Media Contact: Kara Driscoll, [email protected], 513-638-0508
We are deeply saddened to share news of the passing of Holocaust survivor Dr. Renate (Berg) Neeman, z”l, who shared her story as a member of our Coppel Speakers Bureau for many years. Renate spoke publicly to hundreds of people at schools and public events like Cincinnati Museum Center’s 1940’s Day, and traveled across the region to libraries in Boone County, Kentucky, and colleges in Lawrenceburg, Indiana.
Renate was born in Hildesheim, Germany, in 1926. In May 1938, her parents fled to the Netherlands after her father received notification of his impending arrest by the Gestapo. Renate lived with her grandmother until her parents arranged for her to travel safely to Amsterdam in July 1938. The family went into hiding separately after witnessing the Nazi deportation of Jews to the East in 1943.
With the help of the Dutch resistance, Renate acquired false identity papers and worked as a maid for a Christian family in Amersfoort. Her parents were hidden in the U.N.I.C.A fraternity house at Amsterdam University. The family was reunited two weeks after the war’s end. They immigrated to the United States in 1946. She later went on to become an occupational therapist.
In 2014, Renate moved to Cincinnati. She was a speaker sharing her Holocaust experiences for about a decade in Buffalo and about 5 years for the Holocaust & Humanity Center in Cincinnati. Renate’s lifelong love was classical music and choral singing. She sang with the Buffalo Philharmonic in the 1950’s. After moving to Cincinnati, she sang with the Circle Singers through May of this year, well past her 98th birthday.
Renate was a mother of 4, grandmother of 7. She was a loving and caring person, and a source of strength and positivity. May her memory be for a blessing.
Services will be held at Weil Kahn Funeral Home, 8350 Cornell Road Cincinnati, Ohio 45249 on Sunday, August 11, 2024 at 4:00PM with visitation beginning at 3:30PM. The obituary can be viewed online here.
