Lore Schneider (Heti Lore Koppel)

Lore Schneider was born on October 10, 1924 in Bochum, Germany. Bochum had a small Jewish community which was able to support one synagogue and one small Jewish day school which Lore attended. Lore’s father was a respected lawyer and judge. She was an only child and grew up in a wonderful and loving home.

When Hitler came to power, restrictions and sanctions were immediately felt in Bochum. Lore’s father was fired and disbarred for being a Jew. One day, he and his law partner were brutally beaten in an alleyway. It was then that her father decided that the family must leave Germany before conditions got even worse.

Lore’s aunt and her family lived in Washington D.C. and they agreed to sign affidavits for Lore and her parents. The family immigrated to the United States in 1934. During Kristallnacht on November 9, 1938, the synagogue in Bochum was destroyed. Once the war began, Lore’s father spent much of his free time trying to get affidavits for the other members of their family that had remained in Germany. He succeeded in rescuing several of them. Others, however, perished in camps or went into hiding for the duration of the war.

In the meantime, Lore worked as a “government girl” during the war, working in the U.S. Department of the Interior while attending night classes at George Washington University. After the war ended, her father worked for the prosecution team at the Nuremberg War Crimes trials. Lore spent her adult life teaching secondary school and adult education. She has volunteered at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum for many years.