Two sisters who survived the Holocaust and fulfilled their father’s dream of reaching America died within days of each other in Alabama, according to the Alabama Holocaust Education Center.
Ruth Scheuer Siegler, 95, died Sept. 3 and her sister, Ilse Scheuer Nathan, 98, died 10 days earlier on Aug. 23, AHEC said in a Facebook post Tuesday.
The sisters immigrated to the United States after the war, eventually settling in Birmingham. The sisters remained close friends and shared their experience together with people across the state.
“Ilse was one of the first Holocaust survivors in Birmingham to share her story of survival with students,” AHEC said in the post announcing her death.
“Ruth was blessed and cursed with the ability to remember almost everything, including the horrors of her wartime experiences and the losses of those she loved most,” the center said. “Ruth began sharing her personal testimony as early as 1951, despite the pain that resurfaced with each telling. He often spoke to students, touching the lives of thousands,” the center added.
The Jewish sisters were born in Germany and lived there with their parents until 1939. Ilse and Ruth, along with their mother, Helene, joined their father, Jakob, who fled to Holland after Kristallnacht.
In January 1944, Jakob was arrested for not removing his hat in front of a German officer, the family decided to stay together and they were all sent to a concentration camp for the father’s crime. He eventually ends up in Auschwitz II-Birkenau. The last time they saw their father, he gave them an address for a cousin in America. Their father, mother and brother died in the camp before liberation.
After their release from the Russians, the sisters eventually returned to the Netherlands. “The sisters, remembering their father’s wish to move to America, contacted family members,” AHEC said. The women immigrated to the US in July 1946.
Both women were widowed before they died. Ruth had three children and Ilse two.
Ruth went on to write a memoir of the experiences here, dedicating it “to my children and grandchildren, so that the sufferings I endured, along with millions of others, will never be forgotten.”
