November 22, 2002

"I'm going back to school anyway," said Kalinowski. "I plan on pursuing other avenues. Maybe I'll be back next semester." While having a reception of their own, the December graduates are invited to participate in the formal commencement in May. The number that attend varies from year to year.

"We never know until the last minute," said Mansfield. "At least half come, but it varies. There are always some who can't come back." As for Beals, the decision has already been made. "I'm walking in May," she said.
Kalinowski has not decided. "When the time gets close, I will make the decision,” he said. “My job may call me away."

"We are grateful to provide the experience to people," said Mansfield. "It is appreciated by many."

"It's not as extravagant," said Beals. "It offers us an opportunity to get a job. If we waited until May, it puts us six months behind in getting out into the real world. Overall, I think it's a good idea."

Kristallnacht survivor speaks about his journey

Photo by BLADEN FINCH Kristallnacht survivor Hanns Loewenbach tells Wesleyan students of his escape from a Jewish transport train in Nazi Germany.

"I'm a witness to the trials that the world will never forget . . . that I survived was plain luck," said Hanns Loewenbach, Kristallnacht survivor. Loewenbach spoke in Boyd Dining Hall on Tuesday, Nov. 5, about his experiences growing up in Nazi Germany. In 1914, when the Jewish community made up only 1 percent of the German population, Loewenbach began experiencing prejudice from fellow classmates.

"Every morning boys beat me up. When I complained to my father he was not able to understand it," he said, still emotional over the incidents. Things did not improve upon his entrance into high school. Blame was being placed on the Jewish community for losing the war.

"In history class, even the teacher mentioned that it was a Jewish conspiracy that made us lose the war. I could not wait to finish school so I could go to college so as not to experience this kind of life,” Loewenbach said. Regulations prohibited Jews from attending college or working for the government, thereby placing them under what Loewenbach described as a dictatorship. On April 1, 1934, all Jewish stores were boycotted, which resulted in their going out of business.

"This was the beginning, that you started to feel really insecure being a Jew in Germany," Loewenbach said. Then the unimaginable happened. "In Feb. of 1934, my sister, my parents and myself were sitting in the living room eating when there was a knock on the door. Two uniformed men came in and told my father that they had to go to the police station to clear something up. . . He never came back."

In 1937, Loewenbach received a letter ordering him to go to the police station to pick up his father, but when he got there he noticed that there were about 20 other Jewish boys his age waiting. "I knew I'd made a mistake," he said. "I promised myself that I would not go with them, wherever they took me." They made all of the men get on a truck, and when he had the chance, he jumped out and ran into the crowd of people so the guards wouldn't be able to shoot him.

This turned out to be the best thing he could have done. "When you are young, you do a lot of things that turn out to be the right thing," he said proudly. While he was on the run, he spent every night sleeping in new places, some Jewish and some not. "It was a very insecure feeling to run and run," he said. Loewenbach made several attempts to get out of Berlin. On one occasion he tried to swim from Berlin to Denmark. He managed to make it to the beach but was greeted by a police officer who told him he couldn't be there, so he swam back.

On July 1, 1938, President Franklin Roosevelt held a conference on how to get Jews to other countries. When Hitler heard about this, he said that he didn't want anything to do with the Jews and that they could take them. "But nobody wanted to take us. This was the most depressing thing I experienced," Loewenbach said. "We couldn't go to movies. We couldn't go to parks. On the benches were written 'no Jews allowed.'" On Nov. 1, Loewenbach was sitting on one of these benches when he was approached by an S.S. officer with whom he had gone to school. The officer asked why he was still in Germany and whether he knew what they had in store for his people.

"I looked up at this man that I went to school with for nine years and I didn't see hate there," Loewenbach said. "I saw a human being." The officer told him that he would get him a passport if he gave him two pictures in return. Loewenbach said that despite his initial skepticism, he brought the pictures and received the promised passport. Loewenbach also recalled an event on Nov. 9, on a street in Berlin. "All of a sudden, at 6 o'clock, I never will forget, a truck of civilians came and threw firearms into the synagogue. This group of human beings watched, smiled partly, as women and children were standing on sidewalks in nightgowns while the men were marched to police stations."

That night is known as Kristallnacht, or the Night of the Broken Glass. More than 7,000 stores were destroyed and 267 synagogues were burned. 100 Jews were killed in the open and about 30,000 were marched to police stations, then sent to concentration camps. The next day, the Jewish community that was left was forced to pay $1 million for the damages caused that night.

After Kristallnacht, Loewenbach moved to Italy and then later spent some time in Shanghai. He then ended up moving to America to serve in the Army. When asked if he has ever been back to Berlin, Loewenbach said, "I have been back quite often to Berlin. The first year when I came back to Germany I was not able to speak German. Not that I forgot the language, I was just not able to speak it."

Loewenbach then tells of a time when he was visiting Berlin and he sat down next to a woman with a baby. The woman said to him, "You know, you look like a German Jew who came back to Germany and hates it." Loewenbach only said in return, "You're absolutely right."

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