Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Headlines through the years

A look back at the events, people and places that made North Pinellas the unique place that it is. The information is compiled from past editions of the St. Petersburg Times.

By Times Staff Writer
Published June 26, 2005

June 29, 1940: German-Jewish refugee starts life anew here

A slightly bewildered look still lingers in his eyes despite the realization that he is safe in America.

Henry Halle, a 16-year-old German-Jewish refugee, is settling down in a country some 3,000 miles from his homeland.

Alert to grasp the opportunities of his new country, Henry has a job on the gulf beaches. And he's mastered a speaking portion of English in the short span of five weeks, under the able tutoring of an uncle in Tampa.

His routine was rudely jostled for two years when he was subjected to the rigors of Nazi persecution. Only nine weeks ago, the last chapter in Henry's life as a Jew in Germany was concluded when he and his father and mother set out for the United States. The story of the two previous years, told in the painstaking, broken English of a lad who has only five weeks of instruction, is wrapped in the pathos of a hated people at the mercy of militarism.

Henry's German name is Karl Heinz von Halle, and his father and mother, Mr. and Mrs. Fred Halle, operated a prospering clothing store in Hamburg before 1938. In Henry's words, it was a "big store," and handled some 12,000 marks worth of business each month.

Then came the fateful day of Nov. 9, 1938, and Henry remembers the exact date, when a young German Jew, Herschel Grynszpan, assassinated Ernest von Rath, a sub-consular German official, in Paris.

Nazi mobs wreaked violence upon Jews all over Germany following the assassination. The Halles clothing store in Hamburg was the target for bricks that shattered glass windows and ink that splashed the clothing merchandise. Jews were tortured, beaten, slain.

Henry's father was incarcerated in a Nazi concentration camp in Berlin, where he was driven unmercifully for three months as he and some 100,000 other Jews in various camps worked at enlarging and adding to the construction. Mr. Halle was assigned to the back-breaking, inhuman task of carrying 150-pound sacks of cement, under the fear of bullwhips wielded by Nazi camp guards.

He was released after three months, a hollow-faced man near complete physical exhaustion. He joined his wife and son, who had been living with Christian friends in Berlin. Henry's brother, Howard, was in Johannesburg, and a sister, Ilse, was in Buenos Aires at the time of the purge.

Nine weeks ago, Henry and his parents left Berlin by rail, traveling an indirect route through France and Spain to Genoa, Italy. The three refugees were granted passports and about $2 in German marks when they left the country.

A New York uncle, Max von Pels, provided passage money and the family sailed for New York. Then they went to Tampa, where another uncle, Albert Nathan, is connected with the Peninsular Net and Twine Co. and began teaching his relatives English.

Henry is currently employed as an assistant by Tom Harrell of Tom's bait and boat camp at Blind Pass. And he breaks a genuine smile when you mention the dollar-a-day wages that Harrell is paying him for menial tasks about the camp.

"He's going to make the best man I've had around here in a long time as soon as he learns the ropes," Harrell has commented.

Attorneys for the Pinellas County School Board are busy preparing for the federal lawsuit, scheduled for trial in Tampa next Monday, over pay for Negro school teachers.

The suit was brought by a teacher in the local Negro high school, with the petitioner's attorney charging colored instructors are not rated or paid on the same basis as whites.

OLDSMAR - The following distinguished people have received special invitations to attend the big public Fourth of July celebration in Oldsmar: Mayors of Bridgeport, Tarpon Junction, Citrus Park, Keystone Park, Spivay, Bay View, Dellwood, Four Corners and Ozona.

The Ford race will be one of the features of the day, starting about 1 o'clock. The older the machine, the better it is for this purpose. The drivers will be placed inside their cars with the door shut, the spark plugs disconnected, the radiator empty and a pail of ice water standing in front of each machine. At the starting signal, the drivers will have to get out and connect the spark plugs, fill the radiator and crank the machine, which will be some job, believe us. Then the man who can run his machine first over the finish line will be given a handsome cup of some sort.

The Improved Order of Fat Men will be in their element on the fourth and there will be 60 laughs in 60 minutes every time they have anything to do with the festivities.

Theresa Blackwell compiles the history column. She can be reached at 727 771-4305 or blackwell@sptimes.com

[Last modified June 26, 2005, 00:40:48]