In the US, locations chosen for resettlement included the rural agricultural communities of northeastern Connecticut, and the story about how people forced to flee their homes were welcomed is an enduring story of hope.<\/p>\n
Foundations of a Community<\/strong><\/p>\n The family of Dora and Nathan Blumenthal, including their daughter Elsie Blumenthal Fetterman<\/a> \u201949 (ED), \u201960 MS, \u201964 MA, \u201966 Ph.D., was the first Jewish family to move to the Quiet Corner town of Danielson in 1924, where they opened Blumenthal\u2019s Hardware Store. The Blumenthals left a very strong Jewish community in Norwich, but wasted no time in establishing a new one, once other Jewish families joined them in Danielson.<\/p>\n For years, Blumenthals hosted worship, rituals, and meetings in their home with nine Jewish families who moved to the area. Blumenthal Fetterman says they arranged for deliveries of kosher meat to their town each week. They built connections with one another, but also within the non-Jewish members of the community.<\/p>\n \u201cI used to have to go and knock on doors to get 10 men together for worship,\u201d she says. \u201cWe had a Torah in my home that my mother and father had brought from Norwich.\u201d<\/p>\n This handful of Jewish families living in the area prior to the war \u2013 with just enough men for the minyan<\/a> of 10 needed for worship — would become the foundation of a growing Jewish community.<\/p>\n UConn Extension educator Bob Ricard<\/a> grew up in Danielson as part of a French-Canadian Catholic family like many others in town, but also knew it as home to many Jewish families, especially following the liberation of Europe and the influx of \u201cnew\u201d<\/a> Jewish families to the area.<\/p>\n \u201cOne would expect metropolitan areas like New York City, Chicago, and Los Angeles to be at the top of the list for resettlement,\u201d says Ricard. \u201cThe fact that small rural communities like Danielson, Moosup, and Brooklyn, Connecticut were also on the list may be a little surprising.\u201d<\/p>\n However, the Jewish Agricultural Society (JAS) worked to resettle families from metropolitan areas to the agricultural communities because they also offered many opportunities. One JAS agent began introducing families to the area, starting with one family, and then another, and eventually dozens of families found new beginnings. The Bermans were one of those families.<\/p>\n Waiting for a New Beginning in the USA\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Norman Berman says the resettlement process was not a quick one. After losing everything and nearly everyone in their families, Berman\u2019s parents, Misha and Bluma, met, married, and started their family during their time at the F\u00f6hrenwald<\/a> displaced persons camp near Munich, Germany, where he was born. He grew up listening to his mother\u2019s stories of her experiences.<\/p>\n \u201cMy earliest memories were sitting around the table, and she would say, in Yiddish and later in English, \u2018I will tell you,\u2019 and then launch into an anecdote about life in the camps or life in the ghetto,\u201d says Berman.<\/p>\n His mother described the displaced persons camp to him as a liminal space in which the residents couldn’t go back to their homes, but didn’t know where they would go next. They were somewhere in the middle, traumatized by the experience of the war and unsure of the future.<\/p>\n After four years in the camp, the Bermans traveled to the United States aboard a converted troop carrier, settling for a time in a tenement in the Bronx. His mother worked as a seamstress, his father worked in a factory, and both began learning English at night school.<\/p>\n The mission of JAS was essentially to get families out of the tenements and into the countryside, where they could make a new start. The Bermans were approached by an agent about relocation. After the long drive from New York City to the Quiet Corner, they were introduced to another family that had already settled so they could ask questions about relocation and the community. On arrival at what would become their farm, late on a cold, rainy fall day, Berman says his mother stepped out into the field, looked around, and wept.<\/p>\n \u201cShe said, \u2018I don\u2019t know what I\u2019m doing, I don\u2019t know the language, we have no money, we only know one or two other people. How are we going to do this? This is a terrible mistake.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Berman says the experience in bustling New York City was in stark contrast with rural Connecticut, and he suspects the fields and forests may have served as reminders of the landscapes of the homes his parents were forced to leave in Eastern Europe.\u00a0 His father\u2019s family was from Ukraine and his mother\u2019s family from Lithuania. There was familiarity in this new place, but that couldn\u2019t compete with the enormity of everything they had experienced and the daunting task of starting from scratch.<\/p>\n \u201cRemember,\u201d Berman says, \u201cNone of these people knew anything about farming. They were children when they got caught up in the Holocaust.\u201d<\/p>\n He says the family also was suspicious and afraid because of their experience in Europe, where they were marginalized, vilified, and betrayed by neighbors. They did not expect to be welcomed.<\/p>\n Finding Welcome and Support in a Small Connecticut Town<\/strong><\/p>\n Entering a new community in a new country can feel like moving into the abyss, but there was already a foundation for a strong and growing Jewish community in Danielson. It soon became apparent that they needed to build a synagogue to serve as a place for education, socializing, and prayer. The question was whether the small \u201cold\u201d Jewish community and \u201cnew\u201d recently resettled community —\u00a0 could raise the money needed to build it. That’s when the rest of Danielson got involved.<\/p>\n \u201cEveryone stepped up,\u201d says Blumenthal Fetterman. \u201cThe community, the gentile community, was so open. For instance, someone auctioned off a calf to raise money. That was a significant part of that farmer\u2019s income for the year. Other things added up; a member of the Baptist church loaned a farmer $500 to buy a dairy farm, and he didn\u2019t know him. He knew he was a Holocaust survivor and he knew that he\u2019d never had any experiences as a farmer, but he took the risk, and that was a lot of money for 1950.\u201d<\/p>\n Banks, churches, community organizations, and others pitched in to help donate money, building materials, and expertise. Berman adds, \u201cEveryone said, \u2018Hey, we\u2019ll help you out.\u2019 My parents were quite stunned by that. Suddenly, they had a place that felt safe.\u201d<\/p>\n Ricard notes that many who stepped up to help were combat veterans, like his father.<\/p>\n \u201cThey saw and experienced first-hand the horrors and evil of World War Two, so they were very clear about what their new Jewish neighbors went through,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Help came in other forms as well. The UConn College of Agriculture, Health and Natural Resources<\/a> played a part by providing agricultural support for the new farmers. Berman has memories of traveling regularly with his father to Storrs with a cardboard box full of chickens in tow, so extension specialists at the University could give advice on matters such as feed supplements and vaccinations.<\/p>\n A New Temple, and a New Chapter<\/strong><\/p>\n With funds raised, the construction of Temple Beth Israel,<\/a> which was built during the 1950s and formally dedicated in 1961, was truly a grassroots, community-driven effort that culminated in building more than just a place of worship.<\/p>\n David Fetterman \u201976 (CLAS), Elsie\u2019s son, says he felt the temple was always more about connection and that growing up in the temple, the sense of belonging was the glue that held the community together.<\/p>\n Families put down roots and settled in, and Fetterman and Berman reflect fondly on their childhood experiences, growing up with a lot of good friends, having fun, and being kids.<\/p>\n Fetterman has many memories of the services and lessons at the temple, but one memory stands out. He recalls catching a glimpse of a man\u2019s tattoo as he reached for the prayer book. It was a tattoo issued in a concentration camp<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cCurious, I asked my father and he gently told me about where they are from and what happened,\u201d Fetterman says. \u201cIt was not a traumatic way to find out. I just learned that this is another part of who our community is.\u201d<\/p>\n Growing up in the Quiet Corner as part of a small but tight-knit Jewish community, many aspects of life just felt normal, says Berman. The children went about their business of coming of age, socializing, and eventually going off to college.<\/p>\n Ricard also moved on, and was reminded of the community\u2019s uniqueness in 2020 when his local newspaper in Massachusetts, the Amherst Bulletin, ran a story<\/a> about a high school history department chair who was creating a Holocaust curriculum with a local resident who sounded very familiar. It was Elsie Blumenthal Fetterman, and he was moved to contact her after so many years.<\/p>\n Reconnecting has been a reminder of the importance of community, Ricard says, especially during the pandemic. Coincidentally, both he and Blumenthal Fetterman are both now current residents of Amherst \u2013 living about a mile apart — and both have also been UConn Extension employees. While reminiscing with Blumenthal Fetterman, Ricard learned his aunt was a bookkeeper for Blumenthal’s father, and that his uncle had worked at the Blumenthal family’s hardware store.<\/p>\n Blumenthal Fetterman became something of a trailblazer, graduating from high school in 1949 and eventually earning her Ph.D. at UConn, which was not typical for women at the time. Blumenthal Fetterman remained at UConn as an Extension educator, teaching and championing consumer education, before leaving in 1979 to continue her work at the University of Massachusetts, where she stayed until her retirement in 1992.<\/p>\n Keeping a Powerful Story Alive<\/strong><\/p>\n Many members of the community have left the Danielson area, or have passed away, so that by 2009 Temple Beth Israel was on the verge of being sold and repurposed. Despite many original members of the synagogue no longer living in the area, a group of children of the community founders took action to save the place of worship. They realized that more than a building was at stake.<\/p>\n The community, including children and grandchildren of the relocated families, are now working to keep the temple open, says Berman, who, along with around 35 others across the United States and Israel, are working to keep the story alive. Blumenthal Fetterman, who had served as the first President of the Temple Sisterhood in 1950, secured funding from the Daughters of the American Revolution that was used to produce a documentary film, “A House Built by Hope<\/a>,” detailing the story of the community and the building of the synagogue. Fetterman and his wife matched those funds to produce the film.<\/p>\n![\"Robert](\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/Armand-_-Shirley-Ricard-wedding-1947-1-230x300.jpg\")
![\"Nathan](\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/nathandorablumenthal1930s-171x300.jpg\")
![\"Elsie](\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/dfmomgreenroomsmiles-300x169.jpg\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/templeronterrace-300x225.jpg\")