Partner Gad Beck

Queer Places:
Witzenhauser Str. 57, 13053 Berlin, Germany

Larger memorial image loading...Manfred Lewin (September 8, 1922 - November 29, 1942) was a young Jew who was active in one of Berlin’s Zionist youth groups until his deportation to and murder in Auschwitz-Birkenau. Manfred recorded these turbulent times in a small, hand-made book that he gave to his Jewish friend and gay companion, Gad Beck. Beck, a Holocaust survivor, donated the booklet to the Museum in December 1999. Gad, at the time 19 and Jewish, risked his life attempting to save Manfred from deportation. Friendship, valor, and the fight for freedom were the ideals of the 18th-century German drama Don Carlos by German writer Friedrich von Schiller. In 1941, Gad and Manfred played the starring roles in their Jewish youth group’s reading of the play.

Manfred Meir Lewin was born on September 8, 1922, in Berlin where he lived with his parents and four siblings in the predominantly Jewish section of the city. The family lived in poverty in three little rooms not far from the Beck house at Dragoner Strasse 43 (now Max-Beer-Straße). Manfred’s father, Arthur Lewin, was a barber and his mother Jenny Coeln, a former secretary, took care of the family. She often had to find other sources of food to supplement the family’s insufficient Jewish food ration cards.

With his parents, his brother Siegfried, who was two years older, and his younger siblings Rudolf, Cäcilie and Gerd, he lived in Hohenschönhausen at Witzenhauser Straße 57b. Around 1936, the family moved to Berlin-Mitte. Like his older brother Siegfried, Manfred Lewin lived for a time in the Hachschara-Landwerk Ahrensdorf in Brandenburg, where Jewish young people were prepared for emigration to Palestine. He was affected by National Socialist persecution in two ways: as a Jew and as a homosexual. Together with his partner Gad Beck, who became known as a resistance fighter, he was active in a youth group of the Zionist Hechaluz movement. In their joint theatre group, they played the leading roles in Schiller's drama "Don Karlos" in the late summer of 1941. Gad Beck played the Marquis of Posa, Manfred played the title role of Don Karlos. Manfred recorded his thoughts in a small notebook, which he gave to Gad Beck. The 17-page, homemade booklet, which is being shown by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in an online exhibition, is titled "Remember As." Manfred writes about the joint play: "And our bond became closer when Karlos found favour everywhere". Manfred Lewin had to perform forced labour in a small company that renovated apartments damaged by the effects of war. He described the owner, Lothar Herrmann, to Gad Beck as rough, but basically warm-hearted.

In November 1942, Manfred and his family were asked to attend the collection camp on Große Hamburger Straße. Gad Beck reports in his memoirs that the day after Manfred's arrest, he went to the collection camp in a Uniform of the Hitler Youth borrowed from Lothar Herrmann's son. There he claimed to an SS-Obersturmbannführer that Manfred had stolen several apartment keys during a work assignment and since they could not continue working without the keys, he had to take him with him to clarify the matter. After Gad Beck had promised to bring Manfred back immediately, he was actually allowed to accompany him. But Manfred did not want to abandon his family. According to Gad Beck's recollection, as soon as they were on the street, he said, "Gad, I can't go with you. My family needs me, if I leave them now, I will never be free." With these words, he turned around and returned to the collection camp. On November 29, 1942, the then 20-year-old Manfred Lewin was deported to Auschwitz with his parents Jenny and Arthur, his 14-year-old sister Cäcilie and his twelve-year-old brother Gerd. His brothers Siegfried and Rudolf were also deported to Auschwitz on February 19, 1943. The entire family was murdered.

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