In the middle of the night on Nov. 9, 1938, Edith Loeb woke to the sound of sirens and the smell of smoke. When she looked out the window, she saw her neighborhood in flames.

“Not until my recent trip to her hometown, when I stood in front of my mother’s childhood home, did I realized that the flames she saw were from her own synagogue, which was just steps from her house,” said Debbie Leuchter Stueber, Loeb’s daughter and guest speaker from the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh.

Stueber was speaking at the Butler Area Public Library’s 11th and final “Stories of Exile” installment titled “A Story of Love and Resilience.”

“Stories of Exile” is a reading and discussion program from the Yiddish Book Center, based in Massachusetts.

“We’re hoping people can gain a greater understanding of the diversity of the community and the value of immigrants and newcomers and the difficulties they experience,” said Anita Bowser, information services manager at the Butler Area Public Library.

Stueber was at the library to tell the story of her parents, Edith, 95, and Kurt, 96, who are both survivors of the Holocaust. The two joined the presentation via Zoom and were the subjects of a question-and-answer session following Stueber’s presentation.

Edith, who is Jewish, lived in southern Germany when the Holocaust started. She was forced to leave her town by the Nazis in 1940 as part of a series of mass deportations of the Jewish population.

“Early in the morning, the Gestapo knocked on the door, and Edith, her mother Julia and her grandmother Matilda were told they had one hour to gather a few possessions and were forced to hand over the key to their home,” Stueber said.

Edith and her family were forced to march to the town’s railroad station along with about 120 other Jews. The event was filmed, which was a part of Stueber’s presentation, where she used a laser pointer to indicate her mother carrying a round hat box, her grandmother and great grandmother.

“In 2022, my family traveled to Bruchsal, Germany, to see the premier of the play entitled ‘The Girl with a Hat Box,’ which is based on my mother’s story,” Stueber said.

Edith was sent to an internment camp in southwestern France. Six months later, she was deported to another camp in southern France.

“The barracks were infested with insects and, according to my mom, the beds looked like cages for rabbits,” Stueber said.

The Vichy government of France gave Edith’s mother the option to sign her away to OSE, or Children’s Aid Society, which is a French Jewish humanitarian organization credited with saving 5,000 Jewish children.

She met then Kurt Leuchter, her future husband and Stueber’s father at an orphanage called Masgelier.

“She made a lot of friends there and also met a boy named Kurt, and he really liked her,” Stueber said. “She thought he was arrogant and didn’t pay much attention.”

Kurt was later moved by OSE to a home for delinquent boys and obtained false papers. However, the Nazis found out there was a Jewish boy living in the home, and he was sent to fight with the French Resistance.

During his time in the French Resistance, Kurt said he would feed himself by taking food from farmers.

“The food they got from the farmers ... we held them up,” he said. “Some of them were very good with us and some were not. Some of them were leaning toward the Germans.”

After the war, Kurt was sent to two more orphanages in France. In 1946 he took a ship from France to the United States with about 70 other orphans to start a new life in America.

One day in 1947, he was standing outside the Museum of Modern Art in New York with some of his friends.

“And who should tap him on the shoulder but Edith?” said Stueber. “They embraced, and she must have seen something different this time because they fell in love.”

Edith and Kurt married in 1950.

“My parents were fortunate enough to survive the Holocaust and build a life post war,” Stueber said.

Stueber hopes her parents story can help spread hope and understanding.

“Kindness can help to break down barriers between people and foster understanding and empathy,” Stueber said. “My mother’s last name is Loeb, which means strong man or lion, and my father’s last name is Luechter, which means candelabra. I’d like to think that the strength and many branches of my family that now exist give us all light and hope.”

Near the end of the Q&A, Kurt repeated a message to the crowd that he usually gives during his daughter’s presentations.

“I always tell students, don’t just watch one station or read one newspaper.” he said. “Don’t listen to other people. You’re the one who has to decide for yourself about what’s right and what’s wrong.”

This story was updated May 20, 2024 to correct the date of Kristallnacht and where the couple met.