Life_under_Siege_The_Jews_of_Magdeburg_under_Nazi_Rule.pdf

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No, I didn’t think it would ever get better. I wanted my parents to get out. But
when I was accepted to come on a youth transport to Sydney with Gisela
[Kent née Jankelowitz], they told us that within two years you will have your
parents out. Otherwise, if I would have known, I most probably never would
have gone. But they said, look, within two years you will have your parents in
Australia. Well, that was 1938. 1939 the war started, and that was it. So, I
never saw them again. 102
In early 1936 Inge-Ruth Herrmann and Gisela Jankelowitz were fourteen and
sixteen years of age respectively. Both girls registered their names in Magdeburg
for emigration to any country willing to accept them. Gisela Kent recalled the
event:
I recall putting my name down in 1936 for anywhere. I recall it vividly, as I
had just commenced or finished a job, having only left school shortly
before this. Having put my name down, I was told that I could go to
Queensland, Australia. It sounded pretty good. And what did I want to do? I
could be a hairdresser or a few other professions. And I said I would like to be
a hairdresser; it sounded okay. You don’t need any English for that! I was a
housemaid when I got there; there were no hairdressers!
I told my parents this and they said: “You shouldn’t do this, you can’t leave
Germany!” Eventually they said it was probably right, and that Günther [my
younger brother] should go too, and Günther said no, that he wanted to stay
with my parents. So another two years went by, and he stayed with my parents
and I left. 103
Approximately one year after this registration, Inge-Ruth Herrmann was offered
asylum in Brazil in 1937, but owing to her parents’ opposition she remained in
Magdeburg, as she recalled:
It’s a very sad story. I had a chance to go to Brasilien [Brazil] and I was my
mother’s only child. My mother said: “My only child. All the way to
Brasilien! No way!” So, things got worse, and then Gisela and I, and a few
others, we were called into Berlin, to a test there. Because we wanted to go to
Australia, and we were accepted. So, then it came that I was coming to
Australia. Brazil was too far for my mother, which was nothing compared to
Australia. But things got so bad that she agreed! 104
102 Poppert, op. cit., 9 January 1998.
103 Kent, op. cit., 5 January 1998.
104 Poppert, op. cit., 9 January 1998.