Bruno Jonathan Drexler

Bruno-Jonathan Drexler (Pirmasens, 28 Dec. 1892-1943, Lager Dorpot / Reval-Tartu), son of Siegmund Drexler and Hedwig Freudenthal (Tann, 1870-1943, Theresienstadt, died during the Shoah). Husband of Hanna Löwenstein (1 Feb. 1900-1942, Bahnhof Raziku). Stepfather of Helga Messner Verleger. Helga Messner Verleger is born on 30 May 1925 in Berlin, the daughter of Hanna Messner Löwenstein (1 Feb. 1900). Hanna Löwenstein ist die daughter of Leopold Löwenstein and Hedwig Grünfeld. Here parents get a devorce in 1928. Later her mother remarries Bruno Jonathan Drexler (born 28 Dec. 1898), who adopts Helga. They lived in Pirmasens, then went to Berlin, and were deported to Estland in 1943 (Yad Vashem). The family is part of the middle class and runs the grandparents' company, a leather goods store. In 1931 Helga started school, at the end of 1938 she had to leave the Schiller-Oberlyzeum by order of the school management. Various attempts by the parents to leave Germany failed and the family is deported. Via Jägalla, Reval, Goldfils, Ereda and Stutthof concentration camp, Helga Messner Verleger could return home via Bromberg, Immenheim, Falkenburg, Dramburg, Usedom and finally on June 18, 1945 Berlin. Her parents are murdered: the mother already at the Raziku train station in a "carburetor bus", the stephfather in the Dorpot camp. Ms. Verleger runs a business with her husband - also a Shoah survivor - in Ravensburg. They have three children: Peter (studied law in Jerusalem / head of Jeshiwa), Rolf (studied clinical psychology in Konstanz) and daughter Hanna-Miriam (studied medicine in Jerusalem / senior doctor for children). In 1965 Mrs. Messner Verleger's husband dies. She has lived in Munich since 1970. In the movie ‘Your name shall be Israel’, a documentary am the Holocaust by Irina Stelmach, Helga visits Estonia with her son Rolf Verleger, professor of psychiatry at the University of Lübeck. The joyful and lively lady is coming to Estonia at the request of her son after great hesitations. ‘I don´t know if I can survive this trip, for the memories of Estonia are too painful and horrible’, she explains in her letter addressed to her son. Helga Messner Drexler was married to Ernest-Israel-Joseph Verleger.