Life_under_Siege_The_Jews_of_Magdeburg_under_Nazi_Rule.pdf

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developed an astonishing ability to adjust to a situation they did not choose and to
retain sovereignty over their own lives. 91
The Levys’ experience of departure resembles those of the Freiberg and
Wurmser families. Gerry Levy recalled his father’s return from Stendal prison.
Whilst his father had returned without any signs of serious physical abuse and
trauma, the opposite was the case for his uncle, who had returned from a
concentration camp ‘shorn, terribly quiet and quite traumatised.’ 92 All furniture
and household goods were sold to non-Jews very cheaply. Gerry Levy recalled
assisting both his parents and family friends who were making their own
preparations for departure. The Levys emigrated at the end of December 1938. 93
Gerry Levy’s paternal grandparents, Salomon and Sara Levy, remained in
Magdeburg and died of natural causes in 1941 and 1942, aged seventy-two and
seventy-five respectively. 94 His father’s youngest and unmarried sister, Hanna
Levy, chose to remain behind as she did not want to leave her parents. In
possession of a visa for England, she decided to remain with her elderly parents. 95
On 26 February 1943, she was deported in the same group as Lilli Freiberg from
Magdeburg via Berlin to Auschwitz and perished there. She was aged thirty-
three. 96 Gerry Levy’s uncle, Herbert Levy, who was married to a non-Jewish
91
Susanne Heim, “Emigration and Jewish Identity: ‘An Enormous Heartbreak’,” The
Journal of Holocaust Education, vol.10, number 1, 2001, p. 32.
92
Levy, op. cit., 7 November 1996.
93
Ibid. Interviewee was unsure about the exact date of departure. He felt the family
left on either 30 or 31 December 1938.
94
Personal file on the Levy family, Bestand Pe, Signatur Nr. 29, ASGM.
95
Levy, op. cit., 4 August 1997.
96
Zentralinstitut für sozialwissenschaftliche Forschung, Freie Universität Berlin, ed.,
op. cit., p. 741.