“Be on time“, those were two of the few words, David Bernard Rubin learned from his grand-father Julius Stein. Because of this he was one hour earlier than agreed at Stuttgart train station and was waiting impatiently to continue his trip to Freudental.

His brother Marc, who is five years younger and today lives in Rosh Pina in Upper Galilee in Israel, is the only one of his family, who came back for a short visit to this community at Stromberg more than 20 years ago, after his grand-parents and his mother had fled from Germany in 1939. “It was not really a visit; he went to the cemetery, searching for the graves of his ancestors, he stayed overnight on a free green patch of grass near his grand-father’s grave, but didn’t go into the village. He wanted to leave as fast as possible”, David Rubin explains.

He is on a trip through southern Germany. The destination of his business trip is Böhringer Ingelheim. As an expert in lungs he leads negotiations for an American company with the German company. He knows very little about Freudental, neither his mother Margot nor his grand-father Julius have told him anything about the life of his family at Freudental .

He excitedly follows the interview his mother gave to a group of students of Christoph-Schrempf-Gymnasium Besigheim and the video club of Jörg-Rathgeb-Schule Neugereut in the summer of 1997: Images of Lives – a project by Pedagogic-Cultural-Center Freudental, sponsored by Wüstenrot Foundation Ludwigsburg. Margot Rubin is standing on the balcony of her apartment in Ber Sheva (Israel) and tells them about her youth in Freudental: the harmonious life in the village, her best friend: “I still remember her exactly, she was a girl cross at street, Gertrud Autenrieth, who after the race laws of 1935 was not allowed to see me overnight. I remember the baking house: a woman called Mrs Herrmann went there to bake every Thursday. And all of us went with her. It was a baking house for all, but everybody knew that it was Mrs Herrmann's time on Thursday evening. So nobody except her used the baking house on Thursday evenings. She baked Berches for Friday and a lot of bread. She always had to care for many people because there were always young men learning agriculture from her husband Moritz to prepare for their emigration to Israel. My mother also baked bread and cakes but we took everything to the baker's. But I also remember the occurrences on November 10th,1938 when our house was plundered and our escape and expulsion after my father's return from the concentration camp in the spring of 1939. After the war in 1949 when my father's lungs were x-rayed in England the doctor asked him if he had had tuberculosis. My father answered: No, never. Then the doctor wanted to know: Have you ever been beaten? You still have scars on your lungs. This was still from that time when they came at night in 1938 and beat him with truncheons. They broke our best china. You could see the scars ten years later. I have so bad memories. I promised myself never to go back to Freudental.”

David Bernard Rubin crosses the yard of the synagogue and goes over to the former Jewish school, which used to be his parents’ house. The present occupants, Muslim families from Turkey, smile at him in a friendly way and welcome him. They are curious and want to know why this American is coming to their house. He tells them that at this spot his grandparents saved one of the 13 Torah rolls. The other twelve were later burnt on the football field. His grandfather Julius had to leave everything behind here except for his refugee luggage packed in two suitcases, which are now in the loft of his house in Ann Arbor. He and his wife agreed to give them to their two eldest daughters.

And he talks about the Iron Cross, which his grandfather received for his courage towards the enemy as a German soldier in World War I. Later he proudly gave it to him to preserve it.

In front of the town hall there are two memorials on which the names of Freudental?s Jewish citizens are engraved. He copies the names of his family onto parchment with red crayon: ?It is a memory for me and my children.? He returns to the synagogue and puts a candle into the niche of the empty Torah shrine, lights it and says the Kaddish, the mourner?s prayer, one of the oldest prayers in Jewish liturgy: "Glorified and sanctified be God's great name throughout the world which He has created according to His will"?

On our way to the Jewish cemetery we pass the tombstone of the mare Helene. He smiles and says: "I wonder what my mother thought when she passed this stone and read the name Helene. You know, her mother was also called Helene and in memory of her I named my daughter Elena."

We walk up to the "grove of beeches", the house of life, the eternal resting place of his ancestors. He feels connected with his family that lie here or have been sent ahead like his aunt Hannchen Stein, who was murdered in Theresienstadt. For a long while he's wandering through the rows, reads the inscriptions on the stones and counts the graves of many generations of his family.

"Sag a mol, you are at home", that's how his grandfather Julius used to start a conversation when he called him in Chicago. This Swabian pighead called him a ?wimp? when he wasn?t ?tough as leather? in the way his grandfather wanted him to be. "For the first time I feel what it means to be at home. I'm a Jew from Freudental. As soon as it's possible I will come back, but today I am travelling on to Wiesbaden. Tomorrow I will have my business appointment and I want to be there in time because my grandfather used to say: Be on time."

Translated by English course class 12 of Mr. Hansmartin Bez Schlossgymnasium Kirchheim

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