OPINION:
Jochen Wurfl was a child when Adolf Hitler rose to power in Germany. With a Catholic father and Jewish mother, his family did everything possible to protect him and his brother, Peter, from the horrors of the unfolding Holocaust. But while his entire family died in concentration camps, Jochen and Peter survived by hiding in plain sight and joining the Hitler Youth.
He wrote a book, “My Two Lives,” as a family record but now hopes that it will change hearts and minds as anti-Semitism rises across the globe.
Subscribe to have The Washington Times’ Higher Ground delivered to your inbox every Sunday.
‘Heil, Hitler’
Every April 20th, Adolf Hitler celebrated his birthday by parading down the Kurfürstendamm. We lived right around the corner and ran out to the curb to catch a glimpse of him as he rode by. The street bulged with onlookers but Peter [my brother] and I wormed our way to the front to get a good look at him standing up in his car and waving to the cheering crowds. Some cheered because they believed in Nazism, while others, including Peter and me, were putting on an act to protect ourselves and our families from persecution, imprisonment, or worse.
As Hitler’s visibility and control of the government increased, he tightened his grip on the German population, including Berliners, and life grew more dangerous. The Nazis introduced military training to boys at a young age. In first grade, my class was not allowed to go home and play after school. We had to stay after and line up outside to practice marching formations and the “Heil Hitler” salute.
SEE ALSO: WATCH: Holocaust survivor shares story of survival, warns against dangers of antisemitism
At age six, almost every non-Jewish boy in Berlin — including my Catholic brother and me — joined Hitlerjugend (the Hitler Youth), which Hitler set up to indoctrinate young boys in Nazi beliefs. Parents who refused to enroll their sons lost their jobs or were imprisoned. Boys who didn’t belong were often attacked and beaten by Hitler Youth gangs.
Taken By The Nazis
“Here, take this envelope,” my mother told my brother Peter and me, and gave us directions to the delivery location. “When you come up from the subway station, a man will meet you there and give you his code name. Give him the envelope, and he’ll give you one to bring back to me.”
I was nine years old, and Peter was almost 11. We guessed that the envelopes contained messages to and from my father, who was a prisoner in a German concentration camp but still communicated with my mother and the Resistance through the Gestapo guards he bribed.
Peter and I exchanged envelopes with the man and rode the subway back home. As we walked away from the subway station and turned the corner onto Meineke Street, we saw Gestapo and SS cars up the road in front of our apartment and stopped in our tracks. We watched the agents take (our mother) out of our apartment, force her into a car, and drive her away.
We had overheard our parents and grandparents talking about their friends and relatives who had disappeared, but why were they taking our mother? Where were they taking her?
Peter and I looked at the envelope, then at each other. We didn’t dare open it but figured whatever was inside would get us, our parents, the man who gave it to us, and anyone else whose name appeared in it into big trouble. We ran back down into the subway station, ripped the envelope to shreds, and threw it in a trash can.
We couldn’t get into our apartment because the Gestapo sealed the front door with a sign displaying a swastika and the warning:
RESTRICTED AREA. NO TRESPASSING. CIVILIANS WILL BE EXECUTED.
Now what?
Peter called the person my mother gave us as an emergency contact in case this ever happened — her lawyer, Alwin Grossman — who found a place for us to stay. Then we set out on a mission to find our mother. I don’t remember how, but a couple of days later we found out that the Nazis were holding her at the Alt-Moabit prison in downtown Berlin.
We’ll take our chances with the Nazis. We’ve got to go see her!
We took the subway downtown and walked into the prison. It’s a miracle that we got inside — I guess the guards didn’t pay much attention to young kids. We walked up a couple of levels and in one of the long corridors, stopped to look out the window. A group of prisoners meandered around below in a courtyard — it must have been exercise time.
There’s Mom!
We watched and waited until my mother went back inside, then searched from floor to floor to find her. Guards were all over the place, but we ignored them and they ignored us.
There she is!
We rushed to her cell. “Mom, what’s happening?”
She didn’t take the time to explain. She said that she loved us and told us to study hard in school, then ordered us to leave because she was afraid we would end up in the prison with her. As we walked away from our mother’s cell, guards spotted us and figured out that we had come to see a prisoner. They grabbed us but we wrestled away from them and took off running as fast as we could. The guards chased us but couldn’t catch us and gave up once we escaped out the prison gate onto the streets.
I never saw my mother again. Peter and I fled by train back to our hiding place 200 miles away in Dangast, Germany, on the North Sea, and the Nazis sentenced my mother to Auschwitz.
–
Excerpts taken from “My Two Lives,” by Jochen “Jack” Wurfl, a Holocaust survivor, and published by Outskirts Press.
Jochen “Jack ” Wurfl, at age 91, is literally one of a diminishing remnant of Holocaust survivors, who is also a businessman, adventurer, faithful husband, father and friend. Beginning as Hitler’s persecution of the Jews intensified, “My Two Lives” Wurfl’s autobiography reveals the heart, courage, determination, faith, and love that empowered Jack to overcome adversity and eventually achieve remarkable success. At age 17, Jack began his second life when the U.S. Committee for the Care of European Children relocated him and his brother Peter to the United States. After serving two years in the U.S. Army, Jack married Zonia, a former Miss El Salvador. They raised three daughters, Odette, Dana, and Lisa. In 1969, Jack founded Diversified Insurance Industries in Baltimore, Maryland, an agency that he built into one of the top 200 in the country. These days, when Jack is not in the office, he enjoys spending time with his daughters and four grandchildren, Elle, Thomas, Gillian, and Aidan. Follow Jochen Wurfl on social media.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.