o The yellow Star of David, inscribed “Jude”; required to be worn by all Jews.
o Fasanenstrasse Synagogue, the largest in Berlin, destroyed during Kristallnacht, November 10, 1938; before and after destruction.
o Henry and friend on his prohibited bicycle.
he Holocaust in Europe (19331945) was the systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of approximately six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators. During the era of the Holocaust, the Nazis targeted other groups perceived as racially inferior: Roma (Gypsies), Poles, Russians, Communists, Socialists, Jehovah's Witnesses, homosexuals, the handicapped, and others.
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In 1933, European Jews numbered over nine million. By 1945, close to two out of three had been killed as part of the “Final Solution.” Although Jews were the primary targets, the Nazis persecuted and murdered millions of others. Before the war in 1939, the Nazis established concentration camps to imprison Jews and other opponents of Nazism. City ghettos, transit camps, and forced-labor camps were created, and in 1941, Einsatzgruppen (mobile killing units) murdered more than a million Jews. Between 1942 and 1944, Nazi Germany deported millions more Jews from the occupied territories to extermination camps, where they were murdered in specially developed killing facilities. In the final months of the war, surviving camp inmates were forced on death marches to prevent Allied liberation of large numbers of prisoners. As Allied forces moved across Europe, they encountered and liberated concentration camp prisoners, many of whom had survived the death marches. World War II ended in Europe with the unconditional surrender of German armed forces, May 1945. (Adapted from information supplied by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.)
HENRY o Henry, Inge and
o Certificate of
Steffi Oertelt arrive, February 2, 1950.
Naturalization, November 11, 1954, when “Heinz” became Henry.
o The family's first residence on South Exchange Street, St. Paul, facilitated by Jewish Family Services.
o The destroyed Fasanenstrasse Synagogue, Berlin.
o Henry crafts the o In the early ‘50s,
bima—the dais where the Torah is read—for the new synagogue.
Henry worked as a furniture builder for Yungbauer & Sons. Although antisemitic, the owner prized Henry’s fine craftsmanship.
o The new synagogue, Beth Jacob, under construction, Mendota Heights, Minnesota, 1987.
o When demand for hand-crafted furniture declined, Henry was hired as a salesman for Cardozo Brothers, a leading Twin Cities furniture store.
o Henry loved to go fishing at Lake Ida, Alexandria, MN, where he wrote An Unbroken Chain: My Journey Through the Nazi Holocaust.
o A Prudential Life Insurance executive suggests Henry join his firm, launching a 30-year career.
o Miss Constance Currie, much-loved director of the St. Paul Neighborhood House. She aided refugees for 38 years and helped Henry and Inge find a home and create a social life.
o Henry and Inge enjoying Minnehaha Falls.
o New immigrants gather ca. 1950 at Neighborhood House, a center dedicated to helping war refugees.
enry Oertelt grew up in Berlin. Only two when his father died, he and his brother, Kurt, were raised by their seamstress mother. When Hitler took power in 1933, Henry was 12. He trained as a furniture maker, but in 1939 was forced from his profession to work as a street laborer. In 1941 he was sent to labor in a furniture factory. In March 1943 he and Kurt and his mother were sent to Theresienstadt concentration camp.
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In 1944, he and Kurt were sent to Auschwitz, where he was forced to labor making furniture. In early 1945, they were evacuated from Auschwitz and sent to a camp in Flosssenburg, Germany and from there were forced on a death march; but after 2 1/2
o The Red Feather, the symbol of The Community Chest.
days were liberated by American troops. Henry weighed only 82 pounds. His mother and other family members died at Auschwitz. Henry returned to Berlin. There, he married Inge Fromm, whom he had known before. They lived in the French sector of Berlin. Henry managed to buy them false papers, moved them to the English sector and, in 1950, emigrated to the United States with their 14-month-old daughter, Stephanie. Their son, David, was born a few years later. In St. Paul, they lived in a room donated by Jewish Family Services, then moved to an apartment in the 7 Corners area. With help from JFS, they bought a house on Juno Avenue in St. Paul.
Henry worked furniture-related jobs before becoming an agent for Prudential Life. On November 9, 1954 Henry and Inge became American citizens. They were active in Temple of Aaron, where Henry sang in the choir. Henry was a key figure in the new Beth Jacob Congregation synagogue, built in 1987 in Mendota Heights, Minnesota; he drew great satisfaction from using his furniture-making skills to build parts of the sanctuary—a poetic rebuilding of the Berlin synagogue destroyed in 1938 by the Nazis. Eventually, Henry agreed to speak about his wartime experiences. He has written a book for young adults, An Unbroken Chain, My Journey Through The Nazi Holocaust.
o Engagement photo, Inge and Henry (Berlin, May 1946, one year after liberation).
o Henry and his brother, Kurt, were part of the “Elijah” prisoner choir that performed for the Red Cross visit. To minimize the appearance of overcrowding, many Jews were deported to Auschwitz. This photo fragment, partially burned in a fire set to destroy camp propaganda when liberation was imminent, was rescued by the Allies.
o It wasn't until the mid-1990s that Henry acquired this copy of the photo from a visiting musicologist who was lecturing on music of the camps. As he examined the faces in the photo, Henry discovered his own likeness among the singers, and that of brother Kurt.
o Newspaper clipping of Inge, Henry, and year-old Stephanie, upon arrival in New York, September 11, 1949.
o Thereisenstadt ghetto, where the Nazis set up “a model Jewish settlement.”
o Auschwitz concentration camp archway gate: “Work will make you free.”
o Detail of score from Felix Mendelssohn's oratorio, "Elijah," performed by Thereisenstadt prisoners. The lyric refrain, "O hear me, Lord, and answer me!" was permitted in order to lend credibility to Nazi propaganda.
o The performance of “Elijah” was filmed by the Nazis in 1944 for propaganda. (The original image has been converted to color to better illustrate the prisoners’ yellow stars.)