Sara Kallner née Beith was born in 1873 in Altona (now Hamburg). She was the 17-year younger sister of Ida Beith, the long-time matron of the Israelitische Kuranstalt. When her later husband (from the Riga district) Dr. phil. Adolf Kallner had the Villa Aspira built in Bad Soden in 1911, the matron Sara Beith became a partner in the G.m.b.H. It was a spa and convalescent home run according to Jewish religious laws, the first of its kind in Germany.
In December 1912, the couple married and had two children. Their daughter Eva was born in January 1915, and their son Arnold in July 1917. Sara’s husband, Dr. Adolf Kallner (prayer leader in the synagogue), died in 1922 at the age of 48. He is buried in the Jewish cemetery in Bad Soden.
After her husband’s death, Sara Kallner and her children stayed in the Villa Aspira (Talstraße 1). Until 1931 the villa can still be found in the „Frankfurter Address Book“, after that only the classified ad under the heading „Pensionen“ appears until 1933: Aspira G.m.b.H., Talstr. 1.
The Villa Aspira 1934 as a Nazi leadership school
In 1934 the family probably had to leave their home. The house was confiscated and in December 1934 Gauleiter Sprenger “inaugurated” the „Kommunalpolitische Führerschule“ of the Gau Hessen-Nassau in the Villa Aspira.
Sara Kallner then lived at Heinrichstraße 7 (Bad Soden) until she fled in 1937. In the Gemeindeblatt (Community Newsletter) of the Frankfurt Jewish Community of April 1937, there is the following entry: “The former owner of the Villa Aspira Health Resort, Mrs. Dr. Kallner, Heinrichstraße 7, still grants accommodation and strictly ritual meals to permanent guests and transients after prior registration.“
Sara Kallner’s escape route, like that of her daughter Eva (Chawa) who had already fled a year earlier, probably led to her daughter in Palestine via England. Eva worked at the Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikvah (Tel Aviv) where she met her future husband, the head of the surgical department, Dr. Paul Nathan, whom she married in 1936.
The photo by Zoltan Kluger (19.2.1934) shows the first group of the Youth Aliyah from Germany after disembarking at the port of Haifa.
The escape route of her son Arnold (Awram), who probably left Germany as early as 1934, cannot be clearly traced. However, plausible conclusions can be drawn on the basis of the job title “farmer” entered in the registration certificate and the dates of life in Israel documented from private sources (also of his later wife Irmgard “Yehudit” Kallner, née Sonneborn). If the entry in 1934 is correct, Arnold Kallner was only 17 years old at that time. Together with the job title “farmer” and his origin from an Orthodox Jewish family, everything speaks in favour of his coming to Palestine as part of the Youth Aliyah (immigration/escape to build the Land of Israel).
For legal immigration up to 1939, with the help of the Jewish Agency, the Ben Schemen youth village and the Ahawa children’s home near Haifa, a new additional category of immigration certificates for 15 to 17-year-olds had been obtained from the British Mandate government. These young people were preparing for later tasks in the country.
Alternatively, preparation by a religious Jewish youth association in Germany would be conceivable. His later wife Irmgard “Yehudit” Kallner, née Sonneborn (5 years older) was, as family reports and photos verify, a member of the Bachad (a religious Jewish youth association which, parallel to the Hechaluz, was also its own independent umbrella organisation for the preparation and implementation of the Aliyah) in 1935. In 1936 she came to Palestine with an immigration certificate and was one of the first members of Kibbutz Sde Eliyahu.