The Nazis had taken power early in 1933 and rapidly transformed Germany into a one-party dictatorship. Antisemitism was integrated into public policy and became progressively more oppressive for those affected. After the Kristallnacht pogrom in November 1938 Isidor Pinkus lost his customers. The day after the pogrom she was handed a letter at school addressed to her father from the mayor of Berlin in which Ellen's father was requested to remove her from the school. One teacher called her aside and whispered that he wished her "all the best", while other teachers and fellow-pupils looked away. For Jewish pupils, exclusion from the school turned out to be permanent. She never had an opportunity to sit for her school final exams ("Abitur"), and despite later attempts to catch up after she had left Germany, she would never succeed in completing her schooling.