Ilse Sheldon: family correspondence

Josefine Bart-Eigner (1884-c1942) and her husband owned a ladies' hat factory in Prague. They had three children: Oskar (b c1907), Ilse (b 1921) and another daughter who died as a child from illness. Oskar ran a retail shop selling ladies' hats with his wife Erna. They had one daughter, Eva.  Oskar's sister, Ilse, was born in Vienna. She grew up with her aunts in Vienna until she was five years old, when she moved to her parents in Prague. She attended a girls' school until she was 14 years old. Ilse met her future husband William, a journalist, aged 16. They both worked for Oskar's business for a short period of time. Oskar sold his business in 1938 and decided to emigrate to England with his wife and daughter, where he set up a new retail business.

Shortly after her brother had left the country, Ilse and her fiancé fled the country using an illegal transport to Palestine via Beirut. The couple initially set up a bakery in Tel Aviv, which they had to sell when William joined the army. William however deserted from the army. The couple hid at a kibbutz where their son, Uri, was born. After her husband's suicide in the mid 1940s, Ilse moved to her brother in England, where she met her second husband, Marek Sheldon, a Czechoslovakian Jew. They had one son, Michael.

Grandmothers letters, Prague

Donated January 2011

Donor: Michael Sheldon