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Ernst Reiter
ID CardErnst was an only child born to atheist parents in southern Austria during the middle of World War I. Raised in Austria's second largest city, he loved the outdoors, especially skiing in the Alps. In the early 1930s Ernst became a Jehovah's Witness. Although Austria was then in a deep economic depression, he was fortunate to find a job as a sales clerk in a grocery store. 1933-39: Austria's Catholic government was hostile towards Jehovah's Witnesses. When the Germans annexed Austria in March 1938, their…
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Gregor Wohlfahrt
ID CardGregor was the second of six children born to Catholic parents in a village in the part of Austria known as Carinthia. His father was a farmer and quarryman. Disillusioned with Catholicism, his parents became Jehovah's Witnesses and raised their children according to that religion. As a boy, Gregor loved mountain climbing and skiing. 1933-39: Gregor attended school and worked as a waiter. The situation for Jehovah's Witnesses worsened after Germany annexed Austria in March 1938; Witnesses refused to swear…
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Hans Heimann
ID CardHans was born to a Jewish family in the Austrian capital of Vienna. His parents ran a successful export shop for ladies' hats and sold their wares to many different countries. As a boy, Hans attended a private, preparatory school in which courses were taught in both English and German. 1933-39: Hans was attending business school when the Germans annexed Austria in 1938. Hans and his family watched from their window as German troops, led by Hitler, goose-stepped into Vienna. Hans was immediately forced out…
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Ivo Herzer
ID CardIvo was an only child born to a Jewish family in the city of Zagreb. His father worked in an insurance company. Though blatant antisemitism was considered uncommon in Yugoslavia, Jews were barred from government and university positions unless they converted to Christianity. 1933-39: In Zagreb Ivo studied at a public secondary school. The curriculum was fixed and included three languages as well as religion. His school was highly selective but he enjoyed studying and did well. Though he didn't personally…
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Bruna Sevini
ID CardBruna was the oldest of two children born to Italian-speaking Jewish parents who had settled in the cosmopolitan city of Trieste. Her father, born in Vienna, served in the Austro-Hungarian army during World War I. He became a naturalized Italian during the 1920s after marrying Bruna's mother. Growing up in fascist Italy, Bruna attended public schools in Trieste and felt proud to be an Italian. 1933-39: In September 1938 Bruna was surprised to see anti-Jewish graffiti. Then anti-Jewish race laws were…
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Martin Hans Munzer
ID CardHans was born to Jewish parents in a town in northwestern Germany. The family moved to Berlin when Hans' father obtained a post there as a history teacher in a secondary school. After graduating from university, Hans married and settled with his wife Margaret in an apartment in Berlin. In 1920 their child Wolfgang was born. Hans worked as foreign representative for a sewing notions company. 1933-39: When the Nazis won the election a few weeks ago, Hans was afraid for people like himself who are active…
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Lucie Kupefer Munzer
ID CardLucie was born to Jewish parents living in Gera, a medieval German city on the banks of the Elster River in the Thuringer Forest. Gera was well known for its manufacture of Leica cameras, for its publishing houses, and for the extensive collection of Gobelin tapestries in one of its museums. 1933-39: A few weeks ago, Lucie married Hans Munzer here, in Paris. Hans fled Germany last year because the Nazis began rounding up and imprisoning socialists, and as a district supervisor for the Social Democratic…
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Wolfgang Munzer
ID CardAn only child, Wolfgang was born in Berlin to Jewish parents. His father was the foreign representative for a sewing notions company. The family lived in a comfortable apartment in the southwestern district of the city. Wolfgang attended secondary school there and hoped to become an electrical engineer. 1933-39: When the Nazis came to power, Wolfgang's father fled Germany because he was a socialist and was afraid he'd be arrested. Wolfgang's mother was very ill, so his grandmother took care of him until…
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Gisha Galina Bursztyn
ID CardGisha was raised by Yiddish-speaking, religious Jewish parents in the town of Pultusk in central Poland. She married in the late 1890s and moved with her husband, Shmuel David Bursztyn, to the city of Warsaw, where Shmuel owned and operated a bakery on Zamenhofa Street in the city's Jewish section. In 1920 the Bursztyns and their eight children moved to a two-bedroom apartment at 47 Mila Street. 1933-39: By 1939 six of Gisha's children were grown and had left home: her eldest daughters had married, and…
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Sylvia Winawer
ID CardSylvia's Jewish-born parents had converted to Christianity as young adults, and Sylvia was raised in the Christian tradition. Mr. Winawer was a successful lawyer and the family lived in an apartment in the center of Warsaw. Sylvia's mother collected art. 1933-39: Sylvia attended a private school run by the Lutheran Church, and she loved her school and classmates. When she was 9, her parents brought her the most wonderful "present"--a new sister! Two years later life changed when the Germans invaded Poland…
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Hana Müller
ID CardHana was born to a Jewish family in Prague, the capital of Czechoslovakia. Her father, a metalsmith, made pipes, spouts and gutters for construction companies. Because her mother was frail, Hana was raised by her father and grandmother. She attended a Jewish school through grade five, and later went to business school. 1933-39: In 1933 Hana read about the harrowing treatment of Jews during the Spanish Inquisition and told her grandmother, "Aren't we fortunate that we live in the 20th century in…
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Carl Heumann
ID CardCarl was one of nine children born to Jewish parents living in a village near the Belgian border. When Carl was 26, he married Joanna Falkenstein and they settled down in a house across the street from his father's cattle farm. Carl ran a small general store on the first floor of their home. The couple had two daughters, Margot and Lore. 1933-39: Carl has moved his family to the city of Bielefeld, where he is working for a Jewish relief organization. Requests from this area's Jews to leave Germany have…
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Arthur Karl Heinz Oertelt
ID CardHeinz, as he was usually called, was born in the German capital to religious Jewish parents. He and his older brother, Kurt, attended both religious and public schools. His father had died when he was very young. His mother, a seamstress, struggled to make ends meet. She and the boys lived in a predominantly Christian neighborhood. 1933-39: It frightened Heinz when Nazi storm troopers sang about Jewish blood dripping from their knives. But his family didn't have money to leave Berlin. In late 1939 Heinz…
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Bertha Wolffberg Gottschalk
ID CardBertha was born to Jewish parents in the capital of East Prussia. Her father served on the Koenigsberg city council. In 1887 Bertha married Hugo Gottschalk, and the couple settled in the small town of Schlawe in northern Germany. There, Hugo owned the town's grain mill. The Gottschalks raised their four children in a home near a small stream, ringed by orchards and a large garden. 1933-39: Bertha and her daughter Nanny have moved to Berlin--Hugo passed away in 1934 and they were afraid of the growing…
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Anna Pfeffer
ID CardAnna, affectionately known as Aennchen to her family, was the daughter of non-religious German-Jewish parents. Her father died when she was young and Anna was raised in the town of Bruchsal by her impoverished mother. Anna married a well-to-do, older gentleman in 1905 and moved to the fashionable city of Duesseldorf, where he was a department store manager. By 1933 they had two grown sons. 1933-39: The Pfeffer's comfortable life unraveled after the Nazis came to power. The Nazis arrested Anna's brother…
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Michel Margosis
ID CardMichel's parents were Russian-born Jews. His father had been a police official in Russia who had been deported to Siberia for being an outspoken Zionist. After escaping, he and his wife had made their way to Belgium, and two of their four children, including Michel, were born in Brussels. 1933-39: In Brussels Michel's father owned and edited two newspapers, one French and one Yiddish. As a kid, Michel enjoyed reading comics like "Yordi," who in the United States is known as Superman. A day after his…
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Monique Jackson
ID CardMonique's Jewish parents met in Paris. Her father had emigrated there from Russia to study engineering, and her mother had come from Poland as a young child. Monique's father did not have enough money to finish university, so he went to work as an upholsterer. He also shared a small business which sold his hand-tooled leather purses. 1933-39: Monique's mother was 20 when she gave birth to Monique in 1937. Two years later, Parisians were threatened by the possibility of bombing by the Germans, and French…
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Zalie Waldhorn
ID CardZalie was the second of three children born to immigrant Jewish parents. Her Polish-born father was a former officer in the Austro-Hungarian army who had met and married her Hungarian-born mother during World War I. Shortly before Zalie was born, her parents settled in Paris. There, Zalie and her brother and sister grew up in a religious household. 1933-39: Zalie's mother said it was better in Paris than in the poor village in which she grew up. Her mother spoke broken French, but Zalie grew up speaking…
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Chaje Isakovic Adler
ID CardThe youngest of 11 children, Chaje was raised by religious, Yiddish-speaking Jewish parents in a village in Czechoslovakia's easternmost province. At the age of 12, she was apprenticed to a men's tailor. In the 1920s she married Jermie Adler from Selo-Solotvina. Together, they moved to Liege, Belgium, where they raised three daughters and she continued to work as a tailor. 1933-39: Chaje's customers called her the "Polish tailor." Raising her children as Jews in the largely Catholic city of Liege did not…
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Renee Schwalb
ID CardVienna, home to some 175,000 Jews before World War II, was a major center of European Jewry. Vienna was also the intellectual heart of the Palestine resettlement movement. Most of the city's Jews lived in two large districts on the east side of the Danube Canal. Renee's father owned a prosperous men's clothing store in the city. 1933-39: German forces occupied Austria in March 1938. Anti-Jewish measures were quickly imposed. Renee's father was prohibited from doing business and his store was seized. He…
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Flora Mendelovicz
ID CardFlora's Romanian-born parents immigrated to Antwerp, Belgium, in the late 1920s to escape antisemitism. Flora's father owned a furniture workshop. Antwerp had an active Jewish community. There were butcher shops, bakeries, and stores that sold foods which were prepared according to Jewish dietary laws. Flora was the oldest of three girls, and the family spoke Yiddish at home. 1933-39: When Flora arrived for her first day of kindergarten at public school, she was shocked to learn that there were other…
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Frederick Dermer
ID CardFrederick was born to a Jewish family in the Austrian capital of Vienna. His father died when he was a baby, and he and his mother moved into an apartment with Frederick's widowed grandfather. As a young boy, Frederick attended a Viennese public school. 1933-39: Frederick was a rambunctious child. Once, when his grandfather was baby-sitting, Frederick used a silk lampshade as a "parachute," and jumped from the top of the wardrobe closet. That was the last time Frederick's grandfather would baby-sit.…
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Frida Adler
ID CardFrida was the eldest of three daughters born to Jewish parents in a village in the easternmost province of Czechoslovakia. When Frida was 2, her parents moved to Liege, Belgium, a largely Catholic industrial city with many immigrants from eastern Europe. Frida attended Belgian public schools and grew up speaking French. 1933-39: In Liege Frida's family lived in an apartment above a cafe and across the street from a Catholic church. Frida had many Catholic girlfriends at school. At home she spoke Yiddish…
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Bertha Adler
ID CardBertha was the second of three daughters born to Yiddish-speaking Jewish parents in a village in Czechoslovakia's easternmost province. Soon after Bertha was born, her parents moved the family to Liege, an industrial, largely Catholic city in Belgium that had many immigrants from eastern Europe. 1933-39: Bertha's parents sent her to a local elementary school, where most of her friends were Catholic. At school, Bertha spoke French. At home, she spoke Yiddish. Sometimes her parents spoke Hungarian to each…
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Nelly Adler
ID CardNelly was the youngest of three daughters born to Jewish parents in Liege, a French-speaking industrial city in eastern Belgium. Her Yiddish-speaking parents had moved there from Czechoslovakia a year before Nelly was born. The Adlers were one of only a few Jewish families in the largely Catholic city. Nelly grew up speaking French with her friends at school. 1933-39: The Adler's apartment was above a cafe and across the street from a Catholic church. Her parents ran a successful tailoring business from…
