The ARD Film about Hanni Lévy : I was there, I was blonde, I was a Berliner News

7000 Jews hid during the war in Berlin, and 1500 have survived. The experiences of four Jews has filmed Claus Räfle in a stunning docudrama. Ms. levy, how was it for you to see your life on screen?

I have come to the Film only to realize that I had it relatively easy. Eugen peace and Cioma Schönhaus, appearing in the Film, were, of course, only by the fact suspicious that there was in Berlin at the time, as well as no men without Uniform. I was a young girl, alone ...

... that sounds even more dangerous. Have you thought long and hard about what they risk if they dive?
no. It is an impulse, when my grandmother was deported. In the last night I sleep with her. We sat there all day with her suitcase and waited for the Moment. Late in the afternoon, two men stood in the door, you picked up the Arm and into a van transported. She was 88. In that Moment, I vowed to myself: I don't get. I had nothing more to lose.

at the time they were 18 and.
My father died in January ’40. The Nazis had him ranked 39 for the potato dig. He was seriously asthma suffering. My mother was sick for a long time, something with the kidney. Later, for Jews, hardly more medicine. She died in early ’42. After that, I lived with family friends in the Augsburg road. The were eventually picked up. I was not on the list. It was my luck that you're in Germany according to the lists.

In February of ’43 they are then the Deportation escaped just barely.
had knocked me. I have not touched. Outside I heard a rumbling, and screams. They took all the Jews in the house. As for me, in the back of the building for a short rest, I am up to the attic. Since I was stuck. Across the yard I could not. I remembered that the neighbors had an apartment that reached up to the front of the house. I knocked on the door. But the neighbor said: "you can't get through. With me are picking up.“ I pushed him aside and went down the front stairs. Then I went to friends of my parents in the güntzelstraße.

A Jewish Barber to me has dyed blonde hair

Were not Jewish?
Yes, the organised a hairdresser, I dyed the hair. Then you have even managed somehow to get me a accommodation: in a house-woman were in the land count road ...

... has hidden.
I'm not hiding. I realized quickly that I had to disappear in the crowd. I was now blonde. Only I had the long pursuit of a crouched posture. I had to give myself different than I was used to. Later, someone said to me: "you are the prototype of an Aryan woman." Unfortunately, he has not given me in writing.

In the Film, a scene in which they run the Ku'damm along.
I went out normally through the city. After a few months of me has taken the family Most. The were very cosmopolitan people, who had a large apartment across from the city hall of Charlottenburg. From time to time I went to the Café Kranzler. It was clear to me that it was better to go in fancy Local. Since the anyone looking for.

at the Time, there were so-called gripper: Jews in the service of the Nazis, who held to other Jews on the look-out you knew before. Did you know that?
A former colleague told me. We knew even: Rolf Isaac's son. He had worked in the factory in the layer, which replaced us. Eventually, I sat in the Kranzler with his back to the road. Through the mirror on the opposite wall I saw Isaac, son outside to run, surrounded by SA men. Then I'm not so often into the Kranzler.

people assisted

she changed hands several times in the shelter. They lived on the street?
no. I met incredibly helpful people. I was often in front of the theater at the Nollendorfplatz. Once a young man sat next to me. Then he asked if I would go for a walk with him. I was very blonde at the time. He told me that his mother seats at the box office and I always see. He was in the war. His father was about 30 years older. He asked me to visit from time to time, his mother. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Most took me to the side: I could no longer stay with him. He would disappear because he would not be moved in time. I had no other choice than to reveal to me the woman Kolzer. She said: "you come to me."

What have you done in the evening in the apartment? Board games ...
... we sat in front of the Radio. And if it was, Flights to Hannover, we are into the lowest basement of the station Nollendorfplatz. There we had solid seats. I sat with a group of Nazis. One day, said to me: "Come and see us at the office, in the NSDAP." I don't know what they wanted from me, but I am.

Were you afraid of?
no. I can't understand today, but I was a very naughty Berliner. We lived opposite the headquarters of the SA, and when the discs are fired, I'm like all the others, "Heil Hitler, to me, the disks are flown out." That has saved me, that I be like everyone else.

you have changed your name: Hanni mountain white to Hannelore Winkler. Have you thought about a legend, as do spies?
no. No one has asked. I was there, I was blonde, I was a Berliner.

did you Know what was at stake? In the Film Eugene peace, says, that he learned only shortly before the end of the war of the Camps.
I even only then, when I was with a woman Kolzer for the first Time in the cinema. The Americans showed at the time, prior to the film documentaries of the concentration camps. We have not believed what we were seeing.

My place was in Paris

started in Paris a new life.
My uncle lived there, he travelled to the end of the war to Berlin. I didn't want to leave. I had experienced too much. But Mrs Kolzer and the must found that my place was in Paris.

Are you more often in Berlin?
for Years, my husband did not like it here very much. He has lost in the Holocaust his family, except the parents. He wanted me to everything that has to do with Berlin, forget it, what I would have done never. I have ensured that my children learn English. But I have also done everything that you are French.

The financing of the film was long in the balance. You were impatient?
I even wrote once somewhere, I believe in the ARD that it is an impertinence, even the stupid movie comes out and is put on hold forever. But if you look at what is politically currently going on, the Film comes at exactly the right time.

you Mean the rise of the Right in Germany?
We in France have big problems. And there's more: France is a country that has given many people a new future. However, the French themselves are highly of herself, actually xenophobic. This is, then, because the people who come, even to the French. You see, my children are much more French than I do. So that will go well with the refugees. You are German.

The Interview was conducted by Barbara Nolte.

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