USA, We Remember

Traces of Remembrance – 25 years after voltunteer service in the US

A volunteer service with ASF sometimes has an impact that lasts far longer than just one year, as the story of Jan Schultheiss and the Becker family shows: 25 years after they met and became friends during Jan’s volunteer year in the USA, there are now stumbling blocks for Dorothea, Wilhelm and Marian Becker: At their former home from where they had to flee from the Nazis as a Jewish family 87 years ago.

Stumbling blocks for the Becker family. Image: Gundi Abramski

Jan went to Chicago in 1998 after finishing school in Germany. He was the first ASF volunteer at the Jewish retirement home The Selfhelp Home. “In the beginning I was met with curiosity, but also concerns,” he remembers. “Many of the residents met a German again for the first time and, as survivors of the Shoah, had conflicting feelings.”

Dorothy Becker and her husband William – they had chosen the English version of their names after their escape, were the co-founder of the home. They helped Jan to became part of the community. In that year and over time trust and a lifelong friendship with the Becker family grew. Jan visited her native Berlin for the first time in 2000 with her daughter Marian. When she visited the Holocaust memorial, she was shocked by the familiy memories of persecution, as well as by the fact that Jewish schools and synagogues here require police protection. Very moving was the visit of the house that her parents had built on the outskirts of Kladow.

In July 2024 stumbling blocks were laid in remembrance of the Becker family. The Spandau municipality and a youth history workshop helped with administration and researching the biographies. Stumbling Stones (German: Stolpersteine) is a unique initiative to remember the people persecuted by the Nazis in everyday life right: by installing commemorative brass plaques in the pavement in front of their last address of choice.

Around 100 people came to the garden house in the middle of the countryside in Groß-Glienicke, in the southwest of Spandau. Members of the family traveled from the USA. A related rabbi spoke the blessing digitally. Jeanne Wecker provided musical accompaniment. Students from the Hans-Carossa-High School and the Waldschule had researched the biographies and talked about the Becker family. After studying in Heidelberg, William became an orthopedist with his own practice in Berlin.

Jan initiated the move years ago. This closes another circle of living remembrance for the Becker family and him.