Robert was born in 1924 in Nordhorn, Germany, a small town in northwestern Germany, near Bremen.  Living at home were his parents (Moritz & Ella), his brother Paul (younger by 2 years), and his maternal grandfather.  They lived in a house in which the ground floor was the family’s clothing store.  Robert’s bedroom was in the upstairs attic. Several other relatives lived in Nordhorn, a few of whom left Germany in the early days of the Nazi rise to power. Robert described his early childhood as fairly idyllic. He bicycled across the border to Holland for Bar Mitzvah lessons, and celebrated his Bar Mitzvah in Nordhorn. Life became progressively more restrictive under Nuremburg and other anti-Jewish laws, and eventually, he and his brother were no longer allowed to attend school. On the night of Kristallnacht, the window of their clothing store was shattered, and a large rock was thrown through the attic window onto Robert’s bed (luckily, he was not in the bed at that moment.) His Father was taken away that night, but returned shortly thereafter. Some time later, his family left to Holland. Eventually, they were interred in Westerbork Labor Camp (in Holland). In Westerbork, Robert learned some craftsmanship skills, working with metal and wood.  His parents eventually deported by train to Auschwitz, where they were murdered. Robert and his brother remained at Westerbork until they were liberated by the Canadian Army.  

 

From Westerbork, they went to live with a family in Holland for a short time, and then to France. An uncle who had previously immigrated to the U.S. and lived in Detroit sent the 2 boys boat tickets to come to Detroit.  A couple of days before they were to depart, his brother Paul – who was always quite Zionistic – found passage on a ship to Palestine. [Paul adopted his Hebrew first name (Uri), married a Dutch survivor that he met in Israel, and became among the founders of Kibbutz Yakum (between Herzliya & Netanya), where they remained for the rest of their lives. They had 3 daughters, all of whom remained in Israel and married, with children and grandchildren. Robert arrived in Detroit – without money or knowledge of English.  He initially lived with the uncle and aunt who had sent him the ticket to come to the U.S., and later, rented a room with a Jewish family in Detroit, who became lifelong friends. He was drafted during the Korean War, and worked as a truck mechanic in the Army. Following Army service, he returned to Detroit.  He studied drafting at Lawrence Institute of Technology, and worked for his entire career as a tool designer / draftsman for General Motors. He met and married a Detroit-born woman of Lithuanian ancestry – Helen Mae Pearlman. They initially lived in Detroit, and, while pregnant with the first of their 2 children, moved to a house in Oak Park, where they lived until Robert’s death in 2003. At the time of his death, their 2 sons had given them 5 grandchildren.