Julius Schaumberg

"If you marry someone who is not Jewish, if you don't raise your children to be Jewish, then Hitler has won."

Name at birth

Julius Werner Schaumberg

Date of birth

05/11/1923

Where were you born?

Schweinzburg, Germany

Where did you grow up?

Schweinzburg, Germany

Name of father, occupation

Solly, Cattle buyer

Maiden name of mother, occupation

Flora Rothschild, Homemaker

Immediate family (names, birth order)

Parents, Julius, Frieda, Friedrich Lawrence

How many in entire extended family?

Medium extended family

Who survived the Holocaust?

Only Julius of the whole community

Julius was apprenticed to a baker in Marburg, near Frankfurt. He was taken just after Kristallnacht to Auschwitz, his number was very low. He was on the work detail that built Auschwitz. Auschwitz was then a labor camp, later to become a death camp.

He was with his younger brother. They moved them to work in the fields by train. They jumped the train; Friedrich was shot and killed by a German soldier from the train. Julius jumped back on the train and killed the soldier. He stole his uniform and escaped into the woods. He was free for about three months. He at one point, joined up with a German army detail. They discovered he was Jewish and was recaptured. He then went onto several work details where he did heavy manual labor. He was a very strong man, massively built. He was sent back to Auschwitz where he was liberated.

He went back to Germany, to Marburg, a university town that was a meeting place for refugees after the war. He worked on the black market selling whatever he could get his hands on to the American soldiers.
To learn more about this survivor, please visit the Holocaust Memorial Center Oral History Collection.
https://www.holocaustcenter.org/visit/library-archive/oral-history-department/schaumberg-julius/

Name of Concentration / Labor Camp(s)

Auschwitz Birkenau

What DP Camp were you after the war?

Yes

Where did you go after being liberated?

He went back to Schweinzburg. His grandfather had been a cantor in Schweinzburg; his father took the Torah from the Schweinzburg Shul (Synagogue) and buried the Torah in the back with instructions to a sympathetic non-Jewish friend to give the Torah to anyone coming back after the war asking for the Torah. Julius came back for it. When they came to Detroit, they came with their son Joel, 2 ½ years old. They were allowed one parcel which was the Schweinzburg Torah. They were sponsored by a distant cousin who lived in Springfield, Massachusetts. From there they went to Oklahoma City for work. Rosa had two sisters; the youngest sister had been sponsored by a family in Topeka who owned a shoe factory, the Poses. They were bought out by Payless Shoes. They came to Detroit, his wife Rosa had two siblings, Franka Charlupski and Mala Dorfman. All three sisters had three sons and named them after their father, Joel Weintraub. Larry Wayne (Weintraub), Rosa’s first cousin, was getting married in Detroit. Only one family could afford to come, Mala and Henry saw work opportunity in Detroit and so all three families came.

When did you come to the United States?

1950

Where did you settle?

Detroit, Michigan Joined Gemilut Hasodim Synagogue which merged with Beth Abraham, which later merged with now Beth Ahm. They built a new Shul (Synagogue) which had a major fire. Watching the news, Julius turned white, the synagogue burned to the ground except for the brick wall that held the Torahs. The Schweinzburg Torah had smoke damage but survived.

Occupation after the war

Apprenticed to a baker

When and where were you married?

1946 in Marburg, Germany

Spouse

Rosa Weintraub, Rosa and her older sister Franka were liberated at Bergen-Belsen and later lived in Bergen Belsen as it became a DP camp afterwards, She had heard about Marburg was interested in possibly moving there. Her sister Franka had hurt her leg, it was infected and she couldn’t walk. Franka said to Rosa, go without me. There was an Oneg Shabbat, a Sabbath get-together, Rosa didn’t know anyone there, was by herself. She noticed Julius across the room, he had thick red hair and had whole bunch of girls around him. He goes up to her and asked about her. She told him why she was there and not her sister. He found her a place to live. She went back to Bergen-Belsen. Rosa and Franka went to Marburg to live., Homemaker, in the Lodz ghetto she worked in a textile plant

Children

Joel Pinchas, dentist; Frederick Lawrence, gastroenterologist

What do you think helped you to survive?

His strength and his ability to work.

What message would you like to leave for future generations?

If you marry someone who is not Jewish, if you don't raise your children to be Jewish, then Hitler has won.