In May 1933, Meta Fuss-Opet, a 42-year-old Jew from Breslau, resigned from her bourgeois gymnastics club. The club had meant the world to her, which is why we today assume that this step was not voluntary. Did somebody suggest that she leave? In an article for Israelitische Familienblatt magazine, she described both her feelings about taking this step and the treasurer’s resigned reaction:

Farewell to My Gymnastics Club

I take the usual path, my favourite evening walk for twenty years now. I need exactly half an hour, since I usually walk quickly while humming a tune in anticipation of the pleasures to come. This time, everything is different. My steps are heavy and halting, and the closer I get to my destination, the slower I become. I chide myself for being childish and selfish. What’s actually happened? Nothing. My troubles shrivel to a trifle in light of the worries of so many of my fellow believers. Adversity is knocking at their door because they have lost their livelihoods and are forced to seek out new, insufficient, sources of sustenance for themselves and their loved ones. And I think it’s tragic that I have been excluded from a club for being a non-Aryan. Or is this one of those small pinpricks that can hurt the soul more deeply than the blows of destiny?

I stop trying to protect myself from my feelings and continue to walk, slower and slower. The empty suitcase in my left hand weighs a ton. Soon it will be full and maybe then it will seem lighter than it does now – for I will have put the worst behind me.

I turn the final corner reluctantly, for I am almost there. I don’t want to look up but I do, not wanting to see the large red house with the high, narrow, brightly-lit windows from which at this hour of the evening the cheerful song of young people always rings out.

Finally I give myself a push and go in, trying to express a semblance of calm and composure through my stance and my expression. Downstairs, in the cozy vestibule, sits the club’s treasurer. Today I want to flee from his usual friendly and jovial greeting. No chance, he’s seen me and greets me – as always.

 “I’m afraid I need to hand in my resignation. Can I do it with you?” I ask without looking at him. My voice sounds strange to me. “Please,” he answers politely and points to a small pile of white notices. “Those are all resignations. You work together well with people [he means some gentlemen of the board] for so many years, you get used to them, and now … That’s the way it has to be!” he whispers to me in confidence.

Not much is known about the further fate of Meta Fuss-Opet. In 1940, she was deported to Ravensbrück concentration camp, and in May 1942, she was murdered at Bernburg killing centre near the river Saale. She was 51 years old.