Esther-Eva Lewy

Esther-Eva Lewy (born 1931) and Susanne Orenstein (1930-1944) became friends with each other at kindergarten age. Both girls lived in the middle-class, green and still very young Berlin district Frohnau; The garden city Frohnau had been founded in 1910 and became a district of the Berlin district Reinickendorf in 1920.  

Esther-Eva Lewy was at home at Oranienburger Chaussee 54, which is now a busy arterial road, namely Bundesstraße 96. Her parents were named Fritz and Charlotte Lewy, née Lutinski. Fritz Lewy (1898-1978), a respected lawyer, was of Jewish faith, her mother Charlotte (1899-1999) was non-Jewish; She was married to Fritz in second marriage since 1932. 

At the time of the wedding their common daughter Esther-Eva was eleven months old. The couple Fritz and Charlotte Lewy moved into the single-family house at Oranienburger Chaussee 54, which belonged to the Gemeinnützige Siedlungs- und Wohnungsbaugesellschaft mbH. 

Esther-Eva Lewy and Susanne Orenstein were almost inseparable. They affectionately called each other Estherlein and Suse, and their parents took the girls on outings together. The green district of Frohnau, where they grew up, offered many recreational opportunities, and the Havel River was not far away. In the Wannsee, a branch of the Havel, they will probably no longer have bathed in the summer of 1938, because by law, from 1938 onwards, Jewish women*Jews were forbidden access to the Wannsee baths. 

In 1938, the friendship of the two girls was put to the test for the first time, because in the fall the Lewys moved out of their house at Oranienburger Chaussee 54. Their new place to stay was in the Wedding district.

The Lewys' happy family life was overshadowed by the Nazi takeover. The young lawyer Fritz Lewy felt that his number of clients was declining, and his non-Jewish wife Charlotte was increasingly being told that she should divorce him. The young couple defied the hostility, even when in November 1937 the housing association gave them notice to vacate their house at Oranienburger Chaussee 54.

Because Fritz Lewy was a lawyer, he knew how to defend himself: He moved to the Berlin Regional Court, where he objected to the eviction action. In response, the National Socialist newspaper Das schwarze Corps published an inflammatory article on June 23, 1938, with the headline "Judenfrechheit sondergleichen!" (Jewish impudence beyond compare!). The final denunciation was not long in coming. Esther-Eva Lewy and her parents had to leave the beautiful house.

In October 1938, they moved in with Charlotte Lewy's mother, Elisabeth Lutinski, who lived at 48 Turiner Strasse in Wedding. Esther-Eva was suddenly far away from her best friend Suse Orenstein in Frohnau.

Autumn 1943: For weeks, the air raids on Berlin increased sharply. Mothers with small children were evacuated, as were entire school classes: Twelve-year-old Esther-Eva Lewy was with her class in a so-called camp in Malenowitz, Bohemia, where they all also received schooling, because some of their teachers* were also there. 

In the spring of 1944, Esther-Eva had to leave the camp because she was considered a "Jewish Mischling of the 1st degree." Her mother in Berlin was in great anxiety about her, as she did not know how her daughter would get back to Berlin. She wrote to the camp and school director on March 15, 1944, the very day Esther-Eva had to leave. The reply letter is written in a very bureaucratic way and will certainly not have reassured her. 

Esther-Eva reached Berlin unharmed. From then on, the Lewy family stayed together in Berlin, where they lived to see the end of World War II. In November 1945, Esther-Eva was able to return with her parents to their home at Oranienburger Chaussee 54 in Frohnau.

While Esther-Eva Lewy was in the "Kinderlandverschickung" camp in Malenowitz, Bohemia, from the fall of 1943, her best friend Susanne Orenstein was deported to Theresienstadt. Nevertheless, they tried to stay in touch with each other. Esther-Eva wrote to Susanne from Malenowitz, and Suse answered her:

"Dear Esther,

I was quite gobsmacked when I read your card, now I think of you even twice as much. Because now you are not far from me, and yet we can not see each other. I hope that you are well, and I am glad that you have not forgotten about us. Do you have regular news from your parents? Do you remember how we were together at our place? Those were good times, weren't they? But the fact that we are not together like that does not change anything. You are always my little Esther. If you write to your parents, give them my best regards. Your Suse"
Susanne Orenstein died on October 23, 1944 at the age of 14 in the Theresienstadt concentration camp.