Fromms: How Julis Fromm's Condom Empire Fell to the Nazis (4 page)

Conditions in the Weimar Republic further destabilized traditional moral strictures. Urbanization, the social mobility that accompanies industrial society, a growing interest in pursuing higher education, and the emancipation of women all fostered a desire not to leave the number of offspring to nature. Then again, prudery and ignorance were still very much in evidence, and for decades to come, Fromms Act packages contained folded inserts that pharmacy customers could push across the counter without needing to state what they wished to purchase. The inserts contained this text: “Please hand me a 3-pack of Fromms’ condoms discreetly.”

Fromm worked tirelessly to improve what is known in the business as “rubber hollow bodies,” and developed new variants that offered no additional health benefits, but enhanced pleasure. In 1927, for example, he patented a process for making patterned
condoms. The documentation for this patent explains that “the patterned surface can be given any form, such as stripes and geometric shapes, in one or in several colors.”

The Haller Girls at the Berlin Wintergarten, 1926

Moreover, the ever-resourceful condom manufacturer wrote on his package inserts: “In addition to standard sizes we also supply a variety of additional widths by request. Let your supplier know about any special requirements, and the supplier will place the appropriate order with us.” A boxed notice reminded customers: “Common decency dictates that you not carelessly toss away our prophylactics and packaging after use, or else they will be found lying on streets, city squares, or walkways. Keep our printed matter away from the eyes of minors. It is not intended for them.”
⁹

By the end of the 1920s, Fromm’s products were so popular that beer hall cabarettists and piano-bar comedians in Berlin were incorporating Fromms Act condoms into their routines, singing lines like “Fromms with your girl—give it a whirl,” “When the urge grabs you, grab Fromms Act,” and “Just like a Fromm—I’m ready to come.” Fromm had made it. He did not have to pitch his condoms. Customers read the name and got the picture.

F
ROM THE
G
HETTO IN
K
ONIN TO
B
ERLIN

JULIUS FROMM OFTEN CLAIMED
that he was born in Poznan, Prussia, and that his parents chose the name Julius for him. Neither statement is true. He was actually born—on March 4, 1883—in the small town of Konin, seventy-five miles east of Poznan, in what was then Russia. At his bris, his name was entered into the synagogue register as Israel From. The birth of his father, Baruch, had been recorded in the same register, on October 10, 1854. At that time, Konin had 5,147 inhabitants, 2,006 of them Jews, the others Polish Catholics and German Protestants.
¹⁰
In the Middle Ages, the Jews had fled to the East from France, the Rhineland, and Bohemia to escape discrimination and Christian bloodlust. Konin was among the first twelve Polish communities in which Jews were permitted to settle.

The descendants of the people driven from their homelands spoke Yiddish, and most of them lived near the Warta River, in their own quarter surrounding the Tepper Marik (Pot Market). In 1766 the Jewish community completed the construction of a
magnificent synagogue, and later added a
beit midrash
as a place of study and prayer. The modest dwellings in this neighborhood were typically made of wood. The unpaved streets turned to mud whenever it rained or the Warta overflowed.

The Jews of Konin set great store by tradition. The men wore beards and, at least on religious holidays, black caftans. The married women wore
sheitls
(wigs). They observed the Sabbath and kept strict kosher households, and the rabbi settled disputes. Contraception was considered a grave sin, tantamount to bloodshed. Even so, strict orthodoxy barely gained a toehold in this small town at the extreme western end of tsarist Russia.

The surviving members of the Fromm family have no information concerning Baruch Fromm’s childhood, background, parents, or other ancestors, but the Poznan Voivodeship (province) Archives has the Konin synagogue register in its holdings. This book contains a Russian-language entry in the Cyrillic alphabet for the wedding of Baruch Fromm and Sara Rifka Riegel, which reads:

This entry shows that the newlyweds were not from the lowest class of the Konin ghetto, since they were able to afford the services of a notary, and their possessions were valuable enough to warrant a prenuptial agreement. The double wedding date reflects the difference between the Julian calendar—which was still in use by the Russian Orthodox Church—and the Gregorian calendar, in effect in the Polish Catholic western regions.

The synagogue register also contains entries for the births of the Fromms’ first three sons. The notation for the second son, Israel (who later went by Julius), reads as follows:

Szlama had been born two and a half years earlier, in late November 1880. Mosziek, Helene, Siegmund, Esther, Sander, and Bernhard followed over the years to come.

Postcard view of the
shtetl
in Konin during the tsarist period

Tsarist Russia, of which Konin had been a part since 1815, had no compulsory schooling. Most Jewish boys attended small, private religious schools called
cheder
(Hebrew for “room”). They learned Hebrew from the age of four, and later studied the Bible. They memorized Torah passages and other religious scriptures. A little arithmetic was the only curricular concession to modernity.

Helene Fromm later told her nephews and nieces that her father, Baruch, had owned a large estate in Konin, but this is one of those embellished stories that tend to arise in families who work their way up from rags to riches, and attain community prestige within a generation. In the nineteenth century, there was only a single Jewish landowner in the vicinity of Konin, a man named Kaplan. In 1890 one Jewish doctor and one lawyer had their practices in town. The other Jews worked as blacksmiths, stonemasons, saddlers, tailors, and shoemakers; many were merchants.

Shtetl life had been imposed upon the Jews by society at large, yet to some degree it was also a self-chosen oasis of safety and autonomy. Many progressive-minded young Jews disdained
these quarters, regarding them as nothing more than overpopulated places of poverty and sanctimoniousness. The radiant haze of nostalgia settled over shtetls only after their devastation by the Germans.