Kansas City Resident Recalls Childhood under Nazi Regime

By Bill Anderson

Kansas City, MO – Kansas City resident Anne Jacobson had a pretty typical childhood in 1930s Germany. Her father had a healthy income, and the family of six had few worries. And Jacobsen demonstrated great promise as a swimmer. But her reality became dramatically different when she reached her teens and her family moved to Austria, fleeing the rise of the Nazis. She told her story recently at the Gem Theater, as part of an exhibit about the 1936 Olympics in Berlin at the American Jazz Museum. Bill Anderson has this report.

Anne Jacobson and the Hakoah Jewish Women's Swim Club are the subjects of a documentary film called Watermarks. Jacobson spoke recently at the Gem Theater, in conjunction with the US Holocaust Memorial Museum's traveling show about the 1936 Berlin Olympics, currently at the American Jazz Museum. The exhibit is co-sponsored by the Midwest Center for Holocaust Education and the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum.