Mentzen, Hedwig

May 12, 2016
Hedwig Mentzen was born Hedwig Kahn in 1886. She was one of nine children, her father a cattle dealer, her mother deceased at an early age. She learned the profession of a kindergarten teacher, married Moritz Adler in Berlin in 1909, in second marriage in 1915 Edmund Mentzen, who died already in 1917 at the age of 46. The latter was of non-Jewish descent and belonged to the Protestant religious community. The marriage remained childless. In 1927 Hedwig Mentzen left the Jewish community. Nevertheless, she was exposed to persecution by the National Socialists because of her Jewish origin. In the 1930s, she lived in