Holocaust Speaker Series: Steve Wasserman

Debbie Leffler’s parents and grandmother were Holocaust survivors who tried to stay one step ahead of the Nazis.

Debbie’s mother, Helga, was born in Essen, Germany. Helga’s family moved to Amsterdam to aboud the Nazis, but their new lives there were interrupted in 1940 by the Nazi occupation.

Debbie’s father, Erich, was born in Vienna, Austria. His family moved to Belgium where their lives were also interrupted when Belgium was occupied by the Nazis in 1940. Miraculously, Helga, Helga’s mother and Erich survived the camps, but they lost most of their family members in the Holocaust.

Helga and Erich met in New York City after the war. They married and had three children. They did not speak about their experinces to their children; instead, their strategy was to go on with their lives and raise a family. Eric, changed from Erich, made fine jewelry at this workbench for many years, while Helga went on to become a Reform Rabbi. She was ordained through Hebrew Union College in New York City in 2000, at age 67.

The Holocaust Speaker Series is held each Wednesday at 11 a.m. on Zoom. The series is sponsored by Margaret & Michael Valentine in partnership with the Harriet and Kenneth Kupferberg Holocaust Center and the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage.

Dan Otteinheimer tells the story of his father, Fritz Ottenheimer. Fritz was born in 1925 in Konstanz, Germany — a large town with a population of around 40,000. When Hitler came to power in 1933, Fritz and his family were forced to endure increasing anti-Jewish propaganda, discrimination and persecution. In November of 1938, Fritz witnessed his father’s arrest, on what is now known as Kristallnacht, or the “night of broken glass” when around 30,000 innocent Jewish men were taken to concentration camps.

After his father’s release from the Dachau concentration camp, Fritz, now 14 years old, and his family immigrated to the U.S.

After graduating from high school in New York in 1944, Fritz volunteered to become part of the U.S. Army. He was delpoyed to Germany in 1945, and served in units that aided in the “de-Nazification” process of his home country. When the war ended, Fritz returned to the U.S., got a degree in Industrial Engineering, and eventually settled in Pittsburgh, PA.

Dan, Fritz’s son, was born in Pittsburgh in 1957. As a child, thanks to the influence of his father, Dan loved the outdoors — most notably hiking, camping, biking and caving (one of his father’s hobbies as well).

Dan moved to Boston in the 1970’s to attend college. He remained there and worked at several software companies until he retired in 2016. In 2019, two years after his father passed away, Dan began to speak in the Boston area about his father’s experiences in Germany. In 2021, Dan joined the Generations Speakers Bureau at the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh, speaking virtually to schools and organizations in the Pittsburgh area.

In his talks, Dan tells his father’s stories about growing up as a Jewish child in Nazi Germany, and about his father’s return to Germany as a soldier in the U.S. Army.

The Holocaust Speaker Series is held each Wednesday at 11 a.m. on Zoom. The series is sponsored by Margaret & Michael Valentine in partnership with the Harriet and Kenneth Kupferberg Holocaust Center and the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage.

Join Holocaust survivor, Alica Fruhwaldova, who will be visiting from Slovakia, as she shares her story for the first time on the Holocaust Speaker Series.

Hear her tell the extraordinary true story of a family’s heroic triumph during the Holocaust. Affected by the racial persecutions of World War II, their story is one of heavy loss, profound fear and inconceivable suffering. At the same time, it is about the beauty of human strength and the power of perseverance, courage and bravery.

This is not fiction. This is real life yielding survivors and heroes from ordinary citizens at the edges of tragic circumstances. In June 1942, Alica, at the age of 16, was with her mother and grandmother when they were taken by transport to the concentration camp Sobibor, where she did not stand the smallest chance against the Nazi killing machine.

Her older sister Edita was saved from immediate deportation and together with her husband, Oskar, gained a chance to stay for a short period. Eventually they would have to run, far and deep into wintery mountains. Hidden away underneath the cold, black earth, they laid still for weeks and months. And, thanks to the angels among us, the rescuers, the secret keepers, they survived.

This is the kind of story only life can write. People defying the odds, rising from the ashes and re-entering humanity. Their lives were never meant to be ordinary. Hopefully, this story touches you the way it touched the descendants of the survivors.

The Holocaust Speaker Series is held each Wednesday at 11 a.m. on Zoom. The series is sponsored by Margaret & Michael Valentine in partnership with the Harriet and Kenneth Kupferberg Holocaust Center and the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage.