Jewish (Story of Max and Trude Heller) #AtoZChallenge #WordlessWednesday

Many Americans would not associate people of the Jewish faith with the Southern state of South Carolina.  If you are one of these, prepare for the story of Max Heller.

Spouse and I visited Greenville, South Carolina in February of this year.  Walking around downtown, I started to see plaques.

There were so many, all clustered together I decided to read them.  I was immediately plunged into the story of Max Heller:  immigrant from Austria, escapee from the Holocaust, businessman, city councilman, supporter of integration and eventually Mayor. 

This mostly come about because of a chance meeting when Max Heller was 19, in 1937.  He met a young women from Greenville at a dance and she gave him her address.  But let's not get too far ahead of ourselves.

Max Heller was born in 1919 in Vienna, Austria.  Growing up in an orthodox Jewish household with his older sister, his mother told him stories of her experiences with pogroms in Poland. His father owned a textile business but suffered during the Depression. 

When the Germans occupied Austria in 1938, Heller's family knew they had to get out.  Heller bought a German/English dictionary and wrote the young woman from Greenville, Mary Mills, whom he had met at that fateful dance. She agreed to help him get to the United States.

Mary helped get him and his family out, and also obtained jobs for him and his sister at a shirt factory once they reached the safety of Greenville.  Much of Heller's extended family wasn't so fortunate.  Between him and his wife (more on her below) they lost some 90 relatives in the Holocaust.

(You can read more about the history of the Jewish community in Greenville here.)

Every good story has to have a love interest.  Enter Trude Schonthal, a young woman whom Max had met at a summer resort (back in Austria) when she was 15 years old.  Trude's family lost their home in World War II, and ended up as refugees in Belgium.  In 1940, she made it to the United States and settled in Greenville, where she met up again with Max Heller.

Max Heller married Trude Schonthal in Greenville on August 2, 1942.

Eventually, Max Heller became Mayor of Greenville.  Many say he was responsible for the renewal of downtown Greenville I showed you in my "D" A to Z post. He fought for the desegregation of Greenville and led the way for the creation of Greenville's mass transit system.  He also continued to battle antisemitism where he found it.

Trude Heller participated in many community and religious organizations and won South Carolina's highest civilian honor, The Order of the Palmetto.  Also, Trude became a Holocaust educator and gave talks to thousands of people, passing along her experiences and fighting Holocaust denial.

Let Mr. Heller tell his story, if you are interested, through this 1998 interview with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. I highly recommend it, although it is long.

Max Heller passed away in 2011 at the age of 92.  

Trude Heller passed away at age 98 in May of 2021.  

And Mary Mills, the woman who helped get Max and his family out of Austria?   Apparently she remained friends with Max Heller but I can't seem to find any more information on her. 

An amazing history that we all should know about.

"J" day on the Blogging from A to Z Challenge.  My theme:  Exploring South Carolina and the Eastern United States.

Joining Sandee at Comedy Plus for her #WordlessWednesday (although I admit, this wasn't exactly wordless).