<p>Magdalena Kusserow, incarcerated in a special barracks for <a href="/narrative/5070">Jehovah's Witnesses</a> in the <a href="/narrative/4015">Ravensbrück</a> concentration camp, used stationery provided to prisoners to write a letter to her sister Annemarie in April 1942. The handwritten numbers in the block in the upper right identify Magdalena as prisoner 9591, assigned to block 17a. Magdalena wrote to her sister in part (translated from German): "Dear Annemarie. Received your letter of March 15, did you get mine? I'm fine. How did it go with Wolfgang's 2nd appointment on March 24? [words blotted out by German censor] .... How are you and why did you quit your job? Are you still not well? ..." In 1945, Magdalena and her mother were sent on a death march and were eventually liberated by Soviet forces.</p>
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This photograph shows the Kusserow family home in Bad Lippspringe and the tram tracks in front of it. The Kusserow family members were active Jehovah's Witnesses in their region. They distributed religious literature and taught Bible study classes in their home. Their house was conveniently situated for fellow Witnesses along the tram route connecting the cities of Paderborn and Detmold. For the first three years after the Nazis came to power, the Kusserows endured moderate persecution by local Gestapo agents, who often came to search their home for religious materials. In 1936, Nazi police pressure increased dramatically, eventually resulting in the arrest of the family and its members' internment in various concentration camps. Most of the family remained incarcerated until the end of the war. Bad Lippspringe, Germany, 1933-1937.
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The Kusserow family home in Bad Lippspringe, Germany
Walther Hamann
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Walther Hamann
An assembly point (the Umschlagplatz) in the Warsaw ghetto for Jews rounded up for deportation. Warsaw, Poland, 1942–43.
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What Groups of People did the Nazis Target?
Wilhelm Kusserow
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Wilhelm Kusserow
Willibald Wohlfahrt
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Willibald Wohlfahrt
Wolfgang Kusserow
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Wolfgang Kusserow

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