"Surviving the Holocaust"
Extent and Medium
folder
1
Archival History
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Acquisition
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Ilse Leeser
Dr. Ilse Leeser donated her memoir to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in August 2011 with the help of Jocelyn Collen.
Scope and Content
Consists of one memoir, 30 pages, entitled "Surviving the Holocaust" by Dr. Ilse Leeser, originally of Cologne, Germany. In the memoir, she describes her memories of Kristallnacht, the arrest of her father and uncles, and being sent, with her sister, to live with family friends in the Netherlands in 1939. Her parents later joined them and she describes the occupation of the Netherlands and going into hiding with the Verhoevens family in Utrecht. Her sister joined an underground organization while her parents were deported and killed at Sobibor before they could go into hiding. She describes life in hiding, the hunger she experienced in the winter of 1944-1945, and her immigration, with her sister and young niece, to the United States in 1947, where she started a family and received a PhD in nursing.
Conditions Governing Reproduction
Copyright Holder: Dr. Ilse Leeser
Subjects
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Germany--Cologne.
- Hidden children (Holocaust)--Netherlands.
Genre
- Personal Narratives.
- Document