Jaffe Family, Posen Collection

The Jaffe (sometimes spelled Jaffé) family derived from the Posen (now Poznań) and Miloslaw regions of present-day Poland. Included among its members was Rabbi Mordecai Jaffe, known for his works Levush Malkhut or the Levushim, which interpreted the Jewish laws. Another noteworthy member of the family was the historian Philipp Jaffé.

Johanna ("Hanni") Eva Jaffé was born in Posen (now Poznań, Poland). She grew up in a well-to-do family; her father owned the family wood wholesale business, and her mother Alice came from a bankers' family from Warsaw. Soon after Johanna's birth, her father relocated his business to Berlin. She had a younger sister, Hilde, with whom she was very close.

In 1919, Johanna Jaffé completed her schooling at Berlin's Auguste Victoria Schule, continuing on to study medicine at the universities of Berlin and Freiburg before she had to break off her education due to illness. Eventually, she pursued a secretarial course and then assisted at her father's firm. In 1924, Johanna Jaffé went to the suburb of Dachau near Munich to attend a home economics course given at "Die große Moosschwaige," the home of the Swedish artist Carl Olaf Petersen and his wife Elly and a meeting place of many authors and artists. Elly Petersen taught the course, and the Petersens became close friends of Johanna's. Following the course, Johanna Jaffé began working at the Israelitische Jugendhilfe in Munich, later becoming principal of the institution. From 1928 to 1930, she traveled to several cities in Europe while studying modern foreign languages, but during semester breaks she always returned to Dachau where she assisted Elly Petersen in writing her "yellow books" on topics such as gardening and homemaking. Finally Johanna Jaffé broke off her studies and made Dachau her home. There the Petersens became her employers, where she assisted them in their literary work.

After Kristallnacht in November 1938, Johanna Jaffé turned her attention to emigrating from Germany. In April 1939, she went to England as a domestic servant. Ultimately, she settled near Cheltenham in the region of Cotswolds, where she opened a teashop. During the Holocaust, Johanna lost her mother Alice Jaffé, who was deported to Theresienstadt; Johanna’s sister Hilde Tittel committed suicide after facing deportation and the loss of her youngest son Rolf following the death of her non-Jewish husband in an accident. Johanna Jaffé succeeded in bringing her orphaned nephew Klaus to England in 1948. With Johanna’s help, he was able to secure a scholarship to attend Oxford University where he earned a PhD in Physics before moving to the U.S. in 1960.

In 1983, Johanna Jaffé visited Berlin on the invitation of the city's mayor. Although Elly Petersen asked her to return to Dachau, she never did. In her later years, she spent much of her time in genealogical research, documenting the descent of various branches of the Jaffé/ Jaffe family from Mordecai Jaffe of Posen as well as tracing the spread of the family, with family members in Germany, England, the United States and Israel.

Much of the information in this biographical note derived from material in the book Before Sunrise by Hans Holzhaider, translated by Johanna Jaffé.