Siegfried's Sisters - Jenny, Olga and Elsa

Unlike Grandma’s siblings, all of Grandpa’s siblings amazingly survived the holocaust.

 

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Grandpa’s parents Jakob and Katherine Schrotter were from Czechoslovakia. They had three daughters Jenny, Olga and Elsa and a son, Siegfried, our Grandpa who was the youngest. I imagine he was treasured and doted upon by his three older sisters. According to Grandma, he was especially close to Elsa who was nearest to him in age.

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Jenny, the eldest, married her cousin, Mr Jorysch, who was a metal dealer from Basel, Switzerland.  He was a successful businessman, became rich and moved from Vienna to Basel according to Grandma’s testimony, although I am not sure when – I am assuming this was before the Anschluss. We know that Grandpa fled to Switzerland in December 1938, via Italy, after Kristallnacht but we don’t know how much Jenny was involved in this. Jenny and Mr Jorysch remained in Switzerland and had two girls, Ruth and Edith.

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Olga was the middle sister and married Mr Singer and moved to Tel Aviv in Israel. They had one daughter, Hannah. It has been a delight to reconnect with  her via phone calls. She is now in her nineties but as warm and as bright as a button! Through Hannah we have also connected with Pierre, (Jenny’s grandson) in Basel who has created a wonderful family tree.

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Elsa, the youngest sister, married Fritz Hauser, a businessman in the cotton trade. They had one son, Peter. They managed to escape to Trieste in Italy. We assume that Grandpa lived with them when he left Vienna. We also know that it was thanks to Elsa that Grandpa, Grandma and Dad found temporary refuge in Albania as she arranged tourist visas for them all. When Mussolini came to power, Italy was no longer a safe place and Elsa and Fritz fled to London.

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Again, after the war, it was Elsa who invited them to live in their flat in one room, a “posh flat” according to Grandma, near Clifton Road in London. So began a new chapter of our family's lives in the capital. Post war and with a new surname. A period of peace and stability for the first time in seven years.

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RS 2020