Book: My Wounded Heart - The Life of Lilli Jahn, 1900-1944 ~ edited by Martin Doerry

The Story of a Jewish Mother and Her Children in Hitler's Germany

Lilli Schluchterer and her sister Elsa were raised by their Jewish parents, Josef and Paula, in Cologne. Lilli eventually became a physician and married Ernst, also a physician but not Jewish. They have five children, a son Gerhard, and daughters Ilse, Johanna, Eva and Dorothea. Martin Doerry is Lilli's grandson and edits this book in which he makes uses of hundreds of letters written by Lilli, her friends and her daughters, mainly her oldest, who always signed off as " your Ilse Mouse."

Anti-Semitism creeps into their lives but they cannot conceive of a future that, in retrospect, probably no sane person could have foreseen. They continue to live upper middle class lives but slowly the war intrudes and, insidiously, because Lilli is a Jewess, much more than war's usual horrors interrupts their lives. For the most part, they are staunch and endure each new insult and deprivation. But Ernst, whom Lilli adores and defends always, divorces her and marries Rita Schmidt, a young physician who first arrived to help Ernst in his medical practice. No doubt he was encouraged to do this by the Nazis, and Lilli and Rita maintain a tenuous connection. Still, it seems Lilli's heart was broken.

And then she is arrested one day. She had omitted to add "Sara" to her name as the Nazis ordered all Jewish women to do. The Gestapo searched her apartment when alerted to this peccadillo, and she was arrested on August 30, 1943. She never returned home and died in Auschwitz-Birkenau only 10 months later in June of 1944. At first it seemed she would soon be released, but hope slowly eroded. Her eldest daughter Ilse, who was just 15 years old, becomes the parent to her younger sisters, struggling to maintain the standards to which the family is accustomed: schools, clothing, traditions, food, lessons, love..... She gets sporadic help from Rita, and occasionally from their father, although Ernst gets conscripted as a medical officer and is not often available.

This is an intimate story of one Jewish woman and how it was for her in Nazi Germany. For many, it was too unbelievable in a civilized society to comprehend the trajectory of Hitler's evil, although there were some fortunate enough to have the means and prescience to immigrate, among them, Lilli's sister and mother.

This tale is specific, only briefly touching on the bigger political and military happenings. Little is known about Lilli's life in the camps. Her letters try hard to minimize the horrors for the sake of her children.

"And I meet with a great deal of friendliness and affection and kindness, even here. Today someone actually gave me a little Advent wreath, and when we're all together again I'll tell you lots more about this place. If only it could be soon!"

In March of 1944, she writes: "In the past few days I've envied the famlies who were all taken away together. On second thoughts, though, it's easier for me, in spite of my profound longing for you , and the pain of separation, to know that you lead settled lives and are spared the sight of all that's objectionable and unpleasant....And now goodbye again, all of you--Gerhard, Ilse Mouse, Hannele Child littel Eva, and my precious Dorle! May God protect you! The bonds between us are indissoluble..... Mummy."

Two months later she was dead. "To this day, Lilli's daughters have no idea how their mother died. "Of debility and disease, or in the gas chamber?....On September 25, 1962, Dorothea's twenty-second birthday, Gerhard planted two trees in memory of his mother in the Martyrs' Grove at the Yad Vashem memorial in Jerusalem."