Hilde Tittel (Jaffé)

Hildegard ("Hide") Jaffé was born in Berlin in 1907. She grew up in a well-to-do Jewish family. Her father (Georg Jaffé) ran the family lumber wholesale business. Georg married Alice Portner, who was the daughter of one of his older sisters, Regina Portner (née Jaffé). Alice's father, Heinrich Portner, was a banker from Warsaw. Hilde had an older sister, Hanni, with whom she was very close. In 1928 she married Dr. Heinrich Tittel, a chemist and veteran WWI pilot, who was not Jewish. They initially lived together near Berlin in Oranienburg but moved to Heinrich's hometown of Schweinfurt shortly after the birth of their first child, Klaus. In 1939, Hilde gave birth to their second son, Rolf. In January 1941, Heinrich tragically died in an avalanche while on a ski trip in Galtür, Austria. With her "Aryan" husband deceased, Hilde was no longer in a "protected marriage" and was therefore exposed to the full extent of the antisemitic policies of the Nazis. When her two-year-old son, Rolf, became ill with an ear infection less than 3 months later, the local hospital denied her son proper medical care, and his condition rapidly deteriorated leading to his death. Seven months later, after facing threats that her older son, Klaus, would be taken away from her and that she would be forced to leave her home and eventually sent to a concentration camp, she ended her life using the gas from or kitchen stove. Klaus made the grisly discovery of his dead mother coming home from school that afternoon. One month before his 8th birthday, Klaus had become an orphan.

Eintrag im »Gedenkbuch« des Bundesarchivs:

• Tittel, Hildegard Alice
• geborene Jaffé geboren am 14. Februar 1907 in Berlin (Wilmersdorf) / - / Stadt Berlin wohnhaft in Schweinfurt
• Todesdatum/-ort: 03. Oktober 1941, Schweinfurt Freitod