Verhaal

The Selig family.

Door: rpm_bln

Otto Selig, his wife Elisabeth née Reinberg (born on 13 February 1898 in Kamen, Germany), and their son Gerd lived on Mallinckrodtstraße 139 in Dortmund, Germany until 1938. Otto was the owner of shop for textiles. They fled to the Netherlands on 13 December 1938, a month after the November Pogrom. In Amsterdam, their first residence was at Lekstraat 50, I.

Otto was imprisoned in a series of camps from 1938, but by 1940 the family was in Westerbork assembly camp. On 18 May 1944, all three were deported from Westerbork to Theresienstadt Ghetto. On 1 October 1944, Otto was deported to Auschwitz Concentration Camp, where he died on 28 February 1945, presumably performing forced labor for the Nazis. Gerd was deported to Auschwitz on 12 October 1944 and from there to Dachau Concentration Camp on 27 October. He survived long enough to see the camp liberated, but died on 12 June 1945.

It's unknown if Elisabeth survived Auschwitz or was liberated in Theresienstadt, but she survived the war and emigrated to Chile via Brazil in 1947. A photograph can be found of her on a Brazilian immigration card on ancestry.com. Nothing further is yet known of her life in South America.

Sources: Archiefkaarten Amsterdam 1939-1960, archiefnummer 30238, inventarisnummer 666, 737; German Federal Archives Memorial Book and Residents' List; Dortmunder Adreßbuch 1938.