The unmarried teacher Charlotte Herzfeld worked in a Jewish day care center in Berlin from 1942. On November 19, 1942, she managed to evade a Gestapo “counting inspection” there. Shortly later, she noticed a Gestapo vehicle outside her building and fled. She had several non-Jewish acquaintances with whom she could hide.
One of her constant supporters was her partner the designer Liesel Gansz and her mother, Luise Gansz, who was married to a municipal civil servant. They took Herzfeld into their home on multiple occasions until the end of the war, but only for short periods.
Via Margarete Fraenkel, the former head of the Jewish kindergarten teacher-training college in Berlin, she met the high-school teacher Elisabeth Abegg, who had been forced into retirement. Herzfeld was able to hide in her apartment for several long periods until the end of the war. She was a regular guest at the lunches the Abegg sisters held for persecuted Jews.
After the war, Charlotte Herzfeld became a pedagogy lecturer in Berlin. She lived with Liesel Gansz until her death. The couple are buried together.
Charlotte Herzfeld (left) with four friends, Berlin, around November 1918. Source: Privatbesitz/Private
Charlotte Herzfeld’s identity card as an official Victim of Fascism, issued in Berlin, August 26, 1946. Source: Landesarchiv Berlin, B Rep. 078, BEG Nr. 12262
Joint grave of Charlotte Herzfeld and Liesel Gansz, Berlin, after 1981. Source: Privatbesitz/Private
