Germaine Helga Shafran

Germaine Helga Shafran (born January 14, 1923 in Berlin ; died June 23, 2016 in Wiesbaden ) was a contemporary witness of the German persecution of Jews during the Nazi era .

Life

Inge Helga Kaufmann grew up in Berlin as the daughter of the film director Fritz Kaufmann and Ada Rosenberg in a middle-class family. After the handover of power to the National Socialists , her parents fled with her at the end of March 1933, each with a suitcase, to France, where she initially attended school in Paris without any language skills. In 1939 the mother died. In 1940 Fritz Kaufmann and his daughter Germaine were imprisoned as an enemy alien in the Camp de Gurs internment camp . They managed to escape from the camp and in 1941 they were able to emigrate from Vichy France to the USA.

Shafran returned to Germany with her children in 1970. In 1988 she was one of the initiators of the Active Museum for German-Jewish History Spiegelgasse in Wiesbaden and was a member of the board of the Friends' Association for fifteen years. The city of Wiesbaden awarded her in 2007 the Public Service Medal .

Shafran wrote an autobiography that appeared in 2010. She was available as a contemporary witness in museums and schools . In February 2015 she last worked as a contemporary witness at the Schulze-Delitzsch School .

Autobiography

• Germaine H. Shafran: Never say die! Never give up! Published by the Active Museum Spiegelgasse for German-Jewish History in Wiesbaden eV Foreword by Karlheinz Schneider. Afterword by Vera Bendt. Edition 6065, Wiesbaden 2010, ISBN 978-3-941072-04-6 .

literature

• Karlheinz Schneider: Funeral speech for Germaine Shafran , June 27, 2016, at AMS

Web links

• Literature by and about Germaine Helga Shafran in the catalog of the German National Library