4 ‘Hearing the news, Rolf now wrote …’ According to Vivien Lewis, Elsie’s daughter, Rolf visited London before the war. He took Elsie to the Café Royal on Regent Street, and asked her to leave Erich. ‘I have decided that I love you,’ he said. ‘Come and live with me in South Africa.’ Elsie declined.
5 ‘The next day, driving a black Austin 7 …’ In an interview given at her home in London in 1993, Elsie told me that this was their first car, that it had been given as a wedding present, and that they called it ‘Charlie’. Later they transported the car to London, but when the war started, because they were enemy aliens, they were forced to sell it. ‘We made four pounds sterling,’ she said, ‘and then we had a very good dinner on it.’
6 ‘before Henny could leave Germany she would have to pay the Reichsfluchsteuer …’ The Reich flight tax was introduced during the Great Depression in 1931, before the Nazis seized power, to prevent capital flight. However, the Nazi government used the flight tax to force all emigrating Jews to part with the bulk of their wealth. The Nazis put in place a further hefty fee for transferring assets abroad (the Dego-Abgabe levy), which increased over time. The Reich flight tax, the Dego-Abgabe and other measures by the Nazis meant that emigrating Jews often lost more than 90 or even 95 per cent of their savings in the late 1930s.
7 ‘in the old Prussian military grounds on Döberitzer Heath …’ The Olympic Village is still preserved, including the room in which Jesse Owens slept, the enormous swimming pool, the running track and the food hall, and can be visited.
8 ‘She carried her black Erika typewriter …’ This typewriter is now in the possession of Elsie’s grandson, James Harding, the head of BBC News.
9 ‘But his wife had made the decision …’ Later, Elsie would say that if she hadn’t made the unilateral decision to leave Germany, her husband would have died in Auschwitz.
10 ‘They were now refugees …’ Now in London, the family attempted to assimilate to the new culture. Despite his international renown, Alfred had to retake his medical exams, forcing him to temporarily relocate to Edinburgh, where he took up studies. With her husband away, Henny attempted to rebuild a social life within the immigrant community, and Hanns and Paul started apprenticeships in London. Meanwhile, Bella, who had left Berlin four years earlier than the other family members, happily busied herself as an English housewife. Of all the children, Elsie found it hardest to adapt to the new country. Living in a small, frigid flat in central London, she missed the efficient heating system of their apartment in Berlin. Here, every few minutes the gas fire stopped and would not restart until she had fed the meter with coins. She found the English to be cold and lacking passion. To make matters worse, she could not acclimatise to the damp and dreary weather, and thought the food unappetising. Harder still, despite her efforts to speak the language, she retained a thick Berlin accent and was consequently shunned by the local population who distrusted foreigners, particularly Germans. Her longing for home, especially for the peace and quiet of Groß Glienicke, was only tempered by her former country’s increasing belligerence. Elsie worried that her adopted country and that of birth might soon be at war. On 20 September 1937, Elsie gave birth to Frank Alexander Hirschowitz, my father. Later, his last name was changed to Harding. Then, on 19 July 1940, Erich was arrested and interned under Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s policy of rounding up all potential ‘enemy aliens’. Convinced that the safest solution was to send Frank overseas with his nanny, Elsie wrote to Erich suggesting that she purchase boat tickets for the USA. At first Erich resisted, but in the end bowed to his wife. In a letter of 26 July 1940 he wrote, ‘Give endless kisses to Frank, let’s pray he gets to the USA all right and let’s hope with God’s help we will see him again in our home.’ A week later, on 4 August, Elsie replied, updating him on the travel arrangements: ‘I do hope we have done the right thing. It breaks my heart, but I still think it is for the best.’ Torn between protecting her son and keeping him close, Elsie did not know what to do. Her son’s reluctance did not help. When she started packing, Frank told her, ‘I don’t want to go on the boat, Mami.’ It was ‘heartbreaking’, she wrote to Erich. Then the boat was delayed, and finally, after ‘spending the day crying’, she returned the tickets to Cunard and was refunded her money, having told them that she ‘could not go through with it’. Once it had been agreed that Frank would not be sent to the USA, Elsie wanted to take him to Erich, so that he could see that his son had remained. It was difficult to gain a permit to visit the internment camps, so Elsie asked her doctor to teach her how to faint convincingly. Once she felt she had mastered the technique, she visited the Home Office and, having demonstrated her frail state, secured the necessary paperwork to visit her husband. After a long train journey, a bus ride and an arduous walk, she and Frank found themselves outside the camp in Prees Heath near Crewe. Soon after, Erich appeared, and through tears and uttering thanks, he was able to touch his son’s little fingers through the barbed wire.
Chapter 9
1 ‘Five foot eight and of medium build …’ Details about Will Meisel are included in the Fragebogen he filled out in 1945, and are available at the Landesarchiv Berlin.
2 ‘The sub-lease was for three years …’ A copy of this lease along with the inventory and other legal documents related to Alfred Alexander and the house are available at the Landesarchiv in Potsdam (Files: Rep 36A/G52, Rep 36A/nr 430, and 2aIII/F18613).
3 ‘August Wilhelm Meisel was born …’ A number of files on Will and Eliza Meisel exist at the Bundesarchiv Berlin (Files: R55/20207, R/9361/V Signature 81419, R/9361/V Signature 147724, R/9361/V Signature 110383, R/9361/V Signature 128869).
4 ‘Shortly afterwards, one of Will’s composer friends …’ This conversation was retold in the Edition Meisel publication 100 Years of Will Meisel.
5 ‘Several were huge hits … Otto Wallburg …’ Otto Wallburg (also known as Otto Wasserzug) was one of the most famous actors in Germany’s silent and early sound film era. In 1933, he fled Germany for Austria. According to the Yad Vashem Victim Database, in 1940 he was picked up in the Netherlands, deported to Westerbork transit camp and later deported to Theresienstadt on 31 July 1944, and then on to Auschwitz on 29 October 1944, where he was murdered at the age of fifty-five.
6 ‘given that over 80 per cent of his composers were Jewish …’ What happened to Meisel’s Jewish musicians? Willy Rosen escaped to Netherlands, was then deported and murdered in Auschwitz on 29 September 1944. Kurt Schwabach fled to Palestine. Jean Aberbach emigrated to the USA and started his own publishing company, Hill and Range, recording songs by artists including Elvis Presley. Harry Hilm fled to the Netherlands, hid during the war and continued writing after its conclusion. Later, Hilm sued Meisel for unpaid royalties. The files on this suit are at the Landesarchiv Berlin (File: C Rep 120/899). In a telephone interview, Charlie Hilm – Harry Hilm’s son – told me that his father left Germany without help from anyone, ‘everyone was on their own’. Friedrich Schwarz fled to France where he penned the song ‘I Have No Homeland’ with the subtitle ‘Jewish tango’. Hans Lengsfelder moved to the USA in 1932, adopting the pseudonym Harry Lenk. Harry Waldau was deported on 2 March 1943 from Berlin on Transport 32 and murdered in Auschwitz later that month. Hans May fled his native Austria, ending up in England, composing over a hundred film scores. Robert Gilbert fled first to Austria, then France, finally to the USA, returning to Germany after the war as a musical translator.
7 ‘Will later said of this loss of Jewish talent …’ In an interview in the Telegraf, on 8 August 1965, with Rudolf Brendemüth, Will Meisel remembered the Jewish musicians who used to work for his company in the 1930s and said: ‘My love still belongs to the stage and music, but we don’t have any librettists any more, the cupboard is bare because of the fate of the Jews.’ In his article on Will Meisel, the musicologist Raymond Wolff criticises the composer for the use of the word ‘Schicksal’ – fate – as being too neutral, as if it were an accident.
8 ‘By the end of the day …’ Other well-known people joined the party on 1 May 1933, including the philosophers Martin Heidegger, Arnold Gehlen and Erich Rothacker. According to Raymond Wolff – a musicologist who wrote a chapter called ‘Will Meisel: Das Allaroundtalent’ in a book about musicians from Neukölln, Berlin – Meisel’s joining the party in May 1933 was ‘not atypical for a music composer, but he was not a political person, he never wrote a political song’. Will Meisel joined the party, Wolff added, because he ‘felt insecure’.
9 ‘Within a few weeks …’ At this time there was a general drop in the production of popular music. According to figures gathered by Sophie Fetthauer (and interpreted for me by music historian Michael Haas) from contemporary trade magazines, the following are the number of registered new releases for popular music, dance music, tango, jazz, etc: 1928 (1,503), 1929 (2,011), 1930 (1,563), 1931 (1,159), 1932 (1,023), 1933 (1,031), 1934 (888), 1935 (1,070) and 1936 (1,182). From this it appears that there was a drastic reduction following the takeover of the Nazis, followed by a recovery as new, presumably party-approved works were made available.
10 ‘There he saw a dark-haired young woman …’ This comes from an untitled interview with Will and Eliza Meisel in 1965, held by the Deutsche Kinemathek – Museum für Film und Fernsehen in Berlin, which holds a thick file of articles on Will and Eliza Meisel. Later in this same article, Eliza said about this first meeting: ‘We got lucky and then we got lucky.’
11 ‘On 3 July 1934, they bumped into …’ It is possible to view at least two of the films of Eliza Illiard at the Deutsche Kinemathek, along with photographs of both Eliza and Will Meisel.
12 ‘a certain Herr Mertens …’ Eliza Illiard was the stage name of Elisabeth Pieper. On 18 September 1934 the political leader of the Nazi Party’s Theatre and Film Department wrote a letter to the president of the film guild to which Illiard belonged: ‘I do not want to miss the opportunity to tell you that Miss Eliza Illiard Mertens is employed at the Metropol Theater, [where] the premiere of Lauf ins Glück will be performed on 24 September 1934. Miss Illiard was born in Czechoslovakia and was married to the Jewish man Mertens which we informed you about on 30 January of this year. I thought you would like to know.’ This letter can be found in the files at the Bundesarchiv Berlin (File: R/9361/V signature 110383). As a film and operetta star, Illiard was obliged to demonstrate the purity of her genes. A letter on 21 September 1934 from her film guild to the Nazi Party confirmed that she had done so since ‘She brought her proof of Aryan ancestry. From her papers you can see that she was born Pieper from Cologne, her parents are both born German.’
13 ‘On 12 March 1935 …’ According to the Landesarchiv Berlin index on registrations: ‘Elisabeth Mertens was born 25.03.1906 in Cologne. She was married. She came to Berlin on 02.08.1934 from Dresden and lived in Emserstrasse 37/38. On 01.11.1934 she moved to Kastanienallee 21 in Charlottenburg.’ The Landesarchiv Dresden could not find Elisabeth Pieper’s marriage certificate to Herr Mertens, but they did find her name mentioned in a book that shows she lived in Zeschaustrasse 4 in Dresden in 1933. However, Herr Mertens was never registered to that address. Despite considerable effort, I was unable to find the first name or the fate of Herr Mertens.
14 ‘Even more memorable than his narrow moustache …’ Much of the information for this section comes from the West German Broadcasting (WDR) archives. Hanns Hartmann’s father, Joseph Hartmann, was a locksmith. His mother, Elisabeth Kohlen, was a homemaker.
Chapter 10
1 ‘the three-page typed inventory …’ The items in each of the rooms were carefully registered; for example, in Elsie’s bedroom were: 2 beds, 1 chair, 2 small pink tables, 1 folding table with an inkstand, 1 cushioned bench and 1 mirror. The inventory is held by the Landesarchiv Potsdam (File: ‘Dr Alfred Alexander’ – Rep 36A/nr 430).
2 ‘Believing that the Alexanders … half its actual worth …’ Two years later, the Berlin tax office would value these same assets as worth 12,200 reichsmarks on the open market, according to a letter from the tax office in Moabit, Berlin.
3 ‘Walking across the road … Wolff-Eisner …’ Dr Alfred Wolff-Eisner was recognised internationally for his work on immunology, particularly the development of a diagnosis for tuberculosis, the Calmette Wolff-Eisner reaction. The research carried out on the Wolff-Eisner family was conducted by the Groß Glienicker Kreis as part of their survey of Jewish families who lived in the village before the war.
4 ‘The authorities and citizens of Groß Glienicke …’ Günther Wittich, who was born in 1927 and grew up in a house opposite the schloss, remembered the Wolff-Eisner house on Seepromenade being burned down during the Kristallnacht pogrom. This was his first experience of anti-Semitism. He recalled that the SA were present in village, with many people wearing uniforms. He also remembers Robert von Schultz in the Stahlhelm, playing with the Schultz children, walking around the schloss, and going out on the lake. In a separate interview with another member of the village, I was told that the names of those involved with the Wolff-Eisner arson are known, though this person would not reveal the information to me and asked to remain anonymous.
5 ‘sent on 22 March to the Berlin tax office …’ In a letter sent on 12 May 1939, from a Dr Lücker of the Wilmersdorf North tax office to the Moabit West tax office, it was written: ‘Alfred Israel Alexander, born 7.3.1880 in Bamberg, and his wife Henny Sara née Picard, born 11.12.1888 in Frankfurt am Main, last resident at 15 Achenbachstrasse, W 15, emigrated to London on 25 March 1937 [sic]. On 1.1.1937 their total assets amounted to 145,000 reichsmarks. 36,250 reichsmarks was paid as Reich flight tax. The assessment of the assets is based on an estimate … Alexander also owns a wooden house in Groß Glienicke located on a plot of land which does not belong to him. Assessed value 12,200 reichsmarks (Nauen Altenz. III / 26A).’ The file is held by Landesarchiv Potsdam (File: Rep 36A/nr 430).
6 ‘Quietly, almost without notice, the Gestapo had taken ownership …’ The Landesarchiv Potsdam has the Gestapo files for Dr Alfred John Alexander. In these files are a bundle of correspondence between the Gestapo and Dr Alexander’s former patients written after the Alexanders had left the country. Not content with collecting mere physical assets, the Gestapo had written to the former patients to collect any outstanding debts. Though such bills were as little as three hundred reichsmarks, the authorities were determined to pursue even the smallest claim. It must have been quite a shock to receive such a collection letter, for the patients would have realised that the Gestapo now knew that they had been treated by a Jewish doctor. It is interesting to see how the various patients responded. One promises to immediately make good on his debt. Another sends pages of documents detailing the purity of her Aryan lineage. While a third argues that the debt is not valid as the Jewish doctor had failed to cure him.
7 ‘There he met a bureaucrat recorded only as “J.A.” …’ This meeting was documented in an internal memo: ‘The cooperation of the landowner Wollank would be desirable, so that in the event that Mr Meisel were to fall behind with the rent in future, the Reich will not be deemed liable. Repeated letters to Wollank have, however, remained unanswered. Mr Meisel has now explained that Wollank has died. The estate is being managed by administrators. Moreover, the Groß Glienicke estate has been acquired by the Luftwaffe. As the lease agreement only runs until 31 March 1942, the risk for the Reich in selling is less than the sale value. In addition there is very little risk pertaining to Meisel (well-known composer).’
8 ‘seized the Glienicke property from the “Jew Alfred John Alexander”…’ The J.A. memo went on to say that the Alexanders’ property and rights seized by the Reich included, ‘among other things, the rights from the lease agreement of 30/3/27 between Alexander and the landowner Wollank in Groß Glienicke regarding plot number 3 on the vineyard of the Groß Glienicke estate. The Reich also owns the rights to the ownership of the buildings erected on this plot (house, summer house, garage, glasshouse with 2 hotbeds) in addition to diverse items of furn
iture (bedroom furniture, dining table, garden set, a small portable cooking stove, hall furniture, 2 more bedsteads, some used and partly broken outdoor furniture and other household goods).’
Chapter 11
1 ‘Early in the morning of 20 January …’ The discussions that took place that day are memorialised at the Wannsee Conference Museum, in southwest Berlin. In my opinion, this is the world’s most informative Holocaust exhibition, providing a comprehensive and compelling overview of the background, administration, and execution of the so-called Final Solution.
The House by the Lake Page 32