Edgar Weil

Hans Joseph and Weil grew up mostly in Frankfurt, living in the Friedberger Anlage 9, near their father's company headquarters at Grüne Straße 11-13.

She and Jockisch spent a lot of time together with their grand cousin Grete Dispeker at the family's country house in Egern on Tegernsee.

[8] Weil was working as a dramaturge at the Münchner Kammerspiele when his professional prospects and plans were abruptly halted by the Seizure of Power by the Nazis from 30 January 1933.

The Jew-baiting and the enacted Nazi laws, which were intended to successively push Jews in Germany out of public life, made it clear that it was a matter of existence, at first obviously above all of economic foundations.

In the late summer of 1938, the couple travelled to Sanary-sur-Mer in southern France, where they came into contact with Lion Feuchtwanger and Alma Mahler-Werfel and Franz Werfel through their secretary Lola Humm-Sernau [de].

[10][11] At the end of August 1939, Edgar and Grete Weil returned from a joint trip from Switzerland to Amsterdam, shortly before the German invasion of Poland.

When the Wehrmacht made it clear on 10 May 1940 with the Invasion and Occupation of the Netherlands [de] that Germany's neighbouring countries were not a safe haven for persecuted persons, the couple tried in vain to escape by ship to Great Britain via the port of Ijmuiden, where they hoped to meet Grete's older brother, the lawyer Fritz Dispeker (1895-1986).

The Reichskommissariat Niederlande quickly ensured that the Nuremberg Laws were extended to the occupied territories, a circumstance that also directly affected the Weils and Dispekers.