Fritz-Sichel

by Frank M. Roberts

July 2016

Fritz Sichel - he Americanized his name to Fred - was a succesful attorney in New York City. In school we were not particularly close, but we were good friends. He had to leave his friends in his home country, as well as some members of his family.

I was inspired to remember my classmate after reading a beautifully written column in the Suffolk, VA. News Herald about Elie Wiesel, who died recently. He was the famed Holocaust historian. The column was penned by Dr. Thurman Hayes, senior pastor of First Baptist Church. I began to reminisce about Fred. In later years we corresponded. He died two years ago. He had a succesful life in his late teens, and later as an attorney, but a frightening life when he was a Jewish boy in Nazi Germany.

He began school in the U. S. in the ninth grade and, in spite of his handicap of learning a new language, he became active in school events and, in his junior year was elected vice-president of the Student Council. In his senior year, he was elected president. He was friendly enough, but no social butterfly. He did admit to having a crush on Diane, one of our class beauties.

The highlight of his young life in the residential section of Berlin was April 15, 1939 when the family's travel permit arrived but, before they could leave the angry country they were put thru what can be called mental anguish. It began when the doorbell rang, frightening because it was not just three rings, meaning it was not a family member or a friend.

Fred answered the door - the man rushed around the house until he found Fred's father. "He snatched my father's wrist and uttered - you are under arrest."

It was then, the teenager said, "that I realized that the Gestapo had gotten hold of us. My mother entered the room and was placed under arrest, also. I was instructed to stay home with the servant. The arresting officer was a Commissioner Schrader.

"The first step I took was to call on my grandfather so that he could obtain a lawyer and take other essential precautions." Later, Fred learned that his parents would be away from home for a few days. Imagine, if you can, that members of your family were arrested for no reason - and you have no idea when you would see them again.

Meanwhile, the Sichel home was searched to see if the family possessed unpermitted items like weapons, jewelry, gold, silver, or other materials which they would have to give up to the German government under compulsion. Fred remembered that in some cases the men who searched homes would plant forbidden articles to force the suspect into guilt. Law and order in Nazi Germany.

Later, Commissioner Schrader once again visited the Sichel home to find a vault. Their suspicions grew after they found a key. "Our maid and I were incessantly plied with questions. I tried to provide a plausible explanation (about the key), but without success," Fred remembered and, he remembered the fright he felt that he would be punished, or ordered to be sent to an institution.

"All documents and articles of value which were discovered, were confiscated," the young teener said. "When they arrived in our maid's room, decorated in the Catholic faith with holy altars and pictures, the Gestapo suddenly did not desire to search her room. Maybe they felt timidity toward something they knew they could not conquer."

Day after day he was followed by agents of the Gestapo so, "I watched my step and associated only with my grandfather and close friends. After five days, my mother was released - my father was still held in custody. Later, I was told that an employee (of his father) who belonged to the National Socialist Party had denounced my father to the Gestapo." (A case of a brat trying to score points).

As a result of the denunciation, a microphone was put in the speaker of the family telephone. It enabled the Gestapo to overhear a phone call from England in which there was conversation about the family's plan to journey out of Germany. "Their suspicion of us increased to such an extent that they found it necessary to keep my father under arrest for some time," Fred recalled. "Of course, he would be guilty of no crime whatsoever in a democracy, but in this totalitarian state the very fact alone that he was of the Jewish faith counted against him severely and left no doubt of his guilt."

His father was imprisoned for six months. His mother finally arranged for his release. "He was perfectly innocent, and no attempts had been made to bring him to trial, so his imprisonment had been for no reason at all.

"When my father was free again, every endeavor had been made to escape from the country," Fred said. During that time, war had broken out, so the permit to go to England was useless. "No other country in Europe was open to us, and we had no papers for any nation. Our last chance was the United States of America, for which he had an affidavit. The only obstacle was that not until February, 1940 (this was a year after the first Gestapo visit) would our quota number become valid."

Smilingly, my friend recalled that, "after tedious waiting, the time arrived when we were notified by the American consul that our quota number had become legal."

He didn't go into detail but noted, "you probably wonder how we were ever able to receive all our requisite papers in spite of the German impediment. Well, there were persuasive methods for which almost any German what do what you desired him to do, so long as his superior did not obtain knowledge of the matter." (In other words, the s.o.b's had zero conscience - even against their own government).

A year later he was on board the S. S. Manhattan - bound for the U. S. A. Manhattan. "My family and I were getting farther away from all the horrors of Germany. We arrived in the United States - a country where we did not have to be terrified whenever the doorbell rang," Fred remembered. "Our journey for freedom has ended - our goal of liberty has been reached in exultation."

He likens their lives to the Biblical story about the children of God who were in bondage under Pharaoh. "In Pharaoh's time God opened the Red Sea to His believing children, a passage to the land of milk and honey." When he wrote his story, Fred noted, "He will again show us a Red Sea as a path for his people toward a safe and secure refuge."

* * * *

As you probably figured out, the Sichel family was fairly well off. When he wrote the above, Fred noted that there were still millions of people in Europe who were facing horrors, "which Americans can not even dream of." He admitted, "this little episode of my life cannot be compared, by any stretch of the imagination to the killing and slaughtering by the German machine of the people of Europe. I, myself, have seen personal friends and relatives taken to the Ghettos in Poland, later to receive word that they were shot, or even burned alive.

In his column, Rev. Hayes recalls Wiesel telling about being loaded into a cattle car with his family and taken to the Buchenwald concentration camp. "Elie watched as his mother and his little sister were separated from him and sent to the ovens. His last image of them was of his mother stroking the hair of his little sister." He adds, "never shall I forget the faces of the little children whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke."

* * * *

After writing the above, I found a letter Fred wrote to me about two years ago. He writes about one of our classmates, Barbara Markel, who married a colleague of his. Then, he writes this - a little scarey: "I lost my wife in 1995 and have never gotten over it. I work harder now to keep myself occupied." (He was retired by then). He closed his letter with this, all in capital letters: "An old man is wise if he does not take a wife!! Best regards, Fred." He lived on West 85th Street. Our school, Bentley, was on West 86th Street.

* * *

Even today, there are still some heartless idiots who see Hitler as a hero. Let them read the current issue of the American Legion Magazine, about the millions of Soviet Jews who perished in eastern Europe. The story tells about Holocaust memorials and rememberances.

One more thing: Learn about the gospel singing family, The Isaacs - what the Nazi's put them thru and how they were saved in more ways than one. Listen to their music, paying special attention to their lyrics. And, you can catch them on several Bill Gaither programs. I had the pleasure of meeting them when they were in concert in Chocowinity, N. C.