Hedwig Loewenthal, born into a respected Jewish medical family in Berlin, moved to Oerlinghausen in 1912 and later built a secluded home there. Although she had converted to Protestantism, the Nazis classified her as Jewish after 1933. Increasingly isolated and harassed, she was forced from her home in 1941, briefly housed in Lemgo, and deported via Bielefeld to Riga in December 1941. Her exact fate is unknown; she was declared dead in 1952.
Eduard Berke, a KPD leader in Oerlinghausen since 1920, was arrested after the Nazi takeover and imprisoned for “preparing high treason.” After release, he worked at Benteler but remained under suspicion. In 1942 he joined a group secretly listening to foreign radio broadcasts. Betrayed to the Gestapo, he was arrested, tortured, sentenced to death, and executed in Dortmund on 4 January 1944.
