The most valuable thing the church could give the Jews was, ultimately, a safe place to stay. It was Perwe who would give out these addresses, most of which he obtained from a man named Reuter, the maintenance chief of the church. Reuter was an elderly German of medium stature, with white hair, a sad, bleak face and a big nose on which was precariously perched an ancient pair of glasses. His clothes were old and baggy. He gave every appearance of being a poor, insignificant man, and he frightened the women in the church because he was often so disagreeable. He would appear fairly regularly to have a meal, with a pack of papers or a bag stuffed under his arm, but he rarely ate with the staff, and he almost never spoke to them. Once in a great while he would smile, and then he seemed like another person. Where Reuter got his list of safe houses not even Perwe knew. All he knew was that if Reuter offered them, they were safe.
But within two or three weeks after the Jews had gone to the safe houses they would be back at the church, saying that the Gestapo was on their trail. Perwe never knew if this was true. It might be the Jews’ imagination; it might be that the Germans sheltering them were also getting nervous. In any case, he would have to find them new places to stay. Sometimes there would be no places, and when that happened Perwe would let the Jews remain in the basement of the church for several days, even weeks. Inevitably there came the day when, of necessity, a Jew became a quasi-permanent resident of the church.
His name was Erich Müller. He was a violinist from Leipzig, in his forties, a seemingly inconsequential man who did not attract attention both because his manner and appearance were so unprepossessing and because he did not have Semitic features. Until this moment the combination had helped him survive. But when the Perwes met him during their first weeks in Berlin he had all but lost control. Several years before, Perwe’s predecessor, Birger Forell, had slipped Müller’s son into Sweden; now Müller desperately needed another favor. He’d been living with his fiancée, who was also Jewish, and her mother, he explained. His fiancée was pregnant, and he had to arrange an abortion. Would the minister help him?
Before Perwe’s conscience could be tested, Müller’s fiancée miscarried. When she recovered she determined to leave Berlin for Fribourg, Switzerland, where she planned to live with relatives. Müller did his best to dissuade her, but she was adamant. Perwe supplied her with a backpack, clothes and food, and she set out. Weeks passed without word from her. Müller became so depressed that he threatened to take his life. His fiancée’s mother ordered him from her home. On December 1, 1942, Müller moved into the church. He was quartered in a room in the attic, a tiny space that Forell had used as a study. The terms of his agreement with Perwe were that he confine himself to his room until ten o’clock each evening. Then he was permitted to walk outside on the terrace facing the garden.
Müller more than kept his part of the bargain. He would not even open the door when Martha Perwe brought him his tray of food. When she returned an hour later the tray would be where she had left it and the food would be untouched. In vain she implored him through the door to take some nourishment, but often he did not even respond. For days they neither saw nor heard him, and his fast went on. They feared that his confinement and his fiancée’s disappearance were slowly driving him mad. In desperation one day, Martha laced some tea with amphetamines and took it to his door. That evening Müller appeared at last and said that he felt better. On Christmas Eve he came down again and played to them on his violin.
In March of 1943 two more Jews moved into the church on a semipermanent basis. Until that time Martin Weissenberg, a man in his early sixties, and his wife Margot, a woman twenty years younger, had managed to elude the Nazis, principally through the help of the sister of Horst Wessel, whose composition had become the party’s official song and the secondary anthem of the Third Reich. Horst Wessel had been a childhood friend of Margot’s. When the Nazis took power it was his sister who prevailed upon the Weissenbergs to send their children to England, provided them with food, clothing and medicine from her own scarce reserves, warned them when actions against the Jews were imminent, and once got them away from a hiding place minutes before the arrival of the Gestapo. Their resources exhausted, the Weissenbergs had walked the streets at night, hiding in abandoned buildings or in doorways or parks, until Perwe began to help them.
A friend, an active Social Democrat until Hitler took power and banned all parties but his own, had suggested they contact Perwe, who had already found refuges for several other Jewish friends. Three days after they saw him Perwe sent word that he had arranged quarters for them in a retirement home near the southern outskirts of Berlin. The home was run by an elderly German woman who not only took them in but did her best to stiffen their spirits. Other Jews had lived there before moving on to even safer lives, she confided, and not once had the Gestapo bothered them.
A few weeks later, however, the Gestapo did make a surprise visit, following a report by one of the elderly residents that Jews were living in the home. Luckily the Weissenbergs were away at the time shopping for food with ration cards just supplied them by Perwe, an adventure made somewhat safer by two postal identification cards Weissenberg had arranged through their former postman in exchange for ten cigars. After finding no Jews on the premises and hearing the administrator’s fervent denials, the Gestapo dismissed the report as the product of a senile mind, and did not return.
The Weissenbergs lived in the retirement home without further incident through January and February of 1943. Mrs. Perwe brought them food to supplement their rations, and Perwe himself came to visit from time to time. To Martin Weissenberg, who in 1940 alone had lost twenty of his closest relatives, among them six brothers and sisters, whose own health had been undermined by forced labor, shoveling coal, his present life might have seemed, by comparison, a form of deliverance, except for one daily reminder: a song sung early each morning by S.S. troops quartered in a nearby barracks about how Jewish blood would spurt around their knives.
And then in March the retirement home was destroyed by a bomb. There were no casualties, because all the residents had been in bomb shelters, but the Weissenbergs were so distraught at the loss of their sanctuary that there were moments when they wondered if death was not preferable to the uncertainty that once again was their lot.
It was then that Perwe moved them into the church.
The staff had never liked the violinist Müller—he was testy, complained a great deal and kept insisting that Perwe arrange his escape to Sweden—but they responded powerfully to the Weissenbergs, who were so obviously grateful for the assistance they had been preferred, so cheerful and so eager to help in any way they could. Margot Weissenberg busied herself with household work, and Martin Weissenberg became the house expert on air raids. He had a large map of Berlin that looked something like a game board. Letters ran along the top and numbers along the side. As Allied planes approached, the flak center near the zoo would track their flight and broadcast the patterns on the radio. “Bomber squadron entering A2. Heading direction G5.” By plotting the information on his map Weissenberg could tell the others whether there was a chance that their building might be hit.
The staff had access to the bomb shelter at the Swedish legation in the Tiergarten, and, while the legation was several miles away, there was always sufficient warning of a raid for them to get there if they wished. But they vastly preferred to remain at the church during the raids, because they knew from experience that this was when many Jews and other hunted persons—using the cover of the raids—would come to them for assistance. So most of the time the staff used a homemade shelter they had rigged up in a potato bin in the garden. If the bombs came very close, the illegals joined them.
Martin Weissenberg was listening to a radio broadcast one day when two uniformed policemen walked unannounced into his sanctuary. His heart turned over. They immediately made it clear, however, that they were there not to pick him up but to monitor the broadcast with him. It was Weissenberg’s first encount
er with Erik Perwe’s two greatest allies—the constable and chief of the police station across the street. The constable’s name was Hoffman. He was a stocky, middle-aged German, with a bushy mustache, who managed to look well fed in a period when no one got very much to eat. The chief’s name was Mattek. He was a small and sturdy man, also middle-aged, with a dapper mustache, a dimpled chin, and a perpetual grin that could turn into a magnificent smile that wrinkled his face. Both men had been old-guard Social Democrats, but they were Prussian to the core. Like many policemen, they resented the crude, unprofessional and illegal methods of the Nazis; policemen, in their book, did not seize people late at night and without proper papers.
Hoffman was in charge of all outside investigations for the station; he was anti-Nazi and didn’t try to hide it. But it was Mattek, the chief, who was the more outspoken of the two. He hated Joseph Goebbels. “The little clumpfoot’s telling fairy tales again,” he would announce after each pronouncement by the propaganda minister.
Both Hoffman and Mattek were regulars at the church. They would come to listen to the BBC or to have an occasional game of chess with the pastor. Both of them not only knew that Jews were being hidden in the church but went out of their way to converse with them. Perwe made certain that both men received coffee, butter, liquor, cigars and whatever staples they might need to feed their families—which, in Mattek’s case, eventually included a deserter he kept hidden in the cellar of the police station. The policemen, in turn, made certain that no unsympathetic-looking visitors lurked about the church. On one occasion Hoffman arrested two men who had been prowling in the vicinity of the church, and pretended to be very surprised when he found out that they were from the Gestapo. On another occasion a man from the Gestapo came to the police station and seated himself at a window that looked out onto the street, from where he could observe anyone who entered or left the church. Moments later Mattek slipped out the back door of the station, walked down the block, cut across the street and made his way through a series of connecting basement passages to the church, where he told Perwe about the Gestapo observer. The minister posted sentries at either end of the block to warn illegals away.
Perwe of course was his own best sentry, given his innate capacity for caution and his guarded, watchful manner. Part of his defense was to maintain the appearance of the person he was supposed to be—the minister of the church of a neutral country—and he worked hard at doing that. He was a frequent guest at diplomatic receptions, where he mixed amiably—or so he made it seem—with Nazi party officials. Martha always went with him, an incongruous presence in her drab dress of a preacher’s wife, dark stockings and Salvation Army-type shoes, and chaste hairdo. But the hair, pulled back into a bun, only served to heighten the lines of her chiseled face, and the guests were invariably fascinated with this woman, who held a wine glass from which she never drank and chatted with diplomats as though she had done it all her life. If anything, it was her husband who was occasionally lacking in tact. At one reception he watched a brother of Heinrich Himmler smoking a cigarette whose ash grew longer and longer. “Ah,” Perwe said at last, “the final solution.” Himmler’s brother quickly flicked off the ash.
Perwe knew that he was suspect, if only because of his predecessor’s reputation, so he was constantly on the alert. One day a woman appeared at the church and told Perwe a classic tale of deprivation. She had been separated from her family, she was without papers and food, she had no place to stay, and had been walking the streets for weeks. Could he help her? she asked. Perwe eyed her coldly. “Anyone who is as well combed, well dressed and well fed as you hasn’t been walking the streets for weeks.” He stood and gestured toward the door. “If you please,” he said.
Incredibly, another woman tried the same inept routine a few weeks later. Perwe was sure they were from the Gestapo. He could only wonder how much the Gestapo knew.
Throughout, Perwe continued to keep his diary. His commentary was invariably terse, but it aptly summarized the troubles with which he was engaged, the uncertainties he suffered and the rewards he experienced as he helped someone to freedom.
September 7, 1942: Visit from Miss Elias, “non-Aryan,” from the refugee staff in town.
September 11, 1942: The Jew Müller concerning his son Rolf living in Sweden.
September 16, 1942: Müller with fiancée—in deep distress and great danger.
September 30, 1942: Reception. Several inquiries regarding relatives in Theresienstadt.
October 16, 1942: At the legation, concerning permission to communicate to Eidem information on certain significant circumstances for Christianity … Permission denied.
October 17, 1942: Burial of a young man, Nyberg, who had been mentally ill and “as usual” put to death at the hospital.
October 21, 1942: Mrs. Ida Kuransky, concerning her child whom she wishes to send to Sweden.
October 23, 1942: A number of German authorities in the area of education, among them a government secretary and a brother of Himmler’s. A great deal of Heiling and such.
October 31, 1942: A woman, Jewish, with two small, star-marked girls. Wanted to have the children adopted in Sweden.
November 17, 1942: Reception. A woman concerning the Swedish Red Cross’s relationship to Theresienstadt, to which her mother had been deported.
November 18, 1942: Received as a guest for a few days Miss Rubin, Jewish, who is bound for Sweden.
December 11, 1942: Received word that the German author, Klepper, took his, his wife’s and daughter’s life last night. His wife and daughter had been threatened with deportation. They were Mischlinge! [Mischlinge, progeny of mixed marriages, were of special concern to Perwe, but the case of Jochen Klepper was not quite what the minister thought it was. Klepper, a devout German author and hymn writer, was a pure Gentile who had married a Jewish widow and then adopted her two daughters. The elder daughter had emigrated to England in the mid-1930s, but the younger elected to remain with her mother. Klepper was despondent at the failure of his own Evangelical Church to make more than a few feeble protests against the treatment of the Jews.]
December 12, 1942: Car to Tempelhof with Miss Jenny Rubin, who happily moves to Sweden.
December 14, 1942: Reception. Among others Miss Tali Paul, who criticized the party yesterday, defended Jewish politics and revealed a distorted view of Christianity: God bears responsibility—guilt—for everything. Mrs. Wehmeir, who also criticized the party, discussed politics and persecution of the Jews among others.
December 16, 1942: Supper with Bishop Meiser. Interesting man but exceptionally careful. [Bishop Meiser, a German, told Perwe he had three pieces of advice for him: “One: Be careful. Two: Be careful. Three: Be careful.” “Then I might just as well pack my bags and return to Sweden,” Perwe replied.]
December 29, 1942: Many “non-Aryans” because of the aggravated situation.
January 1, 1943: Visit from a Jewish couple who needed housing. Berg-Weissenberg.
January 4, 1943: Many homeless Jews.
January 13, 1943: Many unhappy non-Aryans.
March 1, 1943: Air raid of worst kind. Three fire bombs in the house, one of which in my room in the apartment. The blue hundred-year-old sofa and a black table destroyed. We succeeded in the nick of time in dousing the flames. Berlin is a sea of fire.
March 2, 1943: Worked at home preparing for air raids to come. God be with us!
March 5, 1943: Martha and the children to Sweden. Sad but necessary. God keep them all!
March 7, 1943: Worked late with Dr. Lehfeld on a report to the Swedish government re persecution of Jews.
August 17, 1943: Air raid. A terrible attack by 900 planes with five thousand men. Seventeen hundred tons of bombs. Two bombs at a distance of 300 meters, phosphorous bombs in the park, twenty meters from the house … two burning houses next to ours, many broken windows … Church and house all undamaged. Helped at the house next door. To bed at 6:30 A.M.
August 24, 1943: Worked with our broken win
dows. The city looks horrible.
November 22, 1943: Air raid, the worst of them all. The home, legation’s house in ruins, city in turmoil. Helped evacuate legation. Then by car to the church. Three hours struggle against fire and smoke.
November 26, 1943: Air raid, two hours. Horrible. New and terrible damage. Thirty percent of Berlin gone. The church stands. Praise God.
December 31, 1943: So ends this year, a terrible year. May God have mercy on the deeds of this year, their perpetrators and their victims.
24
SO HE’D BEEN CAUGHT by a Jew! Fritz Croner could hardly believe it. He’d been warned about the catchers months before. “These people are working for the Gestapo,” another underground Jew had told him. At first he’d all but dismissed the notion, because the idea was so repellent. Nonetheless, he’d taken no chances. A few weeks after the warning he’d seen another Jew approaching him on the street and ducked inside a building before the man could spot him. But he had slipped up this time, and so now, thanks to Fedor Friedlander, he was a prisoner, awaiting shipment to Auschwitz.
Although Fritz had no way of knowing it that day, he had been arrested by one of the two most notorious catchers who roamed the streets of Berlin and other major cities between 1942 and 1944, under instructions from the Gestapo to look for “black hair and big noses.” His name was Rolf Isaaksohn, he was young and short and pretentious, and for a long time before he himself was captured by the Gestapo he had traded in false identification papers for illegal Jews.
On the day of his arrest Isaaksohn had been arranging to sell identification papers to a woman tailor who was working for a non-Jewish friend and living in the friend’s home. Isaaksohn collected the payment—money and a suit—and said he would return with papers. He never did. The tailor, a Mrs. Mecklenburg, became frightened and fled from her friend’s apartment. The next day the Gestapo arrived to inquire of her whereabouts. Mrs. Mecklenburg was probably the first Jewish “U-boat” Isaaksohn denounced.
The Last Jews in Berlin Page 19
