Eyewitness to History: Frank Cohn

Frank Cohn:

My name is Frank Cohn. I'm a Holocaust survivor and Museum volunteer. I was born in 1925, in Breslau, Germany—now named Wrocław in Poland. My father and mother energetically opened a sporting goods store, which was pretty successful. As middle-class German citizens, they hired a maid to take care of the household, and after I arrived, a girl to take care of me.

Our life was full of comfort. But there were dark clouds of a gathering political storm on the horizon as we entered the years of the 1930s.

From my window in my apartment, I was then about six years old, I could see fighting of groups of communists with groups of Nazis in front of the Finance Office, which was located across the street from us. And then, in 1932, the first personal news struck us.

My uncle Max was killed in the street attack, in Chemnitz, by Nazi Storm Troopers, just because he was a Jew. There were no arrests. But the word "Nazi" started to take meaning for me.

It was 1933, when Hitler, the Nazi Chancellor, came to power. It was immediately frightening and became personal.

Nazi Storm Troopers picketed my father's store, telling the public not to buy from Jews.

Within a year, my father sold the store for much less than it was worth. He had considered the need to sell as a catastrophe, but in retrospect it probably was a lifesaver. It was the beginning of his economic decline. Had the store still flourished, we never would have considered leaving Germany when we did.

At age six, I entered public school. I don't remember much of my first-grade teacher. He was "old," probably in his 50s. But in second grade, there was a young teacher, and I immediately loved him. I was thrilled to learn that Mr. Schubert would continue with my class in the third grade. But to my horror, as the first day of my third-grade school opened, there was Mr. Schubert in full Nazi uniform, with a swastika armband and lapel pin.

Pretty soon, many of the kids in class also came to school in their Hitler Youth uniforms. And then they sang their Nazi songs, standing up, while I was "allowed" to stay seated. Not a good omen.

One day, going to school, I was chased by a group of kids yelling, "Jew boy!" But I was a fast runner and eluded them. It was on that day that my parents decided to move me into a private, Jewish school.

A year later, our maid Bertha took me along as she decided to see Hitler, who was visiting Breslau. She told me to be sure to raise my hand in a Hitler salute when his car would pass us. I argued with her that as a Jew I was not allowed to do that, but she insisted. I was scared stiff if one of my former schoolmates might see me.

Then, the car approached, and people around me, including Bertha, became hysterical, screaming, "Sieg Heil, Sieg Heil," and I rendered the Hitler salute. No one saw me, but I was deeply disappointed with Bertha. Why would she love someone who would hate me? But I never told my parents about this excursion.

Our life in Breslau became increasingly more uncomfortable. We had some German friends with children, who I played with, but they terminated contact as soon as Hitler came to power. There were no public restaurants where Jews could eat. Most had signs "Jews Not Welcome" or "Jews Prohibited."

Laws were passed in 1935 which effectively brought about segregation between Aryans and Jews. Bertha could no longer work for us. I was cautioned to never become prominent for any reason in public—behave, behave, behave.

By 1938, my parents were running out of money and they planned a way to leave Germany. My father was determined to look for relatives in the States and convince them to give us an affidavit, which was needed to immigrate to the US. But the waiting time to emigrate, after securing an affidavit, was at least five years. In retrospect, waiting that long would obviously been impossible.

I celebrated my Bar Mitzvah, chanting portions of the Torah in flawless Hebrew, making my parents very proud. I received many wonderful gifts. After we returned from the synagogue, my father told me that he would be leaving for New York to look for relatives. Joy immediately turned to sadness.

Within a couple of weeks, he departed with a US visitor's visa in his pocket. We received letters from him daily and he reported that he had found his relatives, but they were unable to secure him an affidavit, which required a commitment for ongoing financial support.

When he left for New York, he was only allowed to take ten marks,although many travel expenses could be prepaid before his departure. Yet those ten marks, worth about $2.50, were not going to do much for him. He was at the mercy of Jewish relief agencies for financial assistance. However, their assistance was limited, requiring him ultimately to return to Germany.

While we waited for word from my father, two Gestapo agents, Nazi secret police, came to our door asking to see my father. My mother advised them that he was on an international business trip and was expected to return the following month. They told her he was required to report to Gestapo headquarters immediately upon his return.

My mother was devastated. She remembered a business friend named Michaelis, who, had some years earlier, had been requested to report to their headquarters. Within hours, his body was found outside on the pavement, after he had allegedly fallen from a third-story window.

My mother sent a coded message to my father telling him not to return. She was afraid that the mail might be monitored. My mother now faced a terrible dilemma. Could we just leave and join my father?

The affidavit route was not going to work for us. We did not have time to wait five years. Could she get us a visitor's visa and join him? Would we be able to stay in the US or would we be forced to return to Germany? And if so, would we be arrested and placed into a concentration camp?

All throughout the city there was graffiti, "JIKZ," which everyone knew meant "Jews into Concentration Camps." A decision had to be made. Then, for her, came another small push.

The Jews of Germany were ordered to submit their passports to be stamped with a big "J." My mother assumed that the next step was the confiscation of passports. The fear of losing her passport made her go to the US consulate in Breslau to seek a visitor's visa. If it was disclosed that my father was already in the States, she probably would not receive one. Luckily, she got the visa, but it only pertained to her own travel and did not include me.

Completely out of character, she approached the German consulate clerk and paid him to add my name to the visa. She now had the option for us to join my father. My mother now asked me "Should we leave?"

It was a crucial, difficult question. I had my friends, a new BMW bicycle, my stamp collection. But I knew we were not wanted here in Germany. I contemplated briefly and then said, "Let's go!"

My mother cautioned me not to tell a soul that we would be leaving in a couple of days.

Well, there was one more soccer game to play. I took my favorite position and we played. But this time I was distracted and we lost the game. I said: "So long, see you next time!" But there was not to be a next time, and I would never see or hear from any of my friends ever again.

During the next night, she and I packed one suitcase each. She took a chance and packed some silverware. But I had to leave my bike, my stamp collection, and my many other prized possessions behind.

At 5 a.m., we silently slipped out of our apartment, without waking up Mrs. Griffith, the suspected Nazi informant who had been placed in our apartment by the Gestapo.

We boarded a train for Berlin, where my mother said goodbye to her 86-year-old father, as well as her older sister and her family. It was a sad goodbye, since the future was not obvious to anyone.

Her father died within a year, presumably when taken to a concentration camp, but her sister escaped with her family to Australia. She would never see either of them again.

A couple of days later, we boarded a train for Amsterdam. As we approached the German/Holland border, my mother cautioned me to keep my mouth shut "Do not volunteer anything!" We had in our possession: our passports, our suitcases, our money (ten marks each), pre-paid, first-class return tickets on the Holland America Line, as well as two weeks of pre-paid New York hotel reservations.

A German border guard entered our railroad compartment, and my mother got very tense. He asked if anyone had anything from a long list of presumably contraband items and there were no answers from the six passengers in our compartment. Then he asked if anyone had a camera.

"I have one!" My mother gave me a look, which I could tell she was ready to kill me. I had not kept my mouth shut. I showed him my box camera. He looked it over and returned it to me. There were no further questions and the train moved on.

We had crossed the border. Was there any possibility of a safe return?

In Amsterdam, my mother had heard that the banker Rothschild was helping refugees. She had the address and went to see him while I stayed with her cousin Kurt, who had fled with his family to Holland. When she returned, she was quite cheerful. She received a substantial sum of money—but I never found out how much.

We said good-bye to Kurt, his wife Fanny, and their 13-year-old son, David. Their approaching fates were concentration camps, which somehow Kurt and Fanny managed to survive. But David died there in freezing weather, in an open field, without food or water or adequate clothing, along with about a hundred other children, as his father watched.

Of course, we had no inkling of that. We returned to the train station to take the train to Rotterdam, where we boarded the steamer Staatendam of the Holland America Line, a ship that would be at the bottom of Rotterdam harbor a year later.

My mother had bought first-class tickets, since there was really nothing we could do with our money, which we were forced to leave behind. And there was a chance that we could cash in the return tickets if we didn't have to use them.

All this comfort masked the prospect of what could occur at arrival in New York. My mother was well aware that if the immigration authorities on Ellis Island knew that my father was already in-country we might very well be told to take an immediate return voyage back to Germany. She again became tense as we approached the New York harbor. But then came a big surprise.

All first-class passengers were invited to disembark directly through customs. All others were diverted to Ellis Island for detailed examination. A quick check through customs and there was my father waiting for us on the pier. What a happy reunion! Tears were shed.

It was October 30th, 1938. November 9th, 1938, was the date of the German pogrom against the Jews called Kristallnacht, or "Night of the Broken Glass." A Jewish student had shot a member of the German embassy in Paris, which served as an excuse to implement a prior-planned attack on the German Jews. Jewish stores were smashed, synagogues were burned and thousands of Jews were arrested. A large fine was imposed on all the German Jews.

Every newspaper in the States carried the news, which we anxiously followed. It was a great tragedy-but ironically, not for us. After that pogrom, no more Jews were forced to leave the States to return to Germany. President Roosevelt issued an executive order which allowed all in-country refugees to stay in the US on a permanent basis—our visitor's visa was extended indefinitely.

The timing of our escape was indeed a miracle. We were saved.

By the end of November 1938, I was enrolled in seventh grade in a junior high school in New York City and subsequently, I went to Stuyvesant High School there. The war started in Europe in 1939, and my father received permission to work. The war reached us on December 7th, 1941. Then, in September of 1943, one month after my 18th birthday, I was drafted into the US Army and sworn in as a US citizen during basic training, in Columbus, Georgia.

I was shipped overseas as an infantry replacement on the Queen Mary, returning to Europe in September, 1944. In Belgium, it was discovered that I spoke German and so I was sent for a two-week course to become an intelligence agent. I served during the Battle of the Bulge and later in the Rhineland and central Europe campaigns, tasked with securing building and personality targets and arresting persons suspected of war crimes.

I met up with the Russians at the Elbe River as the war was ending and later was assigned to guard war criminals and to oversee German prisoners of war, who helped me crate and ship Nazi documents back to the States in support of future war-crime prosecutions.

I returned to the States in May 1946 and was discharged in the rank of Staff Sergeant. But I stayed in the Army Reserve, went to college, and upon graduation was commissioned as a second lieutenant, Regular Army. I served a total of 35 years, with three more tours in Germany during the Cold War, and one year of war-time service in Vietnam. I retired in the rank of Colonel, in 1978.

I share my history as a way to honor the memory of my family members who were killed in the Holocaust. My 11 murdered family members were: Rea Cohn, Isidor Cohn, Richard Brodda, Jenny Brodda, Hugo Brodda, Bertha Brodda, Max Berdass, Else Berdass, Saul Pottlitzer, Herman David, David Josephson.

My family members who survived fled to Holland, England, Italy, Haiti, Australia, Israel, and the United States of America.

I hope that my experience, and those of all Holocaust victims and survivors, will serve as a warning of what can happen when hate and antisemitism go unchecked in a society, and be an inspiration for people to make better choices to prevent such atrocities in the future.

Thank you—and God bless America!