The ADL Mountain States Region is pleased to announce that the 2024 Governor’s Holocaust Remembrance Program will feature a talk by Holocaust Survivor Manfred “Manny” Lindenbaum. The program will be held on Wednesday, May 8 at 5:30 pm at Temple Emanuel in Denver with a livestream option. The program will, as always, be free and open to all. Register here.
We recently sat down with Manny to learn about his experiences before, during and after the Shoah. An edited version of that conversation follows.
A Conversation with Holocaust Survivor Manny Lindenbaum
ADL: Tell us about your childhood.
Manny Lindenbaum: I was born in Unna, Germany, in 1932. I had a sister, Ruth, who was eight years older than I, and a brother, Siegfried, who was two years older. My father owned a clothing store, and as Nazism took hold, my father’s business plummeted. There was a big “J” on the window of the store. Our Christian friends seemed to disappear. Siegfried was bullied at school for being Jewish; he was beaten up. When it was time for me to start kindergarten, I was not allowed to go.
ADL: Tell us about fleeing Germany.
Manny: On October 27, 1938, two weeks before Kristallnacht, we were rounded up and the Nazis chased us to Poland. I was six years old. I know that it was Friday night because my grandfather, who was religious, started the Friday night service on the train. We were in Zbaszyn, Poland, for 10 months, and I did not encounter much hostility from the Polish people. We, along with 200 others, were able to find shelter in an abandoned building which had no electricity, heat or other conveniences, including furniture or toilets. Aid organizations, such as the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) and the Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), came from Warsaw to provide relief such as food packages and large cloth bags that we filled with straw to use as mattresses. My mother and sister, along with others, worked with the aid organizations to make sure that the food was distributed equally amongst the refugees.
Ten months later, with the German invasion of Poland imminent, my family rushed to the train station in Zbaszyn intending to flee to the Russian border. My life changed in a moment there, or at least it seemed that way; now I know that these plans must have been in the works for a long time. We got to the train station, and my parents sent Siegfried and me off with a stranger who offered us passage to England on the Kindertransport. My sister, who was 14 years old, had been attending school elsewhere and joined us on the way to the boat. She was supposed to go with us, but the officials refused to let her accompany us, saying she was too old. My sister, with the help of one of the aid organizations, was able to find my parents, but eventually all three of them were deported to Auschwitz, where they were murdered. My brother and I were taken on the last boat out of Poland to England before the Nazis invaded on September 1, 1939.
ADL: What was coming to England like for you?
Manny: I was an angry child and caused trouble when I arrived in England. At that age, you see, I didn’t understand why my parents had given me away, so I was always very angry, very volatile. And my brother and I were separated; I was placed in Christian homes, and he was placed in Jewish homes. The first family I was given to only kept me for 24 hours, and I didn’t last much longer with the second. Finally, I was placed with a family not far from Cambridge, and I lived with them until the end of the war.
I was still very angry, but eventually I settled down. One person who really helped me was the vicar’s wife, who supported me when things were darkest. If I lashed out and ran away, she always found me, took me home, gave me snacks and a warm welcome. From her kindness, I learned that we all have the ability to make a difference.
ADL: What happened after the war ended in 1945?
Manny: At the end of the war, my brother and I were reunited. I was 13 going on 14. I felt I had to make a homeland for the Jewish people, it was not a question, I had to go to a Kibbutz. When I shared my plans with relatives who had gone to Israel, they wrote to me and said, “this is no place for you; you are going to America!” I was able to do that, because my uncle was saved by the Dutch underground and ultimately, he and his wife, my aunt, made their way to America. They bought a chicken farm in Farmingdale, NJ, and I went to live with them. My brother was very studious and so he went to college and graduate school at Rutgers, earned a Ph.D. and went to work for the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. He ended up in Kansas, teaching at the University of Kansas until his death in 1993.
ADL: What have you been up to since?
Manny: Volunteering was always important to me, I felt I had to justify being alive while my sister was murdered, and work in her memory. I have volunteered in many areas over the course of my life, from volunteering in prisons promoting alternatives to violence, to starting Jewish Family Service for our Jewish Federation, to helping clean up the Hudson River. I also helped refuseniks (Russian Jews who were prevented from leaving Russia) to come to America, and helped them once they arrived. When I was younger, I traveled all over the world with my wife Annabel. We were part of the crew on a ship and volunteered for six months on a kibbutz in Israel.
Annabel and I have lived in the same house in New Jersey for 60 years. We now have three children, eight grandchildren, and nine great-grandchildren. I continue to volunteer for HIAS, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society that offered me help when I was a child, and to advocate for other refugee children, especially those who have been separated from their parents at the Mexican border. My heart goes out to them because I was once the same.
ADL: What would you like to tell our readers?
Manny: We need to reach out to those who are in distress. We have to support Israel; we have to be there for the Jewish homeland. We need to be conscious that all mothers mourn, Jewish or otherwise. We have a responsibility to help all people.