Willy Cohn
Dr. Willy Cohn (12 December 1888 in Breslau – 29 November 1941 in Kaunas, Lithuania) was a German historian and teacher. During the Nazi era, he documented the Jewish life in Breslau in his diaries, until he and his family were deported to German-occupied Lithuania and killed. Cohn's diaries, translated into English and condensed, were published in 2012 as "No Justice in Germany: The Breslau Diaries, 1933-1941" by Stanford University Press. Along with Victor Klemperer, Cohn was one of the most important chroniclers of the crimes of the Nazi regime against the Jewish people. Biography. Willy  Cohn came from a wealthy Jewish merchant family in Breslau. Starting in 1906, he studied history in Breslau and Heidelberg. He completed his degree in 1909 with a dissertation about the Norman-Sicilian fleet, which was published in Breslau in 1910. Cohn took the examination to qualify as a gymnasium teacher, although he aspired to pursue an academic career at the University of Breslau. He was unable to realize his plans because of discrimination against Jewish academics. Cohn became a teacher at Breslau's gymnasium in 1919. One of those students was the historian Walter Laqueur, who in 1996 called  attention to Cohn's diaries. Despite increasing repression after the Nazis came to power, Cohn still felt connected to Germany and remained in Breslau with his second wife and two daughters. In his diaries, he documented life under Nazi rule and the subsequent destruction of Breslau's Jewish community, then the third largest in Germany. As the persecution of Jews in Germany grew worse, the Cohns considered emigration. Cohn and his wife visited Palestine in 1937, but it offered no employment prospects to Cohn, who was not healthy enough to perform physical labor. When they wanted to flee after the  Kristallnacht in 1938, it was too late; after the outbreak of the Second World War, the Nazi regime no longer allowed emigration. The Cohns endured the Nazi reign of terror in Breslau; they were arrested on November 21, 1941 and deported to German-occupied Lithuania. A few days later, on November 29, 1941, Cohn and his family were shot in the Ninth Fort, together with 2000 other Jews from Breslau and Vienna. In 2010, a plaque commemorating Cohn was unveiled on Wrocław's Market Square. Section::::"No Justice in Germany: The Breslau Diaries, 1933-1941". Cohn's diaries are preserved in  the Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People in Jerusalem and were first published in December 2006. Cohn is considered along with Victor Klemperer as one of the most important chroniclers of the crimes of the Nazis against the Jewish people. Cohn left a record of everyday Jewish life in Germany after 1933, under conditions of gradually increasing economic, social and cultural oppression. Acknowledging the threat from the Nazi regime in his diaries, he wrote in August 1935: "From now on, I plan to record our Jewish fate more intently; perhaps it will be of interest to later  generations". His condensed diaries were published in English in 2012 by Stanford University Press as "No Justice in Germany: The Breslau Diaries, 1933-1941". The review at H-Net noted: It is rare that such perceptive and comprehensive accounts of this time period survive, and Conrads and Kronenberg [the editor and the translator] help fulfill Cohn's desire to inform future generations about his experiences. Similar to Victor Klemperer's diary, Cohn's detailed account describes what it was like to be a Jew living in the Third Reich. (...) The condensed diaries and helpful background information should certainly encourage a  wider readership and general audience.