Irm Wessel Remembers

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by Melinda Tuhus | Apr 15, 2007 10:41 am

(2) Comments | Commenting has been closed | E-mail the Author

Posted to: Arts

morris%20and%20irm.JPG In Morris and Irm Wessel’s decades of married life, it has often been Morris—famous pediatrician and progressive activist—who has overshadowed his wife, a social worker and progressive beacon in her own right. But Friday night, at Congregation Mishkan Israel, it was Irm in the spotlight as she described her experience on the kinder transport that took her and other German Jewish children safely out of the Nazis’ grasp.

irm%20lightened.JPG Wessel was introduced by Rabbi Herb Brockman as a sex therapist. “Talk about bringing life out of death,” he joked. Wessel, 82, walked quickly to the bima (the pulpit of a synogogue). She was the guest speaker for the synagogue’s Holocaust Remembrance Day service.

Wessel described the trajectory of her life, from the orderly, prosperous days as the daughter of a leader of Kassel, Germany’s Jewish community, through Kristallnacht, the shattering day in November 1938 when Jewish synagogues were trashed across Germany (and which happened first in her hometown). She said, even after that, and after her father was fired from his job as vice president of an industrial firm because he was Jewish, “My parents didn’t think it would get as bad as it did.”

She described how she was sent on a train (the “kinder transport”) to safety in England just before her 13th birthday. “I had been expecting a bicycle for my birthday,” she told the attentive crowd that filled the chapel. “Well, I obviously did not get a bicycle.”

She said when she arrived in England, “I knew one word of English, and that word was lavatory.” Click here for a brief description of her life in England.

Her brother, who was three years older, was sent to England on a different kinder transport. But since he was a 16-year-old German male (though Jewish), he was held for the course of the war as an enemy combatant on the Isle of Man. She also explained that her father had been instrumental in helping other Jews from Kassel escape from Germany, but almost didn’t make it out himself. However, both her parents did make it to America (unlike thousands of other Jews, who were denied entry to the U.S.). Wessel was reunited with them in 1940. Her brother came over after the war and also eventually settled in New Haven.

Wessel said the family was sent to live in Iowa, where, with the support of the Quakers, her parents found work and she went to school. Then a delegation of Christians from Eureka, Illinois, came to interview the Wessels and offer their support. So they moved to Eureka but didn’t convert to Christianity. Click here for more.

Wessel described the years in Eureka as “unbelievably wonderful. Eureka was the pumpkin capital of the world, and I have to tell you, I don’t like pumpkin pie anymore.” Her dad got a job as a certified public accountant; her mom worked in the college kitchen. She then attended Eureka College, the alma mater of Ronald Reagan. “I got an education,” she said. “He didn’t; he played football.”

She described meeting Morris Wessel as he rode his bike through the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, where she had been hired by B’nai B’rith to do work with Jewish refugees. They were married seven years later and settled in New Haven.

Wessel said she had vowed never to return to Germany, but a few years ago she went when her son was on business there and she visited her hom town. Click here to learn what she found.

After her talk, temple president Matthew Nemerson lauded both Wessels as role models for their political activism rooted in the Jewish tradition. “My parents, when they wanted to get more involved in issues, would call the Wessels for advice on how to go about it,” Nemerson said, adding that his parents sometimes wished he could be a better student, “like the Wessels’ kids.” (Their son, New Havener Paul Wessel, attended the service.)

After the service, people gathered across the hall for the oneg Shabbat, munching goodies and sharing more stories.

Comments

posted by: HATEFUL on April 16, 2007 11:07am

I take offense at your calling Morris Wessel a “curmudgeon”. How rude. Thanks, but no thanks.

posted by: Paul Bass on April 16, 2007 12:28pm

We changed the word—and we apologize for any offense. We all love Morris Wessel; he’s a great guy and a true New Haven hero…

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