Our girls grew up with many friends and enjoyed school. Inge started first grade in the public school in Lichtenfels where the classes were taught by nuns. Sister Margaret taught Inge how to read and write. She was quite fond of Inge and very accepting of all her students, Jews and non-Jews alike. However, by the second grade, everything had changed as discrimination and antisemitism against Jews was escalating, and Inge was feeling different and ostracized. She was made to feel ‘less than’ and often relegated to sitting at the very back of the class. It was during this time that Inge felt bullied by her classmates because she was Jewish. It was 1937, the Nuremberg Race Laws were well into effect at this time as our rights were being systematically dismantled by the Nazi regime. We felt dehumanized and marginalized and could see that life in our beloved town (and country) was becoming dangerous for us and our extended family.
I often traveled to the United States on business, and it was during one of these trips to New York City in 1937 seeking future business opportunities that I began to lay the groundwork for our family to leave Germany and emigrate to America. Upon my return from this trip, I immediately applied for the necessary papers to emigrate to the United States, but was put on a list, which required us to wait until 1940 because of the restrictive quotas in place for immigration to the US. This was extremely frustrating and concerning; we didn’t think we’d make it out alive if we had to wait until 1940. I had heard about work or concentration camp - Dachau - was not that far from Lichtenfels; a few hours south just outside of München. We did not want to be sent there because we didn’t know what would happen to us once imprisoned there. While I was frantically filling out so many forms to apply for visas, my mother Johanna, was applying for temporary British visas, and in the hope that our family could flee, temporarily, to England.
The night of November 9, 1938, later known as Kristallnacht (“The Night of Broken Glass”) changed everything for us and all Jews in Germany. The Lichtenfels synagogue, Jewish businesses and homes were ransacked and destroyed. Our stately home was no exception as rocks and bricks were thrown through every window of our home. The Nazis broke down the door and came into our house – yelling, screaming - destroying whatever they could get their hands on. Every piece of glass, every dish, vase, crystal (precious family heirlooms) was thrown through the windows landing on my Ellen’s beloved rose garden. It was a chaotic, frightening and shocking moment; almost too unbelievable to imagine and process.
Ellen and I had a non-Jewish tenant living in a third-floor apartment of our home. We instructed Inge, who was nine years old at the time, to quickly flee with Hanne and baby cousin, Marion (my brother Sigmund’s daughter) to the 3rd floor apartment to hide. Our tenant, a non-Jew, was very kind and helped Inge, Hanne and Marion hide while the home was being ransacked and searched. It was Inge’s job to keep the other little girls calm and quiet. When the Nazis banged on our tenant’s apartment door, our tenant said, “oh, there’s nobody here”. Our tenant could have easily given the girls up, but they stood up to the Nazis and did the right thing. The girls, by the grace of God, were safe.
Like all the Jewish men of Lichtenfels, I was arrested and thrown in the local jail for several days. My driver’s license was confiscated. While in jail, the cell doors were not locked, so Ellen was permitted to bring me my meals. Most of us who were rounded up and arrested during Kristallnacht were released after a short period of time, unharmed. However, it was a very clear warning that now was the time to get out of Lichtenfels and Germany or risk imprisonment in Dachau, or worse.
My precious Inge had a memory that stayed with her and would haunt her for the rest of her life. She came home from school one day to see my Mercedes being driven down the road by someone she didn’t know. She later learned that it was confiscated from the garage by the ruthless and violent leader of the local Nazis; Fränkel “Franz” Fischer, who now claimed our car as his own. I told my distraught Inge that there was nothing I could do. The Nazis were taking everything that belonged to the Jews: their cars, homes and businesses. Mine and my brother Sigmund’s business, “Marx & Bäuml”, was confiscated and liquidated. Our dreams were brutally cut short by Nazi persecution as they systematically stripped us day-by-day of our rights.
By early summer of 1939, I was working desperately to arrange for our family to flee Lichtenfels. At the same time, I was also helping Sigmund’s brother-in-law, Alfred Oppenheimer, along with his wife Anni and his mother Betty to flee Lichtenfels. I was able to procure several fur coats, which were deemed unlawful contraband by the Nazis (Jews were not allowed to leave with their valuables), for the Oppenheimer’s to use to trade for startup money once they arrived in America. The local Gestapo under the direction of the notorious and evil Fränkel “Franz” Fischer found out about this plan and were going to arrest me for aiding the Oppenheimer family, so I had to immediately flee Germany to escape arrest. This left Ellen, with the help of my mother Johanna to pack up all our belongings in a “lift” or large storage container that we planned to store in Holland. The “lift” would eventually be shipped to the United States and would allow us to set up our new home. However, timing was not on our side because the war had started. Our “lift became property of the Nazis. All our possessions were lost forever.
On August 30, 1939, prior to the start of the war, I was reunited with my mother, Ellen and the girls in England. We were relieved to be out of Germany and the reach of the Nazis. Still, we were in danger and living in a war zone. German air raids were becoming a daily reminder of the war, so we sent Inge and Hanne to live in the English countryside for their own safety. They lived in a small rural village called Knebworth in Hertfordshire where they were taken in by a lovely and kind (non-Jewish) woman. Inge and Hanne went to school and learned English.
