A lecture given by the author on 21 August 1941 in Palestine after his release from the Athlit immigration camp.

The first part of the lecture (p.1-3) describes general conditions and events in Germany, 1938/9 and adds nothing to the known facts. On page 4 the author describes his efforts to obtain migration certificates through an organisation in Basel, and in this connection makes serious allegation against a man called Brender. The next part of the lecture (p.4-10) is concerned with the preparations for “illegal” emigration transports. Prospective emigrants were organised in “Sonder-Hachscharahs” (S.H.) by the Palaestina-Amt, Berlin together with its sub-organisations Hechaluz and Youth Alijah. The emigration was favoured by the German authorities, especially the Gestapo.

The last part (p.11-18) contains a detailed description of the transport of S.H.7, under transport leader Erich Frank, up to the landing in Palestine.

A report on the return from Spain to Germany at the suggestion of the German embassy in Madrid whose promises of freedom and safety for Jews were instantly broken the German Nazi authorities.

After the riots had started in 1936, the German Embassy organized the return of German citizens with the help of the headmaster of the German School, Schulz, who officially stated on enquiries that there would be no discrimination against Jews and political adversaries of the régime.

At Genova, the passengers’ passports were checked by German officials; some people were told they were not wanted in Germany, but nobody was allowed to alight before the arrival at Munich; the tickets for the journey were distributed free of charge; then forms had to be filled in.

At Munich, the Jewish travellers were separated from the others and taken to the police (p.4-6). Some could choose if they wanted to go to a “Schulungslager” or leave Germany within the next three days. Most had to emigrate without a choice, many within 24 hours; their passports were sent to the respective frontiers. Some Jews who had kept their residence in Germany, at the time of their departure, only some months ago, were allowed to stay, but most of them did not get back their passports, a heavy loss under the circumstances.

Assistance through the Jewish community, Munich (p.6). The permission for providing the money necessary for the departure was procured with difficulty (p.6-7).

An interview with a doctor’s widow who had lived in comfortable circumstances in Vienna, until the Nazis took over. After sending her only child, a ten-year-old daughter, to a well-off Dutchman and his Jewish wife in Holland, she tried in vain to get an opportunity of emigrating with her husband. At last, she agreed to take a domestic job in an English household, offered her by a Catholic organisation, because she was told about a chance, that her husband could follow her there. She had been a most efficient secretary, but at her new job she soon knew that she could not cope with the work in the farmer’s big household at Eversham, Worcestershire. Much worse, she discovered to be pregnant after a week’s time. In her despair, she wrote for help to the couple in Holland who were very happy with her child and had offered her their assistance in case of need; she was deeply disappointed and told her plight to her employers and from that moment on gratefully enjoyed their unlimited kindliness and generosity until well after the time of her delivery of a still-born child.

All the time during the War, she tried in vain to hear from her child or her husband. In 1945, she traced the Dutch couple and received the news, that the lady, before going into hiding herself, had taken her daughter to a Jewish children's home, from where she together with all other children had been sent to Auschwitz and gassed.

Later, she learned by chance, that her husband had served as a doctor at Theresienstadt. Once he had to accompany a transport to Auschwitz, and as an exception had returned, but he did not come back, the second time.

A personal report by Heinz Landwirth, formerly from Vienna, who came with a children's transport to Holland in December 1938. He stayed first in a Children's Home, later with families. In 1941 he made Youth Aliyah to the Hachscharah-Farm Gouda. In 1942 the persecution of Jews became more and more threatening. This report includes details of an escape of a group of 25 young Zionists to Israel through Spain!. Amsterdam assumed an aspect of decay, inhibition and terror. Final razzia, including all Jews, on 20 June 1943. Mr Landwirth, meanwhile was 16-years-old, and went underground using false documents supplied by Hechaluz (Kurt Reilinger Gideon Drach) working as a farm hand with Jan Kuperus. In 1943 - via Belgium - he became known as the ‘Dutch’ boatsman John Gerrit Overbeck on one of the German Rhine barges.

In September 1938 Mrs Godin-Hirschfeld, together with her parents, brother and grandmother, emigrated from Vienna to Antwerp. In May 1940 her brother was taken to the Blechhammer concentration camp where he stayed until the beginning of 1945. He perished two days before the liberation during the so-called death-march. The rest of the family moved to Brussels.

Mrs Godin-Hirschfeld married in 1941, a daughter was born in 1942. The family lived “Underground”. The crying of the baby constituted a constant danger. It was only after 26 months that the child was taken out into the street for the first time.

Mrs Milman, née Büchler, was born in 1928 in Puchow in Czechoslovakia. In 1942 both her brothers were deported. Livia herself went into hiding, escaping from place to place, and on several occasions living in the open forest. Once she was given refuge by the wife of a Policeman, though without the latter’s knowledge.

In Modva she attended a Protestant girl’s boarding school, which had taken on a group of converted Jewish girls. Many of these were taken away by the SD in 1944.

Mrs Milman, together with 60 other Jews was hidden by farmers in a forest near Piestany until the end of the war.

Mrs Rieger's child was taken from a Jewish home in Berlin and put to death; this was about 1939. Mrs Rieger was drafted for forced labour and worked at the firm of “Auto Kabel”, where she was treated very kindly by the Lady Foreman, a Mrs Brand, as well as by the head of the firm.

In 1943 she went to live in hiding, working illegally for the film author Axel Eggebrecht.

Finally she was arrested and taken first to Auschwitz, then to Bergen Belsen, and finally to Salzwedel. From the last named camp she was liberated by the Americans.

Personal report. When the author was about ten years old, the family would be blackmailed by an SA-man, so that they moved into another district to escape from him. In the Margareten-Lyzeum, Ifflandstrasse, attended by 14 Jewish girls, the atmosphere was so antisemitic, that she left the school after some months. She attended a Jewish school until October 1937, and as she hoped to emigrate, went in for dressmaking. Compulsory work: Moeller, Children's Coats, Schützenstrasse (p.2). With the Fabrikaktion, her parents were deported to Auschwitz; on the way, her mother threw a postcard out of the wagon, which was sent to Berlin in an envelope with the words added: “Eine Frau, die noch menschlich denkt”. There came no further sign of life from them; but her brother, an electrician, survived the camp (p.3).

In February 1943, the author went into hiding; she lived with Turkish Jews whose daughter was her friend. Through a Jewish informer, Rechtsanwalt Jacob, they were found out; during the house-search, the Jewish informer Behrend fell in love with the author which circumstance she utilised to escape from the Gestapo as well as from him. Through her customer Lola Alexander she found refuge in the family Daene's house at Conradshöhe, where Miss Alexander and other Jews already lived illegally, in August 1943 (p.3-5). She started to manage the Dänes’ lending library in Moabit and would meet her friend on their way home at the S-Bahn Station Gesundbrunnen, every night. There, on 8 August 1944, she suddenly felt her arm grasped by the informer Behrend. She threw herself under an incoming train and was rescued with her foot smashed (p.6). She lay in the Jewish Hospital dangerously ill, for many months; Dr. Lustig rescued her from being sent to Auschwitz through a very long treatment instead of an amputation (p.7-8). Fever and starvation; living in the cellar. When all patients were released, on 29 April, she was too weak to leave, weighing 31kg, and had to stay on until 30 June 1945, then protected and assisted efficiently by the Russians.

Report by a Jewish woman who with her small child lived illegally in Germany from 27 February 1943, the day of mass arrests of Jews in Berlin.

At first, she, her husband and her child lived underground in Berlin with the aid of non-Jewish friends. In February 1944 she succeeded in obtaining false papers and moved with her child to Lippinck in Western Prussia (Polish Corridor), where she gained the trust of Nazi Party and Security Police members. She had contact with Polish Partisans of the “Tuchler Heide” and was able to inform them about the Security Police plans for partisan warfare. Once she cooperated in helping escaped British Prisoners of war. In February 1945 she succeeded in returning to Berlin, where her husband had lived illegally all the time. He narrowly escaped being shot as a deserter.

A vivid report on illegal life in Holland by Mrs Selma Frank. Mrs Frank lived in Rotterdam until September 1940 when all Jews of foreign extraction had to leave the costal zone of 40 km. in width. She went as a housekeeper to the Marcus family in Zwolle. They became great friends and Mrs Frank was treated as a member of the family. Already in October 1940 the razzias on Jews started and quite a number of well-to-do business men disappeared. Mr Marcus decided to go underground and though he came secretly home from time to time he did not openly return before 27 April 1945. In the beginning he was regularly called for by the Sicherheitspolizei. His wife became deputy manager of his firm at Zwolle and its branch in the Hague had a very unpleasant time. All anti-Jewish-Measures - the David’s Shield; special Jewish food rations; prohibition to use public conveyances; curfew; deportations (Westerbork) - which in Germany were gradually introduced during 5 years, were imposed on Holland within a year. In autumn 1942 the whole Marcus family (including Mr Marcus) went underground under the name of Gelderland (forged papers). They stayed at a remote village in the country - Hoogkeppel - in a small boarding house. But this idyll did not last very long. In May 1943 they had to leave because the son of their hosts, a policeman, was afraid of the danger for his parents. Now the family split up. Mrs Frank, after several changes of place, went to Noordwolte as a ‘friend’ of a large family with 4 children, helping the housewife. When the fifth child was born, there was no more room for Mrs Frank in the overcrowded house, and again she had to move. Her last stay was at Murmerwoude (Friesland) where she lived in the very centre of the “Underground Resistance”. Mr and Mrs Sierke Schaafsma, her hosts, were genuinely relgious people.

According to Mrs Frank it was not only a nerve-racking, but also a most interesting and, historically speaking, important life they were leading: they hid people and incriminating material; held secret meetings etc.etc. She praises the courage and independent spirit of the average Dutch people. The province of Friesland was liberated by the Canadians on 12 April 1945. It took almost another month (5 May 1945) before the west of Holland was liberated, too. She describes the riots of joy, the cheers of the population, with which the Canadians were greeted.

This report is interesting because it shows the important role the Jewish resistance movement played during the German occupation of France and the many ways in which it was assisted by the French population. It is written by the above, who in 1933, as a child of 6, left Frankfurt am Main with her parents and her sister and emigrated to France.

As soon as Hitler invaded Northern France in 1940, the travels of the family started. They were among the thousands and thousands of refugees who crowded the roads to the south of France, stayed at different places which they had always to leave after a short while. Mr Guenzburg, the father, was several times interned, but either was released or succeeded to escape from the camp. In autumn 1943, when the Germans occupied the south of France, the Jewish resistance movement saw to it that all children found shelter. The Resistance was so well organized that it was able to follow up the fate of almost every child. Many of the children were taken, to convents and were thought by their surroundings to be Christians.

Mrs Unger and her sister were taken to a boarding School at Villeneuve sur Lot, where only the director, a Protestant knew their origin. In 1944 Mrs Unger and her father crossed the Spanish border in one of the small groups of 10 people, regularly organized by the resistance. With the help of the American Joint, they finally reached Israel. Mrs Guenzburg and her other daughter, who were staying in a home for aged people belonging to the “Heilsarmee” at Tonnein and would not have been able to endure the flight over the mountains, followed them a year later.

A report by the daughter of a Jewish diamond cutter in Amsterdam. She went underground in July, 1942, after she had been ordered to report for a transport to Westerbork. At first she stayed for short spells with various people, then a neighbour took her in for four months and a half, while her parents, who were later arrested and deported (on 31 January 1944), brought her food. But the position became too dangerous, and comrades of the socialist youth organisation, of which she had been a member, found her a place with a teacher's family in Winterwjk near the German frontier. There she remained until the end of the war. Her whole family with the exception of one brother of her father's, who had lived in France, perished.