Schnerb was born and raised in Frankfurt. His family belonged to the prestigious Breuer community, years before the looming Holocaust forced them to move to Bennett Avenue. Schnerb’s bar mitzvah in 1938, a few weeks before Kristallnacht, was one of the last to take place in the community’s synagogue, then the undisputed center of Orthodox German Jewry.

"We never had that before," Schnerb said about the events of November 9, during which the Breuer synagogue was burned. Everybody was concerned, and some distant relatives came to the Schnerb house to hide.

"Two young men. We hid them in the cellar. During the day [of Nov 10, 1938], the Gestapo came and searched, to take them into custody. They searched in every room but that particular room, so they didn’t find them."

Questioned by the Gestapo

Even Schnerb's 52-year-old father was questioned by the Gestapo, but because they mistakenly thought he was too old, they didn't arrest him. (He had said he was born in 1886, but the officers thought he said he was 86 years old, so they left him in peace.)
His parents were alarmed. In December, they arranged for Schnerb and his sister Lisa to join the Kindertransport over Belgium to England. The following May, the children were reunited with their parents, who were able to get papers to come to England as well. But as refugees, Schnerb's parents weren't allowed to work. That's why in December 1939, the family relocated to an apartment on West 176th Street in Washington Heights.
After attending local yeshivas for a few years, Schnerb became the apprentice of a bookbinder named Gabriel Harwitt in 1947. Since 1951, Schnerb has owned Harwitt’s business, still called Harwitt Bindery.

In 1989, the bindery moved to its current location, a large basement room filled with unfinished work and dusty machines, in the heart of whatever is left of the German-Jewish Washington Heights.

The sermons are no longer in German, but tradition still counts

While there are not many yekkes left today, at the group’s world headquarters, near the 181 Street A train stop, they are very eager to preserve their traditions. Schnerb, who serves on the synagogue’s board of advisors, makes his contribution when he teaches bar mitzvah boys to read from the Torah – with the correct yekki pronunciation, of course.

"He is a repository of minhogim and nigunim [customs and melodies] and he shares really the traditional German friendly, good weltanschauung," said Chaim Tzvi Freimann, a Washington Heights resident who has known Schnerb for decades. "It should be known that such as person exists," he added. "He is a real asset to the community. He is a very loving, good, warm person who is perpetuating the yekkishe traditions."

Part 1: Walter Schnerb: A bookbinder and yekke par excellence

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What's left of Jewish Washington Heights? Besides Schnerb's bindery, this map shows you all synagogues that are still in use, plus kosher eateries!

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