Nanny Konig - Blitz

Nanny Blitz^[1] was a classmate of Anne Frank at the Jewish Lyceum^[2] and former prisoner of Bergen-Belsen.^[3] The Blitz family was on the so-called Palestine list. This list included Jews who had been granted a deferral of deportation for various reasons and who had been promised that they would be considered for emigration to Palestine. This group ended up in the Sternlager of Bergen-Belsen camp in January 1944, to be exchanged with German prisoners of war and other Germans in Allied captivity. In the end, only a very small number of these prisoners would actually be exchanged. These included 'Portuguese Jews' (who had made an unsuccessful attempt to prove that they were racially different from East European Jews) and others who had been given special treatment on the grounds of social position or citizenship: Jews with a passport from a neutral state, members of the Jewish Council and the so-called 'Barneveld Group'. In the case of Nanny's father, his inclusion on this list was probably connected to his job at the Amsterdam bank. In September 1943 they were put on a separate Palestine list.^[4]

At the end of November 1944, Nanny's father died in Bergen-Belsen. His family lost their place on the Palestine list as a result. Nanny's brother Bernard was taken to Oranienburg in January, where he died in March 1945. Their mother Helene was deported to the salt mines in Beendorf in January, and was sent on to Eideltedt on 10 March. There she died a day after arrival. Helmstedt-Beendorf was an 'Aussenlager' of camp Neuengamme. The approximately 2,500 female prisoners worked in this camp for the German Luftwaffe on the underground production of ammunition, aircraft parts and V1 and V2 rockets. The prisoners had to work about 425-465 metres underground.^[5] On 10 April 1945, Beendorf was evacuated. The prisoners were put on a train to Hamburg. Female prisoners arrived in Hamburg after a long and terrible train journey through Germany (a large number of women died of hunger and thirst), from where they were spread out among various sub-camps. Nanette's mother ended up in the Eidelstedt sub-camp, where she died a day after arrival. Almost all of the prisoners who were still alive at the time managed to board a Red Cross train on 1 May that travelled from Hamburg via Denmark to Sweden.^[6]

Nanny remained in Bergen-Belsen and was transferred from the 'Sternlager' to the women's camp on 5 December 1944, where she saw Anne and Margot again. Although she was in a different block, she met Anne and Margot a number of times. Margot, in particular, was already seriously weakened by then.

Nanette Blitz recalled:

"I don't think I saw Margot standing up. She was lying there. I hugged Anne, but I don't remember Margot standing, she was already completely weakened. And everything had shrunk, brains, stomachs, everything, they were, she was all... and I hardly ever spoke to her. She was already half gone, completely weakened... But Anne I did talk to, several times, and I think every time she came, Margot was lying there in a shed, she wasn't so well any more."^[3]

She also said that she had seen Anne and Margot shortly before they died:

"When I found Anne and Margot in Camp 8, that was the original Camp 8, which was then a women's camp, [...] they were both skeletons and I, I know about Anne that she was wrapped in a blanket. Margot I can't remember if she was also wrapped in a blanket, but she was also very weak, completely, well, consumed so to speak. And maybe she was wrapped in a blanket too, the clothes were impossible to wear because they were full of lice."^[3]

Nanette Blitz survived Bergen-Belsen and first returned to the Netherlands. In October Otto Frank heard from Hanneli Goslar that Nanny had seen Anne and Margot in Bergen-Belsen. He wrote her a letter asking if she could tell him more about his daughters. On 31 October 1945, from the Provincial Hospital in Santpoort, she gave him a brief report. She wrote that she had seen Anne and Margot in January 1945 in the Schonungsblock — the infirmary block: "Then there was a big move after which I did not speak to them anymore, but I know from the girl here that someone spoke to them in February."^[7]

Shortly after her letter, Nanny received a visit from Otto Frank at the Provincial Hospital in Santpoort, where she told him more about his daughters. Annelore Daniel, 'the girl' Nanny mentioned, was also in the hospital at the time and she added to Nanny's story.^[8]

After the war Nanny Blitz went to England, where she met her future husband John Konig. In 1953 they married and emigrated to Brazil. Nanny Blitz regularly gives lectures thereabout the Holocaust. In 2015 she published her memoirs in Portuguese.^[9] The Dutch translation appeared in 2017.^[10]

Source personal data.^[11] Address: Van Baerlestraat 58 huis, Amsterdam.^[11]