Rolf Oppenheimer: family papers

Rolf Guenther Oppenheimer was born in Berlin in 1921 to Fritz and Anna Charlotte Oppenheimer née Fels. His parents divorced when he was still quite young and he went to live with a non-Jewish family also in Berlin. His father had already got a young girlfriend and his mother found it increasingly difficult to cope with working and ever increasing anti-semitic measures. Rolf did see them periodically and immediately prior to leaving Germany stayed with his mother. In the winter Rolf, with his 'foster family', would go skiing in Upper Silesia and and in the summer would go to a resort on the North Sea. Rolf's mother was deported to Auschwitz in 1943, where it is assumed she was murdered. Her brother, Walter Fels, managed to survive the war in hiding.

Having worked at the odd menial job in Berlin, Rolf found work with an upmarket fashion business which had opened a branch in London and guaranteed his emigration to England in August 1939. Once in the UK and after the war had broken out he managed to avoid internment, was rejected by the RAF and opted to do engineer training to assist Britain in the war effort. After the war he started his own wholesale fashion business. In the meantime he had met and married his wife, Susanne, also a refugee, from Austria. 

Donated 26.11.2014

Donor: Oppenheimer, Rolf