Child’s drawing of train tracks approaching a tunnel by a German Jewish refugee

Fritz Dieter Vendig was born on December 31, 1932, in Kaiserslautern, Germany, to Ernst and Charlotte Bernstein Vendig. Ernst was born on June 11, 1899, in Kaiserlautern to David and Paulina Marx Vendig. David was born on January 25, 1865. Paulina was born on February 16, 1872, in Rheingauheim. David and Paulina married in January 7, 1984. During World War I (1914-1918), he served for over a year in a German Field Artillery Regiment. Charlotte was born on January 7, 1907, to Isaac and Jenny (1867-1940) Stern Bernstein in Hachenburg. Her father was a cattle dealer. She had two brothers, Ernst, and Robert, who, with his wife Gertrude left for the United States before the war, and a sister Anne, who married Jules Heim and moved to Zurich, Switzerland. Ernst owned a store which sold men and women’s ready-to-wear clothing. Charlotte and Ernst married on August 17, 1930. Soon after this, Ernst’s father died following a car accident. They lived with Ernst’s mother Paulina. Charlotte worked with Ernst in the business.

On January 30, 1933, Hitler became Chancellor of Germany, and the Nazi regime passed legislation to disenfranchise the Jewish population. Nazi Party SA members, known as brown shirts, stood guard at the Vendig store entrance to stop customers from entering, as part of a boycott of all Jewish businesses. After three weeks, the threatening crowds lessened, but the news media continued to spread anti-Jewish propaganda. Friends of the family were arrested and, after their release, left Germany. Charlotte wanted to leave, but Ernst and his mother did not. At some point in the 1930s, Charlotte’s parents went to live with her sister Anne in Zurich. After a while, their old customers returned and business improved. In summer 1935, Ernst was arrested while talking to two friends. They were accused of holding a political meeting and held for three weeks. More and more places displayed signs that Jews were not wanted. At the end of 1936, Ernst’s business was Aryanized and he was forced to sell the store. The family moved to Berlin, where Ernst had established a clothing factory. Fritz’s younger brother Heiner was born on July 24, 1937. Ernst closed the business which was losing money in 1938. Ernst was arrested during the Kristallnacht pogrom of November 9-10, 1938. He was imprisoned in Oranienburg concentration camp. A relative by marriage to Fritz’s aunt Anne, Dr. Hugo Heim, a former Deutsche Bank director, got Ernst released after three weeks. He had been beaten and his head shaved. The family prepared to leave Germany. Fritz’s mother had a brother and sister in the United State, but they had missed the US quota deadline, and sought Paraguayan visas. Then a new law passed, requiring the payment of an exorbitant Jew tax for wealthy people seeking to emigrate. They could not get passports until that was paid, and by then, their Paraguayan visas expired. They arranged first class passage to Cuba on the ocean liner MS. St. Louis. Their furniture and other belongings were shipped ahead to New York.

Fritz, his parents, brother, and paternal grandmother Paulina left Hamburg on May 13, 1939, and arrived in Cuba on May 27. Nearly all 937 passengers were Jewish refugees hoping to escape from Nazi dominated Europe. The plan was to wait in Cuba for permission to enter the US, but Cuban authorities denied entry to all but 28 passengers. Despite urgent pleas to the Cuban and American governments, the refugees were denied permission to enter Cuba or the US and had to return to Europe on June 6. Ernst was a member of the ship’s passenger committee which worked to find a resolution to this emergency. Jewish aid organizations managed to get four European governments, Belgium, Great Britain, France, and Netherlands, to agree to admit the passengers rather than return them to Germany. The Vendig family disembarked in Antwerp, Belgium. In April 1939, the family settled in Brussels, with the aid of the American Joint Distribution Committee. They had no money since they were only allowed to take ten marks with them when they left Germany. Fritz attended school and quickly learned French.

In September 1939, Germany invaded Poland, beginning World War II. On May 10, 1940, Germany invaded Belgium. That morning, Belgian police arrested Ernst as an enemy alien. Belgium surrendered on May 28. The family’s identification papers were taken and replaced with a passport marked J for Jew. Charlotte tried to get the family to France as she had promised Ernst. They reached La Panne, but the fighting made it impossible to get to France and they returned to Brussels. Their landlord Mr. Couvrer welcomed them and let them stay even though they had no money. Fred returned to school. After several months, they received a Red Cross postcard from Ernst in 1941. He was in St. Cyprien internment camp, and then Gurs, in southern France. A Dutch couple gave them money to hire a smuggler to take them to France with false papers. They went to Chessneuil. Charlotte contacted Ernst at Les Milles camp and he was given a short leave. In May 1941, the family settled in Aix-en-Provence in Free France, and Ernst visited one day a week. In August 1942, Ernst was sent to Aubagne work camp. He warned them that the Germans has begun deporting prisoners to concentration camps in the east. Charlotte’s brother Ernest, his wife Elizabeth, and their children, Franz, 6, and Eva, 5, had already been deported from occupied France. On August 4, 1942, the entire family was interned at Les Milles. Men and women were housed separately. The camp commandant took pity on the family and kept them from four deportation transports. But the next month, they were sent to Rivesaltes camp where transports were loaded for Auschwitz. Ernst found a guard from Les Milles and reminded him they were exempt from deportations and they were not put on the waiting trains. Then a woman with a Red Cross armband, Charlotte Leuenberger, found Charlotte and told her that her sister Anne had sent her to get the family to Zurich. She was also able to get two friends of the family released. They traveled by train from Aix to Evian and then were smuggled over the border to Switzerland on September 14, 1942. They were confronted by the border police, but were allowed to stay because of the young children and their grandmother, as well as the papers from Zurich. They were sent to a refugee camp in Bex, and later moved to Maur. The war ended when Germany surrendered on May 7, 1945. Charlotte’s brother and his family had perished in the camps. The family emigrated to the United States in 1946. Pauline, 80, died in 1952. Ernst, 56, died on September 1, 1955, in New York. In August 1959, Fred married Stephani Klakoff. Charlotte had remarried and, at 81, passed away in Zurich in January 1988. Fred, 69, passed away on September 14, 2001, in California. His brother Henry, 66, died in October 2003.