Alfred Walter Casparius

In summer 1923, Richard Casparius (born 1883 in Bärwalde), a trader, and his wife Hilda Casparius (born 1893 in Berlin) moved into a semi-detached house at Kirchblick 3 in Berlin-Schlachtensee with their three- year-old daughter Gerda.
Two months later, their son Alfred was born. The Casparius family lived at Kirchblick 3 for almost 16 years, until they were expropriated by the Nazis in March 1939. That same month, Alfred emigrated to the Netherlands; one month later, Gerda fled to England.
After being driven out of their house, Richard and Hilda Casparius lived in Schloßstraße in Steglitz. In October 1941 Richard Casparius was conscripted to Reich Labour Service. By early 1942 he had become fatally ill. He died in February 1942 and was buried in the Jewish cemetery in Weißensee. One year later, on 1 March 1943, Hilda Casparius was deported to Auschwitz on the “31st transport to the east” and murdered there. Her date of death is not known.
Aged 19, Alfred Casparius was interned in the Westerbork camp in the Netherlands. Here he befriended Max Pander, a fellow prisoner. Max Pander was like a father to Alfred, and managed to prevent Alfred’s deportation to Auschwitz. However, Max Pander himself was sent to Auschwitz in 1944 and murdered. Alfred remained in Westerbork, where he was among the approximately 900 prisoners to experience the camp’s liberation by the Allies on 12 April 1945. Two years later he emigrated with his sister Gerda to New York. He married in the United States, and settled with his family in Florida, where he died in 2008.