On this #HolocaustMemorialDay I pay particular tribute to two relatives whose existence and tragic loss I recently discovered.
Siblings Ludwig Sinsheimer and Eugenie Reuter were deported from their homeland, Germany, by the Nazis.
They died in 1942.
🧵
Ludwig, 67, was deported to Gurs, France in October 1940 in the Wagner-Bürckel-Aktion-the expulsion of Jews from southwest Germany.
Originally used to intern Spanish Republicans, Gurs was turned by the Nazis & Vichy France into a camp for deported Jews.
🔗encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/art…
Ludwig was later sent to Noé, a nearby "hospital camp" set up in 1941 for sick and older inmates from Gurs. He died there in October 1942.
Pictured is the memorial cemetery at Noé (📷bit.ly/3FXLkte).
And here's a short history of the camp 🔗apra.asso.fr/Camps/En/Camp-…
Ludwig, a lawyer, had been tried and jailed for anti-Nazi activities in 1935. A broken man, he returned from Berlin to southwest Germany.
There are more details in this @Wikipedia entry
🔗de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Si…
And here is his @BundesarchivD entry 🔗bundesarchiv.de/gedenkbuch/en9…
Ludwig's @Wikipedia entry says he and Eugenie, then 61, were both deported to Gurs in 1940
But @BundesarchivD lists her as deported from Stuttgart in 1942 🔗bundesarchiv.de/gedenkbuch/en9…
What's clear is that she was among 33,000 Jews who died at Theresienstadt
🔗encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/art…
Hermann Sinsheimer was their younger brother. The former editor of the magazine Simplicissimus fled to Britain in 1938. He married my great aunt.
He died in 1950.
Having discovered Ludwig and Eugenie's story I imagine the sense of loss etched into his final years.
#NeverAgain
To learn more about the millions of personal stories like this, if you do one thing on Twitter today, make it this 👇
And #WeRemember Sir Nicholas Winton 👇
A very important contribution to #HolocaustMemorialDay from @alexjgoldstein, who runs the @FacesOfCOVID feed 👇
An excellent archive thread here for #HolocaustMemorialDay 👇
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