Persecution of Jews in Germany

Even before Hitler came to power, but especially after 1933, as a Jew I was subjected to mockery, mobbing, abuse, beatings and humiliation. I as well as friends of mine and close relatives, uncles and cousins were ordered to the Gestapo for so-called "investigations". There we were victims of severe abuse. An uncle, a cousin and friends never came back from these "investigations". They were simply beaten to death. Others came back after a few days, distraught, with bloodshot marks, swollen, in a miserable physical and mental state .... The "courageous acts" of adolescent Hitlerites, who attacked and beat up individual Jews in large numbers, were also commonplace.

In 1938, as a Polish citizen, I was deported and ended up in Zbondzin, a no-man's-land near Poznan, where I spent some time starving in inhuman conditions. I then emigrated illegally from Poland to Israel - then Palestine. When I arrived here, new suffering began for me.

I didn't know the local language, so I had to do all kinds of illegal work to make a living in unfamiliar climatic conditions and very poor housing.

In my affidavits in the "damage to my professional advancement" case and in my late husband's affidavit, I have already said everything about my material situation.
I haven't mentioned how much agitation, insult and grief I have experienced during this time.
My husband was dismissed because the Germans no longer wanted to buy from him and the Jews could not buy from him. From about the middle of 1935 he tried to work on his own. He had to travel all over the neighbourhood and, as a Jew, was constantly attacked and sometimes physically injured.
Towards the middle of 1938 he began to suffer from heart problems as a result of the turmoil he had to go through and the fear in which he lived, and I was constantly afraid that something would happen to him when I saw him leaving home in such a state. Sadly, my fears were realised. He died on 19 October 1938 in the street outside our house.
As a Jew, my daughter had also suffered a lot at school and had to go to a Jewish school. She often came home from school bruised and battered.
During Kristallnacht I was robbed of my last possessions. Nazi hordes attacked me and smashed everything in my apartment. I hid with a family friend and then went to my father in Krefeld.
There I saw my father arrested and a few days later sent home in a very shattered state. Unable to bear these conditions and fearing for our lives, I fled to England via Holland.
I arrived there without a penny and had to do extremely hard housework for Miss Cooper, Highfield Garden, London, and then for Mrs Miller, 105 Hallam Street, London. As I had been employed before, this was extremely unfamiliar and strenuous work and the people there took great advantage of us refugees. I had to leave my daughter with other people and, of course, pay for her upkeep there. This was particularly tragic during the Blitz as I had no way of knowing where the bombs had fallen. In 1941 the Red Cross also informed me that my parents had been deported and I never heard from them again.

Even before Hitler came to power, we Jews were subjected to persecution. I was often mocked and beaten up on the way to school and when Hitler came to power, we were completely at the mercy of the Hitler Youth and it was a matter of course that nobody protected us Jewish children. I trembled every day when I had to go to school. In 1936, the SA came to our house, smashed furniture and china, cut up the upholstery, tore up the books, beat us all and made threats against us. I was terribly shaken. When my father saw the general state of affairs and our condition, he decided to send us all to Czechoslovakia, where he had already emigrated. We had no residence permit in the Czech Republic, my mother died in an accident and in 1936 I was sent to Berlin to live with my uncle, S. Akiwa. In 1939 I was taken to Holland with a group of children.

Under the pressure of the increasingly severe persecution of Jews, my parents decided to leave Germany to save our lives.
Seven Gestapo men forced their way into my father's office, who owned a cinema in Solingen/Ohligs, demanded the immediate closure of the cinema and threatened his life.

There was fear and panic in the house.

We children, 1 brother and I, travelled to Gdynia with my mother.

We lived in Gdynia until the outbreak of the German-Polish war, but for a few years we were under the illusion that we had escaped persecution by Hitler.

After the Germans marched into Gdynia in September 1939, the persecution of Jews began and became more and more severe from day to day.

To save our lives, we had to flee a second time.

I arrived in Lemberg via Tarnow. I thought I was finally safe. Far from there, a new  suffering began for me, a new persecution. In 1940, I was picked up by the Russians and sent to Aldan (Ugolne camp) in Siberia. My parents and my brother had to do hard forced labour in the forest. I lived with 24 other people in a wooden barrack we had built ourselves, slept on plank beds, starved and froze, was lice-ridden, dirty and very often ill.

We both lived in Hanover and when Hitler came to power and the Nazis ruled, the RECHNITZ family and the applicant herself had to suffer a lot. I know that she was subjected to harassment and abuse, was beaten and mocked by classmates for being Jewish - just like me - her father's business was boycotted, she hardly dared to go out on the street, was terribly nervous, suffered crying fits and the family tried to emigrate.

Charlotte Gilbert, witness for Tamar Raben.

Client was born on 6 March 1921 near Frankfurt/Oder. His father's name was Pawel Kozminski, and the client and his parents were German nationals.
When the client was five or six years old, the family moved to Berlin, where they first lived at Schönhauser-Allee 80 or 81 and later in Berlin, Emanuel-Kirch-Strasse 7. He attended primary schools in Berlin until he graduated. After leaving school at Easter 1935, he wanted to become a precision mechanic, and the company Schreiber & Co. at Schönhauser-Allee 74 would have accepted him as an apprentice. However, the guild objected to the apprenticeship contract, Mandant was unable to start the apprenticeship, and then he became a "labourer" at the Frankenstein company at Alexandrinenstrasse 97.
He also lost this position in late 1938.
On 1 February 1939, he went to a retraining camp near Hamburg. In 1939, the camp was dissolved and the client returned to Berlin to live with his parents. He then worked for a few days in July 1939 in a wood processing plant in Mark Brandenburg and was then able to continue his retraining in another retraining camp. He remained there until September 1939, but was also unable to complete this training, had to become an unskilled labourer again and then emigrated to Palestine on 13 October 1939.