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Their names were Helene, Johanna, Simon, and so on: New Apostolic Christians of Jewish origin from Stuttgart (Germany), who experienced the horrors of Nazi Germany … The UN declared 27 January as an International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust.
Advent 1941 got off to a frosty start, the harbinger of a freezing winter. The next day, a young woman left the Killesberg Hill Park in Stuttgart (Germany). Her way led her past a cemetery. After three kilometres she arrived at the railway freight terminal. She felt infinitely lonely although she was part of a group of more than a thousand people.
The young woman’s name was Helene Wöhr and she was a kindergarten teacher—with excellent references. “She has a very kind and cheerful nature,” it says there. It also says that she was very fond of children and the kindergarten was reluctant to let her go. But she had to make this journey.
Three days earlier, she had said goodbye to her parents. Their parting had been tearful. By then, all her assets had already been confiscated by the Gestapo. Before already, District Apostle Georg Schall had advised Helene to go to Switzerland. But she had stayed on out of love and concern for her parents.
Journey of no return
The train she had to board was a deportation train. Its destination was Riga in Latvia. For the longest time, Helene Wöhr had not known that she was of Jewish origin. Her parents were initially Protestant. In 1922, then, her mother and stepfather converted to the New Apostolic Church. Her mother, Anna Wöhr, was half Jewish. Helene herself had a Jewish father. With three grandparents who professed Judaism, she was considered a “full Jew” according to the first ordinance of the Reich Citizenship Law of 1935.
The journey took three days and three nights. To “create” space” in the Riga Ghetto, thousands of Latvian Jews were shot. Helene and her fellow sufferers vegetated in partially open stables and barns in temperatures that sometimes exceeded minus 30 degrees. They had to work hard. There was hardly anything to eat. Of the one thousand people in her group, only 43 survived the war.
On 30 April 1942, Helene wrote a letter to her mother, Anna, telling her that she had now also been sentenced to death, wishing “if only it were already over”. It was her last sign of life. Her best friend, Margot Neumeier, reported many years later that she often dreamt of Helene. She would always see her in a beaded dress.
Anything but an exception
The fate of Helene Wöhr (1915–1942) was not an isolated case. At least six New Apostolic Christians of Jewish origin were deported from Stuttgart alone during the Nazi era:
Fanny Perlen (1894–1941) was also on the deportation train to Latvia and was murdered. Josefine Glück (1872–1943) was deported to Theresienstadt (Czech = Terezín) in 1942, where she died because of the horrid conditions. Her son, Hermann Glück (1901–1969), worked as a civil servant at the Chamber of Industry and Commerce. Despite the best references, he was dismissed because of his Jewish origins. He survived his time as a forced labourer with serious health problems.
Cecilie Sofie Barth (1873–1953), Johanna Dierheimer (1894–1971), and Simon Peritz (1884–1972) survived the Shoah because they had lived in a so-called privileged mixed marriage. They were married to Aryans. But eventually even they were deported.
Loving hearts, helping hands
And what did the Church do? “Throughout the years of National Socialist rule, I and my family … received so much love and help and support in the way of money and food, as well as advice and comfort from the members and leading figures of the congregation …,” reported Hermann Glück on 2 May 1945.
“Faithful people, especially the rector of the New Apostolic Church in his caring and loving way, reached out to help us,” Simon Peritz explained on 20 July 1945. After Simon Peritz was deported, his wife continued to receive financial support in this difficult time.
Johanna Dierheimer, who survived Theresienstadt seriously ill, stated on 24 May 1946: “The ministers of the congregation supported me financially, without which I would have perished with my children.”
Johanna Dierheimer as well as Hermann Glück and Simon Peritz stayed connected to the Church after the war.
Helene Wöhr worked as a nanny for the Heydt family. It was one of her last jobs from January 1938 to December 1940. (Photo: Peter Heydt)
About the author
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Karl-Peter Krauss (born 1955), who has a PhD in history, is chairman of the working group History of the New Apostolic Church. He studied in Tübingen and completed his doctorate on a historical-geographical topic. His books on Church history have been widely recognised , even by critics. Until his retirement in 2021, he was rector in a congregation in Southern Germany.