“Germany is a country of culture. We have a long and rich history of science, art, music and literature. This Hitler is an uneducated boor with no culture but violence. The German people will come to their senses soon, mark my words, and this will not even make a footnote in the history books.”
Walter and his family would rue those words. Besides being educated, well-to-do and generous with their wealth, the Blumenbergs were Jewish.
Not that this set them apart from their neighbors. They weren’t observant. They spoke High German and didn’t know Yiddish. Walter didn’t own a prayer shawl and Sophie, Heinrich’s mother, only used her set of milk china during Passover. They didn’t celebrate the major Christian holidays, but made no fuss about it, planning family parties during Christmas, Lent and Easter.
By 1935, Heinrich’s family started feeling the weight of Hitler’s taxation on Jews. Those who could still afford it, and still had documentation, began to emigrate. They went to the United States and Palestine, hearing the Zionist promises of creating a new homeland. But the Blumenbergs stayed in Heidelberg.
“My family settled in this town in the sixteenth century,” Walter said. “I’m not uprooting our history, our ancestors, our ties to this glorious city because of some dolt who can’t even speak decent German. The German people will boot him out and when they do, we’ll still be here.”
The Blumenbergs were losing a vast amount of wealth, but life in the big house went on. Walter’s colleagues at the University were abashed when they asked him to leave campus, but sent him private students to tutor anyway. Sophie’s social lists were slimming down as her Christian friends declined invitations, more from fear of Nazi reprisals, they assured her.
For the children, things didn’t change until early November in 1938. Kristallnacht destroyed and then looted Jewish shops across Germany and Austria. This brought home to the Blumenbergs that this was beyond the “mere aberration” of 1933. Walter and Sophie called a family meeting, announcing ten-year-old Heinrich was going to a private school in the United States. He was going because he was the only one the Blumenbergs could get papers for, and now the only one they could afford to send.
Heinrich spent World War II isolated from news of his family and the events in Europe. His mother wrote him, asking friends to smuggle the letters out almost weekly at first then dwindling to a few a year. The last one he received from her was in November 1944. She and his father had been able to get to Berlin where they felt they’d be safe.
“I know the war is coming to a close. I know that Germany is losing,” she wrote. “We don’t get much accurate news, but you can feel a change in the atmosphere, particularly here in Berlin. When we left Heidelberg, your brothers chose to try and make it to Palestine and we had no choice but to let them. I fear that when this horrible war is over we will have lost most of our children, but you, dearest Heinrich, must keep yourself safe and well and healthy so that your Papa and I may hold you again.”
Heinrich was now Henry Blomberg, six months away from high school graduation, speaking English with a flat, mid-western twang picked up from the other students at the school in the Chicago suburbs and listening to American music. He missed his family, but the hole was healing and the memories of life of the big house were fading and fragmenting. He was still fluent in German, usually dreaming in the language, but his daily life, what he was more and more thinking of as his real life, was thorough-going American.
A month before graduation, the pictures and news from the German concentration camps started arriving in America. Like everybody else, he just couldn’t get his mind to understand and know what his eyes were seeing. This was his homeland. Germans were the educated, culturally rich people his father talked
Walter and his family would rue those words. Besides being educated, well-to-do and generous with their wealth, the Blumenbergs were Jewish.
Not that this set them apart from their neighbors. They weren’t observant. They spoke High German and didn’t know Yiddish. Walter didn’t own a prayer shawl and Sophie, Heinrich’s mother, only used her set of milk china during Passover. They didn’t celebrate the major Christian holidays, but made no fuss about it, planning family parties during Christmas, Lent and Easter.
By 1935, Heinrich’s family started feeling the weight of Hitler’s taxation on Jews. Those who could still afford it, and still had documentation, began to emigrate. They went to the United States and Palestine, hearing the Zionist promises of creating a new homeland. But the Blumenbergs stayed in Heidelberg.
“My family settled in this town in the sixteenth century,” Walter said. “I’m not uprooting our history, our ancestors, our ties to this glorious city because of some dolt who can’t even speak decent German. The German people will boot him out and when they do, we’ll still be here.”
The Blumenbergs were losing a vast amount of wealth, but life in the big house went on. Walter’s colleagues at the University were abashed when they asked him to leave campus, but sent him private students to tutor anyway. Sophie’s social lists were slimming down as her Christian friends declined invitations, more from fear of Nazi reprisals, they assured her.
For the children, things didn’t change until early November in 1938. Kristallnacht destroyed and then looted Jewish shops across Germany and Austria. This brought home to the Blumenbergs that this was beyond the “mere aberration” of 1933. Walter and Sophie called a family meeting, announcing ten-year-old Heinrich was going to a private school in the United States. He was going because he was the only one the Blumenbergs could get papers for, and now the only one they could afford to send.
Heinrich spent World War II isolated from news of his family and the events in Europe. His mother wrote him, asking friends to smuggle the letters out almost weekly at first then dwindling to a few a year. The last one he received from her was in November 1944. She and his father had been able to get to Berlin where they felt they’d be safe.
“I know the war is coming to a close. I know that Germany is losing,” she wrote. “We don’t get much accurate news, but you can feel a change in the atmosphere, particularly here in Berlin. When we left Heidelberg, your brothers chose to try and make it to Palestine and we had no choice but to let them. I fear that when this horrible war is over we will have lost most of our children, but you, dearest Heinrich, must keep yourself safe and well and healthy so that your Papa and I may hold you again.”
Heinrich was now Henry Blomberg, six months away from high school graduation, speaking English with a flat, mid-western twang picked up from the other students at the school in the Chicago suburbs and listening to American music. He missed his family, but the hole was healing and the memories of life of the big house were fading and fragmenting. He was still fluent in German, usually dreaming in the language, but his daily life, what he was more and more thinking of as his real life, was thorough-going American.
A month before graduation, the pictures and news from the German concentration camps started arriving in America. Like everybody else, he just couldn’t get his mind to understand and know what his eyes were seeing. This was his homeland. Germans were the educated, culturally rich people his father talked
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