Born: Inga Lenkowitz
Düsseldorf, Germany
April 25, 1924
Yvonne Mann Davidson was born on April 25, 1924 in Düsseldorf, Germany where her father owned a furniture store and her mother had been an opera singer. Mann Davidson grew up with two older half-brothers and recalled that although she was “spoiled” as the youngest child, “I became a tomboy because I always tagged along with them.” When she was seven years old the family moved to Köln (Cologne), Germany.
Then, in January 1933, Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany. The business owned by Yvonne’s father was confiscated and he began preparing for the family to emigrate. All five departed for Switzerland in September 1938, only two months before the pogrom of Kristallnacht. They crossed the border to France and temporarily settled in the city of Nice. Mann Davidson remembered how the large community of Jewish refugees traded information on how to secure visas that would allow them to leave Europe.
Fearful of German spies, French authorities detained Yvonne’s two brothers in an internment camp. They managed to escape and the family made their way to Portugal where Mann Davidson got a job as a governess. Finally, in May 1941 the family boarded a ship to New York.
Mann Davidson began working in a clothing factory while attending night school for typing and stenography. Meanwhile, her father and brothers operated a gas station. One of them served in the U.S. military during World War II before the whole family relocated to Florida.
Parents:
Simon Lenkowitz, survived
Gertrude Kaufman Lenkowitz, survived
Siblings:
Hans, survived
Kurt, survived