RelatioNet AN LO 29 BE GE

HANITA RODNEY  -  ANNELISE LOWI

HOLOCAUST PROJECT KATZENELSON HIGH SCHOOL ISRAEL.

MAIL: orfiine12@gmail.com,  relationet2014@gmail.com.

First Name: Hanita

Birth Name: Annelise Lowi

Last Name: Rodney

Father: Richard

Mother: Kisntl

Year of birth: 1929

Foster Parents: Dolly Rodney

Life Story: 

Hanita Rodney was born In Berlin, Germany, in the year 1929. She was

 born to a German Family, Richard and Kisntel Lowi and had a 

 beloved young brother- Hans.

Before the war, she had lived well, her father Richard owned a fabric

 store, he was a sportsman and enjoyed taking the family around

 Germany on biking trips.

Right after what  had happened on crystal night, Hanita and her
brother walked to school, they couldn't have missed the broken glass on the  floor, even her father's store windows were broken.

As they approached their school, they were relieved to reach a safe  haven. Yet their hopes were for nothing; they weren't let into    the school.

They had to walk home shamefully and afraid from the outcome.

When they got home, and asked their parents for information, they were answered in silence. 

at the time wasn't as much food at  home, It was   There
 before crystal night.
 Hanita's father worked with a 

German woman, and she took care of bringing them food for supper. With her help, the family got to live a better life compared to other Jewish families at the time.

Richard told the family that they (Hanita and Hans) might be sent to Holland, yet nothing had happened; their uncle wanted to take Hanita and   her mother with him to South America, but Richard disagreed.

Richard was a proud German, and he didn't agree to be forced to leave   Germany.

One day, Richard ordered Hanita to go and pack a suitcase, yet she didn’t want to leave without Hans, because of that Richard and Kishintel locked Hans in the bathroom.

Richard took Hanita to the train station, and from there a train took her and other children with a necklace with their heading address. She was   left without even a hug 

from her father.

The train took her to the docks of the ship that would take her to Liverpool; it was the last ship that took Jewish children to England from Germany before the war.

When she arrived to Liverpool, Dolly was there to take her to her new home. Dolly was her foster mother, part of the organization of which foster parents took Jewish  children in their custody.

Dolly and her family did not speak German at all, and Hanita needed to   learn English from scratch. Hanita appreciated the dimensions of Dolly's house. She had great carpets and a second floor. In hanita's bedroom there were two sleeping beds, which made her think of her brother Hans; it made her cry each night thinking why he didn’t come along with her.

  The neighbors had a girl about Hanita's
  age and she knew German as well. She translated to hanita and helped her with her English.

Hanita had reached high achievements in school and managed to blend  in  with the English society.

Hanita met her husband Bob in England on "Hachshara"; he was the first one to hear about her stories from 
Germany- She went through Physical, sexual and mental abuse while being captured by Nazi German's at the age of 9.

Bob told her that he wanted to travel to Israel and wanted to marry her. On his traveling he had sent her letters describing the surrounding of Israel. In one of the letters he asked her to marry him.

She had thrown an engagement party without him on the "Hachshara".

Later on she moved to Israel to get married and live with her Husband.

In the 70's Hanita's daughter suffered from schizophrenia, which 
motivated her to start the "Enosh" organization, an organization which  helps families with members suffering from mental illness.

Hanita is the founder of the Enosh organization.

City of Birth:
Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and also the largest city. It is populated with 3.5 million people, nearly 50,000 of them are Jews.

Prior the outbreak of World War 2, the Jews represented one third of the population in Berlin, and had a good socio-economic status. They had constructed different institutions such as the Jewish Museum that was opened in 1933, and The Central Board of Jewish Welfare in Germany that was founded in 1917. Many synagogues were consecrated, and the largest Jewish cemetery in Europe was established in the year of 1880.

A great Jewish achievement occurred in the year of 1921, when Albert Einstein, who lived in Berlin, was being awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics.

The Jewish community in Berlin was substantially destroyed when Hitler and the Nazi Party came to power in 1933.

The status of the Jews in Berlin started to decrease that year with the first boycott called against shops owned by Jewish citizens.

The situation worsened when many Jews were arrested and expelled from Eastern Europe.The state organized pogroms against Germany's Jewish population, and the most distressing event was the burning of synagogues, plundering of shops and smashing their windows and murdering many Jewish citizens in the Night of Broken Glass.

The war began on September 1^st 1939. By that year, nearly 250,000 Jews have fled Germany since 1933.

In 1941, many areas of the city were declared off limits for Jews, and laws were enacted requiring Jews to wear yellow badge. 

In that year, 1000 Jews were deported from Berlin to Lodz. 

In January 1942, Wannsee  Conference convenes on the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question". More deportations from Berlin began. 

Between 1941 and 1943, all the Jews in Berlin were deported to camps throughout Europe, and the city was declared Judenrein- clean of Jews.

The war ended in 1945. Berlin was liberated by the Red Army. Out of 160,000 Jewish citizens who lived in Berlin before the war, 55,000 were murdered, 7000 committed

suicide, 90,000 emigrated, and only 8000 were liberated and remained in Berlin.