Buechler, Joseph_1976/8/10, Oral History, 1976 - 1976

Oral History – Joseph Buechler – Holocaust

Interviewer: Richard Levitt Interview Date: August 10th, 1976

RL = Richard Levitt JB = Rev. Jospeh Buechler

RL: 29 Parsons Drive, West Hartford, the evening of August 10th, 1976. Good evening, Reverend Buechler. Would you please tell us where you where born, when you were born and something about your early life.

JB: I was born in a small village in Austria. After 1918 this became part of Romania and after the Second World War it became Russia, and is still under Russia. I come from a very Orthodox home. In the home of my parents kashrut was observed strictly, holidays, and everything. Sabbath was according to the law, and so forth. I went to school, when I was four years old I went to a Jewish school. Jewish reading and writing was taught but also German writing and reading, and so on. This I did from my fourth year up to my 11th or 12th year. By then, the First World War broke out and my parents and my sister they had to refuge to Czechoslovakia because the part of Austria that I lived in was a …, a war between Austria and Russia. So we spent a few years in Czechoslovakia. There I went to public school. But, I also had a tutor who taught me advanced German, literature, arithmetic, everything practically.

After the war I came back to my place of birth. I again had to catch up at school because I had many years of schooling so I got another tutor who prepared me for senior high. Senior high school I made in a short time, about two years. This again made possible for me to pass the examination for a Business College, a college where mainly Accounting and Administration was taught. In those days my goal was to become a Vice President in a bank. I mean, I had the possibility because I acquired the background in the mean time. But things became diverted and I learned that as a bank employee or an accountant you have to spend many hours in the office and this was not to my state. So I represented a number of companies in all kinds of lines for a number of years, until I got into business on my own.

Now this of course stretches over many years. When I graduated this Business College I went to Germany. For one reason, because the language spoken there was German. Austria was most German, although there are others. This was the main reason why I went to Germany. I could go to Vienna or to Germany. So I went to Dresden where I spent a few years with my brother who had a business. And I got some experience with him. But then again it meant again to stay eight or nine or ten hours in the office or the safe department. So I left Dresden and I went to Berlin. In Berlin I met some friends of mine who had came before me to Berlin, and from there as I said, I represented a number of companies, in all different lines.

RL: For example?

JB: For among others, I sold for a time long I sold machinery for laundries, big washing machines and press machines and all this kind. I used to travel through the country and sell those things. I used to make good living. I was young and travelling made fun in those days. I was unmarried.

This went on for a number of years. Then I went into business for my own. I used to manufacture ladies underwear, you know, those fancy undergarments. I did this for a number of years and in ’33 I met my wife, who was born in Berlin. And we went together until ’35 we married, and we hoped to go to America. It was not so simple to come to America. You see, I was born in Romania, because it became Romania after the First World War.

RL: Mm, hmm.

JB: And the Romanian quota for immigrants to America was very small, maybe for the whole country a hundred.

RL: Oh.

JB: But those hundred did not apply only for Germany, where I was living, but all over the world, from Romania itself. So we applied and we hoped to go but we couldn’t. And we applied to other countries, to Central America. When we applied it was just too late. We couldn’t go anymore.

RL: By that time in Germany things were not too pleasant.

JB: No. In the meantime, I’m referring already to ’36, ’37.

RL: Yeah.

JB: But since ’31, ’32, Hitler was already and the restrictions for Jews

RL: Yeah.

JB: So we stayed in Germany, and my wife she had to work forced labor in a munitions factory. I was not in a very good physical situation and the fact that my wife worked I was somewhat protected by her work, I could stay here as long as they didn’t take those people from the factory to the concentration camps. So my wife worked until ‘452, the end of ’42.

RL: Can you tell us what it was like in Germany for the Jews?

JB: Alright. After, in September ’39, Jews had to wear a yellow star, and people had to go to work, those that were capable. But also, in ’40, towards the end of ’40 the first Jewish people they are taken and deported to Berlin. In the beginning they are only taken to Poland to a ghetto, they would be separated from the others, and they would work, and so and so on. This was the beginning … But shortly after this, in ’41 or ’42, large concentration camps got built in Germany and Poland, and all those who could work were taken to those camps. The older ones, who had privilege in some respect, let’s say one partner was a Gentile, a Gentile mother or a Gentile father, they went to Theresienstadt. You heard about that?

RL: Oh, yeah.

JB: Mostly older people. The younger ones went to concentration camps, and those who were able to work were kept alive. And the others, you know what hap0ened to the others.

RL: Yes.

JB: They are exterminated in the gas ovens.

RL: Pardon me, your parents had passed away by this time?

JB: My parents passed away before this. My wife’s mother and her sister and her three daughters got taken to the concentration camp, and except for one girl, all the others perished. None of them came back. They had the Romanian nationality, and in the beginning they told us that people who had another nationality like Romanina, or Greek, or Hungaria, they probably would be left alone. That was not true. They [picked them up just like anybody else.

Until ’42 my wife worked, until the end of ’42 she worked in the munitions camp. We lived together with my wife’s mother. Now in early ’42, I realized what’s going to happen. On one hand we got prepared to go, if they pick us up, we hide shoes, boots, worn clothes.

RL: Pardon me, you did know what was happening in the camps?

JB: No, nobody knew. We knew that nothing good happens but what happens. But in ’42, early ’42, end of ’41, at this time Jewish people got very little stamps, very little food, you know? Not like the Gentiles. We did not get shoes, cigarettes at all. And Jewish people could not go into a bar. I met a Jewish man, you see, Jewish people had to live together, in one apartment maybe three or four families, a family to a room, one kitchen. I met a man whose home lived other families where there were put other families. If they had an apartment they were give it for their own people. I met a man and we’re talking about, and he said “I have an idea. I know a woman that used to sell laundry” (she had a type of bar or tavern, I think) and he said “She was a very Jew-friendly person” but all the other places had big sign “Jews not allowed”. She did not have it. So he said “Let’s call one evening and see what, so we came, she knew him, and he introduced me. And we got friendly and start talking and she was a Nazi hater.

RL: Oh?

JB: She hated those people. And she said “You can come anytime here as long as possible”. And not only this, she gave us cigarettes, and she said “From now on you come every Sunday morning before I open the place, come to the back of the place and I will give you and you a carton of cigarettes, enough for a whole week”.

So we took advantage of this. I got more friendly with this woman. My friend was picked up with his family and deported to …. As I said my wife was still working and I still was privileged in a way to stay away. But then we saw what’s going to happen. So I got friendly with this woman and I told her my situation. I told her “You know if you could get for me some other place where we could hide. I’m willing to pay any amount.” We had enough money to do this. She said “I will look around and see what I can do for you.”

In the meantime, time was running out. And one day she said “You know, it’s very hard. Whomever I spoke to said “You know we are willing to help with money, clothing if necessary, even sometimes with a little food that we can spare, but to take someone in the house it means suicide.” Because any such people are caught they are treated just as the Jews.

And this went on for a time so it was already close to the end of ’42. My wife was sick and she could stay home for a couple of weeks. When she was sick she had to bring an affidavit from the doctor that she was sick. In the meantime, since we knew we were

RL: Excuse me, was that a Jewish doctor or a Gentile?

JB: It was a Jewish doctor.

RL: Ok.

JB: They had Jewish doctors because Jews could go only to Jewish doctors.

RL: Yup, yup.

JB: So in the meantime, this woman, we had a lot of things, you know around the house we have bric-and-brac, we have pictures, we have. Anytime I would go I’d take along something to her. We give to her because we had no use for it. And she would give for it some fruit or vegetable or sometime a loaf of bread, whatever she could spare she would give us.

And then one day she said to me “You know, you could do me a big favor” and I said “Yes, I can.” She said “My fiancé has no, he needs a good suit for his job and a topcoat. You couldn’t buy it, there was nothing to buy anymore. “Maybe you can get me from some of your friends a suit of clothes and a topcoat, you pay for it and I’ll appreciate it very much. He’s about your figure.” So when I came home and told this to my wife and my mother-in-law they said “Take the best suit and the best topcoat and take it over to this woman and say it is a gift because I had plenty of suits, I would never use them up.” Which I did. I took the topcoat and a suit and went to her and I say “Here, for your fiancé, and this is a gift, no, no payment allowed.” And she would give me some fruit, whatever she had.

In the meantime I used to pick up a couple of cigarettes. As I saw time was running out I said “What are we going to do? They are picking up people from all over. Many people are committing suicide because they don’t want to be picked up. And they even start to pick up people, those who work, so it was dangerous. So maybe you can do something.” Next time I came she says “You know I thought about you. I’m going to take you in for the first four or six weeks. And after this I’m sure I will find somebody who will take you.”

In the meantime we also had a plan with a Gentile woman, an older woman, who took in my mother-in-law. She was out for money

RL: Hum.

JB: This one didn’t want any money at all. “No, I don’t want any money”. I said “If you don’t take any money I can’t stay with you because I have the money and I would anywhere I stay have to pay rent.” She wouldn’t take a large amount of money. At least I pay the rent for the place. No, she wouldn’t take it but I insisted. Finally, she had to take it. Four or five weeks went by, then six weeks, seven weeks, eight weeks, and she couldn’t find a place. Whoever she asked they’re willing to help with money, anything but not take you in the house

RL: Let me ask you one question. Weren’t you registered where you lived? Weren’t they trying to keep track of you?

JB: Yes. I’ll tell you what we did.

RL: Okay.

JB: When she said she was going to take us in we burned all our papers, everything we had. I burned my tallis, my … and when we left the house we left a big note on the table “We are going to commit suicide in this and this lake” You know there’s a big lake?

RL: Yeah.

JB: We left the note, left the house and goodbye! And then we went to her house, she took us in, you know. So after a while when nobody was seen in the house there was living the wife of a dentist and two children opposite our apartment, her husband was in the war, and when they didn’t see us

RL: Excuse me, they were German?

JB: Of course!

RL: Oh, I thought the Jews were all living together.

JB: No, no, we stay in the apartment. The others were those that were picked up already.

RL: Oh, I see.

JB: So she went to the police to say “Those Jews must have committed suicide because it smells like …” So they came in, they saw a note and alright it was the end. So, in the meantime we were still living with this woman. After six, eight, ten weeks she couldn’t find anyone but we got more friendly. She took a liking to us. Evidently she was, in her youth, she was a kind of domestic, not exactly domestic, she was a young girl who was taken in a by Jewish people who had no children and she worked in the house but she was more a daughter, you know. And she liked the Jewish people, they treat her very good.

So as I say time was going on and there was no place to go. One day she say to us “You know, I couldn’t let you go now. Whatever’s going to happen to you’s going to happen to me and vice versa. But I cannot let you go because I know exactly that if you go, they catch you, and they send you to Auschwitz.” So we were happy to hear this.

But in the meantime we had a lot of difficulties. The bomber attacks came over Berlin, you know,

RL: Oh, yes.

JB: Hundreds and thousands of houses are destroyed or burned, you know? And this was also a problem. She was always afraid if something happens what’s she going to say? Or somebody takes serious sick, you see? We couldn’t go to a doctor, we couldn’t go to a hospital. She was worried about us but thank God it so happened that we made it. Although one evening, there was a big attack on Berlin. You see the houses in Berlin are not, in those residential areas, the big ones, it’s not like here, everybody owns a home, in the city, there the houses are attached to each other. And each wall, the outer wall of the house was at least one yard thick, one yard, you know?

RL: Yeah.

JB: Stones and bricks. No, this was attached to the other house. The other house had to have the same thickness of the wall. So one evening, when the attack came, one of those walls, hit and it tore out a half house of ours and the half house of the other. Now these houses were five floors. In this house altogether lived maybe fifty families, or forty families.

RL: Wow.

JB: Fortunately, we were on the other side of the house, and need I say, we survived.

RL: Excuse me, did anybody else in the apartment house know?

JB: No! No one, even her relatives.

RL: How about her fiancé?

JB: He knew. He knew about us. She had to tell him. And I’m not sure he was delighted. After all, he liked her. She said to him “We took this, we have to continue, there’s no way out”. So anyway, under very hard circumstances, all those dangerous …, for instance, I went in those two and a half years may be two or three times. t was small, a very small room, you know. My wife, she had to go often. She maybe was out let’s say every month or two months. She had to get some food, those stamps.

RL: That’s what I was going to ask you, how you got food. There were people, let’s say, like Margaret. They would sell you the stamps, of course if they cost half a dollar they would charge you five dollars, or to get a pound of butter, anything because if you didn’t have stamps you couldn’t buy anything.

RL: Yeah.

JB: This woman, she helped us a lot. She gave us many things from her own. You see, this was an open place, a bar or tavern, people would come in and talk and one would have a pound of butter to give up or cigarettes but somehow she would always get something through to us. She was very nice. Imagine what she did, she risked her life and the life of her fiancé.

RL: Yes.

JB: Now this was going on for almost two and a half years until the war over and we were liberated, not by the Americans, the English or the French, but by the Russians.

RL: Ah.

JB: Now, we were really but then when the Russians came in, end of April, they were first to came into Berlin and then we heard them coming, we didn’t see them first, we were in our little room, and we got very scared. I knew how Russians act from the First World War so we were afraid that if they see us they would shoot us. As a matter of act, a number of people survived, Jewish people. They didn’t believe they were Jews. They came out and tell them but they didn’t believe them.

RL: About how many people, Jewish people, survived in Berlin?

JB: Now there was an article in the New York Times that some researcher writes in the beginning that there ware five thousand people in Berlin who were hiding, and 1400 of those survived. He wrote this in a very nice article. You can imagine how many people had to support and help five thousand refugees. I mean. Refugees! People were hiding, not refugees! But I don’t think there are as many. I thought maybe two thousand, maybe three thousand went into hiding but many gave up themselves, many were caught, many committed suicide. So he says that after the war was over in Berlin there were 1400 Jews who survived. But this is not accurate, in my opinion, there were maybe three or four hundred in Berlin, in the city itself. Maybe around the city there were some who survived but in the city I’m speaking of Berlin itself, a few hundred.

So anyway the war was over and those Russians came in. Fortunately, they didn’t see us, they didn’t go in any homes. They said everybody has to be out in the yard. Anyone who’s caught inside will be shot. But I can’t go out. I don’t know what’s happening. So we hid in the house. We stayed there until next day or two days later when things quieted a little bit down. The war was still going on!

RL: That’s right.

JB: Aw, shooting! I cannot tell you all the details. Impossible! You would need a few days for it. But in the meantime the Russians are in Berlin, and our house, too. You see they put in all there, they were not motorized then as they are today, or like the Americans, they had still horses and bags. In Berlin those houses had very big courtyards. The courtyard was as big four times as is house.

RL: Unh, huh.

JB: So what they would do, they would put their horses and their bags in the courtyard. And I saw they quieted down a little bit so, I saw one of those Russian soldiers, I saw one and he looked very, you know, I thought he looked friendly. So I opened the window. You see, there were no windows then, the windows were all boards, because the gas was gone for a long time already and I knew a few words of Russian. So I say to him “Hello, hello” and then I say to him “You know, I am a Jew”. All in Russian, you know.

“Oh, you’re a Jew? My captain is a Jew! I’m going to bring my captain. Sure enough he goes away down the street and brings along a very handsome young man, you know. I recognize him right away, he had a nice nose.

RL: (Chuckling)

JB: And so he introduced me to him and told him, he said he didn’t believe me. He was very skeptical and very reserved. He didn’t believe I’m a Jew. You have to understand that all the Jews got killed in Germany. There were no Jews. Practically, there are no Jews in Germany. So he wouldn’t believe me. He thought maybe I’m some kind of a spy, SS man maybe. How could he tell I’m a Jew? So I showed him, I had a identification from before, I had to keep something, I had to have something to show who I am. It came in handy in this case. In Germany, since ’40 or ’41, all Jews had to put in their identification cards except their regular name, a Jewish name. Let’s say, for instance, my name is Joseph Buechler. I had to put in between Joseph and Buechler “Israel”. Every Jew had to do this, and each Jewish woman had to put in her name “Sarah”. They could recognize right away those are Jews. So I showed him this but he didn’t, he wasn’t familiar with those things that were going on there in Germany.

RL: Did those cards have your picture on?

JB: Yes. Oh, yes.

RL: He still didn’t.

JB: He say to me “If you are a Jew, say the Shema Yisrael. So I recited the Shema Yisrael. So after this he got warmer, friendly and he brought us food, brought us drink. On account of him the whole house was safe. Now when the Russians came in they raped many girls, many women. No, there was no, you couldn’t help it. This is what it is. I suppose all the armies did this in wartime.

RL: Yes.

JB: So, on account of this man he gave the order to those people “No one is to be bothered here”. He took charge of it. So, this was maybe April the 28th. So he stayed a couple of days and he was very friendly with us. He became really a good friend and he helped us as good he could, you know? Of course, he didn’t have too many possibilities. You bring a loaf of bread, you bring a bottle of wine, whatever he could, he brought. And then he said to me one day “You know, now that the war is over you are going to stay here with the Nazis.” And I say “No, I try to go away. As a matter of fact I try to go to United States but it didn’t work out.” He said “After the war you come to me in Odessa and I will get you a job. What did you study, what was your profession?”

“I studied Accounting, Administration, you know, Banking, those things.”

He said “You come to me, I will get you a job, you will live there free.”

You see he was a very big patriot, you see, those people didn’t know anything else, they didn’t know what democracy means, they grew up there. And then another thing, the Russian government, any boy or girl who had the capability, they would pay all his schooling. This man was a doctor.

RL: Wow.

JB: His father was a doctor, his sister was a doctor, and the government pays for everything until they make their degrees and start working. You know Russians belong all to the government, they are government employees. So he was very (end Side One).

Now this man was a real friend. Unfortunately he stayed only another couple of days and while he was staying he would help us in any way he could. As a matter of fact the Russians had almost already a year in Germany, the eastern part of Germany. And all his pay he got in occupation money he would give it to me. He would insist I take it although I didn’t know if it had any value to us civilians. But it had some value and he insisted we take because he felt he would never make use of it. And while we enjoyed having him, overnight the Russian Army got the order to move out of Berlin to move south to Czechoslovakia to get ahead of the American armies there.

So we lost all the connection with him. We never heard of him and we felt sorry that we could not reciprocate in some way his kindnesses. While he was still in our neighborhood we were protected because the Russians would go into the houses and take everything they could use, or even couldn’t use. They would take everything and if people would object they would just pick them up or sometimes kill them because in wartime human life didn’t mean anything at all. So one evening one of those Russkies knocked on the door and you had to open, otherwise they break in the door, and he came in, and somehow I got the idea to ask him “Are you looking for the Captain Michael so-and-so?” He say “No, no, no, no I just want to”, he didn’t know what to say, he disappeared because he was a superior, of course he was afraid. And so this happened too, but after this they got rid of the whole Army out from Berlin. They left just a skimpy occupation in Berlin, and we lost all the connections with him.

But soon after this we met other Russian officers, they were very nice to us, Jewish people. As a matter of fact in those days it seemed to me that every second, third officer was a Jewish man. All of them generous, high officers, not only Lieutenants or Second Lieutenants or Captains, a lot of things. So you know it was the beginning, there was no government in Berlin, everything was handled by party cliques, you know, Communists, all those kinds.

RL: Pardon me. The woman with whom you had lived.

JB: We were still living with this woman who had hid us.

RL: Oh.

JB: As a matter of fact we lived with her until June or July of ’45, from April, because we, first if all, we didn’t have a place to go, and then we felt we could not leave her house. Her fiancé then was in the war. He wasn’t back yet. He was then a P.O.W. by the Americans.

RL: Oh.

JB: After he told them what he did, what his bride did, they said “Alright if you are this kind of man, you go back to Berlin”. But the others were not discharged yet. And he told us stories of the American Army. It was amazing. He said “You know those Americans, it’s unbelievable. If a man had to go to the bathroom he doesn’t walk, he had his Jeep, he goes with the Jeep. (Laughing)

RL: (Laughing)

JB: Anyway, we lived still with this woman. After we are free, I could go out I recovered some old acquaintances and I could organize some food. Not Jewish acquaintances!

RL: Oh, oh, oh.

JB: Don’t misunderstand me. And I helped her then. As a matter of fact I helped her in many ways because would I not have been in her house when the Russians came in, I don’t know what would have happened to her, as happened to many people. Anyway, we stayed with her. In the mean time an acquaintance of mine, a Gentile, he came over and said “I have an apartment for you. This apartment belonged to a Nazi, this Nazi is not in Berlin. He went out of the city to save himself from bombardments and so on. You move in now. I’ve arranged this with the authorities. You will live in the apartment.” We still lived in this small little room with her and this apartment was furnished, it survived.

So we moved in there and I remember when we moved, when the car came to bring us with our few belongings. She said “I’m afraid my good luck is moving out with you”, and she was crying. But we had to part someday because for us it was no life to continue this way. So we had a very, very close connection. We would see each other at least once a week, you know.

In the meantime, right after the Russians came in, a couple of weeks later, the Jewish community was organized, organized by a handful of people. And those people were volunteers, my wife, too, was volunteering there. She used to walk every day two or three miles to this office that they arranged, to help those people who came back from the concentration camps, and those people who were in Berlin, Jewish people, you know, who were at forced labor, you know, they were in the concentration camps. And they came, they want to go back to their homes. They came from Greece, from Hungaria, from Poland, from Romania, from all over. The Nazis occupied almost all Europe.

RL: Mm,hmm.

JB: So my wife and a few more people, a few men, they helped them, gave them papers, gave information, and I think also they got from the American military government they got also food and they helped those people with what they could get. And they sent them off on their way to go home. This was going on for quite a while and then the community office enlarged and they could help better those people. As far as we’re concerned we lived in this new apartment and after we were liberated, maybe four weeks later, we met a man, my age approximately, and his wife. My wife, and his wife, and he too worked in the same munition factory during ’41, ’42. But they too took this step and they also found some people with whom they could hide. Not in the city but let’s say ten miles away, fifty miles away.

So after we met, we used to meet every few days, somehow we have to do something. We have to live, and we cannot live with those few dollars you still kept and we opened some kind of business. Now you must understand, in those days business, it‘s not like a regular business, you had your manufacturers, you had your suppliers. You buy, you sell. There were no suppliers and no manufacturers. So we had a business but we had to run around all over where we knew somebody had something to sell so we would buy larger quantities and sell it to retailers.

RL: I see.

JB: But this came to be, I still had money leftover after the war. He didn’t have money but it doesn’t make a difference who had the money. We are friends. And so we worked for a couple of years. We took this because there was no chance to go out from Germany in those days. You had to wait until there is an opening to go. In the meantime we had this business and we made a meager living, you know. As a sideline I was dealing in all kinds of things – jewelries, diamonds, currency, and then precious metals – all those things because business itself there were regular prices, controlled prices, you just made a small profit, you know.

If you made enough to pay the employees, to pay the rent, and to show that you could draw every month 500, a thousand, whatever it was. We applied right away for a visa to this country but this was not so simple. We were still in very close connection with this woman who saved us and we did for her as much as we could. We got from anywhere we would share it with her, you know, and invited her to the house whenever we had something good to offer. Alright, in the meantime we tried to get a visa to this country but there was no possibility there. It was closed, they didn’t give no visa. I understand the first visa they got was early ’47. We applied as first ones but we were refused, you know why, because I was born in Austria now Romania, as I said I couldn’t get the visas are very small so I couldn’t get in.

RL: Yeah. It was still a problem.

JB: But we went to the consulate, we applied, you know. There was a very nice American Consul there in those days in Berlin and he asked “what are you doing?” and I told him we have a store, a business, and among others we also sold toys. Well, he said he would like to get some toys and I said “come in, whatever we have we’ll be glad to sell you”. And really he came in. He came in and select a few things, he paid for it. We offered to take it as a, he said “No, no”, he paid it. A few weeks later he called us, we had a telephone on account of the business, and on account my partner was a representative of the Jewish community.

RL: Oh.

JB: So the American government allowed us to have a car, gave us the gasoline every week, eight or ten gallons. And a few weeks later we got a call from the consulate and the consulate said “I have good news for you.” I say “What is it?” He said the Congress passed a law that a spouse of a German, one is German-born, you know, can take along the other spouse if he is not German-born, Romania, Hungaria, whatever it was, so your application is going to be in processing and you will probably be able to go”. But we didn’t know when it was to be, a year, two years, or three. But it didn’t take too long practically and early, in early ’48, my wife was then in Paris, she could go to Paris, some relative business, and then she came back, she was just in one day, we got a call from the Jewish community, you know?

RL: Unh, hunh.

JB: It said “You two got your visa to depart from here in March” say March 20th or 21st. My partner, he got his visa already for the last two weeks he had already but for I didn’t see any visa so what he did, he said “You take over the business as long as you have to stay here and you pay me out whatever we agreed to”. We arranged everything but just a few days later I get a call from the Jewish community, the Jewish … they call it, “You are due to leave Berlin for America”, I say two weeks or three weeks, whatever it was. We were very happy of course, we didn’t imagine how we could get ready to go, after all, don’t forget, we had to establish again a residence, a business but somehow we got rid of everything very fast. And we came to America.

I like to mention another thing about a woman who helped us very much. This was also during the war. There were German people who helped Jews. Not all of them , very small but still so many people survived and I’m one that’s proof of it.

RL: Right.

JB: There was a woman, she was a Congresswoman, Congress, in Germany.

RL: Oh.

JB: She was a Communist Congresswoman. Why was she a Communist Congresswoman? Because she saw in the years ’29, ’30, that the Nazis are bigger and bigger and bigger and The Social Democrats, the majority, they got always bigger and bigger, so she thought becoming Communist might be a weight against the Nazis. So she was a Communist Congresswoman and when the Nazis came to power of course they arrested all those Communist Congress people. But she was also a writer, you know, she wrote Communist literature, and they said to her “We are going to pay your salary as long as you live. The only thing you have to do is don’t write anymore for Communists, write for the Nazis. In order to survive you do anything because she was also in the camp, in a concentration camp, that’s where they made her this proposition.

RL: Oh my.

JB: Yes, sir. So she start writing some leaflets, some brochures, you know, for the Nazis. When Berlin was very much bombed she decide to go back to Western Germany, the Mozel area. That’s where she was born, she was a teacher before. She was an intellectual, she was not … And you know, the French Army moved in there first. Not the Americans. The French moved in and this was the occupation zone. Now, after they learned that she was writing for Nazis, they arrested her and put her in jail. Her husband, with whom she was separated from, Berlin, he came to me and said “can you do something? This woman helped you, I know she helped you and she helped other Jewish people. Can you do something for her?” I say “What ever I can I will do. What would you suggest I should do?” I didn’t know what to do. Business was far away, there was no transportation, you couldn’t get papers to go on this and this and so on. He said “I would appreciate if you would write a letter to Leon Blum, the then Prime Minister of France.

RL: Oh.

JB: And to “write him what’s happened, and to explain to him what my wife did to you, how she helped you, and your other people. For instance I know that another family, they were old people, very old people. She would send with somebody over with coal, coal briquets, you know what that is? And some food and put it in front of their door and leave it there. So he said “If you write this letter, I’m sure Leon Blum has some influence on it”.

RL: She helped you before you were with the other one?

JB: That’s right, she helped me before this woman. So I did. I went to a French interpreter. I wrote the letter in German and I asked her to translate this letter literally, and then mail it. It was not easy to mail it so I got in touch with a French occupation man who was also in Berlin. There was four zones, you know.

And I mailed her, I sent her those packages. I sent them off for many years. We sent them packages, and money, when you could. And we planned to go back sometime, to visit her. We invited her to come here to this country but she was in no position to walk, she was a very heavy woman and unfortunately for the last ten years of her life she was drinking.

RL: Awww.

JB: I was very sorry because she was one of those, of those few German people who had the heart, and who risked their life practically. I used to go over to her place, she maybe was watched. If they would have known I’m a Jew, I go, imagine what could have happened to her.

RL: Yes.

JB: So this was another episode in our life, the rest you know, we survived, gave up the business, we came to this country in ’48 as you probably know.

RL: What happened to the woman with whom you lived?

JB: Oh, yes, this woman lived on until ’56 or so. When we came to this country, maybe just four or six weeks, the first thing we did was send her packages. All those things that were not, couldn’t get. We sent her, for instance bacon. We sent her hats, we sent her coffee, we sent her chocolate, all those things that you could only get on the black market. We sent, oh, we sent her so many packages. We would write her and ask her what she want. Especially if she need something we don’t know of, that she would like to have, material for a winter coat, you know, not ready made coat, it wouldn’t fit her.

RL: Oh.

JB: Yeah, and some other material. And she also wanted material for sheets, you know, for her, for bed sheets.

RL: Yeah.

JB: For the clothes, the coat and dresses we bought in Maizer-Smith (sp?) then and for the sheets, you know M. Nova (sp?), he own Silk Star, big, big outfit downtown, he got it for me wholesale. Oh. And I mailed her, I sent her those packages. I sent them off for many years. We sent them packages, and money, when you could. And we planned to go back sometime, to visit her. We invited her to come here to this country but she was in no position to walk, she was a very heavy woman and unfortunately for the last ten years of her life she was drinking.

RL: Aw. Did her fiancé come back?

JB: He came back, he married her, we were the witnesses at her marriage.

RL: Oh!

JB: He came back and they lived happily and after she died, after she died he survived her, and one day we got a letter, we were still in connection, still sending clothes, whatever he wanted, and one day we got a letter from him, He wrote us he heard there is a law from the Federal Government in Germany that those people who boarded Jews during the War are to get a pension. How do you like that?

RL: Hmm.

JB: And sure enough we inquired, it was true, they got a pension, not a pension you could live on it but it would help, and sure enough in a couple of months we wrote to the authorities, and they gave him

RL: The pension.

JB: I would send him a few dollars from time to time. He also took sick. He was modest, he didn’t ask for too much but I sent whatever I would, whatever he wanted. I also sent him some money. And then he wrote us he has to go to the hospital. He was very sick, one of his sisters wrote us. So I put in a letter a $20 bill. I wanted him to get it fast. If you sent by bank this doesn’t go so fast, you send a check, it goes to another bank so I put in a $20 dollar bill in this letter, you know. And he got it in a week or two weeks later we got a letter from her sister that, I forgot his name, he received the $20 bill, he enjoyed it, but in the meantime he passed away.

RL: Oh.

JB: That was the story.

RL: Right, yeah.

JB: There are many happy incidents in this sad story, you know, people helped and we survived, you know

RL: Yeah, yeah.

JB: And we survived, you know.

RL: Yeah. There were some good Germans.

JB: You see. And people speak about Germans. In general, they always see the Germans as murderers of sis million Jews. And it’s true, that speaks for itself.

RL: Yeah.

JB: But amongst those 85 million Germans there were a handful, compared to 85 million

RL: Yeah.

JB: Say there were five thousand, ten thousand, fifty thousand who helped Jews. As a matter of fact not only in Germany but in Poland. Polish people are very anti-Semitic, you know.

RL: Yeah.

JB: We have here a group on Friday evening, we have a number of Jewish people who invited a woman who saved them from Poland.

RL: Oh, really?

JB: In Poland there are also some people. I know other people in Berlin who survived, were also saved by, by, by

RL: Germans.

JB: In each people there a few who are saints, you know?

RL: Yeah, yeah.

JB: To do this, only a saint can do this. They risked their lives.

RL: Yeah, yeah.

JB: So, what could I tell you more? I think I told you

RL: I think it’s a fascinating story.

JB: Unfortunate it’s not in one flow, you know, you don’t have those thoughts together. As good as I could I

RL: I think it’s, of course it’s a fascinating story, and it’s good that we have it on tape. And this is the Reverend Buechler telling the story of life in Germany during the war, in a conversation with Richard Levitt. This is the second part. This conversation took place on August the 24th. Thank you Reverend.