Hanne Hirsch Liebmann (1924–2026) grew up in Karlsruhe, Germany. She was raised by her mother, Ella, who was widowed in 1925. In January 1933, when Hanne was 8 years old, the Nazis came to power in Germany. Nazis targeted the family's photo studio during the April 1933 anti-Jewish boycott. In November 1938, Hanne experienced the violence and terror of Kristallnacht. Then, in October 1940, the Nazi regime deported Hanne and her family to France, where they were imprisoned in the Gurs internment camp. In Gurs, Hanne met Max Liebmann, who had also been deported from Germany. In September 1941, the Children's Aid Society (OSE) rescued Hanne and placed her in a children's home in Le Chambon-sur-Lignon. In 1943, Hanne obtained false papers and crossed into Switzerland. There, she reunited with Max. They married and had a daughter. In 1948, the family immigrated to the United States. Hanne's mother was deported from France to Auschwitz in 1942. She did not survive the Holocaust.
Kristallnacht, I went to school in the morning, Jewish school obviously, and something seemed wrong, yet I didn't know what. And when I came to school and I mentioned that I saw the fire engines standing in front of a building and in the back of this building was the Orthodox synagogue. I was told, "Don't you know what's going on?" And I said, "No, I don't." She said...this one told me, "My father was arrested. This father was arrested," and it was just a terrible situation. The teachers, other than the female teachers, did not come in. They were arrested. And they sent us home, I think, after about two hours. And when I came home all our show windows had been smashed. My mother was sweeping up the street. Okay. To the taunts and harassment of the population or the people who were made to look like population. Uh...next to us was a store that dealt in oriental carpets. The show windows gone. Inks thrown over the carpets. It was...it was impossible. The only reason our apartment and business was not touched at the time was that they simply knew there was not a man to be arrested, so our apartment and our business upstairs remained intact.
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