Translation: Sometimes it looks like this in Meir.
In the fall of 1942, Manfred and his family “got their lists”—the Nazis had ordered them to report to an assembly camp on ‘Grosse Hamburger Strasse'. The Lewins followed the order, as did over 50,000 other Berlin Jews throughout the war. The order stated as the official goal ‘work in the East.’ In this passage Manfred plays with words. ‘Mier’ means ‘Manfred’ in Hebrew and ‘me’ in German.
Throughout the war
In 1942 alone, approximately 23,000 Jews were deported from Berlin. Between 1942 and 1945, more than 100 trains left Berlin for the Theresienstadt camp/ghetto. Sixty-one deportation trains containing the majority of Berlin’s Jews left from the Grunewald train station to Auschwitz and other camps. After 1942, freight cars were used for the deportations, and the Jewish community was forced to pay the costs.