On 20 January 2022 we met with Petra Vollmer and Stefan Romey in Hamburg and asked them about their work on behalf of people whose persecution under National Socialism was not recognised for many decades after the war.
Stefan Romey was one of the co-founders of the Hamburg Project Group for the Forgotten Victims of the Nazi Regime, which was founded in 1983. In 1988 the Foundation Assistance for People Persecuted under Nazism was established on the initiative of the project group which includes a counselling centre. Stefan Romey is a co-initiator of the foundation and has chaired it since 2009.
Petra Vollmer joined the Foundation Assistance for People Persecuted under Nazism in 1989. She provided advice with regard to applications for compensation in particular. She became a board member of the foundation in 1998. In 1996 she was appointed director of the association Solidarity and Assistance in Old Age, a care provider that caters specifically for the needs of survivors of Nazi persecution and their relatives.
We had a calm and pleasant conversation about the work of the project group and the foundation. When the interview turned to the biographies, things became more animated. Even after many years, Petra Vollmer and Stefan Romey still had vivid memories of their encounters with various people who had suffered persecution. They recounted a string of little anecdotes, which evoked the individual personalities of the »clients« in the official files.
The focus of the interview was the pioneering work carried out by the project group to research the victims who had not been recognised as having suffered persecution under the National Socialist regime. How did the members of the project group come together and how was the foundation established? What was the situation like for those who had suffered persecution? In which areas could the project group and the foundation advise and support these victims? Stefan Romey and Petra Vollmer looked back on the early days of the project group and the creation of the foundation and, drawing on selected biographies, gave a striking account of their encounters with people who had suffered persecution and struggled for recognition.
Clips from the interview will be available on our website in the near future. For more on early research in this field, including the work of the Hamburg project group, see the timeline.
Friederike Pescheck
PPetra Vollmer passed away on 1 July 2022. Right up until the end of her life, she dedicated her efforts to supporting the victims of Nazi persecution and their relatives. An obituary (in German) with details of her more than thirty years of endeavour can be found on the website of Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial.