Bertha Esser’s husband had divorced her. She had therefore lost the protection of being married to a non-Jewish husband and the protective status, which a “mixed marriage” offered. In December 1942 Esser managed to obtain a postal ID card without the additional name “Sara” as had been required for a long time. She decided to escape when she was required to vacate her apartment on 12 January 1943 and proceeded to the communal housing located at Hermesweg 5. She escaped via Straßburg to Mulhouse in Alsace with the help of her friend Margarete Foessl-Neuland’s family. They were Christian friends who helped her to escape in March 1943 and encouraged her to jump on a freight train that went to Switzerland.
See: Petra Bonavita: Mit falschem Pass und
Zyankali, Stuttgart 2009, pages 125-127
and 110-113; see also how a postal ID
card issued in Frankfurt/Main, helped Helga
Frühauf to escape, in: Armin Schmid: Im
Labyrinth der Paragraphen, Frankfurt/Main
2006, pages 83-88.