(Author: Miriam Herzfeld, Vol. 79, #2, Summer, 2024)
Bochum is a coal mining town in Western Germany. Jews had lived in Bochum since 1349, and there were 1152 Jews there in 1933. They included my parents, Moritz and Anna Samson, my brother Klaus, who was eighteen months older and me, Miriam, aged 10. My father had a chain of shoe repair shops.
Our lives changed once Hitler came to power. We could no longer go to the cinema. We could no longer go to the swimming baths, nor any longer sit on the park benches. My friends and I were only allowed to walk in the streets in groups of three. We were scared to go out as Hitler Youth would attack us. Once they threatened to set an Alsatian dog on us, but we threw stones and the dog ran away. Another time my friends and I were crossing a bridge when a group of boys came towards us but an old man with a stick threatened them, and they left.
As a Jew my father was no longer allowed to own his shops. We had to move out of our large apartment into one single room. A Dutch family offered to take me in for a holiday and it was wonderful to spend some time in the country after having been cramped in a room. My mother came to visit me, but she was arrested and jailed for being on the bus without papers. When we managed to get her out, my father decided to find somewhere safer for us to live. It was getting more difficult to find somewhere to go to and South Africa, under the agitation of Verwoerd, the architect of apartheid, did not want Jews. The government then passed a law in September 1936 stating that after 1 November people could only immigrate to South Africa if they could deposit £100 as a guarantee. The government knew that this would prevent German Jews from arriving as we were only allowed to take 10 marks out of Germany. Jewish organisations got together quickly to charter the SS Stuttgart to bring Jewish refugees to Cape Town before the November deadline and fortunately my father managed to get a ticket, although for himself only. It was the last boat with German Jewish emigrants allowed to enter before the government stopped Jews from arriving.
Fortunately, my father also managed to get tickets for the rest of us to come out some months later on the Italian ship SS Duilio. I was then thirteen and helped my mother pack and put together the necessary papers. Because we arrived after the deadline and did not have the required £100, we were not allowed to disembark and as we had already reached Cape Town the ship refused to give us food. The Cape Town Jewish community argued with the officials and after a day they managed to raise the huge sum of £100 surety for each of us to land.
I was so happy to be in South Africa. I could go to the cinema, I could go to the swimming pools, I could sit on park benches.
And then ten years later the Nationalist Government came in, brought in apartheid and copied the Nazi laws. Once again park benches, swimming pools and cinemas were reserved for particular groups. Once again there was job reservation.
I am glad that my sons Ronnie and Michael and my grandchildren can live in a more tolerant society.
All the remaining 355 Jews in Bochum were held in my school before being deported in five transports to Riga, Auschwitz, and Theresienstadt. About 40 Jews returned after the war.
- Born in Bochum, Germany, on 21 April 1933, Miriam Herzfeld came to Cape Town on the SS Duilio. She was very involved in the establishment of Temple Israel in Cape Town, also chairing the Sisterhood and running the youth camps. She has two sons Ronnie and Michael, 3 grandchildren and 4 great grandchildren.
