Northpinellas: Woman recalls 'Hindenburg' inferno

But it's always there, hanging on the wall as she walks through the hallway to the kitchen in her Palm Harbor home: a large picture of the German airship, signed by all of the crew members who survived.

And it's in her cupboard, where the small white coffee cups sit, bearing the blue and gold emblem of the Zeppelin company. It's in her closet where the newspaper clippings are, and on the video documentaries of one of the 20th century's signature disasters.

But most of all, it's in her head. Mrs. Zarr, 78, doesn't need the artifacts or the pictures to remember the day the zeppelin, with her uncle aboard, went up in flames right before her eyes and came crashing down toward her, killing 36 people.

After all, she says, "It's the story of my life."

"It was awful'

May 6, 1937, the day the airship crashed, wasn't the first time Mrs. Zarr and her family, the Enssles, had gone to see the Hindenburg land in Lakehurst, N.J.

The small town of Roselle Park, N.J., where her parents owned a bakery, was about 60 miles from the Lakehurst naval air station, where the German airships would draw festive, dressed-up crowds.

"It was something to see," said Mrs. Zarr, who has worked as the executive secretary for the Belleair Country Club for 25 years. "It was an outing."

That summer, Eleanor's family had made several trips to greet her uncle, Eugen Schaeuble, who was one of the zeppelin's crew members.

But forEleanor, then 14, there were two more reasons to be excited. First, her uncle had gotten her a ticket for the Hindenburg's return flight to Germany, where her family was originally from. The second reason was a crush. Through Schaeuble, Eleanor's family had befriended many crew members that summer, including a 16-year-old cook, Alfred Groezinger, one of the youngest on board.

The thought of seeing him again, Mrs. Zarr said, "made me very happy."

So the young Eleanor put on her beige suit and the family members took theirold Essex car to Lakehurst.

It's easy to see why the Hindenburg would draw a crowd. In 1937, there were few man-made objects as awe-inspiring. Longer than three football fields, the zeppelin was almost as long as the Titanic. The airship's canvas was filled by more than 7-million cubic feet of hydrogen. The ship's four Mercedes-Benz engines drove it at speeds up to 84 mph. With its dining salon, lounges and staterooms, the Hindenburg was the most luxurious way to travel by air.

It was cold that night, and rain poured on the onlookers as they waited. Bad weather forced the Hindenburg to circle over New York until skies cleared.

But finally, close to 7:30 p.m., it was announced that the ship was about to arrive. Eleanor, using a special pass she got from her uncle, ran with many others to get as close to the landing area as possible. Her parents stayed at the hangar.

People cheered and waved as the Hindenburg came into sight.

Eleanor didn't know it until later, but as the Hindenburg approached, one of the ship's crew members came into the control room where her uncle worked and offered to relieve him so he could stand on the catwalk and wave to his family. Nor did she know that Alfred, the young cook,was also on the catwalk. But perhaps that saved their lives.

On the ground, no one knew anything was wrong until the first flame. It shot up just in front of the upper tail fin, like a mushroom, and the fire spread quickly. In just seconds, the whole tail was ablaze. Then the whole zeppelin exploded.

"Everybody started to scream," Mrs. Zarr said. The people on the ground panicked and ran as flaming debris fell down upon them. Those who turned back toward the ship could see men and women, some of them on fire, jump from the catwalk of the ship down on the ground to get away from the inferno. In homes around the country, families heard radio announcer Herb Morrison grow desperate: "It's burst into flames. . . . Oh my, this is terrible. . . . Oh, the humanity and all the passengers!"

Eleanor ran too, screaming, feeling like she was in the middle of a nightmare and hoping to wake up any second. People with their hair and clothes on fire ran past her, and the stench of burnt flesh was heavy.

"You could smell it, it was awful," she said. "And screaming . . . I tell you, I lived with that for a long time."

One woman, visibly pregnant, fell down and dozens of men ran by her without stopping.

"Nobody paid any attention to her," Mrs. Zarr said. "I couldn't believe it, that none of them would help her up. That's what happens -- panic."

The tail of the ship hit first, and then, only 32 seconds after the initial flame, the entire Hindenburg crashed to the ground.

As Eleanor ran, she had no idea what had happened to her uncle or Alfred, the cook. When she found her parents by the hangar, her mother was hysterical and her father was crying. Some of the crew members had made it to the hangar, but they couldn't say what happened to Schaeuble, her uncle.

Finally, the family decided to drive to a field hospital to look for Schaeuble. They drove past people running in every direction in the streets, and then suddenly their headlights landed on a person walking on the side of the road.

"Stop the car," her mother shouted. "That's Eugen up ahead."

"He didn't know where he was going; who knows where he couldhave ended up," Mrs. Zarr said. "As soon as he saw my mother, he just broke down and cried and cried. And my mother cried, and my father cried. I cried."

Luckily, both Schaeuble and Alfred had been able to jump from the ship and escape the flames.These days, the images don't visit Mrs. Zarr quite as often, and the memories aren't quite as horrific. She can even watch some of the documentaries about the disaster without getting nightmares.

"It's like seeing it all over again," she said. "And you think about it. But it doesn't haunt me like it did, years ago."

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