My late wife Jean’s parents, Elly and Herman Beer, together with Elly’s sister Margaret Dichter, emigrated from Vienna in 1939. This was virtually the last minute at which Austrian Jews were allowed to leave the country rather than being sent to concentration camps such as Dachau, Buchenwald and Sachsenhausen. Hitler’s annexation of Austria occurred on March 12, 1938 and Kristallnacht – the night of broken glass – came about eight months later, on November 9 and 10, 1938. During Kristallnacht windows of thousands of Jewish-owned businesses throughout Germany and Austria were broken and their stores looted in a Nazi-orchestrated pogrom. At least ninety-one Jews were killed and others beaten or raped. Two hundred and sixty-five synagogues were destroyed and some thirty thousand Jewish men were sent to concentration camps. Most of them were released over the next three months on the condition that they emigrate but it subsequently became almost impossible for Jews, along with other ‘undesirables’ such as homosexuals, communists and Roma, or gypsies, to get out. Leaving as they did in 1939, Herman, Elly and Margaret were extraordinarily lucky to escape from Vienna.
Elly and Margaret had wanted to leave earlier but, despite growing signs that the situation for Jews in Austria would be grim, the decision to emigrate was not easy. So they stayed. Herman’s and Elly’s families had been happy and successful in Austria for generations. Herman’s family, the Beers, owned a men’s clothing store in Stockerau, a small town outside of Vienna. Herman received a law degree from the University of Vienna and had a well-established law practice there. Elly’s and Margaret’s family, the Dichters, were comfortable if not wealthy, and some close relatives owned vineyards. In addition, Elly was the proprietor of a fashionable perfume shop, Parfumerie Elly, not far from the Ringstrasse, the grand, circular boulevard that surrounds the historical city center and is home to many of Vienna’s most famous sights, such as the Imperial Palace, the Vienna State Opera and the Art History and the Natural History Museums. Margaret was a highly-skilled seamstress and pattern-maker of women’s clothing, as was Elly, to a slightly lesser degree. The Beers and the Dichters had deep roots in Austria and identified profoundly with the culture of German-speaking peoples. Leaving this for parts unknown was therefore not an inviting prospect, and Herman in particular held out against pleas to leave. After two incidents, Herman finally agreed that they had to escape from Vienna. In one case, a petty local functionary arrived at Herman’s home and announced that he was taking the family automobile for his own use and that, as a Jew, Herman would have no recourse. In another incident, Nazi soldiers entered Parfumerie Elly and asked Margaret and Elly if they were Jews. When they replied ‘Yes,’ the soldiers said, ‘Get out,’ and that was the end of Elly’s business. I have not been able to determine precisely when those two events occurred, but the confiscation of the business was obviously after the Nazi takeover of Austria in March of 1938. It was probably prior to Kristallnacht, though, which came eight months later. For Elly never mentioned any attack on her business, only its lawless and peremptory appropriation. The shock of Kristallnacht could only have dramatically increased the urgency of their leaving the country.
Fortunately, Elly and Margaret had been at work for months on finding a way to escape. To gain entry to the United States or the British Empire, which were the family’s preferred destinations, they needed a sponsor who would take care of them until they were settled. Since they didn’t know anyone in the U.S. or Britain, they went to the Vienna public library, got U.S. and British telephone books and simply wrote to individuals in alphabetical order, imploring them to be their sponsors. Miraculously, by the time Herman resolved to emigrate, Elly and Margaret had received offers of sponsorship from three families, two from the United States and one from Scotland. Their relief was palpable but high hurdles still lie ahead, not least of which was that having a bona fide sponsor did not guarantee that they could emigrate. They had to get passports, which weren’t always granted. Even with a passport, they might be stopped at the train station and for no apparent reason sent to a concentration camp anyway. Whatever efforts they made, success getting out of the country was hit or miss. Then there was the question of whether they would survive the journey. The only practical way for most people to reach the U.S. or Britain from Europe in 1939 was by sea, where German warships and U-boats were a constant threat. Escaping from Vienna onto the high seas by no means guaranteed escaping death. For this reason and also because many Jews were loath to leave continental Europe, thousands chose to move to European countries that Germany had not yet occupied. Most of them were soon to be in jeopardy and many were killed as Hitler’s blitzkrieg, or lightning warfare, advanced swiftly across the continent.
Herman, Ellie and Margaret preferred to emigrate to the U.S. but several factors argued for Britain. The voyage to the United States was much longer and the danger from U-boats much greater than on a trip across the English Chanel. It was also more difficult to get approval to come to the U.S. The United States Immigration Act of 1924 set annual quotas based on a prospective immigrant's country of birth and immigrants often had to wait years before being allowed to enter the U.S. The Great Depression, which was still fresh in the minds of almost every U.S. adult, also led President Herbert Hoover to mandate that immigrants prove that they would not become public charges. This disqualified those who could not financially support themselves indefinitely. Other factors such as xenophobia, anti-Semitism, isolationism, and fear that the Nazis were sending spies and saboteurs to the United States, possibly disguised as refugees, made it unlikely that U.S. immigration policy would change anytime soon. Immigration restrictions in Britain were far less stringent. Therefore, desirable as the U.S. might be, the family was inclined to go to England. As things turned out, the choice was taken out of their hands when they learned that the United States Immigration Service had declined their application for a visa. It would have been folly to set out for the U.S. without a visa. In May of 1939, the German transatlantic liner St. Louis departed from Hamburg for Cuba with 937 passengers, most of whom were Jews who planned to wait in Cuba until their U.S. visas were approved. Cuba refused to accept them and when the Roosevelt administration denied their pleas for special consideration to enter the United States, the St. Louis returned to Europe. Fortunately, the passengers did not go back to Germany: Four other European countries took them in. But the voyage had been in vain and many of them died in the holocaust anyway.
Margaret accepted the offer of a sponsor in London. Elly and Herman accepted that of a family in Scotland. All three of them obtained passports and permission to leave Vienna for Britain. Jews who were allowed to emigrate from Austria forfeited all of their possessions and were prohibited from taking anything of value with them. Typically, they left with a small valise and the clothes on their backs and arrived at their destinations, if they arrived at all, without any money or means of support save the goodwill of their sponsors. If the Nazis discovered that they had hidden anything of value, they were sent to a concentration camp and probably to their deaths. It was frightening to disembark penniless in a foreign country but you risked your life to try to smuggle anything of value. Margaret Dichter decided to take the risk.
When my daughters were young, they were fascinated by the story of the escape from Vienna and especially by the risk that their great-aunt Margaret had taken. In 1976, to fulfill a third-grade writing assignment, my older daughter, Rebecca, wrote up the tale. I quote from the essay, which was published in the Austin American Statesman.
Fortunately, Elly and Margaret had been at work for months on finding a way to escape. To gain entry to the United States or the British Empire, which were the family’s preferred destinations, they needed a sponsor who would take care of them until they were settled. Since they didn’t know anyone in the U.S. or Britain, they went to the Vienna public library, got U.S. and British telephone books and simply wrote to individuals in alphabetical order, imploring them to be their sponsors. Miraculously, by the time Herman resolved to emigrate, Elly and Margaret had received offers of sponsorship from three families, two from the United States and one from Scotland. Their relief was palpable but high hurdles still lie ahead, not least of which was that having a bona fide sponsor did not guarantee that they could emigrate. They had to get passports, which weren’t always granted. Even with a passport, they might be stopped at the train station and for no apparent reason sent to a concentration camp anyway. Whatever efforts they made, success getting out of the country was hit or miss. Then there was the question of whether they would survive the journey. The only practical way for most people to reach the U.S. or Britain from Europe in 1939 was by sea, where German warships and U-boats were a constant threat. Escaping from Vienna onto the high seas by no means guaranteed escaping death. For this reason and also because many Jews were loath to leave continental Europe, thousands chose to move to European countries that Germany had not yet occupied. Most of them were soon to be in jeopardy and many were killed as Hitler’s blitzkrieg, or lightning warfare, advanced swiftly across the continent.
Herman, Ellie and Margaret preferred to emigrate to the U.S. but several factors argued for Britain. The voyage to the United States was much longer and the danger from U-boats much greater than on a trip across the English Chanel. It was also more difficult to get approval to come to the U.S. The United States Immigration Act of 1924 set annual quotas based on a prospective immigrant's country of birth and immigrants often had to wait years before being allowed to enter the U.S. The Great Depression, which was still fresh in the minds of almost every U.S. adult, also led President Herbert Hoover to mandate that immigrants prove that they would not become public charges. This disqualified those who could not financially support themselves indefinitely. Other factors such as xenophobia, anti-Semitism, isolationism, and fear that the Nazis were sending spies and saboteurs to the United States, possibly disguised as refugees, made it unlikely that U.S. immigration policy would change anytime soon. Immigration restrictions in Britain were far less stringent. Therefore, desirable as the U.S. might be, the family was inclined to go to England. As things turned out, the choice was taken out of their hands when they learned that the United States Immigration Service had declined their application for a visa. It would have been folly to set out for the U.S. without a visa. In May of 1939, the German transatlantic liner St. Louis departed from Hamburg for Cuba with 937 passengers, most of whom were Jews who planned to wait in Cuba until their U.S. visas were approved. Cuba refused to accept them and when the Roosevelt administration denied their pleas for special consideration to enter the United States, the St. Louis returned to Europe. Fortunately, the passengers did not go back to Germany: Four other European countries took them in. But the voyage had been in vain and many of them died in the holocaust anyway.
Margaret accepted the offer of a sponsor in London. Elly and Herman accepted that of a family in Scotland. All three of them obtained passports and permission to leave Vienna for Britain. Jews who were allowed to emigrate from Austria forfeited all of their possessions and were prohibited from taking anything of value with them. Typically, they left with a small valise and the clothes on their backs and arrived at their destinations, if they arrived at all, without any money or means of support save the goodwill of their sponsors. If the Nazis discovered that they had hidden anything of value, they were sent to a concentration camp and probably to their deaths. It was frightening to disembark penniless in a foreign country but you risked your life to try to smuggle anything of value. Margaret Dichter decided to take the risk.
When my daughters were young, they were fascinated by the story of the escape from Vienna and especially by the risk that their great-aunt Margaret had taken. In 1976, to fulfill a third-grade writing assignment, my older daughter, Rebecca, wrote up the tale. I quote from the essay, which was published in the Austin American Statesman.
MY GRANDMOTHER TOLD ME…
By REBECCA BLUMENFELD
3rd. Grade, Casis Elementary
By REBECCA BLUMENFELD
3rd. Grade, Casis Elementary
When my grandmother and her sister were young ladies, they lived in Europe in the country of Austria. At that time there was a great war called World War II. Germany had been taken over by cruel men known as Nazis… The Nazi’s were horrible to everyone they conquered. But they treated Jewish people worst of all, often torturing them or driving them out of their homes and taking their money…
My grandmother and her sister wanted to escape from the Nazis because they are Jewish and were afraid they would be killed. They knew the Nazi’s would not let them leave without taking all their money… But if they had no money where could they go? And how could they start a new life? They needed a plan.
The Nazis always searched the clothes and suitcases of people who left the country… and if they found anything hidden, they put you in jail or killed you. My grandmother didn’t know what to do. Finally, my grandmother’s sister had an idea. She had an old-fashion hairbrush that was hollow… The handle could be screwed off, leaving a secret compartment in the head of the brush, where money or jewels could be hidden…
My grandmother’s sister filled the hairbrush with diamonds and other precious jewels. She packed it in her suitcase and they all set out for the train station. It was a big chance to take. If the Nazis discovered the secret compartment, my grandmother and her sister would be thrown in jail and probably killed. But if they escaped with the jewels, they could start a new life.
Everyone was frightened. When they reached the station, the Nazis opened their bags and searched everything from top to bottom. Finally, one Nazi picked up the hairbrush. My grandmother’s heart stopped. What if he opened it? But he didn’t. He just looked it over and threw it back in the bag. My grandmother and her sister got on the train and escaped…
When their ship arrived in the British Isles, Margaret went to London, Herman and Elly to Scotland. I wish I knew more about their honorable and generous sponsors so I could acknowledge their great kindheartedness toward these complete strangers. Unfortunately, I know only that Margaret’s sponsor was a Jewish man named Bell, a furrier living in the Aldgate area in central London. She worked for him as a seamstress, sewing linings into fur coats. Herman and Elly’s sponsor was a wealthy Scottish judge named Abbott, who was not Jewish. They were Judge Abbott’s guests for three months. When Herman received a position as a petty clerk in a government office in London, he and Elly left Scotland and were reunited with Margaret.
Shortly after their arrival in London, news was received that the Allied forces, including the bulk of the British army, were trapped on the coast of France near Dunkirk. Hitler’s troops had breached the Maginot Line on the French/German border, burst through the forest at Ardennes and were advancing quickly toward the Allied forces. Speaking to the House of Commons, Winston Churchill declared that the Allies had endured a colossal military disaster and that the ‘whole root and core and brain of the British Army’ was on the brink of annihilation or capture. Desperate plans were made to evacuate the troops from Dunkirk but there appeared to be too little time. Then suddenly, for reasons historians still debate, on May 22, 1940, Hitler gave an order to halt the advance toward Dunkirk. Although he rescinded the order on May 26, this gave the British enough time to bolster defences and organize Operation Dynamo, the heroic effort to evacuate their troops across the English Channel. Marshalling some 800 boats, including warships and a host of small civilian craft such as speed boats, car ferries and motorized lifeboats, over 330,000 British and other Allied troops were rescued between May 26 and June 4, 1940. Herman Beer, newly-arrived from Scotland and only recently having escaped Nazi clutches in Vienna, was among the many civilians who manned the so-called ‘Little Boats of Dunkirk.’
On July 4, 1945, about two months before the official end of the war, Elly Beer gave birth in London to my future wife, Gene Elizabeth Rosalyn Beer. The newborn’s first name was inspired by that of the famous screen actress of the time, Gene Tierney. At approximately the same time Margaret, who had become Margaret Lipton, gave birth to Gene’s cousin, Jennifer Lipton. Gene’s name caused difficulties because she was always taken on paper for being male. So eventually her name became ‘Jean,’ which solved the problem until, in her junior year in college, she spent six months in France, where ‘Jean’ is a man’s name. The French, who are fussy about names, had a list of ‘approved names,’ which did not include one for a female ‘Jean.’ Consequently, they insisted that she could not possibly be Jean, and for those six months Jean became Jeanne. What’s in a name? In this case, a great deal of hassle.
In 1952, Herman, Elly and Margaret (who by then had left Mr. Lipton) moved with their seven-year-old daughters to New York City. Although they loved the British Isles and felt privileged and grateful to have been given sanctuary there, economic times were still challenging in England and it had been difficult for the family to eke out a living. In contrast, they were regaled by friends with exaggerated stories about how easy it was to flourish economically in the United States. What the family heard, in effect, was a version of the old ‘streets paved with gold’ tale. Off to America they went and settled in the borough of Queens, in the neighborhood of Flushing – or, as the kids referred to it, ‘Flushing, the toilet of Queens.’ Until they got established, the family of five lived together in a tiny, two-bedroom apartment. Later Margaret and Jennifer moved to a separate location in Queens. Unable to practice law in a country whose legal system he did not know and in whose language he was at first only moderately proficient, Herman went instead into the business of importing cuckoo clocks. The little apartment doubled as his business office, where many new models of cuckoo clocks adorned the walls. Instead of legal banter and the shuffle of courtroom documents, the primary sound to be heard at the Beer apartment in the toilet of Queens was the incessant cuckooing of imported clocks. Jean said that the sight of little wooden birds popping out of their nests in the clocks and the sound of their voices every half hour nearly drove her cuckoo. Not that it was a pleasure for Herman either, who had traded a position of considerable respect in Vienna for a much less glamorous one in Queens. Although Herman never attained anything approaching the status or prosperity he had in Austria, he did well enough in the cuckoo clock business and that, together with a modest reparations check he and Elly received from the German government, enabled the two of them to live a reasonably comfortable if unassuming life. Margaret also received a small reparations check. More important, Herman, Elly and Margaret had escaped from Vienna and had now added Jean and Jennifer to the family. That was what mattered.
Margaret, whom Jean’s and my children called ‘Auntie Gretie,’ pursued a different path than Herman. (Elly always called her sister ‘Gretie, or ‘Gretel,’ as in ‘Hansel and Gretel’ of fairy tale fame, and the kids followed suit.) Auntie Gretie was a dark-eyed, full-bosomed beauty, who spoke in a tiny, tinkly voice with a thick but charming Viennese accent. To meet her in the family circle, kvelling – or gushing effusively – over her grandchildren or her shamelessly-overfed Dalmatian, Cavie, one might easily have taken her for a pleasant and attractive but somewhat passive and retiring woman. Pleasant and attractive she was. But passive and retiring? Not by a long stretch. Once oriented to America, Auntie Grete made a beeline for the garment district in Manhattan and landed herself a job as head pattern maker for a clothing manufacturer that specialized in making knock-offs of designer dresses. Aaron Dworkowitz, the owner of the firm, purchased high-line dresses, Auntie Gretie copied them, and a staff of seamstresses, which later included sister Elly, produced excellent facsimiles for a fraction of the price of the originals. In some instances, Aaron and Auntie Gretie attended fashion shows in which famous designers – Chanel, Dior, or de Givency – previewed their forthcoming lines and Gretie made copies of the dresses from sight. This was far more difficult than taking dresses apart and replicating them but it was a lot less expensive, and making copies from sight was well within Auntie Gretie’s considerable abilities. Unfortunately, once the designers realized what she and Aaron were up to, they were no longer welcome at New York fashion shows. Perhaps they should have gone in disguise.
At the Dworkowitz dress factory, where Auntie Gretie ran the show, she was always referred to as Mrs. Lipton or, by upper-level employees, as Margaret. In addition to helping Aaron select dresses to copy, Margaret produced the all-important patterns, supervised the head model, Vera, who was a perfect size ten, oversaw the production line and kept the suppliers on their toes. The only things she didn’t handle were the books, collections and recruiting new customers. Those tasks belonged to Aaron. People who knew Margaret only at home would not have recognized her in the garment district. Gone was the tiny, tinkly voice. In its place, there arose, when necessary, a commanding, even strident, bark. One of her associates told me that when Margaret spoke, suppliers and others jumped. He said they called her ‘The Tiger of the Garment District.’
Back at home, the family continued to worry about the relatives they had left behind. Two of Herman’s three siblings made it to Israel but his parents and one of his sisters stayed in Vienna. No one ever learned what became of them. Some of the Dichters, such as Elly’s and Margaret’s brother, Carl, and their first cousin, Ernest, got out of Vienna but the fate of others, including Elly’s and Gretie’s parents, was unknown.
Ernest Dichter came to the States in 1938 and made it big as a marketing expert who was known as the ‘father of motivational research.’ Cousin Ernest applied concepts of psychoanalysis to enable advertisers to manipulate human needs and unconscious desires to increase sales of their clients’ products or to design new products that would sell more effectively. Vance Packard brought Ernest Dichter and his Institute for Motivational Research to public attention in the best-selling book, The Hidden Persuaders. Dichter coined the term ‘focus group’ and used such groups to find out what people of all ages, including young children, desired most. One of his focus groups influenced the creation of the Barbie Doll. When Ruth Handler, co-founder of Mattel Toy Company, got the idea for Barbie, she hired Dichter to devise a marketing strategy for the new toy. After interviewing focus groups, he concluded that what kids wanted ‘was someone sexy looking, someone that they wanted to grow up to be like… Long legs, big breasts, glamorous.’ His advice to Mattel? Make Barbie’s breasts bigger and assure mothers that the doll would help their daughters learn to accessorize. Dichter also helped lift the sagging sales of the prune industry, which his research revealed was suffering from an image problem. For years prunes had sold well enough because of their qualities as a natural laxative. By the 1950s, commercial laxatives had come into prominence and consumers – who associated prunes only with their dark, wrinkled appearance, with unpleasant phrases such as ‘old prune face’ and especially with chronic constipation – reacted to the fruit as a symbol of decrepitude and infirmity. As Vance Packard reports, Dichter recommended an image makeover using brightly-colored ads featuring young, vital, prune-eating girls figure skating, playing tennis and frolicking carefree. The image caught on and there soon was a boon for the prune. In a few years, prune consumption and prune prices were rising again.
At a more general level, Ernest Dichter preached a philosophy of corporate hedonism, which he claimed could enrich consumers’ lives and make citizens resistant to totalitarian ideas. Packard and others had a more sceptical view of Dichter’s philosophy and practice. Some even thought the world might be better off had Cousin Ernest devoted himself to importing cuckoo clocks. Whatever one’s view of him, Ernest Dichter was a groundbreaking marketing researcher.
Apart from these few relatives, it was unclear what had happened to the family members who had not escaped from Vienna. Although Herman, Elly and Gretie suspected the worst, they yearned for the peace of knowing their loved ones’ fates. Herman and Elly died without ever finding out. Auntie Gretie, who survived long after her sister and brother-in-law, eventually gave up hope of ever getting the information she desired. Then unexpectedly in 1992 Jennifer read that the Soviet government had announced the release of confiscated German records containing the fates of 400,000 - 500,000 people who had been interred in Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Sachsenhausen and other camps. This spurred the opening of the American Red Cross Tracing Center, which enabled families to access these records and other ones that had previously been available only to scholars. With Jennifer’s help, Auntie Gretie filed the search forms and was among the first applicants to gain the information they desired. The Red Cross confirmed that on June 20, 1942, a death transport carrying her parents, Judith and Tobias Dichter, departed from Prague for the gas chambers of Maly Trostinet, where they were murdered along with 60,000 - 65,000 other Jews. (The Russians, who liberated the camp, put the figure at around 200,000, but scholars at Yad Vashem: The World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem believe that this is an exaggeration.) Because many of the victims at Maly Trostinet were gassed the day they arrived, it is likely that Judith and Tobias Dichter died in late June 1942. Obtaining the information about her parents’ death allowed Gretie to achieve closure regarding their fate. It also enabled her at last to be able to light a yahrzeit (memorial) candle and recite the Kaddish prayer of mourning on the day of the Hebrew calendar that corresponds approximately to the day of her parents’ death. Margaret Lipton, our Auntie Gretie, was quoted in USA Today as saying:
It was so important because in the back of my mind I was always in doubt about what really happened to them. They were together to the end. It was very sad news but I was at peace with myself… Of so many millions of people, they were like a needle in a haystack, but the Red Cross found them.
Because Gretie was among the first applicants to locate her relatives using the Red Cross Tracing Center, she was invited to speak at a ceremony celebrating its establishment. The ceremony, which my daughter Rebecca attended, was held at the American Red Cross National Headquarters in Washington, D.C. It was hosted by then President of the American Red Cross, Elizabeth Dole, U.S. Senator from North Carolina from 2003 - 2009, Secretary of Transportation under Ronald Reagan and Secretary of Labor under George H. W. Bush. Rebecca said it was a proud night as her eighty-year-old great-aunt, who stood in hot, bright lights before eight television cameras, spoke tearfully but well. Auntie Gretie Lipton lived for another twenty years and died at the age of a hundred. Aleve Sholom. May she rest in peace. May they all rest in peace.
My grandmother and her sister wanted to escape from the Nazis because they are Jewish and were afraid they would be killed. They knew the Nazi’s would not let them leave without taking all their money… But if they had no money where could they go? And how could they start a new life? They needed a plan.
The Nazis always searched the clothes and suitcases of people who left the country… and if they found anything hidden, they put you in jail or killed you. My grandmother didn’t know what to do. Finally, my grandmother’s sister had an idea. She had an old-fashion hairbrush that was hollow… The handle could be screwed off, leaving a secret compartment in the head of the brush, where money or jewels could be hidden…
My grandmother’s sister filled the hairbrush with diamonds and other precious jewels. She packed it in her suitcase and they all set out for the train station. It was a big chance to take. If the Nazis discovered the secret compartment, my grandmother and her sister would be thrown in jail and probably killed. But if they escaped with the jewels, they could start a new life.
Everyone was frightened. When they reached the station, the Nazis opened their bags and searched everything from top to bottom. Finally, one Nazi picked up the hairbrush. My grandmother’s heart stopped. What if he opened it? But he didn’t. He just looked it over and threw it back in the bag. My grandmother and her sister got on the train and escaped…
When their ship arrived in the British Isles, Margaret went to London, Herman and Elly to Scotland. I wish I knew more about their honorable and generous sponsors so I could acknowledge their great kindheartedness toward these complete strangers. Unfortunately, I know only that Margaret’s sponsor was a Jewish man named Bell, a furrier living in the Aldgate area in central London. She worked for him as a seamstress, sewing linings into fur coats. Herman and Elly’s sponsor was a wealthy Scottish judge named Abbott, who was not Jewish. They were Judge Abbott’s guests for three months. When Herman received a position as a petty clerk in a government office in London, he and Elly left Scotland and were reunited with Margaret.
Shortly after their arrival in London, news was received that the Allied forces, including the bulk of the British army, were trapped on the coast of France near Dunkirk. Hitler’s troops had breached the Maginot Line on the French/German border, burst through the forest at Ardennes and were advancing quickly toward the Allied forces. Speaking to the House of Commons, Winston Churchill declared that the Allies had endured a colossal military disaster and that the ‘whole root and core and brain of the British Army’ was on the brink of annihilation or capture. Desperate plans were made to evacuate the troops from Dunkirk but there appeared to be too little time. Then suddenly, for reasons historians still debate, on May 22, 1940, Hitler gave an order to halt the advance toward Dunkirk. Although he rescinded the order on May 26, this gave the British enough time to bolster defences and organize Operation Dynamo, the heroic effort to evacuate their troops across the English Channel. Marshalling some 800 boats, including warships and a host of small civilian craft such as speed boats, car ferries and motorized lifeboats, over 330,000 British and other Allied troops were rescued between May 26 and June 4, 1940. Herman Beer, newly-arrived from Scotland and only recently having escaped Nazi clutches in Vienna, was among the many civilians who manned the so-called ‘Little Boats of Dunkirk.’
On July 4, 1945, about two months before the official end of the war, Elly Beer gave birth in London to my future wife, Gene Elizabeth Rosalyn Beer. The newborn’s first name was inspired by that of the famous screen actress of the time, Gene Tierney. At approximately the same time Margaret, who had become Margaret Lipton, gave birth to Gene’s cousin, Jennifer Lipton. Gene’s name caused difficulties because she was always taken on paper for being male. So eventually her name became ‘Jean,’ which solved the problem until, in her junior year in college, she spent six months in France, where ‘Jean’ is a man’s name. The French, who are fussy about names, had a list of ‘approved names,’ which did not include one for a female ‘Jean.’ Consequently, they insisted that she could not possibly be Jean, and for those six months Jean became Jeanne. What’s in a name? In this case, a great deal of hassle.
In 1952, Herman, Elly and Margaret (who by then had left Mr. Lipton) moved with their seven-year-old daughters to New York City. Although they loved the British Isles and felt privileged and grateful to have been given sanctuary there, economic times were still challenging in England and it had been difficult for the family to eke out a living. In contrast, they were regaled by friends with exaggerated stories about how easy it was to flourish economically in the United States. What the family heard, in effect, was a version of the old ‘streets paved with gold’ tale. Off to America they went and settled in the borough of Queens, in the neighborhood of Flushing – or, as the kids referred to it, ‘Flushing, the toilet of Queens.’ Until they got established, the family of five lived together in a tiny, two-bedroom apartment. Later Margaret and Jennifer moved to a separate location in Queens. Unable to practice law in a country whose legal system he did not know and in whose language he was at first only moderately proficient, Herman went instead into the business of importing cuckoo clocks. The little apartment doubled as his business office, where many new models of cuckoo clocks adorned the walls. Instead of legal banter and the shuffle of courtroom documents, the primary sound to be heard at the Beer apartment in the toilet of Queens was the incessant cuckooing of imported clocks. Jean said that the sight of little wooden birds popping out of their nests in the clocks and the sound of their voices every half hour nearly drove her cuckoo. Not that it was a pleasure for Herman either, who had traded a position of considerable respect in Vienna for a much less glamorous one in Queens. Although Herman never attained anything approaching the status or prosperity he had in Austria, he did well enough in the cuckoo clock business and that, together with a modest reparations check he and Elly received from the German government, enabled the two of them to live a reasonably comfortable if unassuming life. Margaret also received a small reparations check. More important, Herman, Elly and Margaret had escaped from Vienna and had now added Jean and Jennifer to the family. That was what mattered.
Margaret, whom Jean’s and my children called ‘Auntie Gretie,’ pursued a different path than Herman. (Elly always called her sister ‘Gretie, or ‘Gretel,’ as in ‘Hansel and Gretel’ of fairy tale fame, and the kids followed suit.) Auntie Gretie was a dark-eyed, full-bosomed beauty, who spoke in a tiny, tinkly voice with a thick but charming Viennese accent. To meet her in the family circle, kvelling – or gushing effusively – over her grandchildren or her shamelessly-overfed Dalmatian, Cavie, one might easily have taken her for a pleasant and attractive but somewhat passive and retiring woman. Pleasant and attractive she was. But passive and retiring? Not by a long stretch. Once oriented to America, Auntie Grete made a beeline for the garment district in Manhattan and landed herself a job as head pattern maker for a clothing manufacturer that specialized in making knock-offs of designer dresses. Aaron Dworkowitz, the owner of the firm, purchased high-line dresses, Auntie Gretie copied them, and a staff of seamstresses, which later included sister Elly, produced excellent facsimiles for a fraction of the price of the originals. In some instances, Aaron and Auntie Gretie attended fashion shows in which famous designers – Chanel, Dior, or de Givency – previewed their forthcoming lines and Gretie made copies of the dresses from sight. This was far more difficult than taking dresses apart and replicating them but it was a lot less expensive, and making copies from sight was well within Auntie Gretie’s considerable abilities. Unfortunately, once the designers realized what she and Aaron were up to, they were no longer welcome at New York fashion shows. Perhaps they should have gone in disguise.
At the Dworkowitz dress factory, where Auntie Gretie ran the show, she was always referred to as Mrs. Lipton or, by upper-level employees, as Margaret. In addition to helping Aaron select dresses to copy, Margaret produced the all-important patterns, supervised the head model, Vera, who was a perfect size ten, oversaw the production line and kept the suppliers on their toes. The only things she didn’t handle were the books, collections and recruiting new customers. Those tasks belonged to Aaron. People who knew Margaret only at home would not have recognized her in the garment district. Gone was the tiny, tinkly voice. In its place, there arose, when necessary, a commanding, even strident, bark. One of her associates told me that when Margaret spoke, suppliers and others jumped. He said they called her ‘The Tiger of the Garment District.’
Back at home, the family continued to worry about the relatives they had left behind. Two of Herman’s three siblings made it to Israel but his parents and one of his sisters stayed in Vienna. No one ever learned what became of them. Some of the Dichters, such as Elly’s and Margaret’s brother, Carl, and their first cousin, Ernest, got out of Vienna but the fate of others, including Elly’s and Gretie’s parents, was unknown.
Ernest Dichter came to the States in 1938 and made it big as a marketing expert who was known as the ‘father of motivational research.’ Cousin Ernest applied concepts of psychoanalysis to enable advertisers to manipulate human needs and unconscious desires to increase sales of their clients’ products or to design new products that would sell more effectively. Vance Packard brought Ernest Dichter and his Institute for Motivational Research to public attention in the best-selling book, The Hidden Persuaders. Dichter coined the term ‘focus group’ and used such groups to find out what people of all ages, including young children, desired most. One of his focus groups influenced the creation of the Barbie Doll. When Ruth Handler, co-founder of Mattel Toy Company, got the idea for Barbie, she hired Dichter to devise a marketing strategy for the new toy. After interviewing focus groups, he concluded that what kids wanted ‘was someone sexy looking, someone that they wanted to grow up to be like… Long legs, big breasts, glamorous.’ His advice to Mattel? Make Barbie’s breasts bigger and assure mothers that the doll would help their daughters learn to accessorize. Dichter also helped lift the sagging sales of the prune industry, which his research revealed was suffering from an image problem. For years prunes had sold well enough because of their qualities as a natural laxative. By the 1950s, commercial laxatives had come into prominence and consumers – who associated prunes only with their dark, wrinkled appearance, with unpleasant phrases such as ‘old prune face’ and especially with chronic constipation – reacted to the fruit as a symbol of decrepitude and infirmity. As Vance Packard reports, Dichter recommended an image makeover using brightly-colored ads featuring young, vital, prune-eating girls figure skating, playing tennis and frolicking carefree. The image caught on and there soon was a boon for the prune. In a few years, prune consumption and prune prices were rising again.
At a more general level, Ernest Dichter preached a philosophy of corporate hedonism, which he claimed could enrich consumers’ lives and make citizens resistant to totalitarian ideas. Packard and others had a more sceptical view of Dichter’s philosophy and practice. Some even thought the world might be better off had Cousin Ernest devoted himself to importing cuckoo clocks. Whatever one’s view of him, Ernest Dichter was a groundbreaking marketing researcher.
Apart from these few relatives, it was unclear what had happened to the family members who had not escaped from Vienna. Although Herman, Elly and Gretie suspected the worst, they yearned for the peace of knowing their loved ones’ fates. Herman and Elly died without ever finding out. Auntie Gretie, who survived long after her sister and brother-in-law, eventually gave up hope of ever getting the information she desired. Then unexpectedly in 1992 Jennifer read that the Soviet government had announced the release of confiscated German records containing the fates of 400,000 - 500,000 people who had been interred in Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Sachsenhausen and other camps. This spurred the opening of the American Red Cross Tracing Center, which enabled families to access these records and other ones that had previously been available only to scholars. With Jennifer’s help, Auntie Gretie filed the search forms and was among the first applicants to gain the information they desired. The Red Cross confirmed that on June 20, 1942, a death transport carrying her parents, Judith and Tobias Dichter, departed from Prague for the gas chambers of Maly Trostinet, where they were murdered along with 60,000 - 65,000 other Jews. (The Russians, who liberated the camp, put the figure at around 200,000, but scholars at Yad Vashem: The World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem believe that this is an exaggeration.) Because many of the victims at Maly Trostinet were gassed the day they arrived, it is likely that Judith and Tobias Dichter died in late June 1942. Obtaining the information about her parents’ death allowed Gretie to achieve closure regarding their fate. It also enabled her at last to be able to light a yahrzeit (memorial) candle and recite the Kaddish prayer of mourning on the day of the Hebrew calendar that corresponds approximately to the day of her parents’ death. Margaret Lipton, our Auntie Gretie, was quoted in USA Today as saying:
It was so important because in the back of my mind I was always in doubt about what really happened to them. They were together to the end. It was very sad news but I was at peace with myself… Of so many millions of people, they were like a needle in a haystack, but the Red Cross found them.
Because Gretie was among the first applicants to locate her relatives using the Red Cross Tracing Center, she was invited to speak at a ceremony celebrating its establishment. The ceremony, which my daughter Rebecca attended, was held at the American Red Cross National Headquarters in Washington, D.C. It was hosted by then President of the American Red Cross, Elizabeth Dole, U.S. Senator from North Carolina from 2003 - 2009, Secretary of Transportation under Ronald Reagan and Secretary of Labor under George H. W. Bush. Rebecca said it was a proud night as her eighty-year-old great-aunt, who stood in hot, bright lights before eight television cameras, spoke tearfully but well. Auntie Gretie Lipton lived for another twenty years and died at the age of a hundred. Aleve Sholom. May she rest in peace. May they all rest in peace.
David Blumenfeld (aka Dean Flowerfield) is professor emeritus of philosophy. He has taught at the University of California, Santa Cruz; University of Illinois at Chicago; Southwestern University, where he held the McManis Chair in Philosophy and Religion; and Georgia State University, where he was philosophy chairperson and associate dean for the humanities. His 2021 publications are in Best New True Crime Stories: Well-Mannered Crooks, Rogues & Criminals; Mono.; Balloons Lit. Journal; The Caterpillar; Beyond Words and (forthcoming 2022) Carmina Magazine.
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