Ilse Lindemeyer
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Ilse Lindemeyer was born an only child in 1927 in Frankfurt Germany. She had a relatively normal childhood before the Nazis came to power. She attended public school where she made friends with other children whether they were Jewish or not. After Hitler became Chancellor in 1933 life changed drastically, even for the children. Ilse’s friends began to tease her and throw stones at her because she was Jewish. Early Nazi legislation limited the number of Jewish students in public schools and universities which forced Jewish children, including Ilse, into Jewish schools. Ilse’s new school was across town and none of her friends attended.
Ilse was 11 years old when her father was informed by a non-Jewish friend that the Nazis were planning to deport the Jews of Frankfurt. Not long after the warning, the Nazis began a pogrom called Kristallnacht, or night of broken glass, on November 9-10, 1938. During this action, German police and other authorities destroyed Jewish shops and synagogues and oversaw the arrest of 30,000 Jews who were then sent to concentration camps. The police went to Ilse’s house looking for her father who was recovering from an operation in the hospital. When the Nazis were unable to find her father in the house, Ilse and her mother were beaten and their home was destroyed.
As action against the Jews became more severe, Ilse’s parents looked for a way to keep her safe. A rescue mission called Kindertransport allowed for children to be taken to Great Britain to escape the Nazis. This mission saved 10,000 children by placing them in foster homes in Great Britain. Even though Ilse did not want to leave her parents, she boarded a train to Great Britain on May 5, 1939. Ilse remembers seeing her parents through a window from the train as her mother cried out “Please don’t take my baby! Please don’t take my baby!” This was the last time that Ilse ever saw her parents.
When Ilse arrived in Great Britain, she was put in a foster home with a middle-aged Jewish couple. Ilse could not speak English or Yiddish so it was difficult for her to communicate with her rescuers. One day, when Ilse was out taking photographs of her new home, a British soldier asked her what she was doing and where her parents were. Ilse’s thick accent and German roots made the soldier believe she was a spy and Ilse was interned a week later at the Isle of Man. By 1940 about 1,000 children had been accused of being spies and were sent to the island.
Ilse’s foster parents had collected signatures to show that she was not a spy. Ilse was released, but she could not go back to her home in London because the Nazis had bombed the city. Instead, she was sent to a confiscated home in Manchester where she lived with 50 boys and girls. The children slept on hay sacks. It was here that Ilse met her future husband, to whom she was married for 60 years.
After the war Ilse and her husband, Herbert, worked as interpreters with the U.S. Army. They were stationed in Germany for three years, where Ilse learned the fate of her parents. She does not know for certain what happened to them, but they were deported to Minsk, Russia, where they were most likely killed by the Einsatzgruppen, Nazi mobile killing units.
Ilse and her husband moved to Philadelphia in 1948, where Herbert had close family. Ilse still lives there today.
