Mr. Flamm was a beloved educator and mentor at Talmudical Academy, where he taught first and sixth grade and also prepared students for their bar mitzvahs, including my brother and me. He and my family were members of Shearith Israel on Glen Ave in Baltimore, and the Flamm family were longtime customers of my father’s business, Wasserman and Lemberger.

For many years, Mr. Flamm kindly drove me to school each morning because my father left early for work. Although many people assumed he was a rabbi, he never received semicha and insisted on being called “Mr. Flamm.” In addition to teaching at Talmudical Academy, he also taught at other day schools and synagogue Hebrew schools from the 1960s through the 1980s. He was deeply loved and respected by generations of students and synagogue members.

I found the article below in an old issue of the Shearith Israel Bulletin and thought young readers would find Mr. Flamm’s story an interesting and inspiring part of Baltimore history.

Summary: Mr. Wasserman, one of the founders of the iconic Wasserman and Lemberger butcher shop in Baltimore, was born in 1923 in a village in Germany. In part one, he described his family’s life, his schooling, and the cycle of the Jewish year. When he was about 10 years old, the Nazis came to power, and the harassment of Jews began. There was street violence and arrests. He could no longer attend public school, and the family began to think of leaving Germany.

Well, things went from bad to worse. We children were kept in the dark about a lot of things as our parents tried to protect us. I recall one incident where our next-door neighbor shot into our bedroom; the slugs hit just above my brother’s bed and became embedded in the wooden beam. Fortunately, no one was hit, but we knew then that we had to somehow make plans to leave.  This neighbor’s brothers were very big Nazis. They always claimed they wanted part of our property. Whenever we had visitors, either Jews from out of town or relatives, they used to sing “When the Jewish blood drips from the knife, then everything will be better” and other Nazi hate songs, which were directed against Jews without any cause or reason. They were indoctrinated to such an extent, there was so much hate in them, that they did whatever they could to make our lives miserable without actually outright shooting someone – so that, if you didn’t leave voluntarily, you were really forced to go sooner or later.

I got my beatings after school, either with snowballs or with dirt. They tore my clothes, tore my school bag from my back. You had a dozen guys run after you, push you down. Everything was rocky on the ground. It’s very hard to describe ordeals like that, being afraid and being pushed around all the time for no apparent reason. If you complained to their parents, either they didn’t care, denied it, or just didn’t give a hoot about the whole thing. And if you reported it, it didn’t mean a thing. In other words, this was free season on Jews. Of course, some were better and didn’t participate in this, but it takes only a few. The other ones didn’t hurt you, but they didn’t help you either.