Leon Gottlieb

Heinz Dehn

Franz Lebrecht

The Nussbaum family

Kitchener Camp

Ida Dehn

The Flieder family

The Dehn family

Ernst Friedlich

Leon Gottlieb

Erich Tichauer

Dr Ernst Wasser

Dr Hans Frankenstein

Josef Ganz

The „Shanghai 12“

Ginette Rozenfeld

Leon Gottlieb was a friend of the Dehn parents in Australia. Heinz Dehn and Leon may have known each other from their time together in the concentration camps. They were transferred from Dachau to Buchenwald around the same time and released from Buchenwald a day apart. Leon reported on his experiences in the concentration camps on Australian radio during the war; the manuscript is a surprising archive find. The estate of Heinz and Ida Dehn also contained a piece of humor that they attributed to Leon, duplicated on a typewriter. This should not be withheld here either.

Peter Dehn January 2024.

The engineer Joseph Gottlieb (1883 – 1962) and Anna Eliesabeth Machwirth (1884 – 1956) married in Hamburg in 1911[1] Hamburg registry office, entry no. 388 from May 15, 1911.. Their son Leon was born there on January 18, 1912. He completed his training as an engineer[2] Cf. census of May 17, 1939, via Mapping the Lives, accessed on July 25, 2023. at the Technische Lehranstalt Hamburg.

Imprisoned in three concentration camps

The Nazis were not interested in whether someone professed Judaism or not. They wanted to get rid of all people with Jewish roots. As a communist with Jewish roots, Leon was doubly threatened by persecution by the fascists. On February 19, 1937, he was arrested in Hamburg and taken to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, where he was listed as a “Schulungshäftling/Jude[3] The incarceration of "training prisoners" was allegedly based on an instruction from Hermann Göring. Most of them were emigrants who had returned to Germany from abroad. Cf. archive of the Buchenwald Memorial, email to Peter Dehn, Jan 17, 2024.” (“training prisoner/Jew”) number 139[4] Archive of the Sachsenhausen Memorial, email to Peter Dehn, Aug 11,2023.. As early as March 13, 1937, he was transferred by the SS to Dachau concentration camp[5] Cf. files about Leon Gottlieb, Arolsen Archives. (prisoner number 11855) and from September 22, 1938, to Buchenwald concentration camp[6] Ibid., where he was given prisoner number 8157 . In 1945, he reported on how he fared in the concentration camps and what he had to witness in an article [for the Australian radio ABC[7] Gottlieb, Leon "Two Years in Nazi Concentration Camps", manuscript of a contribution for ABC Australia. The manuscript is not dated, but the reference to censorship indicates that it was broadcast during the war. Quoted from National Archives of Australia (NAA), NAA_ItemNumber3252295.: “Many of the atrocities I saw with my own eyes are unprintable and would not pass the censors.”

Read Leon’s report

In the biography “Hans Litten – Lawyer against Hitler”, the Dachau acquaintance of Leon Gottlieb, Ernst Friedlich and Franz Lebrecht is confirmed. The prisoners of Block 6 were scattered all over the world, it continues. This is supplemented by the remark about the reunion[8] Bergbauer, Fröhlich, Schüler-Springorum "Hans Litten – Anwalt gegen Hitler", Wallstein-Editors, Göttingen 2022, ISBN 978-3-8353-5159-2, page 300. of “Friedlich, Gottlieb and Lebrecht in Australia”. In fact, this is not their first reunion[9] Cf. biographies of Franz Lebrecht and Ernst Friedlich on dunera.de. after they managed to escape from the Nazi Reich.

In February 1939, Leon is one of the prisoners whose release the Nazis demand to leave the country soon. Until then, he went back to Hamburg to live with his parents at Övelgönner Straße 25 in Altona Nord. He met Ruth Drucker, born on September 21, 1919, and they had a brief but all the more stormy love affair[10] More information about Ruth and her family in her biographical Stolperstein-entry, accessed on July 25, 2023.. On May 30, 1939, Leon has to leave his Ruth and Hamburg to board the Marburg in Bremerhaven. As cabin passenger number 9, his destination is Shanghai[11] Cf. passenger list of the Marburg, Dehn family archive., one of the few parts of the world where no entry visa was required at the time.

Ruth does not go abroad

Ruth decided not to emigrate in order to care for her mother, who died of cancer at the end of 1939 after her father’s death in early 1939. It is now too late to flee; the war has already begun. Ruth’s pregnancy may also have been an obstacle to her escape: Mathel, Ruth and Leon’s daughter, was born on February 9, 1940. The young mother had to stay in hospital for several months after a caesarean delivery. She was deported to the Minsk ghetto on November 18, 1941 and murdered there.

Ruth Drucker.
Source: Yad Vashem.

The grandparents Anna Eliesabeth and Joseph Gottlieb took Mathel in immediately after her birth and gave their love to their granddaughter. The three survived the war and persecution in Hamburg.

Ruth’s siblings are able to escape the Nazis: Hannelore[12] Cf. sewarch advert by Leopold Drucker in "Aufbau", August 3, 1945, page 20. (*1924) gets a place on a Kindertransport to England and later goes to Palestine. Heinz[13] See documents about Heinz Drucker in the Arolsen Archives. (*6.9.1920 – 13.4.1994), like thousands of Jewish men, was arrested after the November pogroms of 1938 and held in Buchenwald concentration camp (28248) until December 19, 1938. He went to Australia in 1939 and served from 1942 to 1946, first in a work unit, then in a vehicle fleet[14] Military file Heinz Drucker, NAA_ItemNumber6632340, retrieved on Dec 10, 2023. of the Australian Army. He was naturalized [15] Cf. list of non-digitized NAA documents about Heinz Drucker, accessed on Dec 10, 2023.at the beginning of 1946. He would later tell his family nothing[16] Mathel Gottlieb-Drucker to Peter Dehn, Emails from Dec 18, 2023 and march 14, 2024. about his time in the concentration camp and the circumstances of his escape from the Nazi Reich.

Exile in Singapore, interned in Australia

Like Franz Lebrecht, Leon leaves the ship in Singapore. There he meets Franz and the Friedlichs again for the first time since the concentration camp. The British promised Leon Gottlieb and many Jewish refugees from the German Reich who had found refuge in Singapore a life of freedom in Australia, far away from the threat of the Axis power Japan. 270 Jews, including families with small children as well as Franz and Leon, were deported under guard to Australia at the end of September 1940 on the Queen Mary, which had been converted into a troopship. There they were immediately taken to internment camp no. 3 near Tatura (state of Victoria). This also happened to Ernst Friedlich and his wife Margarethe when they arrived in Australia in January 1941. The three “Dachauers” are thus reunited, albeit this time locked away behind barbed wire by friends.

The Australian internment camps financed by the British are closed in the course of 1942. Leon then works in the harbor for a short time. Many interned men are recruited for service in a pioneer unit in England. Men who want to stay in Australia were asked to volunteer[17] Cf. memorandum of the Adjudant General for the Australian Parliament, March 29, 1946, NAA_ItemNumber4938132, sheet 28, number d. to join the Australian military. The unarmed 8th Employment Company was formed exclusively from Jewish ex-internees, in which Leon Gottlieb began his service on April 8, 1942. He was discharged on November 4, 1942 with the rank of Lance Corporal. His military record[18] Military file Leon Gottlieb, NAA_ItemNumber6632340, retrieved on Dec 10, 2023. mentions subsequent work in the “Armored Fighting Vehicles” industry because engineers are in demand.

After a short period of work in the docks Leon is sent to Sydney, where he contributes his knowledge as an engineer. “There he developed propellers for the navy and tanks for the army,” reports his daughter Mathel[19] Mail from Mathel Gottlieb-Drucker, loc.cit..

Workplaces in Australia

Leon then worked as a lecturer at the Melbourne Institute of Technology (now RMIT). “He loved it there and was highly respected by his students. However, the pay was poor.” When he was offered a job at the State Electricity Commission of Victoria[20] Wikipedia about SEC, accessed 19.12.2023. SEC was split into production divisions in 1993 and privatized at the end of the 1990s. (SEC) for double the salary, he took it. He develops excavator concepts for the only producer and marketer of electricity in the state of Victoria. Leon occasionally has to leave the office in the Melbourne suburb of Richmond to travel to the site where the machines are used in the SEC’s open-cast brown coal mine in Yallourn.

Leon Gottlieb giving a lecture on rocket technology in 1959.
Source: Gottlieb-Drucker family.

“My father had been at the University of Melbourne for a few years at that point, working in the engineering department and supervising students on postgraduate projects. He also gave occasional lectures on rockets and space exploration[21] Ibid, a hobby of his since he had first seen a very imaginative film about travelling to the moon,” Mathel Gottlieb-Drucker recalls. He was still listed as a research assistant at the University of Melbourne[22] Staff list of the University of Melbourne 1980, (page 51) retrieved on July 18, 2023. until at least 1980. In 1947, he was elected as an associate member of the Victorian Institute of Engineers[23] Victorian Institute of Engineers, Jahresbericht 1947, Familienarchiv Dehn..

His professional life comes to an end when several intervertebral discs are severely injured in a car accident.

Leon Gottlieb is also politically active in Australia. His daughter Mathel reports on his interest in the GDR: he and his wife Anny are president and secretary respectively of the Melbourne Australia-GDR Friendship Society[24] Mail from Mathel Gottlieb Drucker loc.cit. and are invited there. They are listed as “suspects” by the domestic intelligence service ASIO under the numbers VPF 3063 and VPF 3963. In April 1986, their names appear in the published part of the ASIO file[25] Extract from the ASIO files on Bernice Morris, NAA_ItemNumber3252295. of a third person because they are alleged to be members of the Australia-Soviet Union Friendship Society.

Family history

In 1942, Leon Gottlieb marries the Jew and anti-fascist Anny Wolfram (March 26, 1912 – May 17, 2000). She has lived in Melbourne since the end of May 1938. The family applies for naturalization during the war. Their son Hans Peter is born in 1944, his brother Karl Michael in 1946. After the end of the war, Leon arranges for his daughter Mathel and his parents Joseph and Anna Elisabeth to come to Australia. They arrive in Melbourne with the Toscana in March 1949. He then adopts his daughter Mathel, making her officially part of his family.

The Dehn parents attributed this joke letter to Leon Gottlieb (clickable). Source: Dehn family archive.

In June 1959, Leon and Ernest Fry (Ernst Friedlich) are witnesses to the marriage of their friend Franz Lebrecht, who says “I do[26] Government Statistical Office, Melbourne, Marriage Certificate No. 693 dated June 3, 1959 (Dehn family archive).” to Hildegard for the second time in Melbourne.

Leon Gottlieb[27] See Find A Grave, accessed on July 15, 2023. dies on July 19, 1994 in Melbourne, his widow Anny on May 17, 2000.

Children and grandchildren

Leon’s daughter Mathel Gottlieb-Drucker studied education in Melbourne after leaving school and worked briefly as a secondary school German teacher. She married her fellow student Roger Rivenell in 1962. She had two children with her husband, Colin (*1965) and Annelies (*1968). The couple divorced in 1978.

Mathel, daughter Annelies and son Colin, 2022.
Source: Gottlieb-Drucker family.

Mathel initially had to take a career break due to her pregnancy. “I began teaching part-time in 1971 and then was employed full-time later that year at Presbyterian Ladies’ College where I stayed for almost ten years ,with almost a year off accompanying my husband to Germany on a Teaching Exchange”, writes Mathel.

In 1980, she interrupted her career for health reasons. After her recovery, she worked as a substitute teacher at various schools until 2002. She also worked as a child carer and was a reader for a blind person. She also attended Write Your Story courses.

She spent 38 years with her partner Harry Finlay, who died in 2016. Even in retirement and despite physical limitations, Mathel is still very active: in 2018 – at almost 80 years old – she published her autobiographical book “Bananas are not Boomerangs”.

Her half-brother Hans is able to pursue an academic career. At Griffith University Queensland, he meets his future wife Nanette, a professor of Japanese. Their children are Gregory and Susan. Karl, Leon and Anny’s younger son, is diagnosed with autism late in life. He died in 2001.

Anny’s brother Hans Gerhard Wolfram (September 22, 1920 – February 12, 1996) had also found his way to Australia shortly before the war began; he arrived in Melbourne with the Orama on July 18, 1939, where he applied for naturalization in 1944.

Mathel Gottlieb-Drucker fondly remembers Franz Lebrecht, who always gave her books for Christmas – “mostly Charles Dickens”, as she notes. She remained loyal to the families doctor, Ernest Fry[28] Mail form Mathel Gottlieb-Drucker loc.cit. as long as he was able to run his practice after his health deteriorated.

Footnotes