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Fred Flatow

Born: MAY 16, 1928, KÖNIGSBERG,GERMANY (today Kaliningrad, Russia)
Died: September 15, 2023, Bethesda, MD

Fred Flatow was born Siegfried Friedel Ernst Flatow on May 16, 1928, in Königsberg, East Prussia, Germany (present day: Kaliningrad, Russia). Manfred, Fred’s older brother, was born in 1925. His parents, Erich and Malwine, opened a rainwear factory in 1924 and also operated a small fur coat business started by Fred’s grandparents.

Fred began first grade at an all-boys German public school in 1934, one year after Adolf Hitler came to power. Students were required to give the Hitler salute at the start of the school day. As the only Jewish boy in his class, Fred did not participate. He was bullied by his classmates, many of whom had already joined Nazi youth organizations. By the time Fred was to begin second grade, his parents had transferred him to the Jewish school, located in the city’s new synagogue, while Manfred remained in the public Gymnasium (a type of high school) in preparation for university. 

The National Socialist German Workers’ (Nazi) Party established itself in Königsberg in the 1920s and became increasingly popular in the early 1930s . While the city had a small Jewish community of about 3,200 in 1928, by 1939, only 1,586 Jewish residents remained. Parades and festivals containing popular songs glorifying the Nazi Party and threatening the destruction of Jews further alienated the Jewish population. In August 1938, the Flatow family business was “aryanized” under the Nazi regime’s antisemitic laws. At that time, the law only required the Flatows to change the company’s name in order to allow them to continue selling products to the German army. 

On November 9, 1938, during Kristallnacht or “Night of Broken Glass,” the Gestapo arrested and jailed 450 Jewish men in Königsberg, including Erich. During the state sponsored mass violence, Nazi Party members and members of the SA and Hitler Youth burned the new synagogue to the ground, and vandalized and looted Jewish-owned shops throughout Königsberg. Erich was released from jail a few days later by German authorities. Realizing Königsberg was too dangerous for the children, Erich and Malwine sent Manfred and Fred to stay with friends in Hamburg, Germany, where Fred again enrolled in a Jewish boys’ school.   

In the summer of 1939, Fred’s father, Erich, had a close call. Their chief factory clerk, knowing it was illegal for Jews to own firearms under Nazi laws, planted a gun in the business safe and turned Erich into the Gestapo. Erich and Malwine were forced to surrender their factory and Erich was told to report to the Gestapo headquarters in two days for a hearing. At this hearing, he was given two months to organize his emigration from Germany or be sent to a concentration camp. With help from the Königsberg’s Jewish community, Erich arranged for the family’s immigration to Chile.

The Flatlow family left Europe in October 1939 and arrived in Chile six weeks later. Fred married his wife Ursel, a fellow survivor, in 1948, and together they immigrated to the United States the next year. Fred found work in New York as an engineer and would eventually work for NASA for 22 years. Ursel worked as a book binder and then stayed home to care for their three children. Fred was a volunteer at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.