A romance survived 7 concentration camps in the Holocaust

Question

I want to share this poignant story about two young German Jews that I discovered while working on their profiles.  The mysteries that still remain are shown in blue.

He was from Hemmerden and she was from Hochneukirch, about 8 miles apart.  Did they know each other growing up?  Probably not because they were 9 years apart in age.

She left home after elementary school to work as a housemaid about 30 miles away, then went to a trade school until Jews were not permitted there, then worked as a housemaid for another family until they were deported.  She was deported in 1941 and spent 3 years in the Riga concentration camp and another month in the Stutthof concentration camp until September 1944.  After that she built roads in the Sophienwalde labor camp, and finally was a prisoner in the Gotendorf concentration camp, where she was liberated in April 1945.  She spent a month working as a nurse in a hospital, then set out for home.

He remained in Hemmerden until he was deported to Riga in 1941, where he was a laborer.  He was there until 1944, when he was moved to Stutthof for a month.  Did they meet in Riga or Stutthof, since they were both there at the same time?  He was sent to Buchenwald from there, then Remsdorf, and finally Theresienstadt, from where he was liberated in May 1945.  He set out for home, but didn't get there - he must have gone straight to her home town, where they were married in mid-May 1945.

I can't say they lived happily ever after - they remained in Germany, but apparently struggled for at least four more years, receiving food and clothing from a relief group, until they applied for assistance from the International Refugee Organization.  After that, things get funny - their application was approved, but apparently cancelled at an unknown date.  They got passports and are shown on the passenger list of a ship taking displaced persons to New York, but lines are drawn through their names.  They are believed to have remained in Germany until he died in 1988 and she died in 2018, but the only source I have for their death dates/places is unreliable.

Comments

Nice story Gaile!

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Really interesting story, and both their profiles are beautifully done!

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You usual thorough and quality work, Gaile.

Answer 1

When the Ghetto was first established in Riga the Jewish families stayed together. Then tens of thousands of Latvian Jews were murdered because Nazis needed to make space for German Jews that were shipped in trains from Germany.

German part of the ghetto was separated from Latvian part. Very few Latvian Jewish women survived mass aktions in the autumn of 1941. Furthermore, Latvian Jewish men were segregated from Latvian Jewish women in their ghetto after the first few aktions.

In the German part of the ghetto initially there was no segregation. After the liquidation of ghettos remaining survivors were moved to Kaiserwald KZ. People were separated there by sexes. When Kaiserwald was evaquated to Stutthof in 1944 the segregation continued.

It is more likely that initial contact by this couple was made either on the train from Germany, or early on in the Ghetto.

The slave labour teams were also usually segregated by sex.