Hans and Trudi Oppenheim

Victims

 

Hello, my name is Madison Frerker.  My classmates and I began our Holocaust study by first getting to know ourselves.  We thought about what makes us who we are, where we come from, and where we are going.  Through poems and responses we also got to know one another.  These activities stressed the importance of every single individual.  We saw the similarities and connections amongst us, and this helped us transition into the similarities we shared with the victims, resisters, rescuers, and survivors of the Holocaust.  Sometimes we tend to get so caught up on the fact that six million Jews were killed that we neglect to acknowledge that those were six million individuals with dreams, goals, and stories similar to our own.  For one assignment we searched the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s website for pictures of Jewish life before the war. The pictures show families and individuals in their lives before the tragedies of the Holocaust.  Our assignment was to select a photo that was similar to a photo of our own.  The photo I chose shows a young couple that looks nearly identical to a photo of my great grandparents.  This young Jewish couple, Hans and Trudi Oppenheim, reminded me of my great grandparents Lloyd and Mildred Hardesty. 

 

This is the article I shared in our local newspaper:  

 

The Shadows of Our Lives

by Madison Frerker

 

My English IV Honors class at NCHS has been studying the Holocaust, and though the school year is nearing its end, our lesson is far from finished.  Seventy years later the Holocaust is still very much a part of the world today.  Elie Wiesel once said, “For the dead and the living, we must bear witness.”  As researchers, we have become witnesses, and it is our responsibility to pass the torch and share our lessons with the world.  One of the many lessons I have learned through our study of the Holocaust is that life is not guaranteed.  Our lives are just shadows in the span of eternity, and some shadows are much longer than others.  I clearly see this lesson in the stories of Hans and Gertrud Oppenheim and my great grandparents Lloyd and Mildred Hardesty.

 

Hans Oppenheim was a soldier in the German army during World War I and afterwards became a successful businessman in Kassel.  He married Gertrud “Trudi” Lindenfield, and they had a daughter named Dorrith Oppenheim on December 8, 1931.  After the 1939 Kristallnacht, Dorrith, at just seven years old, was sent to Edinburgh, Scotland on Kindertransport to escape Nazi persecution.  Hans and Trudi planned to meet Dorrith in Edinburgh, but they were unable to escape.  They were deported to Auschwitz where they perished in 1944.  Nighttime fell on the lives of the Hans and Gertrud; their shadows ceased to exist. Dorrith lived with her foster family and survived the war.  In Edinburgh, Dorrith met her husband Andrew, and they had six children.  Throughout her life, Dorrith spent many hours sharing her incredible story. She passed away in 2012, but the legacy of her and her family still lives on.

 

As Hans and Trudi Oppenheim’s lives were ending, the sun was just rising on the Hardestys’ lives together. Lloyd “Red” Hardesty was drafted into the Army/Air Force during WWII.  While stationed at Jefferson Barracks in St. Louis, Missouri, he met and married Mildred Cottom.  Just like Gertrud Oppenheim, Mildred went by her nickname of Millie.  Millie worked in a defense plant that produced airplane parts for the war.  It is here that our two stories diverge.  Red and Millie were able to make a happy life in Nashville with their three daughters, Connie (Frerker), Sue (Gordon), and Sara (Meinert).  As they aged together, Red enjoyed fishing and Millie loved her flowers and cooking for her family.  The shadows of Red and Millie stretched far into their 80’s, and they lived lives surrounded by the love of their family and friends.

 

Sadly, the Oppenheims were denied these experiences by the horrors of the Holocaust.  As time goes on, shadows come and go.  It is up to us to make the most of our shadows before the darkness of night falls on our lives.