Alfred Oppenheimer
My name is Alfred Oppenheimer, and I was born on January 23, 1903, to my parents, Nathan and Betty (Malzer) Oppenheimer. I was the eldest of four children, followed by brothers Ernst (b. 1904) and Max (b. ~1906) and our darling sister Frieda (b. 1908). We lived in Königshofen in Grabfeld, Franconia.
In 1908, when Frieda was just an infant, my father moved the family to Lichtenfels, about 38 miles away. My father, Nathan, took over the family business from my mother’s grandparents, the Sterns, because they were elderly and could no longer run it. That summer, in August, my father changed the name of the business to “N. Oppenheimer Ltd.” He found a storefront in the heart of the city located at Bamberger Strasse 77. The business was on the ground level, and our family lived on the 2nd floor. We settled into a good life in Lichtenfels.
When I was 16 years old, in 1919, I went to Bamburg, about 20 miles south of Lichtenfels to start an apprenticeship in business. Tragically, about one year later, in 1920, my dear father Nathan died. He was only 46 years old. As the oldest son in the family, I returned home to take over the family business and help my mother with my brothers and sister. At the time of my father’s death, I didn’t have a driver’s license. Now that I was taking over the business, I knew I had to apply and pass a test to get my driver’s license. This was important for me in order to keep the business alive, allowing me to travel and visit our accounts near and far. It took some time, but in 1930 I passed the test and got my driver’s license.
Life was still easy in Lichtenfels. Although we were starting to see signs of change with the rise of National Socialism which was beginning to gain popularity throughout Germany. We weren’t overly concerned about what this would mean for us as Jews, even though we were starting to become targets of antisemitism and discrimination.
By 1933, we experienced escalating racism as the destructive power of the Nazi bureaucracy began to strip us of our rights and dignity. My younger brother Max was involved with a non-Jewish woman. The Nazis forbade this type of relationship. The NSDAP ( an acronym for the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei which translates to Nationalist Socialist German Workers Party) placed an ad in the local newspaper, making the relationship public and threatening us all:
The Jewess Mrs. B. Oppenheimer with genuine Jewish impudence, keeps herself from denigrating her sons as morally indecent. Admittedly, after current Roman Jewish law, the prosecution of the Jew Oppenheimer accused of a moral crime had to be discontinued. This law, which is still in force today, will soon have to give way to German law, under which such Jews will have to face severe and most severe punishment. Until such timeas this German law comes into force the Jewish boys who lust after German girls will receive a brief beating which will teach them to behave in a decent manner. The German girls unworthy of the name, however, who do not consider themselves too good for the desires of the Jewish boys, will be listed on a “blackboard” which will be published in the press and by placard. District leadership of the N.S.D.A.P. Lichtenfels
My mother adamantly defended my brother, but both my mother and brother knew that this would not end well for him. We quickly decided that Max should leave Lichtenfels as soon as possible, and he emigrated to America.
A few years later, in 1935 at the same time the Nuremberg Race Laws were enacted, I met the most beautiful young woman, Anni Krämer. We fell deeply in love. Despite the rapid rise of persecution against Jews in Lichtenfels and throughout Germany, we married on October 28, 1935. The first years of our marriage were wonderful, and we were so happy to begin building our life together. Sadly, our happiness was short lived as the Nazi party was coming into power which meant that life for us, for all Jews, became increasingly restrictive, isolating and dangerous.
By 1938, the Nazi party, now in power, had systematically stripped Jews of all our rights. Our future in our town and country was no longer secure. We filed the necessary paperwork to obtain our departure numbers and get a letter of assurance for our emigration. I made the very difficult decision to sell our business (before the Nazis took it) so we would have enough money to take with us to America and start a new and hopefully comfortable life.
On November 9 – 10, 1938, local Nazis stormed our idyllic town of Lichtenfels. As they rioted and desecrated our synagogue, our businesses and our homes, we were extremely frightened. They destroyed the Jewish businesses in town and smashed storefront windows. Shards of glass covered the street; the pogrom became known as Kristallnacht (“The Night of Broken Glass”). People and neighbors who we called friends – but who were not Jewish – turned on us. It was abundantly clear that we would need to leave Lichtenfels as soon as possible. We were no longer safe in Lichtenfels and Germany.
A few days after Kristallnacht, I was arrested, taken into custody and locked up in our local prison. My driver’s license was confiscated. My mother was desperate to secure my release and wrote a letter to the “Political Police of the District Authority of Lichtenfels” pleading for my release:
For the attention of the venerable District Office of Lichtenfels
Subject: Application of the merchant’s widow Betty Oppenheimer in Lichtenfels for Protective Custody Release of her son Alfred Oppenheimer, businessman In Lichtenfels, born January 23, 1903
My pre-named son Alfred Oppenheimer has been in protective custody since November 12, 1938 and is currently, as far as I know, in Hof. The same has been for years co-owner of the N. Oppenheimer company in Lichtenfels; I myself have not been able to do business for years due to illness. I am already over 60 years old and have very painful and difficult abdomen and intestinal ailments; I have a serious heart condition. In the course of the last few years I have repeatedly spent long periods in hospitals and sanitariums, most recently in Baden-Baden. My husband Nathan Oppenheimer served for four years in the militia, three-and half of them at the front in the Vosges; he died soon after the war. My son Alfred Oppenheimer’s wife is currently in the clinic of Professor Hauch in Erlangen, so that since my two other sons have already emigrated to North America, I am all alone and cannot help myself. My son Alfred Oppenheimer is also suffering from a severe heart condition: he very often has severe heart spasms. He also suffers from sciatica and chronic inflammation of the throat and larynx: he has had to undergo repeated cures for this, for example in Bad Salzungen and Bad Reichenhall. Dr. Robach and Dr. Wiesend from here can and will confirm this at any time. In the autumn of this year, we sold our business premises at Hans-Schemm Strasse 77. The most essential part of the contract, with which the business was bought, is the settlement with the successor to the business and the goods receipt on which this settlement is based, which has not yet been completed. Therefore, it was not yet possible to carry out the intended audit of the tax office and to prepare the necessary statement according to which the relevant taxes are to be determined and the resulting payment to be made. A statement of assets and liabilities must also be drawn for the new levy to be paid in Mid-December.
Finally, my son intends to emigrate with his wife and me as soon as possible. All three of us have already received our number from Stuttgart: 13576 and 13577. The guarantees, and in fact completely sufficient guarantees, are already available. We have very high-ranking and very wealthy relatives in America, such as the department store owners Lessing J. Rosenwald of the company Sears Roebuck in Chicago, New York and other cities. Governor Lehmann in New York will also take care of our emigration.
I refer here to the enclosed telegram. Through the mediation of my two sons who have already emigrated, we will do everything in our power to accelerate the emigration. In order to speed up the necessary handling of our ownership and the necessary preparations and steps, it is necessary that my son Alfred Oppenheimer can do all this as soon as possible. For these reasons, I take the liberty of making the most humble request: that my above- mentioned son Alfred Oppenheimer to be released from protective custody as soon as possible. I would also like to point out that we have relatives in England who will make every effort, on the behalf of a passport, to ensure that we are able to reside in England before fully emigrating to North America, as can be seen from the attached map from Glasgow dated 19 November. So that all this can be done as soon as possible, I repeat my request for the expedient release of my son Alfred Oppenheimer from protective custody.
Betty Oppenheimer
Lichtenfels, November 28, 1938
After being held in the local prison, I was released and with the help of my mother and Anni, immediately set about packing up our home. By early summer of 1939, my brother-in-law Sigmund’s brother Alfred procured several fur coats for us to use to trade for startup money once we arrived in America. I knew we were taking great risks, smuggling out valuable things like jewelry, watches and the fur coats that dear Alfred Marx gave us. Jews were not permitted to take with them more than a small amount of money or valuables, only household possessions were allowed to be shipped out of Germany. Despite that, we took a risk and decided to hide these valuables inside our furniture which would be put on a lift and shipped out of Germany. This proved to be a fatal mistake.
As we were packing, the local Nazis under the direction of the ruthless and violent leader of the local gestapo, Fränkel “Franz” Fischer, stormed our home. Somehow, they found out that we were planning to smuggle out ‘contraband’. They began slashing our furniture open, breaking open boxes, searching for the hidden valuables. My dear mother, darling Anni, and I were arrested and received a prison sentence of 1 – 2 years to be served in the local district jail in Coburg, about 15 miles away from Lichtenfels.
My two brothers Ernst and Max had already made their way to America. I wrote to them begging for any assistance in securing our release. I was especially concerned about my mother who was elderly and already in frail health. Since the rest of our family had been able to flee Lichtenfels and Germany, we were hoping they could help get us released. My brothers from America and my sister Frieda and her husband Sigmund from England all wrote letters on our behalf. I responded to a letter written by my brother Ernst while imprisoned in the Coburg prison:
“My Dears,
With your first letter of May 28th, which reached us on June 11th, you have given me great joy. I cannot tell you the sad feelings I had while reading it. I am glad that you are still healthy so far, it is the same with me. My only regret is that our mother has to bear the burden of her weak condition. Dear brothers, I hope that with the help of our relatives you will soon be able to bring the negotiations to a good end, so that we will soon have freedom again. Let us hear good things from you soon & I am with heartfelt greetings & kisses,
your loving Alfred”
Over the next several years we remained in prison and tried to stay hopeful. By now I realized we were in a futile race against time. I exchanged many letters with my brothers and brother-in-law Sigmund who were working so hard for our release. Ernst tried to find a way for us to emigrate to Shanghai, one of the last possible places for Jews to go if they were willing to pay $750.00 per person. Even the Governor of New York State, Herbert Lehman, and one of his relatives wanted to vouch for us. Ernst explained that there were several lawyers engaged who were also helping our cause. But it was all in vain. With the outbreak of war, all negotiations halted.
We were eventually released from prison and sent back to Lichtenfels where the Nazis forced us to live with other remaining Lichtenfels Jews in Judengasse 14 – the Jew House – located next door to our desecrated synagogue. They held us under house arrest. By now it was 1942, and we were desperately exhausting all our chances to get out of Lichtenfels and Germany. I tried to remain hopeful, not only for my family who already fled Lichtenfels, but most importantly for my mother and Anni. Truth be told, I was losing hope. We were hearing horrible stories of Nazis putting Jews on transports and herding them to concentration or extermination camps, never to be heard from again. I felt as if we were already on a train bearing down on the dark abyss.
In April 1942, the Nazis rounded us up from the Judengasse and forced us to board a train to Bamberg, with one suitcase per person. I remember talking to some of my friends and neighbors – Max Hellman, Josef Kraus, Theodor Nordhäuser and Leo Wolf – about our fate. We all came to the same conclusion; our futures looked bleak.
At Bamberg station, it was chaotic. There was a large group of Jews from all over Franconia. I’d heard there were almost 1000 of us there. The Nazis forced us to board the deportation train Da49 heading east to Poland. As the cramped train headed east, we once more traveled through our lovely Lichtenfels. I had a sinking feeling that I would never see my hometown again. My heart broke for my mother and for Anni, but I tried to put on a brave face for them.
We traveled about 700 miles, close to half a day on the train, to a Polish town called Krasnystaw. At the train station, there were Nazis on the platform shouting at us to hurry off the train. They lined us up on the train platform and instructed us to march. We weren’t sure where we were heading. We marched almost 10 miles to a ghetto in Krasniczyn. It was a hard march, but my mother somehow summoned the strength to keep up. Once we arrived in the ghetto, the Nazis assigned our housing. We could see immediately that the living conditions were deplorable: dirty, cold, and cramped. There was little food to eat.
The Nazis put us to work at grueling, back-breaking labor. I did what I was told. I worried constantly about Anni and my mother, whose already frail health was worsening before my eyes. Any food I was given I gave to my wife and mother so they could keep up their strength. I prayed for a miracle; something that would save us from a very bleak future. Some in the ghetto said that we were not far from an extermination camp called Sobibór located in a village by the same name. Is that where we were heading?
About six weeks later, in June of 1942, the Nazis put all of us on a train. Our worst fears were confirmed when we learned that we were heading to Sobibór. As the train pulled into the station, the guards hustled us off the train. We had to jump a short distance from the train to the platform. As I waited in line with my mother and Anni to leave the train we could see others who stumbled as they jumped. To our utter horror, the guards shot and killed them on the spot. We were sickened and frightened by what we saw. I turned to my mother and Anni and said, “no matter what, we stick together” once we get to the platform. I was especially concerned for my mother, whose frailty had increased over the last six weeks in the ghetto. As we walked slowly towards the exit, I turned to my wife and mother and said, “be strong.” One by one, we jumped….
Postscript:
This is where the story of Alfred Oppenheimer ends. Did Alfred, Betti and Anni survive that fateful leap? We will never know but given the condition of Betti’s frail health, one can assume that she did not survive. As for Alfred and Anni, who most likely had to endure witnessing their beloved mother murdered, if they survived that leap off the train, they along with the other Jews from the ghetto, including their neighbors from Lichtenfels (Max Hellman, Josef Kraus, Theodor Nordhäuser and Leo Wolf) had to march through the gates of Sobibór where it is believed the Nazis immediately sent them to the gas chambers and murdered them. Between 1942 and 1943, the Nazis exterminated approximately 180,000 people at Sobibór.
In November 2018, to coincide with the 80th commemoration of the November pogrom, Alfred’s grandnieces traveled to Lichtenfels to reclaim their great uncle’s driver’s license which the Nazis had confiscated shortly after Kristallnacht. Alfred Oppenheimer’s license was one of the thirteen licenses discovered in 2017 while the town was digitizing town records and became a part of the “13 Jewish Driver’s Licenses” research project by the students at Meranier Gymnasium. Alfred’s grandnieces met the District Administrator of Lichtenfels, Christian Meissner, Mayor Andreas Hügerich, Town Archivist Christin Wittenbauer, Upper Franconia Curator Prof. Dr. Gunter Dippold, the students and their history teacher, Manfred Brösamle-Lambrecht who led this extraordinary and important remembrance research project.
Alfred’s great nieces also visited the Lichtenfels Jewish Cemetery, which is kept locked, as all Jewish cemeteries are in Germany, because they are historical sites. There are only three out of the original 150 headstones left, because the cemetery was desecrated after Kristallnacht. The Nazis ground the destroyed headstones into gravel and used them to pave the town roads. Today, there is a large headstone which memorializes the residents who perished at Sobibór. The women saw three names belonging to their family: Betti, Alfred and Anni Oppenheimer. While the nieces were there, as is customary in the Jewish religion, they placed 3 stones on top of the headstones. These stones remain there to honor the memory of the Oppenheimers and remind those who visit about the darkest chapter in human history.
During their visit they also witnessed the installation of Stolpersteine in front of the former Oppenheimer residence, their last known freely chosen residence. Each stone starts with these words: “Here Lived”. Stones honor the memory of Betty, Alfred and Anni Oppenheimer. Here lived the Oppenheimer family. Placing the Stolpersteine brings their names back into the light from a dark, horrific past.
Questions for Discussion
1. How did Alfred’s sense of responsibility shape his life choices after his father’s death in 1920?
2. What do the early years of Alfred and Anni’s marriage reveal about the resilience of love in turbulent times?
3. Why did Max Oppenheimer emigrate to the United States?
4. How does Alfred’s story illustrate the progression of antisemitism in Nazi Germany from social discrimination to systematic persecution?
5. How did the rise of National Socialism transform life in Lichtenfels for Jewish families like the Oppenheimers?
6. What significance do the Nuremberg Race Laws and other restrictive legislation have in shaping Alfred's decisions for his family?
7. How does Kristallnacht serve as a turning point in Alfred’s life and the fate of the Jewish community in Lichtenfels?
8. Why was the confiscation of Alfred’s driver’s license symbolic of the Nazi regime’s broader goals?
9. What does Betty’s plea for Alfred’s release tell us about her character and her role in the family?
10. What ethical decisions did Alfred face when attempting to smuggle valuables out of Germany?
11. What happened to Oppenheimer when the Nazis found the valuable goods that were hidden in the furniture in the house?
12. What efforts did Alfred’s brothers in the United States to make to assist the Oppenheimer family still in Lichtenfels?
13. Where were the Oppenheimers taken after their release from prison?
14. What does Alfred’s story teach us about the impact of systemic oppression on individual lives and families?
15. What role do descendants play in preserving the memory of Holocaust victims like Alfred and his family?
16. How might the preservation of artifacts like Alfred’s driver’s license help future generations connect with history on a personal level?