Inge Fehr
Inge Fehr, the daughter of Oscar Fehr and Jeanne Fehr, was born in Berlin in 1922. Professor Fehr was in charge of eye department of the Rudolf Virchov Hospital. He also had a large private practice in the western part of the city, close to the Tiergarten.
Like her school friends, Inge was a supporter of Adolf Hitler and was a member of the German League of Girls: "There was one Jewish girl in our class and we sent her to Coventry. Nobody spoke to her. Whenever she came into the playground, we all went into the opposite corner. My friend's father was high up in the Nazi Party and I was as bad as all the rest."
Education of Inge Fehr
Inge was unaware that her parents were Jewish until she was not allowed to take part in collections for winter relief with the Hitler Youth in 1933. When she asked why not she was told it was "because your father is a Jew". Inge, whose family attended the local Lutheran church, was deeply shocked by the news: "It's impossible," I said. I had been taught that a Jew was the lowest form of life, my wonderful father could not be a Jew. Then I found out that my mother was a Jew too so I was classified as a full Jew."
Life at school became very difficult. "We were having daily lessons in Race Knowledge, learning about the superiority of the German race. We were told that the... Jews had descended from Negroes.... Miss Dummer, my form teacher, who was a patient of my father, took me aside after the first lesson and said: Please ignore the rubbish I am forced to teach you." (1)
German children were ordered to write essays with titles such as "The Jews are our misfortune". Rebecca Weisner suffered a great deal in her German school: "When I was six, Hitler came to power. I started school in April 1933, just at the same time... There were some German girls I was friends with - we grew up together - and, all of a sudden, one day I come down and they call me dirty Jew. My friends, the friends I grew up with! I couldn't comprehend it. I would say to my mother, Why do they call me dirty? I am not dirty. And she said, You had better get used to it. You're Jewish, and that is what you have to learn. So just take it." (2)
Hedwig Ertl later recalled: "We had a history teacher who was a very committed National Socialist, and we had four Jewish pupils. And they had to stand up during the class, they weren't allowed to sit down. And one after the other they disappeared, until none were left, but nobody thought much about it. We were told they had moved.... We were told all the time that first the Jews are a lower kind of human being, and then the Poles are inferior, and anyone who wasn't Nordic was worthless." (3) Inge Fehr was transferred to Goldschmidt Schule, a Jewish school in Berlin. (4)
Kristallnacht (Crystal Night)
Ernst vom Rath was murdered by Herschel Grynszpan, a young Jewish refugee in Paris on 9th November, 1938. At a meeting of Nazi Party leaders that evening, Joseph Goebbels suggested that there should be "spontaneous" anti-Jewish riots. (5) Reinhard Heydrich sent urgent guidelines to all police headquarters suggesting how they could start these disturbances. He ordered the destruction of all Jewish places of worship in Germany. Heydrich also gave instructions that the police should not interfere with demonstrations and surrounding buildings must not be damaged when burning synagogues. (6)
Heinrich Mueller, head of the Secret Political Police, sent out an order to all regional and local commanders of the state police: "(i) Operations against Jews, in particular against their synagogues will commence very soon throughout Germany. There must be no interference. However, arrangements should be made, in consultation with the General Police, to prevent looting and other excesses. (ii) Any vital archival material that might be in the synagogues must be secured by the fastest possible means. (iii) Preparations must be made for the arrest of from 20,000 to 30,000 Jews within the Reich. In particular, affluent Jews are to be selected. Further directives will be forthcoming during the course of the night. (iv) Should Jews be found in the possession of weapons during the impending operations the most severe measures must be taken. SS Verfuegungstruppen and general SS may be called in for the overall operations. The State Police must under all circumstances maintain control of the operations by taking appropriate measures." (7)
The events that took place that night became known as Kristallnacht (Crystal Night). Inge Fehr went to school the next day but was immediately told that she had to return home. "Our headmistress told us a pogrom was in progress. We had to evacuate because members of the Hitler Youth carrying stones were gathering at the front and they were setting other buildings alight. We were all to leave quickly by the back door and not to return to school until further notice. On my way home, I followed the smoke and arrived at the synagogue in the Fasanenstrasse which had been set alight. Crowds were watching from the opposite pavement. I then passed through the Tauentzienstrasse where I saw crowds smashing Jewish shop windows and jeering as the owners tried to salvage their goods. When I got to our house I saw that our chauffeur, who had worked for us for years, had painted Fehr Jude in red paint on the pavement outside." (8)
Inge Fehr was now aware that she was "a second-class citizen in her own native Germany – and as Hitler’s crackdown on Jewish residents worsened, it became clear that she and her family’s lives were in danger". (9) "After Kristallnacht, things became impossible for anyone who was Jewish. My father had a telephone call advising him to take an immediate holiday. Officially, he went to Breslau for a consultation. In fact, he went first to Dresden to friends, and then to Munich to half-Aryan relatives. He and my mother agreed a code on the telephone in case the Gestapo were looking for him." (10)
Jews were now debarred from public swimming-pools, sports grounds and parks. (11) Inge Fehr complained that "we could no longer go to any place of entertainment like cinemas, theatres, the circus, concerts or the zoo." She wrote in her diary: "We are no longer allowed in German hospitals and schools. Jews are not allowed on the main roads in Berlin. We are forbidden even to sit on public benches, only on yellow benches marked Judenbank." (12)
In January 1939, Oscar Fehr approached Frank Foley, Director of the Passport Control Office in the British Embassy at Berlin. (13) Foley managed to get the Fehr family a visa to go to England. "Captain Foley gave us visas. He told us that my father was the only doctor he knew who had received permission to work in England and that he was one of only a few who had been given a permit for permanent residence in England... England gave us permission to emigrate but my father would have to retake his medical examinations before being allowed to practise." (14)
After the outbreak of the Second World War the British authorities interned Inge's father on the Isle of Man. Frank Foley was unable to help but did write to his wife, Jeanne Fehr: "I am depressed to hear that your venerable husband has been interned and hope that his case will receive the most sympathetic consideration by the new tribunals which were mentioned in the House of Commons last night. You have suffered greatly." (15)
Inge Fehr (Samson) qualified as a nurse and was interviewed for Michael Smith's book, Foley: The Spy Who Saved 10,000 Jews (1999). She also contributed to the film, The Rescuers and and ITV documentary Frank Foley: The British Schindler. Her diaries (1933-1942) are kept at the Wiener Library. (16)
Primary Sources
(1) Inge Fehr, letter to Michael Smith (2nd April, 1997)
There was one Jewish girl in our class and we sent her to Coventry. Nobody spoke to her. Whenever she came into the playground, we all went into the opposite corner. My friend's father was high up in the Nazi Party and I was as bad as all the rest.
I was 11 and we were going to collect for the winter relief with the Hitler Youth when it was announced in the school hall that I would not be able to go. "Why not?" I asked. "Because your father is a Jew," they said. "It's impossible," I said. I had been taught that a Jew was the lowest form of life, my wonderful father could not be a Jew. Then I found out that my mother was a Jew too so I was classified as a full Jew.
We were having daily lessons in Race Knowledge, learning about the superiority of the German race. We were told that the... Jews had descended from Negroes. Miss Dummer, my form teacher, who was a patient of my father, took me aside after the first lesson and said: "Please ignore the rubbish I am forced to teach you."
Everything changed from then on. My father.had to leave the hospital - two years earlier, on his 60th birthday, the Lord Mayor had written to him saying: "We hope Berlin will still have many, many years of your valuable service. But in 1934, all Jews had to leave public service and now a letter came telling him that he was forbidden to enter the hospital again.
(2) Inge Fehr, letter to Michael Smith (2nd April, 1997)
Our headmistress told us a pogrom was in progress. We had to evacuate because members of the Hitler Youth carrying stones were gathering at the front and they were setting other buildings alight. We were all to leave quickly by the back door and not to return to school until further notice.
On my way home, I followed the smoke and arrived at the synagogue in the Fasanenstrasse which had been set alight. Crowds were watching from the opposite pavement. I then passed through the Tauentzienstrasse where I saw crowds smashing Jewish shop windows and jeering as the owners tried to salvage their goods. When I got to our house I saw that our chauffeur, who had worked for us for ca years, had painted Fehr Jude in red paint on the pavement outside.
(3) Herts & Essex Observer (14th November, 2011)
More than 70 years after a daring British spy helped her flee Hitler’s clutches, Holocaust refugee Inge Samson will be telling her story to UK film fans for the first time.
The Bishop’s Stortford pensioner, whose family were smuggled out of Nazi Germany by double agent Frank Foley, is among those who lent her voice to Michael King’s acclaimed documentary The Rescuers. Inge Samson, who is now 89 and living in Warwick Road, first faced the wrath of the fascist regime in 1933 when her father Oskar Fehr’s Jewish roots were uncovered.
When it premiered in the US earlier this year, it picked up a raft of prestigious awards – including Best of the Fest title at the prestigious Palm Springs International Film Festival.
It will get its first showing on these shores in London on Thursday (Nov 17), when Kilburn’s Tricycle Theatre is screening it as part of the annual UK Jewish Film Festival.
She, too, was labelled a Jew by the Nazis and made a second-class citizen in her own native Germany – and as Hitler’s crackdown on Jewish residents worsened, it became clear that she and her family’s lives were in danger.
In 1939, with the Second World War looming, the Fehrs applied for a visa to escape to the UK – and Foley, then working undercover at Berlin’s passport office, pulled strings to get them out before the conflict broke out.
His brave risk saved more than 10,000 Jews and other ‘undesirables’ from the horrors of the gas chambers, earning him a mention alongside other Holocaust heroes in The Rescuers.
The release of the film, which has since been screened across America and as far afield as Hong Kong, has been prompted renewed interest in Inge’s story. She has been invited to appear on numerous TV shows, which she has had to decline on health grounds.
However, the former Herts and Essex Hospital nurse has spent many years raising awareness of the evils of Hitler’s purges, contributing to 11 books on the subject and ITV documentary Frank Foley: The British Schindler.
When she filmed her segments for the documentary last year, Inge returned to Berlin and even visited the Lutheran church she and her family used to attend. She also spent time in London with presenter and eminent historian Sir Michael Gilbert.
Student Activities
Adolf Hitler's Early Life (Answer Commentary)
Heinrich Himmler and the SS (Answer Commentary)
Trade Unions in Nazi Germany (Answer Commentary)
Adolf Hitler v John Heartfield (Answer Commentary)
Hitler's Volkswagen (The People's Car) (Answer Commentary)
Women in Nazi Germany (Answer Commentary)