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)

