Shedding Our Stars

Born in 1927 in Frankfurt, Laureen Nussbaum was the middle daughter of the Klein family. When she was eight, the Kleins left Hitler's Germany and settled in Amsterdam, close to Anne Frank and her family, old friends from Frankfurt. When Hans Calmeyer, the German official in charge of "dubious cases," decided in favor of their petition to be considered non-Jews, and Nussbaum's mother and sisters were allowed to shed their yellow stars, her father, living in a "privileged mixed marriage," was not deported. In 1957, Nussbaum and her husband, Rudi, moved to the United States and eventually, settled in Portland, OR, where Rudi joined the faculty of Portland State University (PSU). There, Nussbaum went back to school and subsequently got her PhD in German Language and Literature at the University of Washington. She joined the faculty of PSU, published dozens of academic papers, and eventually retired as a full professor. In 2012, after her husband's death, she moved to Seattle.

From his post at the headquarters of the German occupation during World War II, Hans Calmeyer surreptitiously saved thousands of Jewish lives in the Netherlands. Here, Laureen Nussbaum describes how Calmeyer declared her mother non-Jewish and deleted her and her family from the deportation lists-and traces the arc of both her life and Calmeyer's in the aftermath of the war.