This book is a story of that infamy and includes an outline of events leading up to World War II and the war itself written in 11 font Arial Rounded MT Bold intermingled with a fiction tale based upon fact written in 12 font Times New Roman.
CHAPTER 1
Russia 1944 Last Jewish Partisan Battle
Albert Tepper and Sam Rosen knew that the coming battle would be their last. After more than three years of deadly struggle, the Jewish partisans, in conjunction with the Russian army in Byelorussia planned their last battle. The Nazis were in flight. The Russian army had turned the tide finally, and Hitler’s dream of a rapid victory had evaporated as his military was fleeing the tenacious advance of the Russians.
As the Germans fled, they passed through partisan territory where Albert and Sam and their multiple Jewish and non-Jewish colleagues armed with dynamite, rifles, pistols and machine guns awaited them with glee. The Germans would die before ever getting out of the territory they invaded three years ago with the idea that victory would be swift—three weeks at the most.
The partisans took up positions ahead of the retreating Germans and waited. Their signal would be the sound of Russian guns coming ever closer. As they waited, they did what they were good at in order to slow the fleeing Germans; destroyed rail tracks, bridges, laid booby traps and anything necessary to slow the hated enemy and entrap them between the Russian army and themselves. When the enemy was close enough, the Partisans would turn their attention to the retreating Germans and make sure that they would remain, for all eternity, in the Russian territory that they coveted. It took the partisans less than thirty minutes to accomplish that goal.
The guns fell silent. The partisans slowly and warily left their positions. They gathered together alternately crying, laughing and hugging each other.
It took a few minutes until Sam finally noticed that Al was not amongst them. He looked many times in all directions. Panic overcame him. Oh my God, he thought, did his best friend who was born on the same day as he, who he grew up with, who he loved like a brother, fall in battle—for them the last battle of the war!?
CHAPTER 2
Berlin 1896…Birth of Albert and Sam
Early in the afternoon of April 19, 1896, Ms. Frieda Tepper and Ms. Hilda Rosen entered the Berlin maternity hospital within thirty minutes of each other. The 26 year old Jewish ladies were assigned to the labor room to monitor their vital signs and the progress of their first birth. Their nervous husbands paced back and forth in the adjacent waiting room. Both women experienced definite uterine contractions and were monitored by experienced obstetrical nurses. The impressive new medical facility had rows of single beds lined up against opposite walls and was located just down the hall from a sign that read Delivery Rooms from which a pleasant antiseptic smell would waft down to the labor rooms when the doors opened.
“Let’s hope we get to that sign pretty quick,” grimaced Frieda to Hilda immediately after her most painful contraction yet.
“Amen,” answered Hilda in a calm voice and compassionate expression delivered between contractions.
Frieda and Hilda occupied neighboring beds. Thus they naturally struck up a friendship as their labor contractions progressed and intensified. They learned that they lived less than one half mile apart, were both married almost two years, were both Jewish, born in Poland, emigrated to Germany, attended the same synagogue (The Neue Synagogue) and hoped that their first child would be a girl. They both agreed, “Whatever it turns out to be, Gott es Willen (God willing), as long as the baby is healthy. We’ll meet again after this is all over so we can gloat over our daughters.”
Although Frieda and Hilda recognized one another, they had never been close friends. That would change now with the closeness and intimacy of a first birth binding them together for the future.
Midnight passed. The discussion between Frieda and Hilda dwindled as each became more aware of and focused upon the irresistible task at hand. Their contractions increased in frequency, duration, and intensity, Frieda’s son was born at 2:30 A.M. Hilda’s son followed approximately 2 hours later. The date was April 20, 1896. And…
Adolph Hitler was born exactly seven years earlier on the same day, April 20, 1889.
In the Hebrew bible (Genesis 17:10-14), God issues a command to his patriarch Abraham to be circumcised: This is My covenant, which ye shall keep between Me and you and thee: every male among you shall be circumcised. And you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskin and it shall be a token betwixt Me and you. And he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you, every male throughout your generation, he that is born in the house, or bought with money of any foreigner that is not of thy seed.
And so it would be. The two babies, born eight days ago, their mother, father, grandparents, family and friends would all be there to celebrate this rite of passage performed by a Mohel, one specifically trained and certified in this discipline. Once completed, the Jewish heritage of Albert and Samuel were fixed in time for the rest of their lives, and their friendship would forever grow…
CHAPTER 3
Family history of Albert and Sam
Albert and Sam’s ancestors can trace their lineage to Germany when their ancestors were forced to flee because Jews were blamed for the plague which decimated Western Europe in the fourteenth century…
This plague was caused by a bacterium within fleas that would infest rats. Bacteria were an unknown entity at that time. The bacteria received the name of Yersinea pestis many years later. Once the rats were killed off by fleas, Yersinea needed to find another host, so they chose the human species. A human who was bitten by a flea would have Yersinea pestis deposited under the skin, which would then spread to regional lymph nodes causing them to swell massively forming a “bubo,” hence the name bubonic plague. Eighty percent of humans infected would die, and millions did within a matter of days. Most Jews who survived either the plague, or the enmity of the populace who blamed the Jews for the Plague, fled to Eastern Europe. There they settled in Poland in an area which the Russian Government would later designate the “Pale of Settlement,” a large geographic area consisting of western Russia, Poland, Lithuania, Belorussia, and Ukraine. Jews were allowed nowhere else unless they became Christians.
While living in the Pale of Settlement, the ancestors of Albert and Sam were known as Tepperovitch and Rosenovitch. If there was a different name before that, it was lost to antiquity…
The increase in the Jewish population of “The Pale” eventually resulted in anti-Jewish pogroms (riots or killings), which started in the nineteenth century. Theories as to the causes of the pogroms ranged from blaming “Jews” for assassinating the Czar to the fact that some Jews, because they were forbidden many occupations, were forced to become “moneylenders,” incurring the ire of their debtors and business competitors.
The new Czar, Alexander III, established the May Laws in 1882, which restricted Jews in many aspects of life: Jews could only live in small towns (shtetles) and not large cities. They could not carry out any business on Sundays or Christian holidays. They were restricted to ten percent of college enrollment.
The Czar’s overseer of the Russian Orthodox Church, Konstantin Petrovich Pobyedonostsyev hoped that “One third of the Jews would die, one third would convert and one third would leave the country.” So with the Pobyedonostsyev threat looming in Jew’s minds...
One third did leave and amongst them were the future parents of Albert Tepper and Sam Rosen who moved to Germany to escape the anti-Jewish sentiment of Eastern Europe…
CHAPTER 4
Adolph Hitler’s Birth
FUR FRIEDEN, FRIEHEIT
UND DEMOKRATIE
NIE WIEDER FASCHISMUS