Felicitas Weill, née Hamburger came from a long-established Jewish family whose roots reach back to the 17^th century. She was born in Bad Kissingen on March 22, 1903 as the daughter of Nathan Hamburger and his wife Pauline, née Wimmelbacher. Her father was a butcher according to family tradition and owned a butchery at Marktplatz.

In December 1928, Felicitas married the merchant Eugen Weill from Munich and moved to Munich after the wedding.

There is a Gestapo protocol left that makes clear how desperate the situation of Jewish citizens had become at that time. Felicitas had complained about it in a laundry, was denounced and accused of “a hate campaign against the German government”.

In the Gestapo minutes you can read: “…According to a confidential report received here, the Jew Felizi Sara Weill, living in Munich, Albanistrasse 12/3 is said to have talked in an incendiary way defaming the state on August 29, 1938 at about 2 P.M. without any prompting. She was doing the laundry in washhouse Kegel, Entenbachstrasse 9/0: “Now there will be war again. When the planes come, there will be nothing left of Munich in four weeks’ time. Hopefully we will live to see all the great die a wretched death. Every dog is regarded with more pity than us Jews”. The household help Luise Rehl, München, Entenbachstrasse 9/10 with Kegel is mentioned as a witness.

Rehl was interviewed and confirmed the utterings of the Jew in the confidential report and added that the Jew had said in addition to that: “… when a dog dies in the street nowadays, they pity it more than us Jews. But hopefully the big headed will also die a wretched death soon – hopefully we will be able to experience that soon. Now I also have to leave my apartment, I can go into the Isar (River) just as well. They took all my silverware from me and now the money, too. Now they will also take my laundry – you can expect everything of them.”…

Kegel, the owner of the laundry, described the Jewess Weill as very cheeky and quarrelsome.

… One can conclude from the investigations and the conduct of the Jewess that she tries – in a typically Jewish way – on any occasion offered to incite the German-minded population against their leaders and thus impair the well-being of the Reich and the reputation of its government with the aim of making the people lose their trust into the leaders of the Reich” (Gestapo Minutes, Staatspolizeileitstelle München (B.NrII B), September 13, 1939 in: Die Verfolgung und Ermordung der europäischen Juden und das nationalsozialistische Deutschland 1933 – 1945, Band 3; Berlin, München, Freiburg, 2012, p. 102).

It can be seen here how ostracizing the Jews from the so-called “Volksgemeinschaft” (community of the people) by means of Nazi propaganda, a climate of denunciation was brought about and how quickly critical utterances could lead to being summoned by Gestapo. Unfortunately, the source doesn’t say what punishment for Felicitas Weill’s critical utterance was found. The law “gegen heimtückische Angriffe auf Staat und Partei” (against insidious attacks on state and party) from December 20, 1934 provided imprisonment of up to two years for “gehässige und hetzerische oder von niedriger Gesinnung zeugende” (spiteful, inflammatory and testifying of a low mind) utterances concerning the government and the NSDAP. 

But luckily, Felicitas Weill survived Nazi dictatorship. In March 1940, she succeeded in emigrating to the United States via Genova harbor with her husband Eugen Weill (Ibid.). She died in Flushing Queens/ New York in August 1980 at the age of 77, her husband had already died in December 1964.