THE GREY FOLDER PROJECT

SUSE UNDERWOOD was born in Heilbronn, Germany and often visited nearby Freudental, where her mother's sister lived. She remembers Adolf Herrmann and his family, and she has helped Steffen Pross in tracing the story of the Jews of Freudental. Suse's mother died when she was four, and she was raised by her mother's sister. (We are distant relatives: her mother was the sister of Sidonie Herrmann, who was married to my grandmother's brother.)

 

The Jewish teacher of Freudental, Simon Meisner, took a special interest in Suse and arranged for her to escape to England on a Kindertransport in early 1939 when she was 12.

 

Suse Underwood lives in London, and I have visited her there and also in Freudental. We also communicate frequently by e-mail. She has a keen memory, recalling with clarity the events of the Nazi period from 1933, when she was 7, until her departure on the Kindertransport, as well as her experience as a young German-Jewish refugee in England.