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Names Not Numbers
Marion Freilich
Marion Freilich
Marion Freudenberger Freilich was born on November 9, 1928 in Frankfurt Germany. Her father, Rudolph Freudenberger, was a physician in Bergen. Her mother, Amalia, was a homemaker. Marion, her twin brother, Joseph, and her older brother, Joachim, attended the local Bergen public school. She has fond memories of her life before the war, living in a nice home with freedom and her beloved German Shepherd dog, Rolph.
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As Hitler rose to power in 1938, and with the adoption of the Nuremberg laws, life became increasingly more difficult for the family. Marion and her brothers were forced to drop out of the public school in Bergen because Jews were no longer allowed to attend the German public schools. There weren’t any Yeshivas in Bergen, so Marion and her twin brother stopped attending school.
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Her older brother Joachim was 13 years old at the time and Marion remembers him taking a long bus ride to Frankfort to go to Yeshiva there. Marion remembers a camera was placed in the house opposite her father’s home office to make sure that there were no Aryan patients being treated by her Jewish physician father.
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The Nazi’s took pictures of all the people entering and exiting his office and this made his practice almost non-existent because most of his patients had been non-Jews. Marion remembers one night the Nazi’s threw a large stone at the home office shattering the window and remembers her dog getting hurt. Marion’s paternal Grandmother lived with her aunt and uncle and cousins in a nearby town called Miltonberg.
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In September 1938 The Freudenbergers were able to get immigration papers to come to the United States because they were sponsored by an aunt living there. Two months after they left Germany, on November 9, 1938 was Kristallnacht and the Nazis burnt down the synagogue in Mitonberg where Marion’s extended family lived. Shortly after, Marion’s paternal grandmother was able to come to the United States,
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but her cousins and aunt (Rudolph’s sister) and uncle had their immigration papers stolen and they shortly thereafter were sent to Auschwitz and no one ever heard from them again. Their records were later found in Israel and their names are listed on the wall at Yad Vashem. Marion’s mother’s sister, Sophie and her husband and daughter Lisel from Berlin all died in Auschwitz as well.
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Lisel, Marion’s cousin sent a postcard to the Freudenberger family from Auschwitz saying, “I am in Auschwitz and everything is okay” and that was the last communication they ever heard from her cousin, aunt and uncle. The Nazis forced the Jews in Auschwitz to send postcards saying everything was fine to family members abroad because they didn’t want the world to know the atrocities that were going on in Germany.
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Two months before Kristallnacht the Freudenberger family came penniless to the US and didn’t speak any English. Her father had to learn English and re-take the medical boards because they didn’t accept the ones from Europe. To make a living during that time he became a night watchman in a cemetery and studied during the day.
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Marion’s mother became a cleaning lady. Her older brother Joachim was 14 years old and went on a bicycle to the Bronx daily to pick up old bread from a bakery and sold the bread for a few pennies so they could make ends meet. He also woke at 4:00 AM to deliver newspapers. Marion and her twin brother were 10 years old when they came to America.
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They were placed in public school in the 2nd grade with seven-year-olds because they could not speak English. On her 75th birthday, Marion was invited by a program called “Gegen Vergessen and Unmenschlichkeit,” “Against Forgetting and Inhumanity,” to Frankfurt Germany and went back to her old hometown Bergen to speak to the high school students about the Holocaust.
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While there, she was presented with a booklet of memorabilia including her old report cards and all her records from school dating back to 1938. They also had given her an old record of a student’s doctors note written by her father. While she was in Bergen, she met many of her father’s old patients. They were very cordial and nice.
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She was invited to see the small museum in Bergen when a man knocked on the door and said why are you opening the closed museum for this lady? The caretaker said this is a lady from America, Dr. Freudenberger's daughter. The man said that he knew Dr. Freudenberger and that his wife had her baby delivered by him even when they were forbidden to see him because he was such a great man and doctor.
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The next night Marion went to a restaurant in town called “a beautiful view” and the owner went up to her and said that Dr. Freudenberger took great care of his son when he was a child.
Marion felt sad going back to Germany and says when she went to visit her old home the lady who lived there knew she was coming and was scared that Marion would want to take the house back.
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In front of the house there is now a plaque dedicated to the Freudenberger family on a big stone.
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The End
Marion Freilich interview at Yeshivah of Flatbush Houllou Elementary School Middle School - 2023-2024
Yeshivah of Flatbush Houllou Elementary School Middle School
