A Shoah Survivor’s Story

By Jack (Jacob Jehudah ben Aaron) MANSBACH

“My family, father, mother, brother and I, landed on these shores in March of 1939 and from that moment on, there was a concerted effort by my parents to avoid discussion about life in Germany and the circumstances, or fates, that brought about our migration to this wonderful country.

Questions were left unanswered and, eventually, stopped being asked.

Then, one day in 1969, through, yet again, another twist of fate, the tale that you are about to hear, came to light. Please bear in mind that it takes place over 75 years ago and that I had no idea of it for the first 35 years of my life.

Of course, having told it on a number of occasions since then, it has probably, in a sub-conscious way, taken on some aspects of literary license, but even I can no longer tell what those aspects are. At this time, it is just a helluva good story, with some basis in fact.

In 1964, the most wonderful World’s Fair opened in Queens, NY, and had a spectacular, two-year run. One of the iconic buildings was constructed by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to serve as the heliport for the 1964 New York World's Fair. When the Fair came to its end in 1965, most of the buildings were dismantled, but a few remained and the heliport was one of them.

In the late 1960s, an enterprising company leased the building and created Terrace on the Park, a kosher catering hall for weddings and bar/bat-mitzvahs.

So, at some time in 1969, my family and I were invited to attend the wedding of a son of a cousin, on my mother’s side.

At some point during the wedding dinner, my father got a strange look on his face and turned white. My brother and I helped him out of the dining room and sat him down on a couch in the central lobby area of the hall.

Being concerned, we tried to determine what was wrong and after a few minutes, the color returned to his face and he began to tell us this story.

In October of 1938, before an event known as Kristallnacht, my parents took my brother and I, on tourist visas, from Germany to Holland, where my mother had family, with the intention of getting green cards or some kind of regular visas, and emigrating from Holland to the United States. The tourist visas were only good for 30 days and my father was totally frustrated by the bureaucracy and his inability to gain those necessary visas to come to the U.S.

Sometime after Kristallnacht, we were forced to return to Germany, and we did.

Now, I don’t know the details on how this happened, but once again, in the early part of 1939, we were back in Holland, again with my mother’s family and again, my father was experiencing the same head banging situations that he had encountered a few months before. (It should be noted here that the U.S. State Department was not the friendliest to European, Jewish, immigrants wanting to start a new life in America, in the 1930s. Many books and films have been made, historically correct, about this sad chapter in our history.).

On an afternoon in Amsterdam, in February or early March, my father sat on a park bench, trying to figure out what he was going to tell my mother, about the frustrations of that particular day.  At that moment, a man, a stranger, sat down on the bench, looked at my father, and said something to the equivalent of:  You look like you just lost your best friend. My father, totally overwhelmed with the moment, looked at this individual and started to blurt this whole mini saga of hopelessness.

When my father finished, this man looked at him and said, be here, this bench, tomorrow at 3 PM; he then got up and walked away.

Well, it didn’t matter what was going to happen at 3 the next day. The words were like a life preserver to a drowning man.

The next day, at 3PM, there was my father, sitting on that bench and along came the man from the previous day.  He sat down and was carrying an envelope, as I remember this story.

The man gave the envelope to my father and said, In here you will find four green cards, signed and stamped, you just have to go and get the pictures taken and the necessary information, filled in.

You will also find four first class tickets on the Holland America Veendam, leaving the beginning of March, from Rotterdam, sailing to the U.S.

Also, in this envelope is another envelope, which you are never to open or to question.

The Veendam will make two stops, one at Ellis Island, you do not get off. The vessel will come to the West Side of New York, and that is where you will disembark. You will be met there by a man named Zucker (my father said, I know that man), but it was never discussed further.

Mr. Zucker will then take you and your family to a shul on Bedford Avenue, in Brooklyn, where he is a sexton, and you will be given living quarters above the shul and you will be able to start a new life there.

When you are met at the pier in NY by Mr. Zucker, you will also be approached by a young man, who will address you by name, and you will give him the other envelope that you have in your possession.

With this, the man got up, said goodbye, and left.

A short time later, the four of us were on our way to America.

My first memory, in life, my first remembrance, was the huge, crystal chandelier that hung over the first-class dining room on the Veendam. I had meals there with my father and I remember that time. My mother, as I was told, never came out of the cabin. She was deathly seasick for the entire crossing and my brother, who was 11 months old at the time, was in the cabin with her.

When the Veendam docked in New York, sure enough, there were Mr. and Mrs. Zucker, waiting to spirit us away….and there was a young man who called my father by name and said, I believe you have something for me. My father handed him the unopened envelope that had crossed the ocean. The young man turned and walked away, never to be seen again.

Life, for me, started that day, and thirty years later, I heard this story.

And, of course, there’s the kicker. Why did my father turn white???

On the other side of the dining room, at another table, was the gentleman that my father met, on that park bench, that fateful day in 1939.

At the 1969 wedding dinner,  after my father had turned white but recuperated, my brother and I went into the dining room and introduced ourselves to the older man, and asked him if he would come out to the lobby, there was someone who wanted to see him.

Well, it’s a vague memory now, but there was handshaking, hugging, crying and a lot of conversation Eventually, the question was asked: what was in that envelope that my father wasn’t supposed to know about?

And it was explained that this man knew exactly who my father was….an honest, respected businessman in Germany with a good reputation and he decided to use my father as a “mule” so to speak.

The envelope contained thousands of dollars worth of diamonds and the young man who received it was the son of this individual.

It was the only way that he could get his money out of Europe and into this country before fleeing, himself.

He said, had you known, it would have shown on your face and we would have never been able to accomplish this.  You would have been stopped by customs.  As it turned out, you sailed right through with no questions and it became a win-win all around.

And that, to the best of my knowledge, is how I got here.

A footnote:

Seventy years later, around 2009, I was planning a cruise and was talking to a customer service person at Holland America, and she asked me,” are you a member of the Mariners Club?”

Having no idea what that was, I asked, what is it?

She replied,” have you ever traveled with us before?” Being a smartass, I asked he, how far back do you want to go? She said, how far back are you going? I said, how about 1939? She said, just a minute and I will check it out. She came back after a moment or two, and said, Yes, there you are. You are in our records.

I was flabbergasted.”