Livingston Manor  — Livingston Manor’s Marlene Wertheim was only seven years old when she and her mother escaped Nazi-occupied Austria and gained safe passage to the United States. 

Despite her young age, Wertheim said she was intuitively aware of the Statue of Liberty’s significance as her refugee boat passed Ellis Island. 

In light of Yom HaShoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day, which was observed last week, she shared her story of resilience and survival with the Democrat.

“I was born in Vienna,” said 92-year-old Wertheim, “and in Vienna my father was a manager of a tannery.” Years later when he arrived in the U.S., her father was able to find employment in that industry. “My mother had a [retail clothing] business in Vienna which was very unusual for a woman.” 

Wertheim remembers a normal family life before the start of World War II, characterized by moderate religious practice and celebrating holidays with relatives.

“Our lives changed very dramatically when the Germans annexed Austria,” she said. ‘Anschluss,’ as the event is known, happened on March 12, 1938, and Wertheim said, “it was by and large something that the people wanted.” 

Wertheim said there were pockets of resistance to the Nazi ideology by judges, lawyers and students who realized the dangers of fascist rule, but most people in Austria welcomed the Nazi annexation. 

Wertheim said infamous Nazi leader Adolf Hitler’s message to the Austrians was, “We speak the same language, we’re really part of the same culture.” Germany took over the government of Austria, and Austria was no longer a separate country; Wertheim said, “our passports said [we were from] Vienna, Germany.”

Wertheim said there was always antisemitism in Austria, even before Anschluss. 

“For Jewish people to go to university, for Jewish people to go into certain fields, where you lived, where you worked, it was restricted. I was born in 1932 so as a three-and-four-year old I didn’t feel it too much except a little teasing from other kids; my parents did not talk about it,” she said. “As soon as the Anchluss took place, my father immediately went to the American Embassy to try to start our immigration process. So certainly we did feel antisemitism but it wasn’t until the Anschluss that it became legal. Antisemitism was the law of the land.”

Soon after Anchluss, a large Nazi parade traveled directly past her family’s third story apartment. With a German Schutzstaffel (SS) officer watching them in their apartment, Wertheim’s family was allowed to observe the parade below and Hitler passed by in an open car. 

“I remember looking out and seeing Hitler, and the crowds were screaming ‘Heil Hitler, Heil Hitler.’” 

Until her family was able to leave Austria, Wertheim lived under Nazi rule and experienced roundups and Kristallnacht (“Night of Broken Glass”), a violent riot against Jews carried out by Nazis on November 9, 1938, that was named after the fragments of broken glass that covered the streets after Jewish-owned stores, buildings, and synagogues had been smashed. 

“As a child I have very specific memories of Kristallnacht. My cousin Eric and I were in kindergarten.,” she said. “My uncle Fritz came to pick us up during the day because he already knew that things were brewing. Uncle Fritz held me with one hand and held Eric with the other hand and said, ‘We’re going to walk.’ We could walk from the kindergarten to my Grandmother’s house, which I guess was the closest safe place to be, or so he thought. And he said, ‘Don’t look to the right, don’t look to the left, just look straight ahead, don’t talk, we’re gonna be very quiet, we’re just gonna walk.’”

“I could smell fires, I could hear shots, I could hear people. Even though the street that he chose for us to walk was not a street where the soldiers were or where there was actually breaking windows and breaking glass and setting fires- the crackling of the revolvers, I can still smell it.” 

Under Nazi occupation, Wertheim said her family was separated because everyone left Austria at different times and sought refuge in different places. Her family’s apartment and their possessions were taken over by a neighbor who turned out to be a Nazi official. Wertheim said her Aunt and Uncle went to Antwerp, Belgium, some relatives went to England, and others went to Shanghai, China.

“Our whole life was just completely upside down, people couldn’t work, people were taken away for no reason; it was a complete absence of civil liberties. It was a horrendous life and people were desperately trying to get out; it wasn’t easy because a lot of governments didn’t want more refugees, particularly Jewish refugees.”

Wertheim praised the pockets of resistance that secretly helped persecuted Jewish people; “in England there was the ‘Kindertransport’ where British people took in children over the age of 5. In Czechoslovakia there was an Englishman that rescued over 600 children.” Wertheim said there were many pockets across Europe but she felt that that fact hasn’t been widely publicized. 

A symbol of liberty

At age seven, Marlene Wertheim and her mother found passage to America. 

“We came by boat, on the ship I saw the Statue [of Liberty], it was just overwhelming. My heart was in my stomach.” Wertheim said their first room was rented from a distant relative who had an apartment in Washington Heights; they had no money and her mother had a very difficult time finding work. 

“I had to learn English, I had to go to school. The teachers were not very receptive to dealing with [refugees]. Luckily I learned English pretty quickly and I could read …but I didn’t do Math the American way, so the fact that I got the right answer didn’t matter. It was challenging.”

Marlene said she lived in Washington Heights until she married the artist and sculptor Earl “Bud” Wertheim when she was 20 years old. She studied at Hunter College and then started teaching in the city. She and Bud moved to Livingston Manor to start farming and then she started teaching again in Livingston Manor and Fallsburg. Today Marlene still lives in Livingston Manor and donates her time sharing her story.

“To commemorate Yom HaShoah, I feel is just so very important because it is ancient history to young people and with all the propaganda in the last 30 years or so, there’s such a movement of denial that the Holocaust never existed,” Marlene said. “I’m doing what I can to speak to young people and hope that at least the experience of being with someone [that lived through it]. I’m not making it up, and I’m not telling the worst of it. We all know the worst of it.”

“All I can do is just try to be as positive as I can be, try to talk to people as much as I can about the Holocaust. There’s a project called The Daffodil Project, where throughout the country different groups are planting bands of daffodils to represent the lives of the 1.5 million children who perished. We have one in Livingston Manor, there’s one in Liberty, there’s going to be a planting in the Fallsburg area,” Wertheim said. “This is something that I’m committing to.”