This is the 1925 school report for Fanny Kempler (later Tohar) from the Girls’ Middle School of the Jewish Community of Berlin. Fanny was a student in sixth grade and studied religion, Hebrew, German, English, and French along with other subjects. She appears to have been a good student. While in school, Fanny was a member of the Zionist youth movement Blau-Wiess (Blue and White).
Fanny was born in Ukraine and moved to Berlin, Germany with her family when she was four years old hoping for a better life. The family had a modern Orthodox lifestyle and lived in Scheunenviertel, a Jewish neighbourhood where both religious and secular Jews lived, many of whom were of Eastern European origin. Her father owned a kosher pastry shop in Grenadierstrasse, a Jewish area of Berlin. The Kempler children studied in Jewish schools. When the Nazis came to power in 1933, life changed for the Kempler family. Hillel's father narrowly missed being arrested by the Gestapo and fled to Israel. Fanny's mother and her younger siblings also left Germany, but because they didn't have an official permission to enter Israel, they wandered from Germany to Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Serbia, Turkey, and Lebanon until finally arriving illegally in pre-state Israel in 1933. At the time that her mother and siblings left Germany, Fanny went to France with her Zionist youth movement, arriving in pre-state Israel with the group one year after them. While in France, she married a member of her group; a person who obtained a certificate to travel to Israel could also bring a spouse, so all the members of the group got married. Later, Fanny and her husband were officially married in Israel and three daughters. She died in Israel in the 1990s.
Would You Like to Know More?
Jews in Nazi Germany (Pre-World War II) – The Nazi party came to power in Germany in 1933. After World War I, Germany was faced with military defeat, social unrest and an economic crisis. Many Germans blamed the Jews for these disasters. The difficult situation in Germany and the ever- present anti-Semitic sentiments resulted in a rise in the popularity of the Nazi party, and on January 20, 1933 Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany. Immediately, the Jewish community experienced organised attacks, and anti-Jewish law were passed. Jews were prohibited from working in certain professions, participating in cultural events, purchasing products during certain hours, and even attending school. Jewish businesses were boycotted and looted, and many Jewish people lost their businesses or jobs. The first concentration camp was opened in Dachau, and many Jews were arrested and sent there and to other camps. In 1935 the Nuremberg laws were passed, which stripped German Jews of their citizenship. Jews lost legal protection and were left with all of the obligations but few of the rights of German citizenship. Persecution varied from city to city and peaked in the Kristallnacht pogrom of November 9–10, 1938, in which thousands of Jews throughout Nazi Germany were attacked or arrested and thousands of Jewish-owned shops or businesses were looted and destroyed. Many Jews chose to flee Germany, and, until October 1941, German policy encouraged Jewish emigration. Jews moved to any country that would take them, including other European countries where many were later killed as the Nazis captured new territories, as well as the United States, England, and Israel.
