Germany, recovering from the devastating economic crisis of the war years, was beginning to rebuild its industry. New factories and industrial plants mushroomed everywhere, and they were all in need of talented chemists. The world at large, which just a few years earlier had been horrified by the atrocities committed by the Nazis, forgot and forgave their sins, and Germany became a major economic world power.

Otto began working for a successful pharmaceutical company called Vargas, which was headed by Herr Valentinner. Otto was appointed the head of the chemistry engineering department, the person responsible for deciding the final chemical formulas for the drugs the company produced. He was paid well and was widely respected by his colleagues.

And all the while, Otto continued to hide his Jewish identity. Ironically, it seemed that the arch murderer Mengele had gifted postwar Germany with a brilliant chemist who could help rebuild the Reich.

Time passed, and Otto’s guilty conscience stopped bothering him altogether. He devoted himself to his job completely and was a popular guest lecturer at top universities.

Things were going less well for Vargas, his employer. As the German marketplace strengthened, new competitors arrived, taking large chunks of Vargas’s business. Eventually, the company’s owner, Herr Valentinner, decided that the competition was too much. He announced that he was moving the company to Venezuela, where the drug market was wide open and the sophisticated German concern could take advantage of a naive populace.

His prime chemist, Otto, happily joined him.

But once comfortably settled in Caracas, Venezuela’s capital, Herr Valentinner realized he had misjudged the market. The director general had underestimated another pharmaceutical company in town, Intercam, which was owned by two Torah-observant Jews, Shlomo Rubinzel and his son, Chaim. They were the main distributors to many of the drugstores in Venezuela, and even distributed their products internationally.

In no time at all, Herr Valentinner was consumed by jealousy for the Rubinzels, their success gnawing at his heart and robbing him of his rest. To add insult to injury, he received secret information from reliable sources that the Rubinzels were on the verge of manufacturing a new painkiller based solely on natural ingredients, a drug sure to be a hit.

At his wit’s end, Herr Valentinner nervously paced his office like a captive lion in his den. No novice to the drug market, he knew that the new product was a direct threat to Vargas and would catapult the Rubinzels into another league.

He called in his chief chemist, Otto, to hatch a scheme. “We must find out the secret formula of the natural drug,” the German said. Otto was at first taken aback, but understood the stakes. If Intercam could successfully market the drug, it could make Vargas a bit player in the market. Herr Valentinner raised the stakes. “You’ve done very well here, Otto, made quite a career for yourself. We’ve become family, really. And now your family needs your help.” Wanting to remain a loyal soldier, Otto hastily agreed to his boss’s scheme. Thus was the plot to steal the Jews’ drug formula launched.

Otto appeared at Intercam the next day, introducing himself as an experienced chemist who was looking for work. Over the next days and weeks, he befriended the Intercam chemists, who saw in him a kindred spirit. Though they had no job openings, the Intercam staff took pity on Otto, allowing him to come to the plant frequently and ask all the questions he wanted.

Shlomo Rubinzel didn’t worry much about Otto. He seemed nice enough and even hoped that Otto might offer some tips on how to improve the company’s processes. Not even Otto’s heavy German accent raised a red flag in Rubinzel’s mind, although he knew quite well that a new German company had moved to Caracas.

It took Otto only a few days to discover the secret formula for the Rubinzels’ new blockbuster drug. The chemical properties were straightforward enough, so the German chemist had very little trouble duplicating it.

Herr Valentinner could not believe his good fortune. Not only did he have a new drug to market, he was absolutely convinced that the unsophisticated Venezuelan consumers would not be able to tell the difference between Intercam’s original and Vargas’s copy.

On the other side of town, the Rubinzels were aghast. They had been working for ten years on creating a natural painkiller. They had conducted numerous research studies and spent a fortune on hiring expert scientists the world over. Now someone had stolen their formula and all their work.

The Rubinzels sued, demanding that the Vargas company immediately cease production of their drug and asked the court to grant them damages in the millions.

The court proceedings lasted for many months, the courthouse becoming a mini-chemistry studies department. The Rubinzels explained clearly and at length the various natural properties contained in the painkiller and the great expense they had undertaken to produce it. On the other hand, Otto and the Vargas company could only provide superficial evidence that their new drug was a product of their own research.

Eventually, Rubinzel won the lawsuit and Vargas was publicly shamed. Herr Valentinner was furious, his vicious hatred of Jews, which he had suppressed for so long, now coming to the surface in a consuming hatred for the Rubinzels.

Outwardly, things went on as usual at the Vargas company, though Herr Valentinner was convinced that Otto had not argued the company’s case effectively enough in court. Indeed, he blamed Otto for all the damages that the Rubinzels had been awarded and the shame that the Vargas company had suffered. Still, he let his feelings stew, so dependent was he on Otto for his work.

Later that year, at a holiday party, Vargas employees gathered to toast the coming year. There was plenty of alcohol available, and Herr Valentinner, who was an accomplished drinker, could not help himself. He scoffed at the small shot glasses offered, filling tall tumblers instead with all kinds of concoctions. It didn’t take too long for him to become totally drunk, his brain foggy with alcohol, his eyes blurry, his mouth drooling, as he began blubbering and ranting. He scanned the room and saw that his employees were looking at him derisively, smirking contemptuously at their drunken director general. He addressed one or two, confusing their names, and generally making a fool of himself. Then he spotted Otto Fort, who was genially carrying on a conversation with a group of colleagues.

“Cursed, dirty Jew!” he yelled out, hiccupping and stuttering with rage. “What a shame you survived and did not perish together with the rest of your people in the genius plan of our führer! Believe me everyone, if I didn’t need his professional skills, I would have sent him to the ovens long ago!”

When his rant was over, the employees at the party stood in shock. Not one of them had ever suspected that the brilliant and gifted chemist, with whom they had been working for years, was Jewish. In fact, many of the employees were secret anti-Semites who would never have countenanced working for a Jew.

In that moment, Otto felt the full weight of his life bearing down on his shoulders. He had given up on being Jewish, and yet here he was, singled out as a Jew and attacked by a vicious anti-Semite. It seemed his whole world was closing in around him and, after trying to laugh off the incident with his colleagues, he quickly located the door.

The following morning, Otto appeared at the door of Shlomo Rubinzel’s office. He sincerely apologized for stealing their drug formula and begged forgiveness. He hinted to Shlomo Rubinzel what had happened at the party and asked if perhaps Intercam might find a place for him.

“Welcome, welcome,” Shlomo Rubinzel said, accepting Otto’s apology. “Jews are always welcome in our company. We’ll be glad to work with you.” And that was how Vargas lost its prime chemist, after many long years of dedicated service.

But Otto remained Otto. Although he was now closely working with Torah-observant Jews, the idea that he might connect with his Jewish past remained distant.

The Rubinzels and Otto formed a successful partnership, Otto contributing his expertise and the Rubinzels giving the star chemist space to work.

Things were going so well, in fact, that the Rubinzels decided to move to Miami to pursue new business ventures, leaving Otto as Intercam’s new director general. Still, Shlomo would travel back to Caracas every month — and on one of those occasions something overtook him when he saw Otto.

“Tell me the truth, Otto,” Shlomo said. “Have you ever celebrated your bar mitzvah? Have you ever put on tefillin? You told us that you were six years old when you were miraculously saved from the inferno, in such an unbelievable manner. And since then? Have you tasted a fresh matzah on Pesach? Has your soul ever been set ablaze by a fiery prayer? Was your heart ever aroused by the blowing of the shofar? Your goyishe employer screamed: ‘You are a Jew!’ But you still don’t have any idea what it means!” Totally dumbstruck, Otto could not utter a word.

“Come with me,” Rubinzel commanded, and Otto followed him to his office, where the two had met countless times in the past. Rubinzel pulled out a pair of tefillin from a drawer and gave a short explanation of this mitzvah. He said the blessing slowly, with Otto repeating carefully every word, and started winding the holy straps around Otto’s left hand. Yisrael Leib, otherwise known as Otto, was shivering with emotions. He put on the head tefillin with tears running down his cheeks and his whole body shaking. Crying out, he began to mutter the names of his father and mother and brothers and sisters. Half verses of the Torah surfaced from memory, and he began to recite the davening from Pesach, Succos, and other Yamin Tovim. Otto was a true tinok shenishbah, a captive babe torn away from his family and heritage at the tender age of six. Yet the memories and spark remained.

Yisrael Leib stood in the office of Shlomo Rubinzel crying and swaying, swathed in a tallis and crowned with tefillin on his head for the first time in his life. He did not know how to pray, nor what he should say, so his shattered and pained soul called out to his Creator in his own words.

He suddenly felt a sublime bliss. All of his life he had been running, and now he had come back home. In that split second, he reconnected with his Father in Heaven.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha Issue 670)