Mit dem Kinderheim auf der Flucht

Ursula Wolff was seven years old when she narrowly escaped the clutches of the Gestapo in 1937. She managed to flee with her mother and a group of other children, thanks in part to the help of resistance fighter Ernst Ludwig Heuss. The son of the later Federal President Theodor Heuss would become Ursula's husband many years after the war. Ursula's mother was a well-known figure in the 1930s: Annemarie Wolff-Richter directed a progressive educational home in Berlin during the Weimar Republic, a showcase project for child and youth care. During the National Socialist regime, she supported the resistance, assisted with escapes, and hid Jewish persecuted individuals. Eventually, she and the children had to flee. Their escape led them to Croatia, where Annemarie joined the partisans after the occupation of Yugoslavia in 1941, until the fascists tracked her down. In 1945, she was murdered in the Jasenovac concentration camp. The biography of Annemarie Wolff-Richter is an impressive and moving testimony of the times. It represents the fate of those who lived and acted according to humanitarian principles under National Socialist rule. They were mercilessly persecuted yet stood firm with courage and responsibility for their beliefs until the end. Ludwig Theodor Heuss and political scientist Marina Sindram wrote this biography based on the memories of Ursula Heuss-Wolff, supplemented with documents from the private archive and from companions.