The Professional School Darmstadt 1947-48
Rita Borenstein Rubin
She visited the school and living quarters in 1947
She is the sister of the student David Borenstein

The description below is a recollection from am interview that I held with Rita Rubin at her apartment in Haifa in June, 2009.

In regard to the school:
She remembered being in the living quarters of he students. She was in the rooms and in the kitchen. She remembers lighting the bigs stove. They had a head of cabbage and did not know ow to took it. So they just put it in hot water and cooked, with no salt. She remembers that it was not tasty.
When I walked into her apartment, the first thing she said was. Your father was also a Gingi (a rehead). I asked her how she remembered tha fact. She said that her mother also was a rehead and redheads were always standing out.
She also described my fatheras a determined person who would achive what he has set out to do. She also spoke of him in admiration, that he took the young man in from the camps and the street and saved them. the young men were quite lost after the dificult period in the war, after the struggle for survival and they had no restraints and knew no borderlines.
She spoke of Mundek. I asked which Mundek and she did not know the last name. She said that he lived in Haifa (passed 1981 or 1982) and had a butcher job at Central Carmel (at Shederot Hanashi 124, at the Carmel Ceter shopping center. A non Kosher butcher shop). He was married and had two sons. She said that Mundek liked Betty very much and tried to win her for himself.
Rita said that David studied auto mechanics in Darmstadt and she gave me his papers - a driving license, a mechanics school report and his identification card.
David worked in Nazareth at the Susita factory thanks to the papers and studies in Germany. The owner of the factory lives in Denia, Haifa (owns the bowling).

Rita Borenstein was born in Warsaw on Septemeber 7, 1932. Her brother David was also born in Warsaw and the mother in Kotz. The father died during the wa.r Rita has three sons, Eres, Yoram and Avner.
He remembers an oncle in Berlin and his the wife, the gioret. They were living in Berlin already during WWI.
She was in camp Rochelle near Kassel
David, her brother, married Betty who he had me in Darmstadt. Betty and her brothers Ludwig and Nickel were hidden during the war with the help of a family. Nickel, the father of Udo was in a concentration camp and returned from there partly insured (meshutak). He was also sufering from epilepsy. He came to David and Betty's wedding with crudges.
Rita was very weak and her mother was not able to take care of her. ( Betty's father ahd married a non jewish woman. They had three children, Betty, Nickel and Ludwig (who died early in his thirties). they were offsprings from the Feutschwanger family. Nickel, the oldest) had been raised by another family.
Money after the war had no value and they also had none. In order to aquire food you had to find something to trade. One packet of cigarettes was traded for a reis in the amount of one handful. Germany was in a bad state.
In the camp, we went to the center, the eating hall, were they cooked and we were served warm food.
I was only two days in Darmstadt. David was then 18, maybe 19 years old. He could not support me in the city.
She was about 14 years old when she came for a visit to Darmstadt. she wanted to study at the conservatorium close to the Professional School. She wanted to be a musician like her father. She had no money nad nowhere to live. She wanted to be closeby to the conservatorium and so she spoke to the director Batalion of the Professional School , but she could not be accepted to the school since she was too young.
I visited Betty's mother. David was atthe time at the school, the kibbutz.
In the camp in Rochelle, I was with the Shomer Hazair. I was willing to join the Betar. I wanted to immigrate to Israel. We were suppose to leave with the Atalanea. We all drove together, my mother, David, Betty and me but Betty got sick and i returned to the camp.
( The Altalena, a ship of the underground defense organization Etzel, is sunk off the shore of Tel Aviv by IDF guns) I went to school another year until 1948 and then I left with 8 other boys who agreed to protect me. They agreed to take me along even without any papers. My mother stayed behind at the camp. We were on the ship PanYork.
WE arrived in Israel in Sept. 1948. The boys were recruited to the Hagana and I went to Pardes Hana. My mother arrived in Israel with David and Betty in 1949. Betty was pregnant with Yosi.
I was with the Aliat Noar at Ein Hashofet. They went to Hazorea. When they left Hazorea, they bought an apartment in Tirat Hacarmel and Yosi was born there.