Sidney Rayburn was born Siegfried Julius Rautenberg on March 8 1922, in Halle um Saale, Germany, near Leipzig. Both his father, Yakob Rautenberg, and his mother, Kaete Jacobsohn Rautenbergon were born in West Prussia and married in Draudenz in 1919.
Yakob was 39 years old and Kaete was 29. Sidney had two siblings, Gerda, twenty months older, and Werner, five years younger, who died of meningitis at three. During World War I Yakob served in the telegraph unit of the German army. Sidney remembers his fathers’ army buddies visiting their home several times during his childhood.
The Rautenbergs lived in a six-room first floor apartment on Grundbergstrasse in Halle. Sidney shared a bedroom with his sister that looked out on the backyard where they would play. During the depression, beggars would occasionally knock on the door for food. Sometimes they would even sing in the backyard, and people would give them food for their performance.
With a drug store and green grocer on the floor below his apartment, Sidney would sometimes accompany the grocer’s delivery man in his car as he made deliveries. Most of the streets in Halle were narrow and winding, and difficult to navigate, not made for cars, but only streetcars. His father, the owner of three clothing stores, would take the streetcar to work.
The neighborhood was mixed ethnically – Jews and gentiles lived together peacefully. Not far from the neighborhood was the downtown conservative synagogue on Grosse Berlin Strasse which the family attended.The rabbi, Dr. Kahlberg, led a traditional service whereas the orthodox community had their own little shtibel or synagogue.The Rautenbergs were “High Holiday Jews.” Sidney remembers attending the synagogue for Sukkot celebrations. He remembers crowding into the little sukkah (hut) where everyone got to eat hotdogs. On Simchat Torah he would parade through the temple with the other children and get candy from women in the upstairs gallery.
The family celebrated Hanukah and also Christmas. They had a gentile housekeeper, Elise Stanger, and they had a tree in their apartment for her. Gerda and Sidney liked to decorate the tree. It was not unusual to see Christmas trees in other German Jewish homes.
From 1928 to 1932 Sidney attended grades one to four at the Hermannschule School. On the first day of school, Sidney, as well as others attending for the first time, received a large cone filled with all kinds of treats, a tradition in Germany. Sidney always felt that this tradition would make people class conscious, as poor children did not have as big, or nice, a cone as children comfortable or well off parents. He brought his own lunch to school. At 10 AM the children would receive milk. Those, whose parents could not afford to buy milk, received it anyway, thanks to the generosity of other parents who made sure that every child had milk. Every week a different family would pay for a child who could not afford milk.
In 1932, Sidney began the gymnasium, but that did not last long. In 1933, when Hitler came into power, life changed drastically. Some of the teachers were wonderful, but they were pressured so they were careful. Sidney’s French teacher, Dr. Moosmann was very even handed and nice. Dr. Mundt, on the other hand, came to gymnasium in a Nazi uniform. Nonetheless, Sidney considered him also a fair teacher. In general, the faculty tried to treat the Jewish students fairly and Sidney never experienced direct antisemitism from his teachers.The students, however, would taunt the six or seven Jewish students in the school, calling them names. During recesses, the Jewish students would stick together, as they were shunned by the others.
In 1933 there was a boycott of Jewish stores in which the Nazi SS and SR would parade in front of Jewish stores with signs that said, “Do not buy from Jews.” By 1934 Yakob Rautenberg’s clothing stores failed, and the family had to move to a smaller first floor apartment on Ludwigstrasse with a backyard not as nice as that of the other house. Sidney’s friend Rudy lived around the corner and they would walk to school together.
Sidney stayed at the Gymnasium Reform Real until eight grade until things became unbearable. In 1936 his parents sent him to a small, private tutorial school with a Dr. Busse, quite a financial sacrifice for his parents, as his father had lost his businesses. Sidney studied with Dr. Busse until early 1938 when he went to Leipzig to be an apprentice at a knitting factory, the Gebrueder Frank Company. He worked for three days and went to technical school for two.
Times kept on changing. People would not speak openly about politics. Newspapers were filled with hate. “Der Sturmer” by Julius Streicher depicted vicious caricatures of Jews. There were stories of libels and The Elders of Zion was preferred reading. Jews were a pariah in Germany.
Sidney remembers when the Nuremburg Laws came out. He and his family were sitting by the radio, listening to the events unfold. His parents were very concerned. They could no longer keep their beloved housekeeper Elise, even though Sidney’s mother Kaete was still working. On the street people were arrested for no reason. Sidney wished that his father had been a little less confident that things would blow over. Yakob was afraid to emigrate to another country as he feared learning another language.
Hitler managed to organize German society. He had children grouped into an organization called the Hitler Youth. Children came to school in their uniforms on days they met and were indoctrinated against Jews. There were parades in the streets and when they passed by Sidney’s house, the family hid behind draped windows.
On November 9th and 10th, 1938, in the early morning hours, Kristallnacht exploded on the Jewish areas of the city. A Polish Jewish student, Greenspan, shot a German diplomat and killed him. This was enough provocation to smash windows and destroy the homes of the Jewish population in Germany. Sidney was in Leipzig at the knitting factory. He remembers that when he woke up on November 10th he heard that the synagogue had been burned and all the Jewish stores had been smashed. He went to the railroad station to go home to his family. When he got to Halle, he took a streetcar to his house. His parents were talking about people getting arrested. As the Gestapo banged on the door, Sidney’s mother hid him in a locked room. Finally, she answered the door and when they demanded to know where Sidney was, she lied and said that he was in Leipzig. They had a record of his apprenticeship there and so they didn’t question this excuse. They did, however, take his father to the Sachenhausen Concentration Camp. After two or three hours, Sidney emerged from the room. It was decided that he go stay with his Uncle Georg Jacobsohn in Berlin. He was a WWI veteran who had been injured and he was married to a gentile woman who was somehow connected to the Nazis. So it was felt it was the perfect place for Sidney to stay.
When Sidney went to the railroad station to depart for Berlin he saw the Gestapo and witnessed several scuffles with the Gestapo. Everybody was whipped up because a German had been killed by a “Jew boy.” He put the collar of his coat up and walked through them unnoticed. He bought a ticket and went to Berlin. Taking the subway, he went to his Uncle Georg Jacobsohn’s residence who was wonderful. Sydney stayed for three weeks. HIs wife Elsa was nice, but concerned as she did not want anyone to know he was there.
After three weeks, Sidney learned that his father had returned home, so he came back to Halle. His parents decided to get out of Germany. Kaete contacted her brother Fritz in Israel. His wife had a cousin who lived in Manchester, England. The German government had informed them that they had until February 8, 1939, to be out of Germany. (Sidney found this letter in 1990 when visiting Halle). Sidney’s friend, Rudy Saks, had to be out for sure, as Rudy had also been arrested and sent to Sachsenhausen. He returned home with a shaven head.
The Rautenbergs were under great pressure. Uncle Fritz Jacobsohn in Israel said that he would send money to their cousin in Manchester, England to help Sidney and his sister Gerda. On February 22, 1939, Gerda and Sidney left for Manchester by way of Holland. Sidney was sixteen years old. Tears were shed as they said their goodbyes to their parents, but Sidney was looking forward to the trip. His mother, Kaete, made him a photo album to take with him. It also included other documents such as a certificate of good behavior from school, a birth certificate, passport and his Jewish ID.
Yakob was now willing to leave Germany also, but it was out of the question to go to the US to a cousin. He had been born in West Prussia which was Poland and he fell under the Polish quota for US immigration. There was a six-year wait for entrance. They tried to go to Shanghai, but that fell through. Chile was another opportunity for refuge but Chile closed its borders. Most of the children in Halle were able to get out by means of the Kindertransports. Most of the Rautenberg’s friends did not get out but their children did.
The cousin in Manchester was Johanna Kramrish. She was married to Englishman Bernard Kramrish. They had twin boys. Because there was little room in their house, Gerda and Sidney stayed with other families. Sidney was able to work for a Jewish man who had an unpainted furniture factory. He worked during the day, sanding furniture. At night he enrolled in an English course at the Athenaeum, paid for by the Jewish Aid Society. Cousin Johanna’s brother, Herman Lewin, told Sidney to spend a little money to go to the movies where he could learn English, and he did. By the end of 1939 World War II broke out and British police took him to be interviewed. After Dunkirk, on May 1940, there was much fear among the English that a fifth column” had infiltrated. All the Jewish were rounded up and sent to a tribunal. Sidney was arrested and taken to an old factory in Berry, then taken to Bradford and, finally, to Shrewsbury where he was interned in a camp. Internees were ranked in the following way:
A – they could be released from the camp
B – they were sent to the Isle of Man
C – they were sent to Australia
Sidney received the ranking of “A”. However, he decided instead to join the British Army. Placed in a group of other refugees, they were referred to as “Pioneers.” Always hungry, he managed to be assigned to kitchen work. There he was among friends and found that KP was not such a hardship as he was able to get extra food. Sidney remembers the British treating them very well. In Shrewsbury, there was a POW camp of Germans who were treated roughly.
For a while, Sidney received letters from his parents via the Red Cross. They were heavily censored. Later, the letters became postcards. His parents wrote about how they were trying to get out. After many, many years, Sidney found out in February of 2004 that his parents had been taken away from Halle, June 1, 1942. They were deported by train. It stopped in Kassel where more Jews were loaded into the cars. It went to Lublin, Poland on June 3, 1942, where according to Werner Winkelman, Halle historian, the records show that the passengers of the train went to their death.
Sidney was stationed outside of London between 1940 and 1941 when he witnessed the ravages of the Blitz. He and the other soldiers carried gas masks wherever they went. The residents of the streets slept in the subways every night. After the Blitz, there were the buzz bombs which were almost as nerve racking. The bombs would make a terrible buzzing sound, then quiet, and then the explosion. Later, the bombs evolved into gliders so that the population could not judge where the bombs would explode. The town of Coventry was completely destroyed. Sidney’s assignments were to empty railroad cars of any goods, dig ditches and do general labor of what ever was needed.
In 1942, Sidney was transferred to the Royal Regiment of Engineers. He was trained in Mill Hill. He thought that he was going to France, but the War Office was concerned that if he were caught by the Germans, they would kill him. It was at this time that they encouraged him to change his name from Rautenberg to Rayburn. He selected this name at random from an English telephone book. After four years with this name, nobody knew him as Rautenberg. He regrets that he never changed it back. His friend, whose last name was Pearlstein, became Pearson, and Hammerschlag became Hammerly.
After D-Day, Sidney “Rayburn” was sent to India and Burma. From Liverpool, England he went through the Suez Canal to Bombay, India. While in Bombay, he met up with his old pediatrician, Dr. Weinberg, from Halle. After a few weeks in Bombay, Sidney was sent to Hidrobad which was under British rule. Finally, he settled in Secunderbad after traveling through Bengal and Calcutta. It was here that he saw great strife and suffering in India.
Sidney finally ended up in Rangoon which had just been freed from the Japanese by the British. The city was devastated: the streets were dirty and the buildings were smashed. There was a little Jewish community of thirty Jewish - Burmese citizens. Sidney remembers with great sadness a little 5 year old boy named Jackie. He was very sick and he died shortly after Sidney arrived. Sidney and a few of his comrades carried Jackie’s coffin through the streets of Rangoon. The Jewish community there was Sephardic. They wore Burmese clothing and spoke English. Their little synagogue had a bimah (podium) in the center of the congregation which had not been destroyed. Sidney found that the army chaplain was Rabbi Jaffe of Manchester, England.
Even though the war in Europe was concluded, the war in Asia was still going on. Sidney was remained in Ragoon for five months into 1946 for demobilization and repairing tank instruments. Once dismissed from duty, he was given shoes, a gray suit and a ticket to go home.
In the spring of 1946, April or May, Sidney came “home.” Although he didn’t know where that was, he went back to Manchester. His sister Gerda was married to his friend Bernie Pearson and had a child. They all lived in Manchester in a one and a half room flat with no room for Sidney. Once settled into a furnished room, Gerda introduced him her friend, Annaelise Pfingt from Minden, Westphalia, who had been an army forecaster. Westphalia. They fell in love and were married in 1947. As a dress designer/dressmaker she had no trouble finding work.
In late 1947, there was a great deal of trouble between the Jews in Palestine and the British authorities. Two British sergeants were hung by the Irgun (Jewish underground organization) causing great antisemitism in England. The Rayburns decided to leave England. They decided to go visit they decided to go visit Annaelise’s sister who lived in Waterbury, Connecticut and see how they liked the United States.They could always return to England.
Waterbury was dominated by the brass industry. Taking a furnished apartment, Sidney found employment with the Scofield Brass Company. On Labor Day they visited an uncle living in Rochester, New York. They liked what they saw and decided to stay. Sidney got a job in optics and Annaelise, a job in dressmaking.