The widow Helene Weiß lived in Berlin with her twin sons. The 15-year-olds emigrated to Britain in 1936, while she stayed in Berlin with her fiancé Berthold Harz. Their plans to emigrate failed and they were drafted into forced labor in August 1941. Harz was deported to Auschwitz and murdered at the end of 1942.
Helene Weiß went underground two months later. She was able to stay with a friend until the summer of 1943. When the friend feared discovery, Weiß was taken in by the music teacher Else Hamel, her former sub-tenant. Helene Weiß now called herself Schulz and dyed her hair as a disguise.
From the end of 1943, Helene Weiß alternated between hiding in the small town of Mohrin (now Moryń in Poland) and with various helpers in Berlin.
At risk of starving at the beginning of March 1945, she joined a group of people fleeing west to Hesse. Posing as a refugee from the east, she found shelter in a restaurant in Zell. She cooked, sewed, and worked in the fields in exchange for food. Weiß suffered a severe heart attack and received treatment. At the end of April 1945, she experienced her liberation in Zell. She emigrated to the United States in 1947 and renamed herself Helene White.
Helene Weiß’s identity card printed with a J (for Jew), issued in Berlin, April 3, 1939. Source: Landesarchiv Berlin, B Rep. 078, BEG Nr. 79018
Helene Weiß’s identity card printed with a J (for Jew), issued in Berlin, April 3, 1939. Source: Landesarchiv Berlin, B Rep. 078, BEG Nr. 79018
Affidavit by Else Hamel on hiding Helene Weiß, Sobernheim, March 24, 1954. Source: Privatbesitz/Private
