A Holocaust survivor visited a Lower Southampton middle school this week to share her story with eight-grade students.
Elkins Park, Montgomery County, resident Ronnie Reutlinger Breslow, born in Germany in 1930, told students at Poquessing Middle School that she was not allowed to attend public school in Kirchheim, her hometown, because she was Jewish, the Bucks County Courier Times reported.
“I was lonely,” Reutlinger Breslow said. To keep herself occupied, she collected stamps, with much help from her Uncle Willie, and learned “a little geography and a little history.” The stamps ended up being a ticket to freedom for Reutlinger Breslow and her mom, Elly, when they tried to escape from the Nazis’ wrath in 1939 after non-Jewish people were restricted from doing business with Jews.
Reutlinger Breslow and her mom traveled to Cuba on the MS St. Louis, a Germany luxury liner, in May 1939, along with 900-plus other Jewish refugees, most of them women and children. She was just 8 years old.
According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, during the two-week period that the ship was en route to Havana, the pro-fascist Cuban government invalidated landing certificates granted by the Cuban director general of immigration in lieu of regular visas. When the St. Louis reached Havana, only 28 of the Jewish refugees were granted entry. Later, the United States also refused entry, and the ship headed to Antwerp. On the way, several European countries agreed to take in the refugees (287 to Great Britain; 214 to Belgium; 224 to France; 181 to the Netherlands).
While those accepted by Great Britain found relative safety, the others were soon again under Nazi rule when Germany invaded western Europe that next spring, according to the museum.
Reutlinger Breslow and her mother were sent to the Rotterdam West detention camp and remained there for about six months, she told the students, the Courier Times reported. They eventually made it to the United States, where they were able to reunite with Reutlinger Breslow's father.
The Courier Times reported:
“This is a wonderful country where we have freedom,” Reutlinger Breslow told the students. “But I caution all of you to remain vigilant that this precious gift of freedom is never lost. You are the future generation. It is up to you to make sure it is not lost.”
Read the full story at the Bucks County Courier Times.