#HOLOCAUST VICTIM ANNA ANDORN – DIARY ENTRIES

 

 
Anna Andorn, nee Löwenstein, was born in Bocholt in 1885. During WWI she volunteered as a nurse. In 1930 she married the widower Meier Andorn, a prominent Jewish cantor and teacher. In 1942, the couple was deported to Teresienstadt, where Meier Andorn died. Anna was moved to Auschwitz in October 1944. She died before the camp inmates were liberated by the Allies in 1945.
Anna’s journal was made available by her nephew, Fritz Rohr, who lives in Paraguay. It constitutes an important historical source documenting the oppression, terror, and suffering of Jews under the Hitler regime.

Anna's diary, Part I 1897-1901

1897 -          “My name is Anna Löwenstein. I am 12 years old, born on July 14^th 1885 in Bocholt, and have decided to write this journal. But not as my friends do, who write down every little bit of rubbish.  At least once a year, I will make an entry in order to record what is most important about that particular period of time.

          Until 2 years ago I attended the Jewish School of Bocholt [where] I was taught by Mr. Spier, whose favourite expression was “Logical consequence”.  Now in the School of the Nuns they try to portray everything as a consequence of “God’s will”.  Studying is not as difficult for me as it is for most of my classmates.  It appears I have a somewhat better memory.
          The singing lessons give me particular joy.  The nun claims that I am the only who always strikes the right note. Also, I seem to have a nice voice. Then Mother Superior asked me to participate in the church-choir.  I immediately explained to her that I am Jewish.  Her answer: “But that doesn’t matter”.
          Initially I did not dare to talk about it at home, but one day my father told me that he had had a glass of beer with the pastor that day.  The pastor had smiled and waved at me the other day as I was coming down the stairs from the choir loft.
          So I feared that the minister might tell him about my participation in the choir and I preferred to talk about it myself.  However, father just laughed about it: “That’s alright, in my youth we used to decorate the synagogue with flowers from the pastor’s garden.  So, you go ahead and help to beautify the service.”
 
1901  -  I left the school at Easter. In fact, I am sad about that.  The nuns made a great effort on our behalf and I very much appreciate them.  And I believe they liked me well in turn.
  Now I help with the housekeeping, I enjoy that more than [helping in] the store.  We are 8 people, Paul, my youngest brother born on February 24^th, 1896 makes the most work for us.
WATCH FOR PART II: 1906-1915
 
Translated from the German by Susi Lessing. The original text is at https://digipres.cjh.org/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE10164662
 

TRANSLATOR WANTED FOR A MICROHISTORY OF MARIENAU (NEAR GDANSK).

Here are a few sample passages:

• In 1919 Emil Enns married. He could not take over his parents’ farm because two of his sisters, Liesbeth and Wanda, had not yet been taken care of. He therefore moved into a small property across from the mill and built bee houses, keeping 80 hives. He also planted a mulberry hedge and tried his luck with silk worms.  In addition, he raised chicken. He bought three apparatuses for breeding, heated with petroleum. If requested, he sterilized cocks.
• Homemade butter and eggs were sold on the market. To cool the supply of butter in the summer, they used blocks of ice cut in the winter from the frozen river Schwente and stored under a layer of straw in the barn.
• A mother’s letter to her son, a soldier in the German army, 30 August, 1944:[We] were assigned three Jewish workers, certainly the worst of the lot in the whole transport. They did nothing. After two days all three pretended to be sick. It was hard to take. Walter asked me to take them back to Stuttgart, which I did… I hope this terrible war will soon be over.
• On 24 January, 1945, the inhabitants of Marienau flee from the advancing Russian army. Gerda Esau writes: Only one person remained behind on each farm to look after the animals. In our case, it was Heinrich Schulz. He said good-bye to his wife and eight children, who came along with us…We didn’t wait for the others because it was snowing and the situation was critical. Gustav Philippsen writes:  We waited to be picked up, but no one came. The Russian tanks had reached Elbing. The roads were full of refugees, so we decided to set out with our goods packed in sleds and baby carriages. Gustav Fieguth writes: The commotion was great. The axles of many covered wagons broke, some of them were dashed. A few kilometers behind us the battle was raging. In the early morning of 24 January the Russians came and shot the owner of the milk-processing plant, together with his two sons, and raped his wife. He had stayed behind, thinking the Russians would spare them because he was a Swiss citizen.

The source of these passages is a book, written in German and self-published by Helmut Enss (b. 1921), a German high school teacher, who wanted to document the history of his native village, Marienau.  ANYONE INTERESTED IN TRANSLATING THE BOOK INTO ENGLISH?