Eva Lauffer worked as a seamstress until she was dismissed due to the anti-Jewish regulations. In May 1939, she married her colleague Martin Deutschkron. Shortly later, she was drafted into forced labor for the Siemens company.
The couple went into hiding at the end of January 1943. Eva Deutschkron’s gynecologist Benno Heller found her accommodation for six months with one of his other patients, Gerda Janicke. After that, Eva and Martin Deutschkron stayed in a garden house belonging to a couple called the Pelzers in Borkheide. They commuted to Berlin on an almost daily basis, calling themselves Fritz and Eva Gebhardt. After hiding in several other places on Berlin’s Lützowplatz and in the Grunewald area, they were put in touch with the Heilmann family in Berlin-Kreuzberg. There, they were allowed to use the family’s sewing machine to make clothing, which they then took to the countryside to exchange for food. At the end of 1944, the janitor’s wife became aware of the Deutschkrons. They returned to Borkheide and also rented rooms in other small towns. They were liberated in Gommern at the beginning of May 1945.
The Deutschkrons emigrated to the United States in 1947.
Eva and Martin Deutschkron, Berlin, 1942. Source: Wisconsin Historical Society, Wisconsin survivors of the Holocaust. Interviews and photographs, image ID 56483
