Schmoller, Hans

Epithet: typographer

Hans Peter Schmoller was born in Berlin in 1916 to Jewish parents. He went to London in the early 1930s to do a course in compositing at the Monotype Institute. There he heard about a vacancy at Morija Printing Works, Basutoland (Lesotho) to run an Evangelical Swiss printing press. Hans emigrated to Basutoland in 1938 where he was interned as an enemy alien at Ganspan camp in the following year. He was released from internment in 1942. Tragically, although he got permission for his parents to join him, war was declared just a few days before their departure date and they could no longer leave the country. His parents were deported to Theresienstadt concentration camp in 1942, his mother was transferred to Auschwitz in 1944. Both perished.

Hans later moved to England where he worked as a successful typographer. He married his wife Tanya. Johanna Dorothea Behrend (1892-1977) (Hans's aunt on his mother's side) was born in a Jewish household but later converted to Christianity. She studied music and became a concert singer. During the inflation she had to give up this profession and became a secretary. When her employer was aryanised in November 1938 she was dismissed and shortly after, in April 1939, emigrated as a refugee to England. She initially worked as a domestic servant with friends of the family.