An Introduction to Leonard's Story

 

Some time after his mother's death, Leonard Dreifuss wrote this award winning story about her life and legacy. Our dad put the story together from his own personal memories. He also spoke with her frequently about her life and with other family members old enough to remember. The picture at left was most likely taken in Fulda, Germany, showing our grandmother Karolina Dreifuss as a young woman at about 20 years old. A talented seamstress, Karolina made this dress herself. That is not a hat on her head but her own braided hair, which was far too long to style any other way.

 

She was an extremely independent young woman who left Germany and her family for New York at age 22 with a cousin of the same age. She wished to escape the domestic duties that young women had at home and start a new life as an independent and free young woman in the United States.

 

In the United States she was a strong family matriarch, finding work for her husband (a butcher) who found himself frequently unemployed. She also found work for her son Leonard, who worked from the age of 13 to help support his family (mother, father and two sisters). But she also insisted that Leonard stay in school.

 

To this day Carrie, as she became known, is remembered by many surviving descendants of the Hess family holocaust survivors. She tirelessly obtained sponsorship for immigrant family members into the US, a country that was extremely reluctant to accept them even as the storm clouds of the Holocaust were rapidly gathering. She is forever in the hearts of Pete and Jeff Dreifuss and all of her grandchildren.

 

At the beginning of his story dad placed a table of contents, which we use below as chapter titles. We have added a chapter title on Leonard's discussion of Karolina's quest to save the lives of thirty family members and friends from the holocaust.  This is the first of four pages of Dad's story that was titled simply...

 

KAROLINA

 

PROLOGUE

 

On a wet cold day in October 1977, at least 25 to 30 people assembled in a cemetery on Long Island. They did not come for a funeral; nor did they come to honor their mother or father. It was an anniversary of the passing of one never to be forgotten by those attending.

Prayers were said; stones were placed on the headstone. Then, one by one, they passed the gate where others stood because they could not enter. They were Kohnen but their eyes were fixed on the headstone:

 

KAROLINA HESS DREIFUSS

born March 19, 1884

died October 13, 1963

* * * * * * * * * *

 

THE FAMILY IN GERMANY

 

It was 1906 and Karolina was 22. Fulda was a small city, and life was pretty much laid out for her.

She had received a primary education in German and Hebrew, as well as an apprenticeship as a dressmaker. What else could a young German Jewish girl expect besides a small dowry and to marry a good orthodox Jewish boy! However, life for Karolina was more than just that. It was adventure, excitement and romance, and that is what leads me to the story of Karolina.

Karolina Hess was not the youngest, yet not the oldest. I guess she was somewhere in the middle of a family of ten children. Benedict, her father, was from the old school which dictated raising his family in a strict orthodox Jewish manner but at the same time, a strict German manner. The boys, of which there were five, were military mannered young men, trained in their various middle class trades, who served their military requirements for Jewish young men in Germany.

Josef, the oldest, was the business head of the family. He was 33 years old and had married Rosali Levi six years ago, after which time he started his own family: Karl in 1902, Elsbeth in 1905 and Meta was just delivered. For Josef, it was a good season for horse trading, and he was just beginning a fine large family.