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Former Chestnut Ridge resident Walter Loeb, who grew up in Germany and was arrested during the Kristallnacht attacks on Jews in 1938, died Monday at his home in Monroe Township, N.J., after an illness. He was 92. Advertisement Loeb was born July 12, 1916, in Birkenau, Germany, to Ferdinand and Rosalie Katzenstein Loeb, the younger of two sons. His daughter Judy Schreier of West Nyack said he was 22 and working in a bank on Nov. 10, 1938 - hours after the start of Kristallnacht, considered to be the unofficial beginning of the Holocaust. "He really lived his young adulthood there in, what was to him, his history, his homeland," she said. "He 
was so tied to his history and the language, too." She said he was arrested in Karlsruhe, Germany, in the hours after Kristallnacht began and was taken to Dachau, where he spent a year before being released. He got passage to the United States in 1940 and joined the U.S. Army, serving for five years in Okinawa and the South Pacific. He was awarded the Okinawa Battle Star and pre-Pearl Harbor medals. After the war, he earned a degree in television engineering in Chicago. He married Ilse Morgenstern, also a Holocaust survivor, on March 6, 1949, in Chicago. Loeb worked in television electronics for Sylvania Corp. in Massachusetts and for Raytheon Corp.; he later moved to New York and earned a degree in computer systems analysis from New York University. He worked as a senior systems analyst and technical writer at Chemical-Chase Manhattan Bank. He retired at age 74, and ran a German-English translation business for several years. Throughout his life in the U.S., he spoke about the Holocaust and what had happened. As an adult, he was invited back to Germany several times at the request of the mayor of Karlsruhe, and he was thrilled to make the trips, his daughter said. "What struck me most about my dad was how open-minded he was of all different types of people," she said. "People who would meet him, or hear my stories, would never fully understand how he could love his homeland of Germany. He would never discount an entire group of people and was always accepting of Germans of the new generation." Loeb was a member of the Jewish War Veterans, a board member of Temple Israel Synagogue in Natick, Mass., and a 50-year member of B'Nai Brith. He also belonged to Beth El Synagogue in East Windsor, N.J., and the Jewish Congregation of Concordia in Monroe Townshi
p, N.J. He was a member of several computer clubs and a volunteer leader of religious services for the elderly and a member of the Roaring Nineties Club in Monroe Township. He and his wife and four children moved to Rockland in 1966, settling in the part of Monsey now called Chestnut Ridge. He was a longtime member of Monsey Jewish Center and a Holocaust educator, working with his wife on projects and with the Holocaust Museum and Study Center in Chestnut Ridge, which his wife helped found. "He was a very honest, a very decent person," Schreier said. "He was just very honorable, very trustworthy and very intellectual. He loved to debate and he loved to read deep things about history ... because he lived it, he felt compelled to understand it. He had a sense of curiosity and a very strong work ethic." Anne Weissmann, who helped Ilse Loeb start the local Hidden Children group, said Walter Loeb was a true support for his wife; a great father; and good man. "He was so proud of whatever she was doing," Weissmann said. "He's just a great husband. Every husband should be like he was. There wouldn't be any divorce. It would be a perfect world." Holocaust museum education coordinator Lisa Stenchever said Loeb was held in high respect for his work at the center.
Grey Gardens: Starring Jessica Lange, Drew Barrymore, Ken Howard. Directed by Michael Sucsy, written by Sucsy and Patricia Rozema. 8 p.m. Sat., with encore broadcasts, on HBO. "Grey Gardens," the 1975 documentary by Albert and David Maysles about Edith Bouvier Beale and her daughter, "Little Edie," made a big splash at the time of its release because the two women living in splendid squalor in East Hampton were relatives of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Yet, as great as the Maysleses' film was, it focused on only six weeks in the Beales' lives. For the rest of the story, turn tonight to HBO's superb feature film, also called "Grey Gardens," which not only re-creates scenes from the documentary but also flashes back in the Beales' lives to give us a bit more insight into why two wealthy and well-connected women shut themselves up in a filthy mansion, littered with garbage and cat feces. Whether you know the Maysleses' film or not, you'll be astounded
at the performances of Jessica Lange and Drew Barrymore as Big and Little Edie. In fact, let's not mince words here: Barrymore has sometimes been a pleasing personality in various films, but never, in anything she's ever done, was there a hint that she was capable of a performance like this one. She eerily replicates not only Little Edie's very odd manner of speaking (an aural mashup of Bronx-ese and tony finishing school) but also her disconcerting air of studied detachment as well. It's less of a surprise that Lange is just as good, but what she looks like in the part is a surprise: stringy white hair, thick-lensed glasses askew on her face, blackened and crooked teeth. Lange brings extraordinary power to Big Edie, showing her fear-fueled stubbornness, which, we quickly realize, is the reason she shut herself away from the world to begin with and dragged her daughter back from New York for company. The film also benefits from spot-on work by Ken Howard as Edith's husband, Phelan; Malcolm Gets as Edith's sycophantic piano accompanist in her younger days; and Jeanne Tripplehorn as Jacqueline Onassis. People who watched the Maysleses' documentary when it came out probably found the women strange, to say the least, but may have also felt sympathy for them in the end. That's the feeling that director 
and co-screenwriter Michael Sucsy is going for in the HBO film, and he achieves it in spades. Yes, at first, the Beales strike us as true oddballs. There's Big Edie, shuffling around the crumbling mansion with various articles of clothing tied around her body, commenting indifferently that a cat is urinating behind a portrait of her younger self propped against the bedroom wall. She bickers constantly with Little Edie, who tries to hide her bald head with a variety of sweaters, blouses and towels, tied like Renaissance headpieces at the nape of her neck, while musing that she'll probably never be able to leave Grey Gardens until her mother dies.
Source: sfgate.com
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was so tied to his history and the language, too." She said he was arrested in Karlsruhe, Germany, in the hours after Kristallnacht began and was taken to Dachau, where he spent a year before being released. He got passage to the United States in 1940 and joined the U.S. Army, serving for five years in Okinawa and the South Pacific. He was awarded the Okinawa Battle Star and pre-Pearl Harbor medals. After the war, he earned a degree in television engineering in Chicago. He married Ilse Morgenstern, also a Holocaust survivor, on March 6, 1949, in Chicago. Loeb worked in television electronics for Sylvania Corp. in Massachusetts and for Raytheon Corp.; he later moved to New York and earned a degree in computer systems analysis from New York University. He worked as a senior systems analyst and technical writer at Chemical-Chase Manhattan Bank. He retired at age 74, and ran a German-English translation business for several years. Throughout his life in the U.S., he spoke about the Holocaust and what had happened. As an adult, he was invited back to Germany several times at the request of the mayor of Karlsruhe, and he was thrilled to make the trips, his daughter said. "What struck me most about my dad was how open-minded he was of all different types of people," she said. "People who would meet him, or hear my stories, would never fully understand how he could love his homeland of Germany. He would never discount an entire group of people and was always accepting of Germans of the new generation." Loeb was a member of the Jewish War Veterans, a board member of Temple Israel Synagogue in Natick, Mass., and a 50-year member of B'Nai Brith. He also belonged to Beth El Synagogue in East Windsor, N.J., and the Jewish Congregation of Concordia in Monroe Townshi
p, N.J. He was a member of several computer clubs and a volunteer leader of religious services for the elderly and a member of the Roaring Nineties Club in Monroe Township. He and his wife and four children moved to Rockland in 1966, settling in the part of Monsey now called Chestnut Ridge. He was a longtime member of Monsey Jewish Center and a Holocaust educator, working with his wife on projects and with the Holocaust Museum and Study Center in Chestnut Ridge, which his wife helped found. "He was a very honest, a very decent person," Schreier said. "He was just very honorable, very trustworthy and very intellectual. He loved to debate and he loved to read deep things about history ... because he lived it, he felt compelled to understand it. He had a sense of curiosity and a very strong work ethic." Anne Weissmann, who helped Ilse Loeb start the local Hidden Children group, said Walter Loeb was a true support for his wife; a great father; and good man. "He was so proud of whatever she was doing," Weissmann said. "He's just a great husband. Every husband should be like he was. There wouldn't be any divorce. It would be a perfect world." Holocaust museum education coordinator Lisa Stenchever said Loeb was held in high respect for his work at the center.
