CURT WARNER, a holocaust survivor, was born on June 25, 1921 in Aschaffenburg, Germany which is about (...) hour away from Frankfurt. His father, Leopold Worms, was also born in Aschaffenburg - August 10, 1888. Gerda Straus, his mother, was born on February 7, 1895 in Bad Nauheim, about (...) hours from Aschaffenburg. Twenty-six year old Gerda was a beautiful, young lady who became handicapped due to complications from giving birth to Curt, and thereafter she walked with 2 canes.

As a youngster Curt grew up going to public schools. He recalls a time when he was about 12 years old - he was frightened to go to school because he had to walk by a corner where a man sold the Nazi newspaper, DER STURMER - that man would spit & kick Curt - unfortunately, this had to be endured because going to school was a requirement. Curt also remembers how as a young teenager, he longed to be part of a group like the Hitler Youth. They always had things to do & places to go. This was not at all the case for the Jewish kids - they had no such freedom, no such fun. Though life was grim for Jews, like many other Jewish adults, his dad felt that the Nazis wouldn't last long, everything would be over in a month or so. Leo was proud to be German - he had been a soldier who served on the frontline in World War I, and was unwilling to leave his homeland. He felt that if he ever had to leave, it would be on the last train out.

Leo owned a home goods store where he sold bedding items like mattresses and sheets. People would come to the store to purchase goods, and Leo would also load his car & drive to surrounding farms to sell his wares. In the mid 1930's when the Nazis came to power, the German people were told to boycott Jewish business. Because of this decree, eventually the home goods store had to be closed, and the family became penniless. Curt's uncle, Alex Straus, lived in Bad Nauheim & helped them by paying their bills. (Alex was married to Else Lomnitz who was from Kirchain, and they had no children.) In 1935 Curt's dad took ill and was refused admittance to the local hospitals because he was Jewish. One gentile doctor was nice enough to go to their house in the middle of the night to operate on Leo in his own bed... but the operation was not successful - Leo passed away in December 1937 at the young age of 49.

After that tragedy, his mother moved to Bensheim to live in her sister's (Martha Strauss's) home, while 16 year old Curt moved to Frankfurt. There he lived with his Jewish employer's family, & he earned his room and board by working in the upholstery trade. Curt was 17 years old when Kristallnacht occurred on November 10, 1938. That morning while synagogues were burning, and men & boys were rounded up to be sent to Buchenwald concentration camp, Curt hid inside of a sleeper sofa in the apartment where he lived. He could hear the Nazis enter the apartment next to his - they took a sleeper sofa from there and threw it out the window! To save his life, he remained quiet inside the sofa, held his breath... and heard the Nazis enter his apartment... felt them stand on top of the sofa - on top of him - as they grabbed a picture off the wall & then threw it out the window! After an hour or so he came out of hiding when he felt it might be safe. He walked into the kitchen to find the employer's wife crying; her husband and oldest son had been taken away by the Nazis. She did not know then, but they were taken to Buchenwald.

Living right nearby was Curt's first cousin, Walter Mosbacher. Walter was also from Aschaffenburg; his mother & Curt's father were siblings. The two teens decided that they would leave Frankfurt after dark on that frightful, Kristallnacht evening. The plan was to take a trolley to the train station, and then take a train to Aschaffenburg where they thought they would be safer living in Walter's mother's multi-family house. Unfortunately, when they got on the trolley, 2 Nazis quickly identified them as Jews & subsequently threw them off the moving trolley as it started to depart! The boys ran back to their apartments, grabbed their bicycles, rode to the train station, locked the bikes there, and took the train to Aschaffenburg. Once there, it wasn't as safe as they had assumed. Because the Nazis were in the area, they had to hide in the attic of Walter's home along with Walter's mom & younger brother. The gentile people who lived on the 2nd floor would bring them food. After a week, these people said it was safe to come out of hiding. That is when Curt & Walter took the train back to Frankfurt, unlocked their bikes, and rode back to their respective apartments.
In 1939 Curt lived in Bad Nauheim with his great uncle, Isaac Straus, his mother's uncle. Curt commuted to Frankfurt to do his upholstery work. To help people salvage their possessions, he would even sew money and other valuables into sofas for Jews who were leaving Germany. It was in early 1939 when his Uncle Alex, who had previously helped with their bills, succumbed to his own tragedy. Alex was known to take daily walks in the parks and woods of Bad Nauheim, until one day when he failed to return home. A few days afterward, Alex's wife found a note that had a map which pointed to where Alex was - he had hung himself because he was afraid to leave Germany for England one week later. Curt witnessed when Alex's body was cut free of the noose hanging from a tree, and then transported to the morgue.

One day Curt met a friend, and they talked as they walked along the streets of Frankfurt. Two Nazis approached them and began to beat them, calling them "Jew boys." They spotted a woman opening the front door to her home & entering inside, and they made a run for it - much to her surprise, they ran into her home, too, and locked the door behind them. After an hour or so, they walked out - only to walk right into two Gestapo who gave them a choice: get taken to the concentration camp or "volunteer" to work at a labor camp. They opted for the labor camp, and ended up in the town of Steinhofoel near Furstenwalde/Spree. With about 75 other young men and 8 young women, they picked potatoes all day and ate them for all 3 of their meals, too! At one point Curt broke out with pus boils, and he was sent home to Bad Nauheim. He was supposed to return within 2 weeks once he was better, but he never did go back - rather, he continued to commute to Frankfurt to work... most of the remaining "volunteers" were killed in a concentration camp.

For years Curt was working on getting his visa, and finally he got it. It was on January 21, 1940 when he was only 18 years old, with the allowed 10 German marks in his pocket ($3.75), that he boarded the very last ship (the Veendam) to leave Rotterdam, Holland for America. He and others weeped with joy when they saw their first glimpse of the Statue of Liberty. After checking in at Ellis Island, the ship continued on to Hoboken, NJ where Curt's cousin, Senta Brown, met him. She took him on the subway to Grand Central Station. It was there that Curt saw a Black man for the very first time. He was frightened because he was taught in the German schools that Black people were cannibals in Africa. He and Senta took the train to Hartford, Connecticut.

A Jewish agency got him a job sewing automobile seat covers. At one point he rented a room in the multi-family, Hartford home of the Buchheim family - they had one child, a 14 year old daughter, Marion (born March 13, 1926). They were also holocaust survivors, from Wohra, Germany near Kirchain. Curt continued to correspond with his mother through letters. She lived in Bad Nauheim with her sister, brother-in-law, and cousin Frieda Bodenheimer (Senta Brown's mother). Jews in that town were rounded up and put in a 'holding area' to live until they were transported in 1942 to an unknown concentration camp in Poland. It is assumed that Gerda was killed immediately in the camp because she was disabled, i.e., of no use to the Nazis.

In 1944, at the age of 23, Curt joined the United States army. He served for a few years, inoculating soldiers against venereal disease. In 1946, he returned to Hartford, dated 20 year old Marion Buchheim, and married her on April 20, 1947. Their son, Steven, was born in Hartford on March 28, 1950; five years later they had a daughter, Beverly, born on May 10, 1955.

Today, as of December 2009, Curt and Marion live in Bloomfield, Connecticut during the summer, to be near their children. They spend the cold days of winter in their other home in warm, sunny Lauderhill, Florida. Steve Warner resides in South Windsor, Connecticut and is a computer programmer for The Hartford Insurance Group. Their daughter, Bev Warner Ladue, also lives in South Windsor, Connecticut along with her husband, Jim, who is an electrician, and their daughter, Arielle, who is a high school junior. Bev retired early from her computer programming career at The Hartford Insurance Group, and now works on insurance research at LIMRA in Windsor, CT.