On August 21, 1944, Elisabeth Wust began a diary. She was never to be without it, always finding new hiding places for it, sometimes under the bathtub, or in the linen closet, or behind a loose brick in the cellar.
Lilly’s diary, August 21, 1944:
Today it happened, the horrible thing I had blocked even the slightest thought of: They took my beloved away from me.
Dear God, protect the girl I love above all else. Give her back to me safe and sound. I screamed and cried, and the children with me, all except Albrecht. He just stood there and smiled, the chubby thing. He doesn’t understand. I came to my senses for the children’s sake. I didn’t look out the window, I simply didn’t have the strength to, and I didn’t want you to see my tears. Lola was so sweet. She saw you wave as they put you in that heavily guarded car and took you away. She was comforting, but what good is comfort.
I picked up Christine from the station that evening. She cried a lot. I think she loves you a little. And who wouldn’t love you? Before that, when I went to the cellar with Lola to get some clothes from the suitcase for the children, a light flashed on at the Rauches’ when we shut the cellar door. He probably wanted to spy on me to see what I was taking from the cellar in secret. Maybe he had been instructed by the Gestapo, or maybe it’s just his own zealotry. My God, six fearless men to trap one single girl. Six men! And Rauche, full of his own self-importance. I will never forget the vile thing he did. Never.
When Christine Friedrichs heard the unhappy news she called Inge in Lübben. Inge immediately removed from her room all her forbidden books. When Felice was picked up she was carrying a postal ID made out to Inge Wolf, which Inge had had made for her some time earlier.
And then Inge had a thought. A woman who was apprenticing at Collignon’s, and with whom she got along well, had a father who was a Nazi big shot at the Reich Security Main Office. Perhaps he could tell them where Felice had been taken.
On Tuesday morning Frau Blei, the editorial secretary at the National-Zeitung, called and asked to speak to Frau Wust, the name under which Felice was working at the newspaper. A short time later Inge and Lilly marched into the gloomy building on Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse that housed Gestapo headquarters. As her summer things were in the wash, Lilly wore her house dirndl with the bright trim at the neck, hem and on the puffy sleeves, and little white socks, which she discovered a hole in at the last minute. With their hearts pounding, Inge and Lilly asked to speak to Herr Doktor Emil Berndorff, SS-Sturmbannführer, senior government officer, and detective superintendent of the Section IV Office for Investigating and Combating the Enemy, and in charge of protective custody cases. They mentioned the name of his daughter Ilse. Too intimidated to utter so much as a word to one another, they sat rigidly on a bench until the detective superintendent, in a not unfriendly fashion, bade them to come in.
“I have heard that Schragenheim was using an identification with my name on it,” Inge said. “I have no idea how it came into her possession, I just wanted to tell you.”
“My dear woman, she could have been one of those from the twentieth of July [attempt to assassinate Hitler]!”
“But Herr Detective Superintendent, she’s only a young woman.”
“Yes, well, one cannot be too careful.”
Lilly:
As we went in, I remembered that they had almost beaten my brother to death in the basement of that same building. We waited for a long time, and Inge sat on the bench, intimidated. Then I’d had enough of that, and I went up to this burly guy in the reception area and let him have it: “How much longer do we have to wait?” I didn’t care about anything, they could have locked me up for that. I really surprised him. “You must wait a bit longer. Hopefully he’ll be here soon.” Inge was terribly afraid, but I had no fear at all, and was as cocky as could be. But it was the same later: If you were spirited enough and didn’t put up with anything, they didn’t know what to do with you. It isn’t that I am a courageous person. So then I let Berndorff have it too: “Unbelievable, you can’t just misplace someone like that. I want to know where she is.” He threw us out fairly quickly, but before he did he said to me, “What are you thinking of, young lady? I can’t tell you that. We pull the strings for the entire Reich.” The cur knew exactly where Felice was!
That evening the telephone rang. Lola picked up the receiver and a male voice said, “Schulstrasse,” and hung up.
“My God!” Lilly whispered, “that’s the Jewish Hospital. That’s where the transports to the East leave from!”
The next morning—Frau Blei from the National-Zeitung had called once again—Lilly took the S-Bahn to the Gesundbrunnen station. Loaded down with fruit and the tomatoes that Felice loved so, she hurried along the long wall of the Jewish Hospital to the side entrance at Schulstrasse 78, where the Pathology Building, separated from the other buildings by barbed wire, was being used as a collection camp for Jews. Through a large iron archway a smaller door led to the two-story gatekeeper’s lodge to the right, where the administration was housed, and to Pathology to the left, where the prisoners were kept. The guardroom for the police was located on the ground floor. Lilly identified herself and asked for permission to visit Felice Schragenheim.
Three steps led to a door which opened into a large room. Four or five people sat to the back of the room at the right. Busy with correspondence, they nevertheless kept a close eye on everything that was going on in the room. Behind them, several more steps led to the prisoners’ quarters. It was from there that Felice was summoned, a yellow star on her chest.
What a difference from the smiling Felice of two days before!
“Good heavens, who was it that blabbed?” Lilly whispered.
“Potty Peyser.”
Charlotte Peyser, a friend of Felice from school, had been picked up with her girlfriend by the Gestapo in Vienna and brought to Berlin, where she and Felice ran into each other again in the collection camp on Schulstrasse.
Backes, one of the Jewish police (Ordner) at Schulstrasse, who had pulled Felice out from behind the couch two days before and dragged her back to Lilly’s, walked into the room at that point. He had nothing better to do than to report Lilly’s presence to the head of the camp, who immediately summoned both women for questioning. Walter Dobberke, the bullnecked SS-Hauptscharführer, with his short military haircut and poker face, was concerned above all with the bicycles. Detective Secretary Herbert Titze, the commander of the team of six men who arrested Felice, had reported that the two women returned home on bicycles. Jews were not permitted to own bicycles: Whom did they belong to? Dobberke and Titze wanted to know.
“To me, who else?” Lilly answered curtly.
Dobberke, addressed as “Kommissar” at the camp, treated Lilly with utmost politeness. It was well known that the man was cantankerous, kept a whip ready at hand in an office cabinet and had a weakness for pretty women.
Right after Felice was brought to Schulstrasse, she was forced to sign a declaration of property. According to it, her property included an inheritance in the amount of twenty thousand Reichsmarks, and diverse furniture, linens, and items of women’s clothing. At her new “address” at Schulstrasse 78, Felice received a communication from the Gestapo, dated May 1, 1944, informing her that all of her property had been “conscripted for the benefit of the German Reich.”
Lilly’s diary, August 23, 1944:
I was a mountain of courage. Even when that disgusting Backes saw me standing there, and of course had to report it to the camp commander, Dobberke, right away, that vulgar man. This Dobberke, and Titze as well, treated me in an odd way. Dobberke was almost kind. They harassed us, it’s true, but precisely because of that we got to see each other much longer than we had expected. No one can take that from us, no one. From now on I’ll go there every day, and you’ll have many, many tomatoes, among other things.
Lilly sent off telegrams that said, “Felice seriously ill,” to London, New York and Geneva, as well as to Luise Selbach.
Each day Lilly hurried to Schulstrasse with the best food she could find in Berlin at the end of the fifth year of war. One of the younger policemen—pacified by the French cigarettes Inge had bought from French laborers where she worked in Lübben—even began a flirtation with Lilly. Lilly went along willingly, enveloping him in her charm, for he could open the door to Felice for her. After he went so far as to show her his work schedule, Lilly always appeared when he was on duty, and promised him a photo of herself.
Lilly discussed with Elenai how they could get money to Felice. With money she could buy a lot of things, maybe even her life.
Elenai’s situation was also becoming increasingly precarious. When she could no longer come up with an excuse for Felice’s absence from work at the National-Zeitung, she too stopped going to work. She went underground, and went to Lübben to stay with Inge Wolf. And it was high time, for her Aryan stepfather, under whose protection she had been living, had died early that summer. And Elenai had been denounced by someone in her hometown of Erfurt, where a Gauleiter named Fritz Sauckel was wreaking havoc, and this resulted in her being summoned by the Gestapo.
“Leave. Now,” was the advice the Gestapo gave her.
Felice at first was locked up in the “bunker,” with mostly young people, all of whom were suspected of trying to escape. Twice a day prisoners were taken to the bathroom and to a small courtyard where they were able to walk around. There were eight to a cell, and they all shared one table, a few stools, and slept on the floor. Felice later was taken to one of the hospital’s larger rooms, where the prisoners—“U-boats” for the most part—could walk about the empty rooms freely. As always, Felice won everyone’s heart, particularly that of Ludwig Neustadt, an Ordner (Jewish police). It was he who had called Lilly on the twenty-second of August to tell her where Felice was being held. Soon after Felice’s imprisonment, the small, unassuming blond—he didn’t wear the Jewish star—arrived at Friedrichshaller Strasse to pick up clothes for Felice. Lilly packed Felice’s favorite gray pants, her rust-red checkered jacket, the white sweater, a pair of shoes and, most essential, underwear and socks. As Neustadt and Lilly were sitting at the kitchen table talking about Felice, the air raid alarm went off and they rushed to the cellar.
“Every day there’s something new with her!” one of the women living in the building remarked caustically. Ever since the Gestapo turned out in force on their street, most of the building’s residents avoided Lilly. Even “Aunt” Grasenick, widowed in World War I, who often celebrated the children’s birthdays with them and loved Albrecht as if he were her own grandchild, looked the other way when they met on the stairs. Lilly had run down to her apartment in a panic after Felice was taken away. “Is being Jewish a person’s own fault?” she’d sobbed. Even then she had noticed that Frau Grasenick had moved away from her.
Lilly’s diary, August 26, 1944:
You shall read this diary when you are no longer the “Jewess Schragenheim,” but a person among other persons. Dear God, let us live together or die. Do not allow for only one of us to survive. I will never get over not seeing my Felice again. Never in a lifetime.
On Sunday Lilly took Albrecht, Reinhard and Eberhard with her to Schulstrasse. This time they waited for Felice in the guardroom. Even the policemen enjoyed having the children there. They were wearing their knitted summer shorts, their brown legs ending in worn-out sandals. One of them eyed Eberhard curiously. “Who is this child’s father?” he demanded to know.
Albrecht had gotten his first “man’s” haircut for the occasion. “Hice! Hice!” he called as Felice was led in, rushing over to throw his chubby arms around her. Jaguar picked up Albrecht with tears streaming down her face.
“You have a star pocket,” he said, playing dreamily with the yellow patch at Felice’s breast.
Lilly had instructed the children not to tell anyone about their visit. Without comprehending why, they nevertheless knew quite well that this time their mother was serious.
On Monday Lilly was discovered by Titze. “Get out!” he roared, forbidding her to come back for a whole week. But Lilly marched straight to the Gestapo office on Französische Strasse and requested an official visitor’s pass, which she obtained. She was back in the guardroom again by Tuesday. Without a word, Lilly’s favorite guard brought Felice into the large room.
Suddenly a very attractive, slender young woman with reddish blond hair and cold blue eyes walked through the room, talking and laughing shrilly with the policemen, only to dance out again, with her long legs and high heels.
“That’s her,” Felice whispered, almost in awe. It was the Jewish “catcher,” Stella, into whose hands Felice had almost fallen when she went to meet Gerd Ehrlich on Savignyplatz.
On Wednesday there was more trouble in store for Lilly at the Schulstrasse camp, this time from the boss himself.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Dobberke bellowed at Lilly, barely able to contain himself. “Unbelievable! I forbid you to come here. Don’t show your face at this camp again, or I’ll lock you up. Now get out of here!”
Outside the front gate stood a Jewish gatekeeper.
“What could they do to me?” Lilly asked him.
“Oh, it wouldn’t be so bad, a bit of concentration camp.”
That evening Ludwig Neustadt called to tell Lilly that it soon would be decided where Felice was to be taken. Lilly should not appear at Schulstrasse again, he said. He would keep her informed.
Lilly sent Lola and Nora, a friend of Felice, to see her. The policeman in the guardroom promised to deliver their packages to her. Felice didn’t want to see Inge Wolf; the two of them must have had a major altercation.
In the midst of Lilly’s fear for Felice, she received a further bad sign. The letters and a package of cookies that Lilly had sent to the front came back marked “recipient unknown.” Günther Wust’s last letter was dated August 18.
Lilly’s diary, September 2, 1944:
Our day, my beloved. If only I could see you. Ludwig called right on time, and I will see him this afternoon. I don’t know if you’re really receiving all of the things I sent. I went with Lola to Schulstrasse. Today of all days, you should not be without something nice from me. I stood on the corner very secretively because I was afraid someone from the camp would see me. Lola said she even got to speak to you. Oh, my beloved, I cried all the way back to Schmargendorf. It is so unspeakably difficult to be reasonable. Did you bite the apple I had bitten? Did it taste good? Did you think of the first day we met, and how, at the end of it, you gave me an apple, and how I, freezing, held it so tightly at the streetcar stop at the Ufa-Palast? I was and I remain Eve. If only I could lie safely in your arms. Tomorrow you will have been gone two weeks already. Two eternally long weeks. Who knows how many weeks will follow.
September 4 was Lilly’s father’s birthday, and the two of them quarreled. Lilly should stop worrying about Jews, he thundered, and endangering herself and others in the process. “They made a remark to Lola that I cannot forgive them for,” Lilly wrote in her diary. “I wholly and confidently belong to you and your life. I am finished with everything that lies behind me. You are my future. And note this well, Felice Schragenheim, even if you are no longer here, so shall it remain.”
On September 5 Lilly tried once again to reach Günther: “I got the feeling that all the letters I have written lately were for nothing,” she wrote to him. “I particularly regret this because of a truly endlessly detailed 19-page (that’s nineteen!) letter I wrote you.” Lilly again related how the children were doing, but did not mention Felice’s arrest.
On September 6 Ludwig Neustadt called to report happily that Felice was being transferred to Theresienstadt. That afternoon Lilly met with him at the Wedding district train station, where he gave her a letter from Felice:
My Dear Aimée,
I cannot write much here, only many thanks for your letter and for everything else. And be brave. I’ll write to you soon. Then you’ll send me some things, won’t you? As things went so well for me here—“It is impossible not to love me,” etc.—and as everyone, particularly “this one,” was so nice to me, it shall certainly continue to be so. Cross your fingers and say hello to everyone who is taking care of you. All my love to the children and to “Sweetie-Pie,” my kitten!
Auf Wiedersehen!!
Your Caged Jaguar
Felice and Lilly saw each other for the last time on September 7, and Felice signed a declaration of property of a different sort:
I herewith authorize Frau Elisabeth Wust, of Friedrichshaller Strasse 23, Berlin-Schmargendorf, to request from Frau Luise Selbach at any time the delivery of my Persian lamb coat and muff, which she is holding, as well as my house and bed linens and my table silver, and to take them into safekeeping for me.
Felice Schragenheim
Collection Camp of the Jewish Community
Berlin, September 7, 1944
They were allowed a half-hour together, more time than ever before, but it was in the small guardroom, where even whispered conversation could be overheard. Lilly presented Felice with a lock of her red hair, and Felice, touched by the gesture, wrapped it around her comb. Felice returned Lilly’s gloves, which she had gotten from her the day before. There was a little note stuck in one of them, and a round orange box with two pills:
My Adorable Pussycat,
Be good and brave and think of me! The nurse I recently introduced you to gave me these Pervitin pills. She is so nice to me, as is everyone else. And that shall remain so in Th[eresienstadt]! Cross your fingers for me. I love you so much, and will be back soon!!
My Aimée
Your Jaguar
Lilly never figured out exactly why it was a stimulant that Nurse Tatjana gave her, when at that point it was a sedative she needed.
When Lilly got to the corner she suddenly turned around and ran back to the camp. The policeman in the guardroom raised his head in surprise.
“Go back and get Felice Schragenheim again, I beg of you,” she said breathlessly. He stood up without a word and returned with Felice.
“Felice,” Lilly whispered, “is it true that you love Christine?”
“Who planted that idea in your head?”
“Christine. She told me.”
“Ach, Sweetie-Pie, you needn’t believe everything that’s floating around in the air.”
“Felice, I’ll kill myself, I’ll throw myself out the window if it’s true!”
“Sweetheart, you must believe me. It is very important for you to believe me: I love only you.”
“Ladies, we have to put an end to this at some point,” the policeman warned, and Lilly was pushed gently out the door.
Early in the morning of September 8, 1944, the Jewess Felice Sara Schragenheim, transport number 14890-I/116, was taken to Theresienstadt, “ghetto for the aged,” 350 kilometers from Berlin. It was the next to the last transport to leave Berlin for that destination. The trip on the slowly moving train lasted until late that evening.
Lilly’s diary, September 10, 1944:
Thursday, the seventh of September, arrived. Oh, Felice, my heart wants to stop with the pain. You were so calm and cheerful, my darling. It was certainly for my sake. My God, I felt like my heart was being torn out of my body, and had to smile instead—smile and stroke your hands in secret. I made my way to the streetcar trembling, almost staggering.
I had a terrible experience the day before. Waiting at the stop for the number 41 streetcar, I saw a procession coming toward me. A procession of women prisoners was coming along Osloer Strasse. They were from a branch of the Oranienburg prison and were dressed in striped clothing, with shaved heads, and barefoot. Felice, I wanted to scream, I wanted to rush into their midst. But I didn’t move, I couldn’t utter a sound. It was as if I had turned to stone. It was like a vision. Tears streamed from my eyes. Dear God, help, don’t let my girl go through something so inhuman. Dear God, help. It was so horrible, because this miserable gray procession marched by not five hundred steps away from you. How am I to bear this? But God saw to it that you were taken to Theresienstadt.
Ludwig called on Sunday evening. We want to meet on Tuesday. I’m truly looking forward to it. He can’t tell me enough about you. We both have already sent several packages to Theresienstadt. You see how much you are loved. No wonder you’re such a vain rascal. Everyone loves you. But I insist that you love only me, do you hear? I’m going to bed soon. Are you already asleep? How are you doing? If only you will be as fortunate as you were here. I miss you so terribly, and have cried so much I look awful. I’m so worried. Do you think of me? I’ll find a star in the sky that maybe you can see, too, and it will bind our two souls together. I will pray and pray and pray. Tomorrow we’ll finally receive clothing ration cards again, and I’ll go right away to buy the children winter coats. And then I have something else planned. Perhaps I will succeed in it. Good night, my girl. I want to kiss you.
On September 12 Ludwig Neustadt handed Lilly a long letter from Jaguar:
September 7, 1944
My Dear Aimée,
When I came here fourteen days ago I never would have believed you would make a scene on my behalf, despite the police and the barred windows. It was wonderful, it was totally you! By the way, you were wrong. And I, by the way, could see you much longer than you saw me, for I stood at the window by the toilet, but you couldn’t know that and didn’t turn around.
I can’t give you an account of the last seventeen days. It would be longer than one of Berns’s lead articles. My roommates are “at work” until three, but despite my ability to turn a deaf ear to any kind of interruption—I seem to be the only person in this madhouse who truly enjoys reading—I can’t concentrate today. Also, I’m without—among other things—my typewriter.
If things continue as they have up until now, none of you need worry about me. So wish me luck. Everyone has been so wonderful to me that I simply have to believe in my own irresistibility. Too bad it’s not possible for me to meet myself. It must be a pleasure. No, seriously, if I’m not eaten up by bugs or killed in some similarly tragic manner, you’ll be ironing my pants again soon! Anyway, when I was still living in the “bunker” under lock and key, I shared a room with a woman who finally sewed up my pants as you had planned to do four weeks ago. This woman is so bored that she’s always pleading with everyone to give her their sewing. So she’s busy with my pink underthings and my socks.
You needn’t be afraid that I’ve fallen into bad company: in addition to the unsurpassable Ludwig, high society, in the form of the (almost aristocratic) nurse-lady you met briefly and the officer-chemist (even more aristocratic and a truly fantastic fellow) she is pursuing, has embraced me. In this way I can often get away from “Jewish suffering” (nauseating!) during the day. And I have nerves of steel. I particularly noticed that yesterday, when the transport left for the East. And I can sleep. In our room there is a woman who snores like a—well, there is no comparison actually. Others snore along in harmony. And I sleep. I was asleep ten minutes after we arrived at this building, that was my reaction. And if I wasn’t asleep I was beaming at everyone. There is scarcely any sign of sympathy here. People are either totally occupied with themselves or are numb. At most, one can be liked, and that is best earned with “keep smiling.”
At any rate, everyone envies me my good friends, who are taking such good care of me from the outside. Which is no more than I deserve, right? After having not been able to eat anything for the first two days after I arrived here, I now have an enormous appetite. Tonight I have been invited to “Herr Ordner’s” for supper. Unfortunately I can’t dress for the occasion. He will forgive me. As I assume that he is a tactful young man and won’t read this letter, I can go ahead and write what you already know, that he is simply fantastic, sweet and nice and caring and—successful, as this letter attests.
I was just interrupted: The “boss” himself just came into the room to tell a woman that she has been reclaimed by her employer and can remain in Berlin. He managed to overlook three burning cigarettes and two missing stars. The sun of his mercy reached its zenith.
My hands are stained with ink, I have a cramp in my arm and in addition it’s time to “be served” coffee and bread with marmalade. The coffee tastes like bicarbonate of soda, so we brew our own and eat cookies with it in the physician’s room, and talk about things that happened seventeen days ago—and, in this case, that’s a great deal.
So, everyone stay healthy. I’ll write as soon as possible. Greetings to those who filled our apartment and bothered us to a greater or lesser degree: our good friends.
Kiss the children and keep your chin up, all right?
Auf Wiedersehen
Felice
P.S. “Potty” was sent East yesterday, but her bride remained behind weeping, and with a case of tuberculosis to boot. Nevertheless I’m sorry for her. She’s going to Th–[Theresienstadt] on my transport. The dogcatcher is also gone. Other than that there is hardly a Berliner here—whether Ordner, official, or “inmate”—in whose mouth my parents hadn’t poked around.