Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
Family stories can preserve personal memories of history. In this Story Slice, Allan Rayburn writes about what his father told him of life as a Jewish teenager in Germany during Kristallnacht and the weeks that followed.
Life Events are times in your family’s past when life was one way, and then it was another. Learn how to write about life events in your family: How to Preserve Family History: Start With Life Events.
How My Father Got Out of Germany in 1939
By Allan Rayburn
The morning of November 10, 1938 my father, Siegfried, awoke to news of the Leipzig synagogue burning. He first walked to the Frank Bros factory, where he was an apprentice; however, there were groups of Nazis hanging around the entrance, and the factory was closed.
His first thought was to get home to Halle. My father said he was scared that morning. Sixteen years old and alone, he made his way to the train station, trying to remain inconspicuous, hearing that synagogues across Germany were burning. He took the train back to Halle, then a streetcar, and walked home as quickly as he could.
The Gestapo Knocking at the Door
When he arrived home, his family was busy with phone calls and information about friends and relatives being arrested and taken away. They knew it was only a matter of time. Within 2 hours of my father’s arrival, the Gestapo was knocking on the door. My grandmother, Kate, told my father to hide in a bedroom and lock the door.
The Gestapo entered the apartment and questioned my grandmother, who lied and told them that her son was in Leipzig during his apprenticeship. They also had that information and said he would be picked up in Leipzig. My grandfather, Jakob, was immediately taken away with all the other Jewish men that day. No one knew where or for how long.
My grandmother was anxious to find a safe place for my father and quickly phoned her Uncle Georg in Berlin, and he agreed to take my father into his home to avoid the Gestapo. My father describes him as a very kind man who was badly wounded in World War I.
My father left immediately for Berlin. Going to the train station and seeing the Gestapo, he pulled up the collar on his coat around his neck, bought a ticket, and took the 2 to 3-hour train ride to Berlin.
Memories of Berlin: November 1938
When he arrived in Berlin, he could see things were pretty rough. He described the broken glass in the streets, stores looted, and many scuffles as Jews were being rounded up. While at his Uncle Georg’s, my dad never went outside, looked out windows, or talked on the phone since they didn’t want anyone to know they were hiding a Jewish boy.
He described the broken glass in the streets, stores looted, and many scuffles as Jews were being rounded up.
Meanwhile, back in Halle, the family had been trying to get out of Germany, but one after the other, the plans failed. They couldn’t get to the US, Chile, or Shanghai. In mid-December 1938, my grandparents received word that my father needed to be out of Germany or he would be arrested on February 28th, 1939.
An English Family Took Him In
My grandmother had a cousin who lived in Manchester, England, who made arrangements for my father to live with the Kamrish Family, a local Jewish family. My father and his sister would live in England until my grandparents were settled somewhere, and they would send for them.
They said goodbye at the train station in Halle, believing they would be together again, safe in another country.
My grandmother made a photo album, got their documents, passports, and letters of recommendation together, and on February 22, 1939, they said goodbye at the train station in Halle, all believing they would be together again soon, safe in another country. That was the last time my father saw his parents. After the war, he found out that his parents had been killed at the Sobibor extermination camp in Poland in 1942.
Fifty years later, Allan Rayburn paid forward the kindness that saved his father. Read his next Slice: Life Events: Adopting Alma, a Bosnian Teenager.
