What We Know:
Family name: Rosenthal
Birth name: Benjamin
Given name: Ilse
Date/place of birth: 25. July. 1913, Uelzen, Lower Saxony
Date/place of death: Exact date of death unknown
Age: 29 years old at deportation
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by Doris Benter, Hamburg
For the German text, click here
Ilse Benjamin was born in July 1913 in Uelzen (Hanover province), a town with a population of about 52,000 at the time. Ilse’s father Alexander came from a family based in Uelzen and the surrounding area that was traditionally devoted to the dyeing trade. Her uncle Hermann had taken over the family’s steam laundry and dye works in Uelzen. Ilse’s father Alexander had lived in Weimar until the death of his first wife, where he had also owned laundry and dyeing businesses. Alexander had been widowed early and left with an infant, Ilse’s half-sister Gerda. Thus Ilse’s mother Sophie, born in Prichsenstadt in Lower Franconia, was Alexander’s second wife.
After her father went off to serve in World War I as a soldier for the Imperial Army in 1916, Ilse lived with her mother and sister Gerda with her mother’s family in Prichsenstadt. [Source: Aufenthaltsanzeige Alexander Benjamin in Aschaffenburg, scan available] The Franks had a cattle business there. They owned the Freihof in Prichsenstadt, a large, historic farm in the old town that Ilse’s grandfather Baruch Frank had rebuilt in 1888 into the largest cattle and horse business. Ilse started school in Prichsenstadt in 1920. [Scans from Prichsenstadt school book available]. Soon after, her father returned from captivity and the family moved to Pößneck in 1921. Alexander took over a laundry business with a store there and opened a trade in woolen goods. The family first lived at Marienplatz 4, from 1926 at Breite Straße 18 and from 1934 at Carl-Gustav-Vogel-Straße 15.
Ilse’s father had been deported to Buchenwald concentration camp in November 1938. After being imprisoned for several weeks, he was released and quickly thereafter the family businesses were abandoned at the end of 1938.
Ilse probably worked in her father’s businesses. In any case, she lived with her parents until 1941. In 1939, when applying for permission to emigrate, they noted under occupation: it. Elsewhere she states “bookkeeper” as her occupation. In one application, her destination was shown as San Domingo.
On 08 August 1941 Ilse married Max Rosenthal, a native of Apolda, in Pößneck. The Rosenthal family originally had a livestock business and lived on Bergstraße in Apolda. However, it can be assumed that Max had not been able to run a business for some time. Like Ilse’s father, Max Rosenthal had been deported to Buchenwald concentration camp in November 1938. Unlike Ilse’s father, however, he was not released after a few weeks, but was transferred to the “normal prisoner population” at the beginning of March 1939. He was released on April 12, 1939.
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