Episode 12
In 1933, when the girls were getting harassed at school, Franze started home schooling. Renata, the youngest, was then ten.
Young Renata
The girls’ friends were Christian. After the Race Laws were introduced, Renata had little chance to mix with her own age. However, Herr Ula hid Franze’s friends in the store van, to smuggle them into the Levy’s house. He drove into an enclosed court yard, where guests could secretly enter the house, without being seen. Some of Franze’s friends brought their children. One of them, Barbara, was an unhappy child, but loved to visit. She especially adored Lore, who mothered her.
When Franze had to flee Germany from the Gestapo, Renata not only lost her mother, but also these illicit visits, which provided a small degree of society.
Renata’s older sister Lore, was training to be a nurse, in Leipzig. The Jewish hospital, there, was desperate for staff, as Jews were no longer allowed to see ‘Aryan’ doctors, and Leipzig had a large Jewish population. This enterprise of Lore’s, brought risk - in 1937, it was dangerous for Jews to move around.
Their eldest sister, Ruth, sailed to South Africa, in early 1937, joining her brother Henner, and fiancé Rudi. Initially, she slept on Henner’s couch, but, on Albert’s insistence, got married shortly after arriving in Port Elizabeth.
Henner’s new shop, The Continental, was doing well, but South Africans wanted to buy on credit. Something he didn’t know in Germany. They only paid for their goods after six months. It meant he had very little money. Ruth offered to sell her rings.
Growing up in a family of seven, it must have been lonely for Renata and Lotte, in the apartment, day after day, while their father worked. Albert insisted on meals being served, at the same time as always. Only now, it fell on his young daughters to provide them. The girls’ grandparents were, at least upstairs, but their grandmother Marianne was, by now, nearly blind.
There was no comfort for the girls outside the apartment. Lotte wrote:
In parks only one bright yellow bench was put aside for Jews. ….all cinemas, theatres and places of entertainment were closed to us.
Albert had been patron of Altenburg’s theatre. They were used to actors dropping by to the apartment, and Gerhard rehearsing musicians upstairs. All that had gone.
It was dangerous to even speak to friends on the street. One day, Barbara spotted Lore, and rushed over to say hello. Lore quickly crossed the road to avoid her. Barbara was devastated. She didn’t understand that Lore was protecting her.
Renata, around 1937
One evening when Albert, Lotte and Renata were having dinner, they heard music from the empty rooms below. Lotte wrote:
I went to investigate and found about 25 members of the theatre orchestra, playing Bruch’s Kol Nidrei. Not a word passed between us, they simply wanted to show their feelings and compassion for us. Every year on the eve of Yom Kippur, I am reminded of this touching experience.
The Christmas of 1937, must have been a time of sadness for the family in Altenburg, with the girls’ mother in exile, and Henner and Ruth in South Africa. However, nothing could have prepared them for the year to come.
Lotte:
1938 was a particularly bad year for us, as so many horrific things happened, which I tried to forget….Many SS men were stationed in front of our store with banners saying ‘DON’T BUY FROM JEWS’, and consequently business came to a standstill.
After the Race Laws were introduced, customers became increasingly scared to shop at M&S Cohn’s, due to retaliations. On 10th July, 1938, the documents of ownership for M&S Cohn’s were transferred to an ‘Aryan’ company from Dresden. The forced handover of the business, was masqueradated as a sale. In addition, Albert had to sign a document, that forbade him from doing business in Thuringia for the next 20 years.
I shall never forget that at the age of 18, I went to our store, to find my father in his private office, with his head on the desk feeling demented. I took him by the hand, and slowly walked him downstairs, being aware of his feelings of despair, his depression at seeing his hard won success go to ruin. That was the last time he went to the business.
M&S Cohn’s - with two flagpoles.
Things escalated and we lived in fear of what would happen next. To leave Germany became more and more difficult, and we were not allowed to take money out of the country. Our lives became isolated, stones were thrown through the windows, and many incidents happened too horrendous to relate.
Albert, 1938.
Albert got taken from the apartment in the early morning of 9/10th November, by Hitler’s stormtroopers, and transferred to Buchenwald concentration camp. (As described in episodes 1 and 2). Permits to enter Holland arrived while he was a prisoner, thanks to the persistence of Albert’s Dutch cousin, Jac. This allowed Lore and Lotte to negotiate Albert’s release. The authorities agreed to it, only if he left Germany immediately, and on condition of transferring the deeds of the family home to the Third Reich.
18 year old Lore and Lotte, and 15 year old Renata, left Altenburg for Holland by train, with their traumatised father and grandparents. Lotte says:
The train journey was a nightmare, as my father went on his knees to pray and kept asking for reassurance that we were going in the right direction, as he was so frightened that we might be returning to Germany.
On the border, the Nazis gave us a last push, by pulling us off the train, and demanding every last coin we had in our pockets. When we got to the Netherlands border, my father looked for a Jewish name in the phone book, and a man came and loaned my father some money to buy food, and my father insisted on signing an IOU to repay the man, the moment he got to Amsterdam.
When we finally arrived there, I could not believe my eyes when I saw my mother at the station. The reunion was emotional and tearful.
Franze, 1938
The girls were thankful to be back with their mother, after over a year apart. At least they had her, while they found their feet in Amsterdam.
🌿 Their story in Holland continues in 2 weeks time. The next episode will be on Sunday, February 20th.
🌿 Thank you mso much for reading, and see you in 2 weeks!
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