003 by Fred A. Simon.

Library of Congress Number:   2003099267

ISBN :      Hardcover   1-4134-4121-1

ISBN :      Softcover      1-4134-4120-3

ISBN :      Ebookr      978-1-4691-1542-9

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

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Contents

Forward

Some History of the Simon Family

1922 to 1932

Aunt Elsa

My Mother’s Family

Berlin, 1922-1927

1927-1932 in the USA

My Teenage Years

A Few More Thoughts

About My Teenage Years

From Boot Camp to Russia

In the Vicinity of Charkow

in June 1942

June 21, 1942 to August 23, 1942

After August 23, 1942

In Eberswalde

From Ostende to Utrecht

At Utrecht

On the Island of Texel

About May 1945, Haarlem,

The Netherlands

Leaving Berlin in April 1946

The Reichstein Family

Karl Heinz Reichstein: OUR ESCAPE

After Arriving in 1952

A Child, a House and a Book

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The Author

Forward

      An old saying goes:

      "A man’s life is first complete after

      he sires a child, builds a house and

      writes a book."

This is a true story; the first 30 years of my life,

born in Germany and went to the USA.

Came back to Germany, lived through Hitler’s Third Reich

and went back to the USA.

Why am I writing this book at my age, now in my eighties? I would like my children to know of their heritage. I would also like to tell future generations of my family about life during the Twentieth Century as I was growing up in both Germany and the United States of America. I want them to know something about World War II and about the hard times after that war. Most important, I want them to know how fate played a hand in it all by providing for me the opportunity to meet my lovely wife Erna.

Some History of the Simon Family

My great-grandfather, Philipp Simon, was born in Reppen (now in Poland) ten miles east of Frankfurt/Oder, on 9 July 1817, of Jewish parents. On his birth certificate, after the name, Philipp, there is an insert with the name (Feibel Mann). Before 1859, he is supposed to have gone to the United States. His son, Adolph, my grandfather, was born in the city of New York, on 16 December 1859. I have a document from the United States Embassy in Berlin on which my great-grandfather, Philipp, stated under oath that his son was born in New York. No mother’s name was given. This document, which also was a legal birth certificate, was signed and sealed by the second embassy secretary, also by Helwig, of the German Foreign Office in Berlin, 29 March 1895.

Philipp Simon’s father is the oldest ancestor I can find on the Simon side of the family. He was Samuel B. Simon, who was born about 1765 in Reppen. His wife was Gette Wolff Hamburger. The couple had four children, all boys: Baruch, born about 1803; David; Seelig, born 23 February 1816 in Reppen; Philipp (Feibel Mann), my great-grandfather.

Philipp (Jewish) married Minna Kaplan (not Jewish); we do not know when they were married. Both are buried in the Jewish cemetery in Berlin. They had two children: Adolph, born 16 December 1859 in New York; and Leopold, born 22 February 1865. Adolph, my grandfather, married Margarethe Mayer who was not Jewish. I note here who was Jewish and who was not because that became a very important question during the 1930’s and early 1940’s in Germany.

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The lady: Margarethe

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The man: Adolph

The remaining questions relating to the Simon family tree are: why did Philipp come to America; and when did they go back to Germany?

Adolph Simon and his wife, Margarethe, had four children who lived beyond infancy:

— Elsa Simon, born 5 May 1884, died in the concentration camp, Camp Trawniki, near Lublin, Poland, in approximately 1942, according to the Book of Remembrance, issued in 1986.

— Leopold Simon, born 21 August 1885. He was nicknamed Polte.

— Willi Simon, born in 1887; killed in World War I.

— Alfred Simon, nicknamed Atti, born 24 March 1898. In June, 1921, he married my mother, Frieda Franziska Kakuschke.

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My Mother, Frieda My Father, Alfred

I, Fred Simon, their only son, was born 18 March 1922, in Berlin Pankow, at that time, a suburb of Berlin.

1922 to 1932

I am Fred Adolf Simon. I was born 18 March 1922, in Berlin Pankow, Rettigstrasse 14, according to my birth certificate. My father was Alfred Simon, Tool and Die Maker; my mother’s maiden name was Frieda Franziska Kakuschke. I was baptized in the Evangelical Emanuel Church in Berlin on the sixth of May, 1923.

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In Berlin, 1926: Aunt Elizabeth, Wera, Myself, and Mother

My father went to Chicago in the United States in 1926. Mother and I followed in November 1927, on the Old Bremen. We left our home in Berlin Pankow at Dunkerstrasse 13. I went to the Monroe School in Chicago. On 3 November 1932, my father and I went back to Germany, on the steamer Albert Ballin.

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My Passport Picture, 1927

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With my Father in Chicago in 1928

The ship, Albert Ballin, had a long and varied history. It was launched in December, 1922, belonging to the Hamburg-America Line. Over the years this liner underwent many changes. In 1924, her funnels were raised; in 1930 she received new boilers; in 1934 she was lengthened by fifty feet, bringing her total length to 677 feet.

In 1935, she was renamed HANSA, because her builder, Albert Ballin, was Jewish. Throughout World War II she was used as a training ship. In March of 1945 she was underway from Gdynia with a full load of evacuees and struck a mine, but there was enough time to get everyone off safely. She sank in shallow water off of Warnemuende. Four years later, the Government of the Soviet Union salvaged her. In 1954, she was ready to sail again under her new name Sovietsky Sojus. She was now the largest passenger ship in the Soviet merchant marine. Her tonnage was then 23,009, but her appearance had changed; she now had one funnel and two masts. In 1971, just short of her fiftieth birthday, she was sent to the dockyard in Hong Kong for an extensive overhaul. She was finally scrapped in 1981, then one of the oldest passenger ships around.

To return once again to the Simons—I remember my Uncle Leopold very well; he was born on 21 August 1885 in Berlin. He owned a grocery store located in the basement of a building on Elsässer Strasse in Berlin. His wife’s name was Elfriede; she was born 3 December 1886. All these dates are from the Census of 1938, a Census taken to determine who had Jewish ancestors.

My Aunt Elsa and I used to visit Uncle Leopold and Aunt Elfriede occasionally. However, I do not remember seeing them after we returned from the USA in 1932. I have pictures of them in front of their store as well as pictures of uncle Leopold taken during World War I.

Next, to my Uncle Willi: his full name was, Willi Alfred Gustav Simon; he was born in Berlin; I do not have the exact date. He was killed in World War I on the Russian front at the age of twenty eight. His wife’s name was Gertrud Klahn, they both lived in Haynau, Silesia, now in Poland. I have picture postcards of him and his wife. By coincidence, this is also the town were my wife was born, but that is another part of this story. They had two children, both girls.

The information about the death of Uncle Willi came from a notification from the town of Haynau by his commanding officer stating that he was killed on 31 August 1915, near Bielaga Gantscha, in Russia. The small town, Haynau, had a population of twelve thousand during World War I. Soldiers were sent there for rehabilitation.

Aunt Elsa

Aunt Elsa was my father’s sister, born 5 May 1884 in Berlin, the only girl of four siblings. She had a son, Hans, by a German officer in World War I, but not married. Hans died as a teenager. Later, Aunt Elsa was married on 11 September 1930 to Anton Meenen in Berlin.

He was Catholic, born in Emmerich/Rhein, a merchant by profession, owning his own business.

Aunt Elsa was a tall stately lady with red hair. When my father and I came back from the United States in 1932, my aunt and her husband took us in. They lived in Berlin-Johannisthal, a suburb south of Berlin, on Breiter Weg, 6.

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Aunt Elsa, 1937

My father moved out to be closer to his job; he could not raise me by himself, so I stayed with my uncle and aunt. My father paid for my support. We lived in a one family duplex; I had my own room; that was something special in 1932. Uncle Toni died in July 1939.

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