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Event to mark 70th anniversary
archived from: 2008-11-10
by: Patricia Bartos

Fritz Ottenheimer was 13 years old, living with his parents in Constance, Germany, in late 1938 when he was startled awake one night by an explosion.

It was his neighborhood synagogue, blown up by a Nazi SS squad, during the infamous Kristallnacht rioting — the first instance of organized violence against Jews in the country.

Hitler ordered his forces to fan out across the country, burn and loot Jewish-owned businesses and synagogues in a fearful foretaste of what was to engulf Germany and lead to World War II.

Ottenheimer is set to speak on his experiences Tuesday, Nov. 11, as the National Catholic Center for Holocaust Education at Seton Hill University in Greensburg marks the 70th anniversary of Kristallnacht (“the night of broken glass”).

The school’s annual remembrance service will be held at 6 p.m. in St. Joseph Chapel on campus. All are welcome.

Also participating will be Holocaust survivors Robert Mendler of Latrobe, Shulamit Bastacky of Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill neighborhood and Goldie Weinreb of White Oak.

Ottenheimer lives with his wife, Goldie, in Forest Hills. They have a daughter and son and four grandchildren. He tells of his experiences in his book, “Escape and Return.”

On Kristallnacht, Nazi squads conducted the night raids across Germany, Austria and other Nazi-controlled areas on Nov. 9 and 10, 1938, destroying some 7,500 businesses and 177 synagogues and Jewish centers.

Kristallnacht occurred five years into Hitler’s reign, and Ottenheimer’s father had already been petitioning for the family to leave for the United States.

“When it happened it was proof that we had to get out,” he said.

The Gestapo swept up and arrested Jewish men 16 and older — young Fritz’s father among them — and sent them to Dachau.

“That was our worst ordeal, we were without my father, had no idea of what they were doing to him,” Ottenheimer said. “When he came back, he was a very sick man.”

After Kristallnacht, “we were fully aware that this could be repeated, we were sort of walking on eggs, quite fearful.”

“It was a total shock,” he said of the violence.

Life in Constance had been tense, but had not experienced violence against Jews encountered in other parts of the country.

Ottenheimer speculates it was because Constance lies on the Swiss border and had many foreigners among its residents to temper the mood.

His father had lost his men’s clothing store.

“The Nazi propaganda kept people from coming to our store,” Ottenheimer said. “We were in bad shape, we had a tremendous amount of psychological tension, but this was the beginning of organized violence.”

Following Kristallnacht, Jewish children were not allowed to go to school. “By that time our Christian neighbors kind of avoided connecting with us,” he said. “We were isolated, fearful, we didn’t have any money, we were really hurting.”

His sister, three years older, had already escaped, sponsored by an uncle in New York City. Fritz and his parents followed in May 1939, six months after Kristallnacht.

“Till the day we left we didn’t know if we could get out,” he said.

Once in this country, he began learning the language, getting an education and, with the onset of World War II, joined the U.S. Army.

In basic training, “all the GIs were intrigued by my going back to fight,” Ottenheimer said. “I always pointed out to them that I had a better reason to go.”

He saw the war’s destruction in France, Belgium and Germany. “It was all very sad,” he said.

Ottenheimer arrived in Pittsburgh in 1950 to work as an engineer with the Blawnox Co., met Goldie and soon married her. He later worked for Westinghouse Electric for 30 years.

He recalls his early years with mixed feelings. He remembers a very happy early childhood in Germany — and then a dramatic change. He recalls being subjected to verbal, but not physical, abuse.

He’s been back to Germany 10 times over the years — once to Berlin and nine times to his hometown. Most of his schoolmates had served in the German army on the eastern front — almost half of them lost in fighting against the Soviet Union.

“We had some interesting conversations about that,” he said.

In his book, he recalls the schoolmate who asked him: “During that time, how did we behave toward you? Did we hurt you? Did we hurt your feelings?”

He had not been mistreated by his classmates, he said. “Truthfully, I could not remember one incident when they responded to the Nazi propaganda.”

But his experience was the exception, Ottenheimer said. “We kept hearing of violence in other towns, where kids were beaten up, terrorized by teachers. That was much more typical.”

He returned once again last March, when an organization placed plaques on the sidewalks outside of homes were Jewish residents had lived. “It was a wonderful experience of friendship, warmth and compassion.”

Charity Sister Gemma Del Duca, who founded Seton Hill’s Holocaust center in 1987 and oversees it, said, “In remembering the shocking days of Kristallnacht we become vigilant and sensitive to violations of human rights and human dignity in our cities, our country, our world, even now in this first decade of the 21st century.”

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