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Documentarian Reunited Holocaust
Survivors After
80 Years
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From left: Fred Behrend and Henry Baum meet in Florida in 2019, their fi rst
time seeing each other since the 1930s.

Courtesy of Larry Hanover
SASHA ROGELBERG | STAFF WRITER
A New-Jersey based journalist
and Holocaust survivor have
teamed up to show their audi-
ences that “Hitler did not win.”
Fred Behrend, 95, and his fam-
ily fl ed from Germany to Cuba aft er
Kristallnacht before coming to the
United States in the mid-1940s, leav-
ing behind Behrend’s close friend Henry
(Heinz) Baum.

Eighty years aft er the Night of Broken
Glass, Behrend, with the help of journal-
ist Larry Hanover, reunited with Baum.

“It was like the years melted away at the
moment the doors opened,” Hanover said.

“It was like they were acting like 12-year-
old kids again. It was unbelievable.”
Th e reunion, to Behrend, was repre-
sentative of the survival of the Jewish
people, a triumph against the odds.

Hanover tells the story of Behrend’s and
Baum’s survival and reunion in his doc-
umentary “Rebuilt from Broken Glass,”
which premiered on May 17.

Voorhees resident Hanover fi rst met
Behrend in 2010, when Behrend spoke
in front of Hanover’s son’s Hebrew high
school class at Congregation Beth El. He
was struck by Behrend’s story.

“I used to be a newspaper reporter ‘til
a few years before that, and I was missing
the chance to write,” Hanover said. “And
I’m like, ‘Listen, why hasn’t he written a
blog?’ And so aft er that, we met, and I
talked him into writing.”
Th e two worked on a book recount-
ing Behrend’s time in Nazi Germany
and his eventual escape to the United
States. Th e book, “Rebuilt from Broken
Glass: A German Jewish Life Remade
in America” was published by Purdue
University Press in 2017.

Behrend continued to spend time
speaking to young people about his
story and, in 2018, it became apparent
to Hanover that the history recorded in
Behrend’s book was still being written.

While talking to a Jewish day school
in Cherry Hill on the 80th anniversary
of Kristallnacht, Behrend was handed
a cellphone by the head of the school.

Behrend heard Baum’s voice on the other
end, for the fi rst time in almost 80 years.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Behrend said.

Th e next year, in 2019, Behrend,
Hanover, and a small documentary crew
traveled to Florida, where Baum lives and
where, coincidentally, Behrend spent his
winters just 16 miles away.

When the survivors reunited, awk-
ward formalities were forgotten as they
met again with childlike wonder.

“He introduced himself as ‘Professor
Baum,’” Behrend said of the reunion.

“When we were in school together, you
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were such a dumb kid! How did you
manage to become a professor?”
Th ough the friends’ reunion was joy-
ful, their fi rst meeting was under more
challenging circumstances.

Behrend, born Fritz Behrend in
November 1926, grew up on an estate owned
by a zeppelin entrepreneur in Germany.

He remembers having a normal childhood
until Hitler rose to power in 1933.

“All of a sudden, I had no kids to
play with,” Behrend said. “As a matter
of fact, my parents did not allow me on
the streets because they were afraid that
something would happen to me.”
Aft er only three years in public school
under the Th ird Reich, Behrend was
forced out of school in 1936. To continue
his education, his family sent him to
Cologne, where he was sent to live with
a hazzan and his family, including two
children, Margot and Henry Baum, and
attend a secular, Jewish-run school.

Two years later, on Nov. 9, 1938,
Behrend and Baum witnessed their school
and two synagogues engulfed in fl ames.

Not knowing the context, Behrend
reacted like many children would:
“Would you believe this was the greatest
moment in my life? ... Can you picture?
No school; no homework; no teachers!”
But the reality of the looming
Holocaust was never far from Behrend’s
family. Unbeknownst to Behrend at the
time, stormtroopers came to his family’s
home the night before, kidnapping his
father and taking him to Sachsenhausen
concentration camp, where he stayed for
a short time, along with the lucky few
Jews able to leave a concentration camp
before the declaration of World War II.

With the help of his mother’s brother,
who was the friend of the physician to the
Danish king, the Behrend family secured
$5,000 deposits for each family member
— worth more than $600,000 today — to
fund a new life in America.

Th e family spent almost two years in
Cuba before they were allowed to enter
the U.S. Behrend became a bar mitzvah
there, in front of a congregation of 20
people, each of whom was responsible
for bringing their own food to the party.

In 1945, Behrend was draft ed into the
U.S. military, where, in a turn of fate, he
was part of the Intellectual Diversion
denazifi cation program; he reeducated
German prisoners of war on democracy.

Behrend later became a television
repairman. “Th e beauty of his story is this opti-
mistic person ... and he kept having these
collisions with history,” Hanover said. “It
was like he was a magnet for it.” JE
srogelberg@midatlanticmedia.com JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
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