An account from Peter Robbins concerning:
PETER Franz Josef WOLFF
Peter’s father was HelmuthEgon Wilhelm Wolff, a Jewish architect, who was born in Berlin in 1895. He later moved to Munich where, in 1922, he married Wilhelmine Fischer (also Jewish), who was born in Munich in 1901. Peter Wolff was born in Munich on 8th December 1929. In 1932Helmuthparted fromWilhelmine, and married a non-Jewish lady, AnnemieKoller,with whom he fled to Amsterdam in 1933,leaving Wilhelmine with the small boy. We do not know the reasons for his actions in that chaotic time.
Helmuth and Annemie set up a successful photography business in Amsterdam, but when the Nazis invaded The Netherlands in 1940, (it is recorded in one document that)Helmuth was ‘murdered’. Another record says that the couple entered a suicide pact. If this is true, it is a fact thatAnnemie survived, while Helmuth did not. In 2011 the ‘Foundation Annemie and Helmuth Wolff’ was established in Amsterdam – see
After the departure of Helmuth, Wilhelmine converted to Catholicism, and moved to Hamburg, but this did not save her from the fate of many Jews - she was deported in 1941 to the ghetto in Łódź, Poland, where she died in April 1942. Another accountsays that she was moved from Łódź to a camp in Riga, Latvia, and died there, but we have been unable to confirm this.However, in 1939 she had already managed to send Peter to England, possibly by the ‘Kindertransport’.
On arrival in England, Peter was welcomed into the care of the Catholic Committee for Refugees who sent him, firstly, to a convent in Devon and then, in 1942, to St. Michael’s College, Hitchin, Hertfordshire, which was run by an Order of priests – the Augustinians of the Assumption. See
He seems to have been happy there as a boarder, and was an active member of the Scout Troop, and the Beekeeping Club. However, he must have suffered greatly from the trauma of his early years and, having no family, presumably had to stay with the priests at the College during school holidays. Sadly, he died of peritonitis in 1946, at the age of 16.
He was given a solemn Requiem Mass and funeral in Hitchin Catholic church, with the whole school attending. However, for some unknown reason, he was buried in a common grave in Hitchin cemetery with no headstone.
It was only in 2016 that two ex-pupils began to research his origins. In spite of extensive searching, no record of the date or circumstances of his arrival in England remain. Again, many enquiries in Germany produced no results, until one ex-pupil paid for a private researcher to search the records.
With the help of Mr. Neil Fairey, the cemetery manager of the North Hertfordshire District Council, we located the unmarked plot where Peter is buried, and raised some money to buy a small inscribed stone tablet as a memorial. The money was donated by a few Old Michaeleans, the Augustinian Order, and Hitchin parishioners.
This fund will enable a plaque and other memorials to Peter to be erected.
May he rest in peace. Mögeer in Friedenruhen.
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Peter Robbins
89 Old Hale Way
Hitchin, Herts. SG5 1XR
Tel: 01462 433773
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