Lola Alexander

Lola Alexander was born on 20.06.1907 in Berlin-Wilmersdorf, together with her twin sister Hansi. Lola’s family included her parents Robert and Martha Alexander and brothers Bernhard (born 1904), René (born 1905) and Klaus (born 1908). Her father Robert was a tradesman in the leather business and the family moved homes often through Lola’s childhood, first through Wilmersdorf and eventually settling in Steglitz. 

After completing her schooling at the Lyzeum II in Steglitz, both Lola and her twin sister began vocational training in their father’s shoe business. In 1928, her father was listed in the address directory as a “privatier” and in a further sign of the family’s comfortable status, they moved to a newly built property at Vionvillestrasse 20, a small, prestigious housing estate at the edge of Stadtpark Steglitz. By 1933, however, the family’s fortunes had turned. Lola and Hansi moved with their parents to a smaller ground-floor apartment at Arndtstrasse 12 (today: Gritznerstrasse 41). 

In 1928, Lola started her own business making boys’ clothing near the family’s home, at Schadenrute 3, where her mother Martha also worked. In November 1938, the shop was destroyed and looted on Kristallnacht. After this, Lola took in occasional sewing work and delivered newspapers to keep the family afloat, while her sister Hansi worked as a domestic servant. 

From April 1941, both Lola and Hansi were made to do forced labor, with Lola deployed at a factory of the Alfred Teves GmbH company in Berlin-Wittenau that manufactured aircraft engine parts. In June of that same year, her father Robert died of heart failure. Around this same period, Hansi, Lola, and their mother Martha were forced to leave their home in Berlin-Steglitz and move into a shared “Judenwohnung” with other families in Gutzkowstrasse in Berlin-Schöneberg. It was there that Martha took her own life on 24.07.1942, swallowing a fatal dose of Veronal to escape deportation. 

In spite of all these hardships, Lola had the great luck of being assigned a factory supervisor, Wilhelm Daene, who was a member of a secret resistance group. In January 1943, he warned her that mass arrests were coming for the Jewish forced laborers still remaining in Berlin, and offered her a place to stay at his home in Konradshöhe, at the edge of a forest and next to the Havel river, far removed from prying eyes. Though he agreed to try and save Hansi as well, help came too late. On 27.02.1943, while Hansi was at work at the Siemens factory in Berlin-Spandau, she was swept up in the nationwide “Fabrikaktion” raids. In Berlin alone, around 11,000 Jews were detained within just a few days. 

Lola was devastated after the loss of her sister. When the Daenes eventually took in another Jewish woman, Ursula Finke, she gained a needed friend. The women soon grew close, traveling every day from Konradshöhe to work in the lending libraries owned by Wilhelm Daene’s wife, Margarete, using falsified ID papers—Ursula working in Moabit, Lola in Friedrichshain. For one year, everything went smoothly. But in August 1944, they were recognized at Gesundbrunnen station by a Jewish “catcher” working for the Gestapo. Desperate to avoid arrest, Ursula threw herself under an incoming train. Though she miraculously survived, her foot was crushed and she was taken to the Jewish Hospital in Wedding. Lola managed to escape and warn the Daenes. 

For the next 10 weeks, Lola had to flee from one hiding place to another, not staying in any place for more than a few days. Once it seemed safe again, the Daenes allowed her to return to the lending library in Friedrichshain, where she lived in the back room and told customers she was a war widow who had been lost her home to bombing. Once a week, she sent a package to Ursula at the Jewish Hospital including food as well as cigarettes that were useful as bribes. 

As the Soviet army approached Berlin from the east, Lola hid in the air raid cellar of her building. As soon as it seemed safe, she made her way across the devastated city, walking through streets filled with corpses, to look for Ursula at the Jewish Hospital. She found her in terrible condition in the hospital basement, wasted away to just 31 kg. Lola nursed her back to health and found them an apartment in Lichtenberg, near the lending library. 

After the war ended, Lola learned the fate of her siblings. On 01.03.1943, two days after her arrest, Hansi was put on a train to Auschwitz and likely murdered upon her arrival. Lola’s oldest brother Bernhard was deported to Estonia (Raasiku) in September 1942 and murdered there. Her other two brothers, René and Klaus, had non-Jewish wives and were protected from deportation by their “privileged mixed marriages.” 

Lola and Ursula remained together until Lola’s death in 1965, sharing a home and running a dressmaking shop in Lichtenberg and later in Pankow. Interviews with the nieces of both Lola and Ursula confirm that the two women were more than just friends: They were a couple, life partners who found love in the darkest of times.