it has been not just my life, but also that of thousands of others, that has been an unimaginable agony. On Wednesday 2,000 (it cannot actually have been more than 1,500) Hamburg Jews received the evacuation order. Provisionally. One knows everything that will follow. Cruel conditions. Things to be taken along: louse ointment, insect powder, dust comb. To Litzmanstadt. Here and there a complete family, but also father or mother, or daughter or son, separated out. The domestic servant of my Jewish tenant is there, so short of being there already, I have lived it all. An Aryan acquaintance of my tenant came to visit. I opened the door to her. A young woman. She said to me, "How good that you're still in: it means you can prepare better for the journey." and then her tongue seemed to become frozen in her mouth ....". The deportations continued. In September 1942, aged 72, Ida Dehmel was still in her home, but she believed she was incurably ill, and even if she were to be spared deportation she feared becoming dependent on others. Her will to live was destroyed by her illness and by the grim circumstances of the time and place. On 29 September 1942 she took an overdose of sleeping pills and ended her life. References External links People from Altona, Hamburg People from Bingen am Rhein German women writers German feminists 1870 births 1942 deaths 19th-century German Jews 1942 suicides Drug-related suicides in Germany Suicides by Jews during the Holocaust German Jews who died in the Holocaust