Recha Sternbuch
This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. (January 2013) |
Recha Sternbuch | |
---|---|
Born | Recha Rottenberg 1905 |
Died | 1971 |
Nationality | Swiss |
Spouse | Yitzchak Sternbuch |
Parent(s) | Markus Rottenberg and Sara Hendel Friedman |
Family | Chaim Yaakov Rottenberg (brother) |
Recha Sternbuch (née Rottenberg; 1905–1971) was a
Biography
Born in
Her father was
There was no opportunity for formal religious education in her community and no Jewish schools for young girls in Belgium, so she attended public school, where she learned French. At home with her family she spoke German. Her home was a meeting place for community scholars and she informally continued to learn from these events where her father would interpret the midrash. As a teenager, she even participated in some discussions herself, to the surprise of visitors, who often traveled a long way to seek her father's council.[1]
Her husband moved to Switzerland when he was 10 years old with his family from the United States. The Sternbuchs had moved to the US after the Kishinev pogrom but had found life in New York City difficult as newly arrived immigrants. When the Sternbuchs moved to Basel, Isaac's father became a community leader for newly arriving Orthodox, in a city where Jews were mostly assimilated and had even hosted the secular Theodor Herzl at the First Zionist Congress. In this aspect, Isaac's childhood in Switzerland shared similarity with Recha's in Belgium, as his home became a meeting point for religious men and scholars to meet with his father. In fact, Abraham Isaac Kook, one of the founders of religious Zionism, was staying with the Sternbuchs in 1914 when World War I started, an experience which likely influenced the Sternbuch family's views on Zionism. Unable to find a wife in the mostly assimilated Swiss-Jewish community, Isaac met Recha after he heard the daughter of a great Rabbi was seeking a marriage.[1]
She was an Orthodox woman, with children, and pregnant when she spent nights in the forested region by the Austrian border attempting to smuggle refugees while trying to evade Swiss border guards who had orders to turn back anyone over sixteen and under sixty. She worked with a Swiss police captain, Paul Grüninger, who in 1938 helped her smuggle over 800 refugees into Switzerland.
After a Jewish leader in Switzerland informed on them,[2] Recha Sternbuch was arrested and jailed and she lost her fetus. Grüninger lost his job and pension for his help to Jews and was later helped by the Sternbuchs.
After her release from prison Recha Sternbuch continued her activism largely alone, and arranged rescue of over 2,000 Jews. At great risk she smuggled forged Swiss visas to many Jews across the German and Austrian borders. Later she obtained Chinese entry visas which enabled their holders to traverse Switzerland and Italy to ports from where they could be smuggled into Palestine.
On the day of her son's Bar-Mitzvah she was informed that some Jews were in danger in
She and her husband had access to the Free Polish
Recha Sternbuch also developed good connections with the Papal Nuncio to Switzerland, Monsignor Phillippe Bernadini, dean of the Swiss diplomatic community. He gave her access to Vatican couriers for sending money and messages to Jewish and resistance organizations in Nazi occupied Europe. Recha Sternbuch was among the first to obtain South American identity papers, probably including many from El Salvador’s embassy in Switzerland provided by First Secretary George Mantello and distribute them to Jews whose life was endangered by the Nazis.
In September 1944 she made contact with
The Sternbuchs kept negotiating through Musy to the end of the war. There was an agreement to turn over four concentration camps essentially intact to the Allies in return for a USA guarantee to try the camp guards in court as opposed to shooting them on the spot. This saved the lives of large numbers of camp inmates. The Sternbuchs also negotiated the release of thousands of women from the
Some recorded talks, statements, songs
- Prof David Kranzler. Recha Sternbuch - Heroine of Rescue [1]
- Rabbi Dr. Norman Lamm. Beacons in the Dark [2]
- Professor MP Irv Cotler Beacons in the Dark [3]
- The Rescuers, song by David Ben Reuven [4]
References
- Kranzler, David (1991). "Three who tried to stop the Holocaust". Judaica Book News. 18 (1): 14–16, 70–76. On Rabbi George Mantello
- Kranzler, David and Friedson, Joseph, Heroine of Rescue: The Incredible Story of Recha Sternbuch Who Saved Thousands from the Holocaust, Artscroll History Series, Mesorah Publications Ltd, ISBN 978-0-89906-460-4
- Moriah Films, Unlikely Heroes, documentary, includes chapter on Recha Sternbuch (USA)
- The remarkable Recha and Yitzchak Sternbuch: they fought from Switzerland to save Jews in World War II [5]
References
- ^ ISBN 978-1-5107-3497-5.
- ^ Kranzler, David (1991). "Three who tried to stop the Holocaust". Judaica Book News. 18 (1): 14–16, 70–76. On Rabbi Michael-Ber Weissmandl, Recha Sternbuch and George Mantello
- ^ Moriah Films, Unlikely Heroes. Documentary includes chapter on Recha Sternbuch
- ^ David Kranzler, Three who tried to stop the Holocaust