JEWISH, AND HITLER’S NEIGHBOUR
V A 101-YEAR-OLD Jewish woman has recounted her memory of living next to Adolf Hitler in Munich during his rise to power.
Alice Frank Stock lived with her family in apartment 14, on Prinzregentplatz, and remembers seeing a coffin being removed from the Nazi leader’s flat after he moved in, in 1929.
Speaking to the Daily Mail, Ms Stock, who today lives in Bristol, said: “We lived in a house — a big house — and there were two entrances.
One was our apartment, number 14 — the other was either number 13 or 15. That’s where Hitler lived.
“We heard many [rumours], from the cook and others. We saw a coffin being carried out of the entrance.
“I think a niece of Hitler’s was living there and then she died. There was speculation of how and when she died.”
Hitler’s niece, Geli Raubal, committed suicide in the apartment in 1931 aged 23.
The exact nature of their relationship is contentious, and it is rumoured the pair were in a romantic relationship despite a 19-year age gap.
Ms Stock also recalled seeing Hitler enter and leave the apartment but says she never spoke to him. “His car would draw up. Two SS men would jump out stand either side and he would rush up to the house — terrified obviously of someone who would try and kill him.” Ms Stock added: “We had a wonderful cook who was elderly and very Catholic — and very anti-Hitler.
“Once she went out and saw a photo of Hitler hanging on the wall and she said: ‘Yes he should be hanged, the scoundrel — but not like this!’ “I said: ‘You’ll get us all into a concentration camp’.” Hitler remained in the property until 1934, when he moved after becoming Chancellor.
Speaking about antisemitism in German society between the wars, she said: “In my school people were on the whole decent. My classmates were decent, too.
“But I can tell you of one incident, in an English lesson.
“The teacher said: ‘Of course, we Germans face our God as free men while the Jews roll in the dust’. I didn’t say anything. I went out into the corridor after and he said: ‘Look Frank, I didn’t know you were Jewish’.
“I said: ‘Professor, why would you make such remarks?
“You don’t believe it yourself, do you?’.
“He said: ‘You must go with your times’.”
Due to the threat to Jewish people that the Nazis posed, Ms Stock was sent to study in Lausanne in Switzerland aged 17.
She then moved to London in 1937, where she was eventually reunited with her parents.