Werner Hartwich

Of Blessed Memory 1910 – 2001

Werner Hartwich lived with his parents and two sisters in the town of Kuestrin, where his family had a grain business. On Kristallnacht, in November 1938, he was among the Jewish men taken to the Sachenhausen concentration camp. He remained imprisoned there until January, after the family promised to leave Germany at once. They fled to Shanghai, occupied by the Japanese and the only place that would accept Jewish immigrants without a visa. Werner met and married his wife Eva while in the ghetto. The Americans helped Werner, Eva, and their young son to come to the United States in 1947, where they settled in Kansas City.