Walter Joelsohn graduated school in Berlin in the spring of 1940. He then performed forced labor at the Deuta works. At the end of February 1943, he was warned of “Operation Factory” and went underground. His mother and sister were deported to Auschwitz on March 1, 1943, his father on April 19. None of them survived.
Walter Joelsohn began by hiding in his own apartment, then rented a room. He repeatedly changed his hiding place. His former schoolmate Ernst Ludwig Ehrlich connected him to Magdalena Heilmann and her children Eva and Peter, who took him in.
He managed to obtain forged papers and met the state prosecutor Rudolf Caspary at the Heilmanns’ home. Caspary gave him the name of the waitress Margarete Demme, who knew escape helpers on the Swiss border and also had to flee. She and Joelsohn traveled by train to Freiburg im Breisgau on September 9, 1943, and continued to Weil am Rhein. On September 12, they managed to cross the border into Switzerland at Grenzach. Joelsohn paid his escape helper with his mother’s fur coat.
Walter Joelsohn emigrated to the United States in 1948 and changed his surname to Joelson.
The penultimate graduating class at the Jewish high school on Berlin’s Wilsnacker Straße, including Gerd Ehrlich (front left), Ernst Ludwig Ehrlich (front, 2nd from left, no relation), and Walter Joelsohn (back row, 3rd from left, standing). Source: Gedenkstätte Deutscher Widerstand
Walter Joelsohn’s identity card, issued in Berlin, January 28, 1939. Source: Privatbesitz/Private
Walter Joelsohn’s identity card, issued in Berlin, January 28, 1939. Source: Privatbesitz/Private
Walter Joelson in Berlin, May 7, 1995. Source: Privatbesitz/Private
