22 May 2 • 2019
jn

JUDY GREENWALD CONTRIBUTING WRITER

An Unlikely
Hero

Stark family owes its survival to
Detroit businessman Herman Osnos.

I

magine this: It’
s 1936. You’
re a
16-year-old boy living in Munich
with your parents and your younger
brother and sister. With the ever-in-
creasing danger of being Jewish in Nazi
Germany, subject to the horrifically
harsh Nuremburg Laws, terrifying
bands of Hitler Youth vandalizing
homes and businesses, and the indis-
criminate disappearance of friends and
neighbors, your parents make the diffi-
cult decision to send you to England.
Move ahead to 1937. After experienc-
ing freedom and education at Buxton
College, whose headmaster A.D.C.
Mason gained notoriety for accepting
German Jewish youths escaping fascist
tyranny, you still fear for your family’
s
safety. Using your newfound command
of English, you begin urgently writing
dozens of letters, desperately searching
for someone who can help your family
escape to a better life in the United
States.
Then, in 1938, against all odds,
mere weeks before the violence of
Kristallnacht would break out, you
find a generous Jewish businessman in
Detroit who makes the unbelievable
promise to provide affidavits for you
and your brother, and later, for your
parents and little sister.
Sounds like the plot of a thrilling
World War II movie, no? But for Dr.
Robert Stark, it’
s the true story of his

family’
s rescue by Herman Osnos,
owner of the iconic Sam’
s Cut-Rate
Department Store on Randolph Street
in Detroit’
s Campus Martius district.
And it’
s a story of friendship, one that
began with the heroic actions of a
stranger reaching out to help people in
need and has continued over the years.

ESCAPING THE NAZIS
“My grandparents, Hermann and Klara
Stark, fearful over the safety of their
three children, made the reluctant
decision to send their eldest son — my
father, Walter — to England,” Stark, of
Greenwich, Conn., explained.
“While there, he saw how bad things
were getting in Germany, and he started
writing letters to strangers or to people
he thought might be relatives, trying to
get his family out.
“My dad wrote one fateful letter in
1937 to Albert Schmidt, a non-Jewish
former employee of my grandfather’
s
clothing store who had moved to
Detroit. (My grandfather even gave
Schmidt some suits to take with him to
America!) In the letter, my dad pleaded:
‘
My family is in danger; do you have
any way of helping us to get over?’

Schmidt took the letter to his boss,
Herman Osnos, who made the incredi-
ble decision to help by providing affida-
vits for my dad and my uncle Werner,
people he’
d never met, swearing he’
d be

responsible for them. That’
s how they
were able to escape in the fall of 1938.”
Stark’
s father and uncle were safe, but
his grandparents and Aunt Lilo were
still trapped in Germany.
“
After Kristallnacht, my family went
into hiding in the Black Forest,” Stark
said. “Then, in 1939, Mr. Osnos again
gave three affidavits for my grand-
parents and aunt, who also came to
Detroit. My family was immensely
grateful for the lifesaving actions of this
generous man!”
Osnos, the son of Russian Jewish
immigrants, was born in 1900 in New
York and grew up on his family’
s farm
in New Jersey. He moved to Detroit and
began working at Sam’
s Cut-Rate, even-
tually becoming a company executive.
He married in 1920, and he and his
wife, Helen, had a son, Gilbert.
Stark said his family kept in touch
with the Osnos family, and they even
sent him a gift for his bar mitzvah. He
said the two families lost touch after
the Osnos family moved to Stamford,
Conn., but then, when Stark also
moved to Connecticut to begin his
medical practice as a cardiologist, he
decided to look up Herman to renew
the relationship.

HERMAN OSNOS’
LEGACY
“I found Herman as an elderly man in a
nursing home in Stamford,” Stark said.
“I visited him once, and then shortly
afterward, he passed away. Then when
my son David had his bar mitzvah, I
invited Gilbert and his family to attend.
David remembers that the Osnos fam-
ily’
s presence almost overshadowed his
big day!”
During another visit to the Stark’
s
house, Gilbert brought a large box with
him.
“In the box were copies of the
many letters my father had written
pleading for someone to rescue him,”
Stark remembered. “I learned Gilbert
had donated the originals to the U.S.
Holocaust Memorial Museum in

Washington, D.C. During a 2018 trip
to Washington, my family, including
my three sisters who live in Michigan,
saw those original letters. It was very
moving to see my father’
s handwrit-
ing as a 17-year-old boy, and I was
so impressed that he could do such a
thing.”
According to the museum’
s
records detailing Osnos’
correspon-
dence: “Herman Osnos was a Jewish
American businessman who supported
many European Jewish refugees in
their quests to immigrate to the United
States before and after the Holocaust
… While working for Sam’
s Cut-Rate
and during the period of increasing
hostility and persecution against Jews
in Europe in the 1930s and 1940s,
Herman advocated for Jewish refugees’

entrance into the United States.
“
As an advocate, Herman served as
a member of the Jewish Welfare Board
and attempted to help as many refu-
gees as he could seek asylum in the
United States. Nearly all of the persons
requesting help from Mr. Osnos had
never met him and had only heard
through friends or colleagues that he
was willing and able to supply affidavits
of support.”
“My family was so fortunate to have
someone like Herman Osnos rescue
them from an oppressive regime,” Stark
said with emotion. “Nowadays, we
have a similar obligation to help others.
Issues of immigration and refugees have
always been of special interest in our
family. Whenever I read about a dire
situation in Syria or Central America, I
think about ways we could help.
“It was tremendously moving to
see my father’
s letters in the Archival
Collection of the U.S. Holocaust
Museum. Hopefully their public display
will influence others to do similar acts
of lovingkindness for people in need.” ■

To learn more about Herman Osnos,
access the William Davidson Digital
Archive of Jewish Detroit History at
djnfoundation.org.

jews d
in
the
Yom HaShoah

A 1938 photo of Walter (left) and Werner
(right) just prior to leaving Germany.
Below: Urgent 4/9/38 telegram from Stark
family in Munich to Mr. Osnos: “Our future
now depends upon your favor.”

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Left to right: January 1937 letter from Walter Stark (at Buxton boarding school) to Herman Osnos

in Detroit, Nov. 4, 1937; letter from Walter Stark (at boarding school in England) to Osnos.

PHOTOS (COURTESY OF DR. ROBERT STARK)