Daniel Abraham

Photo: Richard Hausmann, courtesy of Eric S. Hausmann.

No further information available.

Albert Berger was born May 3, 1919 in Siegburg, near Bonn, the son of Salomon Berger, a cattle dealer, and Elisabeth Berger. His father died in 1930 when Albert was eleven years old.

Albert Berger came to Kibbutz Jägerslust as an "agricultural intern" on June 7, 1938, as recorded in the Flensburg city registration files. His brother Hermann Leopold (Chaim) Berger had preceded him there, having successfully completed his hachschara in Jägerslust, and having already emigrated to Palestine.

Albert Berger's stay in kibbutz Jägerslust was brief. It ended abruptly on the night of November 10, in the early hours of the morning around three o'clock when the manor and the kibbutz were attacked by Nazi thugs under the direction of the Flensburg Police President and SS-Standartenführer Hinrich Möller. Albert Berger was taken to the Kiel police prison along with ten interns from Flensburg. He was then sent to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, where he remained until December 28, 1938.

After his release, he came to the Netherlands on January 12, 1939 and joined a hachshara group in Deventer, in the province of Overijssel. His hopes of completing his training and leaving the country were dashed by the occupation of the Netherlands by the German troops in May 1940.

On October 3, 1942, Albert Berger was interned in Westerbork, the central transit camp for deportations to Eastern Europe. A year later, on September 14, 1943, a transport with 902 women, men and children, including Albert Berger, left Westerbork for Auschwitz. The train took two days to reach the German death factory in Poland. Berger was used for forced labor in the Monowitz concentration camp (Auschwitz III).

Albert Berger died in Auschwitz-Monowitz on February 19, 1944. He was 24.

According to the testimony of Shlomo Samson, Albert Berger's photograph was taken in the Westerbork camp by Werner Rudolf Breslauer, apparently with the intention of its future use by members of the Zionist pioneering underground (in the camp and outside it) for producing forged identity documents for the purpose of escaping from the camp.

Albert's mother, Elisabeth Berger, was deported from Cologne to the Minsk Ghetto on July 20, 1942.

His brothers Adolf (Adi) and Hermann (Chaim), emigrated to Israel.

Sources:
oorlogsdodendinkelland.nl
geni.com
www.infocenters.co.il
Bernd Philipsen

• Chaim Berger
• הרמן לאופולד ברגר
• חיים ברגר

Hermann Leopold Berger was born January 5, 1918 in Niederzissen, the son of Salomon Berger, a cattle dealer, and Elisabeth Berger. He had two brothers, Adolf (Adi) and Albert. His father died in 1930 when Hermann was twelve years old.

Hermann Berger came to the Gut Jägerslust Hachshara in 1936-1937 to prepare for his emigration to Palestine. His brother Albert Berger would follow in his footsteps and join the Hachshara in after Hermann's departure.

Hermann Berger arrived in Palestine on February 28, 1938. At the time of his 1940 application for naturalization, he lived in Kvutzat Massad near Ein Harod and was an agricultural laborer. (The address was crossed out and replaced with "Atlit". It's not clear if this means he had relocated to Atlit, or was incarcerated in the Atlit detainee camp.) Other Jägerslust alumni who settled in Kvutzat Massad included David (Adi) Sporn, Eva Lange and Gunther Riesenfeld. He was finally granted citizenship in September 1942.

He later married Anne Oppenheimer and the couple had two children. He changed his name to Chaim Berger.

Chaim (Hermann) Berger died in February 1962 (44) in Haifa.

Hermann's mother, Elisabeth Berger, was deported from Cologne to the Minsk Ghetto on July 20, 1942.

His brother, Albert Berger, was deported from Westerbork to Auschwitz-Monowitz in September 1943, where he died on February 19, 1944.

Hermann's brother Adolf (Adi) also emigrated to Israel.

Sources:
geni.com
www.archives.gov.il
www.myheritage.com

1940

• Uri Brock
• Werner Uri Brock
• ורנר ברוק
• אורי ורנר ברוק

Werner (later Uri) Brock was born May 11, 1919 in Düsseldorf, the son of Israel Isidor Brock and Alma Brock (nee Herz). He had one brother, Walter (later Haim). His father died in 1930 and his mother in 1932. Werner became an orphan around the age of 13, and relatives took care of him and his brother.

According to the registration card of the city of Flensburg, Werner Brock was in Flensburg from May 4, 1937 to February 2, 1938. (He later declared in an affidavit that he joined Jägerslust "at the end of 1936".)

In 1975, he filled out the following affidavit regarding his stay in Jägerslust:

"At the end of 1936 I came to Gut Jaergeslust near Flensburg, where I was an agricultural worker. At about the same time, Samuel Federmann came to Gut Jaergeslust, where we mostly worked together for over a year."

"A total of 30-40 agricultural workers were employed in Jaegerslust, all of whom worked under the same conditions as we did. We worked 9 hours a day and received a small fee of around RM.15. - weekly with free board and lodging, as well as work clothes."

"I know that the landlord paid contributions to the disability insurance and that there were insurance cards for all workers."

Werner received an immigration visa and arrived in Palestine on February 28, 1938.

At the time of his application for British Mandatory Palestinian citizenship in 1940, he lived in Jerusalem and was unmarried. His profession was listed as "policeman" on one document, and as "temporary additional watcher" ("shomer": שומר זמני).

He married Gisela (Golda) Lustig, the younger sister of Josef Lustig, another trainee in Jägerslust whom he had met in Palestine, and the couple had two children. Werner changed his name to Uri Brock.

Uri (Werner) Brock died in December 1982 (63) in Holon.

His brother Walter (Haim) emigrated to Palestine in 1935 and lived in Kibbutz Beit Hashita. He was shot to death by Arabs while on his horse on the fields of the Kibbutz in 1937. Werner joined the British police with the mission to find those who had murdered his brother.

Sources:
Israel State Archives
www.geni.com
www.myheritage.com (father)
www.geni.com (brother)

Gerhard Cheim was born on January 31, 1912 in Wreschen, in Prussia (now Września, Poland), the son of Max (Mose) Cheim and (unknown) Cheim. The family presumably left Wreschen after it became part of Poland in 1920 and came to Breslau.

Gerhard Cheim came to the Hachshara in Gut Jägerslust around 1936-1937. It is not known if he came to with his future wife, Dora Herbst, or met her there.

Gerhard Cheim married Dora Herbst in April 1938 in Cologne. According to his passport, Gerhard was at the time a farm hand (landwirtschaftsgehilfe) and the couple resided in Cologne until September 19, 1938. Their first son was born in July that year in Cologne.

At the begining of 1939 they received a one-year visa for Colombia and fled from Germany with their baby son. With nowhere else to go, they remained in Colombia illegaly after the expiration of their visa. There they lived in Barranquilla under difficult financial circumstance. Gerhard sold coffee in the marketplace and Dora had a small grocery store she ran from their home. Their second son was born in Colombia.

The family finally emigrated to Israel in February 1951.

Gerhard Cheim died in October 1971.

Gerhard's father, Max Cheim was deported from Breslau on April 13, 1942 to the Izbica Ghetto where he was murdered, presumably during the liquidation of the ghetto on November 2, 1942.

Based on the 1939 German Minority Census, Gerhard *may have had three siblings who lived with his father at the time of the census: Leo Cheim (1906), Hugo (1907) and Martin (ca 1923).
Leo Cheim was deported to the Theresienstadt Ghetto on April 2, 1943. He disappeared in the Shoah.
Hugo Cheim was deported with his father on April 13, 1942 to the Izbica Ghetto where he was murdered, most likely during the liquidation of the ghetto on November 2, 1942.
The fate of his presumed brother Martin Cheim is not known.

The fate of his mother is not known. As she is not listed in the German Minority Census of May 1939, it is assumed that she had died before the war.

Sources:
www.myheritage.com
www.myheritage.com (German Minority Census, 1939)
yvng.yadvashem.org
Conversation with Sharon Reshef and Emmanuel Cheim (May 2023)

• Helene Croner
• m: Helene Roenhorst

Helena (Helene, Lenie) Sara Croner was born January 3, 1919 in Hamburg, the daughter of Walter Croner and Jenny Meyer. She had five siblings: Anna, Leopold, Meta, Ruth and Herbert, and a half-brother, Hermann.

Helena came from a poor family. Her father, Walter Croner, a waiter, was called up for military service on June 23, 1915. On the following day, his wife Jenny applied for welfare support, as she was "completely penniless" and had been left with four children. Her father suffered from the effects of a mustard gas attack, and never had a stable job again. In 1928 he lost his job and would remain unemployed until his death. From the beginning of the 1930s the family was almost constantly on social welfare and lived in poverty. Helena's father died in 1934 when she was fifteen years old.

In May 1934 Helene began to study and lived for a period in Berlin. At the end of 1934 she returned from Berlin to her family home. A few days after being in Hamburg she worked as a domestic servant.

In April 1938 Helena left Hamburg and joined the Hachashara in Gut Jägerslust. It is not known how long she remained in Flensburg. Less than a year later, in March 1939, she emigrated to the Netherlands. There she continued to undergo the preparation for emigration with the Deventer Association. She first stayed in Weerselo from April 1939 to the end of December 1939. She then spent a few days in Deventer with Ru Cohen, the founder of the Deventer Association. She later left for Brummen.

Following the German invasion in May 1940, she was not able to emigrate and remained in the Netherlands. In 1942, she married Michiel Asser Benjamin Jacob and the couple moved to Zelhem, where they took over the shop in smoking articles from his parents. Her husband was later deported and perished in the Holocaust.

Helene survived the war. She later married Johannes Hendrikus (Han) Roenhorst and remained in Zelhem.

Helene Roenhorst (Croner) died in April 1999 (80) in Zelhem, Netherlands.

Her mother, Jenny Croner, and her sister, Ruth Croner, were deported to the Litzmannstadt (Lodz) Ghetto on October 25, 1941. Jenny Croner was then transported to the Chelmno death camp on May 10, 1942 where she was murdered. Ruth Croner suffered a similar fate on June 14, 1942 on her 31st birthday.

Her sister, Anna Croner (27), a domestic servant, later a worker in a fish factory, was arrested for having had two self-administered illegal abortions and under he suspicion of having commited "racial defilement" (Rassenschande). She was sentenced to 6 weeks imprisonment for the abortions, which the court regarded as a "lenient sentence". Anna was later imprisoned in the Fuhlsbüttel Concentration Camp, then transferred on May 29, 1941 to the Ravensbrück Concentration Camp where she died on March 20, 1942.

Her brother, Leopold Croner (26), was imprisoned in the Fuhlsbüttel Concentration Camp in August 1941, then transferred on October 3, 1941 to the Neuengamme Concentration Camp where he died in June 1942.

Her sister, Meta Croner (21), was incarcerated in the Fuhlsbüttel Concentration Camp, then transported to Ravensbrück where she died on October 20, 1942.

Her first husband, Michiel Asser Benjamin Jacob, was deported to the Gross-Rosen concentration camp where he died in February 1945, one week before the liberation of the camp by the Red Army.

Her brother, Herbert Croner, was incarcerated in the Fuhlsbüttel Concentration Camp from 1938 until 1939 for being an unemployed Jew, then from 1939 to 1942 in penitentiaries in Celle and Hameln. He was then deported to Auschwitz and finally Dachau. He survived until the liberation of the camp and was able to emigrate to the USA in 1946. (Some details about Herbert Croner's life seems fantastical and he seems to have been creative with his biography; His incarceration in Dachau at the very least is documented.)

Her half-brother Herman, who, because of his non-Jewish father was classified as a "Mischling of the first degree", was not as severely effected by the persecution as his mother and sisters and survived the war.

Sources:
oorlogsdodendinkelland.nl
www.geni.com
www.oudzelhem.nl (photo)
www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de ((c) Christiane Jungblut)
The Family Roe (brother Herbert)

• m: Erika Beer

Erika Dallmann was born October 16, 1907 in Rügenwalde.

After her stay in Jägerslust, she went to Denmark for further training in the framework of the exchange program. In November 1940 she was registered as living in Kongsted, Zealand, Denmark. At the same location resided Regina Woislawski and Frieda Landmann.

Erika Dallmann married Heinz Beer, and the couple had two children.

Erika Beer (Dallmann) died in June 1982 in Fredensborg, Denmark.

Sources:
geni.com
www.myheritage.com

• Anna Rosa Dreyfus
• Anne Rose Dreijfus

Anne Rose Dreifuss was born on October 17, 1918 in Sulzbach, Saarland, Germany, the daughter of Emil Dreifuss, from Sulzbach, and Toni Löwenbach, from Freienohl, a small town 100kms from Bochum. She had two siblings, Lilli Marie Dreifuss, another Jägerslust trainee, and Walter Otto Dreifuss.

The Dreifuss family moved to Bochum in 1924. Anne's father was a salesman, and her mother had a small arts and crafts shop.

The Dreifuss family acquired a three-floor building 28 Rheinische Strasse in Bochum where they lived, together with their two widowed mothers-in-law. Details about the Dreifuss family are found in Ihr Seid Nicht Vergessen (A Chronicle of Memory of the Dreyfus Family, by Kay Dreyfus):

"As the economic depression hit in the late 1920s, the family began to take in tenants. Although the size of the property may suggest affluence, the family was already heavily in debt before 1933. It seems that although Emil Dreifuss described himself as a businessman, he did not actually work as such. His wife ran a small craft business, but one from which the family could not live. Emil had therefore tried to sell his house several times already before 1933 but the sales fell through because the house was in such a bad state of disrepair."

Anne and her sister Lilli joined the Gymnastics group of the RjF in Bochum around 1934-36. (The Sportbund Schild des Reichsbundes jüdischer Frontsoldaten ("Sports Association Shield of the Reich Federation of Jewish Frontline Soldiers") was a Jewish sports organization associated with the Reich Federation of Jewish Frontline Soldiers. The RjF was formed in 1919 as a patriotic association of Jewish war veterans to demonstrate Jewish loyalty to Germany. After the rise of the Nazis, Jews were driven from mainstream sports clubs. As a result, the association saw a rise in membership after 1933, until its activities were outlawed by the Nazi regime in 1936.) Because it seems to have been the only Jewish sports association in Bochum, their membership doesn't necessarily mean that their father was a German nationalist or a veteran of WW1.

Anne Dreifus came to the Gut Jägerlust Hachshara on February 10, 1938. Her sister Lilli would join her later in July.

In May 22, Anne and another girl were sent to another Hachshara in Hamburg, where she spent four months. There she did housekeeping chores - laundry, ironing, cooking. She wrote:

"When we were asked on May 22nd to send 2 girls to Hamburg for 4 weeks, I went with another one. She left after 4 weeks, I stayed for 4 months - they didn't let me go. For 2 months I darned and ironed as much laundry as you can hardly imagine, all by myself. For the other 2 months I was sent to the kitchen and had to make do with 100 marks for 25 people a week without being trained. I got this 'honor' because of the good taste I had in the food I cooked for 2 days when I helped out. I really liked it afterwards. Some of them were very nice... "

She then returned to Flensburg, where she was reassigned to the laundry to darn and iron. She finally got on the field for the remaining 1 1/2 months of her stay:

"Potato, beet and corn crop. I learned threshing, milking, loading manure, leading horses, carrying 130 pounds."

Anne and Lilli remained in the Hachshara, presumably until the abrupt end on November 9/10.

According to her friend Lotte Wald's memoir however, she had visited Anna Dreyfus in Hamburg in October. She recalled that Anna "took care of chaverim who worked on ships in Hamburg and lived in the so-called 'seamen's club' (presumably Lucy Borchardt's shipping company who had set up a 'maritime Hachshara'). She later stated that she met Anna the day after Kristallnacht in Hamburg by chance, implying that Anna had not been in Jägerslust during the events of the November Pogrom as assumed, but had been in Hamburg. She wrote:

"I walked alone towards the train to Bochum, where to my surprise I found Anna Dreyfus, my friend from the sailors' home in Hamburg. She was also on her way home. [...] Anna told me what [had] happened in Hamburg."

Anne and her sister Lili were back home with their parents in Bochum on November 11, 1938.

On January 24, 1939, Anna's father wrote to the foreign exchange office in Münster concerning goods his daughters wished to take with them to Holland, from where they planned to emigrate to Palestine. Most of the things they wanted to take - work clothing and bicycles - had been given to them by acquaintances and charitable institutions.

"Given my poverty, which is known to all the authorities in Bochum (my wife and I have not been taxed at the tax office for years due to insufficient income), it was almost never possible for me to buy anything for my children. Most of the items listed were given to them by acquaintances and charitable organizations, mostly in used condition."

"As my daughter Anne Rose Sara is a seamstress by profession, she altered the garments that did not fit. [...] Everything listed is worn. It is also mostly work clothes, since the girls are in agricultural retraining."

"The children received the bicycles in 1934 as a gift from various family members. They need them to do their job. Since these are necessary items for years of use, most of which are already very worn out, I ask for exemption from any tax. Packing and loading is to take place by February 7, 1939. Since the matter is urgent and the children expect to be called to Holland every day, I would be particularly grateful for a benevolent examination and settlement as soon as possible."

On February 5, 1939, the sisters wrote a long letter to a friend who had emigrated to the USA, in which they described in detail their experience in the hachshara. They were waiting for the exit permit, and expected to leave on February 15, 1939 for the Netherlands where they planned to continue their Hachshara. However, their departure was delayed and they were still waiting to be called on March 3, 1939.

They finally received the permission to leave later that month and Anne, aged twenty, and Lilli, eighteen, came to the Netherlands before the end of March 1939.

Anne and Lilli's plans to emigrate to Palestine were not to be, and they would remain trapped in the Netherlands after the German invasion in May 1940.

Anne lived in Amsterdam where she worked as a housemaid. On September 3, 1942 she was taken to the Westerbork camp. She was then deported the following day to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Of the 714 men, women and children in that transport, 661 were sent to the gas chambers on arrival. Anna was among the victims, murdered on September 7, 1942. She was 24 years old.

Anne's father, Emil Dreifuss, was arrested in the November pogrom on November 10, 1938 and was incarcerated in Sachsenhausen until mid-December. Her parents tried to leave Germany after Kristallnacht, but their efforts were in vain. They finally sold the family house in 1940 which was then turned into a "Judenhaus", where they continued to reside until their deportation. After paying off their mortgage, debts and taxes, the remaining balance from the sale was placed in a blocked account from which they only received a minimal monthly subsistence allowance.

Anne's mother, Toni Dreifuss, was deported on April 30, 1942 from Dortmund to the Zamosc Ghetto, where she arrived on May 3, 1942. She was then presumably murdered in Belzec. It is assumed that Emil Dreifuss shared the same fate. His name however doesn't appear on the list of deportees to Zamosc; it is thus possible that he perished before the deportation.

Lilli Dreifuss, Anne's sister, came to the Netherlands where she married Salomon Bernard de Leeuw. Lilli and her husband were taken to Westerbork on April 22, 1943. From there they were transported to Sobibor, where they were murdered on April 30, 1943.

Anne's brother Walter came to the Netherlands at the age of twelve on a Kindertransport in January 1939. He was first placed in a children's home in Bergen aan Zee, then later joined a Youth Aliyah program "het Paviljoen" in Loosdrecht. Following the start of the deportations in August 1942, Walter most likely went into hiding with other members of the Loosdrecht group. He later managed to escape from the Netherlands, crossing into Belgium, France, then across the Pyrenees, finally reaching Spain in March 1944. (It's assumed that his escape was organized by the Westerweel resistance group which helped an estimated 300-400 Jews flee from the Netherlands to Spain in 1943-1944). Walter arrived in Haifa on November 5, 1944. (Aboard that ship was Siegfried Rosenthal, a Jägerslust trainee who had followed a similar escape route from the Netherlands to the Pyrenees and Spain.) Walter Dreifuss tragically died during a night manoeuvre as an Israeli soldier from a snake bite in 1950.

Sources:
Yad Vaschem
geni.com
spurenimvest.de
Ihr Seid Nicht Vergessen (A Chronicle of Memory of the Dreyfus Family, Kay Dreyfus)
www.dokin.nl
Bernd Philipsen

Further Reading:
Hubert Schneider, Die Entjudung des Wohnraums: Judenhäuser in Bochum; Münster, 2010
"Es lebe das Leben" (Die Freimarks aus Bochum : eine deutsch-jüdische Familie : Briefe 1938-1946, By Karola Freimark, Hubert Schneider. 2005)

ca. 1936 (Gymnastic group of the RjF)

• Lilli Marie Dreyfus
• m: Lilli Marie de Leeuw

Lilli Marie Dreifuss was born March 28, 1920 in Sulzbach, Saarland, Germany, the daughter of Emil Dreifuss, from Sulzbach, and Toni Löwenbach. She had two siblings, Anne Dreifuss, another Jägerslust trainee, and Walter Otto Dreifuss.

The Dreifuss family moved to Bochum in 1924. Lilli's father was a salesman, and her mother had a small arts and crafts shop.

Lilli and her sister Anne appear on a photo of the Gymnastics group of the RjF in Bochum around 1935-1936. (Because it may have been the only Jewish sports association in Bochum, their membership doesn't necessarily mean that their father was a German nationalist or a veteran of WW1.)

Lilli came to the Gut Jägerlust Hachshara on July 9, 1938. There she joined he sister Anne Dreifuss who had arrived five months earlier in February. It is assumed that Lilli remained there until the abrupt end on November 9/10.

If Lilli and her sister were indeed in Jägerslust during Kristallnacht, they were arrested during the November Pogrom and taken to the Flensburg jail where they would have spent the night, along with the other Jägerslust trainees. They would then have been released the following morning, together with all the young women. Lilli and her sister were back home with their parents in Bochum on November 11, 1938.

There is however no mention of Lili Dreyfus in Lotte Wald's description of the November 9/10 events. Also, neither Lili nor Anna mentioned anything regarding the destruction of Jägerslust in their letter to their friend in America. It is thus possible that Lili had already left the Hachshara prior to the November Pogrom and did not witness its end.

Lilli and Anne were permitted to leave Germany in February. Lilli was allowed to bring secondhand work clothes and her old bicyle, their total value estimated to 16.95 RM. They were in the Netherlands by March 1939.

Lilli lived in Arnhem where she was a caretaker for the elderly. She married Salomon Bernard de Leeuw, a native from Arnhem.

The couple appears to have gone into hiding, sometime between the begining of the deportations in August 1942 and January 1943, as indicated by a notice in the January 28, 1943 issue of the Algemeen Politieblad. The Arnhem police commissioner requested that Salomon Bernard de Leeuw be located, detained and brought to trial for having changed his place of residence without the required authorization. This description referred to Jews who had gone into hiding.

Lilli was taken into police custody in April 1943 in Schevenigen, 75 miles (120km) from Arnhem. A week later, on April 22, 1943, Lilli and her husband were taken to the Westerbork camp. From there they were deported to Sobibór in a transport of 1204 Jewish men, women and children, where they were murdered on arrival on April 30, 1943. She was 23 years old.

Lilli's mother, Toni Dreifuss, was deported from Dortmund to the Zamosc Ghetto on April 30, 1942. She was then presumably murdered in Belzec. It is assumed that her father, Emil Dreifuss, shared the same fate.

Her sister Anne was deported from Westerbork to Auschwitz on September 4, 1942, where she was murdered on September 7, 1942.

Her brother Walter came to the Netherlands at the age of twelve on a Kindertransport in January 1939. He managed to escape from the Netherlands, and reached Spain in March 1944. He then went to Portugal from where he boarded a ship that brought him to Haifa on November 5, 1944.

Sources:
geni.com
www.joodsmonument.nl
yvng.yadvashem.org
spurenimvest.de
Ihr Seid Nicht Vergessen (A Chronicle of Memory of the Dreyfus Family, Kay Dreyfus)
www.dokin.nl
www.joodsmonument.nl
Bernd Philipsen

Further Reading:
Hubert Schneider, Die Entjudung des Wohnraums: Judenhäuser in Bochum; Münster, 2010

• Nante Ehrenberg

Ferdinand Ehrenberg was born December 8, 1917 in Karlsruhe.

After Jägerslust, Ferdinand Ehrenberg went to Denmark for further training in the framework of the exchange program. According to the 1940 Denmark Census, he was registered in Høje Tåstrup as of November 5, 1940, where he attended the Slangerup Agricultural School. He was in the school with Bernhard Lieser at least until spring of 1941 as evidence by this testimony ("Unge jøders flugt 1939-1945"):

"One afternoon two young men came cycling to Gørløse School and asked for me. There were two Hechalutz chaverim, Ferdinand Ehrenberg and Bernhard Lieser. They were students at Slangerup Agricultural School for the winter. Both came from Germany. I visited the two at the school in Slangerup and borrowed a few books from them. One Sunday in the spring of 1941, Ferdinand and Bernhard invited me to a pegisha ("meeting") in the Hechalutz center in Frederikssund."

Ferdinand Ehrenberg married Else Bodil Anni Jönsson from Kopenhagen. The couple's last place of residence in Denmark was Roskilde. Aware of the upcoming planned deportation of Jews from Denmark, Ferdinand and his wife Else, who was not Jewish, fled to Sweden aboard a fishing boat in the night of October 8, 1943, arriving the next afternoon in Klagshamn near Malmö.

According to the immigration form filled out upon his arrival in Malmö, Ferdinand Ehrenberg declared being penniless ("money brought: none").

The couple had one son born in 1950.

Ferdinand Ehrenberg died in January 1994 in Gothenburg, Sweden.

Sources:
"Unge jøders flugt 1939-1945" (by Anders Enevig)
safe-haven.dk
www.myheritage.com

• Samo Federmann
• Samuel Federmann
• Shmuel Federman
• שמואל ("סם") פדרמן
• סמואל פדרמן

Samuel (Sam, Samo) Federmann was born in 1917 in Chemnitz, Saxony, the son of David Aharon Federmann, a bakery owner originally from Pinsk, and Tzipora Kupfermunz. Samuel had four siblings: Xaver (later: Yekutiel), Miriam, Susy, and Paul.

Sam's father instilled Zionism in his children and Sam and his brother Yekutiel were active in Zionist organizations - Yekutiel with the Halutz and Dror groups, and Sam with the Zionist Youth Organization from 1927 to 1938.

In 1933, with the rise of the Nazi party to power and the growing harassment of the Jews, the family decided to leave Germany and in 1936 they immigrated to Belgium, with the brothers Yekutiel and Shmuel staying behind to continue their activities in the Zionist organizations.

From 1936 to 1938, Sam Federman followed training in preparation for emigration to Palestine, first in Hamburg, then at the Jägerslust estate in Flensburg, from February/March 1937 until the end of October 1938. He was away in Berlin for medical treatment and was not present during the attack on Jägerslust during the November Pogrom. Sam and his brother Yekutiel decided to leave Germany after Kristallnacht.

His escape from Germany took him to Belgium (1938), France (1939, volunteer in the French Army) and Spain (1940), where he was interned for a long time in a camp. He finally reached Haifa on the SS Nyassa on February 4, 1944. (The SS Nyassa was the first ship since the outbreak of the war to arrive in Palestine with a group of legal immigrants from Europe. Onboard were 750 refugees, including my grandmother.)

A hotelier and entrepreneur, Samuel founded the Dan Hotels Corporation in 1947 with his brother Yekutiel. In 1945, Samuel and his brother Yekutiel had purchased a pension in Tel Aviv, then in 1953 built the Dan Hotel on the spot. This hotel was the beginning of the establishment of the Dan hotel chain , which has 13 hotels throughout the country. In 1989, the Federmann brothers retired from managing the hotel chain and transferred the management to their respective sons.

Shmuel (Samuel) was married to () Stecklmacher and the couple had two children.

Sam Federmann died in January 2006 in Tel Aviv.

Sam's parents and siblings all managed to emigrate and survived the war. His parents, his sister Martha (Miriam) Hecht, and his brother Yekutiel, emigrated to Palestine. Yekutiel left Germany in August 1939 and moved to England, then in 1940 to Palestine.

His brother Paul (Szaja, Chaskiel) Federmann emigrated to Mexico in 1945. His sister Susi Gerstl (Federmann) emigrated to South America (Cuba or Mexico?).

Sources:
Bernd Philipsen
geni.com
www.myheritage.com
www.geni.com
he.wikipedia.org

1944

• Chanan Feinstein
• Hanan Feinstein
• הרברט פינשטיין
• חנן פיינשטיין

Although this cannot be confirmed without more information, the following is most likely the biography of the Herbert Feinstein who attended Jägerslust.

Herbert Feinstein was born March 24 1914 in Köln, the son of Helena and Max Feinstein.

As a child he studied at the local school and from there went on to study at a religious gymnasium. Following his mother's illness he moved to his uncle's house in Stuttgart, where he attended a trade school. Upon graduation, he returned to Cologne to help support the family and joined the HeChalutz movement.

Herbert Feinstein left Germany and came to Sweden. There, as mentioned in "Hachshara and Youth Aliyah in Sweden 1933-1948", he led a Youth Aliyah group from Helsingegården to Palestine on April 20, 1941. Herbert Feinstein and the group arrived in Palestine on May 7, 1941.

In 1944, he married Ursula (later Rachel) Marcuse and applied for Mandatory Palestine citizenship in November 1944. At the time, he resided in Kibbutz Alonim and was an agricultural laborer. Herbert later assumed the name Chanan Feinstein. Chanan and Rachel (Ursula) Feinstein had four children.

Chanan (Herbert) Feinstein died in September 1990 in Kibbutz Alonim.

Sources:
www.myheritage.com
www.archives.gov.il
www.alonim.org.il
"Hachshara and Youth Aliyah in Sweden 1933-1948", By Emil Glück, Judith Diamond, Yaël Glick, p46.

• m: Magdalena Felicitas Oppenheimer
• מגדלנה פליסיטאס אופנהימר

Magdalena Felicitas Ferenszi was born in Öcsöd, Hungary, January 16, 1916.

*Note: Assuming she was a trainee in Jägerslust because her passport was issued in Flensburg on July 6, 1936 and she emigrated to Palestine two weeks later (July 22, 1936) with her husband Hans Oppenheimer, another Jägerslust trainee. The lived in Kibbutz Ashdot Yaakov.

Source: www.archives.gov.il (Application for Palestinian Citizenship, 1939)

• m: Chava Lehmann
• חוה להמן

Eva Fink was born February 11, 1921 in Posen, Germany.

She joined the Zionist youth organization Habonim in Breslau. She then started her hachshara in Jägerslust from 1937 to 1938. She continued her training in the Elgut hachshara the same year. Her training ended abruptly on November 9, 1938 during the so-called November Pogrom (Krisallnacht), when the Elgut house was stormed, the chaverim beaten and taken away. At the same time, her father was sent to a concentration camp and his business destroyed.

Eva Fink fled Germany in March 1939, going from Breslau to The Hague with the help of the Hechalutz organization. From May 1940 to July 1942, she continued her agricultural training in De Steeg near Arnhem, with the Deventer Association and with local farmers. In May 1942 she joined the Jewish mental institution "Apeldoornsche Bosch" as a gardener. She was able to leave the facility on the eve of its evacuation, following which all patients and most employees were sent to their death in Auschwitz. From there she went into hiding, staying with five Christian families until the liberation of Holland on April 5, 1945.

Eva Fink made Aliyah in August 1945. She was married in 1947 and had two children: Naomi, in 1949 and Michael, in 1952. She changed her name to Chava Lehmann (חוה להמן).

Sources:
infocenters.co.il (Eva Fink's testimony, via Bernd Philipsen)
www.museumalkmaar40-45.nl

A chalutz named H. Finkelstein appears on a photo next to Erna Weinert on the roof on of the "kibbutz" on March 22, 1936.

No further information available.

Ernst Jacob Fischer was born August 17, 1918 in Frankenthal, Bayern.

Following the attack by local Nazis on Jägerslust in the night on November 10 ("Kristallnacht"), Ernst Fischer was taken to the Kiel prison as evidenced by the presence of his name in the "custody book". He was then incarcerated in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, from where he was released on December 28, 1938.

Ernst Fischer later came to the Netherlands (Almen: Het Laren). He then boarded the Dora, an illegal immigration ship in July 1939 and arrived in Palestine on August 12, 1939, two weeks before the start of the war. (Another Jägerlust member who escaped on the Dora was Toni Katz.)

Sources:
www.ushmm.org
www.myheritage.com

Willi Friedmann arrived in Jägerslust on March 1, 1936 from Breslau as an agricultural trainee. A year later, on March 3, 1937, he married Jenny Jaschkowitz, another Jägerslust trainee from Breslau. Jenny and Willy left Jägerslust in May 1937 and later emigrated to England. The couple had one child.

Willi Friedman died in 1982 in London.

Sources:
"Flensburger Aufgebote", Nebenkartei, Newspaper note from 16.1.1937, via Bernd Philipsen. www.myheritage.com

Although unconfirmed, the following profile is likely match for the Ruth Hamburger who attended Gut Jägerslust, based on circumstancial evidence (date of birth, emigration, attending a hachshara) and a ressemblance between the hachshara photo and later pictures.

Ruth Hamburger was born in Dolitz, a small town in Germany, on April 6 1910, the daughter of Adolf and Meli (?) Hamburger. She had two sisters, Eva and Edith.

She came from a home where Reform traditions were kept. Her family's financial situation was good, until it deteriorated during the depression in Germany. During this period the family lived in Berlin. There, under the influence of her eldest sister, Eva, she got closer to Zionism. She went to agricultural training (Hachshara).

As the date of immigration approached, and in order to save a certificate, Ruth entered into a fictitious marriage with a friend, Heinrich Freund (later: Chaim Yadid).

Together they emigrated to Palestine in March 1937 and joined Kibbut Givat Haim. Upon joining the kibbutz, all the couple's belongings were transferred to the collective, and they experienced the early pioneer conditions - living in a tent at first, and then in a poor shack.

This union turned out to be long-lasting and the couple had three children. She later adopted the name Ruth Yadid.

Ruth Yadid (Hamburger) died in 2001 in Kibbutz Givat Haim at the age of 92.

Sources:
www.archives.gov.il
www.myheritage.com
www.myheritage.com
www.ghi.org.il (Obit)

Richard Hausmann was born August 12, 1914 in Düren, Rhineland. There, he first attended a Jewish elementary school, then a municipal secondary school (Realgymnasium) until the age of 17, finally going to a vocational school until the age of 18.

He was employed in the department store of Leonhard Tietz in Düren, until the end of March 1934 when it was "Aryanized" and all Jewish employees were dismissed. He then started studying to become a textile engineer at the weaving school (Höhere TextilFachschule) in Aachen.

Richard Hausmann came to the Jägerslust hachshara to follow agricultural training on October 19, 1936. There he met his future wife Erna (Ernestine) Weinert. Richard and Erna left Jägerslust at the end of June 1937, and temporarily moved with farmers in Rohr, Thuringia, where they remained until November 1937.

Upon leaving the Hachshara, Alexander Wolff wrote a letter of recommendation:

Richard Hausmann worked in the local company from 19.X.1936 to the present day for training in agriculture.
During this time he was involved with all kinds of work, such as field work, ploughing, gardening, milking etc.
Richard carried out all the work assigned to him with interest, diligence and skill to my complete satisfaction.
I wish him the best for his future.

Richard and Erna left Germany in February 1938 and came to Sweden, where they remained for 18 months. As their residence permits could not be renewed, they then left Sweden and came to Denmark in September 1939. There, they found work on farms in South Zealand together with other Jews. For a short time, Richard worked on Harald Petersen's farm, while Erna was hired on a neighboring farm. They then both found work in Haslev, where their son Herman was born. In 1941, Harald and his wife Agnete moved to a farm in Ostbakkegaard near Copenhagen, and in 1942 the Hausmann couple were hired on Harald Petersen's farm, with Richard working as a herdsman.

On Sunday, September 30, 1943, Harald Petersen learned of the Germans' plan to deport all Jews of Denmark to concentration camps, so the next morning he drove the Hausman family to Copenhagen, where they went underground and remained in hiding with friends in Bronshoj, in the suburbs of the city. After three days without finding a fisherman to take them across the waters, Harald Petersen finally found a fisherman to take them and paid 3,000 crowns for their escape with his own money. During the night between October 3 and 4, 1943, the Hausmann family, together with a group of Jews, were transported to Sweden by fishing boat. (On March 28, 1990, Yad Vashem recognized Harald Petersen as Righteous Among the Nations for having risked his life to arrange the Hausmanns' escape.)

Richard and Erna emigrated to the USA in August 1950 and lived in Longmeadow, Massachusetts. Richard Hausmann was an engineer in the fabric industry. The couple had three children: Hermann, (Copenhagen, 1942), Ruth, (Sweden, 1944), and Stephen David (USA, 1950).

Richard Hausmann died in December 2007 at the age of 93 in Longmeadow, USA.

Sources:
Timeline courtesy of Eric Hausmann
Yad Vashem
safe-haven.dk
en.gariwo.net

• Dora Mina Herbst
• Dora Mina Cheim

Dora Mina Herbst (later Cheim) was born November 28, 1913 in Antwerp, Belgium, the daughter of Yitzhak Herbst. She had one sister, Sarah. Sarah was born in Tuchow, Austria-Hungary (now Poland), in 1909, suggesting that the family originally came from Galicia, and placing the time of their emigration to Belgium between 1909 and 1913. The family may have then moved to Cologne as both Sarah and Dora lived in Cologne in the 1930s.

Dora Herbst came to the Hachshara in Gut Jägerslust around 1936-1937. It is not known whether she came with her future husband, Gerhard Cheim, or met him there.

Dora and Gerhard were married in April 1938 in Cologne, and their first son was born a few months later in July. The couple resided in Cologne until September 19, 1938.

At the begining of 1939, they received a one-year visa for Colombia and fled from Germany with their baby son. With nowhere else to go, they remained in Colombia illegaly after the expiration of their visa. There they lived in Barranquilla under difficult financial circumstance. Dora had a small grocery store she ran from their home, and her husband Gerhard sold coffee in the marketplace. Their second son was born in Colombia.

The family finally emigrated to Israel in February 1951.

Dora Cheim (Herbst) died in Israel in February 1953.

Her sister, Sarah Tzukerman (presumably) emigrated to Israel and survived the war.

The fate of her parents is not known.

Sources:
www.myheritage.com
www.myheritage.com (sister)
Conversation with Sharon Reshef and Emmanuel Cheim (May 2023)

• William Mar Anderson

Herbert (Zvi) Hirsch was born December 3, 1914 in Münsterberg, Germany (today Ziębice, Poland), the son of Max and Margaret Hirsch.

Following his stay in Jägerslust, he came to Copenhagen. He then immigrated to the USA in August 1937 and first lived in Pittsburgh, PA. His 1940 draft registration card indicates that, by then, his father Max lived in Detroit, Michigan, suggesting that the family either had relatives in the USA, or sufficient means to secure American visas for the entire family.

Herbert Hirsch later changed his name to William Mar Anderson. He died in October 1969.

Sources:
Bernd Philipsen
geni.com

No further information available.

1941

• ברנהרד הורן

Bernhard ("Männe") Horn was born June 16, 1909 in Cologne. He married Margot Horn (born Lange), another trainee in Jägerslust.

Bernard and Margot arrived in Palestine April 19, 1937. They first lived in Haifa. His profession was listed as "laborer". The couple had (at least) one child, a daughter, Noah, born January 1938 in Hadera, Israel.

Source: www.archives.gov.il

1941

• Margot Lange
• מרגוט (מרים) הורן (born לנגה)

Margot Horn (nee Lange) was born January 11, 1911 in Berlin, the daughter of Ludwig Lange and Helena Wolf. She had two brothers, Gideon and Herbert.

Margot was married to Bernhard ("Männe") Horn.

Margot and Bernhard came to Palestine April 19, 1937. The couple had one daughter, Noah, born January 1938 in Hadera.

Margot Horn died in July 2005 in Haifa.

Margot's brothers emigrated to Israel.

Sources:
www.archives.gov.il
www.myheritage.com

No further information available.

• m: Jenny Friedmann

Jenny Jaschkowitz (later: Jenny Friedman) was born March 23, 1914 in Posen, Prussia (later: Poznań, Poland), the daughter of Julius Jaschkowitz, a merchant, and Freda Jaschkowitz (nee Blut). Both her parents were originally from Poznan. The family came to Breslau, most likely shortly after the end of WW1 when Poznan became part of Poland.

Jenny Jaschkowitz came to the Jägerslust Hachshara from Breslau on March 23, 1936. She married Willy Friedmann, another Jägerslust trainee also from Breslau on March 3, 1937. Together, they left Jägerslust in May 1937.

Jenny and Willy Friedmann had one child. The couple emigrated to England.

Jenny Friedman (Jaschkowitz) died in April 1991 in Islington, London.

Jenny Jaschkowitz's parents, Julius and Freda Jaschkowitz, were deported to Auschwitz on March 4, 1943 where they were murdered.

Sources:
"Flensburger Aufgebote", Nebenkartei, from 16.1.1937, via Bernd Philipsen.
www.myheritage.com
yvng.yadvashem.org (mother)
yvng.yadvashem.org (father)

• קרי (קרולינה) (יורדן) שמידט

The following is not confirmed, but likely correct considering the uniqueness of the name Carry Jordan. The only discrepancy is that she is recorded as having been in Jägerslust in 36-37 but is said to have made Aliyah in 1936.

Possibly: Carry Carolina Schmidt (Jordan) (קרי (קרולינה) (יורדן) שמידט), born April 19, 1912 in Koblentz, the daughter of Leon Jordan and Selma Jordan (born Loeb). Her father was a veteran officer in the German army.

In her youth she studied academic painting. She immigrated to Israel in 1936, married Chaim (Hermann) Schmidt and had three daughters.

For 20 years, she worked as a set designer and costume designer in drama classes and ballet school performances in Nahariya. From the 1960s she continued her art studies with an emphasis on watercolor painting. She had solo exhibitions in Israel and the United States and participated in group exhibitions in Israel and Germany.

Carry (Kerry) Schmidt (Jordan) died in January 2009 (96), in Nahariya.

Her father, Leon Jordan, died in the Theresienstadt Ghetto in December 1942. Her mother, Selma Jordan, was deported to Auschwitz in 1943 where she was murdered.

Her brother Fritz Jordan emigrated to Palestine. He died fighting in defense of Israel in 1948.

She had two other siblings - Hildegard Lewis - who presumably emigrated to England and survived, and (unknown), whose fate is not known.

Sources:
geni.com
www.talgallery.co.il

• m: Lotte Flegenheimer
• m: Lotte Peleg

Lotte Kaiser was born October 7, 1907 in Leipzig, Germany.

After attending Jägerslust, she received a visa for Palestine and immigrated in June 1, 1937.

She married Wilhelm Benjamin Flegenheimer sometimes in 1942. The couple lived in Moledet and had (at least) one child, David, born in 1945. The family adopted the surname Peleg.

Lotte Peleg (Flegenheimer, Kaiser) died in Moledet in 2003.

Sources:
www.kaminsky.nl
www.archives.gov.il

1939, Tel Aviv

• m: Toni Abraham

Toni Katz was born September 30, 1919 in Sokal, Poland (now Ukraine), the daughter of Leo Katz and Frida Tabak. She came to Gera, Germany, with her family when she was three years old. There her parents owned a store that sold linen and other fabric goods.

Toni Katz had to abandon school at the age of 14 due to the rising antisemitism. She then began an apprenticeship in a department store in Gera, but was dismissed when the enterprise was "Aryanized" at the end of 1935. She joined Bar Kochba, a Zionist youth sports association.

She came to Jägerslust in the summer of 1938 where she remained until its abrupt end on November 10, 1938, during the so-called November Pogrom (Kristallnacht).

She must have made an impression in her group as she was the only young woman mentioned by name by Lilli Dreifuss in her February 1939 letter who described her as being the only "nice girl":

"[...] her name was Toni Katz [...]. She was the only pretty one. Black, slim [...] Very hardworking and quite smart and confident, but strangely only popular with some... The others are all uninteresting."

About the events of November, Toni Katz wrote:

"The Gestapo arrived one morning at 4 am. We were all arrested, and taken to preventative arrest in Flensburg. The women were let go during the day, on condition that we would leave the camp immediately. The men were taken to a concentration camp (KZ). While we were arrested, our camp was entirely destroyed by the Gestapo, so were our belongings."

After her release from custody, she was able to go back to her home to Gera, only to find that her parents had been deported to Poland during the roundup of Polish Jews on October 28-29. By then a "stateless" Jew, she spent the following months hiding with friends.

Most likely due to her having made an impression during her time in the Jägerslust Hachshara as "hardworking and quite smart", she was offered a place on a ship to Palestine. She boarded the Dora, an illegal immigration ship with 500 Jewish refugees in July 1939, landing in Eretz Israel two weeks before the start of WW2.

She died in Paris, France, in 2001.

Her parents were victims of the Shoah, most probably murdered in Belzec in 1943.

Her brother Yitzhack came to Palestine in 1937 with Youth Aliyah.

Paul Katzenberg was born June 18, 1909 in Hamborn near Duisburg, the son of Salomon (Shlomo, Salli) Katzenberg, and Ottilie Katzenberg (nee Epstein). He had two sisters, Toni and Lindy. His father died in 1931.

Paul Katzenberg completed high school and received vocational training as a wholesale merchant.

It is not known when Paul Katzenberg attended the Hachshara in Gut Jägerslust. In September 1938 he married Rosel Adler, from Berlin. He then went to Denmark for further training in the framework of the exchange program. In August 1943, his daughter, Ruth Hanna, was born in Denmark.

On October 13, 1943, ahead of the planned mass roundup of Jews in Denmark, Paul Katzenberg, his wife Rosel and their two-month-old baby fled Denmark and reached Sweden aboard a small fishing boat.

The family's escape is described in "Passage to Palestine - Young Jews in Denmark, 1932-1945" by Jørgen Hæstrup, p198-202.

"Our postman called early in the morning after the night of October 1-2, and was surprised to find me, my wife and our little daughter, still in our little house, which we rented near my place of work at the research farm. I rushed to the farm and asked for help [but the head of the farm wouldn't help].
Cast down, I left the farm, but on the way back to our house I was accompanied by a number of our neighbors, who must have heard of the 'the aktion'. Grocer, baker, tobacconist, porter - all came with me and tried to comfort and all wanted to help us."

"My wife decided that we should got to Odense. In the summer 1943, my wife had had to ask for extra clothes coupons because of the expected child. She had to apply to the social welfare office in Odense, and on that occasion had mentioned her terror of a possible attack from the Germans against us Jews. The ladies at the social welfare office thought that could never happen. But if if did, then my wife should just come to them and they would give all the help they could."

"The directress [of the social welfare office in Odense] came with gifts - and more than 1000 kronen, which her family and their friends and acquaintances had collected as a 'little' help for us, which would allow us to pay, if necessary, for our crossing to Sweden."

[Later, in Odense, where a group of refugees are gathered]:
"Young people walked about with milk jugs, baskets filled with sandwiches, and large postmen's bags. They went from person to person and said 'If you have cash, leave it [in the postmen's bags]. We can use and need money, whatever there is. Your Danish kronen are not worth much in Sweden'. [...] We gave everything we owned."

"During the afternoon, the refugees were divided into three groups, each with its destination. In the third group were older people and people with small children, who had to be driven in ambulances from Bispebjerg. It was a long day's expedition in the night. From Copenhagen, we went northwards, and in clear moonlight reached a little place with some fishermen's huts. Here we had to wait for many long hours. We were told that small boats would take us on board and sail us to larger fishing cutters, which could manage the crossing. Everything was arranged with various fishermen."

"After a long wait, the message came: 'Everyone get into the waiting cars, and get away as fast as possible!' The group had been betrayed. In the confusion which ensued, we three became separated from each other [...] With the only car which was left [I] went back to Bispebjerg hospital. [...] Many times we were stopped by helpers and redirected to narrow little side roads because the Nazis had stopped some cars on the main road to Copenhagen."

[After 3 days, the Katzenbergs were finally reunited.]
"Late in the evening the same day, we began the last stage in the journey to Sweden. The taxis drove forward and all who got places went with these, and the rest of the people were to drive in Falck's ambulances. There were old people, and we two relatively young with our youngest of the whole group. In the darkness of the night, protected by men armed with pistols, [the cars] sped up to one of Denmark's south sea islands (Møn). There a fishing cutter awaited us, which was boarded by 200 people. At 2 o'clock at night the cutter lef the Danish fishing harbor, and after 9 hours, at about 11am we reached Trerrelborg in Sweden".

According to the immigration form he filled out upon his arrival in Sweden, Paul Katzenberg was an agricultural student.

Paul and Rosel Katzenberg had a second daughter, born in 1945. The couple remained in Sweden.

Paul Katzenberg died in November 1996 in Stockholm.

His mother, Ottilie Katzenberg, was deported to the Theresienstadt Ghetto on July 27, 1942, then to Treblinka on September 19, 1942 where she was murdered.

His sisters, Toni Ermann, and Lindy Manheimer, emigrated to Palestine.

Sources:
safe-haven.dk (Paul Katzenberg)
safe-haven.dk (Rosel Katzenberg)
www.ancestry.com
geni.com
"Passage to Palestine - Young Jews in Denmark, 1932-1945" by Jørgen Hæstrup, Odense University Press.p198-202.
www.myheritage.com
yvng.yadvashem.org (mother)
Additional information and photo: Bernd Philipsen

No further information available.

Franz Kaufmann was born November 22, 1916 in Breslau.

He was a young dental technician and managed to emigrate directly from Flensburg with the help of the coveted worker certificate to Palestine. (Handwritten note "to Palestine" on municipal notice of departure).

Sources:
Bernd Philipsen
www.myheritage.com

There is one Max Klausner, born in Guben, Germany in 1915 who immigrated to Palestine in April 1937 in the www.archives.gov.il, but no confirmation it is the same individual. Although the dates of birth and immigration suggest a possible match, his photograph is unfortunately too blurry to confirm it is the same person. This person's occupation was fitter, unusual for people who had gone through Hachshara and were typically in agriculture.

No further information available.

No further information available.

Lene Kronertz fled to the Netherlands where she was hidden by courageous Dutch famers for the duration of the war. She later remained in the country.

Source: Bernd Philipsen

• m: Frieda Ziegler
• פרידה ציגלר

Frieda Landmann was born April 2, 1914* in Berlin, the daughter of Kalman Landmann, a cabinet maker originally from Jaslowiec in Galicia (now Yazlovets, Ukraine), and Marie (Miriam) Landmann, also from Galicia. She had (at least) one sister, Ele (Eleonore?).

Frieda Landmann attended the Gut Jägerlust Hachshara from May 25, 1937 to August 31, 1938. From there she went to Denmark for further training in the framework of the exchange program. In November 1940 she was registered in the Denmark Census as living in Kongsted. Two other Jägerlust trainees were also registered at the same location: Regina Woislawski and Erika Dallmann.

Frieda married Benno (Benjamin) Ziegler in January 1943. (Originally from Mannheim, Benno Ziegler had been on hachshara in Italy before coming to Denmark where he was a "madrich".)

On October 9, 1943, ahead of the planned massed roundup of Jews, Frieda and Benno fled Denmark aboard a motorboat and came to Sweden. According to the immigration file she filled out upon her arrival, she was a clerk.

Frieda and Benno came to Eretz Israel on February 1946 and the couple lived in Jerusalem.

Frieda's father was incarcerated in Sachsenhausen where he perished on May 20, 1940. (62)

Frieda's mother was also a victim of the Holocaust.

The fate of her sister Ele Landmann is not known.

Sources:
safe-haven.dk (1943 Swedish Immigration Form)
"Unge jøders flugt 1939-1945" (Anders Enevig)
www.myheritage.com (Denmark Census)
www.myheritage.com (marriage)
www.myheritage.com
yvng.yadvashem.org (father)

*Note: April 2, 1914 is based on Frieda's 1943 immigration form. Other source has March 1913.

1941

• m: Eva Riesenfeld
• Eva Matilda Harkness

Eva Lange was born October 15 1912 in Brieg, Silesia, Germany (now Brzeg, Poland).

She arrived in Palestine with a visa on March 29, 1937. She married Gunter Riesenfeld, another Jägerslust trainee. In Israel, they lived in Kvuzat Massad, near Ein Harod. Other Jägerslust alumni who settled in Kvutzat Massad included David (Adi) Sporn and Hermann Berger. The couple had a daughter, born in 1938.

Eva Riesenfeld later emigrated to England. She married George Robert Harkness in a second marriage and the couple had one child born in 1950.

Eva Harkness (Lange) died in 2003 in Bedforshire, England.

Sources:
www.archives.gov.il (Application for Palestinian Citizenship)
www.myheritage.com

• גרטרוד ליטר
• m: Gertrud Plaut

Gertrud Leiter (later Plaut) was born May 22, 1914 in Oberdorf (Bopfingen) in Baden-Württemberg, the daughter of Karl Leiter, a merchant originally from Oberdorf, and Ida Gutmann. She had one sister, Helene.

Gertrud married Fritz Plaut, another Flensburg hachshara trainee. She received her immigration visa in Flensburg on May 7, 1937 and arrived in Haifa on September 19, 1937. The couple lived in Kiryat-Haim and had one son Hanan, born in 1938 in Petah Tikva.

She later left Israel and emigrated to the USA in the 1950s, as evidenced by a Social Security application submitted in 1953.

Gertrud's father was incarcerated in Dachau. Her parents managed to emigrate to the USA, arriving in New York in September 1941. They later lived in Chicago.

The fate of her sister Helene is not known.

Sources:
www.archives.gov.il
www.myheritage.com
jl-gunzenhausen.de

Bernhard Lieser was born May 25, 1918 in Leipzig. According to his 1943 Swedish refugee registration form, he attended primary school, presumably unable to continue his education due to National Socialist persecutions.

After leaving Jägerslust, he went to Denmark for further training in the framework of the exchange program. There he attended the Slangerup Agricultural School, along with another Jägerslust trainee, Ferdinand Ehrenberg, as evidence by this testimony ("Unge jøders flugt 1939-1945"):

"One afternoon two young men came cycling to Gørløse School and asked for me. There were two Hechalutz chaverim, Ferdinand Ehrenberg and Bernhard Lieser. They were students at Slangerup Agricultural School for the winter. Both came from Germany. I visited the two at the school in Slangerup and borrowed a few books from them. One Sunday in the spring of 1941, Ferdinand and Bernhard invited me to a pegisha ("meeting") in the Hechalutz center in Frederikssund.

In October 1943, alerted about the upcoming deportation of Jews by the occupying German forces, more than 7,000 Danish Jews were spirited away to Sweden with the help of the Danish resistance. Bernhard Lieser was among the Jews who fled to Sweden during this rescue operation. He sailed from Sletten, Denmark, aboard a powerboat in the night of October 4, 1943, and arrived in Ven in Sweden the next day.

His escape to Sweden means that Bernhard Lieser survived the war.

No further information is available.

Sources:
"Unge jøders flugt 1939-1945" (Anders Enevig)
safe-haven.dk

• Lina Hess

Lina Lilie (nee Hess) was born December 20, 1907 in Offenbach, Darmstadt, Germany.

She was married to Ludwig Lilie, another Jägerslust trainee.

After Jägerslust, Lina and Ludwig came to Sweden. From there they managed to get to Japan, most likely traveling through Russia via the Trans-Siberian Railway. They then boarded sailed from Yokohama to Seattle, on the West Coast of the USA, where they arrived on October 31, 1940.

Ludwig and Lina Lilie later moved to the East Coast and the couple had one son, born in New York in 1943.

Lina Lilie died in August 1991 (83), in the Bronx.

Sources:
geni.com
www.myheritage.com (US immigration)

Ludwig Lilie wa born November 29, 1905 in Seligenstadt, Germany, the son of Gustav Akiba Lilie and Settchen Lilie (born Simon). He had four siblings: Rosel, Herta, Richard, and Alice. Ludwig's father died in June 1924 when Ludwig was 18 years old.

Ludwig Lilie was married to Lina Lilie, another Jägerslust trainee. He moved to Frankfurt am Main in January 1937, suggesting that his training had ended by then.

Ludwig's and Lina's road to safety followed a long and tortuous path. After leaving Germany they came to Sweden. In September 1940 they were issued new passports in Gothenburg. From there they reached Japan, most likely traveling through Russia via the Trans-Siberian Railway. (It is possible that they were helped by Chiune Sugihara, a Japanese diplomat who provided transit visas Japan for thousands of Jewish refugees. Suggesting that their path was not unique, eight out of 21 "alien passengers" who would sail with them had received new passports in Gothenburg). They then boarded the Heian Maru, a Japanese ocean liner which sailed from Yokohama to Seattle. They finally arrived in the USA on October 31, 1940. At the time of their arrival, Ludwig Lilie's profession was "farm laborer".

Ludwig and Lina Lilie later moved to the East Coast and the couple had one son, born in New York in 1943.

Ludwig Lilie died January 1998 (92) in the Bronx.

Ludwig Lilie's mother, Settchen Lilie, was deported from Darmstadt to the Theresienstadt ghetto on September 27, 1942. From there she was transported to Auschwitz-Birkenau on May 18, 1944 where she was murdered.

His sister, Herta Lilie, was deported from Darmstadt to Treblinka on September 30, 1942, where she was murdered.

Ludwig's siter Rosel Hersch emigrated to the USA. His brother Richard Lilie emigrated to Israel.

The fate of his sister Alice is not known.

Sources:
geni.com
www.myheritage.com
www.myheritage.com (US immigration)
yvng.yadvashem.org (mother)
yvng.yadvashem.org (sister)

Karl Lindenberg's name is listed in the "custody book" of the Kiel prison following his arrest during Kristalnacht.

Assuming he was then sent to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp like all the other young men from Jägerslust, and was later released at the end of December 1938 after presenting a plan to leave Germany.

No further information available.

Source: Bernd Philipsen.

• Joseph Ilan
• יוסף אילן

Erwin Linz (later Ilan) was born November 10, 1914 in Rotenburg an der Fulda, the son of Hermann Linz and Fanny Linz (Plaut). He had one sister, Sophie. His father, Hermann Linz had taken over his father's grain and flour business and expanded it in 1930 with a coffee roasting plant.

Erwin Linz attended Jägerslust around 1935. He received an entry permit to Palestine in July 1936 and arrived in Palestine on July 13, 1936. At the time of his application for citizenship in November 1938, he lived in Kfar Yechezkiel where he worked as an agricultural laborer.

In Palestine, Erwin Linz was initially involved in an irrigation project on the western edge of the Jordan Valley. In 1945, Erwin and his wife joined the kibbutz Givat Hashlosha, and in 1952 Kibbutz Einat. The couple had (at least) one son, Uri Ilan, born ca 1941. Erwin Linz changed his name to Joseph Ilan

Joseph Ilan (Erwin Linz) died in 1998 (age 83) in Bnei Brak.

His parents, Hermann and Fanny Linz were deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto in 1942. From there they were deported to Auschwitz and murdered in October 1944. (Other source: deported from Frankfurt to Auschwitz in June 1942.)

His sister Sophie Rosenfeld (Linz) was able to escape to England in 1939 where she studied to be a nurse. She later emigrated to San Francisco where she married Kurt Josef Rosenfeld.

Note: through his mother Fanny Plaut, Erwin Linz was second cousin with Fritz Plaut, another Flensburg hachshara trainee. It isn't clear whether this is a mere coincidence, or an indication that youngsters were able to attend the same hachsharot based on family ties or preferences.

Sources:
stolpersteine.rotenburg.hassia-judaica.de (PDF)
www.archives.gov.il (Application for Palestinian Citizenship, 1938)
www.christenjuden.de
geni.com
Plaut Family Tree
www.hassia-judaica.de
www.myheritage.com
Bernd Philipsen

1941

• m: Lucie Cohn-Biedermann
• לוצי כהן-בידרמן

Lucie Loewald was born June 25, 1912 in Breslau, Germany (now Wrocław, Poland), the daughter of Max Loewald and Margarete (Marga) Gross.

She emigrated directly from Flensburg to Palestine with the help of the coveted worker certificate; (handwritten note "to Palestine" on municipal notice of departure). She arrived in Palestine 8 September 1936.

She married Erich (Eliahu) Cohn-Biedermann. Her husband had joined the Haganah and was killed in 1939:

"Eliahu Cohn-Biedermann, shot by three Arabs on May 10, 1939 while garding the governor's house in the German Colony in Haifa. Eliyahu and his friend, Dov Berad, were killed on the spot."

She was a children's nurse, Beth Hatinokoth (WIZO' Baby Home), Jerusalem.

Lucie Cohn-Biedermann (Loewald) died in 2001.

Sources:
www.archives.gov.il (Application for Palestinian Citizenship, 1941)
www.izkor.gov.il
geni.com
geni.com

Fritz Löwenstein stayed in Flensburg and came to Denmark under the same program as Alex Muschinsky.

Source: Lars and Peter Muschinsky

• יוסף לוסטיג

Josef Lustig was born December 19, 1907 in Breslau (now Wrocław, Poland), the son of Gustav Tobias Lustig and Salome Sara Lustig (Rabinersohn or Rabinsohn). After graduating from Gymnasium, Josef joined his father's business, which dealt with import and export of agricultural products, especially eggs.

He was an active member of the Blau-Weiss association in Breslau and was for a time chairman of the local chapter. In 1933, he wanted to immigrate to Israel, but the leadership of the association asked him to postpone his immigration, so that the Zionist pioneering activity among the Jewish youth in the city would not suffer.

Josef came to Jägerslust in 1936 and, in June 1937, while still a resident of Flensburg, married Friederike Clarfeld (Frederica, Frieda Klarfeld) in Breslau. Although Frieda came to visit him in Jägerslust, it doesn't appear that she ever was a trainee there.

After their marriage, Josef and Frieda went to Denmark, where they spent approximately a year in 1938 in a farm in Sjaelland area for further agricultural training. They later received the much-coveted immigration visa to Palestine and, in January 1939, Josef and Frieda arrived in Haifa aboard the SS Champollion, having sailed out of Marseille.

The couple settled in Kibbutz Yagur, where Josef's brother Martin (Mordecai) lived. Josef joined the Hagannah, and in 1946, following the Operation Agatha (aka "Black Sabbath") which uncovered one of the main weapons arsenal of the Hagannah in Yagur, was incarcerated in a British detention camp in Rafiah for almost half a year.

The Lustigs were lifelong members of Kibbutz Yagur. The couple had two children, a son and a daughter, and six grand-children.

Josef Lustig passed away in December 1978 in Kibbutz Yagur.

Josef's parents Gustav Tobias and Salome Sara Lustig were murdered in Auschwitz in 1942.

Josef's brother Martin and his sister Gisela both emigrated to Israel and survived the war.

Josef's younger sister Gisela (Golda) married Werner Brock, another trainee in Jägerslust.

Sources:
Communications with Rauni and Shimon Lustig (2020, 2022)
pneiyagur.co.il
gen.scatteredmind.co.uk (1930 Breslau Synagogue Directory)

1942

• Eli Marcks
• אלי מרקס

Siegfried Marcks was born August 26, 1915 in Breslau, Germany (now Wrocław, Poland), the son of Gustav Marcks and Olga Pick.

Siegfried Marcks emigrated directly from Flensburg to Palestine with the help of the coveted worker certificate (handwritten note "to Palestine" on municipal notice of departure), arriving in Palestine on March 14, 1938.

At the time of his application for citizenship in Palestine in 1942, he lived in Kibutz Shamir as a laborer and was single.

He later changed his name to Eli Marcks. He married Hannah Maria Siegel and the couple had two children.

Eli (Siegfried) Marcks died in April 2012 in Arad.

His mother, Olga Marcks, was deported from Hannover to the Ravensbrück concentration camp on March 28, 1942, then to Auschwitz, where she was murdered on October 11, 1942. Details about his father's fate are not known. He presumably died (or was murdered) prior to his wife's deportation.

Sources:
www.archives.gov.il
www.myheritage.com
billiongraves.com
yvng.yadvashem.org (mother)
www.myheritage.com (mother)

1947

• Alexander Josef Muschinsky

Alex (Alexander Josef) Muschinsky was born August 25, 1917 in Chemnitz, the son of Mendel Muschinsky, a merchant, and Louisa Muschinski, born Schneider. Both parents were originally from Galicia (Poland). Alex had one brother, Gideon.

In 1935 Alex and his younger brother Gideon were expelled from school. Gideon left Chemnitz for Palestine, and Alex worked in different garages and workshops, trying to get an education.

Alex spent 16 months in Jägerslust, from March 23, 1937 to July 24, 1938. He then left for Denmark mid-October of 1938 and worked as "Madrich" (group leader) for Youth Aliyah groups and as an agricultural worker in various places in Sealand (Sjælland) and Fuen (Fyn) until October 1943.

In October 1943, Alex, along with thousands of Danish Jews, fled to Sweden. His escape was organized by the Danish resistance and a Danish police officer from Odense, Fuen.

He returned to Denmark in 1945 where he settled permanently. He met his wife Eva in 1947 and had two sons - Lars Jakob in 1948, and Peter in 1952. He was a teacher in arts and crafts, first in a school, and later in a college for social educators.

Alex Muschinsky died in October 1994 in Frederiksberg, Denmark.

Alex's parents Mendel and Louisa Muschinski were deported to the Polish border in October 1938. After the German invasion they had to move to the Łomża ghetto. They tried without success to get visas for Palestine and America. They were murdered in Auschwitz in January 1943.

His brother, Gideon Muschinsky, emigrated to Palestine.

Sources:
Peter and Lars Jakob Muschinsky (2019-2020). (primary source and 1947 photo)
www.myheritage.com
Lokalhistorisk Nyt/ Udgivet af Lokalhistorisk Forening for Nr. Lyndelse Sogn, nr. 47., November 1999.
yvng.yadvashem.org
www.chemnitz.de (Stolpersteine)
doi.org

1943

• Regina Woislawski

Regina Nadler was born on September 27, 1915 in Berlin, the daughter of Salomon (Shlomo) Nadler, a clothing store owner born in Sambor (Austria-Hungary, then Poland since 1918), and Mali Nadler nee Feldmann, a housewife born in Przemysl, Poland. Regina had four siblings: Jonny Yona (1913), Anna (ca 1914), Rosa (ca 1918), and the youngest, Lottchen (1928). The family lived in Berln. There she attended elementary school and trade school.

Regina Nadler joined the hachshara in Jägerlust as a housekeeping trainee along with her fiancé Max Woislawski in July 1938. [or: she met Max Woislawski in Jagerslust.]

Her training lasted just a few months, ending abruptly in the night of November 9-10, 1938, the so-called November Pogrom. Following that night's events, she was incarcerated in the Flensburg police prison for the night. She was released along with the other young women of the Hachshara and was able to get back home in Berlin.

According to the German Minority Census of mid-May 1939, Regina lived with her mother and 3 sisters: Anna, Rosa and 10-year-old Lotthen.

She fled to Denmark with Max Woislawski at the end of January 1939. In November 1940, she was registered in the Denmark Census as living in Kongsted. Two other Jägerlust trainees resided at the same location: Frieda Landmann and Erika Dallmann. (Her name also appears in the Denmark Census as residing in Svallerup, a small village in West Zealand.) By then, Regina and Max were married. Their son, Amos Aron, was born in February 1942 in Klampenborg, Denmark.

On October 17, 1943, Regina and Max Woislawski fled to Sweden aboard a fishing boat as part of the mass rescue operation of the Jews from Denmark.

In 1949 Regina and Max finally came to Israel. She lived in Sha'ar Hefer near Natania.

Regina's father, Salomon (Shlomo) Nadler, was deported to Przemysl (other source: Lodz) where he was murdered.

Her mother, Mali Nadler, was deported to Treblinka where she was murdered upon her arrival in 1942.

Her youngest sister Lotchen was deported to Przemysl (other source; Warsaw, or Lodz.) She vanished in the Holocaust. She was 14.

Jonny Yona Nadler was a soldier and was murdered as prisoner of war in Lodz.

The fate of her sisters Anna Nadler and Rosa Nadler is not known.

Sources:
safe-haven.dk
www.myheritage.com
www.myheritage.com
yvng.yadvashem.org (mother)
https://yvng.yadvashem.org(the father)
yvng.yadvashem.org (sister Lotchen)
yvng.yadvashem.org (brother Jonny Yona Nadler)
Photo: Application for Swedish foreign passport, 1943, via Bernd Philipsen.

• Johanna Fleischhacker
• חנה נתן

Johanna Fleischhacker (later Hanna Nathan) was born September 30, 1912, in Hildesheim, Germany.

She was married to Herbert Nathan, another Flensburg hachshara trainee. She had a passport issued in Flensburg, November 28, 1935, indicating that she started her training sometime that year. Johanna and her husband arrived in Palestine April 12, 1937 and the couple had one daughter. Johanna later changed her name to Hanna Nathan.

Hanna Nathan (née Johanna Fleischhacker) died in Israel in April 1964 at the age of 51.

Sources and photo:
www.archives.gov.il (Application for Palestinian Citizenship, 1940)
www.ruthsfamilyhistory.net

Herbert Nathan was born February 2, 1914 in Köln, the son of Julius Nathan, a commercial clerk, and Rosalie Rosendahl. He had one brother, Rudolf. The family lived in simple, middle-class circumstances.

Herbert and his brother Rudolf attended the municipal Jewish elementary school, then completed a commercial apprenticeship after graduating from school. When the National Socialists took power in early 1933, the family's situation quickly became very difficult, as Julius Nathan and his sons, being Jews, couldn't find work. Herbert and Rudolf joined Jewish youth associations and planned their emigration.

Herbert came to Jägerslust in 1936 then went to Hamburg for a few months to complete his training. He was married to Johanna Fleischhacker, another Flensburg hachshara trainee. He was then able to emigrate to Palestine on April 12, 1937 with his wife. At the time of his Application for Palestinian Citizenship in 1940, he lived in Ramot HaShavim and was an agricultural laborer. The couple had one daughter. He later owned a chicken farm.

He later married Ada Bermann (born Saul Peyser) in a second marriage.

Herbert Nathan died in July 2003 in Ramot HaShavim at the age of 89.

Herbert's parents, Julius and Rosalie Nathan, had become increasingly poor and were unable to emigrate for financial reasons and because Rosalie Nathan was ill. Rosalie Nathan died in July 1941 in the Jewish hospital in Ehrenfeld. Julius Nathan, was deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto in the summer/autumn of 1942 and later to Auschwitz where he was murdered.

His brother Rudolf was arrested during the pogrom in November 1938 and taken to the Dachau concentration camp. Released shortly thereafter, he emigrated to Denmark soon after. When German troops occupied the country, he fled to Sweden. After the end of the war he returned to Denmark and lived there until his death.

Sources:
www.stadt-koeln.de (Stolpersteine)
www.archives.gov.il (Application for Palestinian Citizenship, 1940)
www.koeln.de
www.ruthsfamilyhistory.net
www.myheritage.com
Bernd Philipsen

1939

• הנס אופנהימר
• הנס אופנהיימר

Hans Oppenheimer was born October 8, 1913 in Frankfurt am Main.

He emigrated directly from Flensburg to Palestine with the help of the coveted worker certificate; (handwritten note "to Palestine" on municipal notice of departure).

Hans Oppenheimer married Magdalena Felicitas Ferenszi, who may have also been a trainee in Jägerslust. (Her passport was issued in Flensburg on July 6, 1936).

The couple came to Palestine on July 22, 1936. They lived in Kibbutz Ashdot Yaakov and Hans Oppenheimer was an agricultural laborer.

Sources:
www.archives.gov.il
www.myheritage.com

Ludwig Heinz Oppenheimer was born July 24, 1919 in Berlin, the son of Alfred Oppenheimer and Berta Oppenheimer, nee Seelig.

Ludwig Oppenheimer arrived in the hachshara from Berlin on August 23, 1937. He left Jägerslust on October 25, 1938 for Frankfurt am Main. He died of pneumonia in the Jewish Hospital of Frankfurt on December 28, 1938 in Frankfurt am Main.

Ludwig's parents, Alfred (60) and Bertha Oppenheimer (55), were deported from Berlin to Auschwitz on January 29, 1943 where they were murdered.

Sources:
Death certificate, via Bernd Philipsen.
yvng.yadvashem.org (mother)
yvng.yadvashem.org (father)

• Friedel Shkedi
• פרידל פטרזיל
• פרידה בלומה
• פרידל שקדי

Friedel Peterseil was born February 16, 1918 in Kiel, the daughter of Simon (Szymon) Peterseil, and Hudes Herta Biedemann. Her parents were originally from Wiznitz, Bukovina, a small town known for its Hassidic sect (Austria-Hungaria until 1918, Poland, now Vyzhnytsya: Ukraine). Fridel had two siblings, Annie (Chana) and David Salomon.

Friedel Peterseil attended school in the city of Kiel, then started to work in 1934 at the age of sixteen to help support her family.

She got married in a fictitious marriage (with Martin Loeb Bamberger) to get a certificate and she emigrated to Eretz Israel in 1937. She first lived in Kibbutz Kfar Szold where her brother David lived.

She enlisted in the Palmach in 1942 in Company E. Among her other activities, she participated in the surveillance of Etzel and Lehi personnel during the "season". She was released in 1944.

She married Mordechai Shkedi (Mandelbaum) and the couple had (at least) two daughters. She lived in Kibbutz Givat Chaim (Ihud).

She died in October 2002 in Kibbutz Givat Chaim.

Her parents, Szymon (59) and Hudes Peterseil (56) were deported from Hamburg to the Theresienstadt Ghetto on July 29, 1942, then to Auschwitz where they were murdered.

Her brother, David Tzur Peterseil emigrated to Palestine in July 1935. Her sister Annie Chana Peterseil also emigrated to Palestine in 1935.

Sources:
www.myheritage.com
billiongraves.com
www.palmach.org.il
www.ghi.org.il (Obit)
yvng.yadvashem.org
yvng.yadvashem.org

Siegbert Pinkus was born on 10 April 1921 in Mrotschen, Poland.

His name appears in the "custody book" of the Kiel prison, where he was incarcerated following his arrest during Kristallnacht. It is assumed that he was then taken to the Sachsenhausen camp along with all the other young men from Jägerslust and was released at the end of December 1938.

After his release, he fled Germany and came to the Netherlands. During the war he was hidden by Dutch farmers in various locations. From Bielefeld he fled to Voorst, then stayed at Hummelo. From April 1941 he lived in Assen, at Javastraat 3, with the J. van Tijn family; from there he moved to the Magnus family at Rolderstraat 54.

Siegbert survived the war. He later emigrated with his wife, Betty Pinkus-Cohen (Betje Cohen), to Israel.

Sources:
Bernd Philipsen, p. 56
joodsebegraafplaatsassen.nl

• פריץ פלאוט
• צבי פליאוט

Fritz (later: Zvi) Plaut was born May 6, 1918 in Frielendorf, Germany, the son of Moses Hirsch Ephraim Plaut and Jettchen Katz-Stiefel. Fritz had six siblings: Walter, Leopold, Heinz (Chaim), Rosie, Ludwig Lutz and (unknown). His father died in 1934 when Fritz was 16 years old.

He married Gertrud Leiter, another Flensburg hachshara trainee. He received his immigration visa in Flensburg on May 7, 1937 and arrived in Haifa on September 19, 1937. The couple lived in Kiryat-Haim and had a son in 1938. At the time of his 1947 citizenship application, Fritz was a building labourer.

Tzvi (Fritz) Plaut died in April 1985 in Ramat Gan.

Note: Fritz Plaut was second cousin with Erwin Linz, another Flensburg hachshara trainee. It isn't clear whether this is a mere coincidence, or an indication that youngsters could manage to attend the same hachsharot based on family ties or preferences.

His brother, Ludwig Lutz Plaut, was deported from Berlin to Riga on November 27, 1941 with his wife and children. They were murdered upon their arrival three days later on November 30, 1941.

His mother, Jettchen Plaut, emigrated to the USA. His brother Walter emigrated to the USA in 1927. His brother Leopold, and sister Rosie Ottenheimer, also emigrated to the USA.

His brother Heinz Chaim Plaut emigrated to Palestine.

The fate of his last sibling is not known, but presumably also survived.

Sources:
Plaut Family Tree
www.archives.gov.il
www.geni.com (brother)
www.myheritage.com
www.myheritage.com

1941

• Günter Riesenfeld
• Zeev Sadeh
• גינטר ריזנפלד
• זאב שדה

Günther Riesenfeld (later: Zeev Sadeh) was born November 22, 1912 in Breslau (now Wrocław, Poland), the son of Jakob Riesenfeld, a lawer, and Edith Becker. He had two siblings, Renate Anna, and (unknown).

Günther married Eva Lange, another Jägerslust trainee. The couple received a visa for Palestine and emigrated on March 29, 1937. The couple had one daughter, born in 1938. At the time of his application for citizenship in 1941, he lived in Kvuzat Massad, near Ein Harod, and was an agricultural laborer. Other Jägerslust alumni who settled in Kvutzat Massad included Hermann (Chaim) Berger and David (Adi) Sporn.

Günther Riesenfeld later married Rachel Fraenkel in a second marriage and the couple lived in Kibbutz Ma'Abarot. He adopted the name Zeev Sadeh.

According to an article in HaOlam HaZeh, Zeev Sadeh was one of eight Israeli delegates who attended the Bologna Conference for Peace and Justice in the Middle East in 1972 with, among others, Uri Avnery. (Uri Avnery was a Knesset representative and owner of HaOlam HaZeh. Originally a member of the right-wing Irgun, he later became a left-wing peace activist.)

Zeev Sadeh (Günther Riesenfeld) died in June 1996 in Kibbutz Ma'Abarot.

His parents and his sister, Renate Anna Carr, emigrated to England.

Sources:
www.archives.gov.il
www.myheritage.com
billiongraves.com
thisworld.online (Haolam Hazeh)
www.myheritage.com (father)

Further Information
www.maabarot.org.il (Audio interview with Zeev Sadeh)

Listed in the custody register of the Kiel prison, following his arrest during Kristallnacht.

Assuming was then sent to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, along with the other young men from Jägerslust, and was later released at the end of December 1938 after presenting a plan to leave Germany.

No further information available.

1940

• ורנר רוזנבאום
• ורנר נתן רוזנבאום

Werner Rosenbaum was born December 2, 1912 in Wesel, Germany, the son of Isidor Isaak Rosenbaum and Erika Rosenbaum (Obermeyer). His father was a wealthy merchant and Werner attended secondary school ("Realschule"). He had one sister, Edith. He later worked in a trading house.

Werner joined the Hechalutz movement in 1934 then came to the Jägerslust Hachsharah for agricultural training. There he met his future wife Hildegard Bukofzer, another Jägerslust trainee. Werner and Hildegard were married in Flensburg in 1936. They managed to emigrate directly from Flensburg with the help of the coveted worker certificate to Palestine (handwritten note "to Palestine" on municipal notice of departure).

Werner and Hildegard Rosenbaum entered Palestine July 13, 1936. At the time of their 1940 citizen application, they lived in kibbutz Ashdot Yaakov and had a daughter, Myriam, born 1937 in Tiberias. Werner's occupation was listed as farmer.

Werner Rosenbaum participated in battles in Tel Katzir during the War of Independence.

Werner Rosenbaum died in November 1979 (66), in Kibbutz Ashdot Ya'akov.

His father, Isidor Isaak Rosenbaum, was murdered in Auschwitz on September 21, 1942 (66). His mother, Erika Rosenbaum (Obermeyer), was murdered in the Riga ghetto in December 1941 (64).

His sister, Edith Bauman, survived the war in the Netherlands.

Sources:
geni.com
www.ashdot-m.org.il
www.archives.gov.il (Application for Palestinian Citizenship, 1940)
Bernd Philipsen

1940

• Hildegard Bukofzer
• הילדגרד בוקופצר
• הילדה רוזנבאום

Hildegard Rosenbaum, nee Bukofzer, was born February 5, 1911 in Essen, the daughter of Samuel Bukofzer and Karoline Bukofzer (Levy). Her father died in 1916 as a soldier fighting for Germany in the Battle of the Somme in France. Hildegard was five years old.

Hildegard joined HeChalutz in 1934 and came to Jägerslust for her hachsharah. There she met Werner Rosenbaum, another traineed, in 1935. Both of them worked in the barn. They were married in 1936 in Flensburg, and they managed to emigrate directly from Flensburg with the help of the coveted worker certificate to Palestine; (handwritten note "to Palestine" on municipal notice of departure)."

Hildegard and Werner Rosenbaum arrived in Palestine July 13, 1936. At the time of their application for citizenship in 1940, the couple lived in Kibbutz Ashdot Yaakov and had one daughter, Myriam, born in 1937 in Tiberias. The couple would have three children.

Hildegard Rosenbaum died in Kibbutz Ashdot Ya'akov in November 2004, at the age of 93.

Hildegard's mother, Karoline Bukofzer, died in the Lodz Ghetto in March 1942.

Sources:
Bernd Philipsen
www.archives.gov.il (Application for Palestinian Citizenship, 1940)
geni.com
www.ashdot-m.org.il
www.myheritage.com

Heinrich Rosenberg's name is listed in the custody register of the Kiel prison, following his arrest during Kristallnacht. Assuming he was then sent to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp together with all the young men from Jägerslust, and was later released at the end of December 1938 after presenting a plan to leave Germany.

Hans Rosenfeld attended Jägerslust in 1938, as documented on a photograph with Max Woislawski and Siegbert Pinkpus, but he must have left before the November Pogrom as his name is not listed in the Kiel prison custody register.

This may be the young trainee named Hans mentioned by Anne Dreifuss in her letter dated February 1939: "Hans, our shoemaker, twenty-four years old and handsome".

Hans Rosenfeld survived the war as he is mentioned in connection with the compensation procedure for the Wolff family.

1944

• זיגפריד רוזנטל

Siegfried Rosenthal was born November 25, 1918 in Kettig, Germany, the son of Siegfried Rosenthal and Berta Schnitz. His father died in WW1 on October 25, 1918, one month before his son's birth.

Nothing is known about Siegfried's early life or when he joined the Hachshara in Jägerslust.

Siegfried Rosenthal's name appears in the "custody book" of the Kiel prison, indicating that he attended Jägerslust until Kristallnacht.

Assuming he was then sent to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, along with the other young men from Jägerslust, and was later released at the end of December 1938 after presenting a plan to leave Germany.

Siegfried Rosenthal later fled to the Netherlands. He joined the Werkdorp Wieringen and met there with Heinrich Max Spittel, another former trainee from Jägerlust.

Siegfried Rosenthal then teamed up with Heinz Meyerstein to find an escape route together.

"We lived together for a while in Dortmund with false papers as 'Dutch foreign workers', and we both managed to flee to Spain via Holland, Belgium, France and the Pyrenees, from where we arrived in Palestine in November 1944 aboard a Portuguese ship." (On the same ship was Walter Dreifuss, the young brother of Anne Dreifuss and Lilli Dreifuss, two former Jägerslust trainees. Walter Dreifuss had followed a similar escape route from the Netherlands to Spain.)

On September 21, 1944, Siegfried Rosenthal received a Certificate of Identity from the British Consulate in Madrid. He arrived in Palestine less than two months later, on November 14.

He applied for citizenship in 1946. At the time he lived in Kibbutz Kedma and his profession was agriculturist.

Siegfried Rosenthal died in 1973 in Israel.

Sources:
www.myheritage.com
www.archives.gov.il
www.alemannia-judaica.de (father)

1944

• Sam Rotstein
• Schnur Rotstein

Samuel (Sam) Rotstein was born March 19, 1920 in Holzweissig, the son of Abraham Rotstein, a merchant, and Ella Edie Priesel. His father was from Lithuania and his mother came from Wierzbowce, Poland. He had one brother, Hermann Leon.

In 1926 Samuel started primary school. In the same year his little brother Hermann Leon was born and in 1929 the family moved to Bitterfeld.

After completing "Mittelschule", Samuel learned the trade of plumber in a work and apprenticeship training. He was a member of the Zionist Movement and came to the Hachshara in Flensburg in 1938 in preparation for his emigration to Palestine.

He was arrested during Kristallnacht (November 9, 1938), and was taken to the Kiel prison. He was then transported to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp along with the other young men from Jägerslust. He was released some time later with the help of the Zionist Movement and was taken to the Netherlands.

In the Netherlands, Sam first worked with a farmer in Hengelo. He then decided to switch profession and trained with a blacksmith in Epe. In 1942, after receiving a notification to report to a labor camp, he went into hiding in Zalk with a distant relative of the blacksmith from Epe. There he met his future wife, Klaasje van den Brink.

Samuel and Klaasje were married in July 1946 and the couple had two children. They lived in Zalk, a small village. His wife later became known as Klazien uit Zalk, a herbalist and best-selling author.

Sam Rotstein died in June 2007 in Zalk, Netherlands.

Sam's parents, Abraham Rotstein (52) and Ella Edie Rotstein (50), were deported from Berlin to Auschwitz on November 29, 1942 where they were murdered.

His brother Herman left for England in 1938 with one of the Kindertransports and lived with a foster family.

Sources:
www.joodszwolle.nl
www.geni.com
www.myheritage.com
www.myheritage.com
yvng.yadvashem.org (mother)
yvng.yadvashem.org (father)

• Heinrich Max Spittel
• Heinz Max Spittel
• Heini Spittel

Heinrich (Heinz) Max Spittel was born February 27 1918 in Eisenach, the son of Heinrich Spittel and Gertrud Nachmann. His father was killed while fighting for Germany in the First World War in December 1917, less than three months before his son's birth, explaining why his son carried his father's name. His mother remained a widow for several years, before marrying her husband's brother, Max Spittel, and they moved to Berlin.

He joined the Zionist pioneering movement Habonim and met Charlotte (Lotte) Wald at a meeting of the organization in 1935. He then came to Jägerslust to prepare for emigration along with Lotte Wald. He was briefly mentioned by Lili Dreyfus in her February 5 letter: "Heini or Sputz, [...] he's engaged to a girl from Bochum." His training ended abruptly with the assault on Jägerslust in the night of November 9-10, 1938, during the so-called November Pogrom.

He was then incarcerated in Sachsenhausen, from where he was released on January 27, 1939. He then fled to the Netherlands on February 15, 1939, (presumably) with Lotte Wald.

Heinrich's time in the Netherlands is described in the thorough research from www.werkdorpwieringermeer.nl:

Heinrich Max Spittel and Sophie (Lotte) fled to the Netherlands in mid-February 1939. There he connected with the Deventer Organization. Heinrich first found a place with the Wagenvoort family in Vierakker, while Lotte went to Steenderen. Three months later, in June 1939, he moved to the training farm Werkdorp Wieringen, where he worked as a gardener (horticulturist). There he met Siegfried Rosenthal, whom he had met at Jägerlust.

Heinrich was among the 60 people who stayed after the Werkdorp was evacuated on March 20, 1941. When the final closure occurred he left at the end of July for Arnhem, where Sophie (Lotte) had also found work. Between August 1941 and April 1942 he returned to North Holland and settled in Hoorn. [In February 1942, Heinrich Max Spittel married Charlotte Wald.] In April 1942, Heinrich returned to Arnhem because of the 'Jew-cleansing' of North Holland and worked as a gardener for private individuals.

According to his wife's testimony, he was a "madrich" (guide) in Arnhem. In the fall of 1942, Heinrich and Lotte started to discuss the possibility of going underground. Before they could implement a plan, they were arrested and sent to the Westerbork camp during the roundup of Jews in Arnhem on December 11, 1942. They remained there for about ten months, then were transported to Auschwitz on September 16, 1943.

Heinrich was sent to Buna-Monowitz (Auschwitz III), the synthetic rubber factory of IG-Farben. In August 1944 the factory was bombed by the British and the forced laborers, including Heinrich, were transferred to the Natzweiler-Struthof camp in October 1944, where slave labourers worked in granite quarries. With the American army approaching, the prisoners were evacuated to Buchenwald on January 1, 1945. In March 1945, with the advancing allies closing in, they were transferred to Bergen-Belsen.

Heinrich Max Spittel was among the prisoners evacuated to Bergen-Belsen, where he survived until the liberation of the camp by the British troops on April 15. Weakened by his long incarceration, Heinrich Max Spittel died ten days after the liberation of the camp on April 25, 1945.

Heinrich Max Spittel's mother, Gertrud Spittel, was murdered in Auschwitz on January 29, 1943.

Sources:
www.werkdorpwieringermeer.nl
www.joodsmonument.nl
www.ushmm.org
www.infocenters.co.il
www.myheritage.com
www.myheritage.com
yvng.yadvashem.org
yvng.yadvashem.org

• David Sporn
• Dawid Sporn
• דוד שפורן

David ("Adi") Sporn was born October 8, 1918 in Bochum, the son of Jakob and Sarah Sporn. His father, a merchant originally from Galicia, presumably also acted as prayer leader for the Eastern Jewish Community in Bochum, which used the "small synagogue", an extension of the Jewish school, as a prayer room. The inscription on his tombstone calls him "Rav" (Rabbi): "A man, pure and upright and god-fearing, our teacher and master Jaakow Sporn". He had two siblings, Yehuda and Ferdi. David's father died in January 1927 when David was 8 years old.

Although born in Germany, as the son of parents from Galicia, David Sporn was a Polish citizen, as evidenced by his Polish passport issued in Bochum in 1935.

David Sporn came to Palestine on February 28, 1938, presumbaly as a legal immigrant as he was able to successfully apply for naturalization in 1940 (i.e. before the 1941 which allowed illegal immigrants to acquire citizenship after having served in the British Army).

At the time of his application for naturalization in September 1940, he resided in Kvusat Massat, near Ein Harod, was an ;"agricultural labourer", and was single.

David Sporn married Ruth Nathan and the couple had four children.

David "Adi" Sporn died in Kibbutz Kfar Ruppin.

His brother, Yehuda Sporn, emigrated to Palestine.

The fate of Ferdi Sporn is not known, neither is the fate of his mother, Sarah Sporn.

Sources:
spurenimvest.de
www.archives.gov.il
www.myheritage.com

No further information available.

1943

• Liselotte Levy
• Lieselotte Levy
• Lilo Studinski

Liselotte (Lilo) Studinski (née Levy) was born December 4, 1918 in Berlin.

According to Peter Muschinsky, she stayed in Flensburg with her husband Martin Studinski. (Because Liselotte and Martin Studinski were married in 1939 - after the end of the Jägerslust Hachshara, she must have been there as a trainee under her maiden name, and Peter Muschinski's statement must be read as "her future husband". It is possible that Liselotte and Martin met in the Hachshara.)

Liselotte and Martin left Germany and came to Denmark in 1939 under the same program as Alex Muschinsky. Liselotte and Martin then fled Denmark ahead of the German roundup and came to Sweden as refugees on September 22, 1943, where they remained until June 1945.

The couple returned to Denmark after the end of the war and lived in Copenhagen. In October 1958, they applied for Danish citizenship. At the time, Liselotte was an after-school teacher. The couple had two children.

Liselotte Studinsky died in June 1991, aged 72, in Copenhagen.

Sources:
safe-haven.dk
leightonromanisfamily.com
www.folketingstidende.dk
Communication with Lars and Peter Muschinsky

Martin Studinski was born February 8, 1914 in Culm, West Prussia (now Chełmno, Poland), the son of Lesser Leo Studinski (born in Czersk, West Prussia) and Ella Simon*, the widow of Dr. Rabbi Schindler*. Martin had one sister, Dorothea*.

It can be assumed that the Studinski family left Culm after it was incorporated into the new Polish state in January 1920 in order to remain in Germany. Before coming to Flensburg, Martin Studinski resided in Stuttgart.

Martin Studinski came to the Jägerslust Hachshara where he (presumably) met his future wife, Liselotte Levy. They would later marry in 1939.

Martin and Liselotte came to Denmark in 1939 under the same program as Alex Muschinsky. They later fled Denmark and came to Sweden as refugees on September 22, 1943, where they remained until June 1945.

According to Studinski's 1943 "Application for Alien's Passport", Martin Studinski was a butcher and a gardener. This suggests that he may originally have trained as a butcher, possibly coming from a family in the meat business, then acquired gardening skills in hachshara. On his application, he declared he was looking for work as a gardener. He was by then "stateless", his German passport having expired in January 1942. His last place of residence in Denmark was Birkerød, a town near Copenhagen.

Martin and Lieselotte returned to Denmark after the end of the war and lived in Copenhagen. In October 1958, they applied for Danish citizenship. At the time, Martin Studinski was a sausage maker. His name was listed as Julius Martin Studinski. The couple had two children.

Martin's mother Ella was murdered in Auschwitz on January 16, 1942.

Martin's father, Lesser Leo Studinski, died on January 6 1942 in Berlin.

His sister, Dorothea Artelt, emigrated to England before the war where she was a nurse. She and her husband Bruno Artelt, a non-Jewish German member of the Communist Party who had been arrested by the Gestapo in 1936 for his political activities, returned to Germany after the war.

Sources:
safe-haven.dk
leightonromanisfamily.com
www.myheritage.com
www.folketingstidende.dk
yvng.yadvashem.org (mother)
collections.arolsen-archives.org (sister)
Communication with Lars and Peter Muschinsky

* Details about the family are somewhat convoluted and inconsistent. Based on the 1939 German Minority Census, his mother may have been named Sara, and Ella may have been the name of a second sister. Some sources have his mother Ella being born in Chicago, and being the widow of a Rabbi Schindler.

1940

• m: Berta Edelstein

Berta Tokajer was born 10 June 1907 in Modrzejow, Poland.

She lived in Mainz before coming to the the Jägerslust hachshara. She registered at the Flensburg police headquarters on June 26, 1937 for a yearly extension of her residence permit for her Foreigner Passport ("Fremdenpass").

She married Hans Edelstein on February 16, 1938. She received an immigration visa and arrived in Palestine in March 1938.

Berta Edelstein's German Foreigner Passport provides a record of the tortuous path she had to take in order to reach Palestine. She first left her hometown Mainz and traveled to Stuttgart where she registered her marriage (15.2.1938). From there, she traveled to Berlin and went to the British Consulate to receive her visa for Palestine six days later (21.2.1938). Next, she went to Frankfurt, where she obtained transit visas for Austria and Italy from their respective consulates the following week (28.2.1938). The next day, she crossed the border in Salzburg, Austria (1.3.1938), then one day later embarked in Trieste, Italy (2.3.1938), finally reaching Haifa after five days at sea (7.3.1938).

Berta husband, Hanan (Hans) Edelstein, recruited into the air service of the Hagana, was seriously injured during the first Egyptian air bombardment of Tel Aviv and died on May 15, 1948, the day after the establishment of the state of Israel.

Sources:
www.archives.gov.il (Application for Palestinian Citizenship, 1940)
www.myheritage.com (husband)

• Charlotte Spittel
• Nirah Schnurmann
• נירה שנורמן

Sophie Charlotte (Lotte) Wald (later Nira Schnurmann) was born in Bochum, Germany, February 17, 1916 the daughter of Richard Wald and Isabella (Ilse, Elsa) Willstaedt. Her father was an artist painter and decorator who had fought with distinction for Germany during WW1. Her mother was a hatter and her parents ran a successful hat design and production workshop in their home. She had two brothers, Carl Heinz and Hans Gunter.

As a child she first attended elementary school, then attended a Jewish school. As a teenager, she joined the Socialist youth movement "The Red Falcons". In 1935 she joined the Zionist pioneering movement Habonim in Bochum, where she was a sports instructor for children.

"My parents were members of the Socialist Party, and as their daughter I joined the movement at the age of twelve. They called us the 'Red Falcons'. Since we were all children there whose parents were also in the same movement, we also read the party newspaper, Dafi Ha'am. [...] At the age of sixteen [ca. 1932] I moved to the 'Working and Studying Youth'. [HaNoar HaOved VeHaLomed] [...]"

"At the age of seventeen [ca. 1933] I left the movement out of fear and danger, both for me and for my friends - I was afraid that I would be seen in their company. I moved to the 'Habonim' movement, which was part of the 'Halutz' movement which was related to the labor movement in Israel."

"Since in Bochum almost all the members of the Zionist movements were from families who came from Poland and their parents were pious, their children went to 'BeYachad', a youth movement of 'Hapoel HaMizrachi'. There was another movement called 'Werkleute', which belonged to 'Hashomer Hatzair'. [...]

"I joined the 'Habonim' youth movement, which belonged to the Zionist labor movement. [...] I got into it with vigor, against the clear wishes of my parents.[...]

"Although I tried to convince boys and girls to join the movement, I failed in most cases because of the opposition of the parents, who were all of my parents' opinion that Hitler was a passing phenomenon and that we were Germans. [...]"

"My parents were in trouble. They sold the store [...]. I don't know to this day why my parents didn't buy a certificate and immigrate to Israel - then they had money and they had enough valuables to sell [...] They were just scared. Father was 63 years old and mother 55 years old. What will they do there in the primitive land, without the language? [...] On the other hand, Germany was familiar to them, father was a former soldier with distinction, and the belief was that Hitler would not remain in power."

In November 1937, despite her parents' opposition, Lotte came to the Hachshara in Flensburg. There she received her Aliyah training within the framework of Hechalutz until November 1938. There she met her first husband Heinrich (Heini) Spittel.

"Most of the Hachsharot in Germany were intended for people younger than me. Flensburg was one of the few trainings for older pioneers, who were called 'just pioneers'."

'Stam Chalutzim' ('סתם חלוצים') were pioneers with no prior experience with youth groups. Indeed, while a few Jägerslust interns came from Habonim or Hechalutz, it seems that most of them were not affiliated with any pioneer group.

"The farm was close to the border, about an hour's walk from our house. Flensburg was about three miles from the farm. There was no bus, and when we were lucky a farmer took us in his cart part of the way. [...][There were] eighteen to twenty boys and girls. [...] [There was] a barn with twenty cows, a vegetable garden, fields of wheat and barley, turnips and sugar beets. "

"[Alexander Wolff] lived at home with his wife and mother, who was a special woman. She must have grown up in luxury, and at the age of 64 she got used to agricultural life. She had chickens and a successful vegetable garden and a guard dog that only she could feed. [...]"

"The girls worked for the mother, always two at a time for two weeks. I learned a lot from her. She was very strict, but also patient. [...] [Alexander Wolff] worked in agriculture. Farming was his joy and hobby. He was good at it, and many farmers came to him to ask his advice. During threshing, we went with his threshing machine from farmer to farmer and helped. It was hard work, but we were young and knew that the conditions would not be any easier in Israel either."

"We, the six girls, lived in the family house in two small rooms, three to a room. Our clothes were in the suitcase under the bed. At the entrance to the farm stood a simple hut with a concrete floor. The entrance was through the kitchen, and next to it was a smaller laundry room, with a built-in boiler for boiling laundry, which we washed on washing boards in the kitchen and hung it outside. In the kitchen there was a large charcoal cooking stove, a table for preparing food and a cupboard for groceries and utensils. In the large room there were two long tables with benches and a small library in the corner, the dining room was also a culture room, a clothes storage room, all together + a small room for ironing and sewing with a machine, of course without an engine."

"We had no money. The [Hechalutz] movement paid us, if I remember correctly, 0.35 marks for living expenses per person. That meant about 7 marks a day for all of us, but we managed."

"The people in Flensburg knew us. The shopkeeper, the baker, the butcher, they all knew we were poor. The baker gave us bread from the day before for half the price, the butcher gave us the end of the remaining sausages; Since we always bought from the grocer for the week, he gave us the groceries at a discounted price, I mean, we ate but we were always hungry, especially the boys."

"The boys lived in the room next to the dining room. They slept in bunk beds, of course without closets. We had no running water but only a hand pump. In the winter we covered it with a thick layer of straw and every morning, usually, the water was frozen, we lit the straw to thaw the water."

"In the evenings we studied Hebrew with a girl from Vilnius, who spoke and wrote Hebrew. She told us that in Vilnius she studied at the Hebrew gymnasium. [...] Once a week a guide from Hamburg came to talk about all kinds of current affairs." [Assuming Yehuda Marcus].

"I met Heini, my future husband in Hachshara.

"Life in Flensburg was not easy, but we were young and tried to enjoy the small joys of life. The weekly trip to Flensburg, in order to bathe thoroughly; A three-day trip from the farm along the bay to the Baltic Sea, without a penny."

"There were also moments of fear. Several times we had a visit from the Gestapo. They usually came to check what books we were reading. There was a severe ban on reading books by writers whose books were burned in the city squares. But the Gestapo men were not always great connoisseurs of literature. Kurt Tucholsky, a Jew who wrote books in many pseudonyms, had written a satirical book called 'Deutschland, Deutschland über alles' about the new Germany or the 'Thousand-Year Reich', as Hitler called it. The Gestapo man said: 'This is a distinctly national book, you should read it.'

"The clouds in the political sky began to turn blacker and blacker. In October I visited my uncle who lived in Hamburg. There I received a gloomy report from a man who had always been in an optimistic mood until now. I visited my friend, Anna Dreyfus, also from Bochum. She took care of chaverim who worked on ships in Hamburg and lived in the so-called 'seamen's club'. In Hamburg I also briefly met Shlomo Meisels, who was then the main instructor (Madrich) at the Schaeferkamps Allee Hachshara. I returned full of worries to Flensburg."

According to Lotte Wald's recollections, the deportation of Polish Jews did not reach Jägerslust:

"A few days [after October 28], a Jewish newspaper wrote that the Germans had stopped the 'Polenaktion'. We breathed a sigh of relief, because they had 'forgotten' to take our friends who had Polish citizenship. The day after, the Gestapo appeared at our place, this time not to check books, but to take the Poles."

"We were shocked. What to do? Germany and Poland had already closed the borders, if they take our comrades, they will bring them to the concentration camps. One guy took the Jewish newspaper - without showing them which newspaper it was - and showed them the chapter about closing the borders. One of the [Gestapo men] said: 'We'll go check if it's true. If not, we'll come back tomorrow.' They didn't come back, and so, luckily, the [Polish] boys and girls stayed with us on the farm."

The next momentous event was the November Pogrom (Kristallnacht). This time, Jägerslust would not be spared.

"On November 9, 1938, at approximately 11:00 p.m., Wolff suddenly entered the dining room. We were in conversation with the guides (madrichim) from Hamburg. We were surprised, because he usually did not come to us, but instead invited one of us to talk at his house.

'Guys,' he said, 'this night is going to be serious.' He told us that he had been in the evening at the 'Danish House' (the meeting house for the Danes who lived in Flensburg, and was under the auspices of the Danish Embassy in Germany). He had heard on the radio from Denmark that on that night all the Jews would be arrested in Germany and put into concentration camps.

One moment we looked at him in bewilderment, the next we burst out laughing. 'All the Jews? Could there be a place for them? Where would people be taken for such an operation?' But we were wrong. We went to bed and did not take into account the capacity of the German organization nor the population's fear of punishment, in case they did not cooperate.

At two in the morning we were woken up by a noise. Trucks. Spotlights illuminated the house, dogs barked and we heard shouts: 'Get up get up, get on the trucks!'

The whole operation took about fifteen minutes. They drove us to the city prison, put us in cells, boys separately and girls separately, without a single word of explanation. We had no idea what would happen to us.

Following the November Pogrom (Kristallnacht), Lotte was incarcerated for one day in the Flensburg jail.

"In the morning they took us out of the cells, brought us to a room where an SS officer was sitting, we stood in front of him. Suddenly the door opened and four of our boys were brought in. These were the three who had Polish citizenship. One of them had a Hungarian passport.

We received an order: 'Return to the farm, take your belongings and go home before 01:00 at night. After 01:00 the farm is in our hands. Go and let us not see you again! ('שלום ולא להתראות').

It was about an hour's walk to the house. On the way, the boys told us that they had been asked about their citizenship. When they saw their certificates and saw that they were telling the truth, they were put in a separate cell.

We went to the farm. It was completely quiet there. The stable and barn were empty. The peasants had taken the animals, the work tools, and everything they could take. We entered the residential shack. They had overturned all the cupboards, taken out all the things and thrown them in the mud, they had broken the windows and the doors.

We went to the Wolff's house. There we found the same situation, only much worse. Our furniture was simple, but the Wolff family had a beautifully furnished house with valuables. The Nazis broke all the china, the crystal glasses, broke the furniture and turned it into firewood. There was nothing left intact. They had removed the feathers from the pillows and blankets. The house looked like it was run over by a gang of Vandals.

Since we lived in the attic, we found some of our things hanging on trees.

We knew we had to leave the place quickly. We decided to send two boys to the city, to find out when the last train left for Hamburg, the nearest big city, where the parents of one of the girls lived, because we were thinking of spending the night there. We also asked that they try to convince the people who supplied the farm [in food, seeds, etc.] to take our luggage to the train station in the evening.

First we collected our belongings. [...] After that we packed the boys' clothes and their personal belongings [...] We wrote a name and address on all the suitcases and packages.

We asked the boys who went to the city to check if the Germans had closed our bank account, since we knew we had more money. Luckily for us, the account was in the name of the Hungarian guy, who was also our treasurer. He revealed to us that he had more money in his pocket, which had been returned to him upon release."

"At about 3pm the boys returned from the city with money and with the news that our shopkeeper would send us his truck and that we would not worry about payment. He gave the boys some canned goods. Apparently not all Germans were bad and agreed with what was happening.

With the help of the boys we finished all the arrangements. We looked for and found more potatoes, cooked them and ate them hungrily. We lay for a while on the torn mattresses, and despite the fatigue we did not fall asleep. All the girls had a boyfriend among the boys. We didn't know where they were taken. What will happen to them? What will we find at home when we return? What will happen to us on the way? The uncertainty left us in suspense."

At 19:30 in the evening the truck arrived. We loaded all the things, but decided to walk the whole way. We were afraid to put the driver in trouble. He waited for us at the train station and helped us bring all the boys' things for delivery, arranged all the papers for us and paid. After that he said goodbye to us, said: 'See you in better times,' and disappeared with his truck.

Half an hour later we were on the train to Hamburg. We arrived late at night. We left the things in the guard at the station and went to the apartment of one of the girls.

It was a small apartment, we sat in one room, her mother made us a drink and sandwiches. It was November and it was already quite cold. We didn't sleep that night.

In the morning we said goodbye to our friend and her mother and went to the train at first light. There we parted ways, each living in a different city. We bought everyone tickets and divided the little money we had left.

Following her release, Lotte Wald came to the Netherlands in February 1939 with Heinrich Spittel. There she pursued individual Aliyah training with Hechalutz. She worked for farmers in several places together with Heini Spittel. From May 1940 to June 1941, she continued her Aliyah training in Amsterdam and worked at a vegetarian restaurant. From June 1941 to December 1942, she pursued individual Aliyah training in Arnhem with Heini Spittel and the couple married in February 1942.

Lotte and her husband attempted to hide, unsuccessfully, and she was arrested during the roundup of Jews in Arnhem. She was incarcerated in the Westerbork camp on December 11, 1942. She was then deported to Auschwitz on September 16, 1943. In the summer of 1944, Lotte was transfered to Birkenau. She was then transfered to Bergen-Belsen in November-December 1944, and finally in January 1945 to the Salzwedel concentration camp for forced labor in an ammunitions factory.

She survived and, following the camp liberation, she returned to the Netherlands on April 28, 1945. From there she moved to France and worked with the organizers of the illegal immigration. She boarded the illegal immigration ship "Tel Hai" in Marseilles on March 17th 1946. The ship was intercepted by the British and was towed to Haifa. After two weeks in the Atlit camp, she joined the members of Kibbutz Galed.

She later married Hans Meir Schnurmann. (Hans Schnurmann had taken part in a rescue operation that had brought 60 Jewish refugee children from Sweden to Palestine in March 1941). The couple had three children. She changed her name to Nira Schnurmann.

Nira Schnurmann (Lotte Wald) died in November 2012 in Kibbutz Galed, aged 96.

Lotte's father, Richard Wald, was deported from Dortmund to the Theresienstadt Ghetto on July 29, 1942 where he was murdered on August 21, 1942 (67). Her mother, Isabella (Ilse) Wald, was deported from Dortmund to the Zamość Ghetto on April 30, 1942. From there she was transported to the Sobibor death camp where she was murdered.

Her first husband, Heinrich (Heini) Spittel, died a few days after the liberation of Bergen-Belsen in April 1945, at the age of 27.

Her two brothers emigrated before the war. Carl Heinz (later: Carlos Enrique) Wald emigrated to Uruguay, then later to Argentina. Hans Gunter (later: Danny) emigrated to Eretz Israel.

Sources:
Yad Vashem (Testimony to the Itzhak Katzenelson Holocaust and Jewish Resistance Heritage Museum and Study Center, March 1957)
www.infocenters.co.il
www.werkdorpwieringermeer.nl
www.geni.com
www.myheritage.com
www.galed.org.il
spurenimvest.de
yvng.yadvashem.org (father)
Ora Benami, daughter of Nirah Schnurmann (January 2024)

Further Reading:
Lotte Wald is mentioned in "Es Lebe das Leben" by Hubert Schneider.

• m: Erna Hausmann

Erna Weinert was born September 23, 1917 in Breslau, Germany (now Wroclaw, Poland).

Born in a Catholic family and christened at the age of 4, she was raised by her Jewish aunt Rosa Klammer. At the age of 14 she converted to Judaism.

She arrived from Breslau on March 19, 1936 and joined the Hachshara training program in Jägerslust as an agricultural and domestic trainee. There she met her future husband, Richard Hausmann. Together, they left Jägerslust in July 1937. After a stopover with farmers in Meiningen, Thuringia, they escaped to Sweden, then Denmark, then to the USA where they emigrated in 1950.

Erna Hausmann died in October 2008 in Tobyhanna, Pennsylvania, USA.

Max Woislawski was born February 1, 1913 in Grajewo, Poland.

He attended the Jägerslust hachshara agricultural training from July 1937 to November 9, 1938. He was joined there by his fiancee, Regina Nadler.

Max Woislawski was arrested during the November 9 pogrom and taken to the Kiel jail. He was then incarcerated in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, from where he was released mid-December 1938 after providing assurance that he would leave Germany.

At the end of January 1939, Max Woislawski and Regina Nadler came to Denmark. There Max received further agricultural training within the framework of the exchange program. In November 1940, the couple were registered in Svallerup, a small village in West Zealand. By then, they were married and Max was a farm worker. Their son, Amos Aron, was born in February 1942 in Klampenborg, Denmark.

Max and Regina fled Denmark and came to Sweden aboard a fishing boat on October 17, 1943, as part of the mass rescue operation of the Jews from Denmark. According to the refugee registrations form the couple filled out upon their arrival in Sweden, the family was destiture and Max declared having only 10 Danish Krone - equivalent to a half a day of a worker's wage.

Max and Regina Woislawski immigrated to Israel in 1949. They lived in Sha'ar Hefer near Natania.

Max and Regina Woislawsky's great-granddaughter was murdered during the October 7, 2023 terrorist attack. A resident of Beit Yitzhak, she was 24 years old.

Sources:
safe-haven.dk
www.myheritage.com
Amnon Rimon

From a January 1937 photo caption. No further information available.

No further information available.

Mentioned by Anne Dreifuss in a letter dated February 1939: "Bubchen [...] was our youngest, 17 years old and very cute! I've never seen anything so polite. He was very handsome. [He] was very funny, sang all the songs with wrong lyrics and wrong melody. He spoke every word with the ending —chen, he was from East Prussia, played a great harmonica and was engaged and is now married... a very nice boy...".

Mentioned by Anne Dreifuss in a letter dated February 1939: "Hannibal, our Goldilocks, had red hair and was our weather prophet. When the curls were out, the sun was shining.".

Mentioned by Anne Dreifuss in a letter dated February 1939: "Hermann was the eldest, 30 years old. He went to Sweden and is now in Palestine. He spoke when there was something to say, but otherwise held no special position. He was very nice.".

Mentioned by Anne Dreifuss in a letter dated February 1939: "Lutz, 18 years old", friend of Heinrich Spittel.

Mentioned by Anne Dreifuss in a letter dated February 1939: "Mendel was a great kid who could light a fire! He always babbled on about camaraderie, that's why his nickname was comrade. Now he is in Eretz Israel at the technical center.".

Mentioned by Anne Dreifuss in a letter dated February 1939: "Rischer was laughable. He was small and thin and had a long nose. [He] always had to discuss, often about the most impossible things. ".

Mentioned by Anne Dreifuss in a letter dated February 1939: "Schah was our nightingale, he had a beautiful voice!".

Mentioned by Anne Dreifuss in a letter dated February 1939: "A boy had something left on his arm from a bike accident. He did our bookkeeping, besides being the most diligent and one of the nicest.".

Two unnamed brothers are mentioned by Anne Dreifuss in a letter dated February 1939: "We also had two brothers. Terribly vain and conceited, the rest of us just never knew what for. They were very unpopular. But the older one had a very beautiful voice.".

The only two brothers known by name are the Berger brothers, however this most likely refers to other siblings as Hermann Berger left at the end of 1937. No other brothers are known to have attended the Hachshara in 1938.