"Growing Up in Nazi Germany"
Extent and Medium
folder
1
Archival History
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Acquisition
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Naomi Pena
Naomi Pena donated this memoir to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum on August 27, 2009. Ms. Wundheiler was her math teacher, and gave a copy of her memoir to Naomi's father, Bruno Bettelheim.
Scope and Content
Consists of one memoir, 58 pages, entitled "Growing Up in Nazi Germany" by Luitgard N. Wundheiler, who was not Jewish. In the memoir, written like a novel, Mrs. Wundheiler ("Lou" in the memoir) describes her memories of Hitler and the Nazi party during her childhood in the 1930s. She describes her family's mixed reaction to antisemitism, loyalty oaths, and Kristallnacht, as well as her own anti-Nazi sentiment. As the war progressed, she describes her experiences in the Arbeitsdienst and the death of her brother in the invasion of France. In 1941, she went to school in Switzerland, where she met Alex, a Polish Jew. After returning to Germany, she describes receiving leaflets from die Weiße Rose (White Rose). In 1949, she immigrated to the United States and sought out Alex, whom she married in 1951. The memoir includes handwritten corrections.
People
- Wundheiler, Luitgard.
Subjects
- Germany--History--1933-1945--Personal narratives.
Genre
- Document
- Personal Narratives.