Rita Neumann lived in Berlin with her mother Gertrud and brother Ralph. In 1935, the 16-year-old began preparing for a life in British Mandate Palestine in a Hakhshara camp in Hindenburg, Upper Silesia. She stayed in Germany, however, because her mother fell ill. In 1939 she was drafted into forced labor.
When the Neumanns received deportation orders on February 17, 1943, they went underground. Rita initially stayed with families in “mixed marriages,” who were in danger themselves. In March 1943 she found quarters in Salzwedel, but was arrested there. She managed to escape from prison and return to Berlin. From the summer of 1943, Agnes Wendland took her into the Gethsemane community pastor’s apartment.
With Elisabeth Abegg’s help, she received papers identifying her as “bombed out,” and was able to work under this false identity. When her brother Ralph was arrested in February 1945, she surrendered to the Gestapo to support him. The brother and sister were reunited in Schulstraße prison. They managed to escape together in March 1945 by climbing down a washing line from a second-floor window.
Rita Neumann emigrated to the United States in 1946 and married Samuel Rosenstock in 1948.
