Doris Hütter

Doris’s parents were originally from Poland. They met and married in Berlin, where Doris was born on 28 December 1929. She was named after her deceased grandmother. Her father was a peddler, and the family was not wealthy. However, they lived in the same neighbourhood as Doris’s aunt Regina (her mother’s sister); Regina’s husband, Isaak Schipper, a tailor; and Regina’s daughter, who was two years younger than Doris Hütter (and also named after their grandmother). For a few years, the extended family provided security for both the children and the adults.

In October 1938, Doris’s father, Eisig Hütter, was deported to Poland as part of the ‘Polish Operation’. In late 1938, Doris’s aunt Regina, cousin Doris, and uncle Isaak Schipper fled to Montevideo, Uruguay.

Except for a few weeks at the end of 1939, when the National Socialists forced Eisig to liquidate his business, Sara was alone with the children and worked as forced labour. Doris and her brother were not permitted to attend school and often spent the day alone. Doris fell ill at age nine.

Doris suffered from severe pneumonia and was hospitalised at the Jewish hospital on Iranische Strasse in Wedding. She was still in hospital when her mother and brother were deported to Riga on 19 October 1942. It appears that the hospital staff may have sought to save the child – and not just through medical treatment. Her mother, father, and brother were already dead, and her relatives had fled.

On 16 June 1943, Doris Hütter was deported to Theresienstadt. She was murdered in Auschwitz on 19 October 1944, aged 14.