Meanwhile, back in Berlin

Henry Lowenstein: [My father] was on forced labor. My mother was on forced labor. Karin [Henry's half-sister] was, because she was living with a Jewish family, was not permitted regular rations, you know, but she was working. But the reason they managed to survive was because my mother was absolutely steadfast in her support of my father. And they were scheduled for transport several times. They would receive a notice … ostensibly from a Jewish organization from the Jewish community. Which was merely a front for the fact that they wanted—they didn’t want any trouble, so they had Jews ordering other Jews to appear for transport, figuring that the people were more likely to respond.

And every time that happened, she [my mother] would go to the authorities and put up such a fuss, because she was not Jewish, and because she was not about to leave my father, and she said, “If you take him you’ve got to take me.” That we actually have documents where they said that, “Alright, this time we let you off, but next time you’re going,” kind of thing. And she did that several times, and of course she told me later that had the war gone on another three weeks they would have gone and that was it. I mean, they were tired of her, and there was not a question but that they would have taken them. But she managed to save my father’s life, time after time. And the people in the basement that I told you—the superintendent of the building—were solid supporters throughout all of this and managed to tip him off every time that the Gestapo would try to come and do something.