“I Never Learned to Hate” Survivor Martha Bauer

With the support of her family, she was able to retain some of her possessions.

Approximately six hours before the start of World War II, she was able to speak to her aunt, Mathilde Mondschein, and uncle, Adolf, for the last time via the telephone. Bauer stayed in Margate for a year and was there as evacuees from Dunkirk arrived.

At this time, Bauer learned about a settlement to be established in the Dominican Republic that did not have a registered nurse. She applied and was accepted. She was among 13 young people and some pregnant women from England who were going to the same settlement. She sailed from Glasgow, Scotland to Ellis Island, where she stayed for a week. Then, she sailed to Sosúa, Dominican Republic in October 1940.

Bauer attempted to get her family out of Germany and was successful in getting her mother to the Dominican Republic. On the day her aunt and uncle were supposed to leave, Jewish people under 65 were prohibited from leaving because they could be used for work. Her uncle was over the age of 65, but he did not want to leave his wife. Her brother, Rene Mondschein attempted to leave but was shot in Yugoslavia in 1941.

In 1943, Bauer was nursing malaria patients, when she met Felix Bauer, who eventually became her husband. Since he played the piano and she conducted calisthenics classes for pregnant women and provided lessons for the schoolchildren, she convinced him to play for her classes. They were married later that year.

Working 12 to 14 hours daily, Bauer helped establish a medical department in Sosúa, which eventually became a regular small hospital. She provided care for the young women throughout their pregnancies, immunized the children, and cared for the sick children who lived in the barracks.

While living in Sosúa, the Bauers had their first child, Boris, in 1945. After her husband received his artist’s visa, they sold their possessions to fly from Santo Domingo to Miami in 1946. They boarded a train to Columbia, South Carolina then rode a bus to Due West, South Carolina, where she lived with her husband, son, and daughter, Linda (born in 1949). In 1991, she was invited by the city of Cologne as part of their restitution service. She was able to visit the street where her aunt and uncle lived.

Martha Mondschein Bauer passed away May 20, 2011. ■ attics in preparation for war. Since radio was forbidden to get information from the outside, she sat in front of a small radio with the curtains drawn and the volume low to learn from neighboring countries. They were able to gather information because her uncle, Adolf Mondschein spoke fluent German and French plus some English.

Since the age of four, Bauer wanted to be a nurse. In 1935, despite the Nuremberg laws, Bauer pursued becoming a nurse. After graduating in 1937 and passing the state board, she was one of six nurses that earned a certificate from a Jewish hospital.

During Kristallnacht, Bauer was working at the hospital in Cologne. While Nazis were trying to gain access to the hospital, the hospital workers were able to hide about 200 people in the cellars. Even though they were spared, they had to determine how to feed everyone without drawing attention. There was sufficient medicine to help patients sleep when threatened by Nazis who entered and tried to remove patients from their beds.

In April 1939, Bauer was able to leave for Margate, England because England needed a thousand midwives and registered nurses.