Ruth Drescher was 4 years old and living in Stuttgart, Germany when her father received a phone call from a friend who worked at that city’s police station.
“My father was very gregarious. He made friends all over,” said Mrs. Drescher, an 84-year old Realtor who lives in Oakland.
That particular friendship allowed her father, Eduard Lieberman, to elude two nights of terror 80 years ago in what would become known as “Kristallnacht,” or the night of broken glass on Nov. 9 and 10. His friend warned that trouble was imminent in Stuttgart, a city in southwestern Germany that spreads over hills and along the Neckar River.
Last month, friends of Mrs. Drescher’s husband, Seymour, warned him away from danger at the Tree of Life building in Squirrel Hill, where a gunman was shooting people inside. The retired history and sociology professor arrived late for the regular Saturday meeting of a Torah study group whose members belong to Dor Hadash, a reconstructionist congregation. Mrs. Drescher did not attend that day but she normally attends services twice a month.
Warnings — heeded and unheeded — sometimes determined who survived and who died during the Holocaust. Adolf Hitler rose to power in 1933 but five years later, Mrs. Drescher said, “My father didn’t believe that this guy was anything but a clown.”
Mr. Lieberman insisted he would never leave his native Germany. He loved its culture, food and music and had defended his country during World War I. For his military service, he had received the Iron Cross, Mrs. Drescher recalled during an interview at her home earlier this week.
Attacks on Jews in Eastern Europe intensified but Mr. Lieberman would not budge.
“He could believe it was happening in Eastern Europe. He couldn’t believe it would happen in Germany,” Mrs. Drescher said.
On Nov. 9, 1938, a police officer knocked at the Lieberman family’s apartment door. Gerty Lieberman told a police officer her husband was away on business but he was hiding at his friend’s cabin in the woods. The officer left.
That evening and the following night, Nazis burned Stuttgart’s old synagogue, destroyed its Jewish cemetery and broke windows in Jewish-owned businesses. The attacks left streets throughout Germany’s major cities piled high with broken glass. Jewish men were arrested, dragged from their homes and sent to Dachau, a concentration camp near Munich in southern Germany. Many were released, especially those who had arranged to leave Germany.
Ten months later, the Lieberman family received exit visas and took a train to Rotterdam. From that port city in Holland, they boarded a Dutch ship in August 1939 and spent the next 10 days at sea, arriving on Sept. 6 in New York City’s harbor. Aboard the S.S. Veendam, Ruth Drescher saw her first movie, which starred Deanna Durbin. In New York,her Aunt Irma introduced her to chewing gum, corn flakes and orange juice.
Mrs. Drescher, her sister, Margot, and her parents stayed with relatives in the Bronx, later settling in Washington Heights, where her father opened a butcher shop in the German Jewish neighborhood. One of his customers, she recalled, was the mother of Henry Kissinger, who was the U.S. Secretary of State to President Richard Nixon.
The passage of 80 years has not dimmed Mrs. Drescher’s memories of a time when fearful Jews who wanted to leave Germany came to stay at her parents’ Stuttgart apartment. That allowed them to visit the American consul’s office in Stuttgart and process the necessary paperwork.
For the past five years, she has spoken about her experiences at Seton Hill University’s National Catholic Center for Holocaust Education, which was established in 1987.
“The one incident that really affected me occurred shortly before we left,” Mrs. Drescher said. She was playing outside with other children in a courtyard when one of the children’s mothers came out to distribute candy.
All of her playmates received two pieces while she got one. When she asked why, the woman’s daughter replied, “Because you’re Jewish.”
Mrs. Drescher met Seymour at City College of New York. They married in 1955 and moved to Pittsburgh in 1962.
Last month’s fatal shooting at Tree of Life/or L’Simcha affected the couple, who belonged to Tree of Life and later joined Dor Hadash, which means new generation. Eleven people were killed and six people wounded, including four police officers. Robert Bowers has been indicted on 44 federal counts, including hate crimes.
Mr. Drescher was just stepping out of his car on Oct. 27 when a married couple he knew told him to get back in his car and leave. Behind them, a man yelled, urging Mr. Drescher to leave and said, “We’re calling the police.”
“I get back in the car. I wasn’t panicked,” Mr. Drescher said. As he drove down Wilkins Avenue, he saw police cars, an ambulance and a fire engine. When he got home less than 10 minutes later, his wife was surprised to see him.
“I’m stunned. How did this happen? It doesn’t happen here. That’s what your first thought is. You want to deny it a little bit because of what it portends,” Mr. Drescher said.
Marylynne Pitz at mpitz@post-gazette.com, 412-263-1648 or on Twitter:@mpitzpg
First Published: November 9, 2018, 11:00 a.m.
