This project enables young people aged 15 and up to examine the biography of a contemporary witness to the Nazi period. At the conclusion of the three-month project, young people interview contemporary witnesses at a public event for a young audience.
The following events have taken place to date:

Interview with Eugen Herman-Friede
November 18, 2009,
6 p.m.
Location: German Resistance Memorial Center, Hall A

Eugen Herman-Friede, born 1926, grew up in Berlin-Kreuzberg. He was forced to attend the Jewish Middle School until it was closed. In January 1943 he went underground to avoid being deported. At first, acquaintances and other people willing to help provided places for him to hide. In the summer of 1943 contacts took him to Luckenwalde, where he experienced the founding of the resistance group “Community for Peace and Reconstruction” and was active in the group, distributing flyers against the Nazi regime. Eugen Herman-Friede was arrested in December 1944. He survived the National Socialist dictatorship in various prisons until his liberation in April 1945.

Interview with Gisela Jacobius
December 11, 2007,
6 p.m.
Location: Anne Frank Zentrum, Multi-Purpose Room

Gisela Jacobius was born in Berlin in 1923. Following several failed attempts to escape the country, her family decided to go underground in January 1943. Gisela Jacobius spent the time up to May 1945 alone in various different hiding places. She experienced the final days of the war along with her parents in the basement of the Swedish Church in Berlin. They had been given provisional Swedish passports by the church and could no longer envisage living in Germany, so they took the opportunity to emigrate to Sweden. However, they were mistakenly taken to a camp in Krasnogorsk, not far from Moscow. They were not allowed to leave for Berlin until August 1946. From 1949 to 1953, Gisela Jacobius lived in Akko/Israel. She now lives in Berlin again. She published her story in the book “Eine Jüdin in Berlin”.

Interview with Werner Bab
December 7, 2005
Location: Heinrich Böll Foundation, Gallery

Werner Bab was born in Oberhausen in 1924. He lived in Berlin from 1929 on. His attempt to escape to Switzerland in 1942 failed. He was arrested and transferred to Auschwitz extermination camp after several months in so-called protective custody. Werner Bab experienced the liberation in Mauthausen concentration camp, where he was taken after the death march from Auschwitz. Werner Bab lived in the USA for ten years and now lives in Berlin with his wife. Christian Ender’s documentary “Zeitabschnitte des Werner Bab” tells the story of his life.

Interview with Werner Foß
June 18, 2005
Location: Anne Frank Center

Werner Foß, born in Berlin, managed to hide in a small apartment belonging to Helene von Schell, who was a friend of his father’s. He, his parents, and his two brothers lived there for two years from November 1942. The whole of the family survived. Werner Foß emigrated to Palestine in 1948, before the foundation of the state of Israel, and returned to Berlin in 1955. Helene von Schell was honored by the Israeli national memorial Yad Vashem as “Righteous among the Nations” in the year 2000.

Interview with Vera Mitteldorf
March 22, 2005
Location: Museum Otto Weidt’s Workshop for the Blind

Vera Mitteldorf was born in Berlin in 1927. In 1943 she, her parents, and her younger sister were deported first to Theresienstadt and later to Auschwitz and Freiberg, a sub-camp of the Flossenbürg concentration camp. Shortly before the end of the war all the inmates were transported to Mauthausen concentration camp in cattle trucks. This was where Vera Mitteldorf was liberated. The rest of her family was murdered in Auschwitz. Vera Mitteldorf died in 2007.

Interview with Steve Adler
December 8, 2004
Location: Anne Frank Center

Steve Adler was born in Berlin in 1930. In 1939 he escaped to England with a kindertransport. His parents and his younger brother also found their way to England, and the family emigrated to the USA on a cargo ship in 1941. Steve Adler and his wife Judy now live in Seattle.

Interview with Margot Friedlander
June 8, 2004
Location: Anne Frank Center

Margot Friedlander was born in Berlin in 1921. One day she came home from her forced labor job to find out that her brother and mother had been arrested. She decided to go underground immediately. Up to June 16, 1944 she managed to hide in various places in Berlin, before being discovered by the police and deported to Theresienstadt concentration camp. After her liberation Margot Friedlander emigrated to the USA. She now lives in New York. Her mother and brother were murdered. Thomas Halaczinsky’s documentary “Don’t call it Heimweh” tells her story.

Interview with Gisela Mießner and Hans-Oskar Baron Löwenstein de Witt
April 1, 2004
Location: Anne Frank Center

Gisela Mießner was born in Schivelbein in 1925. Her Jewish father, Joseph Mannheim, owned a grain business there, which was “aryanized” in 1937. As the situation deteriorated after the November pogrom, her father made a failed attempt to escape to Denmark. The family then moved to Berlin. During what became known as “Operation Factory”, her father was arrested and taken to the assembly camp at Rosenstraße. Along with other non-Jewish relatives, Gisela Mannheim and her mother successfully protested there for her father’s release. Gisela Mießner died in 2006.

Hans-Oskar Baron Löwenstein de Witt was born in Stralsund in 1926. His family moved to Berlin in 1936. As his father was Jewish, Hans-Oskar Baron Löwenstein de Witt was forced to leave his school in 1938. He then attended the Joseph Lehmann School run by the Jewish reform community, officially converting to Judaism. The National Socialists considered him Jewish. The Gestapo repeatedly called his aristocratic, Protestant mother in for interrogations, where they demanded that she leave her Jewish husband. On the day of “Operation Factory” he and his father were arrested in Rosenstraße. Hans-Oskar Baron Löwenstein de Witt died in 2004.

The stories of Gisela Mießner and Hans-Oskar Löwenstein de Witt formed the basis of Margarete von Trotta’s film “Rosenstraße”.

Interview with Gisela Jacobius and Horst Prentki
March 11, 2004
Location: Jewish Museum Berlin

Gisela Jacobius and Horst Prentki met in the Jewish Cultural Association. Up to his emigration to Montevideo, Horst Prentki was a clarinetist in the Kulturbund orchestra.

Interview with Gisela Jacobius
December 12, 2003
Location: Anne Frank Center

Gisela Jacobius was born in Berlin in 1923. Following several failed attempts to escape the country, her family decided to go underground in January 1943. Gisela Jacobius spent the time up to May 1945 alone in various different hiding places. She experienced the final days of the war along with her parents in the basement of the Swedish Church in Berlin. They had been given provisional Swedish passports by the church and could no longer envisage living in Germany, so they took the opportunity to emigrate to Sweden. However, they were mistakenly taken to a camp in Krasnogorsk, not far from Moscow. They were not allowed to leave for Berlin until August 1946. From 1949 to 1953, Gisela Jacobius lived in Akko/Israel. She now lives in Berlin again. She published her story in the book “Eine Jüdin in Berlin”.

Interview with Waltraud Mehling
July 1, 2003
Location: Museum Otto Weidt’s Workshop for the Blind

Waltraud Mehling was born in Berlin in 1929. Her parents were members of the Confessional Church at the Parochial Church in Berlin. In 1930 the family moved into the Altes Stadthaus, a city administration building where her father was employed as an electrician and metalworker. Together with his wife and with the aid of other members of the Confessional Church, he hid Jews in the basement until they found a way for them to leave the country. Waltraud Mehling was actively involved in this aid as a child.

Interview with Günther Fabian
April 8, 2003
Location: Anne Frank Center

Günther Fabian was born in Berlin in 1920. He went underground on the day of “Operation Factory” on February 27, 1943 and so evaded deportation. He and a friend initially hid in a cardboard box factory on Schönhauser Allee. When it got too dangerous there he found a new hiding place with the family of his future wife Inge Kolbe in Berlin-Weißensee. Günther Fabian was one of the founders of the Society of People Persecuted by the Nazi Regime. Günther and Inge Fabian died in 2005.