if I was hungry. We didn’t get a lot to eat, but we weren’t hungry.’ The woman gave him a package to take with him. ‘I’m sure she didn’t have a lot herself.’ In the package was a cooked meatloaf. When he told his mother about it, she said: ‘You see, there are still decent people.’ Things like this would give her a little hope again.
In 1940/1, one hakhshara centre after another was closed down. For Jürgen Loewenstein, this was now a common occurrence. ‘We arrived at a new place, continued the work of those who were no longer there, and didn’t even ask where they had gone to.’ He went from Ellguth in Silesia (now Ligota Oleska, Poland), Eichow-Muhle in Spreewald, and Ahrensdorf near Luckenwalde to Paderborn.23 From 9 January 1942, the 100-strong group lived in barracks at Grüner Weg 86.24 They worked as forced labourers for the city. Jürgen was a road sweeper and rubbish collector.
Now and then, Jürgen and his colleagues were given food by the local inhabitants, including the owner of a bakery they passed every week: ‘The baker came out of his shop and pulled out a loaf of bread from under his apron and handed it to us saying: “For God’s sake don’t tell my wife.”’ The same thing happened the following week, ‘but this time it was the baker’s wife who came out of the shop, produced a loaf of bread from under her apron and said: “For God’s sake don’t tell my husband.”’
In spite of the hard physical work, the ‘cultural side of life was not forgotten’:
We naturally celebrated all the Jewish holidays and worked hard at learning Hebrew. We sat together in groups and listened to poems and music. Fritz Schäfer, one of our ‘madrichim’, gave talks, and there was lots of discussion … : ‘When we get to Eretz Israel, we should realize that the Arab fellahin have more in common with us than the middle-class Jews.’ Fanny Bergas, another ‘madricha’, gave a talk on what book we would take with us if we were alone on a desert island.
All roads to Palestine were now blocked. According to a decree of 23 October 1941, Jews were no longer allowed to emigrate.25 Jürgen and his colleagues hoped at least to be able to stay in Germany.
In Berlin, Wolfgang’s sister Ursula Brigitte was recruited as a forced labourer at Batteriefabrik Pertrix in Niederschöneweide. Here, in one of the most important industrial districts of Berlin, Jewish forced labourers had been employed since 1938. They were to be joined later by prisoners of war, and forced labourers and concentration camp inmates from other countries. In autumn 1944, a satellite camp of Sachsenhausen was installed in Schöneweide, where up to 500 women whiled away their time. Since April 1944, the manufacture of aircraft batteries, vital for the war effort, had had absolute priority at Pertrix.26
Ursula Brigitte Wermuth was arrested by the works security [Werkschutz] in July 1942, with four other women, for allegedly communicating with prisoners of war. Their ‘offence’: they had given them shaving brushes and toothpaste. The day after their arrest, a Wehrmacht lieutenant appeared at the door of the family’s apartment. He reproached Käthe Wermuth, saying ‘How could your daughter have anything to do with those gypsies?’
‘You know, these people in uniform have served their country just like you’, she replied. The lieutenant was taken aback at the lack of respect shown to him by a Jew. She was charged, but acquitted. In front of the courthouse, the Gestapo was waiting. ‘They arrested her on the spot but later released her again.’
‘After three or four days, we received an anonymous letter. It was three pages long and apparently came from a high-ranking member of the Gestapo, who had interrogated my sister. I can recall a few sentences from it. “We have questioned your daughter. I’m personally sorry, but that’s how the world is today. Perhaps a new dawn will come for you one day.” A few days later, the Wermuths received an official letter informing them that Ursula Brigitte was in the women’s prison in Lehrter Strasse, Moabit, and that visits were only possible by special permission. But Wolfgang’s mother simply went there with a package with linen and sandwiches. ‘At the prison gates, a guard told my mother that she had a nerve coming to the Gestapo without permission.’ By chance, Käthe saw her daughter waving from behind a barred window and was able to wave back to her. It was the last time she saw her.
After the war, Wolfgang Wermuth discovered that his sister had been deported initially to the women’s concentration camp at Ravensbrück and then to Riga in Latvia, where she was shot in the forest of Rumbala in a mass execution.
The first transport of German Jews from Berlin-Grunewald train station reached Riga on 30 November 1941. The 1,000 or more Berlin Jews were all murdered in Rumbala.27 On that Sunday, on 8 December, around 25,000 Latvian Jews from the Riga ghetto were also shot.28
By the end of October 1942, a further seven transports with over 6,500 Jewish children, women and men left from Berlin alone. Practically none of them survived. For example, the 959 people on the transport of 19 October, including 140 children under 10 years of age, and the 55 children under the age of 10 on the transport of 26 October, were all murdered immediately in the forest near Riga.29
At around this time, in Paderborn, the members of Jürgen Loewenstein’s group were able to write and receive letters. They were also allowed to receive packages from friends and relatives. The letters and cards sent by Jürgen Loewenstein from Paderborn to Ernst Gross, a family friend, at Chausseestrasse 125 in Berlin, have survived. After liberation, they met up again, and Jürgen was given his letters back. On 23 December 1942, he wrote the following:
I’m sure you know that my parents are gone. They were taken on the 3rd of this month. I’ve had no news since. I didn’t even receive a letter, just a notification from people I don’t know. Now I sit here and realize that I’m all alone, that I have no more relatives, that it’s Christmas tomorrow, and Chanukah has already passed, and there was no letter, no package with gifts, as was usually the case, and that I was alone and abandoned. But that doesn’t help. Head up, don’t think, just hope, hope, hope.
Here there’s no change. The work is difficult (I’m now on rubbish collection) and the food is mediocre. You probably know that we don’t get any meat, eggs or cake rations. But we have to make do. Sometimes we are really hungry.…
Tomorrow is Christmas Eve and I wish you all the best. I hope you all keep well.… Up to now I always spent Christmas at home and, I think, at your house. But that’s all finished now.
Jürgen’s parents were deported to Auschwitz on the 24th transport east from Berlin on 9 December 1942.30 The 1,060 children, women and men arrived the following day, of whom 137 men and twenty-five women were allowed to live. Jürgen’s parents, Paula and Walter Loewenstein, and a further 896 children, women and men were murdered in the gas chambers.31 Jürgen wrote to Ernst Gross in Berlin on 7 February 1943:
There are 100 of us in all.… In my room there are six boys of my age and with the same goal. They’re all great guys and we get on very well together. If one gets a package or something from the city, it’s shared with everyone.…
One friend has his birthday on 20 February. Could you not put a small package together? A little present and a nice letter. I’m sure it would give him great pleasure.… He’s completely alone, without parents. Is it too much to ask because it’s not me? … His name is Alfred Ohnhaus.
On 23 February, Jürgen wrote: ‘Onny’s birthday was really nice and pleasant. For a couple of hours we were able to forget everything.’ The boys on Grüner Weg in Paderborn still hoped to survive the war. Many of them thought: ‘We’re indispensable and will hopefully remain so. Life goes on. We’re young and we’ll stick together.’
Lydia Holznerová ‘I know the Germans. They are a cultivated people. They won’t behave so badly.’
