Vera Ansbach
Vera Ansbach (born January 29, 1920 as Vera Meyer in Darmstadt ; † February 1, 2020 in Berlin ) was a German anti-fascist and deputy director of Deutsche Handelsbank AG in the GDR .
Life
Vera Ansbach was the daughter of the Darmstadt jeweler Julius Meyer and the musician and piano teacher Malka, née Isakson or Dorfmann, who came from Latvia . The parents were of Jewish origin, but religion did not play a role in their lives. The mother was involved in the Society of Friends of the New Russia .
In 1936 Vera Ansbach had to leave the Lyceum because Jewish schoolgirls were no longer tolerated. She began an apprenticeship as an insurance saleswoman. She then trained first with a Jewish lawyer, then with an insurance broker and finally in a bank. They were not allowed to train any employer other than Jewish. The employers left Germany one after the other, but Vera Ansbach was still able to complete her apprenticeship.
In the spring of 1939 she managed to escape to Great Britain. She started working there as a maid. When the labor force became scarce after Britain entered the war, foreigners were allowed to work in other areas. Vera initially took up a job as a cashier in the restaurant business, then learned the trade of a top lathe operator and manufactured workpieces that were needed for the aircraft industry. Ansbach was active in the British trade union and was involved in the Free German Cultural Association . In 1944 she became a member of the KPD . In England she married Herbert Ansbach , with whom she returned to Germany in 1946.
They moved to East Berlin , Vera Ansbach worked as a new teacher , taught German and English and joined the SED . Later she worked at the Chamber of Crafts, in the Berlin City Office and in the Chamber for Foreign Trade of the GDR. Eventually she worked in the commercial bank, where she later became deputy general manager. She acquired the necessary qualification during a distance learning course in foreign trade economics.
When she retired, she volunteered in the committee of anti-fascist resistance fighters , after the political change at the Bund der Antifaschisten in Berlin-Treptow , which later belonged to the VVN-BdA . She took care of laying stumbling blocks and spoke to school classes about the era of German fascism. In 2006 she was one of the first to sign the “Berlin Declaration” of the Shalom5767 - Peace 2006 initiative , which advocates a Palestine policy based on the principles of humanism and international law.
She lost her mother and brother in the Holocaust . Her father Julius Meyer survived the rule of fascism in the Theresienstadt concentration camp . After the war he emigrated to the USA.
Vera Ansbach last lived in a Treptower nursing home.
Awards
- 2007 Citizen Medal of the Treptow-Köpenick district of Berlin
Web links
- Vera Ansbach in the Lexicon From ennoblement to forced labor - key words on the military and National Socialism in Darmstadt
- “I don't evade memories,” taz, January 25, 2008
- Friend, teacher, comrade , obituary in the DKP newspaper Berliner Anstieg, 02/2020, p. 6
Individual evidence
- ^ Wording of the declaration
- ↑ Our sheet , magazine of the Berlin VVN-BdA, No. 73, January 2020, p. 4 ( online, pdf )
- ↑ Awarded the Citizen Medal of the Treptow-Köpenick District of Berlin in 2007
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Ansbach, Vera |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Meyer, Vera (maiden name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German anti-fascist, deputy director of the Deutsche Handelsbank of the GDR |
| DATE OF BIRTH | January 29, 1920 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Darmstadt |
| DATE OF DEATH | February 1, 2020 |
| Place of death | Berlin |