Emily Bordin papers

Emilie (née Geromin) Bordin (1887-1940), a German victim of the Nazi euthanasia program, was killed at the Sonnenstein über Pirna facility. Emilie was the daughter of Wilhelm Friedrich and Marianne (Schütz) Geromin. She was raised on an estate in Przasnysz, East Prussia (Poland), where her father managed the forests of a Russian duke. Emilie was the oldest of five children. In 1909, she married Emil Bordin, a carpenter who was the son of a Russian father and German mother. Together they established a home in Krasne, Poland, and had four children: Sofie, Thaddeus, Lydia, and Rudolf. During World War I, Emil was arrested on suspicion of spying for Germany and deported to Siberia. After his deportation, Emilie moved back to her parents’ home. In 1916 or 1917 the rest of Emilie's family, including her parents, were deported to Siberia. Her mother died during the journey. The family was sent to a camp in Tobolsk, Russia, where they were reunited with Emil. During the course of their first year in exile, two of Emilie's children, Thaddeus and Lydia, died of typhus. Another daughter, Emmi, was born in 1917 in Tobolsk. In the summer of 1918, the family was finally released and allowed to return to Prussia. When they arrived, however, they found that nothing remained of their former home in Przasnysz. Emilie's father then decided to immigrate to the United States, but Emilie and Emil wanted to go to Germany. In 1919 the Bordins arrived in Ansbach-Feuchtwangen, Germany, where their last child, Frieda, was born four years later. The Bordins lived a precarious existence as stateless residents. The family was unable to acquire German citizenship because Emil had failed to register the two years they had spent in Siberia. As a result, many benefits such as social assistance and access to professional training were denied them, and the family became mired in poverty. In 1933 Emil died, and Emilie worked as a maid in Tübingen, Germany. By this time, only Frieda was living at home, and Emilie arranged for her to be placed in an orphanage in Nuremberg, Germany, near the homes of her two sisters. Emilie ran afoul of the police one day in 1933 or 1934 when she was en route to visit her family. She stopped at a restaurant where a group of SA men were carrying on. Apparently, Emilie was disgusted by their lewd and offensive behavior and spoke out against them. She was immediately subdued, and the police were called in to arrest her. She languished in jail for some months, until it was determined that she was a religious fanatic who warranted institutionalization. She was transferred to the Heil-und Pflegeanstalt Ansbach. There, Emilie became very distressed and angry that her children did not try to secure her release. Her son, Rudolf, was the first child to visit her. When she voiced her anger to him, the medical staff informed him that it was her illness that made her say these things to him. He never went back to visit her. Much later, a social worker took Frieda to visit her mother, but by this time Emilie was no longer very responsive. In 1940 Emilie was caught up in the Nazi euthanasia program. On October 25, 1940, she was transferred to the Sonnenstein über Pirna medical facility and killed. A death certificate was issued in her name for November 10, 1940, which cited the cause of death as blood poisoning from a wound infection.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Julie Francois

The papers were donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2005 by Julie Francois.