Fred's Remarks

In mid-July, 2017, I returned from a one week journey to Worin, Germany, a small town about 60 kilometers east of Berlin, where Ginger, now 77, and her six older siblings, were hidden for almost two years (1943-1945), and to Auschwitz, near Krakow, Poland, where Ginger’s mother, Lina Banda Weber, was murdered on December 1, 1943. I went with Ginger and our two daughters, Beth and Jennifer. Our son Russ was unable to join us because of an illness from which he is now recovering. He has developed this blog to which the rest of our family has contributed.

I hope my remarks will  provide some background so you may understand more fully what led up to this trip, and to offer my perspective as the husband of a Holocaust survivor. I will also attempt to communicate the profound effect the family journey to Worin had on me as a husband, a father and a Jew.  My marriage to Ginger connected me directly with the Holocaust, is a source of enormous pride for me, and has contributed to my efforts to participate in many activities relating to Judaism and Israel.

I am a Zionist, a former Temple President and very involved advocate for the Reform Movement, a long time member and former Vice Chairman of the Board of Governors of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, which educates both Americans and Israelis as Rabbis, Cantors and Jewish Professionals, and now through the Israel Policy Forum, an active proponent of  “The Two State Solution” for peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

My observations include some details regarding the traumatic change that happened to Ginger which caused her to acknowledge and embrace her survival. Serving as a catalyst and reuniting with her siblings had a profound effect on her brother Alfons, who began to identify more openly and more strongly as a Jew. He started to write a full family history and search for people in Worin who might have known the Weber siblings who lived in hiding. This ultimately led to the recognition of the Schmidts as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem.

I am very proud of Ginger’s heritage as a survivor and how it has changed me. I want our three children, our seven grandchildren and their descendants to know about the Holocaust and to be proud outspoken descendants of a survivor. On our first date Ginger and I went to see the play, “The Diary of Anne Frank.” I remember the strange look on the face of Ginger’s father, Dr. I. Joshua Speigel, when he learned where I was taking Ginger on this blind date. Little did I realize the irony of my choice of plays!

I don’t remember how or when I learned that Ginger was adopted, but it was early on in our relationship, probably at the same time I learned that Joshua and Rozalynde Speigel had adopted three children through the Jewish Children’s Bureau (JCB) in Chicago: Ginger, née Béla Weber, born 2 months after Germany invaded Poland, Jonathan, born in Chicago, and Petra, an Italian orphan. Throughout the almost 30 years of our marriage, Ginger absolutely did not wear her survival on her sleeve. In fact, she seemed to have little to no memory of her childhood in Nazi Germany, and she never volunteered to outsiders that she was adopted or a survivor. This lack of memory surprised me, as I have vivid memories of my childhood beginning at age 2 ½.  My pressing her for information was very troublesome for Ginger.

As a well-known, and the principal neurosurgeon at Michael Reese Hospital, Josh performed surgery on Mary Lawrence, director of the JCB in 1946, and became familiar with its work. Because the Speigels were unable to have children of their own they went to her seeking to adopt a child. Mrs. Lawrence knew of a family of seven children who had just come to the United States on a troopship, the SS Marine Flasher, which was organized by Eleanor Roosevelt to bring Jewish survivors from Germany to the United States. It was the first post-war ship of refugees and embarkation point was Bremerhaven. A photograph of the seven Weber children standing side by side in staircase fashion on the dock as they came off the ship appears on the wall of photographs of newly arrived refugees at the exit from the exhibits at the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. After a brief stay in New York all seven children were sent together by train to Chicago, into the care of The JCB.

The Weber children were placed by the JCB in separate foster homes, as no single foster family was either willing or able to take in a family of 7, who ranged in age from 6 to 18. The little 6 1/2 year old with flaming red hair, green eyes and freckles, Béla was initially placed in one foster home and then a second, until Mary Lawrence found her a home with Roz and Josh. The Speigels moved to adopt her and in the process Béla’s father, Alexander Weber, who was still living in Germany, with no chance of emigrating, signed a document relinquishing his rights to her. Because of anti-German sentiment the Speigels gave her a new American name: Virginia Susan Speigel, nicknamed “Ginger”. Her adoption records were sealed and she became a naturalized citizen in 1951.

The recommended practice back then was for adopting parents to sever all contact with the natural family. Of course, Roz and Josh followed this recommendation. I believe the lack of a relationship with her siblings (all but 2 of whom remained in the Chicago area) was very troubling to Ginger as she grew up. There were a few isolated instances of contact but no formal communications were established.  It was as though she shed one identity and took on another, changing families, countries, languages, and names.  Years later, when she received a reparations check from the West German Government for the death of her mother, Ginger thought of it as blood money. We gave the check to the Jewish Children’s Bureau.

Shortly before Ginger and I married, I attempted to view her adoption files in the Cook County Circuit Court. When Josh learned of this he became very upset and told me there was no need to look at those records because in adoption situations there must be a complete cessation of all contact between the adoptee and the natural family. This was long before the now common practice of “open adoptions”. I learned many years later that this prohibition of contact with her birth family was an ongoing issue for Ginger. She thought that if she opened the door to her birth family she could never close it, and that renewing contact might be seen as an act of betrayal to Roz and Josh.

On the few occasions when I asked if she had any recollection of her life in Berlin, Ginger’s answer was “no.” However, somewhere along the way she told me that she vaguely remembered the name of the street where she and her family lived in Berlin, that her mother was arrested, that she heard bombs, that the apartment building in which they lived was damaged, and after living a short period of time in the basement bunker of the damaged building she and her siblings were taken to a fruit orchard east of Berlin where a Catholic family, the Schmidts, hid them.

           

Ginger’s adopted family and my ancestors were from Russia and were strong Zionists. They provided us with a good Jewish upbringing. Every shabbat my mother lit candles and my father said kiddish, a practice we continued to follow, and worked to give our children a strong religious education. We attended classes both with and without them and their youth groups at our temple and at Olin Sang Ruby, the Reform Movement’s rural retreat in Wisconsin. Ginger and I studied The Book of Job with our Rabbi, Fred Schwartz.  He explored with us the question of “Can a righteous G-d have unlimited power yet permit an Auschwitz to happen?”. We also read books and attended lectures by Elie Wiesel about the Holocaust.  Again, Ginger never discussed the fact in these sessions, that she was a survivor and her mother was murdered at Auschwitz.

In 1977, Ginger and I took our children on vacation to France. We flew into Frankfurt and rented a car to drive to Paris and to visit the champagne country and the Loire Valley. Ginger’s and my discomfort in being in Germany was palpable. She became agitated as we neared the French border crossing and saw the guards. She admonished the kids to sit still, be quiet, and answer any questions put to them directly without any smart-alecky remarks until we were safely inside France. The sight of the uniformed and armed border guards put her on edge.

In 1986, two years after a life altering skiing accident rendered Ginger quadriplegic, she decided to have lunch with Mary Lawrence, the former director of the JCB.  Then 86, the formidable Mrs. Lawrence asked her, “Does your birth family know you now use a wheelchair?”  “No”, they are no longer my family.”  Mrs. Lawrence’s retort was, “You cannot escape or hide. They will always be your family.  Call them.”  A few weeks later, and after 40 years of separation, Ginger made the call and reunited with her 5 sisters and brother. 1946-1986: Family is always family.

In 2008, I arranged for my entire family, my three children and their spouses, my seven grandchildren, my wife, Jeanie, and Ginger to go to Israel. While at the Yad Vashem memorial, Ginger initiated the process of having their saviors, Arthur and Paula Schmidt, recognized as Righteous Among the Nations, which Alfons then saw through to completion.

And how did this trip to Worin, that little village east of Berlin affect me? What did I learn? What's my takeaway.?

Before going to Worin, I expected to meet some lovely people, but I knew they were not the people who were directly involved in hiding Ginger and her siblings towards the end of WW II.  Ginger had arranged for our family to meet with Herbert and Marlis Schüler, he the town historian and principal of the Worin high school,  and she, a housewife, but “assistant” to her historian husband. I also anticipated being taken to see the fruit orchard where the Weber children were hidden.

Ginger, Beth, Jen and I had a pleasant ride from Charlottenburg to Worin through the rural countryside. It took slightly longer to make the 60 km trip than we anticipated but we did not use the extended trip to discuss our expectations; we only talked about our concern that we were running late for the 1:00 pm lunch with the Schülers.

Our driver had no difficulty finding the street where the Schülers lived, but once there we drove by the their cottage. When we backed up to go to the correct address, we saw the Schülers, who evidently saw us pass by, standing outside their home to greet us. Before the driver turned around so that Ginger could safely exit the van, he let Beth, Jen and me out of the van to meet the welcoming party. The three of us introduced ourselves to the Schülers, a lady friend of theirs and Arthur Schmidt III, the grandson of Arthur and Paula Schmidt, the owners of the fruit farm where the children were saved.

Following the introductions, we all stood and watched the rear doors of the van being opened, the ramp being lowered and Ginger exiting the van. At that instant, Herbert Schüler was visibly overcome with emotion. Tears started to flow down his cheeks. He covered his eyes, turned around and began to cry. The emotion he displayed upon seeing Ginger was infectious. I too, began to cry. His spontaneous reaction established the atmosphere of the visit: both joyous and loving.

We were then invited into the Schüler’s cottage. I knew that we were going to have lunch with them but I had no idea of what was to come. Marlis Schüler and her friend had prepared a simple, yet elegant country banquet to welcome Ginger back to Worin. Because Ginger could not access the cottage, the banquet table was moved into the beautiful flower garden and next to a lily pond. Marlis had invited her friend to help her serve the feast while Herbert proudly served the sparkling German wine. Even though the Schüler’s English was not good and our German non-existent, with the help of Arthur Schmidt,, we were able to communicate effectively.

As the afternoon progressed it became clear to me that Herbert and Marlis Schüler were two of the nicest people that I had ever met. As the town historian and school principal, it was apparent that Herbert was proud of the role that the people of Worin, including the Mayor, as well as the Schmidts, played in saving not only the Weber children but another Jewish family as well.

The Schülers, who had previously met with Ginger’s brother Alfons in Worin, knew that Alfons had succesfully petitioned the Israeli government to have Arthur and Paula Schmidt designated as “Righteous Gentiles Among the Nations”. Therefore, they commenced a search to find a descendent of the Schmidts who could accept the award from the State of Israel at its Embassy in Berlin. Unfortunately, Alfons passed away in the fall of 2016, and was never able to meet Arthur. But Alfons did live to learn that his petition, which was inspired by Ginger on a family trip we made to Israel in 2008, had been granted, and that the name of Arthur and Paula Schmidt had been engraved on a plaque at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem.

When the Schülers learned that Ginger was coming to Worin in 2017, they arranged to have Arthur III attend the meeting. Arthur, an artist by profession, proved to be a warm, sensitive person. He did not learn until about a year ago what his grandparents did for endangered Jews. Obviously, he was proud of their conduct and very interested in meeting Ginger.  He accompanied Ginger on the walk from the Schüler’s cottage to the fruit orchard.  Beth, Jen and I drove over in the van.

Arthur III had visited his grandparents’ fruit orchard as a youth, but the orchard had since been sold and the storage shed where the Weber children had been hidden was gone. We discovered the foundation in a small area covered with weeds. I tried to imagine the terror of living in that shed for two years. I couldn’t. Ginger was very silent and we all respected that silence. But she did point to a larger open field where she vaguely remembered digging for potatoes at night.

Following a pleasant conversation with the family that owned the orchard, we returned to the Schüler’s garden for what turned out to be a continuation of the feast:  homemade cakes, more wine and more conversation with Herbert, Marlis and Arthur III.

The Schülers had also arranged for a local newspaper reporter/photographer to come to their home to meet Ginger in order to memorialize her return to Worin.  A copy of the article that appeared in the local paper is attached to this blog.

The trip to Worin was an important learning experience for me, which was enhanced by the fact that I was with Ginger and my wonderful daughters. The effect of the encounter with the Schülers and Arthur III was life changing. My deep-seated feelings of discomfort with the German people, developed during WW II, and further ingrained by my marriage to a survivor, were dissipated by the goodness and warmth of the beautiful German people we met in Worin.

Ginger’s mother, Lena Weber, was the daughter of an Orthodox Chazzan in Hungary. As the timeline in this blog shows, Lena was arrested at the Weber apartment on Dragoner Strasse in Berlin in the Spring of 1943, transported to Auschwitz and murdered there in December, 1943. At the same time, Ginger and her six siblings were hidden from the Nazis in Worin, Germany. Therefore, after our visit to Worin, Ginger, our daughters, and I continued our journey to Poland and Auschwitz.  After the war, Ginger and her siblings were brought to the United States, where Ginger was raised as a Reform Jew in a highly educated Non-Orthodox family. Ginger’s adoptive father was an internationally renowned neurosurgeon.

Ginger and I were were married by two Reform Rabbis. We raised our three children in the Reform tradition and we, the youth group at our Reform synagogue, and/or my Parents sent our three children to Israel three times when they were teenagers. Five of our seven grandchildren have celebrated their Bar or Bat Mitzvah in the Reform tradition and one grandson celebrated his Bar Mitzvah in a Conservative congregation. Our youngest grandchild will celebrate her Bat Mitzvah in January, 2018, at our Reform synagogue in Chicago. In 2008, when Ginger went to the Kotel (the Western Wall of the massive stone embankment that supports the plateau on which the First and Second Temples were built, and where Islam’s Golden Dome of the Rock and El Aksa Mosque are now located) she was not permitted by the Orthodox who control the Kotel to pray with her family in the tradition of Progressives. (He also officiated at my Bar Mitzvah on May 15, 1948, the day Israel became a State.)

In 2007, I visited Auschwitz with a good friend and the former Chairman of the Board of Governors of Hebrew Union College. As Governors and Officers of the Board we had been going to Israel every year for the preceding 15 years to visit our Jerusalem campus and the Israeli and first year US students studying there.  In 2007, we decided to go to Auschwitz on our way to Jerusalem.

I have two distinct memories from that trip:

First, upon ascending the tower located over the entrance to Birkenau and looking to the left of the straight long road running into the camp from the entrance, I saw the original brick barracks for the camp’s German soldiers; looking to the right side of that road, I saw wooden barracks as far as the eye could see.  I was overwhelmed by the sheer number of structures for the detention of tens of thousands of prisoners who were condemned to forced labor until they died from over-work or were murdered because they were no longer “productive”.

Earlier in the day we had seen the inhuman living conditions of these wooden barracks in Auschwitz.  Fifty feet of five or six levels of wooden shelves on each side of each structure divided by vertical supports into six foot “spaces” deep enough to hold five crowded adults, and a fifty foot long, two foot high and two foot deep wooden platform running down the middle of each structure with holes every three feet to use as a toilet.

Second, standing outside of the partially wrecked gas chamber and crematorium we were told we were standing on a walkway consisting of human ashes.  I was shocked and made speechless. I simply could not comprehend the depth of the depravity and hate and evil that created this hell on earth.

The trip to Auschwitz/Birkenau with Ginger and our daughters this summer was different because it was so personal. Upon ascending the same tower over the entrance to Birkenau, I realized that Ginger’s mother had to have slept on one of those wooden shelves crowded with four other human beings, and had to use those dehumanizing toilets in full view of all of the other inmates and breathe the stench of that place for month after month until she was no longer able to perform slave labor and she died.  When I revisited the gas chambers and crematoria that the Nazis tried to destroy, those ruins became very intimate.  I stepped onto a fallen concrete slab, and along with Ginger, Beth and Jen, said Kaddish for Ginger’s mother.

This trip to Auschwitz also caused me to think about my Jewish faith. Mine was not a profound Elie Weisel analysis, only a simple one. My thoughts focused on a simple comparison of whether Ultra-Orthodox or Progressive Judaism is best suited to assure the continuity of Judaism. Conservative and Reform Judaism are the majority movements of the Diaspora for a reason. They recognize the equality of men and women. They have strong seminaries and educational institutions. Of even greater importance, Progressive Judaism remains God focused, not man focused. They have chosen not to develop a political party as the Ultra-Orthodox have done. Good government is the art of dialogue and compromise. You cannot legislate a religion. Progressive Judaism recognizes the reality of, in fact, the necessity for change following the destruction of the Second Temple. Change is exemplified by the post  Second Temple Talmudic tradition of debate and dialog. Judaism was not perpetuated by stiff-necked, arrogant and self-righteous xenophobes.

The reason this trip to Auschwitz with Ginger stimulated these thoughts is because Ginger is both a survivor of the Holocaust and a Progressive Jew.  When she was rescued from Nazi ravaged Europe and brought to the United States, she was raised as a Progressive Jew.  We raised our children as Progressive Jews and their children have been raised as Progressive Jews.  Had she not been brought to the United States it is most likely that she and her siblings would have been brought to Israel. Unfortunately, because of the politicization of Judaism in Israel they most likely would have been become “secular”.

The creation of the State of Israel was a dream come true; a dream of all of the Jewish people: Orthodox, Conservative and Reform. It is ironic that among the modern Jewish leaders who actively pursued this dream were assimilated Progressive Jews, like the 19th Century’s Theodore Herzl, and the 20th Century’s Rabbi Stephen S Wise, the founder of the Jewish Institute of Religion in New York (which merged with Hebrew Union College in 1950).  It is also ironic that in 1947, a telephone call placed from the study of Rabbi Morton M. Berman, (a protégé of Rabbi Weiss) by Jake Arvey, a “Boss” of the Chicago Democratic machine, to President Harry Truman to urge President Truman to support the UN resolution for the creation of the State of Israel. Rabbi Wise also lobbied President Roosevelt throughout the 1930s and during WW II to have the United States do more to save the Jews of Germany and Eastern Europe. And it was Eleanor Roosevelt who must have been privy to the pleas of Rabbi Wise to her husband, who organized the first ship to bring widows and orphans from Germany and eastern Europe to the United States in 1946. Ginger and her siblings were on that ship.

My family and I were members of Rabbi Berman’s congregation in Hyde Park on the south side of Chicago. Rabbi Berman officiated at my Bar Mitzvah on May 15, 1948, the day Israel became a State.  His successor officiated at Ginger’s and my wedding in 1960. Rabbi Berman was a Chaplain in the United States Navy/Marine Corps in WW II serving in the Pacific, where he received the Bronze Star for his heroic service under combat conditions on the Island of Okinawa. He made Aliya in 1957, but was never accepted there by the Ultra-Orthodox community. In fact, his efforts to establish a Progressive community there were met with vicious opposition from the Ultra-Orthodox community. In 1986, when he passed away, Time magazine published a photograph of a metal fence that Ultra-Orthodox rabbis had built around his grave so that it would not “desecrate” the cemetery. Where would those Rabbis have been buried if Rabbis like Stephen S Wise and Morton Berman had not had an influence on the creation of the State of Israel?

In 2008, long after Ginger and I were divorced, I arranged a family trip to Israel with our children, their spouses, our grandchildren, my spouse, and Ginger.  As I previously mentioned, our children had been to Israel several times as teenagers. Ginger had never been to Israel, and I thought it was very important for her to be a part of this special journey. Our tour guide was Rabbi Walter Zanger. Rabbi Zanger was ordained at HUC-JIR in New York, was a Chaplain in the United States Air Force during the Viet Nam War, made Aliya in 1966, served in the IDF as a foot soldier (non-Orthodox Rabbis are not allowed to be Rabbis in the IDF), worked for a time with Rabbi Berman in Israel until, in order to make a living, he became a writer, television personality and tour guide.

When Rabbi Zanger took us to the Kotel, Ginger was unable to go to and touch this holiest of Jewish sites accompanied by her son and grandsons and the rest of her family in the manner of Progressive Jews.  How outrageous it is that small groups of Orthodox Jews have organized as political parties, become controlling factors in the Israeli government and thus able to prevent egalitarian prayer in the manner of non-Orthodox Jews. The situation has become even worse because the agreement entered into in 2016 with the Israeli government to permit egalitarian prayer at the Western Wall in a remote space near Robinson’s Arch (out of sight or hearing of the traditional prayer space)has been breached.  This politicizing of religion has become a wedge between the Jewish people both in Israel and the Diaspora. It literally prevents the fulfillment of the dream of the Jewish Homeland.

The Orthodox bigotry and xenophobia concerning Progressive Judaism is apparent in a statement made by “Chief” Rabbi Eisenstein, in a recent article in the Times of Israel who said, “[Our Judaism] is the way it was given to us on Mt Sinai”.  Aside from the fact that he is historically incorrect, his ignorance of the development of Judaism since the destruction of the Second Temple is apparent. We Jews throughout history had to be productive human beings in order to survive. We are a learned people who have always been able to provide for our families and our communities with justice and the “Golden” Rule. In addition to religion we historically have made a disproportionately large contribution to mankind through Science, the Arts, Commerce and Education. This major contribution to mankind and the fulfillment of the Zionist dream has not been accomplished by the narrow-minded ignorance of a small segment of the Orthodox Rabbinate who not only are “takers”, not “providers”, they also prevented a female Holocaust survivor from praying as a Progressive Jew at the Kotel.