![]() Would the thuggish Brown Shirts storm the trains? Would a child accidentally give the game away? It was even possible the Gestapo had already pieced together Anna’s plan and would stop everybody at the border. If even one person talked, it was hard to know what might happen. “We had to avoid all suspicion.” But the complex plot involved large numbers of people-parents, staff and children. “Obviously mass emigration was prohibited,” Paula wrote later. Hanna Bergas, who taught English, French and art history, led the final group across northern Germany.Įveryone knew the dangers. ![]() ![]() Anna’s sister, the school nurse, Paula Essinger, set out from Munich to Herrlingen and on to Stuttgart and Mannheim, also collecting pupils on the way. Martin Schwarz, the school’s teacher of religious affairs, was to lead one group, discreetly picking up a child at each station along the Rhine River from Basel. ![]() Parents and children quietly made their way to preassigned railway stations along the three key rail routes out of the country. On the critical day, October 5, 1933, the 54-year-old headmistress’ most trusted staff members spread out in a network of three teams across Germany. ![]() It took Anna Essinger six months of planning to devise the remarkable secret escape of her entire school from Nazi Germany. ![]()
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