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Ilse Silbermann
© Matthias Weber

Ilse Silbermann * 1920

Godeffroystraße 42 (Altona, Blankenese)

1942 Auschwitz

Ilse Silbermann, born March 26, 1920 in Berlin, deported to Auschwitz July 11, 1942, Death July 13, 1942

Godelfroystraße 42

Ilse Silbermann was born in Berlin as the daughter of Theodor and Helene Silbermann, née Blumenthal. Her father was, according to Nazi terminology, a half Jew and her mother a Jew. After the divorce of her parents in January 1923, her father and his second wife, who was not Jewish, brought up llse. In the twenties, the Silbermanns moved to Hamburg, where they found an apartment in the Steinbecker Straße 29 (today Steinbeker Straße) in the neighborhood of Hamm. Ilse Silbermann attended the Osterbrook School. Her stepmother brought Ilse up as a Lutheran and on December 17, 1929, Ilse was baptized in the St. Johannis Church in Hamburg-Wilhelmsburg. On April 14, 1935, Ilse was confirmed by Pastor Ernst Moser in the Jerusalem Church in Hamburg-Eimsbüttel. This congregation, founded by Irish Presbyterians, had made the conversion of Jews to Christianity its mission in earlier times. After 1933, the congregation took care of the "non-Aryan” Christians in its congregation. In addition to spiritual guidance, they provided social gatherings. Ilse was a member of the Youth circle.

With Nazi rule, first difficulties emerged for Ilse. According to the Nuremberg Laws from 1935, she was categorized as a Jew (Geltungsjude) because of her three Jewish grandparents. Some of her fellow pupils at school began to distance themselves from her. She was no longer allowed to participate on class trips. In 1936 she received her secondary school level I certificate from the Osterbrook school. She completed her apprenticeship in an export firm that was headed by one Jewish and one non-Jewish manager. Because of her excellent knowledge of English and French she became foreign language correspondent clerk. After the Jewish managers flight from Germany, Ilse was terminated by this firm. She began to search for work as a maid in Jewish households.

First Ilse worked for Gerhard Alexander, who was a librarian with a Ph. D. and lived in Godeffroystraße 42 (today 48) in the neighborhood Blankenese. He was baptized as Ilse but had become a Jew under the Nuremberg Laws. He was deported to Theresienstadt on February 14, 1945. In contrast to his parents Walter and Hedwig Alexander, he survived the camp. During the 1939 census Ilse Silbermann was still registered as a member of the household Godeffroystraße 42. Beginning this year she had to adopt, like all other Jews the name "Sara” and from September 1941 she had to wear the Yellow Star. We do not know how long she lived in the house of Alexander. Eventually she moved on to the lawyer Walter Schüler’s house at Siemersplatz in Lockstedt. He was one of the few accredited legal advisors for Jews. (Walter Schüler was deported to Auschwitz on October 10, 1943 and died on April 24, 1945 in the camp Ebensee which was part of Mauthausen. See www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de, Biography Walter Schüler). She did not stay long at his house because she was committed to forced labor — probably in 1941 — at the rope factory in Lockstedt and the spinning works of Steen & Co. In the context of the forced housing of the Jewish population, Ilse was moved to the so called Judenhaus (Jew house) at Wohlersallee 58 in Hamburg-Altona.

Her father Theodor Silbermann reported the following events in a letter from February 23, 1971 to the workshop of persecuted Social Democrats: "Ilse received several evacuation orders. We were lucky to negotiate the deferment of her deportation with a humane officer of the Gestapo. He postponed her evacuation two or three times. Despite her Yellow Star Ilse visited us in our "Aryan” house during her free time. Christmas 1941 she was with us and we spent the holidays quietly together. As she bid us farewell on the third holiday, she sobbed heartbreakingly. Our questions revealed that she had received another evacuation order and had to leave immediately. Negotiating with the same officer, we managed again to defer her evacuation order. Then happened what we had feared for a long time. All the Jewish workers at Steen had received evacuation orders and had to appear at the collective point at Hartungstraße 9–11 (today there is the theater Kammerspiele). Thus Ilse was lost for us. A friend of mine and I accompanied her. I have not forgotten the devastating scene as she bid farewell to my wife at our apartment. At Hartungsstraße her suitcase and her belongings were searched. I saw that the Gestapo took soap away from Jews and I also saw how one Gestapo man took away a wrist watch from a Jewish woman and put it into his pocket. The company Steen had sent the working papers and the remaining wages of the workers to Hartungstraße. Nobody received either the papers or a penny of their wages. That was probably pocketed by the Gestapo.” And he continues:

"July 9th 1942 is the date of Ilse’s evacuation order which instructs her to report to the collective point Hartungstraße immediately. Ilse still wrote us postcards from the collective point on July 10th and 11th 1942. She wrote very optimistically, probably in order to comfort us, that she had met several acquaintances and that she was convinced that she would be able to handle everything.”

Theodor Silbermann, as a "half Jew,” formerly married to a Jew, had to perform forced labor during the war. According to information from the Jerusalem Congregation he survived the concentration camp with his number burned into his skin. Until their death in the seventies, the Silbermann couple lived in Rendsburgerstraße 1, in the neighborhood of Hamburg-St. Pauli. They both continued to be active members of the Jerusalem Congregation. The only thing they learned about the fate of their daughter was that she had departed on the fifth transport with about a thousand people and a sanitation facility on July 11th 1942. There was no information were this transport had gone. Indeed the destination of this transport was not recorded and nobody survived this transport. They learned this from the Jewish Congregation of Hamburg in 1945. Only much later did Max Plaut’s statement under oath and other documents reveal that Auschwitz was the destination of this transport.

On September 13, 1949 a court in Hamburg officially declared Ilse Silbermann as dead; the time of death of the "aforementioned missing” was given as "May 8th 1945 at 12 pm.” Ilse Silbermann was deported to Auschwitz and murdered there at the age of twenty-two on July 11th 1942.

Translated by Dr. Marie-Luise Gaettens

© Matthias Weber

Quellen: 1; 4; 5; Privatbesitz Matthias Weber: Unterlagen des Ehepaares Theodor und Luise Silbermann, darunter Geburtsurkunde, Taufe- und Konfirmations-Urkunden sowie Sterbebescheinigung von Ilse Silbermann; Auskunft des Archivs der Jerusalem-Gemeinde in Hamburg, Februar 2015; Jürgen Sielemann, Der Zielort des Hamburger Deportationstransports vom 11. Juli 1942, online unter http://agora.sub.uni-hamburg.de/subhh/cntmng;jsessionid=0DBF730274CBC228B6A9945AF8CD4FBA.jvm1?type=pdf&did=c1:59761 (Zugriff 27.3.2015).
Zur Nummerierung häufig genutzter Quellen siehe Link "Recherche und Quellen".

Oscar (Oskar) Berendsohn, *26.06.1924, war der Sohn von Paul T. Berendsohn und Mabel Berendsohn geb. Rehr. Der Familie gehörte die Köhlbrandwerft Altenwerder, die 1938 arisiert worden ist. Nach dem erzwungenen Verkauf musste die Familie im Oktober 1938 ihr Wohnhaus auf dem Werftgelände verlassen und zog in eine Wohnung in der Klosterallee (etwa dort, wo heute die Grindelhochhäuser stehen).

Im März 1939 floh das Ehepaar gemeinsam mit fünf ihrer Kinder nach Honduras.
 Etwa Ende der 1980er Jahre begann Oscar Berendsohn, seine Lebenserinnerungen aufzuschreiben. Insgesamt wurden es 530 Schreibmaschinenseiten mit dem Titel "Between two shores". Kopien des Textes hat er im Familien- und Freundeskreis verbreitet.

In der Wohnung in der Klosterallee, in der die Familie von Ende Oktober 1938 bis Anfang Februar 1939 lebte, begegnete Oscar Berendsohn Ilse Silbermann. Darüber schrieb er in seinen Erinnerungen: (die Seitenzahlen sind so angegeben, wie sie auf dem Typoscript stehen)

My father hired a young girl, who was also partly Jewish. Her name was Ilse Silbermann. Ilse was 18 years old at that time. She had trained to be a secretary, but her boss was Jewish and had
left. No other firm would hire her, so she decided to be a domestic for the time being. She had a married sister, who had left with her husband two years before to live in Shanghai. Every so often she would get a letter from there.
 She talked of leaving Germany to go to Belgium, but somehow she could not leave her parents, who still lived in Hamburg. Ilse was a charming young lady and it did not take me long to feel
as I should not feel for a girl who was four years older than myself. It was a bitter-sweet pain for me and Ilse who understood what was going on in me gave me her friendship and understanding. It was one of the few good things which happened to me then. (S. 112)

I had dreaded the approach of our move from the apartment. I, who had been so eager to leave suddenly dreaded the thought of having to leave. It was because I did not want to leave Ilse. I knew it was foolish of me, but that did not soften the pain. How strange I thought. I had known her only for a few months and it seemed to me I had known her for years. (S. 118)

The next morning we all said our good-byes to Ilse. I had no opportunity for any privacy, so we just shook hands like the good friends we were. It was now I who felt like crying, but I would not let on in front of my family how I felt. The door of our apartment in the Klosterallee closed behind us. We had not been there very long, but so much had happened.

My father had made arrangements for us to stay in the hotel "Reichshof" close to the main railroad station in Hamburg since we still had to wait a few days to board our ship. (S. 119)

On the afternoon of the last day which we spent at the "Reichshof", my friends Harro and Kurt called and said they wanted to come over and say Good-bye to me and my family. (S. 120)

While we were sitting there and having some cookies, the desk rang my room again. When I answered, they told me there was a lady which wanted to visit the family. I had no idea who it could be, but told the desk to have her come up. A few minutes later there was a knock on the door. To my surprise and delight, Ilse was standing there. I asked her to come with me to my parents room to which I had a key. I then went back to Kurt and Harro and asked them to excuse me for a few minutes.

When I got back to Ilse, I found her standing in the middle
 of the room. "Please let me have your coat," I said. "Sit down 
and tell me what you have been doing."
 "Where is your family?" she asked instead. I could see she
 was a little ill at ease. When I told her she seemed relieved. I
 took her coat and we sat down across from each other.
 For a moment neither of us would say anything. "I only came
 over to say Good-bye to your parents," she said, but she was apparently as happy about this turn of events as I was. I did
 not have to tell her how I felt about her. She knew. The more 
was I surprised when she stayed.
 "You know Hein, I wish I could go with you," she said and blushed a little at the same time. She had always called me Oskar before. I did as if I had not noticed. "There is no future for
me in Germany. And before long there is going to be a War, I can sense it. I don't want to be here when that happens."
 So why dont you go to Belgium. You said your former boss went there," I interrupted. I had this terrible fear myself that the
end was near for all of those who stayed. I remembered the Gestapo telling my father that he had three months to get out. 
"I am so afraid to leave my mother," she continued.
 "Why your mother?" I asked. "Is she ill?" 
"No, no" Ilse replied. "Nothing like that. But my father
is only half Jewish, so he has a chance. Mother on the other
hand is Jewish. You know what that means. And she does not want to go." 
I knew only too well the meaning of all this.
 "Ilse, get out," I implored her "For God's sake. There is no 
hope for anyone here." What I meant was that under the Nuernberg laws, the Nazis would consider her as Jewish. Her father might 
get by she would not. "Ilse I said have you tried for a visa?"
 "I dont even have a passport yet," she said with resignation.
 "Ilse promise me you will try to leave." I told her. She looked 
at me and smiled. "I did not know you were so concerned," she said with a hidden glint in her eye.
 I could hear my friends in the room next door. I wished
 at that moment that only Ilse and I existed in the world. Then 
I said to her: "Are you going to write me?"
 She nodded her head. "I have to go," she said. "Your friends 
are waiting." 
"Stay a minute longer," I said and kissed her. She had the
 faintest of fragrance like a special flower which blooms only 
once. (S. 121-122)

At the port of Calais ....mail came aboard. ... I received
a letter too. It was from Ilse. She did not really say so
 much. Perhaps it was what she did not say which mattered. She was putting in an application for a passport and visa to
 Belgium, she wrote, but it would all take time. In the meantime, she had found work in a department store in Hamburg. She liked her new job.
 She had taken a walk along the Alster, a lake in Hamburg and 
it had been a lovely day watching swans glide on the water. She sounded so cheerful despite all of her problems. Don't forget me, she closed. How could I forget her! (S. 127)

Slowly, the wounds of this terrible conflict were beginning to heal. For millions, however, it was too late. Sadly, this included Ilse Silbermann, the young woman who had briefly worked in our home and who had been my first love.
 I had obtained the address of her father through my friends
 Kurt Lellau and Haro Menzel. He was half Jewish as myself. Ilse's mother was Jewish. It was a terrible and diabolical arithmetic whose sum meant life or death for those involved. It's answer equaled life for Ilse's father and death in a concentration
camp for Ilse. He thanked me in a letter for remembering his daughter. (S. 307)

© Oscar Berendsohn