We know almost nothing about her and that will never change. But she will be remembered. We must rely on our imaginations to fill in the enormous gaps about her life in Germany before the “final solution” became her fate. And we can imagine her new life in America, if only the U.S. government had approved her application to emigrate with the rest of my father’s family.
What we do know is that she was an unmarried Jewish woman who worked as a maid and was too shy or scared to give satisfactory answers to the questions that determined eligibility for emigration to the U.S. According to my Aunt Ellen, my grandmother was forced to send Meta back to Frankfurt after the rest of the family was granted permission to emigrate in 1938. At the age of 44 Meta returned to Frankfurt without any personal resources. She spent another four years there, was eventually forced into a Judenhaus, and then deported in May 1942. We have tried without success to find out where she was deported to and her date of death.
Later this year we will place a stolperstein (brass stumbling stone) in Frankfurt for Meta. This stone, placed at the site of Meta’s last freely chosen residence, will join the more than 25,000 others throughout Europe (see Stolpersteine: Stones to Remember). Pedestrians who tread on Meta’s stone will have the opportunity to reflect on another Holocaust victim. Meta’s stone will also represent the 13 Jews of Altwiedermus and my paternal ancestors whose lives were obliterated by the Nazis. Our son Avery, who will have his bar mitzvah in Berlin this October, will raise the 95 euros for Meta’s memorial stone as his bar mitzvah project.
Donna Swarthout 
Bonjour, I just came across your blog as I was looking for a picture of Volkspark Schöneberg (going to live not far from there in July studying at the Goethe Institut) I am very touched by what you share in your blog.
Thanks for your comment and best wishes to you!
Have you read Daniel Mendelsohn’s book, “The Lost”? It is the story of his great uncle’s family who were not able to make it out of Poland and perished in the Holocaust. In 1938, the US government was not as sympathetic to Jewish refugees as it would become during the cold war. Your immediate family was very lucky to be among the 100,000 or so admitted. Daniel was also born in 1960.
Thanks for the book recommendation…..I just ordered it!
I kind of stumbled into your blog after reading your article on tabletmag.com. Very interesting perspective on my home country, thank you very much!
Just a short question: Are you sure that Meta was deported from Frankfurt in May 1942? If that’s the case, her destination was most likely Izbica. There were only two trains from Frankfurt and both were going to that place (as part of a bigger wave of deportations).
I work on the topic and I will check if I can find out more.
Dear Enno, I was not previously aware that the deportations from Frankfurt in May 1942 were to Izbica. The agencies I have contacted are: ITS Arolsen, Finanzamt Wiesbaden, Frankfurt Institut fuer Stadtgeschichte, Yad Vashem, Fritz Bauer Institut, and the Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv. The financial agencies show that Meta’s files were closed in May 1942, which is how we derived her date of deportation. I would most appreciate hearing from you if you are able to obtain any additional information about Meta. We have a tentative date for a Stolperstein Verlegung in July.
Dear Donna, if the financial files were closed in May 1942 it is indeed most likely that she was deported around that time. Deportations all over Germany were conducted in a very similar way. In the first stage, the deportees were transferred from their homes to an assembly camp. In Frankfurt it was the wholesale market hall (http://www.lagis-hessen.de/de/subjects/idrec/sn/nstopo/id/278). Upon arrival, the limited allowed luggage would be searched for valuables, the deportees had to fill out a declaration of property and sign everything over to the German Reich. Then they were transferred to the train. The property was usually sold in auctions shortly after. It is a reasonable assumption that – if her files were closed in May – she was most likely deported earlier that month.
As mentioned before, two deportation trains left Frankfurt in May, the first one on the 8th (938 deportees, arrived on the 9th in Izbica) and the second one on the 24th (957 deportees, arrived in Izbica on the 26th). There is a gap of half a year to earlier transports, and the following deportation on June 11 was targeting mostly Jews from outside Frankfurt.
You can find a detailed list of all transports from German territory on the pages of the German Federal Archives:
http://www.bundesarchiv.de/gedenkbuch/chronicles.html.en?page=1
…and conduct a search for names (they have very limited information on your relative):
http://www.bundesarchiv.de/gedenkbuch/directory.html.en
I am currently not aware if the deportation lists for those two transports in May have survived the war. I will check that tomorrow – as I have electronic access to the ITS Files. If they are available, I can check for her name.
Just send a mail to the email-address I provided here if you have additional questions. I would be happy to help.
Thank you so much, Enno, for your kind assistance! I believe that the Frankfurt deportation lists from May 1942 were destroyed. Please stay in touch if you learn anything else.
Yes, unfortunately I can confirm that these lists were destroyed. They are missing in the ITS-Archives. However, the files for the preceding (I checked all of those) and following transports (I checked two) are there. She is not listed on any of them. She does not appear either the Jewish community’s list of people that committed suicide when their deportation became imminent.
That’s all the information I could find at the moment. As all other options are ruled out, I am pretty certain that she was deported on the 8th or the 24th of May to Izbica.