Renate Edler

Renate Edler was born on 25 July 1925 in a thunderstorm at Jena. She was premature and she was not expected to live. The local priest was sent for straight away so that she might be christened. He was a little drunk.  He named her Klara Renate although her family had wanted her to be Renata, spelt the Italian way with Clara, with a C, as a second name and in honour of her two grandmothers. She always claimed that the priest’s mistake helped to save her life. 

The family moved from Jena to Nuremberg. Renate then went to the Wilhelm Löhe School. This was a school for girls run according to Lutheran principles. Renate had no idea that she was Jewish but all of the teachers who knew about her helped her family to keep this a secret from her and from the authorities. Nuremberg was possibly the worst place for a young Jewish girl to live in the 1930s. The huge rallies were held there and the prolematice race laws were created there.

She had the opportunity to go on a school trip to Italy. For this she needed a passport. Her father took her to the office where children’s passports were issued. He had a fearsome row with the officious young man there. Her father wanted her correct name on her passport.  Naturally, she had to have her name as on her birth certificate. They were sent round the corner to get an adult passport as she was already old enough. When she needed to leave Germany in 1939, she already had a passport though an identity card would have been enough. However, there was much confusion about this and having the passport already possibly made processing paperwork quicker. 

Tracking Down the Rest to the Class Vb Wilhelm Löhe Schule

In one of the letters written in 1980 to her former classmates, my mother-in-law mentions a lot of names of other members of the school and class who aren’t the ones who wrote the letters. I thought it might be quite useful to try and trace them. They may be able to fill in some of the gaps left by the others.

It is of course quite difficult. I have the girls’ maiden names and it’s quite reasonable to suspect that they may have married. A search on X -  geb. Y has proved the most fruitful so far. Even that, though, only resulted in me finding out that the lady in question died in 1997. However, I now have the names of her children and grandchildren and contact with them may yet be fruitful.

Rereading my mother-in-law’s letter reminded me that she only had half an hour’s notice that she was going to England and that her mother was Jewish. What a shock. Then in 1947 she managed to get over to Germany because she had to go to a conference. Otherwise at that time all foreign travel was still forbidden. She then had the gruesome task of finding out what had happened to her grandmother.       

Food shortages, the Hitler Youth, conscription, the German Home Guard, the Steiner Schools, 1940s trains and exciting news about the Wilhelm Löhe School

Yes, I’ve got through a variety of topics today.
It seems that food shortages weren’t as severe at the beginning of the war in Germany as they were in the UK. They did have problems with their harvest and they also introduced rationing. But they did not suffer too much because of the blockades and there were plentiful sources of food in the countryside. I’ve already got that in the girls’ earlier letters so I’m pleased I seem to have guessed correctly.
I do need to bring in some more instances of the Hitler Youth. Membership was compulsory for boys aged 10-14 from 1936. However, people could get away with just paying the subscription. By 1930, attendance was expected as well. So the boys in the book would have been in the movement.
Conscription started off being for those who had already done their military service. Then young men 18-25 were called up, then 27-33 then when those died up to 34-44 then 45-54,55-64, then he would start by 15-20 all again.
There was a Heimwehr, very similar to our Home Guard, but in 1944 the Volkssturnm was formed. This was a final attempt to scrape together an army. This may also feature in the novel.
I’ve also found out more about the Steiner schools and what trains were like in 1940. I may also have found a contact at the school that was closed in 1938, the Wilhelm Löhe school. It was the closing of this school that caused the letters to be written.
Not a bad day’s work.