Susanne Meyer lived in Berlin with her husband, the Ullstein journalist Wilhelm Meyer. Both of them were Jewish. Their 13-year-old son Hans Ulrich was able to escape to England on a kindertransport in 1939.
When her husband died in the fall of 1942, Susanne Meyer was urgently advised to escape. One of her friends, Arthur Veit, managed to obtain a birth and baptism certificate for Susanne Meyer, issued in the name of Charlotte Klose.
For Susanne Meyer, a long journey from one accommodation to the next began in early 1943. She had been in touch with some of her helpers through the Ullstein publishing house for years, while others were complete strangers. After periods near Landsberg an der Warthe and in Düsseldorf, she came to the village of Kagar near Rheinsberg in Brandenburg through the intervention of the former press artist and social democrat Alois Florath.
Susanne Meyer spent several months in 1944 with the doctor Mathilde Stoltenhoff in Berlin-Steglitz. When the air raids in the capital intensified, she went back to Kagar.
Having returned to Berlin, she married her helper Arthur Veit on July 7, 1945. The couple moved to Switzerland in 1959.
Susanne Meyer’s first husband Wilhelm with their 12-year-old son Hans Ulrich, around 1938. Source: Privatbesitz/Private
Susanne Veit with her son, by this point a British soldier known as Ken Knight, Berlin, late 1945. Source: Privatbesitz/Private
Letter from Susanne Veit née Meyer to her helper Dr. Mathilde Stoltenhoff, 1945. Source: Privatbesitz/Private
Letter from Susanne Veit née Meyer to her helper Dr. Mathilde Stoltenhoff, 1945. Source: Privatbesitz/Private
Arthur Veit (left) with his wife Susanne on their way to his property on Lake Mellensee, where Susanne Veit hid for some time during the war, around 1946. Source: Privatbesitz/Private
