Barriers to Bridges: In Post- Wwii Germany, a Christian Woman Builds Bridges of Reconciliation to Israel

By Hanna Margarete Kowalke-Matthée and Robert Alan Ward

Born in post-Holocaust Germany, Margrit Kowalke-Matthée struggled with deep guilt and pain at the role her country played in the atrocities carried out on Jewish people during the Holocaust. Instead of allowing her shame to consume her, Margrit began an active ministry to Jewish people in Israel, both by visiting the country and by writing thousands of letters introducing Jewish people to Jesus the Messiah. Her story of hope and reconciliation helps answer the question that many people struggle with; “What can one person do to battle the sheer magnitude of evil and hurt in the world?” We can all build bridges in a deeply divided society.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Sep 29, 2022
• ISBN: 9781664277359

Hanna Margarete Kowalke-Matthée

As a woman born in post-Holocaust Germany, Margrit is keenly aware of how a burden of guilt and shame can act as a barrier to reconciliation between people groups. Margrit actively builds bridges to Jewish people by guiding them towards the hope found in Jesus the Messiah.

Book preview

Barriers

to

Bridges

In Post-WWII Germany,

a Christian Woman Builds Bridges

of Reconciliation to Israel

Hanna Margarete Kowalke-Matthée

With Robert Alan Ward

Original story translated into English by Hans-Jürgen Scholz

Edited by Avi Zwart

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Copyright © 2022 Hanna Margarete Kowalke-Matthée.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

WestBow Press

A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan

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Bloomington, IN 47403

www.westbowpress.com

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. www.lockman.org

ISBN: 978-1-6642-7736-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6642-7737-3 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6642-7735-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022916223

WestBow Press rev. date: 9/29/2022

Contents

One

The Miracle of My Existence

Two

My Mother’s Ancestry

Three

My Growing-Up Years

Four

My Seeking Years

Five

My Finding Years

Six

Visions for My Future Work

Seven

Romance Enters My Life

Eight

Moving Closer to Our Life Calling

Nine

Off to Israel

Ten

My Letter-Writing Ministry

Eleven

My Second Trip to Israel

Twelve

My Third Trip to Israel

Thirteen

The Time Between

Fourteen

My Fourth Trip to Israel

Fifteen

The Sad Transience of Earthly Life

Sixteen

My Revived Letter-Writing Ministry

Seventeen

My Most Recent Journey to Israel

Eighteen

Final Thoughts

Citations

Acknowledgments

Foreword

by Joy Leichtfuss

I was born in 1978, almost exactly ten years after Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. I was born fifteen years after a bomb, placed by white supremacists, claimed the lives of four African American girls at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. More than thirty years before my birth, President Franklin Roosevelt issued an executive order that authorized the removal of around 120,000 Japanese Americans from their normal lives. They were sent to internment camps where they languished for years while their homes and businesses were ruined or confiscated. As we look further back in United States history, we see the evils of the enslavement of African peoples and untold atrocities carried out upon Native Americans and other indigenous groups.

All of these events happened before my birth and I did not have a direct hand in any of them. However, I, and I’m sure I’m not alone, feel a burden of shame that people in my country were responsible for these, and many other, horrific acts. I’ve never quite known what to do with that shame. I can’t change the past. I can’t undo wrongs. I can’t fix what I didn’t break. The helplessness I feel sits heavy on my heart.

Margrit’s story resonates with me because she, too, struggled immensely with this sense of guilt and shame over what her people, the Germans, did to Jewish people during the Holocaust, even though the events took place before her birth. Instead of letting that shame consume her, Margrit began an active ministry to Jewish people in Israel, both by visiting the country and by writing thousands of letters introducing Jewish people to Jesus the Messiah. Her story of hope and reconciliation helps answer the question that many people struggle with; What can one person do to battle the sheer magnitude of evil and hurt in the world?

As you read this book, you will see that Margrit’s first answer to this question is pray. As I got to know Margrit through this book, I found myself noticing similarities between her and Corrie Ten Boom, a Dutch woman who was imprisoned by Nazis for hiding Jews in the Netherlands. Both women turn(ed) to prayer not as a last resort, but as a first response. Both women pray(ed) and expected God to work.

Margrit’s second answer to this question is act. Do something! Margrit felt God stirring her heart to action to build bridges to Jewish people. She did not allow the enormity of the issue or the size of the barriers to cripple her into inaction. She moved forward in faith and many, many lives were changed as a result.

This book is not a how-to book on racial reconciliation, nor is it a book demanding that all people engage in drastic actions to somehow right the wrongs of the past. This is one woman’s story of how she built bridges through prayer and the power of Jesus Christ.

I hope you are as inspired as I am by this story of hope, love, faith, and perseverance.

One

The Miracle of My Existence

I was born Hanna Margarete Matthée (I have always gone by Margrit) in an orphanage in the city of Soest, in northwestern Germany on April 6, 1946. It was less than a year after the end of World War II in Europe. My country was in ruins. Usable housing was scarce. Our infrastructure was destroyed. Supplies of food and basic necessities were limited. Hunger and hopelessness ruled the times.

My particular entry into this world came about in even more desperate, but miraculous, circumstances. My mother, Elisabeth Matthée, was born in Berlin on July 11, 1904. In 1910, a great famine came to the city. My mother and her older sister, Grete, were sent to East Prussia, where they lived for one year with relatives on a farm. But the head of the house sexually abused my mother. A doctor later told her that her uterus was so badly damaged that she would never be able to bear children. For that reason, she never married.

Berlin, where my mother lived as a young woman, was incessantly bombed during World War II, especially near the end. One bomb struck my mother’s home and destroyed the living room, making the entire house uninhabitable. She then fled to Bavaria in the south, which was a much safer part of Germany. She lived on a farm and worked in the gardens. While she was living there, she met a man named Hans Gütschow, who was working at a pharmacy. Hans was from Hamburg on the North Sea. My mother invited him to come to her birthday party and he accepted.

Hamburg, where Hans was from, was a large industrial city where large shipyards, U-boat pens, and oil refineries were located. It was situated along a river and was a strategic target for the Royal Air Force and the United States Army and Air Forces. Because of its importance, it was relentlessly bombed during the war. A series of fire-bombing raids on the city in late July 1943 created a firestorm, killed an estimated 37,000 civilians, and wounded some 180,000 others. More attacks followed. Communication from Hamburg to the rest of Germany was very limited, and people in Bavaria assumed that the entire city of Hamburg had been destroyed.¹

Having not heard from his family, Hans Gütschow assumed that his wife and two children in Hamburg had been among those killed in the bombing. My mother and Hans began an affair. He promised to marry her after the war since his family had likely been killed in the bombing. Being forty-one and told that she could never have children, my mother figured that nothing would come of their intimacy, which is how I came to be. That my mother could become pregnant after doctors assured her it was impossible was the first miracle of my existence.

It later turned out that my father’s wife and children were still alive. Upon learning that, my mother broke off their relationship because she did not want to split his family apart. My father knew that my