Dear Editor,
I want to thank The American Israelite for publishing Rabbi Abie Ingber’s letter to the editor about the German Lutheran Pastor Martin Niemoeller and his second wife Sarah. He is well known for his remarks about his relationship with the Jews and Nazis in World War II. Rabbi Ingber began his letter with the ending of his quote: “Then they came for me…” The remarks began: “First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out — because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak for me.”
While I knew that Rev. Niemoeller was man of principle, moral integrity and courage Rabbi Ingber’s letter taught me his illustrious biography included: “serving in World War I as a German naval hero, awarded the German Cross for being a U-Boat, submarine commander. He later became a clergyman and pacifist. In 1937, he was arrested for crimes against the State, and eventually spent eight years in both prison and concentration camps for his opposition against Nazism. After WWII, he became a world-renowned lecturer.”
In 1971 he married Sarah who had been a child in the church where Pastor Niemoeller served. Her own family history reflected resistance against the Nazi regime. Her family had been engaged in an underground railroad to save Jews from deportation to death camps. They were also involved in the 1944 failed plot to kill Hitler.
Rabbi Ingber first met Sarah Niemoeller when he brought her to lecture at Xavier University. Her remarkable personal story included being a Baroness, marriage to Rev. Niemoeller and after his death eventually converting to Judaism.
I recently read Rabbi Ingber’s letter to the editor about the Niemoellers after I attended a family wedding in Olympia, Washington, where my nephew’s daughter married an Austrian exchange student who had become an American citizen, and also a Washington State Patrol Officer. The Niemoellers’ story of resistance to Nazism was no longer just academic and historic, it became much more meaningful and personal when I learned the groom’s family history. His father, a Christian pacifist had been opposed to Nazism. As an Austrian, he refused to serve in the German army. He was arrested by the Gestapo and incarcerated in two concentration camps and survived the war.
Rabbi Robert L. Reiner
Boca Raton, FL
