Underground in Berlin

Guest: Hermann Simon, Director of the New Synagogue Berlin – Centrum Judaicum Foundation  Here’s an incredible story – well, two stories, really. One is of a young woman, barely out of her teens, orphaned and Jewish in Berlin at the height of World War II. She went underground to avoid the Nazis, refusing to wear the yellow star that would blow her cover. Without the ability to work legally in Nazi Germany, she relied on the mercy of people who often exploited her.  Marie Jalowicz Simon’s story of survival is captivating and it nearly went with her to the grave. She didn’t keep a journal – that would have been dangerous. She didn’t speak of her underground years after the war - not to the philosophy students she taught at university - not even to her son.   Only in the last year of her life, did that son, Hermann Simon, convince her to talk.  And that’s the second incredible story here: How Hermann Simon was finally able to convince his mother to tell the story which is now published – exactly as she told it – as a book titled, “Underground in Berlin: A Young Woman’s Extraordinary Tale of Survival in the Heart of Nazi Germany.”