I remember my father telling me that after fleeing Breslau they had indeed gone to stay with relatives in Switzerland while waiting for their visas to come through, no doubt so as to be out of the way of the Gestapo. But nothing about my father suggested a spoilt childhood.
In 1936 Jacob Freimann marked his seventieth birthday; Alfred was already in Palestine, but no doubt the rest of the family gathered in Berlin for the occasion. It was the end of the summer during which the city had hosted the Olympic Games. Hitler had been at pains to show the world only the positive face of Germany; there had even been a brief reprieve in the more public measures against Jews. For the Freimann family, this would prove to be the last ever major celebration. The rabbi’s colleagues prepared a Jubilee volume in his honour; a family friend, Harry Levy, wrote the foreword:
Alongside an inherited rabbinical bearing, he possessed an even temperament, a psychological gift for empathy and relating to people, and most of all a flexibility of spirit which had its roots in the natural piety of a secure personality, as well as a powerful measure of common sense and understanding which matured increasingly over the years into wisdom. Added to that, he was equally well rooted in two almost diametrically opposed worlds, the eastern world of the Talmud, where he rejoiced in the minutiae of its argumentation, and the scholarly culture of Western Europe. Only such an inner harmony could render the sheer quantity of his achievements comprehensible.
In that suitcase in Jerusalem had been letters of tribute from colleagues and institutions of learning all around the world. One was even written on parchment. The event was to prove the crowning acknowledgement of his life’s work.
A little over a year later Jacob Freimann was dead. The Israelitisches Familienblatt carried a gracious obituary:
Others are noted and respected for their knowledge and learning, but he was loved by all who were privileged to draw close to him for his human qualities first and foremost, for his simplicity, his nobility of character, his inability to do anything unjust, his love of fairness and truth. It wasn’t at the pulpit, nor in his writings, nor at meetings that Jacob Freimann was most completely himself; he was truly himself in his own home which was as simple as he was, when he guided a small circle of people through the teachings of Judaism.
Though she was not mentioned directly, the words were clearly also an acknowledgement of his indebtedness to his wife. But no tribute is ever as honest, or as meaningful, as that of a person’s own children. Fifty years later, when he himself was in his eighties, Ernst made no distinction between his parents when he wrote about their values and their way of life:
It is hard for me to describe the unique characters of my parents. They were both meticulous in preserving the Jewish way of life in all its fine details. At the same time they showed tolerance towards all people, even those far from keeping the commandments. They were full of love for their children. They were very generous to the poor who came to their door; most of whom were given food to eat. They succeeded in helping to resolve the problems faced by many people in all their different aspects.
In a sermon dated 1929 on the opening chapter of Genesis, Rabbi Freimann noted:
Scripture tells us that ‘God saw that [creation] was good’ with the sole exception of man … All other creatures have just the one sole option – to remain at the level on which they were created and behave according to their inborn nature. To man alone is given the capacity for choice, the possibility of determining the course of his life according to his own free will. To man alone the task is granted of aspiring to perfection, of diligently devoting all the days of his life to its attainment.
A few lines further on he considered God’s famous question to Adam after he had eaten from the tree of knowledge:
‘God called out and said to the man, “Where are you?”’ This is no mere enquiry about his physical location but an expression of surprise and admonition: ‘See to where you have come by forsaking the path along which I commanded you to walk!’
He died before the depths to which that abandonment could lead were revealed in the destinies of his widow and their children.
4: ‘DISCHARGED FROM YOUR DUTIES’
On 16 July 1938 a friend working for the Palestine Office in Berlin replied to Alfred’s urgent enquiries on behalf of his mother, about whose situation he was deeply worried:
Dear Alfred,
Many thanks for your lines. They led me to make a long-intended visit to your mother to discuss her situation with her. Sadly, the matter is in several respects more difficult than it looked back in May because circumstances have become significantly worse in a number of ways.
The letter explained in great detail the various options which might still remain open; its author was closely conversant with the advantages and disadvantages of each of the categories under which it was possible to apply to the British Mandate authorities for a visa to Palestine.
Of all the six children it was Alfred who was most aware of the urgency of getting his mother out of Germany and who was most able to act. By now two of his sisters had joined him in Palestine, but he was the longest settled in the country and his legal background equipped him best to understand the numerous difficulties which had to be overcome.
The youngest of the Freimann children, born in 1899, Alfred had thrived in the atmosphere of intense Jewish study in his parents’ house. ‘As he was always at home he learnt much more from my father than I,’ his older brother Ernst recalled. ‘He was always reading or learning.’ Whereas Ernst had been obliged to serve during the First World War, Alfred didn’t turn eighteen until close to the end of hostilities and the Jewish farmer to whom he was sent for war work allowed him to stay at home with his books. This enabled him to write, at the age of just eighteen, a highly commended biography of the famous thirteenth-fourteenth century legal authority, Rabbi Asher ben Yechiel. Throughout his life his great love was Jewish scholarship. In the autumn of 1922 he wrote to the committee of the nascent Hebrew University, then based in London; he had heard that the department of philosophy was looking for teaching staff. ‘I trust you won’t think me, most respected sirs, over-bold in turning to you in this regard,’ he began. He described his studies with his father, ‘where I drank my fill of the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds and numerous legal works. My longing for Torah grew ever stronger; I laboured in it and found reward.’ He wrote of his fascination with the history of Hebrew literature; he mentioned his book and noted that it had been favourably received by the leading scholars of the generation. But his real passion was Hebrew jurisprudence; it was to this subject that he wished to dedicate his life. Alfred was not quite twenty-three when he wrote the letter. Almost two decades would pass, bringing with them events unimaginable at the beginning of the Weimar Republic, before he was eventually invited to join the Faculty of Humanities of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
In the meantime he opted for the law as a way of earning a living. He was made Gerichtsassessor in 1926, a two-year probationary placement, and was scarcely thirty when he was appointed to the Prussian judiciary. The constitution of the Weimar Republic made discrimination in access to the professions illegal, affirming that ‘admission to public office was to be independent of religious affiliation’. His certificate of appointment, dated 25 June 1928 and written in magnificent Gothic script, declared that ‘Probationary judge Dr Alfred Freimann in Tilsit is herewith appointed to the position of regional, and at the same time that of district, judge.’
He was sent by the Prussian Ministry of Justice to Königsberg in East Prussia, where he met and