(Jewish Group) Holocaust survivor Inge Deutschkron, who hid in Berlin during WWII, dies at 99
Inge Deutschkron, a Holocaust survivor who hid in Berlin during the Nazi era and went on to become a prominent voice for remembrance, died Mach 9 at the age of 99.
In her 1978 autobiography, “I Wore the Yellow Star,” Deutschkron — who moved back to Berlin in 2002 after living in London and later Tel Aviv — described how she hid in and around the city as a young woman. Her story, which she later shared in many classrooms around Germany, became an inspiration and a warning.
“Despite everything that was done to her by Germans, Inge Deutschkron did not turn her back on Germany. She worked tirelessly to ensure that we learn the right lessons from the crimes committed during National Socialism,” German President Walter Steinmeier said in a statement. “As a contemporary witness, she helped keep the memory of those persecuted and murdered alive and helped form a generation of witnesses of the witnesses.”
Born in 1922 in Finsterwalde, a town south of Berlin, Deutschkron was five years old when her family moved to the capital. They felt more German than Jewish, until the Nazis came to power in 1933. Speaking at the annual Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony in Germany’s parliament in 2013, Deutschkron recalled how her mother told her: “You’re part of a minority now. You have to show the other kids in your class that you’re no less than they are.”
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