Helen and Sol Krawitz Holocaust Memorial Education Center

Biography from the Unpublished Audio Tapes of Bert Struth Transcribed by Susan Kantor (Circa 2003-2004)

According to his mother’s prayer book, Bert Struth was born Bert Levy at 4:30 pm August 11, 1927 in Bendorf, Germany. Bert says, “It was a big day for my mother that I lived” since his mother had lost a baby two years prior. It was an even a bigger day for his grandfather because Bert was the “first born son of the Levys and Blums.” Bert acknowledges with that his birthday was a German Holiday—the Constitution Day of the Weimar Republic. 

Bert grew up in Helena Levy, his grandmother’s house located on 37 BachStrasse that served as the homestead for the Levy and Blum extended families as well as their slaughterhouse, butcher shop and businesses. Helena Levy, owned the property and “the house was built when my mother and father (Mina and Max) got married.” Bert describes in precise detail the extensive nature of his childhood home from his crib infant bedroom, to the cellar and attic where he played, as well as the slaughter house and slaughtering which his father, Max, performed. “My father never wanted me to see the slaughtering, but I would climb up on a ledge and look through the window.” Bert’s father was the only one that worked in the slaughterhouse. 

Bert describes Bendorf, the town he grew up in, as a “dorf.” According to Bert, Bendorf was a town that had about 10,000 people. It was not a city Bert recalls. “It is a dorf.” Bert remembers sewage running down the edge of the street. 

Bert describes schools in Germany as divided between Catholic and Protestant. In Bendorf, Bert went to a Protestant kindergarten class. He says that no religion was taught there. He recalls that in third grade (1936) his mother and father met with his teacher. He said, “You have a smart boy there but if you want to do something for him, get him out of here. He was very sympathetic.” This statement was prophetic. Bert proved his scholastic prowess and aptitude as soon as soon as he was able to adjust to American schools in Patterson, New Jersey. 

Bert states that in his early grade school years he never noticed any anti-Semitism. “It started in the 4th grade when the Nuremberg Laws went into effect and that is when I knew something was going on.” In the 4thgrade they decided that the Jews couldn’t sit through religious class and that “we went to synagogue for that hour.” Bert recalls sitting in a movie theater and everyone standing up shouting “Heil Hitler. I was scared stiff.” In the middle of 5th grade, “Jews could no longer go to school.” At the end of 4th grade, Bert applied to go to the gymnasium (pre-high school). He passed the exam and got accepted but was told he couldn’t go because he was Jewish. In 5th grade Jews could no longer attend school “so the Jewish organization took care of us and the teachers. He went to school for a half year in a sanatorium twice a week.

Bert recounts numerous anti-Semitic incidents. By 1936 he was told by a friend he used to play with, “I can’t play with you anymore because you are Jewish. My father is too involved with the Nazi party.” He also recalls signs on storefronts “Do not buy by Jews.” His uncle Leo was fired from his job and six months later left for the US. Bert’s mother and father struggled for many years starting as early as 1934 to get out of Germany. The embassy “turned them down.” Then in 1937 they tried again to acquire visas. “This time they went with Aunt Lina.” They were trying to get visas to other countries “and the Germans wanted incredible amounts of money.” Mina and Lina were able to get visas for a sum of money but Bert’s father was considered too ill or “too far gone” to go at that time. 

Bert recalls November 1938, Kristallnacht. “That was traumatic. At 7:00 am, it was cold. They rapped at the door and took my father. We didn’t know where he was going.” Bert’s grandmother anticipated trouble and went to the Catholic hospital and got herself admitted. “She thought there was going to be a Pogrom. Although Jewish homes were ransacked and destroyed during Kristallnact, Helena’s was not destroyed. Anticipating trouble, she sold the homestead and it was spared by the Nazi’s who occupied it.  Bert testifies, “It was unbelievable. They only took away the men.” Bert’s family didn’t know what was happening to his father. Then one day his father shows up “in bad shape.” He was supposed to go to Dachau but “he got pneumonia so they sent him home “to get better” and return to Dachau later. Bert’s father, ill as he was, fled back and forth at times illegally through Germany and Holland making his way to Cuba in 1938 and then finally to the USA in 1943.

After Kristallnact, Bert, his mother, Mina, and his aunt Lina, with visas in hand, prepared to leave Germany without his father or grandmother. Bert testifies: “It took us so long to leave Germany because you could not take money out so we had furniture made. Had to get it all boxed. We could only take $50 in cash. We were going to leave at the end of November and stay in Holland until the boat left in early December.

We got to the USA December 6, 1938. Bert records the arduous journey leaving Germany by railroad car. When they got to the border, a soldier checking immigration papers ripped a valuable necklace off his mother. The train to Amsterdam was three hours and uncle Joseph met them at the station. His uncle had bought him a coat and suit with long pants. Both Bert and his mother were deathly seasick for five days, “puking every day until we arrived.” When they landed in Hoboken, the whole “mishpucha” was there to greet us—Lina, Rita, Ida, Leo, and Herman. Bert and his mother went with Lina to Patterson and Bert moved into Lina’s house at 302 East 42nd Street, Patterson. Lina got Bert clothes and settled him into school immediately. Bert testifies “learning the language wasn’t easy. I was transplanted from one country to another. There were no other German kids at the school.” Initially Bert struggled to learn English. But once he mastered it, he excelled throughout his schooling. Bert credits uncle Leo for inspiring him to learn. “If it wasn’t for him, I don’t know if I would have had the initiative. He took interest in my work and looked over my work [Leo left Germany in 1936]. Even when I came to the US and went to school in Brooklyn, I lived with him and my grandmother [Helena Levy left Germany August 1939]. He was always interested in my education.” 

Bert testifies that public school days in Patterson were “pretty uneventful.” He describes his Bar Mitzvah service in the synagogue and then a small reception in the recreational hall of the temple. In the afternoon Lina made a spread in the backyard. “Kids came over.” Bert doesn’t remember spending a lot of time getting ready for his Bar Mitzvah. I maybe spent a month learning my portion.” The temple he went to in Patterson had many congregants of German descent. There were two main temples—B’nai Yeshera (called the Barnett Temple) and Emanuel. Bert’s family went to the former (Barnett). 

After his Bar Mitzvah, with his intelligence and motivation, Bert’s education was on “fast forward.” In his own words: “I graduated from high school in 1945 and start Brooklyn Poly before commencement from high school. They gave me specific instructions at home ‘finish as quickly as you can.’ I finished college in three years. I finished in the summer of 1948. “I enjoyed college. I did well.”  Then Bert moved to Chicago. There he worked for Allied Chemical from 1948 until 1952. In Chicago Bert had a room at the Y near a steel mill. In 1952, he went back to NYC to work on his Masters degree. Pfizer awarded Bert a fellowship to work on his Master’s and PhD degrees. They liked his PhD thesis research on a “new production method for making citric acid.” Pfizer supported Bert’s higher education and acquired the patent on his new research. During the summer when Bert was working on his Master’s in NYC, he met a girl on a train who was working at Mt. Sinai at the time. They got to talking and carpooling together. Eventually, Bert “knew she was for me.”  Her name was Barbara Katz and they were engaged on Thanksgiving, 1953. They got married a year later, after Bert completed his PhD.

Bert explains in the audio tapes how his name changed post-war from Levy to Struth: “From the years 1946-1954, I started to use the name Struth. Eventually, I changed my name formally in America.” When Bert and Barbara married on Thanksgiving day, 1954, the couple married as Bert and Barbara Struth.

 Notes:

Bert’s father, Max Levy came to the US in 1942 or 1943 according to Bert’s testimony. Max and Bert’s mother, Mina rented a two-family house on Hamilton Ave. in Patterson. His father, still sick all the time, struggled to make ends meet. Later, Bert’s parents lived on Ellison Street in Patterson. Bert’s mother passed away in 1981 at the age of 84 from a stroke. His father passed away in 1993 at the age of 99 from pneumonia.

Bert Struth’s Obituary

Bert W. Struth, 77, Longboat Key, died March 30, 2005. He was born Aug. 11, 1927, in Germany and came to Longboat Key in 1995 from Armonk, N.Y. He retired in 1988 as executive vice president of Chem Systems Inc. He received bachelor’s and master’s degrees and a doctorate from Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn. He was a member of Old Guard of White Plains and Fairview Country Club. He was Jewish and a member of Temple Beth El of Northern Westchester. Survivors include his wife Barbara (Katz); daughters Susan Kantor and Nancy Bernstein; a son, Alan H.; and seven grandchildren. 

AUDIO TAPE #1: GERMANY

Bert’s Childhood:

I was born on a German holiday – Constitution Day of the Weimar Republic.  According to my mother’s prayer book, it was 4:30 pm of August 11, 1927.  I assumed it was rather uneventful, but my mother had lost a baby two years before.  So it was a big day for my mother that I lived.  Bigger for my grandfather because I was the first born son of the Levys and Blums.  On the Levy side, there was just Ilsa, Bernard and me.  I was the oldest.  On the Blum side there was Eleanor (who was a Brill.  Liesel was married to a Brill).  My first recollection, when I was 3, was the layout of the house.  The house was a pretty big house.  It had an entrance which was rather small and when you entered the house on the left side was a little den with a window looking out onto the street. On the other side of the hallway was the butcher store which ran along the right side of the house.  Next to the den was a walk-in freezer where the meat was stored.   Down the hallway was the entrance to the living room/dining room and the back side of the store.   There was a window in the back of the store where you could see into the living room/dining room.  There was an entrance to the store separate from the house.  The dining room/living room was quite large and was the backside of the store.  Opposite the dining room/living room is the kitchen which was not very large but adequate.  If you continued on through this hallway came the outdoor part of the house without a roof.  On the one side was a kitchen built specially for my mother when she got married.  If you continue back there was an outdoor bathhouse – shower and bathtub.  It was heated by coal.  Next to the bathhouse was the smokehouse  – where we smoked bacon and ham. There was a big courtyard.  Behind the courtyard was the slaughter house.  My grandmother Helena (Max’s mom) owned the property.  The house was built when my mother and father got married.   The way the butcher shop worked was that my father once a week on Monday would go to a market where the farmers bought all their animals (cattle, poultry, pigs) and my father would check out the animals he wanted to buy for the week and then they were delivered.  They were delivered to an alley way and were taken into the courtyard and then into the slaughterhouse when they were ready to slaughter.  I was fascinated with the way they were slaughtered.  My father never wanted me to see it, but I would climb up on a ledge and look through the window.  They would put the cattle’s hoofs on these bars with their head hanging down and cut their throats.  When Hitler came to power they did not allow that anymore.  Kosher killing was forbidden.  Then they had to stun the animal with a sledge hammer in the forehead.  The pigs were put into big vats with hot water to get the skin off.  They had all this machinery to make sausages and baloney.  They made hot dogs, sausages, liverwurst.  The next day all the final produce would be in the store. 

 When you came into the hallway there was a stairway upstairs.  At the top of the stairs if you make a left turn that was my room where I had a crib.  There was another bed behind the crib where Ernest (one of my father’s brother) slept.  Max’s family lived with us.  There was a sitting room between my room and my parent’s room.  I remember at an early age when I had the mumps being in that crib.  I recall on that same floor there was another bunch of bedrooms  – one on the left was my grandmother’s (Helena) room (her husband died) and connected to her room was my great aunt’s room (Max’s sister – Carolina).  On the other side of the hallway there was another room where Max’s other sister – Clara – had a room.  Then if you continued upstairs there were another 2 bedrooms – one for Herman and one for Leo.  

My father was the only one that worked in the slaughterhouse.  We had workers.  Leo was the tax assessor of the town and worked at city hall.  Ernest had a job in the auditing department.  We all got along very well.  I don’t recall any problems with all these people in the house.  Helena, Max’s mother, owned the land and all the siblings lived there.  

In the early years, the town had about 10,000 people – it is not a city, it is a dorf.  I recall the sewage running down the edge of the street.  Later on they did away with that for cleanliness. 

Bert’s Schooling:

In Germany, the schools were divided into catholic schools and protestant schools and the Jewish children went to the protestant schools.  In the bigger cities, Jews had their own schools.  In Bendorf, on one side was the catholic church and the other side the protestant church.   I went to a protestant kindergarten class.  No religion was taught.  I always felt that the Catholics were more anti-semitic.  Catholics in West Germany and North Germany were in the minority and the Protestants were in the majority.  In the southern part of Germany, the Catholics were in the majority.  I could tell the difference when I would go visit my grandfather who lived in the southern part of Germany and you could feel it.  We would go to visit my grandfather who lived in a house and the owner lived on the second floor.  [Pointing to a picture of Aaron Blum’s house]  If you look at that picture closely of the house there is a swastika flag flying out of the second floor. . . .

What I remember is in third grade (1936), my mother and father met with my teacher.  He said “you have a smart boy there but if you want to do something for him get him out of here.”   He was very sympathetic.  The German way of teaching is completely different than here in the US.  Everything in Germany is taught by rout – memorized – and they concentrate a lot on writing essays and stories.  You would write in a book and graded on content, grammar, etc.  Very regimented education.  There was corporal punishment.  I never got hit for being a poor student.  I got hit for disobedience.  I was in the 5th grade.  For some reason the teacher had no classes and we decided to play soccer in the back of the school. The principal came out and said we were making too much noise and needed to stop.  Well, we didn’t stop. He came out again and some of us (including me) ran away and those who didn’t run away squealed on us.  The next day I knew I was in trouble and came to school in a snowsuit.  It was the winter months.  The principal doesn’t show up to punish us until we having gym outside and in our gym shorts.  We were all bleeding.  They used these reeds to hit us and they really whip the hell out of you and you bend over a chair. . .

Rising Anti-Semitism: 1936-1938

In Bendorf, I never noticed any anti-Semitism until much later. In 1936 in Mulchbuch [sic] (where my grandfather lived) the anti-Semitism was much more obvious. The owner of his house had a son and daughter and I use to play with the son all the time.  I came to visit one day and the son said I can’t play with you anymore because you are Jewish.  My father is too involved with the Nazi party.”  At that point I had not noticed anything yet in Bendorf.  Even when I entered grammar school, I never felt we were being discriminated against. I didn’t know anything about Nazis.  Then one year, 1936, the Germans invaded the Rheinland which they were not suppose to based on the Versaille Treaty.  That was the first time we saw soldiers and Nazis.  This coincided with a Saturday on which they decided to boycott the Jewish stores by putting up signs “Kauf Nicht Nacht Juden” (“Do not buy by Jews”).  I remember my uncle Leo coming home from city hall and seeing that sign in front of the door and he kicked it away.  He was told “your days are numbered here”.  Shortly thereafter, he was fired and 6 months later he left for the US. . . . It started in the 4th grade when the Nuremburg laws went into effect and that is when I knew something was going on.  In the 4th grade they decided that the Jews couldn’t sit through the religious class and we went to the synagogue for that hour.  Then when the hour was over we went back to school. The other thing I remember is that there was a movie about the climbing of Mt. Everest in the theater and we all went to the theater.  In the middle of the movie, everyone stood up and said “Heil Hitler”.  I thought I was going to get killed.  I was scared stiff. Another incident was when Adela Camp came to Germany to visit (she was born in Bendorf).  She had an illegitimate son who died.  She got pregnant from an American soldier in WWI. She wanted to come to the US to get away from all this nonsense and we gave Lina her name and Lina paid for her to come over.  She came back to Germany to visit and thought it would be a great idea to take us on a boat ride down the Rhine.  On the boat were all these Nazis who were drinking and starting singing anti-Semitic songs.  “Throw them out, throw out the Jews.”  I thought they were going to throw me over.  Adela said “they don’t know your Jewish”.  Things got bad when I got into the 5th grade.  I had a teacher who was a “dyed in the wool” Nazi. Always wore a big swastika.  He could never find anything wrong with my work.  He let out his aggression on the dumb Jews.  In the middle of the 5th grade, Jews could no longer go to school.  At the end of 4th grade I applied to go to gymnasium (pre –high school) and I passed the exam and we sent in the money. I got accepted but they told me I couldn’t go because I was Jewish.  Then in the 5thgrade, Jews could no longer attend school so through the Jewish organization they took care of us and the teachers.  There was a wealthy family that owned a sanatorium and they had enough room for us to go to school there.  I went there for a half a year for twice a week.  A long day and far to get there.

Kristallnacht: November 1938

In November 1938, it was Kristallnacht.  That was traumatic.  At 7 am, it was cold, they rapped at the door and took my father. We didn’t know where he was going.  My grandmother anticipated trouble and went to the catholic hospital and got herself admitted.  She thought there was going to be a pogrom.   We found out that they were going to destroy all the Jewish homes but we had sold ours so they didn’t destroy it.  All the other Jewish homes were ransacked and damaged beyond repair.  It was unbelievable.  They only took away the men.

It took us so long to leave Germany because you could not take money out so we had furniture made.  Had to get it all boxed.  We could only take $50 in cash.  We were going to leave at the end of November and stay in Holland until the boat left in early December.  We got to the US December 6, 1938.  

We didn’t know what was happening with my father.  Then one day my father shows up at home and asks what happened.  He was suppose to go to Dachau but he got pneumonia so they sent him home to get better and then they will take him.  He was in bad shape and we thought we would have to hospitalize him.  We got in touch with my uncle in Holland.  He said that he had a man in Holland who could get Max out of Germany illegally and get him to Holland and then they will figure out what to do with him once he is in Holland.  Well, Joseph got this man to come to Bendorf and he and Max took the train north and got off at the German border and crossed the border on foot.  They made it to Amsterdam.  When Max got to Amsterdam he was so sick he went to the hospital.  Mina and I saw him in the hospital.  One day someone came to the hospital and said that since Max was in Holland illegally  he has to go back to Germany.  My uncle got him a one-week reprieve to recover before going back to Germany.  In the meanwhile, Mina and I left for the US.  My uncle made arrangements with this Cuban steamer because he imported tobacco to Cuba and the captain of the steamer got Max on the boat to Cuba. We found out three weeks later that Max was in Cuba.  Luckily Moe’s son, Harold, was in Cuba.

AUDIO TAPE #2 (GERMANY, MATERNAL SIDE, LEVY AND BLUM FAMILIES)

“Let’s go back to 1927.”  When I described the house that we lived in I didn’t include the cellar and the attic.   The cellar was a different kind of cellar than we are use to.  First of all, it was below ground level and it had many, many steps going down and the steps were irregular stone.  The cellar was domed-shaped and all rock.  It was scary to go down there for a little boy.  It had an opening for the delivery of coal but not big enough to get out –two large holes which went into a coal bin.  We kept vegetables, apples and pears down there.  I never played down there.  We had a beautiful attic where I did play a lot. We had all these beams which ran all over the place and I loved to climb onto the beams and do make believe mountain climbing.  A lot of the stuff we had stored was kept up there.   When matzos were delivered before Passover they were kept up there. The matzos were round and made in Germany.  I use to love to play up there because of these beams.  It was a huge attic since it ran the whole width of the house.  It was pretty big.  Especially when it rained, I played up there.  My mother had a special kitchen which was built for her and that kitchen had a storage box for my toys.  It was one of those wooden boxes, like a chest.  I had a tremendous number of toys.  My favorite toys dealt with warlike materials –like tanks and I had these fortresses that a carpenter made for my parents which were fortresses.  And we had all these toy soldiers.  We had make believe guns.  I remember one occasion I was 5 years old and it was 2-3 weeks before Chanukah. My mother took me into this toy store and it was also Christmas time so they had all these toys.  I fell in love with one of these toy tanks that went on wheels and rubber and it shot out make believe bullets.  It would rub against an emery type material and generate sparks.  I wanted that tank and I wanted it right there and then.  My mother said you are getting it but you are not getting it until Chanukah.  Well I carried on and my mother let me have it.  My was always the disciplinarian.  My father only threatened but never hit.  She was the one that gave it to me.  She would give me a shot in the head with a hand.  I got the tank as a present but she wouldn’t buy it then.  When we left Germany, we left it all behind, it didn’t fit into the van.  I was still playing with those toys at 11.  When I played with other boys they would bring over their soldiers and we would have make believe battles.  That was my favorite toy.  The fortress was hand-made and had outlines for guns and cannons.  Every Chanukah I would get more tanks and soldiers. When I was 7-8 years old, my aunt from the US sent me a cowboy outfit with a gun.  Once a year in Germany most of the city, in February that Monday or Tuesday before ash wed. everyone gets dressed up and you go through the town all dressed up.  It’s like mardi gras — a catholic celebration.  I wore my cowboy outfit and I was part of the procession.  By the time I got home my guns were gone.  Someone stole my guns.  I was beside myself. “My weapons are gone”.  My grandmother (Helena Levy) was unbelievable — She did everything for me and took care of me like a mother.  She said, “don’t worry we’ll get the guns back”.  I said “how are you going to do that”.  She said, “leave it to me”.  It’s a small town and people come into the butcher store and she let it be known that the guns are missing and whoever brings back the guns gets a free salami – liverwurst, actually.  Sure enough, the guns came back.  Someone turned in the guns no questions asked.  She got back the guns.  My mother was the disciplinarian and then I would go running to my grandmother.  She was always took my side.  

The Levy Family:  Sons of Helena: Herman, Leo, Max and Julius. Julius was Ilsa father. Helena’s grandchildren were Bert Levy Struth, Bert Levy, and  Ilsa.  Leo didn’t have any children and Herman had one (Bert Levy).  At that time in Germany times were very difficult.  The word in the Jewish community was “don’t have children or at least get one and no more”.  Times were going to bad so why make it difficult for newborn children.  Everyone knew things were not going to be good. Years ago, most families were orthodox and that changed. 

The Blum Family: Moe, Simon, Fritz, Max (died early), Joseph, Lina, Liesel, Rita, Mina and Claire.  They had a big brood.  When my mother was two years old my uncle Joseph was playing with firecrackers and blew out her eye.  She got a glass eye.  Joseph always tried to take care of her because of that (which he did).  He was always attentive to her.  The other thing is Claire, the youngest of all the girls, when she was 19 years old she met up with a gentile man and became pregnant out of wedlock.  My grandfather and Joseph decided after the birth of the child (a girl) to give the child away.  The child was put up for adoption.  A family in west Germany near Essen adopted the child and as far as my grandfather was concerned that was the end of it.  He didn’t want to know any more about this.  My grandfather was ultra orthodox and this was like a shame on the family.  Several years later Claire developed pneumonia and died.  She was buried on the German/French border.  The Blum family lost complete contact with the child adopted even though they knew who the family was but they didn’t want anything to do with her.  Anyway, my mother, myself and Lina were in Stuggart in 1938, finally getting our visas and we are in this restaurant when all of a sudden a man and a women come up to us and said “I think we know you, you are Lina Struth and the Levys.  I don’t want to shock you but I am that girl that was put up for adoption.”  The girl was “Ellen Voss” and looked into her birth family as a way to get out of Germany because you needed a relation in the US to get out.  She introduced herself to us and my aunt couldn’t believe it.  First of all Ellen Voss (who married Kurt) was very blond and looked a lot like her gentile father, not like a Levy.  Her husband was Jewish and very blond.  She said to Lina that you have to get a Visa for me.    Lina got her a Visa.  Ellen and Kurt left Germany by way of Belgium and a year later she came to the US with Kurt with Ellen’s adoptive mother — Mrs. Koopman (she is buried in Paramus).  My grandfather never met with Ellen and wanted nothing to do with her.  

In 1939, before the war started my grandmother and grandfather came to Amsterdam and six months later my grandmother died of natural causes.  In May of 1940, the Germans invaded Holland and my grandfather had to wear a mogen david over his arm [star of David]  – he was proud of it.  My grandfather was in jeopardy and he was only happy to tell everyone he was Jewish.  So by the end of 1940, he was taken to a local concentration camp (Restiborg, Holland).  My uncle Joseph “smeared someone” and got him out of the camp and he was out for 2-3 months and then he was taken again.  This time it was permanent and ultimately he died there because of starvation.  He didn’t eat the food because he was kosher. Meanwhile, my grandmother passed away.  My uncle got my grandfather’s body out of the camp and both my grandmother and grandfather are buried in Restiborg, Holland [sic].  I went to the cemetary with Joseph in 1955 when I traveled to Europe on business.  I wanted to go back but never remembered which cemetery.  There are several Jewish cemeteries outside of Amsterdam.

Rita left Germany in 1927.  Liesel had gone to the US already and Moe left early and Fritz had left.  Max Blum was in the US and got pneumonia and died.  So, they all got out early. Moe’s son is Harold and he was in Cuba when my father was there.  My uncle Joseph always wanted him to learn the tobacco business in Cuba. He always had in mind that Harold would take over his business in Holland.  But Joseph told me in 1955 when I was visiting him in Amsterdam, “Never will Harold ever be able to take over my business.  He’s not smart enough.”  Harold married a Cuban girl and lived in Cuba for many years.  He was in the tobacco business down there.  When Fidel Castro came to power in Cuba, Harold’s his wife was well known and had a lot of money and her brother was a good baseball player.  His name was Lefty. Castro had an interest in baseball and liked the brother. They (Harold, his wife, Lefty and Castro) were at restaurant one night and Castro said to all of them, that if you know what’s good for you, you would get out of Cuba.  So, they left and came to the US.  

[Question: How did Joseph survive the war? ] 

Joseph had a gentile family and no children.  Joseph’s wife (Elsa) was not Jewish.  Margot was not his wife.  Joseph’s wife was mentally impaired as a result of what she experienced during the war.  I was traveling to England for Exxon in 1955 and when I got there I called Joseph in Holland and Joseph said “my wife just died.” So I went to Amersterdam.  That is also when I went to the cemetery to see my grandparents. 

[Question:  When did you change your name from Levy to Struth?]  

It was 1946-54 I just used the name Struth.  I was going to college and I changed the name to Struth.  When I went to college, Lina said you are better off changing your name to Struth because Jewish people in sciences have a difficult time making it.  She said, “I consider you like my son.  If it is okay with your Mother, we would like you to do that.”  Lina talked to my Mother and I talked to my Mother and my Mother said “sure”.  I used the name Struth from 1946-1954.  When Barbara and I were going to get married, her father said “you have to do this legally.  You can’t just call yourself Struth.”  He insisted that I legally change my name. So, I changed my name legally before I got married.  

Audio Tape #3: BLUM FAMILY TREE

[Referring to a Family Tree that my father received from a relative]:

Let me back up and explain some of this work that he [Mr. Falk] is trying to establish here with the Blum family tree.  He’s [the author] a Blum.  This is the basic chart right here.  This was my grandfather’s father – Max Blum died around 1872.  It doesn’t have the birth.  Aaron Blum which is my grandfather married Tekla Flegenheimer and it gives the birth and death.  She, of course, was buried in Holland.  I have a picture of the headstone.  Here are the children of Aaron and Tekla.  There was Moe and he had a son called Harold.  Max Blum who came to the US and died at a fairly early age.  There was Fritz, Simon, Rita, Lina, Mina, Claire – the young girl who died at a young age, and Lousia (“Liesel”).  Those were all the children.  These are the descendants of Max and Carolina Blum – my great grandfather and great grandmother. . .Max Blum came here at an early age, he was the other brother of Moe.  He died early age – 1911.  Fritz Blum married to Bertha (don’t remember her last name).  She was born in 1896 and married in 1922 and died in 1976. Joseph Blum died in Switzerland in 1972.  He was married to an Elsa Shilling – Belgium woman, born in France. She died right after the war of natural causes.  Never had any children.  He took up with Margot Lindebaum…This is my grandfather, Aaron Blum, born in Auchauzen Mechgarden [sic].  Died in a Nazi camp in Flidenburg, Holland [sic].  Tekla, his wife, died in Amsterdam December 20 before the Germans took over.

Mina, my mother, married Max Levy June 10.   Mina died July 14, 1981. . .Brothers of great grandfather and brothers of grandfather.  Don’t know about this family – met them once.  This is the family that ended up in Newark and had this dry goods store where my aunt came and worked there at 14 or 15 years old and she worked for Max who died in 1981.  

AUDIO TAPE #4: BERT’S BIOGRAPHY FROM AGE 10 IN GERMANY) TO ADULTHOOD AND A CAREER IN USA

I was a fanatic for the game of soccer.  I played every day and I just loved it. My father loved soccer too.  One day he said we are going to go to the stadium.  It is 10 km away.  Our town was playing another town.  We took the trolley car.  The game was good. When the game was over I asked my father to buy me an ice cream cone and he wouldn’t do it.  I carried on and ran away from him.  I started walking home and he didn’t know.  He thought I was kidding.  I walked about 6 miles home.  I was 10 years old.  He got home before I did.  I didn’t have any money, I just walked back mad.  When I walked in he said “I wouldn’t of cared if you walked to Berlin”. He was really mad.  This gave you an indication of what he was really like.  

I lived with Lina when my father came to the US.  Mina and Max rented a house that belonged to Willie on Ellison Street.  Sunday morning I would go there to visit.  I didn’t live with my parents because Lina wanted me to live in a better part of town with better schools.  It gave you better social contacts than living on Ellison Street which was not a good neighborhood.  I was okay with that.  When I came to my father’s house, I loved to drink ginger ale.  He would buy one bottle and it would last him a lifetime.  He said, “if you want ginger ale, bring it yourself.”  He would buy Hoffman Ginger Ale.  My mother prevailed and she bought the ginger ale.  Max wouldn’t spend a penny.  He would tell me stories, that they loved cherries and his father would give him one cherry.  He says, “They all taste the same, one cherry is enough.”  

In Germany, when I was 9-10 years old there was a cherry orchard and we climbed up into the tree and picked cherries.  The cherry orchard belonged to someone and before we knew it someone was coming after us with a dog.   We were running and dropped most of cherries and I got bitten by the dog. 

A day or two before Rosh Hashanah there were these groves of trees that grew walnuts commercially but you could get to them and pick illegally.  Walnuts have a green outer shell and you have to take off the shell before you get to the nut.  We didn’t realize it but this green shell has tannins and it discolors your whole hand. So I came home after a day of picking walnuts and my hands were green. We knew what we were doing and I had a hard time explaining where I got all these walnuts.  My mother was so mad.  She said “you’re a gonuf.  You are going to go back and give back the walnuts.  Everyone is going to know what you did.”  It was before the holiday and everyone made remarks about what kind of son my mother and father raised – a boy who goes out and steals walnuts.  “I wasn’t exactly a goodie, goodie.”  

I use to be friendly with a gentile guy whose family owned a store which sold a bunch of things and we would play there.  They had a backyard. While I was there we were in the store and I stole a little ball.  In order to make it look like I didn’t steal the ball I roughed it up to made it look like it is something I found.  When I came home Leo saw me with the ball and asked me where I got it.  I said I found it and Leo said I don’t believe you. He said you are going to get punished.  So I ran away and he ran after me and he caught me.  He brought me back home and told me that I had to go back to their house and give back the ball and explain to them that I took the ball and I’m sorry.  So I went back and gave back the ball and explained to them that I was wrong in doing it and that I would never do it again.

Leo left Germany in 1936 but before that he was very influential in inspiring me to learn.  If it wasn’t for him I don’t know if I would have had the initiative.  He took interest in my work and looked over my work.  Even when I came to the US and when to school in Brooklyn, I lived with him and my grandmother.  He was always interested in my education. Even though he never went to college, he was sharp and naturally smart. He had a lot of insights into things even though he wasn’t educated.  He was a tax assessor in Bendorf.  

[Question: Why did you become an engineer?]  

I liked science when I was in High School and I was good in math. So I thought it was a natural thing for me to get into.  I didn’t get much help in deciding what school to go to.  I took the college entrance exams and did very well so I applied to many colleges based on what I heard in High School, but all the schools were out of state – Cornell, MIT, Cal Tech.  When I told my parents how much it was going to cost to go to college my father said “I’m not giving you a penny, you go to work like I did”.  I got into all the schools I applied to.  I wanted to go to Cornell, but my father wouldn’t pay for it so I went to Willie, and Willie said “We know this family whose son is an engineer and their son went to Brooklyn Poly and they thought it was a great school for engineering, that is the school you should go to. You can come home at night. We can keep the cost down”.  So I said okay, what did I know.  So I that week I took the train to Brooklyn Poly and they gave me an application.  I filled it out and a couple of days later I was admitted.  For two years I commuted every day.  I took a bus from Patterson over the GW which let me off at 186th Street and then I took the A train to West 4thand changed trains to the F train to Borough Hall in Brooklyn.  After two years, my uncle Leo who was living with my grandmother in Williamsburg said “look why don’t you during the week stay at our place and on the weekend you can go to Patterson.”  Living with Leo made it easier since Williamburg to College was only 20 min.  

I graduated in 1948 after three years of college since I went through the summer.  Got a job with Allied Chemical in Chicago. It wasn’t that easy to get a job.  I have never been away from home.  I took a train (Broadway limited) from NY to Chicago – 24 hour ride.  I had made arrangements to live at the YMCA at the worst part of town near the steel mills, but close enough to take a bus to work.  I lived on 92nd street and the plant was at 138th street.  The walk to work in the winter was brutal.  It was like a wind tunnel and all the slag from the steel mills was on the road.  I got to Chicago in June or July of 1948 and worked there through the spring of 1952 and then went back to NY for a Master’s degree.  I applied to Pfizer for a fellowship which I got. They paid for my education.  They liked what I was doing  — I was working on my thesis (new production method for making citric acid) and it was on a process they were interested in – Pfizer had a monopoly on this field.  I worked there in the summer developing this technique for Pfizer for mass production. They got the patent rights.  They agreed to pay for my education – Master’s and PHD and they gave me $2k for research (tax-free money).

AUDIO TAPE #5: PRE-WAR GERMANY, IMMIGRATION, PASSAGE,  AND SETTLING IN PATTERSON, NJ, USA

I want to go back to when we left Germany in the middle of November.  The people who were our friends and neighbors — not a single one had the courage to come over to say goodbye.  My mother and I went to the railroad station by ourselves with just a suitcase and 50 Marks ($20-$30).  The rest of our money was put into furniture and sent to the United States.  We were still afraid we could not get out of Germany, but we got on the train and at the German/Dutch border when immigration was checking papers this one soldier saw this necklace on my mother and ripped it off her neck.  It was a valuable necklace and they took it from her.  The train ride to Amsterdam was only a 3 hours and my uncle Joseph met us at the train station.  We stayed with him for a number of days.  Meanwhile my father had left Germany and got across the Dutch/German border illegally and was in a hospital at the time suffering from pneumonia.  We saw him before we left for the United States but we did not know what ultimately happened to him because after a week or so he had to go back to Germany.  He had no papers.  Luckily, my uncle got him on to a Cuban steamer to Cuba.  We didn’t know that when we left for the US.  My uncle was very good to me.  Before I left for the US, Joseph bought me a coat and a suit with long pants.  I only had short pants.  It was December in the US.  Several days later after arriving in Amsterdam, my mom and I got on the New Amsterdam.  Both my mother and I were very sick on the ship.  We were so seasick – puking every day until we finally arrived.  When we landed in Hoboken the whole family was there to greet us.  Lina, Rita, Ida, Leo, Herman.  The whole “mishpucha”.  It was five days on the boat of puking.  On the boat, there was a friend of uncle Joseph’s going over by the name of Weinberger and he would take me on his shoulders up to the upper deck for fresh air thinking it would help, but it didn’t.   They claimed the only thing that helped sea sickness was eating slices of apple.  When we got to Hoboken – Lina and Willie were on the outs with Rita, Ida and Moe.  They had a falling out over Rita.  So one contingent stayed on one side and the other on the other.  Rita worked for Lina in the store when she came to the US and she was a waitress and Joseph during one of his trips to the US said to Lina, “its about time you make your sister a partner in the business”.  Lina and Willie said “no way”.  Joseph told Rita to move away from Patterson and get a job in NYC.  So Rita got a job with Jane Engel (fancy dress shop).   Lina took it as an affront that Rita would leave.  Moe, Ida and Joseph ganged up on Lina and Willie.  When we came to US, Rita as already living in NY.  My mother and I went with Lina to Patterson and I moved into Lina’s house at 302 east 42nd street, Patterson, NJ.  Willie had the house built in 1936.  He had enough money from the depression to build the house — they saved every nickel.   

We heard about my father about a month later after we got New Jersey.  At that time Moe’s son, Harold, was in Cuba and he met my father and got him situated. My father couldn’t work and had no papers.  Leo and Herman sent Max money so he could live in Havana, Cuba.  He got there late 1938 and came to the US in 1943.  The war wasn’t over yet.  

When I got to the US, Lina called the principal of the elementary school and told him that her nephew is here from Germany and the principal asked if I was a US citizen.  What a stupid question.  She said “no.”  The first thing Lina did when I got to the US was take me to the relatives in Newark who had the dry goods store and get me clothing.  I started school immediately.  Learning the language was not easy. I was transplanted from one country to another.  There were no other German kids at the school.

My grandmother (Helena Levy) left Germany in August of 1939, leaving behind one of her daughters and a great aunt who continued to live in the house in Bendorf.  The people who bought the house let them stay.  Helena sold the house in Bendorf to a gentile family close to nothing.  She was reimbursed after the war for the land.  

In the summer of 1939, they sent me to Seguin Camp. Helena came to the US in August 1939 and the first thing they did was bring her to Camp to visit me (it was near port jervis –sussex county).  In those days the roads were not that good and it took a while to get there.  I loved the camp.  They decided it was too much money.  The following year they sent me to a boys scout camp in Bear Mountain near Tuxedo, NY and I hated that place.  First of all, there were no Jews at the camp and it was very anti-semetic.  I was 12 years old and I faked an appendicitis attack because I wanted to go home.  They took me home half way through – thank god.

I stayed at Lina’s house until I went to Chicago in 1948.  When my father came to the US in 1942 or 1943, he and my mother rented a place in Patterson on Hamilton Avenue – it was a two family house.  My father, when he came, tried to get a job as a butcher but he couldn’t.   The way butchers operated in this country and the way they operated Germany was very different.  They wanted him to do all the cutting and maneuvering inside a refrigerator.  He got sick all the time.  So he gave that up.  He got a job in pipe factory where they made plastic smoking pipes.  He ultimately ended up at the Manhattan shirt company where he was a stock boy.  My father was a miser.  After he was here for no more than 5 or 6 years he bought an apartment house.  We had a friend who was a judge in Patterson (friend of Lina) and she loaned him $5,000 to buy the apartment that cost about $25,000.  He became a landlord.  The rents were low and he would go every month to collect the rent from all the tenants.  He would walk there which was a good distance (4-5 miles) to collect the rent and he would walk back home.  He ultimately sold the apartment building.  Willie had bought a 2 family house on Ellison Street and he wanted Max to move into the upstairs home.  So Max gave up the rental on Hamilton and he rented the Ellison Street home from Willie. The downstairs of the house was rented by a friend of ours –Dr. Rosenberg.  Dr. Rosenberg came from Germany to the US like us and had a medical practice in Berlin.  But when he came here he didn’t have all the required certifications to practice as a doctor so he had a friend by the name of Louie Gordon (also a German) who had a factory that manufactured furniture and Dr. Rosenberg got a job in the furniture factory sanding furniture.  Then he finally decided he wanted to get back into medicine and got a job as an orderly in a hospital.  Meanwhile he was studying to pass the medical exams so he could practice which he finally did.  Then he set himself up as a doctor, but he would only take on indigents.  After several years he got a position in the Miriam Home (that was where mom’s mom was) as a key doctor.  He lived at the Miriam Home free of charge. He gave up all his assets and they provided him with an apartment and food, etc. He stayed there for many years.  Everyone at the Miriam Home revered him.  There is a statute of him there in commemoration.  He was a real socialist.  Even in Germany he took care of the poor.  

My mother and father lived on Ellison Street for a number of years.  Willie sold the house so they moved to another one of Willie’s apartment houses where Rose and Fred lived.  That is where they were until they moved to Irving Cypen Towers in Miami Beach, Florida.   At first they would come back and forth from Florida and then they moved permanently to Florida.  Max sold his apartment building before he moved to Florida.  He made good money off it.  Willie owned a lot of apartment buildings.

My mother passed away in 1981 and my father passed away in 1993.  My mother passed away from a stroke at 84 years old and Max passed away from pneumonia at  99.  

I want to go back to days in public school.  It was pretty uneventful.  My bar mitzvah was different than those today.  First of all, there was a service in the synagogue and then a small reception in the recreation hall of the temple.  In the afternoon, Lina made a spread in the backyard.  Kids came over.  It wasn’t the extravaganza they have today.  I don’t remember spending a lot of time getting ready for my bar mitzvah.  I maybe spent a month learning my portion. The temple we went to in Patterson had many congregants of German descent.  There were two main temples in Patterson – Temple Emanuel and Temple B’nai Yeshera (called the Barnett Temple – the one I went to).  Emanuel had mostly eastern European descendants.  Mom and I got married at my temple.  It was much nicer.  Lina always thought the people who went to Temple B’nai Yeshera were elite. 

[Question Who planned your wedding?  (Barbara yelled from the kitchen “My parents”]   

I was very active in the boy scouts.  We had a Jewish boys scout troop which met at Temple Emanuel.  We hiked and camped.  I had all the merit badges.  During the war we would go around the neighborhood and collected newspapers.  I don’t know what they were used for.   With the boys scouts we mainly camped but not with fathers.  Every Monday night we would meet.  

Then I went to High School.  I had a lot of friends.  I enjoyed High School.  

[Question: [Did you ever go hunting with Willie?]  

I never went hunting with Willie.  He would hunt with a bunch of rednecks – real republicans.  They hated Roosevelt.  They spent all their living days hating Roosevelt.  Willie died from a heart attack at 70 years old in 1963.  You didn’t know Helena or Adolph Monatt (a cousin of Lina) – he had a lot of influence on me.  He lived on Ellison street with Dave Palm in the same house.  Adolph was very knowledgeable about current events, he could express himself well in German.  He would help me with my English assignments and essays.  He would give me good ideas in German.  Adolph worked in Lina’s restaurant and in Germany he worked in the grain business.  Adolph had a falling out with his family in Germany before WWI and he went to Argentina for a number of years before coming back to Germany.  My aunt always felt that being with her I could associate with the “higher echelon” – the people at the Barnett Temple.  In Germany we were conservative.  Small towns did not have reform temples.  In Bendorf, we didn’t have a rabbi only a Cantor and the rabbi would only come to the temple on the high holidays and the town would give him room and board.  

[Question: In 1938-45 what were you hearing about what was going on in Germany?]

Very little.  We knew that Jews were being persecuted but no one had any idea that people were being exterminated.  We thought everyone was at work camps.  Only at the very end did we hear about extermination.  I had an uncle – Peter Brill (married to Liesel).  He always said to me “you can’t believe these stories.  They are all fabricated”.  But at the end of the war, the army sent him to Germany to investigate patents that the Germans came up with that could benefit the US.  While he was in Europe he went to Buchenwald.  He saw for himself and was blown away.  He could not believe it but now he saw it for himself.  He had a nervous breakdown.  It was so horrible.  He was very cultured and could not believe that the Germans would do something like that.  While he was over there he had an affair with some German woman and Liesel found out.  We didn’t know anything until they liberated the camps.

I have all these letters from Joseph and my grandfather written during the war and before when my grandfather came to Holland.  I need to get those translated.  In the letters, Joseph and my grandfather were pleading for gift packages since they didn’t have enough to eat.  When the Germans came to Holland they confiscated Joseph’s business and it lay there dormant during the war.  When the war was over the Dutch government made sure the Germans were compensated for the loss of any businesses.  So Joseph got all of his assets back and he continued where he left off.  Whatever money he lost he got it all back.  He just lost time.  He had a good business since he was the sole distributor of tobacco leaves all over Europe.  So every cigar manufacturer in Europe bought from him.  He would go all over and buy the tobacco.  He would look at the crop coming up and would know what to buy.  He could look at a leaf and know what country it was from.  He mainly dealt with Cuba, Brazil and US.  

[Question: [Did you or your family ever want to go back to Germany?]

No one ever thought of going back to Germany.  We lost everything. The house in Germany was located 37 BachStrasse – a street where a stream would run through.  It was really sewage running through. The house is still there. We were there 7-8 years ago.  The town is recognizable.

I graduated from High School in 1945 and I started Brooklyn Poly before commencement from High School.  I wanted to go through the summer. At that time, there were a lot of veterans coming back from the war.  I had no break after high school.  They gave me specific instructions at home “finish as quickly as you can”.  I finished college in 3 years. I finished in the summer of 1948, then I moved to Chicago.  When I moved to Chicago I had a room at the Y near the steel mill.

I enjoyed college. I did well.

We had dances in HS that I went to.  I didn’t have any girlfriends in High School, but I took a girl to a show in NY (Oklahoma) and on a hay ride.  I took a girl to my senior prom.   We went to the Copa Cabana.     I went with someone who had a car.  I didn’t get a car until I came back to Chicago.  I had a girlfriend in Chicago.  I almost got married to her.  When I was getting my Masters, during the summer I would take the train to New York from North Bergen to Midtown and subway to Brooklyn.  When I got on the train there were all these kids that went to East  Side High School.  Some were my age and some were younger.  Mom was younger working at Mt. Sinai at the time.  So I started talking with them and one thing led to another and after a couple of weeks… My mother bought me a car… I said to Mom    (she was then working at NY Presbyterian at 168th)  “if I take my car, I can drive to the  GW bridge and we can take the train across and I would take the subway to Brooklyn.  So, by driving her we got to know each other.   She drove with me for 2-3 months before we even went out on a date.  I would bring her flowers – I would go to the park and cut flowers to give to her. Mom would bring the flowers to the lab and her co-workers would ask where she got them and she would say, “my chauffeur”.  So finally  in the spring  we had a date and we went to Bear Mountain — by that time I knew I wanted to marry her.  I wrote her a card on the first date.  By that time, I knew her pretty well.  Before I went with her on a date, I was going out with a lot of other girls.  I don’t know if she was dating other people.  By the time we went to Bear Mountain, I knew she was for me and I had had many other girlfriends.  Lina wanted me to date a neighbor of ours — her name was Brauer.  They had plenty of money.  She was a nice girl but ugly and taller than I was. There was another one I met by the name of Margo, she was nice but not the marrying type.  

Mom and I started dating regularly after that first date.  In fact, I would go over to her house and her mother would cook.  By 1953 we got engaged on thanksgiving.  I gave her an engagement ring and we had a family party (both sides) on Thanksgiving.  She knew she was getting engaged on Thanksgiving and we had both families for Thanksgiving.  We didn’t get married for almost a year later. I still had a year’s work left on my PHD.  Mom and I were very compatible.  

Kristallnacht

Also known as The Night of the Broken Glass. On this night, November 9, 1938, almost 200 synagogues were destroyed, over 8,000 Jewish shops were sacked and looted, and tens of thousands of Jews were removed to concentration camps. This pogrom received its name because of the great value of glass that was smashed during this anti-Jewish riot. Riots took place throughout Germany and Austria on that night.

In the weeks that followed, the German government promulgated dozens of laws and decrees designed to deprive Jews of their property and of their means of livelihood. Many of these laws enforced “Aryanization” policy—the transfer of Jewish-owned enterprises and property to “Aryan” ownership, usually for a fraction of their true value. Ensuing legislation barred Jews, already ineligible for employment in the public sector, from practicing most professions in the private sector. The legislation made further strides in removing Jews from public life. German education officials expelled Jewish children still attending German schools. German Jews lost their right to hold a driver’s license or own an automobile. Legislation restricted access to public transport. Jews could no longer gain admittance to “German” theaters, movie cinemas, or concert halls.

SOURCES:

Transcript of Bert Struth’s Audio Tapes Transcribed by Susan Kantor, daughter and donated by Nancy Bernstein, daughter, October 30, 2024.

Historic digital and family photographs donated by Nancy Bernstein, October 30, 2024.

CREDITS:

The Helen and Sol Krawitz Holocaust Memorial and Education Center gratefully acknowledges the donation of the unpublished transcript of Bert Struth’s Audio Tapes and historic digital and family photographs Nancy Berstein and Susan Kantor, daughters.