LINDNER FAMILY HISTORY … WHO SAID LIFE WAS FAIR? NOBODY

 My daughter asked me to find some information in my dad’s genealogy notes for her, and I ended up going down a rabbit hole of family history. This first picture was taken at my niece’s wedding in SanFrancisco in the fall of 2008. That’s my parents flanking my cousin, Hannelore in the middle.

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Both of my parents have since passed away, but Hannelore is still very much alive. I think she’s 93 or 94 now, and her stories are incredible. The other picture is a screenshot of Hannelore from when Steven Spielberg interviewed her back in the mid ‘90s for the Shoah Foundation archives. Her interview lasted 6 hours, all of it is on tape.

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Bear with me as I share this, because I’m telling it 2nd person, and from memory. I may have some of the details caddywhampus, but this is the gist of it.

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Hannelore was born in Europe. When Hitler came to power, her family went into hiding, very much like the Anne Frank story. They rented a flat above a grocery store from the owner, who was Catholic. One day the Gestapo (gazpacho?) showed up and told the store owner that they’d heard that he was harboring Jews on the premises, and that they were going to conduct a search. He told them no, there are no Jews here. Just good, patriotic citizens of the Reich, mostly Catholics. As the Gestapo chief tried to muscle his way around him, the grocer grabbed a shotgun he kept behind the door, pointed it at him, and told him to scram. That he was offended that he and his goosesteppers would question his patriotism.

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So what happened? The Gestapo squad left. They never did search the building.

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Hannelore’s family was eventually captured a few months later. Most of her family was sent to the camps, where they perished. But Hannelore, her mother AND her grandmother all survived. According to Spielberg, hers is the only documented case of three succeeding generations from the same family being sent to the camps, and all three surviving to tell the story.

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That grocer risked his life, the lives of his family and of his other tenants by standing up to the Gestapo. Contrary to how they were portrayed in Hogan’s Heroes, there was nothing “funny” or timid about the Gestapo. Why those goons backed down is a mystery, but they did. And it bought Hannelore’s family some precious time. As for that grocer, he probably paid for his integrity with his life.

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Hannelore was 14 at the time. After she was captured, she was sent to the Terezín (Theresienstadt) concentration camp. Next stop would have been Auschwitz, but the war ended before that happened.

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In 2007, my dad, my brother and I toured Eastern Europe, including the camp at Theresienstadt. I took beaucoup pictures on that trip. In 2016, at my nephew’s wedding in San Luis Obispo, Hannelore flew out from New Jersey to attend the bash (yours truly officiated). I showed her some of the pictures I took at Theresienstadt. She pored over them, emotionless. When she came to a picture of some barracks, she leaned back a bit, looked over at me, and said “This is where they held me,” and pointed at a 3rd floor window. “Right here.”

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Theresienstadt was a former army garrison in Czechoslovakia that the Nazis converted into a “model” concentration camp to fool the Red Cross into thinking that the inmates were being well-treated. Hannelore told me the bunk beds were made of wood, and at night, the bedbugs would literally crawl out of the woodwork to feed on them. She said there were so many of them, you could hear them crawling out of their burrows.

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For all she’s been through, Hannelore remains a sweet, kind, and VERY funny lady, and quite the liberal—not surprising considering her life-story. The last time we spoke was when my father died last year. I can’t help but wonder what she’d think of what’s going on with Israel/Gaza today.

Comments

[Doug Miller]

You are quite a writer; always enjoy your extended pieces. Regarding Theresienstadt, there's an extended section in Herman Wouk's novel War and Remembrance (sequel to Winds of War) set there, with the day to day experiences of the novel's heroine Natalie presented realistically, giving a very thorough impression of how (and why) the camp was run. Not a pleasant experience, but excellently done.