Shedding Our Stars

The Story of Hans Calmeyer and How He Saved Thousands of Families Like Mine

Laureen Nussbaum, Karen Kirtley

• Publisher: She Writes Press
• Year: 2019
• Topic: Social Sciences
• eBook ISBN:
  9781631526374
• Subtopic: Historical Biographies
• Index: Social Sciences

During the German occupation of the Netherlands, 1940 to 1945, all Jews were ordered to register the religion of their grandparents. The Reichskommissar appointed the young lawyer Hans Calmeyer to adjudicate “doubtful cases.” Calmeyer used his assignment to save at least 3,700 Jews from deportation and death, dwarfing the number saved by Schindler’s famous rescue operation. Laureen Nussbaum—née Hannelore Klein—owes her life to this brave German official. In Shedding Our Stars, she tells how Calmeyer declared her mother non-Jewish and deleted her and her family from the deportation lists, saving them from death. She goes on to interweave his story with her family‘s tale of survival, as well as with that of her boyfriend and, later, husband, Rudi Nussbaum. Since in Amsterdam the Kleins were close to the Franks, Anne Frank and her family also figure in book. Going beyond the liberation of the Netherlands to follow both Calmeyer’s and the author’s story to the end of their lives, Shedding Our Stars is a story of courage in the darkest of times, and of the resilience of the human spirit.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction
• Preface
• Chapter One: Early Childhood in Frankfurt
• Chapter Two: Hans Calmeyer
• Chapter Three: Settling in the Netherlands
• Chapter Four: The First Years of German Occupation
• Chapter Five: An Official at the Reich Commissariat
• Chapter Six: Wearing the Star of David
• Chapter Seven: Different Destinies
• Chapter Eight: Roundups
• Chapter Nine: Sabotaging Hitler’s Final Solution
• Chapter Ten: The Tide Is Turning
• Chapter Eleven: Bolting Out of Reach
• Chapter Twelve: Barograph
• Chapter Thirteen: Hunger Winter
• Chapter Fourteen: Liberation
• Chapter Fifteen: In Detention
• Chapter Sixteen: New Beginning
• Chapter Seventeen: Denazification
• Chapter Eighteen: Where to Fit In?
• Chapter Nineteen: Uncharted Future
• Chapter Twenty: Restoration
• Chapter Twenty-one: Embracing New Life
• Chapter Twenty-two: The World Is Open
• Chapter Twenty-three: Slightly Eccentric
• Chapter Twenty-four: Too Little, Too Little!
• Chapter Twenty-five: Academe and Real Life
• Chapter Twenty-six: Wrestling the Past
• Chapter Twenty-seven: Preparing for Death
• Chapter Twenty-eight: A Circle Closes
• Chapter Twenty-nine: A Devastating Loss
• Chapter Thirty: Fulfilling My Promise
• Sources
• Notes
• Acknowledgments
• About the Authors
• Photo Credits