Cover Story
Treasures
SHELLI LIEBMAN DORFMAN
Staff Writer
S
Holocaust-era Torah crowns
recovered from the rubble
of a German synagogue
mark their first Simchat Torah
in America.
wo ornate silver crowns, each with
five small bells and topped with a
roaring lion, will adorn a Torah that
will be danced and marched this
Simchat Torah, beginning at sundown Saturday,
Oct. 18.
The cherished family heirlooms, newly arrived
in America, endured the Holocaust, a fire and
60 years of storage before their return to the
family of Elsie and Wilbert Simkovitz of Oak
Park. Reflective of this holiday celebrating the
Torah, these crowns represent not only Jewish
survival, but a true passing down from one gen-
eration to the next.
"I didn't even know they existed," said Elsie
Simkovitz. "One day I answered my phone and
a man in Germany named Ralf Rossmeissl told
me he had two rimonim (Torah crowns)
engraved with the names Jacob and Bertha
Gutman Weinschenk — my grandparents."
An expert on German-Jewish artifacts,
Rossmeissl had been led to the crowns by a man
whose recently deceased neighbor stored them
in his attic for six decades. After reading the
names of the donors etched in the crowns,
Rossmeissl knew he needed to locate their
descendants.
"I just phoned all the Weinschenks in Israel
— blind — with no concrete knowing," said
Rossmeissl, who describes himself as "a German
historian with conscience."
"I found after the fifth call, a relative who told
me the name of the Simkovitz family, whose
address was on the Internet."
Journey Of A Lifetime
"I was very excited and very emotional about
the thought of my family traveling to Germany
to bring back the rimonim," Elsie Simkovitz
said of the birthplace she fled during the
Holocaust. "In a way, I didn't want them to go
but, on the other hand, I knew it would really
be something for them to go to see the village of
Windsbach and learn all about their ancestors."
In April 2003, Elsie and Wilbert Simkovitz's
sons, former Detroiters Daniel of Brookline,
Mass., and Jon of Santa Rosa, Calif, — along
with Jon's wife Julie and Daniel's son David, 16,
— traveled to Windsbach with relatives from
Italy and Israel.
In a Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Memorial
10/17
2003
62
Day) ceremony in a 13th century Lutheran
church, Jon and Daniel Simkovitz were each
presented with a crown. They, in turn, handed
them to Daniel's son David — a great-great-
grandson of Bertha and Jacob Weinschenk —
who became the first Weinschenk descendant to
hold both crowns in 65 years.
"We wanted to demonstrate a passing from
generation to generation," Jon Simkovitz said.
"While they were in Germany, they were
shown around the street where my grandparents
lived and where the synagogue once was," Elsie
Simkovitz said. "They went to a cemetery where
they saw tombstones with our family name on
them."
Said Daniel Simkovitz, "Ralf [Rossmeissl]
could take us back through centuries of family
history. He showed us houses and synagogues in
tiny Bavarian villages we never would have redis-
covered on our own. And he connected them
with the stories I heard from my mother and
grandmother."
Jon Simkovitz said, "It caused us to see and
learn about a forgotten Jewish community."
Before Jon and Julie Simkovitz carefully hand-
carried the crowns on their flight home to the
United States, they and other family members
prayed in an abandoned synagogue.
Where Were They?
From the late 1800s until 1938, the crowns — a
symbol of the royal respect due the Torah —
adorned the Torah in the Windsbach
Synagogue, where the donors worshipped.
On Nov. 9, 1938, the synagogue was burned
to the ground during Kristallnacht, during
which hundreds of synagogues, businesses and
homes in Germany and Austria were burned
and 30,000 German Jews were arrested and
deported.
"The Torah was burned," Rossmeissl said. "In
this little kehilLah (community) — with about
15 families who had about 10 Torahs that were
bought and donated over 150 years — they
were all burned."
Amazingly, the crowns were discovered among
tons of Jewish-owned silver at a smelting plant.
A German factory worker, who had been
employed in a synagogue, recognized the crowns
as Jewish valuables.
"Her husband sold them just after the war to
a German with Jewish ancestors who worked for
the American de-Nazification office," Rossmeissl
said, explaining the Allied efforts to eliminate