Rebuilt from Broken Glass: A German Jewish Life Remade in America

Shofar Supplements in Jewish Studies

by Fred Behrend, Larry Hanover, Hasia R. Diner (Introduction)

Symbolized by a three-hundred-year-old Seder plate, the religious life of Fred Behrend's family had centered largely around Passover and the tale of the Jewish people's exodus from tyranny. When the Nazis came to power, the wide-eyed boy and his family found themselves living a twentieth-century version of that exodus, escaping oppression and persecution in Germany for Cuba and ultimately a life of freedom and happiness in the United States. Behrend's childhood came to a crashing end with Kristallnacht (the Night of Broken Glass) and his father's harrowing internment at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. But he would not be defined by these harrowing circumstances. Behrend would go on to experience brushes with history involving the defeated Germans. By the age of twenty, he had run a POW camp full of Nazis, been an instructor in a program aimed at denazifying specially selected prisoners, and been assigned by the U.S. Army to watch over Wernher von Braun, the designer of the V-2 rocket that terrorized Europe and later chief architect of the Saturn V rocket that sent Americans to the moon. Behrend went from a sheltered life of wealth in a long-gone, old-world Germany, dwelling in the gilded compound once belonging to the manufacturer of the zeppelin airships, to a poor Jewish immigrant in New York City learning English from Humphrey Bogart films. Upon returning from service in the U.S. Army, he rose out of poverty, built a successful business in Manhattan, and returned to visit Germany a dozen times, giving him unique perspective into Germany's attempts to surmount its Nazi past.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Memoir

232 pages, Hardcover

Published July 15, 2017

Reviews

[Regina Grobman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rebuilt from Broken Glass

I gave this a five star rating because I thought it would be a straightforward history book similar to those previously read. So wrong! It was difficult to put the book down as I kept learning new information. A true page turner as the saying goes.
Thank you Mr Behrend for sharing yourself story. Shalom.

[Ellen Sue · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fred (Fritz) Behrend’s childhood came to an abrupt end on November 9-10, 1938, one week after his 12th birthday. On that night was Kristallnacht, translated from the German as Night of Broken Glass. On that night, the Nazis destroyed or burned 267 synagogues, 7,500 Jewish businesses, and killed dozens of Jews (Source: US Holocaust Memorial Museum) in retaliation of one Jewish young man’s shooting of a clerk in the office where 12,000 Polish Jews living in Germany were to be deported.

What followed was the nightmare of fear by all German Jews, who considered themselves Germans first and Jews second, except by the Nazis. Fred and his family fled to the USA via Cuba and rebuilt their lives with thousands of others who escaped Hitler’s “Jewish Solution.”

The book is therefore not about the horrors of the Holocaust, but the personal story of an immigrant family’s life in Washington Heights and the Upper West Side, sections of New York City where many German Jews fled to safety. The book chronicles Fred’s fascinating life and also includes a history of his family and of the war. As German was his native language, when he was in the US Army, Fred did translations and also taught democracy to German POWs before they were returned home. He also worked on the early space projects.

This powerful book subtitled “A German Jewish Life Remade in America” and co-authored by Larry Hanover, who encouraged Fred to write this memoir as a legacy for his family and the general public, is both educational and inspirational and has relevance today because of the immigration problems we are now facing.

Fred’s memoir is written from his heart and from a viewpoint of optimism he learned from his father, who was held for a few weeks in a German concentration camp before being forced to leave all behind in order to escape facing death, if his family stayed in Germany. Their difficult “Exodus” and resettlement to the strange, new world of the United States was not easy (anti-semitism did not disappear when the war ended) but living free in the US was their reward.

The book is written clearly and carefully, and includes historical highlights during Fred's interesting life, providing information about events in mid- 20th century. The reader will find Fred's story uplifting and enjoyable, despite his family's hardships, because they overcame them and cerated a good life in America.

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very artfully written memoir, charming and engaging, so much packed into this slim volume.

Page 142
"The difficult part to understand, however, is why Germans went along with the Nazis' thuggery and discriminatory tactics. . . . Germans were followers. . . When someone told them what to do in a loud enough voice, they would click their heels, stand at attention, and do what they were told. They were very much influenced by authority. They would never think of even questioning why they should do something. . . "

Around the world in 2020, 2021, 2022, people were beaten by "authorities" literally and figuratively, if they did not do what they were told.

[Suzanne E. Chisum · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting

This is an interesting and educational book about a time that should never be forgotten, whether Christian or Jew or Buddhist. I would suggest reading the introduction at the end of reading the book.

[Suzan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Written by a family friend, I learned a great deal about his life as a German refugee in America.