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Interview
with Nathan Weiss
An American soldier fighting in Europe, with the American 3rd
Army, serving under General G. Patton, was too far away at a
given time and place to enable him to save his own family
from extermination at the Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration
Camps.
 May 2007. It was late in the afternoon, in South Florida,
when I first started to take notes at the interview with
Nathan Weiss. We found 2 empty black leather stools at the
bar. The well known steakhouse was packed with people. I
immediately started to ask questions and write the answers
on my pad. The people to my right kept silent for a few
minutes and later introduced themselves and started asking
questions as well---intrigued by Nathan’s stories.
It is true that every Jew has a story to tell. On the one
hand it is easier to be a Jew today than it was years ago,
especially during WWII. Everybody has a relative or friend
that was somehow connected to the Great Holocaust.
Nathan is a complex character. Not only did he have to
survive difficult periods in history, in Romania, Hungary,
France, England, Germany and U.S., but he also had to go
through a special adjustment to produce a family, and
project wealth and prosperity based on his personality.
Nathan was born in New York City, on April 19th,
1922, in the Lower–East side of Manhattan. His father,
Isidore Weiss, was a prosperous businessman, was born in a
small place called Botiz, 6 km, (3 miles from the northern
city of Satu Mare. It was located in Transylvania, the
large province which had just been returned to Romania
proper from the Austro-Hungarian Empire which was defeated
in WWI. The return was sealed by the treaty of Versailles in
1919.
His mother’s name was Gisella Weiss, of Satu Mare. Isidore
and Giselle came to the US alone and separately. They met
and were married in New York. First their daughter,
Margaret was born in 1920, and Nathan was born later.
When they started to settle down, oddly, they decided in
1923 to return to Rumania and resettle in Transylvania at a
time when the flux of immigrants was from Europe to the US.
This had not been a sole family decision, but a wide chorus
of the Weisses who emigrated from the US. Nathan’s
grandfather, on the other side was working for the renowned
Manischewitz plant where he was slightly injured on the job
and received a nice compensation settlement. Perhaps this
was the deciding factor, since this compensation could go a
long way if invested in a distant and slightly hazardous
location, such as the distant frontier that was Satu Mare-Botiz.
Then Isidore, Gisela, 3 year old Margaret and one year old
Nathan (both children now American citizens) returned by
boat from New York to Italy. From Trieste they took the
train to Satu Mare, via Yugoslavia and Romania.
Botiz welcomed the newly arrived Weiss family, and their
capital was immediately put to work into: a grocery store, a
small restaurant (crisma/pop bar) and small investments with
the local peasants. Nathan was attending school in Botiz and
Satu Mare and learning the trade and commercial skills, that
would serve him so well later in life. He especially enjoyed
the time he spent studying at the “Mihail Eminescu” High
School in Satu Mare.
But being in such an advanced school attracted the
authority’s attention in 1938, when Nathan was confronted
with conscription orders into the Romanian Army.
Isidore’s answer to the conscription order was: “He
cannot be conscripted into the Romanian Army because he’s an
American Citizen”. The answer of the Army Office in Satu
Mare was brief” if he’s an American Citizen, send him
back to America”. His father, Isidore, took the new
European geo-political map into consideration, noting
Germany and its leader’s anti-Semitic policy making strong
inroads into Germany, Hungary, Romania, and Poland. Again,
the family decided to liquidate the business in Romania and
try to go back to America. But at this time in history, it
was far more difficult to reach America than in the 1920’s.
For Margaret and Nathan it was easy because they were born
in New York.
When they received an answer from the army, the decision to
return to America was made: Isidore went to Bucharest with
Nathan to secure American passports and entry visas for his
American daughter and son. The reception in the American
Consulate in Bucharest was cordial and they got their papers
within a few days and Isidore purchased 2 one-way tickets in
Bucharest for Margaret and Nathan, sailing from Le Havre
(France) to New York aboard the Queen Mary transatlantic
voyage. The package included the train tickets to Paris,
room and board, until embarking aboard the Queen Mary.
Isidore and Nathan went back to Satu Mare by train. A few
days later, they departed Botiz for the last time. They went
to the city of Cluj, close to the Hungarian border. They
stayed away from Hungary, which was now under General
Horty’s and his pro-Nazi regime’s and government rule. From
Cluj they traveled by road to a point along the Yugoslavian
border. They crossed the border into Yugoslavia at Portile
de Fier.
They had to take a route that would not touch either
Hungarian or German territory. The route continued to Fiume,
Trieste (Italy) and Paris (France).
In Botiz, before leaving the village, Isidore went to a
shoemaker and had a $20 bill inserted into the lining of
Nathan’s shoe, in case of emergency. This bill would
accompany Nathan for many years.
The good-by in Portile de Fier was sad, but short: “We
will follow you, eventually! Have a safe trip and write”!
This was the last time that 18 year-old Margaret and 16
year-old Nathan saw their father.
The family in Romania needed a U.S. affidavit of support
from the family that stayed behind in US. The documents
never came from the US, and the situation in Romania and
Europe deteriorated to beyond any hope of rescuing the Weiss
family.
After changing trains in Yugoslavia, Italy and France, the
Nathan and his sister arrived in Paris at the Garre de Est.
and found their way to the hotel on Rue Budapest, which had
been booked in advance. After eating the prepaid meal
included with their board, they ventured outside to do some
sightseeing of the city, a booming metropolis, which still
wasn’t affected by the not too far off war.
In Paris they presented themselves as Hungarians and not as
Romanian Jews. It was better and safer this way. The two
weeks in Paris that October 1938 went by quickly. They
spent the time strolling through the streets, visiting parks
and some of the museums and writing home. Nathan spoke some
French, which he had learned in High School as well as
Hungarian. The French were aware of the danger Hitler and
the Nazis presented, but they didn’t care too much, at the
time. They weren’t fond of Jews either, so Margaret and
Nathan were discrete about their origin and especially about
their destination.
Time passed by and as scheduled, they boarded a train to Le
Havre for the final stretch of their journey. They had only
two brown wooden suitcases, containing a few clothes, a few
necessities, a few pictures and nothing else. Margaret, the
older one, was the leader, and Nathan followed her
instructions.
With their American passports they had no problem boarding
the Queen Mary to New York as Third Class passengers.
When they arrived in New York’s Ellis Island processing
Point, again they experienced no problems and were released
into the city. Nathan was to stay with an uncle and Margaret
with the Amigo family.
“Everybody in America works. I have two friends, one a
butcher and one a jeweler. Who do you want to go to, to
learn a trade? his uncle asked on the second day they
arrived. Nathan chose the jeweler and this marked the
course of the rest of his life.
In New York, Nathan arrived at his uncle, Adolf Amigo’s
house. He was 16 years and 8 months old. So they asked what
do you want to do? “In this country you have to work”, he
told him.
“Everybody in America works. I have two friends, one a
butcher and one jeweler. To whom you want to go to learn a
trade?” his uncle inquired the second day they arrived.
Nathan chose the jeweler and this marked his entire life. He
chose to be a jeweler. The following Monday, he went to his
new job at a store in
Manhattan on 48th street. The name of the
business was Max Stern & Co.
What was your job there?
My job
was to learn how to set diamonds and color stones and to
repair jewelry. I didn’t get paid for 6 months; nothing, not
a penny. My grandfather, Iszich Weiss was giving me $1 a
week for transportation and my aunt, Hanny would prepare
sandwiches for me. I still had the 20 dollars bill in my
shoe.
After
Nathan finished the training period, he was given a job
making $3 a week. A few months later his salary was raised
to $5 and later to $10 a week.
Were you in contact with the family in Botiz?
My
father and mother in Botiz were giving money to some gentile
people in Botiz. They had relatives in New York and for
about 3-4 months we got money this way. Then the situation
got worse and our parents could not send us any more money.
After working for 6 months, in 1939, I got paid 3 dollars a
week for a period of two years. Later on, I was raised to
making 16 dollars a week. Then, they couldn’t pay me any
more, so I started looking for another job. It was 1941.
The war had
been raging in Europe since 1936, starting with the civil
war in Spain. Officially in Europe WWII started with the
German invasion of Poland on September 1st,
1939; Poland was conquered in a matter of weeks, its army
on the front collapsed against the Germans in the West, and
another front capitulated in the East against the Red Army.
In less than a couple of months, Poland disappeared and was
divided up between Germany and Russia.
In the
spring-summer offensive of 1940, under a Blitz-Krieg, the
entire western front fell into German hands and the
offensive ended with the disastrous retreat at Danquirke,
which saved the core manpower of the English army but left
Europe at the mercy of Hitler and the Nazis.
Romania, in
order to survive and not be conquered as was Poland,
Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia or France, had to make big
concessions: Transylvania (1/3 of Romania’s territory) went
to Horty’s Hungary, Northern Moldavia and Bessarabia went to
the greedy Soviet Union and southern Dobrogea went to a
neutral Bulgaria. Both regimes, the one in Hungary and the
one in Romania were led by strong army generals, allied with
Nazi Germany and its ideology. German discrimination laws
were slowly penetrating both countries, faster and deeper in
Hungary then in Romania, in terms of anti-Semitic sentiment.
The
Transylvanian region was now under the administrative
Hungarian regime rule and was rapidly assimilating the
racist German laws. Its important Jewish community was
suddenly placed in great and ultimately mortal danger. In
the Spring of 1941, after fierce battles, Greece and
Yugoslavia were incorporated into Germany’s Third Reich and
at that time, there were no army forces in the world that
could stop the Nazis.
While
Germany and her new European allies (Italy, Romania,
Hungary) were preparing for the biggest military adventure
ever, the invasion of the Soviet Union, people in the USA
were leading routine relatively peaceful lives, ignorant of
the great tragedies unfolding in the old continent.
www.wikipedia.com
What did you do back then in New York?
The
first day I was out of work, I went to the top of a 40 floor
building, that housed a lot of companies dedicated to the
jewelry business. I worked the building starting at the top
and working my way down, taking the stairs, and on each
floor I stopped in looking for work. After about 3 floors,
I got so much black smoke and dust on my face, clothes and
skin, that I became ill. I went down back the 37 flights of
stairs. The area was dark, I couldn’t see anymore until I
reached the ground level and was able to get out into the
street. I wend straight home.
The
following day, I got up again, and started where I had left
off, on the 37th floor. This time, however, I
was smart and took the elevator to each floor.
It took
me 34 floors to get to the third business. I was already
tired, but I was knocking on the door of a company named
Fishman & Winkler. After I gave them a short resume of
my experience, I was asked if I wanted to work by piece work
or on a salary of $30 a week. I chose to work by piece. By
piece work, I made 75 dollars the first week and stayed on
that job for 2 years, until 1943
The United Sates entered the war a few days after the
December 7th attack on the Pearl Harbor navy
base.
In Europe, the Germans after reaching the outskirts of
Moscow and Stalingrad on the Volga River were starting to be
repelled by the Red Army in 1942-1943, partly fighting with
American hardware.
In Northern Africa, Rommel was the leader and was retreating
after the standoff at El Alamain. In the Pacific, after the
1942 disasters and the loss of the Philippines, the
situation was starting to level off after the main Naval
Battles of the Marianas in June 1942.
The U.S. was rearming at a faster pace than her enemies and
learning from the grave mistakes made at the beginning of
the war. The war in the Atlantic was in the hands of the
German U-boats.
How did you get into the Army?
I think
it was in December 1943. Everybody was enthusiastic about
volunteering. I wanted to get enlisted and I wanted to save
my family in Europe and fight the Germans. I chose the
European theater because of my family’s situation. I went to
the army recruiting center. Having a hernia. I had a small
bump, so when the doctor began examining me, I had to hide
it with my hand so he couldn’t see it. I passed the medical
test.
I was inducted into Camp Upton in New York and then shipped
to Macon, Georgia, to Camp Whaler for basic training. The
first week in camp I went to the hospital to take care of
my hernia. After recuperating, I ended up in a company for
basic instruction: 17 weeks infantry training.
How was the training?
The
training was pretty tough. We used to walk 18-20 miles
carrying field packs and guns. It was difficult for some
guys, but I was in good shape and the training was within my
capacity of tolerance. Sometimes I really liked it. After
almost 5 months we were shipped to Boston to Camp Mile
Standish, to be prepared for deployment overseas to England
in June 1944
By the
time I got to England, the Allies had already debarked in
Normandy and were already entrenched in the Belgium border,
in stabilized defensive lines.
How did you participate in any military action in Europe?
From
England we were redeployed in order to cross the Channel, in
October 1944. We were in the English Channel, and stayed on
the same military transport, because there were too many
boats in front of us and the debarkation process was very
slow. The allies had no deep water ports and all the
processing was done from floating artificial harbors (one
was lost in a terrible storm in late summer of 1944). Caen
port was just conquered and naval engineer teams were
cleaning the harbor that was destroyed by the Germans,
before they retreated to Belgium. We arrived in Le Havre one
week later leaving England. For me, it was a familiar sight:
6 years earlier I had been there, boarding the Queen Marry
on the way to New York. A circle in my life was closing: the
Le Havre circle. Other circles would follow, without my
knowing it at the time.
Describe your experience in Europe.
After we
left the boat, we walked up to the Le Havre Forest and we
pitched tents. There was a forest of tents and logistics
were difficult. We were eating army rations and had no
immediate orders. I was initially assigned on the 22-sd
Infantry Battalion, 6th Division, Third Army,
under Gen. G. Patton. The HQ was in Charles Roy.
In
mid-December 1944, the situation became chaotic, due to the
Ardennes Offensive and the Battle of the Bulge. The thin
American line was overrun by the strong German panzer
offensive. We were shipped to patched the lines already
pierced by the German armor and mechanized infantry.
In the
middle of the night, on that dark and bloody December 1944,
we were rapidly shipped to Belgium, by truck convoy. We
dismounted close to the Belgian border. There, the NCO put
us up on top of homes, in the attics, until we were called
for the first line, as replacements. Mean while I caught
pneumonia and was shipped out to a field hospital. At the
time, German paratroopers took positions close to our
hospital. They were all over the place, shooting at us all
the time. In my platoon we originally had 12 people: eight
got killed in the front line the very first hour of action.
The company commander, a captain, of Jewish origins, got
wounded and was evacuated with me to Paris during the
retreat. Only 3 people from my original platoon survived the
Battle. We got evacuated the same day American defense lines
were broken.
Which was the closest point, geographically, that you came
on the Western front, close to your family?
I think
that the border with Belgium and the battle of the Ardennes
Forest was the closest point I got to my family in Europe.
Without knowing it, they were in the Auschwitz – Birkenau
Concentration Camp. I don’t know if at that time they were
still alive or already dead. We were at about 300 miles
away. I was too far to save them.
We
started the evacuation at night but the train was moving
very slowly. It was moving slowly and was constantly under
attack by German advance units. It took us about one and a
half days to arrive in Paris. They put us out into tents, in
the middle of winter. There was no space on the hospital
floor. We did not know it, but the battle was to be the
bloodiest for the American Expeditionary Corps, with more
than 60,000 dead, 20,000 prisoners and thousand of wounded.
A lot of the wounded were shipped to Paris. I stayed in
Paris for about a week and later when the place became
overcrowded, they flew us back to England. I was
reclassified: from Ground combat Infantry to Signal Corp.
All the wounded people in general, were reclassified.
What was your experience after returning from England?
From
England, the Army shipped us back to Paris. I had to work in
the American Signal Corp HQ, on the Avenue Kleber.
Another circle in my life: the Paris Circle. We were keeping
records of all the signal corp. equipment and messages:
radio communications equipment, logistics, training,
repairs, parts, etc. we had no coding machine. All
communications were on clear, in comparison to the Germans,
that had the latest type of Enigma machines. In other parts
of Paris the Signal Corp were doing some interception and
deciphering of German Signals in Europe.
I worked
at Signal Corp HQ in Paris until the end of the war in
Europe on May 8th, 1945. I was also a mail
distributor. My rank was PFC.
How was Paris, this time around?
We
had a lot of parades and parties. The Americans were
parading. The French were parading. The American, the French
and the English together were parading. The balconies had 2
flags: the German and American flags. Just in case, the
Germans came back again. Whoever was the winner would push
the other one out of the flat. They didn’t know that the war
was really over.
This time
the French were friendlier than before the war and there was
no anti-Semitism. They knew that the Americans saved them
again and were friendly. We were the liberators now! Some
authorities were busy getting the collaborators with the
Nazi and to find out what happened to about 75,000 French
Jews. Their society was shattered and they were trying to
put it back together again.
My day
began at 06.00am. I worked until 5PM. After I finished my
assigned work I went into the city, to restaurants, movies,
living it up and watching life go on around me; the city was
slowly catching up after the war. My permit, as well as of
others in my unit, was until 10PM, when I had to go back to
military quarters, because we were regimented.
What you did then?
All the
time, I had my family’s whereabouts on my mind. After the
war ended I went to a Jewish organization that was tracing
Jews all over Europe. Waiting in line I was asking some
Romanians if they had head about my parents.
I met two
Romanian sisters from Cluj. My buddy and I started to
befriend them. They came to Paris, because another sister
was living in New York, In Schenectady. They were waiting
for their papers to emigrate to the U.S. After a few months
I married one of them, Rosette Meyer, and the other sister
Lily Mayer married my friend.
Tell me how you reunited with your brother.
Mean
while I found out that Allen, my kid brother had survived
the camp. He wrote a letter to my relatives in New York and
they told him that I am in France. My kid brother went back
to Romania and opened a grocery store, on our property in
Botiz.
When the
family was rounded up by the Hungarians they were sent to
concentration camps in Poland, in the concentration camps,
probably in Auschwitz-Birkenau. On the selection ramps, the
men were separated from the women.
My
brother stayed with my father. When the Germans asked if
someone wants to learn a trade, my father pushed him into
the front row. Perhaps this saved him, because he was sent
to the labor camp part of Auschwitz. For my kid brother, on
that infamous train ramp, that was the last time he saw my
father. He worked in the camp kitchen, and this again saved
his life, because he could clean the field kitchens and had
some more food.
A few
days before the Soviets liberated the camp, in January 1945,
he escaped with another group of five prisoners. He was
wounded and when he reached the Soviet lines, luckily, a
Soviet-Jewish officer sent him to a field military hospital.
During his convalesce he become so familiar with the other
soldiers, that was named chief person in charge of
entertainment. After six month in a Russian hospital, he was
able to get a permit to go back to Romania in June 1945. He
did know about me, and he had the address of my uncle in the
U.S. He wrote them, in New York. In Botiz, he was taking
over what the family had left and opened a popular bar, in
Romania, “crisma”.
After I
found out, I started communicating with him, via mail.
“Sell everything and come to Germany” I told him in a
short letter. He could save some documents of the titles of
the home and of the houses and other properties and take the
road to Germany. I told him where to go. I was supposed to
be there, but now I was working for the American War
Department, under a one year civilian employee contract.
He was
waiting for me In a DP Camp (Jewish Deportees Camp). I
could not go to pick him up because he was sick with yellow
jaundice, a liver disease. I sent a friend of mine to
Germany, in a Jeep, to pick him up, with food, money and
clothes. He dressed him in an American uniforms and brought
him back to Paris.
How did you leave Paris for the last time?
I had to
go back to the U.S., because my contract as a civilian
contractor was up. I went back with my wife and left Allen,
my brother my ration card, clothes, food and money. He was
waiting for the paper work to be done, in order to follow
me.
When I
was already in U.S. , he communicated with me that a quota
was open for Canada. “Take it” I told him, with the
idea that Canada is closer to the U.S. than Europe, and
somehow I will find a way to bring him back to New York. He
then went to Canada. He met a fine woman there, got married,
and eventually settled down.
Tell me about why we were so successfully after the war?
Maybe
because some of us (after such a traumatic experience during
the war), got the training to become entrepreneurs, to start
building a business and see an opportunity. Maybe it’s about
seeing a opportunity to start the life anew.
In one of
the photographs, I see Nathan in front of this recently
acquired movie theater on Brandywine Avenue. It was in 1949
and the 600 seats theater was a booming business. It lasted
for five years, until 1954, when the television, just
introduced, was putting many movie cinemas out of the
business and Nathan was forced to sell it. The building is
there to this day, but it is dedicated to something else.
The visit to Rumania and Hungary
In the
autumn of 2007, Nathan and a small group of friends
organized a trip to Hungary and Romania to claim some
property and damages from the Hungarian government.
How was the trip to Hungary and Romania?
I had an
exceptionally nice time on the trip, and especially in
Budapest. You still feel the strong anti-Semitic sentiment
of WWII. I could not stay in Budapest long. After 3 days, a
friend from Romania came with his car to pick me and my
friends up and drove me to Botiz (Satu Mare). We visited
Bucharest, the Black Sea Area, Brashov, Sinaia, The Drakula
castle of Bran, the King’s Palace in Pelesi and of course,
Botiz and Satu Mare.
Did you accomplish anything on your mission, besides
tourism?
Not much.
The Romanian Government told me that I was late to claim any
property in Romanian territory. When I returned to Budapest,
I went to the Holocaust Restitution Organization and they
took notice of my case. They handed me $1,200 for my mother,
killed in the concentration camp. For my sister, they asked
me to produce a birth certificate. I sent a request via the
Romanian Consulate in Washington DC, and they informed me
that this matter will take at least six months to get an
answer.
They also
informed me that they delivered an undisclosed sum of money
to my brother in Canada, for the death of my father.
We
closed the interview, on a sunny day of March 2nd, 2008,
sitting in a restaurant in front of the beautiful sea shore,
in Hollywood, Florida, with another two statements:
1.
That
Israel is strong today and that it can defend itself against
many enemies and eventualities, but unfortunately, the war
and losing lives is a difficult situation.
2.
If you have a problem, I
have two questions, Nathan told me nonchalantly. Can it be
solved? If so, then it is not a problem anymore. If not,
there is a problem.
Meantime
Nathan enjoys every day of his life. He is active, good
spirited and sees each moment as a new life adventure. He
spends time with his family and three grandchildren. He
likes traveling. On his laptops he explores the Internet
every day, for at least 3-4 hours, reading and researching
many topics of interest.
His two
Samoyan dogs, some 10 tropical birds and five beautiful
apple trees wait for him at his residence in Rexford, NY.
...
Hedi Enghelberg
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