Erna Herrmann

Erna Herrmann was born on 5 April 1898 in Berlin. It is not known how or where she gained her professional training. But it is known that part of her training took place at the mothers’ and infants’ home at Brunnen Strasse 41 in Mitte, established in 1888, where she also found her first job. The home was later known as the Minna Schwarz Heim after its founder. In early 1930 it was extended to include an old people’s home. As the Nazis’ persecution of Jews intensified, the home became a place of refuge for Jews, a “Jew house” for people who had been thrown out of their homes, and eventually an assembly camp in preparation for deportation to extermination camps. Erna Herrmann was employed by the Jewish Cultural Community as the last director of the old people’s home at Brunnen Strasse 41. She was deported from this address, which was also her place of residence, on the 38th “transport to the East” on 17 May 1943, reaching Theresienstadt on 18 May 1943. From here she was taken to Auschwitz on 12 October 1944 and murdered.