My mother was Gertud Roth, but she always was called Trude. She was born on 5 January 1905 in Nitschareuth in Thüringen as daughter oft he Jewish couple Meyer Roth and Martha Rosenfeld. Anti-semtism was already widespread in Germany – dark causes of economic crises were attributed to an alleged cultural, political and economic dominance by the Jewish minority (source wikipedia website Geschichte des Antisemitismus bit 1945). That was why my grandparents decided to have my mother baptised, fear for anti-semitism. Nevertheless she was scolded at school and already developed a dislike for Germans. She always turned away and did not care about that baptismal paper; she has always felt 100% Jewish. Later, that baptismal paper – which is still in my posession – saved the lives of my mother and me
My mother was orphaned at her age of 12. She had two aunts, who had a shoe store in Hof, who then placed advertisements in the newspaper for a Jewish foster home form y mother. She then ended up with an orthodox Jewish family in Mainz, where she had a terrible experience and from where she fled. She bought a train ticket back to Hof from saved shopping money. It was winter 1918, and the open and unheated trains were full of demobilized soldiers. My mother was wearing nothing but a thin summer dress and then contracted TB her. For recovery she has been in a sanatorium in Freudenstadt.
The second foster home where my mother ended up was an immediate hit; love at first sight, from both sides! That was the Spiero family: Levy Spiero and grandma Lisa Spiero in Wattenscheid. My mother has always said that she would have thrown herself in front of a train if that second foster family had been such a horrible experience for her again. Before the war had started well, she had already gone through the most horrible things.
The Spiero’s had a large textile store and lived above it. The store was conficated by the nazis at some point and grandfather and grandmother Spiero had to find another place to live. Grandpa Spiero died there in 1937 due to a heart attack.