Fred Rosenbaum’s life is a story of resilience, hope, and the belief that every child deserves a safe place to grow and dream. As a young boy escaping Nazi-occupied Austria through the Kindertransport, Fred carried with him both the trauma of loss and the unshakable belief in the goodness that can exist in the world. Those early experiences shaped his lifelong commitment to serving others and ultimately led him to create Camp Rosenbaum—a place where children from low-income families could experience joy, belonging, and endless possibilities.
Fred M. Rosenbaum (1926–2010)
Kindertransport survivor, Businessman, Brigadier General in the Oregon Air National Guard, and founder of Camp Rosenbaum.
With heartfelt thanks to author Deborah Hopkinson for generously allowing us to share these excerpts from We Had to Be Brave: Escaping the Nazis on the Kindertransport. Her thoughtful storytelling helps preserve and honor Fred Rosenbaum’s legacy for future generations.
Fred M. Rosenbaum lived in Vienna, where he was born Fritz Rosenbaum. He was twelve in 1938 and on November 9 walked to school as usual. But the day was not a normal one. “After about a half hour in the classroom, students dressed in Hitler youth uniforms asked all Jewish students to leave the classroom and stay in the hall,” Fred said.
“The Jewish students were all pushed down into one basement room, and then the Hitler youth students began to beat them with belts and whips. Luckily, I was standing to the back of the room and noticed three or four small windows close to the top of the wall leading to the street. I jumped up to the window, pushed it open, and three of us escaped the room before the Hitler youth could catch us.”
“I ran nonstop the two miles to my home, trying to find safety… Thousands of Jews were put into concentration camps; stores robbed, smashed, demolished; synagogues burned, and life as a Jew became even more unbearable than it ever had before.”
— Deborah Hopkinson, We Had to Be Brave
“From time to time, when things look dark and life presents problems … I reach into my desk drawer and pull out a German passport, which was issued to me in 1938,” said Fred Rosenbaum. “On the cover of this document, prominently displayed is a German eagle with a swastika in its claws. When you open the passport, a rubber-stamped ‘J’ in red ink is the first thing that you see to indicate that I am Jewish. The passport was issued to Fritz Rosenbaum, which was my name before I became a citizen of the United States.”
Fred’s passport held a lot of memories. He could remember his mother’s ordeal trying to get it for him. “As people would assemble at night, standing in line for hours to obtain these precious passports, truckloads of storm troopers would descend upon those waiting in line.”
Fred Rosenbaum was born in 1926 in Vienna, Austria, and was about twelve when Kristallnacht took place. He’d managed to escape Hitler Youth at his school that November day. Soon after, his parents got word of children’s transports leaving Vienna, and they managed to get Fred a place. “My mother packed my suitcase (small as it was), and I made my last visit to my grandparents who were destined to stay in Vienna and subsequently be killed in one of Hitler’s concentration camps.”
“I remember so clearly my grandfather placing his hands on my head and giving me his last blessing and saying, ‘Fritz, the dear Lord will take care of you.’”
“My mother took me to the railroad station where all the children were assembled and checked off the roster. A cardboard tag was tied around my neck with my name, birth date, destination, and the name of the family who was going to pick me up at the railroad station in London.”
After a tearful goodbye, Fred sat on the train. SS troops came on board, searching for anything valuable the children might be carrying, like watches or jewelry. Fred felt relieved when they left and the train chugged along to the border. “At the first stop in Holland, we were greeted by Dutch ladies who brought hot chocolate, sandwiches, and cakes on board to feed us.”
The next day found Fred in London, standing on the platform waiting for someone to collect him. One by one, the other children left as those who’d signed up to foster the young refugees stepped forward. But no one came for Fred.
“Finally I was the only child left on the platform of the railroad station. No one had arrived to take care of me. One of the staff people in charge of the transport took me home with her for the night. It was a most uncomfortable situation as I spoke hardly any English, with the exception of hello, goodbye, and thank you.”
“My clothing was different from that worn by school children my age in London. I was extremely lonely, scared, and totally confused. But the next morning, the family that was supposed to pick me up at the railroad station arrived by taxi, most apologetic. They had set the wrong day on the calendar. They picked me up and took me to their home in the east end of London….”
“They gave me a small bedroom where I hung up my few clothes, sat on the bed, and cried in that absolute loneliness only a child can know who has been separated from everyone and everything he loved, not knowing what the future would bring.”
Fred started school. At first, he was put in with a first grade class, which was humiliating for a twelve-year-old. School was hard, and so was Fred’s foster home. Although he started with a room of his own, that didn’t last. He was forced to share a room and even a bed with the grandfather of the family. ‘I was confronted with a total lack of privacy, at home, in school and in the strange city; my loneliness and depression and my desperate need for my parents, who were I knew not where, became almost unbearable.’”
Luckily for Fred, a visit by someone in charge of the child refugees resulted in his being placed with a different foster family. Once more, Fred packed his small suitcase and had to face a new family and school. That situation didn’t last either, and Fred was eventually moved to a boarding school.
Unlike most of the Kindertransport refugees, Fred’s story took a miraculous turn. His parents were able to get to England. The family obtained affidavits for the United States, where they arrived in 1941. They lived first in Washington State, and then moved to Portland, Oregon. At age eighteen, Fred joined the United States Army. After the war, he earned a bachelor’s degree from Portland State University and began a successful career in business.
Years later, watching his own grandchildren, Fred wrote, “I look at them and thank God that they do not have to experience what I did at their age. I think of those desperate times and wonder how so many of us survived our separation from our parents, loved ones, and homeland. Yet I know that other children faced far worse situations.”
Fred Rosenbaum rose to the rank of brigadier general in the Oregon Air National Guard and received numerous awards for his humanitarian actions and community service. He never forgot his own experiences and founded a summer camp for children. Upon Fred’s death in 2010, at age eighty-three, Oregon’s governor said, “Oregon is less of a place because Fred has died….’”
“Anybody who got to know Dad understood his experience in Nazi Germany impacted his entire life,” said Fred’s son, Mark. “All of his work stemmed from an extreme appreciation for the freedom and opportunity presented by this country and his understanding of what it was like to be discriminated against based on religion and the impact of economic deprivation.’”
— Deborah Hopkinson, We Had to Be Brave: Escaping the Nazis on the Kindertransport
Deborah Hopkinson is the award-winning author of more than seventy books for young readers, ranging from picture books to middle-grade historical fiction, Little Golden Book biographies, and long-form nonfiction. Her work has received many honors, including the Oregon Book Award, the SCBWI Golden Kite Award for Picture Book Text, the Jane Addams Children’s Book Award, and the Green Earth Environmental Award. We’re especially grateful to feature her writing here, as she is a local author who makes her home in West Linn, Oregon.
If Fred Rosenbaum’s story moved you, we encourage you to explore more of Deborah’s powerful and beautifully told histories. You can find We Had to Be Brave on Amazon or through her website. She also shares updates and insights on Twitter (@deborahopkinson) and Instagram (@deborah_hopkinson), or online at www.deborahhopkinson.com
📘 We Had to Be Brave: Escaping the Nazis on the Kindertransport
Camp Rosenbaum
1111 SW 2nd Ave
Portland, OR 97204
Camp Rosenbaum is a
501(c)(3) nonprofit organization
EIN: 93-1263998
