In 1994, Mareike, Anja, Sandra, Kerstin and Bianca, five students from the Schöneberger Robert-Blum-Gymnasium, could not shake the lasting impression that the film “Schindler’s List” had made on them. They decided to travel to Auschwitz and gather their own information about the notorious concentration camp. While there, they obtained a list from the archives of the hundreds of Jews from Berlin who were murdered at the camp. Three closely printed pages gave names, place of origin, birth and death dates. The accompanying teacher noted the name Else Ury on the list and to their surprise, piled behind a display window holding hundreds of pieces of luggage that had belonged to the deportees, they discovered a battered suitcase marked “Else ‘Sara’ Ury” in faded writing.
Who was Else Ury? The younger generation would hardly know who she was, but to their grandmothers she was a household name. Else Ury was a well-known author who had written close to forty books for children of all ages; the best known of them were the “Nesthäkchen” series. Young girls growing up in the 1920s and early 1930s adored these books. In ten volumes the author chronicled her character’s life from early childhood to grandmotherhood. Almost as popular were the five volumes of “Professor’s Zwillinge, Bubi und Mädi,” the story of the growing up of mischievous twins.
Else Ury was born in 1877 to Emil and Franziska Ury. Her father was part-owner and later proprietor of a tobacco factory in Berlin. There were two older boys and a younger sister in the family. The parents believed in a good education and sent their children to prestigious schools. The older son, Ludwig, studied law, whereas the younger one, Hans, became a physician. Else’s sister, Käthe, was trained as a teacher, but Else received no further education after finishing ten years at the Luisen-Lyceum where she received high marks. She remained at home devoting herself to writing children’s stories and fairytales. Young people’s magazines published her work and she was known as the “Lady of Fairytales.” Her only attemptat a Jewish tale, entitled “Im Trödelkeller” (a cellar of discarded goods), appeared in 1908 as part of a selection of stories sponsored by the B’nai Brith organization. This story showed that Else Ury had acquired a basic knowledge of Jewish customs and traditions from her grandparents, who had been practicing Jews. Her immediate family was assimilated and nationalistic and deeply devoted to German culture. Else’s mother had a vast background in German literature and could quote freely from German authors, while music by German classical composers was greatly valued. Nowhere in her subsequent publications does she refer to her Jewish heritage. After publishing several books, most of them for young children, Else Ury started her ten-volume saga of “Nesthäkchen,” all of which have been reprinted (1984) except the fourth volume dealing with WWI, which was deemed too nationalistic and patriotic. Like many affluent families of the time, the Ury family took frequent vacations at their favorite location, Krummhübel, in the Riesengebirge. In 1926 Else purchased a home there and called it “Haus Nesthäkchen.” It became a holiday center for the extended family.
Ury’s family lived on Kaiserdamm, in an upper-class residential neighborhood of large apartments, which they moved to from their residence on Kantstraße. They felt comparatively untouched by the anti-semitism that spread throughout Germany, the assaults on Jews in the streets and the boycott of Jewish stores. It was not until 1935 that the author was forced to cease publishing, while her family members had already been forbidden to practice their professions. Many people were anxious to leave Germany and were seeking applications and visas to various countries. Sister Käthe’s older daughter Lisbeth and her husband left Germany to live in Holland, while Ilse, the younger one, embraced Zionism and emigrated to Palestine. The youngest of Käthe’s children, Klaus, went to London in 1936 to study architecture. By 1939 Ury’s older brother, Ludwig, forbidden as a Jew to practice law, went to England while Käthe and her husband joined the family in Holland The younger brother, Hans, a prominent physician, took his own life. Else Ury stayed behind to care for her aging mother who died in 1940. Eventually, like all Berlin Jews, Else Ury was forced to move to a “Judenhaus” in Moabit. That was her last residence when the remaining Jews of Berlin were summoned for deportation. She died in the gas chambers of Auschwitz in January 1943. The family members in Holland, Käthe, her husband, Lisbeth, her husband and six-year-old son,were deported in 1943 and perished in concentration camps.
Interest in the author had increasedwith the publication in 1992 of the book “Nesthäkchen kommt ins KZ. Eine Annäherung” by Marianne Brentzel. Citing the background of the political situation at the time of Ury’s life and aided by several letters and photographs, the author reconstructed her life and times. Encouraged by the stir caused by the book, the Heimat Museum in Berlin-Charlottenburg mounted an exhibition in 1997 entitled “Wiedersehen mit Nesthäkchen.” In planning the exposition, the organizers ran a short notice in the newspaper asking if anyone had known the authorpersonally. I wrote to them that in 1937 at the age of 11, I was one of the avid readers of Else Ury’s works. My mother decided that I should meet her, as her niece, Lisbeth, was married to my mother’s brother. We lived in Charlottenburg, close to her Kaiserdamm residence, and mother and I planned a visit. I recall being excited to meet the creator of my favorite books. A friendly, petite, gray-haired lady greeted us and thrilled me with a present of an advance copy of one of her “Nesthäkchen” books with many penciled corrections.
The exhibition at the Heimat Museum, scheduled from November 1997 to February 1998, contained placards with commentary, excerpts from books, photographs and documents. The author’s nephew, Klaus (Ernest K. Heyman), living in London, contributed letters, photographs and memorabilia. He and his wife were honored guests at the opening and he spoke about his memories of his beloved aunt. At the same time the Gedenkstätte Haus der Wannsee Konferenz also mounted an exhibition that contained, along with documentation of the National Socialist extermination program, the suitcase that the students discovered at Auschwitz.
There are other reminders of Else Ury in Berlin. A memorial plaque was affixed to the house on Kantstraße (No. 30) where she had penned the “Nesthäkchen” books. In 1998, a passage underneath the Stadtbahn between Bleibtreustraße and Knesebeckstraße was designated “Else-Ury-Bogen.” Klaus (Heyman) also attended the latter’s dedication.
Only last year Angelika Grunenberg published “Die Welt war so heil. Die Familie der Else Ury. Chronik eines jüdischen Schicksals.” This book consists mainly of the letters that Käthe and Lisbeth wrote to Klaus while they were living in Amsterdam and trying to adapt to a different way of life and language. It also includes background information on the political situation in Germany and the position of the Jews. Only very few of Else Ury’s letters are reproduced.
I keep in touch with Klaus (Heyman) and see him whenever I visit England. My parents, too, were victims of the times. My father died in Theresienstadt and my mother, like Else Ury and Klaus’s family, was gassed in Auschwitz. We exchange memories of times gone by and remember the tragic losses of our loved ones in the Holocaust.