80th anniversary of Kristallnacht highlights women’s stories

JANE KAUFMAN | STAFF REPORTER jkaufman@cjn.org | @jkaufmancjn

Three women who showed loyalty, grit and determination in saving the lives of their husbands and families during the Holocaust were chronicled in a commemoration of the 80th anniversary of Kristallnacht.

“The Women of Kristallnacht” was a joint presentation of Congregation Shaarey Tikvah in Beachwood and B’nai Jeshurun Congregation in Pepper Pike.

“The night of shattered glass” began Nov. 9, 1938, in Germany. Tens of thousands of Jews were sent to concentration camps that night. Nearly 200 synagogues were destroyed and more than 8,000 shops owned by Jews were looted and ransacked.

Kevin Ostoyich, chair of the department of history at Valparaiso University in Valparaiso, Ind., spoke of Ida Abraham, Auguste Sternberg and Grete Gabler. All three had to find out where their husbands were taken following the roundups. The men were taken to concentration camps and the women fed their families, got their husbands out and secured passage to Shanghai for their husbands and families.

Abraham and Sternberg eventually came to Cleveland, where they raised their sons, Harry Abraham and Gary Sternberg, respectively. Gabler went to Australia, but her son, Eric Kisch, moved to Cleveland as an adult. Ostoyich interviewed the three sons to do his research and spoke Nov. 4 at Shaarey Tikvah in Beachwood. About 150 people attended.

Gary Sternberg now lives in Las Vegas, and Harry Abraham attended a family wedding Nov. 4, so Eric Kisch was the only son present. He said he appreciated Ostoyich’s use of human details to tell the stories.

“We need to remember the challenges these women faced and the actions they took within the nightmarish atmosphere of the Third Reich in order to get their loved ones out of concentration camps while still looking after the rest of their families,” Ostoyich said.

Ida Abraham’s grandmother gave her a Singer sewing machine at the age of 6 and she became accomplished at sewing, Ostoyich said.

“My mother was tough, hard-nosed and sometimes difficult,” Ostoyich quoted Harry Abraham. In Shanghai, Ostoyich said Ida Abraham “became one of the most prominent seamstresses in the Jewish community.” In 1947, the family went to San Francisco, then to Pittsburgh and Cleveland.

Auguste Sternberg was born Protestant and married Herman Sternberg, the son of a Jewish cattle farmer. She made sure that Jewish holidays were oberved and at Passover, only matzah was in the house, Gary Sternberg told Ostoyich.

After her husband was arrested, “she started to get pressure from government officials to divorce Herman given that she was Christian,” Ostoyich said. “She wouldn’t even hear of it.” After the war, the Sternbergs went to San Francisco, then settled in Cleveland.

Grete Gabler was born to a wealthy Hungarian family, Ostoyich said. Her life was filled with balls and beautiful clothes. That changed after Kristallnacht.

In Shanghai, “I was busy fighting mold, bedbugs and cockroaches,” she wrote, according to Ostoyich.

Sheri Gross, director of creative programming at Gross Schechter Day School in Pepper Pike, read three excerpts from “Going Back: 16 Women Tell Their Life

Stories, and Why They Returned to Germany – The Country that Once Wanted to Kill Them,” by Andrea von Treuenfeld.

B’nai Jeshurun Cantor Aaron Shifman chanted El Maley Rachamim, the memorial prayer, and six Holocaust survivors stood to lead Mourner’s Kaddish.

The program opened with a slide presentation and violinist Steve Greenman performing. He also played a solo to close the program.

When Gabler died, Eric Kisch received a letter from his cousin, Peter, who remembered being at the Kisch house when the storm troopers knocked.

“‘Your mother had the presence of mind to pay them off with some expensive knickknacks in the apartment,’” Ostoyich quoted from the letter. “‘And they left without harming us except frightening us to the bones.’”

To view more photos of this event, visit cjn.org