Open Book!
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Names Not Numbers
Anita Koch
Anita Koch
Anita Nathan Koch was born on September 6th 1932 in a little town called Tempelburg located in East Germany (Prussia). Her father Arthur Nathan had a farm raising horses on the outskirts of town. Her mother Herta Minden Nathan was a housewife. Anita had a sister Melitta.
In 1933, when Hitler became Chancellor of Germany, German youth (boys) between the ages of seven through 14 were required to join a club.
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They were given uniforms with swastikas on them which they had to wear. Those boys were trained to torment Jews. They would march outside Jewish homes and stores and yell racial slurs such as, “You dirty Jews.” Whenever they met a Jew on the street, the Hitler youth would spit on them, hit them and kick them. No one protected the Jews and they had no one to help them. Because of this situation, the Nathans were prisoners in their home. They were
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afraid to go out during the day. Things continued to get worse. Later, no one was allowed to sell groceries to the Jews.
The Nathans decided to pack up and leave. They couldn’t sell their home, so they left it and went to Berlin. They took Anita’s grandmother with them. Anita’s grandfather had gone to Israel to visit relatives. He became very ill and was taken to the hospital. When he was better, he wanted to return to Israel, but
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his visa had expired, and Germany would not allow him to return. Israel wanted to keep him, but the British would not let him stay. He was a man with no country. Finally, Holland agreed to accept him. After a few years, he was able to come to America. Only Anita’s grandmother was allowed to join him once America joined the war.
In Berlin, the Nathans thought they would be safe, but when they arrived, they had to register with the police.
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They received passports stamped with a big letter J. They were instructed to carry their passports all the time. If they were found without their passports, they would be sent to a concentration camp.
No one wanted to rent an apartment to a Jew, so they had a very hard time getting housing. Finally, they found a poor old lady who rented one room to them for five people. They lived in that one room from 1937 to 1939. They were given ration cards
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with a big J stamped on them, so they could get food.
Some German Jews volunteered to work in the concentration camps because they were told, “Arbeit Macht Frei”, which means, “Work will make you free.” While working in the camps, they saw Jews were being killed and told other Jews. Soon Jews began to hide during the day. That’s when the Nathans would sleep. At night, worried that the Germans would come to round them up, Anita’s family left their
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room and stayed out all night. They separated so that if one group was caught and killed, the whole family would not be destroyed. Anita’s mom, sister, and grandmother went one way. Anita and her father went another way. They would travel on the trains or the buses all night. Whoever got back to the apartment first, was worried that the others had been caught.
One night, while Anita and her father were riding the train, a Gestapo soldier
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joined them in their compartment. He put Anita on his lap and started talking to her. Her father prayed that the soldier wouldn’t ask her any questions because Anita was six years old and would tell him the truth about any questions that he might ask. Fortunately, he didn’t and left the compartment a short time later.
Anita’s father decided he couldn’t live in fear this way. He went to the Jewish agency and purchased ten tickets so they could
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leave the country. He did not know where they would go, but he wanted to leave Germany. Five tickets were for his sister and her family, but they refused to go. They gave those tickets to strangers.
It was the end of August 1939. They took an Italian ship and then a Japanese freighter. They hit a terrible typhoon and almost capsized, but finally made it to Shanghai, China. At that time, the Japanese occupied Shanghai.
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The Chinese people of Shanghai were living in extremely poor conditions. The Chinese people were dying because they were starving and living in terrible slums.
Anita and her family were brought to a huge warehouse the size of Home Depot where there were hundreds of Jews. There were rows upon rows of iron bunk beds with straw mattresses, straw pillows, and one sheet with which to cover themselves. There were no windows, no fans, no ventilation,
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and the temperature was between 100 degrees and 125 degrees Fahrenheit. The water was contaminated so they had to boil it and filter it before they could drink it. Once a week each person received one large baguette which they had to cut into 7 pieces because it had to last them a whole week. Each day they got a bowl of watery, tasteless lentil soup. That was what they ate.
Once a week they were able to take showers. First the women and children
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would go to the showers. Then the men would go. They had one bar of soap, but no toothbrushes and no toothpaste. Anita had one dress and one pair of underwear that she washed each night so it would be clean for the next day.
A very wealthy Indian Jew by the name of Horace Khardoorie funded a school for the children. Anita went to school there for the first time. Her teachers were English, so she learned to read, write, and speak British English.
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They lived like this for seven and a half years. They were transferred to three different camps while they were in Shanghai.
She had friends to play with, but they had no games, no books, no magazines, no radio, and they received no emails. They had no connection to the rest of the world. They had nothing to do.
Because Shanghai was occupied by the Japanese, America’s enemy, they were bombed by the Americans.
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Many people were killed by the bombs because there were no air raid shelters. Others died of disease. The Japanese soldiers had guarded them throughout the time the Jews were there. When the bombings stopped and the Japanese soldiers disappeared, they realized the war was over. Big American ships arrived, and they knew they were free. The Nathan family stayed in Shanghai for two more years waiting to get papers from their grandparents so that they could come to America. They arrived in the United States in 1947.
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The End
Anita Koch interview at Katz Hillel Day School of Boca Raton - 2023-2024
Anita Koch interview at Loggers Run Community Middle School - 2023-2024
Katz Hillel Day School of Boca Raton
