1945, Feb 13th – Deportation Letters

1) Zeughausstrasse 3 – I had to inform Frau Stühler first, she was far more shocked than on the death of her husband and rushed out to alert friends on behalf of her Bernhard.

2) Then I went by tram, I was permitted to do so, to the Station and Strehlen quarter with a list of nine names. Simon, not yet fully dressed, maintained his composure, whereas his normally sturdy wife almost collapsed.
(Address not found)

3) Sedanstrasse (likely today’s Hochschulstrasse) – Frau Gaehde in Sedanstrasse, very much aged, eyes staring, again and again opened her mouth so wide, that the handkerchief she was holding in front of it almost disappeared inside; a desperate look on her face she protested wildly and vehemently.
(Address not found)

4) Frau Kreisler-Weidlich, of whose hysteria I had been afraid, was not at home; relieved, I dropped the sheet in the mailbox.
(Address not found, Name not found online)

5) Also in Franklinstrasse I had to call on a Frau Pürckhauer. I met her with her Aryan and deaf husband. Ordinary people. They were the calmest of those on my list.
(Address not found)

6) A Frau Grosse in Renkstrasse — a handsome villa by the Lukaskirche — was bad despite her self-composure. A woman of middle age, rather ladylike; she wanted to call her husband, stood helplessly by the telephone: “I have forgotten everything, he works in a confectionery factory . . . my poor husband, he is ill, my poor husband … I myself have such bad heart trouble . . I comforted her…
(Address not found)

Even more pitiful was Frau Bitterwolf in Struvestrasse. Again a shabby house; I was vainly studying the list of names in the entrance hall when a blond, snub-nosed young woman with a pretty, well-looked-after little girl, perhaps four years old, appeared. Did a Frau Bitterwolf live here? She was Frau Bitterwolf. I had to give her an unpleasant message. She read the letter, several times said quite helplessly: “What is to become of the child?”
(Address not found)

8) 29 Werderstrasse was also a very shabby house. Women on the stairs told me that Frau Tenor was not at home, but I should call on her friend right at the top. A sickly, almost delicate-looking young woman in a very wretched attic room. She spoke very anxiously, her friend had always feared this, would commit suicide. I urgently preached courage, she should keep her friend’s spirits up.

9) At 52 Strehlener Strasse, where we had frequently visited the Reichenbachs and the Seliksohns, I had to deliver the letter to a Frau Dr. Wiese. Instead of her the door was opened by an imposing matron in trousers, a Frau Schwarzbaum. She told me, and I remembered the case, that the previous year, her own husband, together with Imbach, had committed suicide (cf. the diary of Lothringer Weg), in order to escape arrest by the Gestapo.

10) Finally at 7 Bürgerwiese, a tiny, white, shabby old house, with stately buildings on either side, I searched in vain for a Frau Weiss. Star-wearing Jews are permitted to cross Bürgerwiese only by way of Lüttichstrasse, and must not walk along it otherwise; consequently it is years since I have been there. — Frau Jahrig was here just now with her young daughter, from whom she must part.