Hermann Wilp

Hermann Wilp was born in Neuwied, a town on the Rhine not far from Koblenz. He had a younger brother, Herbert. His mother, Frieda Meyer, was a Jewish woman from a family of fairground workers.^[1] She married Adolf Wilp, whom she described as ‘half-Jewish’. The couple travelled to annual fairs and funfairs with a merry-go-round. During the 1930s, they encountered difficulties when applying for permits, and accusations of extramarital affairs were levelled against her.^[2]  

After her husband was summoned by the Gestapo, she fled to the Netherlands and registered with a relief organisation in Enschede on 1 October 1937. Her husband also went there, with one of the children. The other child remained with Frieda’s parents in Neuwied. He was arrested in Enschede for crossing the border without a passport, and the Dutch authorities deported him to Germany. Acquaintances from Enschede made enquiries in Gronau, where it transpired he was being held.^[2] The Refugee Committee also sought information from Germany and concluded that there was no evidence of Frieda being persecuted.

In December 1938, Hermann Wilp entered the Netherlands by train at Enschede. The exact date is unknown, but it was probably the same day as his brother Herbert, the 21st. On 18 November 1939, Hermann received a passport from the German consulate in Rotterdam.^[3]

Hermann ended up in the Wieringen work camp, where Jewish youths were trained for agricultural work. Although precise dates regarding his stay are again missing, it appears he left the work camp at least before 7 May 1941.^[1] In that same month of May, a photograph was taken of him with Margot and Anne Frank on Merwedeplein. Anne stuck the photo in an album and wrote: ‘May 1941 with Hermann Wilp ('the foster son')’.^[4] No known sources provide a possible explanation for the term ‘foster son’.

On 27 April 1942, the Jewish Council wrote to the Immigration Service in Amsterdam stating that Hermann had been declared ‘Kriegsverwendungsfähig’ (fit for military service) by the German authorities. He was deemed ‘half-Aryan’ and the Jewish Council removed him from its records.^[3] Both he and his brother returned to their parents in Neuwied on an unknown date, probably in 1942.

Hermann was briefly conscripted into a unit of the armoured infantry. He did not see active frontline service. On 27 February 1943, he was arrested in his hometown, along with his parents and brother. The Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) sent him on, and on 3 March he arrived at Auschwitz.^[5] After nearly two years in that camp, he was transferred on 28 January 1945 to a satellite camp of Mittelbau-Dora.^[1]

After the liberation, Hermann returned to Neuwied and married a woman from Koblenz in 1950.^[6] Plans to emigrate to Brazil came to nothing. They settled in Koblenz in the late 1950s, and Hermann died there in 2000.^[1]