Language:
English
Pages:
15 pages :
,
Typed manuscript.
Year of publication:
2001
Keywords:
Gurs (Concentration camp)
;
Hilfsverein der Deutschen Juden (Germany)
;
Jews Persecution 1933-1945.
;
Kristallnacht, 1938.
;
World War, 1939-1945.
;
Mannheim (Germany)
;
Switzerland.
;
United States Emigration and immigration.
;
Autobiographies
;
Biographical sources
;
Memoirs
Abstract:
Max Liebmann describes his school life and how unbearable conditions grew after Hitler was elected chancellor. One time a pupil harassed him, but he fought back. He stayed in public school until 1937, and then attended a private school. He had to leave school after “Kristallnacht”, when all Jews were excluded from non-Jewish schools. In March 1938, his father had left for Greece in order to explore new business possibilities. Max Liebmann never saw him again. With the outbreak of World War II, Max Liebmann took his grandmother, who was French Alsatian, to the Swiss border. But Switzerland did not permit her to enter the country, so she went to Nancy and later to Bordeaux. During the war discrimination increased and culminated in Max Liebmann being sent to Eastern Germany to harvest. He describes himself as one of the first slave laborers of the Reich. In 1940, Max Liebmann started to work for the “Hilfsverein”. On October 21, 1940, the “Hilfsverein” was closed and he was deported to France the next day. On October, 25, Max Liebmann arrived at the camp of Gurs in Southwestern France. He managed to get out of the camp just weeks before its closure on August 1, 1942, and the beginning of the first deportations to Auschwitz. He hid in several places in unoccupied France with the help of local residents. He later managed to escape to Switzerland with the help of a Swiss militia man. In Switzerland, he worked in a refugee camp. On February 28, 1943, his girlfriend Hanne, whom he had met in Gurs, came to Switzerland. She first lived with relatives, but left them on Christmas Eve 1944 when personal frictions became too heavy. Max Liebmann married Hanne on April 14, 1945 in Geneva. Their daughter was born on March 4, 1946. In 1948, the family left for the United States.
Abstract:
Max Liebmann ends his memoir with giving a few remarks on Swiss policy concerning Jewish immigration and also on their policy of blocking them from their money in Swiss bank accounts.
Note:
English
URL:
http://digital.cjh.org/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=997841&custom_att_2=simple_viewer
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