ABSTRACT
A hundred years earlier, Heinrich Wohlwill's great-grandfather had settled in Hamburg on the Elbe, a jewel among the cities of Germany, with its canals and lakes, medieval streets and thriving port, looking back on more than a millennium of cultured tradition. Once famed as a prosperous member of the Hanseatic League, a republic ruled not by princes but by an elite of merchants, it was surely the last place on earth to descend to barbarity. Nowhere did Jews feel more at home.
