Fern Schumer Chapman's Blog

Local news article about the Kristallnacht ceremony in Münzenberg. Here is the translation:No “one-size-fits-all” approach: This year’s commemoration by the town of Münzenberg and the Friends of Münzenberg Castle and Town was anything but an automated, perfunctory event. The focus this year was on the eventful life of Gerda Katz, a resident of Münzenberg who had to flee the Nazis in 1938 – a commemoration poised between hope, loss, and historical responsibility. Gerda Frumkin, née Katz, fled Nazi terror to the USA at the age of 12. During the voyage, she met her future best friend, Edith Westerfeld from Stockstadt, only to lose touch with her again after arriving in the USA – for 72 years. Westerfeld’s daughter, Fern Schumer Chapman, wrote a book about her mother’s escape and mentioned her lost friend from Münzenberg. Following a school event, the students were so moved by the account that they began researching. With success. The two now elderly women were reunited in 2011. Their contact has never been broken since.Petra and Uwe Müller (Friends of Münzenberg Castle and Town) explored the fate of Gerda Frumkin, née Katz, at the memorial event. Particularly moving was Petra Müller’s reading of Gerda’s passages in the first person, creating a personal connection to Gerda Frumkin that would otherwise have been impossible. The presentation was based on the book “THREE STARS IN THE NIGHT SKY: A REFUGEE FAMILY’S ODYSSEY OF SEPARATION AND REUNION,” published by Fern Schumer Chapman in 2018.At the beginning of the memorial event, the attendees experienced a particularly emotional moment. Ann Sherman and Fern Schumer Chapman, the daughters of Gerda Katz and Edith Westerfeld, joined via video link as guests of honor. Chapman and Sherman were deeply moved that the memory of their mothers, and of the countless other Jewish victims of Nazi terror, is still being kept alive.“Personal contact helps us understand that we are not talking about distant historical events, but that we are remembering people. People who laughed, cried, and lived—just like us,” said Mayor Dr. Isabell Tammer in her address.Alexander Füller was responsible for the sophisticated and complex technology used for the video link across the Atlantic. Reiner Mohr and Angelika Herrmann provided the musical accompaniment, perfectly tailored to each part of the event. “We would like to express our sincere gratitude to everyone involved for their tremendous support in preparing and carrying out this year’s commemoration,” said Uwe Müller (Chairman of the Friends of Münzenberg Castle and Town Association).The Old Synagogue Cultural Center was packed. This impressively demonstrated how important it was for the residents of Münzenberg to send a message against antisemitism and racism, and in support of a free and democratic society. Numerous attendees approached Petra and Uwe Müller after the event, some visibly moved, to thank them for the evening. The participation of author Fern Schumer Chapman and Gerda Katz’s daughter was something very special.#HolocaustRemembrance #HolocaustRemembrance #holocausthistory #HolocaustMemory #stockstadtamrhein

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Becoming estranged from a sibling can be devastating, even when it also brings a sense of relief. Here’s why it happens, and whether you should reconcile—or not.

 

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One of the most frequent risk factors for sibling estrangement is a family member who has narcissistic personality  traits. That person may not be diagnosed with the full-blown disorder; they may simply display some of the characteristics.

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The Kristallnacht Commemoration in Münzenberg was held in the old synagogue yesterday. Its history reflects shifting attitudes towards Jews in Germany.

For ninety years — 1848 to 1938 — six Jewish families who lived in Münzenberg, including Gerda Katz, worshipped in the small, two-story synagogue in the center of the city, near the Lutheran church.

But on Kristallnacht, Nazis smashed the synagogue’s door and threw benches and Jewish artifacts out the building’s windows. Nazis burned the treasured Torah scrolls. However, Nazis didn’t burn down the building, fearing that neighboring houses could catch fire.

After Kristallnacht, two Jewish families were able to flee the country, but the others didn’t have a place to go or they couldn’t get the necessary papers to leave. Eventually, they were sent to concentration camps where Nazis murdered members of those Münzenberg families.

In 1952, the city of Münzenberg bought the old synagogue and converted it into a fire station. Workers removed the round arched windows that identified the building as a synagogue and installed a garage door and a false concrete ceiling. The building served the fire brigade until 2005, when the station moved to a new location. Then, the community debated what to do with the old building.

Before World War II, 2,800 synagogues dotted Germany; now, only 130 remain. In the last few decades, Germans have restored many of the synagogues that survived Kristallnacht.

After much debate, the city council decided to spend 475,000 euros of public and private money to restore the exterior of the old synagogue to its original state. In 2009, the building was reopened as a living monument to the Jews who once lived in the city and as a cultural center for the current residents of Münzenberg.

 

Excerpted from my book, Three Stars in the Night Sky.

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Organizers of today’s Kristallnacht Commemoration event in Münzenberg, Germany sent me this photo and description of Gerda Katz’s home and town in 1938: “Street view of the Steinweg with the home of the Albert Katz family (second house on the left, with the large courtyard gate). Notably, this house – unlike most of the neighboring buildings – does not display a Nazi flag. The photograph poignantly documents everyday life and the exclusion of Jewish families in Nazi Germany.”Gerda (my mother’s best friend on the ship from Germany to America — and another unaccompanied minor) told me in Three Stars in the Night Sky: “I was always afraid as a child. We had bad words written on our home, and the Nazis in brown shirts would march through the town. Jewish people — even my father and two brothers — were being picked up and released. But some never came back.” — including one of Gerda’s brothers.First day of school photo of Gerda. She is in the center in the second row.

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Frankfurter Neue Presse announcement of Kristallnacht event remembering Gerda Katz in MünzenbergThe Münzenberg town administration announces a memorial event on November 9th.“I used to climb to the top of the tower and roll down steep hills. It drove my parents crazy.” These are the memories of a young woman from Münzenberg of her idyllic childhood. What followed was horrific: Gerda Katz had to leave her home at just 13 years old, fleeing Nazi terror to the USA in 1938. Her life, a story of hope and loss, is the focus of the memorial service commemorating Kristallnacht, organized by the town of Münzenberg in conjunction with the Friends of Münzenberg Castle and Town Association. The event will take place on Sunday, November 9th, at 6:00 p.m. at the Old Synagogue Cultural Center, Junkernhof 14, in Münzenberg. Doors open at 5:30 p.m.Introductory remarks by Mayor Dr. Isabell Tammer, Petra and Uwe Müller (Friends of Münzenberg Castle and Town Association) will explore the fate of Gerda Frumkin, née Katz. The presentation will be based on the book “Three Stars in the Night Sky: A Refugee Family’s Separation and Reunion” by Fern Schumer Chapman, published in 2018. Musical accompaniment will be provided by Reiner Mohr and Angelika Herrmann.By focusing on the life of a resident of Münzenberg, the organizers aim to highlight how fragile social life was, even in a small town like Münzenberg, during the Nazi era. There is a real fear that this could happen again today. The Friends of Münzenberg Castle and Town Association and the town itself are committed to countering this threat. “We hope for the participation of as many Münzenberg residents as possible, so that together we can send a message in support of our free and democratic society, against hatred and incitement,” explained Mayor Tammer and Uwe Müller, Chairman of the Friends of Münzenberg Castle and Town Association.

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A childhood trauma response that leads to estranging family and ourselves.Fawning, a trauma response learned in childhood, can lead to quiet estrangements from family and one’s self.Fawners’ relationships are performative, not genuine connection, so fawners often feel unseen and unheard.People-pleasing is a learned strategy or a conscious choice, while fawning is a survival mechanism.

 

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/brothers-sisters-strangers/202510/how-fawning-fosters-distance-in-adult-relationships

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My (half) brother is 11 years older than me and in his mid 30s. I just blocked his number.

When I was 11 he started a relationship with a woman who would become his ex wife and had multiple kids with her. This relationship was a slow decent for him as a person, as he faced close to 15 years of slow narcissistic abuse from a woman who is clearly out of touch with reality. My parents enabled the situation financially, while silmiltaneously being driven out his life. When he was divorcing her I uprooted my life multiple times to move back to my home state to try to provide a stable influence for my neices until he was in a better position.

He told us to warn him if he ever found himself in this type of situation again, because me and my parents didn’t fully express our concerns about his ex wife at the time.

Recently, my brother has decided to remarry, and I told him my personal concerns (after his future wife initated a family meeting). Resulting in her uninviting me to their wedding for being ‘unsupportive’. (I never told them not to get married. I said maybe they should think about it some more because the relationship was only 8 months old, and they had broken up 5+ times already). My parents thought it was unreasonable to uninvite me and after having a seperate meeting to discuss, his future wife says awful things about me and my parents while my brother didn’t react at all. This resulted in my parents coming to the same conclusion as I have that he actually hates us as people and we need to segregate ourselves from it. It’s very strange because it’s like no one in my family is actually mad over any of this. I don’t even think my brother is mad from this event and told me I have valid concerns.

But it seems he has rewritten history and perpetuates his own victimhood of his life by blaming our parents for every grievence in his life and he holds great resentment towards me. He allows his partners in his life to be a metaphorical mouthpiece for how he actually views his family. This seems so strange to me, because I don’t discredit that there are struggles from childhood, but everyone has things about their parents they dislike. It feels like I moved past these things to have a normal healthy relationship with my parents, and he just doesn’t seem to be able to. And like objectively I don’t think our childhood was that bad. And if anything, how he’s raising his kids is a whole lot worse than what me and my brother went through so I don’t fully understand his complaints. Also he’s almost 40, and idk to me it seems strange to blame your parents for the decisions and choices you make as an adult.

My family (cousins) has a pattern of this type of dynamic where a more chaotic older sibling will segregate themselves and intentionally choose suffering, while a younger more “successful” sibling will achieve status markers ie obtaining education or general self sufficiency.

What makes this hard for me, is everything seemed to be going pretty well. My brother seemed to just come back from his last relationship and was doing well. And then it’s like he gets in a relationship and a switch flipped with them and he hates me again. He constantly views my family as having favoritism towards me, while discounting the amount of resources my parents have actually invested in him over the years. I think he has internalized resentment towards me partially because I am my dad’s biological child and my dad ‘only’ adopted him when he was 5. This has never made me view him as less of a sibling. And I refer to him as my brother, not my half brother. And my dad views him as his son. I feel like my brother constantly minimizes and diminished any accomplishments or successes I have had in my own life, but the expectation is there to celebrate even the minor ones of his. This seemed to consistently happen when I lived out of state and my parents would have to miss out on key hallmarkers of my life, or cut their trip short to deal with my brother’s immediate emergencies he found himself in. I feel like he fails to see the actual work and dedication I have put into my life to get to the position I’ve been in, and instead views everything as being handed to me. When I know he’s just projecting his own insecurities on his lack of drive and determination on me.

I think it is a blessing that this family meeting occured because it seemed to be the final push my parents needed to segregate themselves from him. They refuse to watch him go through another abusive relationship that he seems to be choosing for himself. It has felt like he has constantly guilt triped or manipulated us. For years it’s as if we have held up a one sided relationship where we have to drop everything to deal with an arbitrary emergency that he has created for himself that he refuses to take accountability on. It bothered me to watch my parents suffer. It bothered me to watch my brother suffer. It botherd me to watch his kids suffer, as he uses them as some bargining chip to hold my parents hostage with. Retrospectively, it bothers me that I wasted so much of my time and energy trying to help him for him to just objectively hate me.
I am to the point I no longer have a brother. I cannot maintain a one sided relationship with a person who is jealous of me out of obligation. I refuse to allow him to dictate to me what it means to make a moral decision for myself, when he is spineless and lacks conviction and lies and steals from me. Reguarding his certifiably insane and unreasonable women he associates with I have adopted the mindset that I do not negotiate with terrorists. As in I refuse to allow someone who bipasses logical reason to dictate the actions I’m going to take.

I feel like blocking his number was the right move for me. Because I know he shares all the conversations I’ve had in private with him with his women. And I doubt at this point I’m even hearing from him and not his future wife via the texts we’ve exchanged. If he was that concerned, he could track me down. But for the forseeable future I do not want to talk to him. (Not that I talked to him much before outside of friendly conversation).
I feel like he can parade around as a normal person when he is single and involved in religion. But I wonder if that’s even the real him at this point or a facade he made up. I also wonder if this wasn’t some intentional ploy to get us to remove ourselves from his life, or to blame me for this or something. I feel like his future wife is intimidated by me, and my brother’s silence-means-compliance type of support for a woman to talk rudely/inappropriately to both me and my parents hurts. His future wife is estranged from her own family, so objectively I don’t even care what they do. But if you break up with someone multiple times, perhaps your subconcious is trying to tell you something? And I honestly did want to look out for her interest in this potential union too. And I wouldn’t have said anything, but I feel calling a family meeting denotes a solicitation for input. I try to ration their behavior but it fundamentally makes no sense to me. If you didn’t want me to go to your wedding, you could have just told me, or just go elope. But it almost seems like this entire argument was staged to try to alienate me from my family, and when that didn’t work and my parents actually supported my viewpoint, it switched to being how we’ve never been supportive in his life, all coming from his future wives mouth. Because my brother didn’t actually say anything. But he obviously must support this message his woman is saying to stand by and let it happen. It’s almost like he wants this or just constantly has zero reguard for anyone else but himself.

Don’t get me wrong, I am really grateful I had the opportunity to be his sibling. I think it’s wonderful in someways the cultural influence he’s had on me. But in someways I feel horrible because I feel responsible for like ruining his life, because you can tell he’s using this as internal justification that my parents favor me over him for not supporting him diving into another abusive relationship with a woman who’s unreasonable.

These are my questions:

Should I get rid of objects gifts etc that remind me of him?

There’s a possibility (in my opinion) the path he’s going down leads to his eventual death or imprisonment. How do I reconcile my conflicting feelings. Or how do I come to terms with the idea that I have to cut him off for my own wellbeing (and in someways it’s the loving thing to do for him because he has free will to do what he’s doing and I respect his free will), while also not regretting that this is really quite possibly the last time I’ll ever interact with him before he dies?

How do I make the hoildays upbeat when he’s no longer going to be apart of them?

How do I bring up the topic of my brother to future romantic interests? I’m kinda nervous about it. Do I leave it at a simple we don’t talk. Do I just pretend he’s never existed in my life? It frustrates me because I had about a year long window when my brother was in between his relationships where I thought maybe I could see him integrated into my life in a healthy way again. And it’s just obvious that door is permanently shut now, as it should be. It’s beyond the stage of just set healthy boundaries, or maybe you’ll meet back up one day. I can’t stop him from perpetuating his own victimhood and I refuse to be apart of it. And honestly my life is a lot better when his chaos tornado isn’t a part of it.

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New pyschologytoday.com blog post shows how dysfunctional emotional and behavioral patterns established in the family of origin often resurface in intimate bonds outside the family.

 

KEY POINTSIndividuals bring unresolved issues into new relationships, re‐creating patterns from their family of origin.Children who feel their parents or siblings rejected them often misread emotional cues.Adults who didn’t learn communication skills as children often estrange themselves rather than resolve issues.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/bl...

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When my book, Brothers, Sisters, Strangers: Sibling Estrangement and the Road to Reconciliation, was released in 2021, the editorial board at my publishing house debated whether to use the word “estrangement” in the subtitle. That word was not widely used at that time, and editors feared that potential readers would be confused and put off by the term.

Now, in just four years, the word “estrangement” is everywhere – so much so that some have called the phenomenon a kind of “Me Too” movement.

What has changed?

A new book, Forget Them Kids: Challenging the One-Sided Narrative of the Estrangement Epidemic and the Biased Therapy Trends That Fuel it, claims that two of the most prevalent factors driving the trend are the changing approaches of young therapists and the influence of internet culture.

 

 

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