Research Catalog

Title

Gerdas Schweigen : die Geschichte einer Überlebenden / Knut Elstermann.

Author

Elstermann, Knut, 1960-

Publication

Berlin-Brandenburg : Be.bra, c2005.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Description

191 p. : ill.; 22 cm.

Summary

Memoirs of Gerda Schrage-Rother, a Jew born in Berlin in 1920, as told to Elstermann, whose non-Jewish grandmother was Schrage-Rother's neighbor. The Jewish girl spent much time with her neighbor's family during her childhood and adolescence. In 1934 she left school and began to work as a seamstress. In 1938 her parents and brother were expelled to Poland; in 1942 her brother was deported with his wife to the Warsaw ghetto, where they died. The fate of the parents is unknown. Schrage-Rother was forced to work in a Berlin fur factory, for the Wehrmacht. She was arrested in 1943 and sent to an internment camp, from which she escaped. She went into hiding, finding refuge with Elstermann's great-aunt and then with friends. She was deported to Auschwitz in April 1944 and gave birth to a girl who died from starvation after two weeks, because Schrage-Rother was not allowed to nurse her. In January 1945 she was sent on a death march, from which she managed to escape with the help of a German soldier. She returned to Berlin, where she continued to live illegally until the end of the war. In 1947 she emigrated to the USA.

Subject

• Schrage, Gerda
• Elstermann, Knut, 1960- > Family
• Geschichte 2004
• 1939-1945
• Jewish women > Berlin > Biography
• Holocaust survivors > United States > Biography
• Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)

Genre/Form

Biographies

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 189-190).

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

ISBN

• 3898090663 (hd.bd.)
• 9783898090667 (hd.bd.)

OCLC

62363532

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library