Why I Became A Mason

Dr. Harvey Saalberg, 32
2910 Alta Vista Lane
San Angelo, Texas  76904


I was born in the year of the beginning of the Great Depression in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Shortly before I turned four years old, Hitler seized power in Germany on the day the Nazis called Der Tag der Machtergreifung, "The Day of Seizure of Power," January 30, 1933.
	In about two years' time, nearly all the Freimaurer Logen, the Masonic Lodges, were dark. By 1936 no one could admit to being a Mason for fear of being arrested and sent to a detention/concentration camp. Those who were found out wound up there, along with Jews, gypsies and all other "undesirables." Many, as was learned later, lost their health, and thousands of Masons died of hunger, disease, gas, or bullets.
	Historians note that some defiant Masons wore a tiny enamel forget-me-not flower pin on or behind their lapels, although I never saw such a pin in Germany. I was too young to take notice of such activities. When I was ten years old, Hitler invaded Poland, and World War II began. I became more aware of adults and their attempts to survive the Nazi searches for opponents, and, after 1942 began, the British air raids at night and the American attacks during the day brought the horror of war home to me.
	I attended the Philantropin, a charity school for about 1,000 Jewish children. By mid-1942, after nearly all children had been transported to concentration camps with their parents, the school was closed and further education was officially denied anyone even part Jewish. The reasons I had survived that long in Frankfurt and, actually, had survived at all, was that my mother was Lutheran. Repeatedly, she was summoned to Gestapo Headquarters at 27 Linden Strasse, where they attempted to persuade her to divorce my father, a Jew. She never did.
	And throughout this period, one heard of Freimaurer, Freemasons, being arrested and taken to camps. Who were these people who were hated and suffered like Jews? I was too young to understand. My father and I were sent to Theresienstadt, Czechoslovakia, in 1945. Although typhus broke out, we survived to emigrate to the United States the following year. I was 17 when I arrived in New York aboard the Marine Flasher, a liberty ship indeed. All along I had wanted to become a Freimaurer, who, I soon learned, are called Masons here. Much intervened, but in 1983 I was raised a Master Mason in Lodge No. 570, San Angelo, Texas, and the following year I also became a Scottish Rite Mason, in Waco, Texas. May the time never come that I will be persecuted like a German Freimaurer, from 1933-45, but should that time come, I have a brave example to follow.     s

Harvey W. Saalberg 
is the director of the Family Support Center, Goodfellow Air Force Base, Texas. He recently became a Shriner and is a member of Suez Temple, San Angelo, Texas.

The In Basket
Articles Recently Received by The Scottish Rite Journal
	"Thank you!" to each of these Brethren or their family members who have recently submitted articles to the magazine. Each submission will be published in The Scottish Rite Journal or, by notification to the author, placed on file in the Archives of The Supreme Council, 33, as an information and research resource for the Fraternity. Listing is by name (alphabetical), Degree, Valley, and title of contribution.
Balogh, James S., 32, Tucson, AZ, "Masonic Ring Brings Aid"
Blake, O. M., 32, Winston-Salem, NC, "A Structured Life-Long Program in Masonry"
Breylinger, Gary F., 32, San Diego, CA, "From the Instructive Tongue"
Campbell, Robert C., 32, K\C\C\H\, St. Paul, MN, "George C. S. Campbell"
Cherry, Linwood W., 32, Norfolk, VA, "Masonic Ring Anecdotes"
Clements, Hugh H., 32, K\C\C\H\, Chattanooga, TN, "Fourth Day of July"
Goldsmith, Robert L., 33, Lake Worth, FL, "Again Masons Come to the Rescue"
Goodwin, David, 32, Miami, FL,"Touring Europe and Israel in 1955"
Hemmingsen, Gail, 32, K\C\C\H\, Sioux City, IA, "'Masonic'Meaning"
Ingraham, Vernon B., 32, Tampa, FL, "Unity and Brotherhood"
Jensen, Rex L., 32, Las Vegas, NV, "Helping a Brother"
Lavender, Don, 32, K\C\C\H\, Des Moines, IA, "The Tie That Binds"
Moore, William D., Director, Chancellor Robert R. Livingston Masonic Library and 		Museum, NY, "Masonic Postcards"
Noe, Marion T., 32, New Bern, NC, "The History of Franklin Masonic Lodge, No. 		109, of Beaufort, NC"
Richards, Herbert E., 32, K\C\C\H\, Portland, OR, "Warning!"
Robbins, James W., 32, K\C\C\H\, Kansas City, KS, "Traveling to the East"
Seligman, Ralph D., 33, Supreme Council of Israel, "Were Harman Blennerhasset 		and Lewis Keer One and the Same?"
Thomas, Gaylord Z., 32, Guthrie, OK, "Time for a Change"
Ward, William H., 32, San Antonio, TX, "Hermano, Aqui!"
Truesdell, Warren, 32, Coeur d'Alene, ID, "Santa's Sleigh"
Webster, Forest E., 32, Covington, KY, "The Truth"
