A LONG JOURNEY HOME
Monju Tiefenbrunner
INTRODUCTION
I was born in Wiesbaden, West Germany, on the 18th December 1915, into a very orthodox Jewish family. My parents had moved, three years earlier, in 1912, from Poland to Wiesbaden, where a number of relatives on my mother's side were already well established.
Jews have been living in Wiesbaden since the 14th century. It was a relatively small Jewish community. In 1875, the community numbered 900. "Ostjuden" (Jews from Eastern Europe) started coming to Wiesbaden at the turn of the century. The Jewish community was mainly made up of tradesmen who opened up kiosks and shops. During the early years of the century the women worked by going from village to village and selling textiles - clothes, tablecloths, sheets etc., to the farming community. Later they opened up shops and stores in town. By 1925, the Jewish population of Wiesbaden had risen to 3000. With the rise of the Nazis in 1933, Jews started leaving, and, by 1939, there were only 1200 Jews left. In 1938 all the synagogues but one were burned down, during the infamous "Kristallnacht", and 1942 saw all the remaining Jews deported from Wiesbaden.
During the years before the First World War conditions in Poland were very hard and consequently many Jewish families broke up their homes and came to Germany where living conditions were considerably easier. My parents arrived with two children (a boy and a girl); all the rest (four boys and two girls; another child died in infancy) were born in Wiesbaden.
Monju Tiefenbrunner
INTRODUCTION
I was born in Wiesbaden, West Germany, on the 18th December 1915, into a very orthodox Jewish family. My parents had moved, three years earlier, in 1912, from Poland to Wiesbaden, where a number of relatives on my mother's side were already well established.Jews have been living in Wiesbaden since the 14th century. It was a relatively small Jewish community. In 1875, the community numbered 900. "Ostjuden" (Jews from Eastern Europe) started coming to Wiesbaden at the turn of the century. The Jewish community was mainly made up of tradesmen who opened up kiosks and shops. During the early years of the century the women worked by going from village to village and selling textiles - clothes, tablecloths, sheets etc., to the farming community. Later they opened up shops and stores in town. By 1925, the Jewish population of Wiesbaden had risen to 3000. With the rise of the Nazis in 1933, Jews started leaving, and, by 1939, there were only 1200 Jews left. In 1938 all the synagogues but one were burned down, during the infamous "Kristallnacht", and 1942 saw all the remaining Jews deported from Wiesbaden.
During the years before the First World War conditions in Poland were very hard and consequently many Jewish families broke up their homes and came to Germany where living conditions were considerably easier. My parents arrived with two children (a boy and a girl); all the rest (four boys and two girls; another child died in infancy) were born in Wiesbaden.
There were both an ultra-orthodox German Jewish community and a large liberal community in Wiesbaden. The "Ostjuden" consisted of ultra-orthodox and modern religious Zionist Jews. My father belonged to the ultra-orthodox community, which, strangely enough, was affiliated, by the German authorities, to the liberal community. My father was on very good terms with the liberal rabbi, Rabbi Lazarus. He often came to discuss halachic questions with him.
At this point I would like to tell you a bit about my parents. My mother was a true "woman of valour" - completely dedicated to the role of wife and mother. As long as I can remember she was the first to get up in the morning and the last to go to bed. Her name was Matel Licht, born about 1883 to Yehuda Leib Licht in Dabrowa Tarnowska, a small suburb of Tarnow, Galicia in West Poland. She had a brother and three sisters. Unfortunately, I do not remember the names of all her sisters. Her brother was Yaakov Licht. One sister lived in Tarnow and was married to Chaim Weisenberg, and Chaya lived in Antwerp. Belgium married to a Holzer.
You can imagine bringing up eight children, running a household, and attending to business was not an easy task. She nevertheless carried out these duties with a devotion that was rarely seen even in those days, and hardly found today. Why was her role so much more difficult compared to others? Because my father unfortunately became blind before he was forty. Nowadays this blindness can be operated on with laser beams, but then all operations were to no avail. My parents were too proud to accept any help and therefore my mother had to take on the burden of running a business as well as fulfilling other duties.
My father's name was Efroim Tiefenbrunner born about 1880 to Issachar Tiefenbrunner, a cabinet maker in Limanowa, a village near Nowy Sacz. He had 4 brothers and 1 sister. The eldest brother Eli (Elias) was born in 1876. I never met him as he was enlisted into the Austrian Army during World War I, captured by the Russians, taken prisoner to Siberia and never heard of again. Chaim lived in Cologne. Germany, Meir lived in Wielzcka near Katowice, and Yosef, who had a publishing and printing business, lived in Krakow and later in Warsaw. He went into partnership with a family Cailingold in Warsaw.
His only sister, Chana, was married to a "Melamed" called Chaim Zins. They lived in Nowy Sacz. However in order to make a living her husband spent most of his time teaching in Cologne and would travel home 2 or 3 times a year to visit his family, on the way dropping in to Wiesbaden. I remember as a child, watching this uncle taking a wash and to my surprise his beard would unravel down to his knees. After his wash he would pin it up again. This always frightened me.
To describe the personality of my father, I have to go into more detail. Apparently, as a young man, he was a prodigy and showed an amazing talent for learning. His acquisition of knowledge and memory for details were so phenomenal, that his family decided that his brothers would learn a profession, while he would go to a Yeshiva. Thus he entered the Nowy-Sacz Yeshiva, which was famous at the time, and learnt.
However, whilst acquiring his vast knowledge and becoming known even then, as a Talmid Chacham, he decided not to become a professional Rabbi. He wanted to be an "ordinary" private citizen, but was ever ready to give guidance and counsel to all who sought it. In time he became known as not only an expert in matters of halacha but also a mentor in day to day problems. Later, in spite of his blindness, he gave Shiurim to young and old. Here his phenomenal memory served him well. He knew the Shas, as well as many other books, virtually by heart. The most memorable yearly events were his Drashot on Shabbat Teshuvah and Shabbat Hagadol. Then the whole community from all the local synagogues came to listen to him. He was also approached many times by Rabbis from nearby communities who sought his advice on halachic matters.
As a father he was always available to listen to ,our problems, giving advice and guidance. He had an amazing ability to calculate figures and would test children in the store. While my mother was very strict in our upbringing, my father was tolerant and understood the problems of living in a mainly non-Jewish society. He taught us to be firm in our religious ways, but also to be respectful of the views of others.
I don't know much about my parents' lives before they married in 1908 and came to Genniany. My mother was 18 and my father 21. Those were not days when there was time for idle reminiscing. People were busy getting on with their lives and trying to eke out a living. Most of the relatives mentioned above I never met. Travel and communications were very expensive and time consuming, so they were not undertaken.
We were originally 9 children. Avraham Yaakov (known as Yaakov) born in Poland in 1910, Sala in 1912, Yoine born in Wiesbaden in 1914, Monju (myself) in 1915, Philip in 1918, Osias in 1920, Rosel in 1922 and Lina in 1924. Philip had a twin brother who died as an infant from a children's disease.
When I was 3 years old, my oldest brother Yaakov was sent back to Poland to live with my paternal grandparents in Nowy Sacz. The reason for this decision was that he refused to go to a non-Jewish school, where he was unable to keep up his Jewish traditions, in particular, wearing head covering. He continued his education in Poland and subsequently remained there. He later entered my Uncle Yosef Tiefenbrunner's printing business, and lived with him in Krakow, where my grandparents had also moved. Here he learned bookbinding and publishing and later started his own business. He married Lola Durst in 1933 and a year later she gave birth to a girl. I was 18 when I visited Poland and met Yaakov for the first time since he left Germany.
My relationship with my other brothers and sisters was the same as in most families, I expect. We had our arguments and fights but we also stood staunchly by each other to the outside world. I fought a lot with Yoine being closest in age to him. Philip was a very frail small child so I didn't touch him. Yoine protected him from my bullying. My oldest sister Sala was really in charge of the household while my mother ran the shop during the day. I greatly respected Sala as she had to give up a lot of her own time in order to cook, mend our torn clothes and launder them. Very often she didn't attend school or go out with friends because there was work to do at home. As a result her social life was very limited. She was pretty, talented and intelligent. In 1936 she married Chaim Perlman and moved to Cologne.
Osias my youngest brother was a very serious diligent boy. As soon as he could, he left school to work in a bakery. My sister Rosel was the more serious of my younger sisters, she was already aware of her responsibilities. Lina was very cute and spoilt and treated by everyone like a doll.
Meanwhile life in Wiesbaden went on normally albeit with difficulties. The years after the First World War were not easy ones. Germany had lost the war and large parts of the country were occupied by French and British troops. Many people, as is always the case under such conditions, speculated and made fortunes, but my parents were not among them. They ran a kosher grocery and delicatessen store where we all had to help as much as possible.
In those days people hardly came to the shop - we had to go to them! We took the orders, later delivered the goods and afterwards had to run after the money. As the community was spread out all over town, it was not easy to fulfil all these tasks. Early every morning we went off to school and upon returning at lunch-time we straight away started our duties at the shop. Many times we came back too tired to do our homework which then had to be done early in the morning before school.
Wiesbaden, being a spa, was inhabited, during the summer months, by American Jews. There were 2 kosher hotels, and flats or rooms were also rented out. These rich vacationing Jews bought kosher food from our family store.
We were sent to non-Jewish schools, as there were no Jewish schools, but we benefited from certain exemptions. We did not have to participate in religious services or attend school on Shabbat. We had to catch up our studies and bring them to school on Monday. I had an arrangement with a non-Jewish friend to bring me on Sunday, homework that I had missed from Shabbat, and we would sit and do it together on Sunday mornings. The school had about 800 boys but very few Jewish ones. It was an anti-Semitic place already during the 1920s.
My friends were mainly not from school. The three families with whom we were most friendly were Family Riesel, who later left for France, Family Lerner, and Family Kannel, originally from Russia. The latter family was quite well-to-do. We loved to go and visit them and play with their large collection of toys, as our resources at home were very limited. They left for Palestine in the early 1930s.
I personally always had a special love of sports. I particularly liked table tennis, gymnastics, running and later handball and football There were three Jewish sports clubs in Wiesbaden: Hakoah, Schild and Maccabi. I joined Hakoah where most of my friends were. I am not too modest to claim that I was quite good at sport, and many times distinguished myself.
We were active in various youth movements. My siblings joined the Poalei Aguda Ezra movement, whereas I, as a bit of a rebel, was active in Bachad (Bnei Akiva) and later became a Madrich (youth leader).
All this had to be crammed into our busy schedules of school and work. As I mentioned before, the school was anti-Semitic already in the 1920s. One anti-Semitic incident, albeit of my own making, that I recall, happened to me in 1928, when I was 13. It was during a music lesson. Not being musical myself these lessons bored me, so one day while a boy in front of me was singing a solo, I pulled away his chair so that when he sat down he fell on to the floor and was hurt. The teacher asked who did this, so I owned up. He said to all the boys in the class: "OK! After the lesson, I'm sure you know how to deal with him". So after school the whole class attacked me, beat me up and cursed the Jews. I was very bruised.
As my parents had a kosher grocery store, we children were all expected to help with deliveries and collecting money. When we were small we had a small cart that we pulled along with the goods in. We learned to walk by trailing the cart. As we got older we preferred to use a bicycle. I remember the first one that Yoine and I built. We had no money so we went to a bicycle dealer who gave us old spare parts with which to build a bike. Unfortunately our first attempt seemed to have something missing, as it never worked properly! However, as time went on, we acquired better bicycles.
During the 1930s when the Nazis came to power, they held meetings in large town halls. Yoine and I decided to attend one such meeting as something to boast about to our friends. There were about 100 Germans in the hall. They talked of destroying Jewish businesses and attacking Jews. Suddenly a school-friend recognised and introduced us. Immediately they realised we were Jewish. They threw us out and bashed us up. We were badly bruised and hurt, but very proud that we'd attended a Nazi Party meeting.
So our family life continued into 1933, when Hitler, the leader of the Nazi Movement came to power. Many families left Germany to go to Palestine, England, France and the United States. This also affected our business and gradually, we children took on employment elsewhere. Yoine my elder brother, to whom I will refer in more detail later, became a clerk in a camera and film factory. Philip left home to work in Antwerp. I stopped working in my parents' shop in 1931.
I attended a commerce school twice a week between the ages of 16 and 18. I felt I could contribute to the family more if I looked for a job in Mainz (the closest main city). I applied for a position in the big department store "Stubs Quelle" and was accepted, only I didn't know that my father didn't agree with this arrangement, as he wanted me to run his shop. Finally my father agreed and hired a young boy to help, and I became employed at "Stubs Quelle". In order to earn more money, I worked overtime during the night doing window dressing.
During my time at "Stubs Quelle" (1931-38) there were some incidents of anti-Semitism. One in particular stands out in my mind. The main customers to this store were farmers from neighbouring villages. The three last Sundays before Christmas the business was open in the afternoons. During this period my siblings came to help in the store so they could earn some money. One Sunday in 1934, the Nazi Elite Troops (S.A.) stormed into the shop and began hitting and beating all the staff. One Nazi overcame my boss Mr. Weichselbaum, so I jumped on top of him and pinned him down while my boss crawled out from under us. Suddenly the Nazi turned on me and knocked me out with his rubber truncheon. I ended up in hospital for a few days with bad bruising and concussion.
In 1937, Yoine, who was already very active in Poale Aguda, decided to leave his job and study at the Rabbinical Seminary in Berlin. That left just my parents, myself, Osias and the two youngest sisters at home. I dearly wanted to study too, possibly architecture but this was financially out of the question, so I carried on travelling to and from my job, daily. Such was the situation until 28th October 1938 when my life, and that of my whole family, together with thousands of others, was abruptly and irreversibly changed.
At this point I would like to tell you a bit about my parents. My mother was a true "woman of valour" - completely dedicated to the role of wife and mother. As long as I can remember she was the first to get up in the morning and the last to go to bed. Her name was Matel Licht, born about 1883 to Yehuda Leib Licht in Dabrowa Tarnowska, a small suburb of Tarnow, Galicia in West Poland. She had a brother and three sisters. Unfortunately, I do not remember the names of all her sisters. Her brother was Yaakov Licht. One sister lived in Tarnow and was married to Chaim Weisenberg, and Chaya lived in Antwerp. Belgium married to a Holzer.
You can imagine bringing up eight children, running a household, and attending to business was not an easy task. She nevertheless carried out these duties with a devotion that was rarely seen even in those days, and hardly found today. Why was her role so much more difficult compared to others? Because my father unfortunately became blind before he was forty. Nowadays this blindness can be operated on with laser beams, but then all operations were to no avail. My parents were too proud to accept any help and therefore my mother had to take on the burden of running a business as well as fulfilling other duties.
My father's name was Efroim Tiefenbrunner born about 1880 to Issachar Tiefenbrunner, a cabinet maker in Limanowa, a village near Nowy Sacz. He had 4 brothers and 1 sister. The eldest brother Eli (Elias) was born in 1876. I never met him as he was enlisted into the Austrian Army during World War I, captured by the Russians, taken prisoner to Siberia and never heard of again. Chaim lived in Cologne. Germany, Meir lived in Wielzcka near Katowice, and Yosef, who had a publishing and printing business, lived in Krakow and later in Warsaw. He went into partnership with a family Cailingold in Warsaw.
His only sister, Chana, was married to a "Melamed" called Chaim Zins. They lived in Nowy Sacz. However in order to make a living her husband spent most of his time teaching in Cologne and would travel home 2 or 3 times a year to visit his family, on the way dropping in to Wiesbaden. I remember as a child, watching this uncle taking a wash and to my surprise his beard would unravel down to his knees. After his wash he would pin it up again. This always frightened me.
To describe the personality of my father, I have to go into more detail. Apparently, as a young man, he was a prodigy and showed an amazing talent for learning. His acquisition of knowledge and memory for details were so phenomenal, that his family decided that his brothers would learn a profession, while he would go to a Yeshiva. Thus he entered the Nowy-Sacz Yeshiva, which was famous at the time, and learnt.
However, whilst acquiring his vast knowledge and becoming known even then, as a Talmid Chacham, he decided not to become a professional Rabbi. He wanted to be an "ordinary" private citizen, but was ever ready to give guidance and counsel to all who sought it. In time he became known as not only an expert in matters of halacha but also a mentor in day to day problems. Later, in spite of his blindness, he gave Shiurim to young and old. Here his phenomenal memory served him well. He knew the Shas, as well as many other books, virtually by heart. The most memorable yearly events were his Drashot on Shabbat Teshuvah and Shabbat Hagadol. Then the whole community from all the local synagogues came to listen to him. He was also approached many times by Rabbis from nearby communities who sought his advice on halachic matters.
As a father he was always available to listen to ,our problems, giving advice and guidance. He had an amazing ability to calculate figures and would test children in the store. While my mother was very strict in our upbringing, my father was tolerant and understood the problems of living in a mainly non-Jewish society. He taught us to be firm in our religious ways, but also to be respectful of the views of others.
I don't know much about my parents' lives before they married in 1908 and came to Genniany. My mother was 18 and my father 21. Those were not days when there was time for idle reminiscing. People were busy getting on with their lives and trying to eke out a living. Most of the relatives mentioned above I never met. Travel and communications were very expensive and time consuming, so they were not undertaken.
We were originally 9 children. Avraham Yaakov (known as Yaakov) born in Poland in 1910, Sala in 1912, Yoine born in Wiesbaden in 1914, Monju (myself) in 1915, Philip in 1918, Osias in 1920, Rosel in 1922 and Lina in 1924. Philip had a twin brother who died as an infant from a children's disease.
When I was 3 years old, my oldest brother Yaakov was sent back to Poland to live with my paternal grandparents in Nowy Sacz. The reason for this decision was that he refused to go to a non-Jewish school, where he was unable to keep up his Jewish traditions, in particular, wearing head covering. He continued his education in Poland and subsequently remained there. He later entered my Uncle Yosef Tiefenbrunner's printing business, and lived with him in Krakow, where my grandparents had also moved. Here he learned bookbinding and publishing and later started his own business. He married Lola Durst in 1933 and a year later she gave birth to a girl. I was 18 when I visited Poland and met Yaakov for the first time since he left Germany.
My relationship with my other brothers and sisters was the same as in most families, I expect. We had our arguments and fights but we also stood staunchly by each other to the outside world. I fought a lot with Yoine being closest in age to him. Philip was a very frail small child so I didn't touch him. Yoine protected him from my bullying. My oldest sister Sala was really in charge of the household while my mother ran the shop during the day. I greatly respected Sala as she had to give up a lot of her own time in order to cook, mend our torn clothes and launder them. Very often she didn't attend school or go out with friends because there was work to do at home. As a result her social life was very limited. She was pretty, talented and intelligent. In 1936 she married Chaim Perlman and moved to Cologne.
Osias my youngest brother was a very serious diligent boy. As soon as he could, he left school to work in a bakery. My sister Rosel was the more serious of my younger sisters, she was already aware of her responsibilities. Lina was very cute and spoilt and treated by everyone like a doll.
Meanwhile life in Wiesbaden went on normally albeit with difficulties. The years after the First World War were not easy ones. Germany had lost the war and large parts of the country were occupied by French and British troops. Many people, as is always the case under such conditions, speculated and made fortunes, but my parents were not among them. They ran a kosher grocery and delicatessen store where we all had to help as much as possible.
In those days people hardly came to the shop - we had to go to them! We took the orders, later delivered the goods and afterwards had to run after the money. As the community was spread out all over town, it was not easy to fulfil all these tasks. Early every morning we went off to school and upon returning at lunch-time we straight away started our duties at the shop. Many times we came back too tired to do our homework which then had to be done early in the morning before school.
Wiesbaden, being a spa, was inhabited, during the summer months, by American Jews. There were 2 kosher hotels, and flats or rooms were also rented out. These rich vacationing Jews bought kosher food from our family store.
We were sent to non-Jewish schools, as there were no Jewish schools, but we benefited from certain exemptions. We did not have to participate in religious services or attend school on Shabbat. We had to catch up our studies and bring them to school on Monday. I had an arrangement with a non-Jewish friend to bring me on Sunday, homework that I had missed from Shabbat, and we would sit and do it together on Sunday mornings. The school had about 800 boys but very few Jewish ones. It was an anti-Semitic place already during the 1920s.
My friends were mainly not from school. The three families with whom we were most friendly were Family Riesel, who later left for France, Family Lerner, and Family Kannel, originally from Russia. The latter family was quite well-to-do. We loved to go and visit them and play with their large collection of toys, as our resources at home were very limited. They left for Palestine in the early 1930s.
I personally always had a special love of sports. I particularly liked table tennis, gymnastics, running and later handball and football There were three Jewish sports clubs in Wiesbaden: Hakoah, Schild and Maccabi. I joined Hakoah where most of my friends were. I am not too modest to claim that I was quite good at sport, and many times distinguished myself.
We were active in various youth movements. My siblings joined the Poalei Aguda Ezra movement, whereas I, as a bit of a rebel, was active in Bachad (Bnei Akiva) and later became a Madrich (youth leader).
All this had to be crammed into our busy schedules of school and work. As I mentioned before, the school was anti-Semitic already in the 1920s. One anti-Semitic incident, albeit of my own making, that I recall, happened to me in 1928, when I was 13. It was during a music lesson. Not being musical myself these lessons bored me, so one day while a boy in front of me was singing a solo, I pulled away his chair so that when he sat down he fell on to the floor and was hurt. The teacher asked who did this, so I owned up. He said to all the boys in the class: "OK! After the lesson, I'm sure you know how to deal with him". So after school the whole class attacked me, beat me up and cursed the Jews. I was very bruised.
As my parents had a kosher grocery store, we children were all expected to help with deliveries and collecting money. When we were small we had a small cart that we pulled along with the goods in. We learned to walk by trailing the cart. As we got older we preferred to use a bicycle. I remember the first one that Yoine and I built. We had no money so we went to a bicycle dealer who gave us old spare parts with which to build a bike. Unfortunately our first attempt seemed to have something missing, as it never worked properly! However, as time went on, we acquired better bicycles.
During the 1930s when the Nazis came to power, they held meetings in large town halls. Yoine and I decided to attend one such meeting as something to boast about to our friends. There were about 100 Germans in the hall. They talked of destroying Jewish businesses and attacking Jews. Suddenly a school-friend recognised and introduced us. Immediately they realised we were Jewish. They threw us out and bashed us up. We were badly bruised and hurt, but very proud that we'd attended a Nazi Party meeting.
So our family life continued into 1933, when Hitler, the leader of the Nazi Movement came to power. Many families left Germany to go to Palestine, England, France and the United States. This also affected our business and gradually, we children took on employment elsewhere. Yoine my elder brother, to whom I will refer in more detail later, became a clerk in a camera and film factory. Philip left home to work in Antwerp. I stopped working in my parents' shop in 1931.
I attended a commerce school twice a week between the ages of 16 and 18. I felt I could contribute to the family more if I looked for a job in Mainz (the closest main city). I applied for a position in the big department store "Stubs Quelle" and was accepted, only I didn't know that my father didn't agree with this arrangement, as he wanted me to run his shop. Finally my father agreed and hired a young boy to help, and I became employed at "Stubs Quelle". In order to earn more money, I worked overtime during the night doing window dressing.
During my time at "Stubs Quelle" (1931-38) there were some incidents of anti-Semitism. One in particular stands out in my mind. The main customers to this store were farmers from neighbouring villages. The three last Sundays before Christmas the business was open in the afternoons. During this period my siblings came to help in the store so they could earn some money. One Sunday in 1934, the Nazi Elite Troops (S.A.) stormed into the shop and began hitting and beating all the staff. One Nazi overcame my boss Mr. Weichselbaum, so I jumped on top of him and pinned him down while my boss crawled out from under us. Suddenly the Nazi turned on me and knocked me out with his rubber truncheon. I ended up in hospital for a few days with bad bruising and concussion.
In 1937, Yoine, who was already very active in Poale Aguda, decided to leave his job and study at the Rabbinical Seminary in Berlin. That left just my parents, myself, Osias and the two youngest sisters at home. I dearly wanted to study too, possibly architecture but this was financially out of the question, so I carried on travelling to and from my job, daily. Such was the situation until 28th October 1938 when my life, and that of my whole family, together with thousands of others, was abruptly and irreversibly changed.
