As I was walking with my wife, Yvonne during the Fall of 2006 through the town of Oranienburg in Germany looking for her grandparent’s former store that they had to leave behind in the late 30’s on account of Nazi persecutions (see the article on the Rickshaw Website, “A small Photograph shows the Way”), we happened to see a local post office on the opposite side of the street that was only a few steps away from the train station. Being a philatelist at heart, I walked inside to see the operation of a typical German Post office (Die Deutsche Post). While inside looking at all the new stamps on display, I stumbled across a postage stamp depicting a character I have not heard mentioned since my childhood days. It was an immediate flashback that almost brought tears from my eyes. Case in point discussed later in the report.

      The €0.55 stamp yours truly is referring to, designed by Carsten Wolff, and released September 7, 2006, commemorated the play “Der Hauptmann von Koepenick” (1931) from Carl Zuckmeyer, whose mother was Jewish, with an illustration of the featured character in uniform (Figure one). The play was based on a true story of an unemployed shoemaker and ex-prisoner who in his make-shift uniform in 1906 seized command over ten German soldiers while taking over the City Hall of Koepenick (Figure two). By writing the story, the goal of Zuckmeyer was to drive the German bureaucracy and the German Reich military to ridiculousness.
 
   Just prior to Kristallnacht in 1938 when Aryan doctors in Germany were not allowed to treat Jewish patients anymore, this writer, at the age of four developed an acute case appendicitis. While screaming from severe pain, my mother was frantically looking for a Jewish doctor. Luckily she found a clinic in the outskirts of Berlin that had a Jewish doctor on their staff, and who was able to perform an immediate appendectomy (Figure three).

     While I was recuperating in the clinic, a lot of relatives and friends came to visit and showered me with presents; among them “Ein Hampelmann” (a two dimensional jumping jack constructed from wood, approx. 10 inch in height) shown in Figure four, symbolizing the legendary figure, “Der Hauptmann von Koepenick.” This all happened during the period when anti-Semitism had already begun to run rampant all over Europe (Figure five), and also a time when it became imperative for Jews to seek refuge in another country. We all remember what followed.

   Growing up in Shanghai was not an easy thing especially for our parents. For many refugees there were days when there was no money to buy food, let alone providing any toys for their children to play with. The “Hampelmann” that my parents was able to salvage from Germany was the only toy I had, and although it took a lot of abuse that can be expected from a child, like the detached bell that rang when the string attached to the Hampelmann was pulled up and down, and the many scratch marks, it found its way all the way to the United States. It may have been the last time before leaving Shanghai that I heard the name “Der Hauptmann von Koepenick” mentioned by my parents and grandmother.
 
   Today, this memorable toy with its name so very deeply etched in my memory, is mounted in a frame the way it arrived in the United States sixty years ago, and is hanging on the wall above my computer where I can see it every day. It will always remind me of my childhood, and the struggle that our parents endured while protecting us from hunger and disease.

Reference:  Literature Wissen ( literature-wissen.net/der-hauptmann-vom-koepenick.htm  Deutsche Post)
 
The stamp may be obtained by sending a donation to Temple Knesset Israel, 1260 No. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90029