Holocaust victims, survivors honored at remembrance ceremony
Nov. 9, 1938, was Karl Reiser's birthday, but Reiser didn't spend that night celebrating.
He spent the night hiding for his life as mobs descended on Vienna, burning and pillaging Jewish-owned stores, homes and synagogues.
'The synagogue where my grandparents were married was burnt to the ground by 11 a.m.,' said Cindy Silverman Chronister, Reiser's granddaughter, said of the aftermath of Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass.
Before Kristallnacht, Reiser, like all Jews in Nazi Germany, had already been forced out of his job, banned from public spaces, and made to carry a passport stamped with the letter 'J.'
But despite the abuses he suffered at the hands of the Nazis, Reiser was able to escape what Kristallnacht foreshadowed.
He and his wife Mathilda Reiser fled to England in 1939 and eventually made their way to the United States.
Those who did not survive the ensuing genocide were honored at a ceremony April 23, which is Yom HaShoah—Holocaust Remembrance Day.
'Today we celebrate our survival and our strength, even as we honor our lost,' said Vicki Haller Graff, program director at the Jewish Federation of Reading/Berks. 'Tonight we remember real people…We will take inspiration from their resilience, and the strength of those who stood up for each other in the most difficult of circumstances.'
The service at the Jewish Cultural Center in Wyomissing featured a lighting of memorial candles by the descendants of holocaust survivors.
One of those descendants was Silverman Chronister, of Sinking Spring, who shared the contents of a box of photos she said her grandparents never spoke about.
The photos depicted memories from the Reisers' time in Vienna and their escape to England, the story of which Silverman Chronister relayed.
Cindy Silverman Chronister shares stories and photos depicting her grandparents' escape from Nazi-occupied Vienna. (Keith Dmochowski – Reading Eagle)
She noted that Karl Reiser was able to escape through an emergency rescue mission to Kitchener Refugee Camp in Richborough, England.
Silverman Chronister said she thinks Reiser was chosen for the mission because he was an electrician, and the former military barracks had no electricity or running water upon his arrival.
'(Jewish refugees at Kitchener) could not be employed, nor would England provide any financial assistance,' Reiser said. 'These refugees were forbidden to speak their native language, and my grandfather was expected to work long hours maintaining the camp.'
Mathilda Reiser was eventually able to escape Vienna as well, but not before being left penniless by the Nazis, who charged her an exorbitant departure 'tax' and stole her luggage.
'She arrived (in England) with almost nothing, no money, no English, and no one to help her,' Silverman Chronister said.
Six weeks after Mathilda Reiser fled, World War II broke out, and all immigration was halted.
'Had my grandmother not obtained a job in England, and her visa not come when it did, I might not be standing here today,' Silverman Chronister said.
In 1932, there were 200,000 Jews living in Vienna, but in 1942, only 800 remained.
Silverman Chronister noted that her grandparents rarely spoke about life in Vienna, but through her own research, she was able to discover eight of her great grandfather's relatives who were killed in concentration camps.
Even after enduring tragedy, the Reisers refused to abandon the values of 'tikkun olam,' meaning 'repairing the world,' a Jewish concept that emphasizes social action.
'After the war, they sent care packages to their struggling non-Jewish friends in Vienna,' Silverman Chronister said. 'They donated to Jewish causes and honored their murdered family members by supporting memorials at concentration camps…In choosing compassion, they showed that even in the face of darkness, kindness is a form of resistance.'
The ceremony also featured a reading of the names of Holocaust victims who have family members in the local community.
'In a time when antisemitism is rising around the world, and voices of division and intolerance grow louder, our presence here is an act of resilience,' said Brian Chartock, CEO of the Jewish Federation of Reading/Berks. 'It is a statement that memory matters, and that justice, compassion and dignity are not negotiable.'
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