Person:Wolfgang Gerbig (1)

Wolfgang was 5 foot 2 inches tall. He served in the US Merchant Marines about 1951 - 1952, the US Army at Fort Riley Kansas about 1960 - 1964. US Army Service # RA 19 575 299.

He died from complications resulting from injuries, specifically blood poisoning. He was robbed and assaulted in his apartment the month before. His throat was slit in the process. (Personally experienced graphic detail omitted).

While this wound was quite “gruesome” it was not immediately fatal, he succumbed a month later. He was awake in his final month and I visited him frequently, helping him eat and swabbing his mouth with a little water soaked sponge on a stick (he could not drink due to the trac (tube) in his neck).

He had no memory of what had happened to him. He thought he had had a heart attack. Although he was awake, he was “not fully there” mentally, at one point thinking it was the 1960's and he was in Southern CA. I never explained to him what had happened.

I was called by the doctor just before he died. When I arrived he was still alive and managed to mouth the words “I'm dieing” just before he slipped into a coma. The doctor had explained to me just before this that he was going to die and wanted to know if I wanted them to take extreme measures to keep him alive. She indicated that if they could keep him alive he would never leave the hospital. And would be on machines. I knew he would not want this so I said to let him go. After slipping into the coma he died within 5 minutes.

His death certificate reported the cause of death as 187 PC (the California penal code for murder, his killer was never found and is presumed to be a crack cocaine addict, of whom there were many of in his neighborhood.)

He had a triple bypass about a year before. Died at Kaiser Hospital Redwood City CA. Cremated and ashes scattered into the bay off of Pete's Harbor in Redwood City CA. This was his wish, to be with my mother (this was probably illegal, but is what he wanted).

His Childhood

I heard this story as a young child growing up along with graphic details on the holocaust which gave me nightmares when I was 11 or 12 years old.

When I was older we talked about it quite a bit. He gave me the details below as well as the details on my mother's mother.

The story as told to me by my father is that when he was a young child, apparently young enough not to remember anything about his parents, he was given up for adoption to a German orphanage. This was done to protect him from the German round up and slaughter of the Jewish people all over Europe. His parents were presumed to have perished in the Holocaust.

He grew up in the orphanage and lived there until after the war. Ironically, as a young boy he was put into mandatory service in the Hitler Youth (the Hitler youth's were aged 10 - 18 years).

At some point after the war he made contact with the woman that ran the orphanage in order to try and find out about his parents. It was at that time that he was told that his parents were Jewish and that they gave him up to protect him. The orphanage had no information on who his parents were. They told him that he was given the identity and birth certificate of a German child that had died at the orphanage, Wolfgang Siegfried Gerbig. The name of the orphanage is unknown to me and I have never seen his birth certificate.

Additional info from study:

“The round up of the Jews really did not come into full force until 1938 or 1939 (although Jews were being murdered by the Germans as early as 1933). I am not sure when it became widely known that the Jews were being murdered. After January 1933, the Jews became the "Untermenschen" - the sub-humans. Nazi thugs stopped Germans from shopping in Jewish shops. By 1934, all Jewish shops were marked with the yellow Star of David or had the word "Juden" written on the window. SA men stood outside the shops to deter anyone form entering.

In 1935, the Nuremberg Laws were passed. The Jews lost their right to be German citizens and marriage between Jews and non-Jews was forbidden. It was after this law that the violence against the Jews really openly started. Those that could pay a fine were allowed to leave the country. Many could not and many shops refused to sell food to those who remained. Medicines were also difficult to get hold of as chemists would not sell to Jews.”

As March 6th, 1930 is not my father's true birth date it might indicate he is younger than the age he went by. When speaking with my fathers Rabbi after his death, he acknowledged that he was told the same story as above.

In the 1950's he joined the Merchant Marines and traveled the world. At one point coming to the USA and becoming a US citizen. I believe he married my mother December 22nd 1956. My sister was born July 4th 1958.

My mother (pregant with me), father and sister left for the USA shortly thereafter. My father was in active service in the US Army by this time (I believe they were flown over on an Army transport aircraft.) I was born June 30th 1961 at the Fort Riley Kansas Army Base hospital.

In the late 1970's he acknowledged his Jewish heritage and joined a Conservative Jewish Synagogue, Temple Beth David in Redwood City California, Rabbi David Titlebaum. He was a member until his death.

He was circumcised as an adult after joining the conservative Synagogue (I remember it being quite painful for him). The fact he was not circumcised as a baby troubled me until I learned of “Classic German Reform Judaism”, which was most probably what his parents practiced if they were observant at all.

I found this information on Classic German Reform:

“Reform is the most liberal of the major movements within Judaism. It started in the 1800s in Germany during the emancipation, and encouraged examination of religion with an eye towards rationality and egalitarianism. Viewed from the light of today's Reform practice, the original adherents went too far; this form (which lasted until the 1960s, in some respects) is referred to as "Classic German Reform".

The Classic German Reform movement decried traditional Jewish practices such as circumcision and the laws of family purity as "barbaric". Among the 'Reforms' instituted by the Reform leadership in the late 1800s were the following changes:

Circumcision was abandoned. The Hebrew language was removed from the liturgy and replaced with German. The hope for a restoration of the Jews in Israel was officially renounced, and it was officially stated that Germany was to be the new Zion. The ceremony in which a child celebrated becoming Bar Mitzvah was removed, and replaced with a church style 'confirmation' ceremony. All the laws of Kashrut and family purity were officially declared "repugnant" to modern thinking people, and were removed. Shabbat, the Jewish Sabbath, was moved to Sunday, and all the Shabbat restrictions were removed. The Reform Jewish clergy even adopted the robes of their counterparts in Churches.”

Notes from Van

Naturalization papers for Maud Doris Gerbig state that Siegfried joined the American Army in 1956 and his unit was 30 TC AAM APO 165. I believe this means the 30th TC Co. of the 8th Transportation Corps. AAM is Army Aircraft Maintenance. The 30th was stationed in Hanau (which is located between Frankfurt and Erfurt, not far from Frankfurt). See http://www.usarmygermany.com/Units/Army%20Aviation/USAREUR_Army%20Avn.htm#30thAAM for some details and pictures of the unit.

My source for Wolfgang's birthplace of Erfurt, and marriage date of December 27, 1957 are also from those naturalization papers. Erfurt is located in what was East Germany, southwest of Berlin and north of Munich. It is 105 miles from Nuremberg, 126 miles from Frankfurt, 146 miles from Berlin, and 197 miles from Munich. The high speed rail line that links Munich and Nuremberg to Berlin runs through Erfurt. It is a popular tourist destination because of its beauty and it is on the "Luther Trail." It is also known as the scene of a school shooting in 2002 that killed 18 people.