©Familie da Fonseca-Wollheim
In August 1943, the Gestapo arrested the physician Hermann da Fonseca-Wollheim in his surgery in Hamburg-Bahrenfeld. They accused him of having too good a relationship with the Ukrainian female forced labourers he attended to as a doctor. They also took a dim view of the fact that the well-travelled father with an avid interest in culture was learning Russian. They detained him for several months before committing him to the Buchenwald concentration camp in March 1944. On account of his Jewish grandfather, he was considered a “second-degree mixed-blood”. The records state “foreigner friendliness” as the grounds for custody. A letter of April 1944 was his last sign of life to his family. The SS cited dysentery and cardiac insufficiency as the causes of death.
