Johanna Falkenstein Heumann

The oldest of five children, Johanna was born to Jewish parents Bertha and Leo Falkenstein in a small German town near Cologne. Her father owned a cigar factory. After Johanna graduated from high school, she worked in a bank in the city of Cologne. She married Carl Heumann and the couple settled in the village of Hellenthal near the Belgian border. There they owned a general store. The couple had two daughters, Margot (born in 1928) and Lore (born in 1931).

1933-39: After the Nazis came to power in 1933, life changed for Johanna and her family. Her husband Carl struggled to find work. In the late 1930s, Johanna and her family moved to the city of Bielefeld. There, she enrolled Margot and Lore in the city's public schools. In the following year the girls were expelled from school because they were Jewish.

1940-44: In June 1943, Johanna's family was deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto. There, they reunited with Johanna’s mother, Bertha Falkenstein. Bertha had been deported to the ghetto a year earlier. In Theresienstadt, Johanna learned that her father, Leo, had died in Theresienstadt. In May 1944, German authorities deported Johanna and her family to Auschwitz. At first, they were put in the “Czech family camp” (section BIIb) of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Prisoners in the section had some privileges, such as wearing civilian clothes instead of camp uniforms. But, they still suffered from starvation and lacked proper shelter and sanitation. In summer 1944, during selections conducted by the SS in the family camp, Margot was chosen for forced labor. Johanna had the option to go with her, but chose to stay with Lore, who was younger. Joanna said goodbye to her older daughter by giving Margot her soup, the only food she had until the next day. Johanna, her husband, Carl, and her daughter Lore did not survive the Holocaust. Margot was liberated at Bergen-Belsen in April 1945 and immigrated to the United States in 1946.