Harry Salinger

Youth in Berlin

Harry Salinger was born in Osnabrück in 1910, but the family soon moved to Berlin, where his father opened a company that sold Persian carpets. According to family lore, the Salingers were descended from the first Jewish settlers who settled on the Rhine under the Romans. Harry Salinger was already active in the Zionist movement during his school days in Berlin-Charlottenburg. At school, he wore the badge of the Jewish scout group "Kadimah", with which he went on excursions to various regions of the Reich.

Studied geography and history

In the winter semester of 1930, Harry Salinger began studying philology, history and geography at Berlin University on the advice of a teacher, with the aim of becoming a teacher himself. He was particularly interested in the history of the Middle Ages. Harry Salinger had to finance his studies himself, as his father's company was doing badly. He applied for a scholarship and lived with a family whose sons he tutored.

Aliyah

Harry Salinger made a strict distinction between his studies and his Zionist leisure time and, according to his own recollections, experienced no anti-Semitism either as a pupil or as a student. According to Harry Salinger, his decision to emigrate to Palestine was based on his fundamental Zionist convictions. However, he clearly saw what was in store for German Jews when Hitler came to power and did not want to wait to be expelled from Germany by the National Socialists.

In August 1933, he and his future wife arrived in Palestine by ship from Trieste in Italy without many possessions. While his girlfriend had received an immigration certificate because of her agricultural training in Germany, he was only able to enter Palestine because the University of Jerusalem had given him a written promise of a place at university.

Second dropout in Jerusalem

Harry Salinger continued his studies in the same subjects in Jerusalem, but had to give up after a short time due to financial difficulties. There were hardly any opportunities for students to find a job in Jerusalem at the time. After dropping out of university, the legitimisation for Harry Salinger's immigration ceased, but once he had entered Palestine legally, he was no longer deported.

Life in Tel Aviv

Out of necessity, Harry Salinger returned to Tel Aviv, where he married his girlfriend in 1934. They eked out a living with odd jobs: she worked as a waitress, he worked in construction and as a porter. Eventually he found work in the harbour of Jaffa, which was predominantly Arab. Through daily contact with the workers there, Harry Salinger quickly learnt Arabic, having already taught himself Hebrew. Due to the Arab riots against Jewish immigration from 1936 onwards, a separate harbour was opened in Jewish Tel Aviv two years later, of which Harry Salinger became the main warehouse manager and later head of the economic department.

At the end of the 1960s, Harry Salinger set up his own business as a representative of foreign production companies and travelled to Germany for trade fairs and other events. He did not retire until 1986 - at the age of 76. Looking back, he had no regrets about his second career path. Harry Salinger died in Tel Aviv in 2003 at the age of 93.