Born:
Danzig, Germany
February 2, 1922
Norbert Lachman was born in Danzig, an ethnically German area that became a “free city” under the protection of the League of Nations after World War I. In the 1930s, as Adolph Hitler and his Nazi party consolidated power in Germany, Danzig slowly shifted into its orbit. As the influence of the League of Nations diminished, abuses against the Jews and political opponents of the Nazis in Danzig intensified.
For Norbert, the changing political climate meant that he was ostracized at school and banned from sports teams. Once, he was accosted by two members of a Nazi youth organization while he was delivering bread from the family’s bakery. In 1937, fifteen-year-old Norbert was forced to leave public school. He went to Berlin to enroll in a vocational school to prepare for the family’s anticipated emigration from Germany. Norbert was in Berlin in November 1938 during Kristallnacht, the violent anti-Jewish pogrom instigated by Nazi officials. When SS officers came to the house where he was boarding and began to arrest non-German residents, Norbert leapt on his bicycle and fled in terror. As he pedaled toward the Grunewald Forest, where he would hide for three days, a fire in the spectacular Oranienburg Synagogue lit the sky: “What I saw there were prayer books, Torah books, and everything in flames or shattered on the street. I was very disturbed when I saw that. I heard windows going. People were throwing stones into Jewish stores and all the glass was coming down.”
After he emerged from hiding, Norbert returned to Danzig, where the family continued to prepare for emigration. Until they were able to leave, they lived in a state of anxiety. Danzig’s Jews were no longer permitted to worship in their synagogue and, fearful of violence, many chose to avoid appearing in public. It was a scary and unsettling time.
In August 1939—just days before the outbreak of World War II—Norbert’s family was finally able to depart for the United States, under the sponsorship of a wealthy relative. They settled in New York, where adjustment was difficult. The United States had yet to emerge from the Depression, and Norbert’s father struggled for find work. Norbert sometimes felt like an outsider. “When I spoke about what happened in Germany to American Jews or to Jews in general, they looked at me like I came from Mars,” he recalled. “There was disbelief in it.” Norbert felt relatively comfortable in the company of his fellow refugees. At a social outing to Rockaway Beach with other young German Jews, he met his future wife, Gloria Wolf. They were married on June 1, 1947.
In 1943, Norbert joined the United States Army and was sent to Europe, where he was engaged in intelligence work. He also served his adopted country during the Korean War. After his honorable discharge in 1953, Norbert pursued a career as an engineer. He and Gloria had two daughters and a son.
In 1988, Norbert and Gloria traveled to Danzig, the city of his birth. “I felt like a stranger,” he reflected. “I felt like I didn’t even belong there anymore.”
Parents:
Karl Lachman, survived
Johanna Nussbaum Lachman, survived
Siblings:
Helga, survived