Family on the run

Without knowing it, the Herzel family locked the door to their apartment one day and would never return to it. They thought it was only for a short visit to family in another city, but this was Belgium in the late 1930s, and World War II was looming.

Sitting in his home on Devon Drive with his wife, Cecille, Max Herzel remembers the trip with his parents and older brother from his hometown of Antwerp, Belgium, to the capital of Brussels. He remembers finding out they could no longer return to their home and were left with no valuables, no papers or even most of their clothes.

“We didn’t take any valuables. If we took anything, maybe a toothbrush and a pair of underwear,” Max Herzel said.

It’s a story Max Herzel has told many times around Homewood and Birmingham, the story of a small Jewish family trying to survive in a world that was suddenly hostile to them. Max Herzel grew up in Antwerp, and his father and mother, both Polish immigrants, worked as a diamond cutter and a seamstress, respectively.

After their fateful trip to Brussels and the German invasion of Belgium in May 1940, the Herzel family was left with nothing and took a seven-day train trip to central France. Max Herzel was only 10 years old. Being immigrants, Max Herzel’s parents couldn’t get jobs, but he recalls going to school and learning to speak French alongside his native Flemish. 

Realities of war

At first, no one realized the depth of what was happening in neighboring Germany.

“Even the adults during the war — early part of the war — did not know about this gassing [and] shooting … there were rumors flying around. The government might have known it, but I don’t think the public knew it,” Max Herzel said.

But as refugees filled the country, France began opening internment camps. The Herzel family was shipped to a camp operated by French police in Agde, France, near the Mediterranean coast. Max Herzel’s father, Oscar, was taken to serve in the French army, but Max said the gun and bullets issued to his father didn’t even match.

“My father never shot one shot during the invasion of France by Germany,” Max Herzel said.

Oscar Herzel walked and hitchhiked from the war front back to his family.

“When he got back, I remember that as a kid, his feet were so swollen, his blisters were as big as my wrist,” Max Herzel said.

As they saw fellow internment camp prisoners being shipped to new camps, the Herzels decided to make their escape. Max Herzel said he has no idea who his father paid or how much, but one night when the right guards were on duty, they were able to simply walk out the front gate in a single file line.

“It wasn’t difficult at all,” Max Herzel said.

From there, the Herzels would move from one city or village to the next, being helped by welfare organizations that were still allowed to operate. Eventually the French police caught Oscar Herzel and his older son, Harry, and sent them to a labor camp. Max Herzel’s mother, Nachama, attempted to take her own life after a failed effort to get help from a local rabbi.

“She was completely out of her mind,” Max Herzel recalled.

Risking being caught by the same cops who took his father and brother, Max Herzel would sneak out after curfew to visit his mother in the hospital, where she would work as a seamstress throughout the rest of the war. He firmly believes the doctor who cared for her there prevented her from being taken by German soldiers.

When they were released from the labor camp, 16-year-old Harry Herzel joined the French resistance, and Oscar Herzel went into hiding. He was eventually caught by German soldiers and died in the Buchenwald concentration camp. Max Herzel bounced between five different orphanages before being sent to a farm in the French Alps.

“I have no idea if the farmer knew I was Jewish or not, or cared even,” Max Herzel said.

It was hard work, all day. The farm had almost no machinery, and Max Herzel kept a flock of sheep, goats and two mules. He recalled he could only go to school on rainy days when his labor wasn’t needed. The priest of their parish traveled between three churches, which meant the local congregation celebrated most holidays a few weeks late.

Max Herzel stayed on the farm until the war ended. He was 15 years old when refugees began streaming into France in 1945. Reunited with his mother and brother, he started to hear the first horrifying tales of what had happened in concentration camps and ghettos in Axis-held countries.

Years later, Max Herzel would find out that some of his extended family died in Auschwitz. Others, he suspects, were killed in the Stanislau massacre in Poland. For the most part, he’ll never know how many of his family survived WWII and, if they died, where they were buried.

“I have to assume that that family is wiped off the Earth,” Max Herzel said.

But in 1945, the Herzels didn’t know any of that. They were among thousands of people who couldn’t believe the stories they were hearing and didn’t know what to do next. They turned their eyes to the United States, hoping to immigrate. However, they needed a sponsor in the U.S., and the country was only accepting so many immigrants from each country per year.

Life in America

The Herzels were lucky to befriend a fellow refugee whose son was sponsoring him. Max Herzel’s mother knew she had a brother in New York with the last name Solomon, and she asked her new friend to help find him.

“He made it his mission to find the brother — or uncle — for me to [go to] New York. He went through the telephone book … He made a point to call every Solomon he knew. That’s a common name,” Max Herzel said. “He got chewed out; he got cursed; people hung up on him, and you have to visualize: This is right after the war. Everybody is looking for everybody.”

Finally, the right person was found, and he agreed to sponsor both of his nephews. In December 1948, 18-year-old Max Herzel and 22-year-old Harry Herzel arrived in New York. Their mother, who was on the Polish quota instead of the French one, would immigrate to the U.S. on her older son’s sponsorship in 1953.

Once in the U.S., Max Herzel began learning English and dentistry. He served in the Air Force — though never deployed — became a civilian employee and married Cecille Herzel in 1955.

Max and Cecille Herzel moved from Ohio to Birmingham in 1972 to help create a dental technician training program at the downtown VA Medical Center. Their first apartment was in the Mayfair apartment complex on Independence Drive. The Herzels had two children, Carol and Elliott, and Max Herzel retired in 1994 with a collective 42 years of public service under his belt.

Since 1999, Max Herzel has been a member of the Birmingham Holocaust Education Committee. He estimates he has shared his story more than 200 times to different groups around the city. What spurs him on, he said, are the people who deny that the Holocaust happened or its extent. As an avid history student, Max Herzel said he has a hard time forgiving the deaths and brutality that happened on such a massive scale.

“I’m sorry. I just can’t,” he said.

The Holocaust Education Center has several initiatives, including a project to build a memorial downtown and annual funding for teachers to learn about the Holocaust and incorporate it into their curriculum. Max Herzel said he is particularly excited for an exhibit of letters from concentration camps, which will be coming to the center for a free exhibit in 2017.

The key to not repeating history, he said, is education.

“The only way we feel that humanity will not destroy itself, will be kind to each other, is by education. To love each other, to work with each other, to respect each other — I don’t care if you’re blue-headed or green-headed or white or black or male or female. It doesn’t make a difference. But we need to live together and respect each other,” Max Herzel said.