Declaration of an Oath
Knowing the importance of an affidavit, I affirm the following for submission to the Berlin Compensation Office:
My late husband Dr, Raphael Jonas was arrested on October 28, 1938 in Berlin and deported to Poland. There he received his visa for England in March 1939 and was then allowed to come to Berlin for two weeks. There he was able to extend his stay by a few days. He left Berlin on April 10 or 12, 1939 and drove to London via Ostend. I can't remember which rail grade my husband used. In any case, he was traveling on a night train in a sleeping car.
I left Berlin myself on May 14, 1939 and first went to see relatives in Solothurn in Switzerland because my husband could not yet support me in England. It was only when the war was inevitable that I went on from Switzerland to London so as not to be permanently separated from my husband. I arrived in London on September 1st, 1939 after I got them. Route Basel - Calais - Dover used 1st class.
We had rented our apartment at Berkauerstrasse 4 in July 1928 and had to pay a gap for the same as a new apartment. This was offset in such a way that we had to pay RM 208.00 per month instead of the normal rent of RM 125.00 for almost 9 years. In the year before last, the gap had already been paid so far that the rent was reduced to RM 175.00. Last year the gap was paid in full, so that the rent - when we had to give up the apartment due to the persecution - was only RM 125.00 per month. The persecution therefore also caused damage because we were after Raising such a considerable distance the apartment lost.
In consideration of the imminent emigration, I sold the following items from our apartment furnishings in Berlin-Sohmargendorf, Berkauerstrasse 4 in January and February 1939:
1. The furnishing of our bedroom. It was gray lacquer furniture with wooden decorations (3-piece furniture Louis XIV, or XVI.).
2. A real Turkish carpet, which covered the whole width and almost the whole length of one of the rooms (greetings 3 x 4 m or 1/2 x 4 1/2 m, the carpet was in dark colors beige, red and blue with Kept motifs that looked like animals).
3. A large men's desk.
4. Two armchairs upholstered with cushions from the master's room.
5. A Singer electric sewing machine.
The bedroom furnishings were purchased when they moved into the aforementioned apartment in 1928. It had cost about 1,000 RM, and I sold them for RM 85. The two armchairs each yielded a further RM 25. These armchairs were not acquired until 1932. I can no longer state your exact purchase price with certainty, I believe they cost 250 RM each.
The carpet was also bought in 1932. Today I can neither state what the carpet cost nor what could be redeemed for it.
The men's desk, bought new in 1928 at a price I can no longer remember today, I sold for RM 35.
For the new sewing machine I bought in 1934, I get 25 RM.
The aforementioned items were sold to private individuals who came to my house.
When I was offered only RM 50 for the very good furnishings in our dining room, I decided not to sell any more furniture and to pack the rest of the furnishings in a lift and have them transported to the free port of Hamburg. The production of the lift, the packing of the things, the handling of the customs formalities and the dispatch to Hamburg as well as the storage in Hamburg was done by the Berliner Paketfahrt. We paid them in advance for 2 years of storage fees. Overall, the costs for Berliner Paketfahrt amounted to at least 1,200 RM.
The lift was sent to the free port of Hamburg and stored there because my husband had not yet received a permanent residence or work permit for England and I myself did not yet have a visa for this country. We therefore had to expect that my husband would only stay in England temporarily and that we would have to finally emigrate to a completely different country.
I hand over a certified list of our removal goods, which my husband himself put up and signed after his return to Berlin on March 31, 1939.
The furniture listed under the designation "bedroom" in this directory was the furnishing of our daughter room. One of the couches listed there was purchased in January 1938 and the second in spring 1938 by a carpenter based on the model of the first .
The desk listed under the heading "bedroom" must not be confused with my husband's desk. It was only small and made of beige-colored varnish.
The bed and house linen is crossed out in ink in the directory because we decided afterwards to take only the most necessary and best of the linen with our luggage and to give the rest to our domestic staff at the time, who was 18 years old with us. The silver tea service is crossed out in ink because my husband sold it on the advice or the instigation of a business friend. It had been bought in Geneva in 1918 and had already cost more than 1,000 Swiss Francs. Here, too, we were only able to achieve a fraction of the value.
We left our kitchen furniture in the basement of the house, Berkauserstr. 4. It was 1 kitchen buffet, 1 refrigerator, 1 table and 2 chairs.
Not all of my husband's books were packed in the lift. My husband and I owned a library of about 1,500 volumes. My husband mainly took his chemistry books and my French ones, which I could use for teaching later. Therefore only about 350 books were put in the lift, we had the rest brought to the cellar and left there, as far as we weren't giving them away.
I cannot explain why the sewing machine was not crossed out in the attached directory. We had a second old sewing machine in our apartment, and this one couldn't be taken with the elevator either.
My husband initially lived in London in a furnished room. When I came to London on September 1, 1939, my husband already had a furnished apartment in the Swiss Cottage district of London. This apartment belonged to a couple who were not in London at the time. I cannot remember the name of the same and the rent we paid. We lived in Manchester for about 2 1/2 years in a furnished little flat in Langham Court, Fielden Park, for which we, as far as I can best remember, cost about £3 Paid weekly rent. Then we found our own apartment in Manchester.
Manchester, March 1964