Bertha Cohn

Gervinusstr. 20 bErdg. Charlottenburg Berlin

Berta Cohn, née Kahn, was born on 14.1.1884 in Mittelsinn/Gemünden in Bavaria. That is in the Spessart-Mountains between Bavaria an Hesse. We still know nothing about her childhood and youth. In 1935, when she was 51 years old, she was married to Carl Cohn, who was a relocation manager by profession. She herself was a nurse by profession. Both lived in Berlin, Charlottenburg Sybelstraße 29. In April 1935 the couple moved to Gervinusstraße 20 Portal B. They had a small two-room apartment on the ground floor next to a courtyard. Her husband Carl Cohn seems to have died some time later in Berlin, as Bertha Cohn is described as a widow in a 1939 source. Another Jewish lady moved into her apartment and lived with her for a couple of months. Her name was Flora Landsberger. She had been born on 10.01.1872 in Ratibor/Silesia and died on 13.04.1941 in Berlin. It is quite possible that Mrs. Landsberger had to leave her previous apartment involuntarily and was either forced by the Nazis to move into Bertha Cohn's apartment or sought refuge with her because they knew each other or were relatives. The apartment building in Gervinusstraße, owned by the Jewish architect Kurt Messerschmidt, had been declared a so-called “Judenhaus“ - Jewshouse. Jewish Berliners were forced to leave their own flats and to move in these houses. Most of them were deported and killed. Bertha Cohn also suffered the same fate. At the age of 58, she was deported from Berlin to the so-called Generalgouvernement – that’s Poland - by train on June 2, 1942. She was probably murdered in the Sobibor extermination camp. The son of the house owner, Hans Peter Messerschmidt, was the only family member to survive Auschwitz. He returned to his family home in Berlin 1945. Since 1947, a plaque in the hallway has commemorated the murdered former Jewish neighbours – Bertha Cohn is mentioned on it. Since 2018, the current residents of the tenementhouse started researching and remembering the life stories of the almost 70 Jewish inhabitatnt during the Nazi-period. Together with the grandson of the builder and descendants of the murdered and survivors from England and the Netherlands, we commemorate them with special events. Two of the jewish inhabitants of that time are still alive. One of them, who escaped with the children's transport to England, told us about life in this house in interviews. We are still looking for sources, relatives of those who lived here.