Ernst Kohn’s life began in the cultured, comfortable world of upper middle-class Frankfurt, Germany, a city boy with a deep family legacy in the leather trade. He was destined to follow in his father Leo’s footsteps, but history had other plans. The rise of the Nazi regime quickly dismantled his secure world. 

In 1933, 10-year-old Ernst became a statistic, simply for being Jewish. The new “Law Against Overcrowding in Schools and Universities” was code for exclusion; Jewish students in public schools were limited to no more than 5% of the total student population. The Kohn brothers had been banished. They transferred to a private Jewish school, the Philanthropin. Ernst chose a vocational track, hoping to go into the leather trade like his father, but was never able to complete his studies. 

By 1935, the infamous Nuremberg Laws stripped the family of basic dignities. Beloved household servants were dismissed. Leo, once a respected businessman, was forbidden from calling on non-Jewish clients and lost his job. He found refuge as the Director of Sports and Dramatics at the Philanthropin, a desperate adaptation to an increasingly isolated existence. 

And yet, Jewish life continued. Ernst became a Bar Mitzvah at the West End Synagogue (the only synagogue in Frankfurt to survive Kristallnacht) sometime around 1936. 

But Germany was no longer home. The Kohns began a frantic search for an exit. They created a sprawling family tree, sending letters across the globe, hoping for a lifeline. That lifeline came from an unexpected corner: a distant third cousin in Birmingham, Alabama named Dorah Heyman Sterne.  

Dorah and her husband Mervyn began the complex process of sponsorship, sending the necessary affidavits and paperwork to the US Consul in Stuttgart in the autumn of 1938. The Kohns had the promise of visas, but they were tied to a long waiting list, delaying emigration for two agonizing years. They waited, trapped. 

The fragile peace shattered completely during the events of Kristallnacht in November 1938. Leo and his father were arrested but returned that same night. But in a shocking reversal, the Gestapo came back for Leo the next day and took him to the concentration camp of Buchenwald.  

A steely resolve hardened within Irene. “If he ever should come back,” she swore, “we’ve got to get him out of this place immediately, out of this country.” With the US visas still two years from being valid, Irene acted with speed and precision. A telegram to a relative in London secured a small sum of money for Leo’s living expenses there, making him eligible for a UK transit visa.  

Irene marched to the English Consul in Frankfurt, presenting the telegram and all four passports. In a quiet, humanitarian act that defied protocol, the consul stamped all their passports with transit visas. Their lives were saved by a signature and a stamp. 

Three weeks later, Leo was released from Buchenwald, likely due to a copy of his Hindenberg Honor Cross award certificate found in his wallet. He returned a ghost of a man: hair turned white, thirty pounds lost, wearing only a raincoat. Despite having sworn not to speak of the camp, Leo shared stories of unspeakable abuses. The next day, as a condition of his release, he left for England.  

Irene stayed behind, wrapping up their former life. They disassembled their beautiful home, shipping furniture to New Orleans and leaving most of their remaining money with her parents. Six weeks later, Ernst joined his father, followed by Irene and Herbert in May 1939. The family reunited but were scattered across England: Leo and Irene in a one-room flat in London, Ernst working as an apprentice with room and board, and Herbert attended a refugee boarding school sponsored by B’nai B’rith, Roden Hall, in Margate.  

A year later, in April 1940, they boarded a ship bound for the US. Once in New York City, Ernst shed his German moniker for the more Americanized version, Ernest. 

Mervyn Sterne suggested a unique path: come to Alabama, where they could learn to farm and build a new life away from the refugee-crowded northern cities.  The Kohns traveled by Greyhound bus for two and a half days to Birmingham, then on to Demopolis, where Sterne provided them with a new house on a farm, built by a dairy farmer named Mr. Gillespie, who would teach them the trade.  

Demopolis was a shock to the system. These highly cultured, urban Jewish Germans found themselves in the segregated American South, working alongside African American laborers, facing the harsh realities of farm life. Irene tended chickens. Thirteen-year-old Herbert milked cows at 5:30 am. Everyone worked hard, learning to cook and eat what they grew and mastering English. The boys attended Demopolis High School and adapted quickly. They became respected members of the Demopolis community and the local synagogue.    

Sterne covered all their expenses for a year, after which, the house belonged to Mr. Gillespie. The Kohn family moved to an 80-acre farm rented from Mervyn Sterne in nearby Gallion where they were milking 15-20 cows by hand, but they became self-sufficient. 

Ernest was drafted after high school but was deemed “unfit for service” because of his eyes. He moved to Uniontown and ran a dairy for a big plantation owner for a bit, always keeping an eye out for something better. After seeing an ad in the paper, he moved to Miami in 1946 and worked with Ives Certified Dairy for three years. 

In 1949, Mervyn Sterne, his guardian angel, had purchased a 100-acre farm on Coldwater Road in Oxford. This time, the arrangement was different: Sterne provided the land; Ernest provided the labor. After just one year, Ernest borrowed the money and repaid Sterne, taking full ownership of his destiny. His original 143 acres and 3 cows gradually grew and mechanized over the next 25 years. His dairy farming skills were featured in farm journals throughout the South with Ernest proudly referring to himself as “the only Jewish dairy farmer in the state of Alabama,” flatly attributing his success to his helpful neighbors and community. 

Again, needing something new, Ernest moved back to Florida in 1973 to oversee the diary operation at Glades Correctional Institution, and eventually become Assistant Manager of Beef Cattle Operation. 

With deteriorating myopia, and no longer able to drive, Ernest returned to his home of Calhoun County in 1983. He remained active at Temple Beth-El in Anniston and worked assembling water faucets for Lee Brass for several years.  

While Ernest rarely spoke of his past, the city boy from Frankfurt had found freedom in America as a country boy, building a new life on his own terms.