Recently, I spoke to a group of eighth graders via Zoom. From what I could see, the students in the several classrooms were very attentive and well prepared. Using the PowerPoint prepared by the Museum’s Office of Survivor Affairs, I told the story of my Holocaust experience. Because I was very young when I left Adelsheim, Germany, where I was born, I like to tell the students how I came to acquire the information I share with them.
Over the years, I have become the keeper of my collected family history. This information has been collected from many sources. Of course, some came from my sisters, but still that left some rather large gaps. Luckily, Reinhart Lochmann, a historian who still lives in Adelsheim, has filled in many of these gaps in our family history. Through Lilly Maier, another historian whom I met, we learned where my brother Herman stayed in France after he was rescued from Gurs. Lilly filled out other information about my brother and showed us where to get more information. And finally, much information comes from the Museum, which sent us a copy of the February 1937 court case in which my parents lost their business.
Many times, I sent Reinhart emails after I had been asked a question that I didn’t know how to answer. He and his after-school club at the high school where he taught have done endless research to help me with the answers. But it is more than this that makes Reinhart important to our family. He has developed a family tree going back several generations of my family. I could not know this information in any other way. Both my parents had nine siblings, and Reinhart has researched what happened to each one. I know I might have researched this myself or hired someone else to do this, but Reinhart did this for my family. So, sometimes I wonder why this history has become so important to him. There weren’t many Jewish families in Adelsheim, Germany, but he has a relationship with each family that has written to ask questions.
After I finished this latest presentation, I realized I hadn’t mentioned Reinhart, and I was unhappy about that. It made me think about why I consider it important to share information about what Reinhart has done. I know my family and I are always happy to learn something new about life in Adelsheim or what happened to my parents, brother, and extended family. I ask myself this question: Why was it important to Reinhart, a high school teacher in Adelsheim, to research and share this information? Over the years, I have gotten to know Reinhart and his family well. We have stayed with Reinhart when we visited Adelsheim, and Reinhart has stayed with us in Silver Spring, Maryland.
In 2000, Reinhart organized a 60th anniversary program in remembrance of the deportation of the Jews from Adelsheim. My sister Bertl, niece Renee, and I decided we should attend this event. Clearly, Reinhart had carefully planned the program. There were articles in the local newspapers and an exhibit of each of the families he had researched. The program told the story of the life of the Jews before the Holocaust as well as the experiences of these families during and after the Holocaust. Even though the actual program was in German, I found it and his interest very moving.
As survivors, it is important to us for our stories to be told and written. However, it has become important to Reinhart to tell the story of his country’s history and its treatment of the Jews. I think he felt a sense of responsibility because his father was a Nazi official. If you think that Reinhart started his career as a history teacher you would be incorrect. He was a physical education teacher.
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