H eadlines
Children of Kristallnacht Survivors Share
Their Parents’ Still-Chilling Stories
L OCA L
SOPHIE PANZER | JE STAFF
STEVEN BARUCH’S father
was arrested by the Gestapo
on Nov. 10, 1938, but that’s not
what upset him the most about
the Nazis’ rise to power.

“At the time, my father was
more hurt probably by the fact
that people he had known his
whole life no longer talked to
him. Really, that’s what hurt
him the most,” Baruch said
during a Facebook Live panel
commemorating the 82nd
anniversary of Kristallnacht.

The Philadelphia Holocaust
Remembrance Foundation
partnered with the Nathan and
Esther Pelz Holocaust Education
Resource Center in Milwaukee
and the Wassmuth Center for
Human Rights in Boise, Idaho.

to create “The Spiral of Injustice
– Kristallnacht, ‘The Night of
Broken Glass.’”
The week of programming
featured film screenings,
webinars and panel discussions
about the German pogrom that
destroyed hundreds of Jewish
businesses and synagogues,
culminated in a mass roundup
of Jews and is widely consid-
ered to be a turning point that
marked Germany’s transition
from anti-Semitic rhetoric and
policy to acts of violence and
destruction. For the Oct. 28 event “Were
There Signs?” Sam Goldberg,
director of education at
HERC, moderated a discus-
sion with Baruch and Betsy
Maier Reilly, another second-
generation survivor, about
what their parents experienced
that fateful night.

Both speakers emphasized
how normal their parents’ lives
were before the Nazis came
to power. Baruch’s father was
from a small town in Germany,
where his family owned a dry
goods store.

14 NOVEMBER 5, 2020
“My father was a very
assimilated German, in many
ways. He really felt he was a
German at heart, and knew
he was Jewish, and didn’t deny
that. But his life, basically,
was a normal German Jewish
person’s life,” he said.

Maier Reilly displayed
pictures of her parents spending
time with friends at parties,
playing soccer and relaxing on
vacation, images that, with a
little color, wouldn’t look out of
place on an average Facebook
timeline today.

Even so, their parents
acknowledged the signs were
there. Throughout the 1930s,
fascist brownshirts attacked
Jews and political dissidents
in the streets. Laws prohib-
ited Jews from education and
professions. Signs calling for
boycotts of Jewish businesses
proliferated. Baruch’s father’s
friends and neighbors stopped
going to his family store, and
the Gestapo took notes on
people coming and going.

Maier Reilly’s parents were
married in 1933, the year
Hitler became chancellor. Her
mother saw him in person
twice during stays at hotels.

The first time, nobody paid
him attention. The second
time, a crowd saluted him.

“He was sitting there in full
uniform, surrounded by all his
men, also in full uniform. I
looked at him and he looked at
me with big piercing eyes. I got
scared, especially being there as
a Jew, and not raising my arm
to salute him,” Maier Reilly read
from her mother’s diary.

On Kristallnacht, the
Gestapo came to her parents’
apartment and searched it for
illegal materials. Finding none,
they took her father to their
headquarters and sent him
to Dachau. When he did not
return, her mother joined a
group of other Jewish women
searching for their husbands,
Sam Goldberg (top left) discusses Kristallnacht with Steven Baruch (top right) and Betsy Maier Reilly.

Courtesy of the Nathan and Esther Pelz Holocaust Education Resource Center
but the police would not tell
them where they had been sent.

Her father spent two
months in Dachau, and her
mother was eventually able to
get him out with help from a
sponsor, a Jewish doctor who
left the country in 1933 when
he was no longer allowed to
practice medicine. The couple
escaped to Cuba while they
waited for the visa that would
allow them to move to the
United States.

Baruch said his father was
arrested along with men from
his neighbor’s family. He was
imprisoned in Dachau for
two months before his family
bribed him out. He escaped to
England before immigrating to
Chicago. Baruch marveled at the
foresight of German Jews who
managed to read the signs
even though they had lived as
proud, assimilated Germans
their entire lives.

“Who would
have thought? The Jews had been
in Germany for centuries and
were embedded and never
JEWISH EXPONENT
had an inkling that this was
going to happen to the scale
that it eventually did. And yet,
so many of them somehow
read those signs and decided
to leave the country. And it’s
brilliant,” he said.

He said some second-
generation survivors in the
United States are taking a page
out of their parents’ books as
they observe increasing polit-
ical instability and division in
their home country.

Some are even looking to
the country their parents fled
for a potential exit route.

“My cousin is applying for
German citizenship,” Maier
Reilly said. “We are eligible as
second generations to become
German citizens, and she’s
actually applying, just in case.

So that’s a whole turnaround.”
Although she and Baruch
are eligible and acknowledged
the appeal of a second passport,
neither of them have decided
to apply.

Baruch hopes that his
family’s story serves as a
warning against complacency
A passport stamped with a “J” to
denote a Jewish owner
Courtesy of the Nathan and Esther Pelz
Holocaust Education Resource Center
in the face of discrimination.

“The key is that, unless
everyone is really taken care of
in an equitable, fair way, we’re
all vulnerable,” he said. l
spanzer@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0729
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM



H EADLINES
ISRAELBRIEFS Israeli Billionaires Take a Hit
ISRAEL’S 10 BILLIONAIRES lost an average of $2.7 billion
through June because of the pandemic, Globes reported, citing
research from Swiss bank Credit Suisse.

Forbes said those billionaires are Eyal Ofer, Stef Wertheimer,
Teddy Sagi, Yuri Milner, Shaul Shani, Idan Ofer, Shari Arison,
Arnon Milchan, Yitzhak Tshuva and Gil Shwed.

Less impacted were the nation’s millionaires, with their total
number only declining slightly — from 157,440 at the start of
2020 to 157,290; Israel ranks 30th overall worldwide in total
number of millionaires. Th e average Israel millionaire holds net
assets of $3.33 million.

Th e average assets of all Israelis was $220,996 through the
end of June. Th e nation ranks 20th worldwide in average wealth
per adult.

Widespread Power Outages Occur in Israel
Power outages occurred across Israel the morning of Oct. 30,
although the Israel Electric Corp. said a cyberattack was not the
cause, Th e Jerusalem Post reported.

Th e IEC said the power loss was caused by problems in the
conduction system that stopped a power station in southern
Israel from working, setting off a chain reaction.

Among the major cities impacted were Jerusalem, Haifa,
Beersheba and Netany. Although IEC said power would be
restored within 15 minutes, residents in numerous cities,
including Jerusalem, said the outages lasted for much longer.

Pilot Study Set to Predict COVID-19 Outbreaks
Through Sewage Monitoring
Israel’s Health Ministry and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
announced an agreement to monitor sewage samples from 14
communities round the country to detect traces of COVID-19,
ynetnews reported.

“We can give a warning of at least two weeks before an outbreak
if virus levels among the population are low,” principal investi-
gator Ariel Kushmaro, a professor in the university’s Department
of Biotechnology Engineering, said. “We can observe virus levels
increasing in wastewater about two weeks before an outbreak.”
A similar program took place in Ashkelon in May — and
predicted an outbreak several weeks in advance.

Th e 14 communities to be monitored are Be’er Sheva, Beit
Shemesh, Binyamina, Elad, Jerusalem, Kfar Saba, Lehavim,
Ness Ziona, Netanya, Pardesiya, Rahat, Ramat Hasharon, Ramat
Yishai and Tira.

Two Israeli tech companies will collaborate with the project.

NUFiltration’s device detects concentrations of coronavirus in
wastewater, while sensors Kando installs in sewage manhole
networks locate COVID-19 hotspots.

Tel Aviv U. Program to Focus on Ethiopian Jewish Scripture
Tel Aviv University said it will launch what it calls the world’s
fi rst academic program that focuses on the holy scriptures of
Ethiopian Jews.

Th e program, which is aimed at graduate students, is titled
“Orit Apprehenders,” referring to the central pieces of scripture
in the Ethiopian Jewish community.

Dalit Rom-Shiloni, the TAU professor leading the program,
called it a “rescue operation” to preserve understanding about
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