Grandpa Ralph in Germany during the Nazi rule

Based on Wikipedia:
The Nuremberg Rally was the annual rally of the Nazi Party in Germany, held from 1923 to 1938. They were large Nazi propaganda events, especially after Hitler's rise to power in 1933.

These events were held at the Nazi party rally grounds in Nuremberg, where Grandpa grew up, from 1933 to 1938. Grandpa remembers seeing Hitler march down the streets of his hometown.

Grandpa had a few stories that involved encounters with Nazis, and most of them involved things that he did that could have gotten him into a lot of trouble, but didn't, or told how he outsmarted them, or made the Nazis look foolish. I think that he was trying to shield us from the terrible things that happened and he thought that these stories would give us a little idea of what went on in Germany without scaring us too much.


Rudy the Fuhrer

Grandpa was a leader in an Ezra youth group in Nuremberg. One time, he took his group for a walk in the forest. There was another youth group in the forest at the time. They were called Hitler Youth. When the two groups bumped into each other, the leader of the Hitler Youth asked Grandpa, "Who is the Fuhrer?" Now fuhrer means leader, but it was also used to refer to Hitler. Grandpa answered, "I am," meaning that he was the leader of his group, but the Hitler Youth took it as an insult to Hitler.

The two groups got into a fight and the police came and took everyone down to the police station. They let the Hitler Youth go home first and then the Ezra boys, but they kept Grandpa there for a little while longer before letting him go. Grandpa said that they thought the story was funny. I've never been sure whether Grandpa gave his answer seriously, thinking that that was what they meant, or whether he just had a lot of chutzpa!

Rudy and the Nazi soldiers

One day, when Grandpa was a teenager, he and his family were at home when Nazi soldiers came barging into the house. They smashed some items in the house, included their bookcase windows, ruined some books, and demanded any money in the house.

This happened just before the family was going to go on vacation to Marienbad (for an intersesting look at the place of Marienbad and other spas in German Jewish Culture see )and they had taken a fairly large amount of money out of the bank to pay for the vacation. The family gave the Nazis some of the money that was easy to find, but there was more hidden away. The soldiers gave them a receipt and said that they would give them the money back, but the family knew that it wasn't true. The soldiers then left, saying that they would be back.

Grandpa convinced his parents to let him hide the money in his pocket. When the soldiers returned, they searched the house, but did not search Grandpa's pockets. If they had, Grandpa would have been in big trouble!


Rudy Escaping from the Nazis

Before Grandpa left Germany, he went to visit his Uncle Arthur (Forst) to try to convince him to leave also. Arthur was a lawyer, and one of his clients was a very powerful Nazi leader, Joseph Goebbels. Arthur was convinced that because of this, he would be safe and the Nazis wouldn't harm him. Unfortunately, he was wrong and he was killed in the concentraition camp in Auschwitz. Arthur's wife Eva and his two children did make it to the US, and I remember spending time with them when they visited us when we were children.

Grandpa left Germany in December, 1938, a month after Kristallnacht, "the night of the broken glass." The name Kristallnacht comes from the shards of broken glass that littered the streets after the windows of Jewish-owned stores, buildings, and synagogues were smashed. Jewish homes, hospitals, and schools were ransacked, as the attackers demolished buildings with sledgehammers. Over 1,000 synagogues were burned (95 in Vienna alone) and over 7,000 Jewish businesses destroyed or damaged.

Grandpa told us that when he boarded the train to take him to the ship that would carry him to the United States, a Nazi soldier carried his bags for him and lifted them up onto the luggage racks. Grandpa said he didn't know whether the soldier felt sorry for him or whether he didn't realize that Grandpa was a Jew who was leaving the country.

Jews who left Germany were not allowed to take much with them. He bought two fairly expensive items to sell when he got to the US, a camera and an accordion. When he got to the US, the customs officials wanted to be sure that he brought them for his own personal use. After they questioned him about the items, Grandpa picked up the accordion and started dancing around the customs office, playing it. When the customs officials asked him to stop, he just went on playing. He was having too much fun.

Grandpa Ralph's Childhood Stories

Grandpa Ralph grew up in Nuremberg, Germany. He was born in 1920. His parents names were Harry and Gertrude. His original name was Rudolph and they called him Rudie for short. He later changed his name to Ralph. His older brother was named Hans, and he later changed it to Joe. They had a sister named Gretl who died when he was 5 in the Great Flu Epidemic of 1918.

These are some of the stories he told us about his childhood.

The baby carriage race

No that is not Uncle Joe in the picture!

Hans was 9 years old when Grandpa was born. Once, their mother asked Hans to take Rudie for a walk in his carriage. Joe did that for a while, but he got bored. One of his friends was also taking a younger sibling for a walk in a carriage and they decided to have a race.

They ran down a big hill, pushing the carriages, and when they reached the bottom of the hill, Joe looked in the carriage and discovered that there was no baby there! His little brother Rudie had fallen out! Luckily, no great damage was done.

Rudy on the roof

The rooftops of Nuremberg

When he was about 3 years old, his parents received a phone call from a neighbor telling them to look outside on their roof. They looked outside and saw their little Rudie climbing on the edge of the roof! They had to go out and get him down.

The mice in the oven

When Grandpa was a little older, he had some pet mice. He decided to keep them in the oven, but he forgot to tell his mother that he put them there. Oops! Guess what happened to the mice!

A Boycott Day Bar Mitzvah

Grandpa's Bar Mitzvah was on Boycott Day, April 1, 1933, the first day that non-Jewish Germans were not allowed to do business with Jews. No one knew what would happen that day, and the Jews of Germany were afraid that there might be violence against them. So Grandpa's family and friends made a secret minyan before the sun rose, davened shacharit and read the torah, and got home before it got light outside and people were on the street.

Rudy in high school

And this is not Grandpa

Grandpa was an athlete in high school, and won the decathlon.The decathlon is a combined event in athletics consisting of ten track and field events. When I looked up decathlon in Wikipedia, these are the events it listed, but I don't know if that was exactly what Grandpa did in his decathlon: 100 metres, Long jump, Shot put, High jump, 400 metres, 110 metres hurdles, Discus throw, Pole vault, Javelin throw, and 1500 metres.

Rudy the Zionist

Grandpa was also the valedictorian (the best student) in his high school. He had to give a speech at graduation.

The school was hareidi and was not Zionist, but Grandpa was a Zionist. Grandpa decided to give a speech in favor of Zionism, but he knew that the administration of the school wouldn't like that, so, when he had to submit a written copy of the speech for approval, he gave in a different speech than the one he was actually going to give at the graduation.

The school administration was not happy about it, but since he was finished with his studies, there was nothing they could do about it!

Mom with her brother, Eddie, and her parents, Rose and Max Buckwald in August, 1945

Both of my parents had brothers who were 9 years older than they were.

Both of them had sisters who died in early childhood. My mother's sister, who I think was named Evelyn (I am not sure that I remember correctly and there's no one left to ask) died of meningitis at the age of three. My father's sister, Gretl, died at the age of 5 in the great flu epidemic of 1918.

I always got a kick out of the fact that my father's siblings were named Hans and Gretl. Hans later changed his name to Joe, and dad changed his name from Rudolph to Ralph (a number of people, upon hearing this, have commented, "Rudolph to Ralph! You've got to be kidding!")

Dad also took on the middle initial M, because he like the look and sound of Ralph M. Warburg. If anyone asked what the M stood for, he said Manfred.

Mom loved to dress us up

Here's what I wore when I went to pickout my first bicycle. I was 6 years old.

Over the river and through the woods - our walk to shul

There were two ways to walk to shul from our house.The long one involved following city streets. The short way included a walk down a forest path and the crossing of Flat Rock Brook. When the water was low, it was no big deal to jump across the brook or step on the stones that protruded from the water, although a misstep could result in a good soaking. But when the water was high, it was near impossible.
My father decided to build us a wooden bridge. It was really just a piece of wood, but to us, it was our bridge. I'd say the dimensions of the wooden plank were about 6 ft x 2 ft. Once a year, Dad also cleared the path of overhanging branches and debris.About 40 years later, the city of Englewood built a concrete and metal bridge that served the same purpose for us, but dad's wooden bridge was much more fun.Following that path to shul was such a beautiful way to begin Shabbat day.

How Our Parents Met

They were both staying at Tamarack Lodge in the Catskills. My mother had a sunburn and had white cream on her face. My father struck up a conversation by asking her what was wrong with her.They dated a few times, but broke it off.My father was 30 years old and enjoying playing the field. Then his mother died. He told my aunt at the shiva that he decided that it was time to settle down and that he was going to call "that pretty girl he had dated a few months earlier."After the shiva, my father discovered that his picture of my mother, which had been in a pile of photos of various girlfriends, had been set aside, apparently by his mother, before her death.My parents married 3 months later, on December 31, 1950.My father came from an Orthodox German Jewish family. My mother's family was neither Sabbath nor Kashruth observant, but mom told my father that she would be happy to follow his tradition, and so she did, above and beyond the call of duty.Irrelevant but sad fact: The rabbi who performed the marriage died the next day, and the marriage notice in the New York Times read, "The ceremony was performed by the late Rabbi Ploni."

Grandma Anita's House Cakes

Mom loved to celebrate and we were the only family we knew who celebrated their house's birthday with a house shaped cake. We had such fun helping to decorate the house, shrubbery and glider in the backyard. Mom's hand is covering the rollers in my hair.My parents took a lot of pride on their house. They bought it before it was built, and put their own little touches into it's design. We moved in in 1961.