Fredi Schoenfeld, born in pre-Hitler Germany in 1923, died in Mineola on April 30, 2006. Mr. Schoenfeld, with his parents, Heinrich and Rose Schoenfeld, left Goldbach at the urging of a local Nazi official in 1938. Fredi's father had attended public school with this man. The official warned his friend to take his wife and son out of Germany within 48 hours. The official even knew that the Schoenfeld family had booked passage on a transatlantic ocean liner at the end of the month. This was approximately three weeks before Kristelnacht. Leaving Germany, traveling through France, the Schoenfeld family arrived in Southampton, England to meet the same ship for passage to America. Their Christian neighbors out of friendship had packed their household goods and saw to their delivery to the dock in Germany. The family settled in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn.

In 1943, Fred returned to Europe courtesy of a troopship and the US Army. Fred spent a year in England translating German documents for the British and American armed forces, before fighting in France and Germany. Fred returned to the village of his birth before the war officially ended. Having seen Dachau shortly after it was liberated, Fred returned to America and did not speak German for 50 years. His first wife, Susan Prager, had left Germany at the age of 9 and willingly entered into this agreement. Fred and Susan raised two daughters, Linda Hodes and Terri Swartz in New Hyde Park. In those years, Fred manufactured children's dresses that his wife designed. The name of their company was Trudi Little Dresses.

In 1995, Fred, now widowed, married Carol Bella. At the suggestion of the Jewish cantor and the Catholic deacon who had married them, Fred and Carol went to Germany. Planning to stay but one day in his home village, Fredi reestablished and formed new relationships in his hometown. Each year he would return to place a wreath on the Jewish Memorial during the Kristalnacht ceremonies in his village. Fred would lecture at the schools in Goldbach and a neighboring village, speaking on what it was like to grow up as a Jewish boy in Nazi Germany.

Fredi Schoenfeld was honored by the people of Goldbach. He was named Ehrenburger, this would translate to "Honored Citizen." He was one of two chosen for this honor in the last 100 years. Fred would joke that he was the only Judishche (Jewish) one ever.

In addition to his wife and two daughters, Fred leaves his son-in-law, Robert Swartz, and Carol's three children, Vitina Bella Buttino (Nicholas), Thomas James Bella (Jennifer) and Christine Bella McKenna (Thomas) and four grandchildren, Jonathan and Katie Swartz and Peter and Samuel Bella.

Nicholas F. Passarella, 80, of Mineola and Lakeland, FL, died on May 21, 2006. Husband of Gertrude. Father of Ann Haselkorn, Nicholas Passarella, Richard Passarella and Michael Hilsen. Brother of Dorothy Prisco, Victor and the late Carmine Passarella. Grandfather of eight. Great-grandfather of two. Arrangements were made by the Cassidy Funeral Home, Mineola. Funeral Mass at Corpus Christi RC Church. Interment Calverton National Cemetery. Contributions may be made to the American Lung Association of NY, 700 Veterans Memorial Hwy., Hauppauge, NY 11788.