By Marshall Weiss, The Dayton Jewish Observer

Max Gutmann

Max Gutmann, retired chairman and chief executive officer of Elder-Beerman Stores Corp., passed away on March 26 in Hilton Head, S.C. at the age of 86.In the fall of 1999, as he was preparing to dedicate a new Torah ark at his children and grandchildren’s congregation, Temple Beth Or, on the 61^st anniversary of Kristallnacht, he reflected on the circumstances that brought him to the United States in an interview with The Observer.

On Nov. 9, 1938, the synagogue of Max Gutmann and his ancestors in Niederwern, Germany was destroyed.

Over the nights of Nov. 9 and 10, 1938, mobs throughout Germany and Austria attacked Jews in the streets, in their homes and at their places of work and worship.

More than 1,000 synagogues were burned and almost 7,500 Jewish businesses were destroyed. Thirty thousand Jews were arrested and sent to concentration camps.

Gutmann was 16 when Kristallnacht transpired. His father was in the cattle business and had a small farm.

However, by 1938, the business shriveled. “The farmers were scared to do business with us,” Gutmann said.

He recalled the events of Kristallnacht: “My father left that morning to visit my mother’s hometown. I couldn’t go to school, so I ran the farm. I took two cows and went plowing. While I was plowing, I said to the farmer next door, ‘I don’t know why I’m doing this. Somehow I don’t feel we’re going to plant.’”

When dusk came, Gutmann quit plowing. Walking back through a valley to his home, he saw two figures coming toward him over the horizon. One, his sister, was pushing a bicycle, her prized possession. “As I came closer, I saw the other figure, my mother in tears. Feathers were in her hair.”

“Not only did they scratch the windows and the furniture,” Gutmann said, “they tore open our feather beds and tried to blow the safe open. My mother realized they had picked up all the Jewish males in the community. She came over the horizon to warn me not to come home.”

He turned the animals over to his mother and tried to sleep in the field. It was too cold. Gutmann walked to the nearest home, belonging to a gentile family. He knocked on the door.

Reluctant to let him in, they allowed him to sleep on their porch. They gave Gutmann a cup of black coffee.

“They were warned not to support or harbor any Jews in the house. And they were scared to death. They made me promise that I would leave at 8 o’clock the next morning.”

Gutmann’s father was arrested on his way back to town and sent to Dachau. Owing to his reputation as a World War I hero, his father was eventually let go.

“When he came home, he was a shattered man,” he said.

When Gutmann’s father returned, the Nazi government forced him to sell his property at a very low price.

Ultimately, Gutmann’s sister went to England through the Kindertransport program. He and his parents went to Shanghai where they lived among 20,000 other Jewish refugees.

In 1940 they were able to travel to the United States. Gutmann served in the U.S. Army intelligence from 1943 to 1946. His sister came to the United States in 1944, just before the Allied invasion.

Looking back in 1999, Gutmann said he was lucky. He would go on to fund a Jewish lecture series at the University of Dayton to promote Jewish-Christian dialogue, and continued his active involvement in the affairs of the Jewish and general communities. “I feel I have a duty to perpetuate our heritage,” he said. “The older I get the more I realize this. And so I feel I have done this the best way I can.”