Levy - Mayer - Scherman family collection

The Levy, Mayer and Scherman families were three interrelated families from Germany and France. During World War I, Alfred Levy (1888–1962) served as a German soldier, and his future wife Meta Mayer (1891–1969) worked as a Red Cross nurse in a military hospital. Meta was raised in Saarlouis (France/Germany), Alfred became a judge and worked in this city. They married in 1924. Their first child, Marie-Louise (Marlyse) was born in 1925, and in 1932 Meta gave birth to her son Theo. When the Saar became German, the family decided to leave their home and moved to Luxembourg in the summer of 1935. Facing the imminent threat of war in 1938, the family fled to Thionville (France) but returned after the Munich Accord to Luxembourg. The country was occupied by the Germans in 1940. When Gauleiter Gustav Simon took over the government, persecution against Jews increased. Due to her being Jewish, Marie-Louise was excluded from school. Together with Rabbi Robert Serebrenik Alfred Levy tried several times to negotiate better living conditions for the Jewish population with the Gestapo (Secret State Police). On December 13, 1940 the family was deported to unoccupied Vichy-France. They were able to escape the concentration camps. They fled to Villefranche-de-Rouergue, where they received permission to stay and rented a little apartment.

During the stay in Luxembourg, there evolved an intensive correspondence between the Levy and the Scherman families. Meta Mayer's sister Olga Mayer (1893-1980) had married Richard Scherman (1897-1987), a fellow student she had got to know when she studied at the medical school in Munich. They fled with their son Rolf (born in 1928) to the United States.

In November 1942 the Germans occupied the previously free zone in France. In the course of the German invasion and occupation of the previously free zone in France, they also occupied Villefranche-de-Rouergue and requested living quarters. Most of these troops consisted of SS squads. A neighbor of the Levy family betrayed them to the German authorities. Members of the Resistance warned the family in 1943 that Alfred Levy was on a list of those to be arrested. He was granted safety by farmers and hidden. Nonetheless, he was arrested while visiting his family. Due to the intervention of a high-ranking police officer who was also a Resistance fighter, Alfred was released. Before the Allied invasion in 1944, the whole family went into hiding during the months of April and October 1944. Again, Alfred Levy found refuge at the farm, while Meta, her daughter Marie-Louise and her son Theo found shelter in the convent Ruhles near Villefranche-de-Rouergue.

In 1946 the Levy family returned to the Saar. There, Alfred Levy worked as a judge again; the French administration appointed him Senatspräsident. Additionally, he provided guidance to Jews who applied for restitution; especially, he conducted lawsuits in the name of his family members and was able to win several cases on the loss of private property, the violation of liberty, the damage of health, the hindrance of educational and professional advancement, etc. Alfred Levy was also actively involved in the life of the Jewish community of the Saar, holding leading positions in the community and at one time even serving as president of the Jewish community. He died in 1962; his wife Meta died seven years later. Theo stayed with his parents. After the war he suffered from mental disorders and died in 1998. Marie-Louise migrated to the United States where she worked as an anesthesiologist and professor. She married John A. Kennedy and they started a family.