Oral History Interview with Ute Seiler

Freda Cwanger, nee Stern, was born September 27, 1912 in a small town in Romania. Her family moved to Tarnopol, Poland when she was very young, after her father returned from his service in the Polish Army. She briefly talks about beating of Jews after 1935, and how the Russian occupation and then the German invasion affected her family. Freda's family, along with other Jews, were driven from their homes into the Tarnapol Ghetto. Freda took care of her siblings after both her parents died, her mother from starvation.

When Freda realized that all the Jews in the ghetto would be killed, she and her brother and sisters escaped into the forest. Her siblings were captured and killed by the Gestapo in 1942. Freda was alone in the forest for three years. A Ukrainian man captured her so he could bring her to the Gestapo, but she got away. Even though Freda says that she doesn't know how she survived, her testimony shows how courageous she was. She briefly talks about the physical and emotional damage she suffered.

Freda left the forest and was hidden by three different women, each time for about five weeks, until the war was over. She went to Trembowla, where Jews that had survived were gathered. She met and married her husband there. Helped by HIAS, Fred, her husband and their son came to the United States in 1946.

Ina Rothschild talks about her life, education and work in Germany after World War I. Both women lived through Hitler’s rise to power, starting in the 1920s, experienced changes in Jewish life after 1933, and explain the effects of these events on the Jewish community and their interaction with Gentiles. Elsa Jaeckel’s husband, a Gentile, refused to divorce her and suffered the consequences. She mentions a group of Jews in Frankfurt who committed suicide to avoid deportation in 1941. Throughout the interview, Mrs. Rothschild cites many instances of aid and acts of kindness by Gentiles.

Mrs. Rothschild and her husband ran a Jewish orphanage in Esslingen am Neckar, near Stuttgart from 1933 to 1942 when they were deported. The orphanage was ransacked on November 9, 1938. Her husband was beaten, arrested, but later released to care for the displaced orphans. She describes what happened to the children in their care.

Elsa Jaeckel had to work for the Gestapo with 600 other Jewish women who had gentile husbands. She talks about conditions for couples in mixed marriages and living through air raids in Frankfurt. She avoided the transport to Theresienstadt because her husband bribed a former SA man to let her hide in his house. She hid in the attic until the Americans came in 1945.

When the orphanage was closed, the Rothschilds returned to Stuttgart. She describes their lives, her work in an old age home, and her attempts to care for Jewish children. Many of the children, especially the retarded ones, were deported and killed at Ravensburg. The Rothschilds were deported to an Old Age Home in Theresienstadt on August 22, 1942. She describes the process, the actual transport, arrival at Theresienstadt, and brutal treatment and living conditions which improved once the International Red Cross supervised this institution. She saw Reinhard Heydrich shoot Jewish prisoners. Ina Rothschild worked as a nurse, her husband died in July 1944. Many inmates killed themselves. Ina mentions attempts to care for newborn babies. She also volunteered to care for 50 young children from Holland with typhoid fever together with a Jewish doctor. The children survived and were adopted after the war. She was transported to Switzerland with 600 people in February 1945. Elsa came to the United States in 1957, Ina in 1947.

Note: Collateral Material available through the Gratz College Tuttleman Library:

Scanned copy of a German letter and the translation.