Vienna, Austria was a quaint little town that Edith held in the utmost regard. As she should, considering she was born here on January 24, 1914. Her father, Leopold Hahn, was the owner of a local restaurant, where she spent a great deal of her childhood. However, the war was already affecting her childhood long before it actually started. People were out of work and wanted to have someone to blame their problems on and the Jews seemed perfect for the job.
Edith was an outstanding intellectual who always strove for knowledge. Back in her days, women did not receive an education past the basic stages so she begged her father to send her to high school. Later on, she discovered that she wanted to become a judge and once again begged to go. She studied at the University of Vienna for five long, hard years and was on her way to fulfilling her dream. However, towards the end of her education, major anti-Semitic laws started coming into play. On her final bar exam, the one that would make her a judge, an official refused to give her the test, telling her that she had been kicked out of the university for being a Jewess.
When Leopold Hahn allowed Edith to attend high school, it was the first time she ever went to school with boys. Here, she met many new people including her long time boyfriend, Josef Rosenfeld, an 18 year old intellectual like herself, whom everyone called Pepi. Edith looked at Pepi with a certain reverence and was drawn to his brilliance. Pepi's mother was worried that her late husband, who was part Jew, would affect the oppression of her "precious" child and so she had him baptized as a Christian, making him an awkward in betweener throughout the war. Many couples of the day, including Edith's sister, Mimi, were being saved by getting married therefore making it easier to travel away. Due to this reason, Edith begged Pepi to marry her, but he always declined. Later, she reveals that he is the only reason she stayed in Germany. During her stay at Osterburg and Aschersleben, Edith and Pepi wrote letters to each other filled with romantic and political things, plus she asked for things she had trouble buying, being Jewish. They stayed friends even after she married Werner although they didn't really see each other that much.
On April 24, 1941 all the Viennese Jews were forced to line up at gunpoint in the square. During this chaos, Edith and her mother, Klothilde, were pushed into a truck that took them to an office belonging to the SS and were told to sign a contract obligating them to work for six weeks at a farm in northern Germany. Luckily, Edith was able to talk them out of using Klothilde by saying, "She can't possibly be any good to work." If Edith didn't show up at the train station the next morning, the contract stated that she would be treated as a wanted criminal and hunted down.
Her first area of work was on an asparagus farm in Osterburg, Germany. She worked from six until noon, had a break, then started again at one until six. All of the girls on the farm worked six days a week and also a part day on Sundays. Unsurprisingly, the work was hard and tiresome, having to plant beans, beets, potatoes, and to cut asparagus. Their overseer, Herr Verwalter, told them, "It is the role of certain races to work for certain other races...". Every room housed four inmates, each inmate had an iron bed and a single blanket. For some of their meals, they ate flower coffee (made from flowers, not coffee beans), acorns, cold soup, broken asparagus, or other unappetizing foods. If they did not work hard enough, they were punished severely and soon enough everyone except the best were deported.
In October 1941, six months after she was supposed to return to Vienna, Edith and the remaining workers were transported to Aschersleben, where they would work in a paper factory named Arbeitslager with 82 others. The factory looked attractive from the outside and the girls had to dress up in order to look professional, but also to prevent any disturbances from visitors. Throughout her time here, Edith was assigned to the stamping machine which punched out cardboard boxes for food (which they didn't get to eat) and kitchen duty. Compared to Osterburg, the slaves here had to work about the same amount of hours from 6:30-11:45 and then 1:15-5:45. Even though it wasn't backbreaking work, they had very strict rules and Edith's daily quota was constantly being increased. Unknown to Edith, Klothilde Hahn was deported on June 9, 1942 and the Gestapo refused to let Edith travel to see her off until June 21, she never saw her mother again.
Overcome with fear, Edith went to visit her friend Frau Doktor one day, who instructed her to speak with a certain Johann Plattner. When she arrived to his office, the Office of Racial Affairs, he told her to find an Aryan friend who looked similar to her, ask her friend to give notice to the ration book office that she was going on a holiday, and later, after she "returned", her friend would go to the police saying that she dropped her papers into the bottom of a river. Then, the police would give her a duplicate, which was to be given to Edith so she could live as her friend, Christl Denner. Under no circumstances would Edith be able to apply for a clothing ration book (it would set off an alarm that there were two Cristl Denners) and she would have to work with the Red Cross, the only organization that doesn't require registration. Edith set off for Munich as a u-boat.
When Edith became Grete (middle name of Cristl) Denner, she was still afraid. There were so many chances for her to get caught and she had to perform her best act to fool everyone. To enjoy her new freedom and get free food, Edith would do what she had seen her friend, Cristl, do many times, go on dates with Nazi soldiers. Despite who they were, Edith liked these dates for she only went on one with each guy, listened to them boast about themselves, persuade them to pay for her meal, and then she stood them up on the next date. Werner Vetter, however, was different somehow and she ended up going to their second date. Much to her shock, he proposed only after a week and wanted her to come live with him in Brandenburg. After some excuses, she eventually told him who she really was, he then told her he had some secrets as well, he was married and had a daughter. They moved back to Brandenburg together, on the condition that they would marry when he was divorced.
Even though they listened to the illegal radio channels for non-Nazi news, Werner still believed that Jewish blood was more dominant, so much in fact that Edith had to seduce him to have a child. After marrying Werner due to the pregnancy, Edith became one of the most honored people in all of Germany (quite ironic considering who she really was), since she was an Aryan housewife, married to a respected Nazi, worked at the Red Cross, and soon to be giving the party what they desperately needed, a baby. The Vetters lived life like a normal Aryan family, Werner would go work at the Arado Aircraft factory to paint and Edith would be polite and quiet, pleasing him by always doing what he wanted. However, Edith felt like she was losing herself, after all she wasn't polite and quiet, but quite the opposite in fact, as an opinionated, educated woman. In April 1944, their daughter, Maria Angelika, was born. Werner was devastated that it wasn't a boy and didn't want anything to do with the child, causing many more rifts in their marriage.
Towards the end of the war, Werner was drafted into the army as a last resort (since he was half-blind). Later, Edith received a letter that he had been captured in Russia. As a result, Edith was left to defend herself and Angela against the Russians, who had invaded and bombed Brandenburg. The Russians were robbing, raping, and creating trouble wherever they went, even though they had just helped end the war. For a while, everything was like an anarchy, but soon it came back to order and people used cigarettes as currency. Edith was finall able to get her dream job as a judge. In fact, she used her connections as a Jewish judge to plead with the Russians to get her husband back home. However, when Werner did come home in late 1946, he was unhappy to see his wife as the breadwinner and himself at home, out of work. While Edith was watching Angela and her stepdaughter, Werner was having an affair with his ex-wife. They soon divorced and later Edith married Fred Beer.
Edith was an outstanding intellectual who always strove for knowledge. Back in her days, women did not receive an education past the basic stages so she begged her father to send her to high school. Later on, she discovered that she wanted to become a judge and once again begged to go. She studied at the University of Vienna for five long, hard years and was on her way to fulfilling her dream. However, towards the end of her education, major anti-Semitic laws started coming into play. On her final bar exam, the one that would make her a judge, an official refused to give her the test, telling her that she had been kicked out of the university for being a Jewess.
When Leopold Hahn allowed Edith to attend high school, it was the first time she ever went to school with boys. Here, she met many new people including her long time boyfriend, Josef Rosenfeld, an 18 year old intellectual like herself, whom everyone called Pepi. Edith looked at Pepi with a certain reverence and was drawn to his brilliance. Pepi's mother was worried that her late husband, who was part Jew, would affect the oppression of her "precious" child and so she had him baptized as a Christian, making him an awkward in betweener throughout the war. Many couples of the day, including Edith's sister, Mimi, were being saved by getting married therefore making it easier to travel away. Due to this reason, Edith begged Pepi to marry her, but he always declined. Later, she reveals that he is the only reason she stayed in Germany. During her stay at Osterburg and Aschersleben, Edith and Pepi wrote letters to each other filled with romantic and political things, plus she asked for things she had trouble buying, being Jewish. They stayed friends even after she married Werner although they didn't really see each other that much.
On April 24, 1941 all the Viennese Jews were forced to line up at gunpoint in the square. During this chaos, Edith and her mother, Klothilde, were pushed into a truck that took them to an office belonging to the SS and were told to sign a contract obligating them to work for six weeks at a farm in northern Germany. Luckily, Edith was able to talk them out of using Klothilde by saying, "She can't possibly be any good to work." If Edith didn't show up at the train station the next morning, the contract stated that she would be treated as a wanted criminal and hunted down.
Her first area of work was on an asparagus farm in Osterburg, Germany. She worked from six until noon, had a break, then started again at one until six. All of the girls on the farm worked six days a week and also a part day on Sundays. Unsurprisingly, the work was hard and tiresome, having to plant beans, beets, potatoes, and to cut asparagus. Their overseer, Herr Verwalter, told them, "It is the role of certain races to work for certain other races...". Every room housed four inmates, each inmate had an iron bed and a single blanket. For some of their meals, they ate flower coffee (made from flowers, not coffee beans), acorns, cold soup, broken asparagus, or other unappetizing foods. If they did not work hard enough, they were punished severely and soon enough everyone except the best were deported.
In October 1941, six months after she was supposed to return to Vienna, Edith and the remaining workers were transported to Aschersleben, where they would work in a paper factory named Arbeitslager with 82 others. The factory looked attractive from the outside and the girls had to dress up in order to look professional, but also to prevent any disturbances from visitors. Throughout her time here, Edith was assigned to the stamping machine which punched out cardboard boxes for food (which they didn't get to eat) and kitchen duty. Compared to Osterburg, the slaves here had to work about the same amount of hours from 6:30-11:45 and then 1:15-5:45. Even though it wasn't backbreaking work, they had very strict rules and Edith's daily quota was constantly being increased. Unknown to Edith, Klothilde Hahn was deported on June 9, 1942 and the Gestapo refused to let Edith travel to see her off until June 21, she never saw her mother again.
Overcome with fear, Edith went to visit her friend Frau Doktor one day, who instructed her to speak with a certain Johann Plattner. When she arrived to his office, the Office of Racial Affairs, he told her to find an Aryan friend who looked similar to her, ask her friend to give notice to the ration book office that she was going on a holiday, and later, after she "returned", her friend would go to the police saying that she dropped her papers into the bottom of a river. Then, the police would give her a duplicate, which was to be given to Edith so she could live as her friend, Christl Denner. Under no circumstances would Edith be able to apply for a clothing ration book (it would set off an alarm that there were two Cristl Denners) and she would have to work with the Red Cross, the only organization that doesn't require registration. Edith set off for Munich as a u-boat.
When Edith became Grete (middle name of Cristl) Denner, she was still afraid. There were so many chances for her to get caught and she had to perform her best act to fool everyone. To enjoy her new freedom and get free food, Edith would do what she had seen her friend, Cristl, do many times, go on dates with Nazi soldiers. Despite who they were, Edith liked these dates for she only went on one with each guy, listened to them boast about themselves, persuade them to pay for her meal, and then she stood them up on the next date. Werner Vetter, however, was different somehow and she ended up going to their second date. Much to her shock, he proposed only after a week and wanted her to come live with him in Brandenburg. After some excuses, she eventually told him who she really was, he then told her he had some secrets as well, he was married and had a daughter. They moved back to Brandenburg together, on the condition that they would marry when he was divorced.
Even though they listened to the illegal radio channels for non-Nazi news, Werner still believed that Jewish blood was more dominant, so much in fact that Edith had to seduce him to have a child. After marrying Werner due to the pregnancy, Edith became one of the most honored people in all of Germany (quite ironic considering who she really was), since she was an Aryan housewife, married to a respected Nazi, worked at the Red Cross, and soon to be giving the party what they desperately needed, a baby. The Vetters lived life like a normal Aryan family, Werner would go work at the Arado Aircraft factory to paint and Edith would be polite and quiet, pleasing him by always doing what he wanted. However, Edith felt like she was losing herself, after all she wasn't polite and quiet, but quite the opposite in fact, as an opinionated, educated woman. In April 1944, their daughter, Maria Angelika, was born. Werner was devastated that it wasn't a boy and didn't want anything to do with the child, causing many more rifts in their marriage.
Towards the end of the war, Werner was drafted into the army as a last resort (since he was half-blind). Later, Edith received a letter that he had been captured in Russia. As a result, Edith was left to defend herself and Angela against the Russians, who had invaded and bombed Brandenburg. The Russians were robbing, raping, and creating trouble wherever they went, even though they had just helped end the war. For a while, everything was like an anarchy, but soon it came back to order and people used cigarettes as currency. Edith was finall able to get her dream job as a judge. In fact, she used her connections as a Jewish judge to plead with the Russians to get her husband back home. However, when Werner did come home in late 1946, he was unhappy to see his wife as the breadwinner and himself at home, out of work. While Edith was watching Angela and her stepdaughter, Werner was having an affair with his ex-wife. They soon divorced and later Edith married Fred Beer.