In 1933, the Nazi government asked Ilse Goldberg’s non-Jewish mother to divorce her father, a German Jewish man who had suffered a head injury fighting for Germany during World War I (1914-1918). Instead, Ilse and her twin sister were born the following year. Ilse’s father was stripped of his certification as a master electrician and Ilse’s mother found work as secretary to help support the young family.
When Ilse was around seven years old, family friends arrived at their house wearing the yellow Star of David on their coats. They were soon deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp and were never seen again. It was at this point that Ilse’s father first told Ilse and her sister of their Jewish heritage.
In July 1943, allied British and U.S. forces conducted strategic bombing raids against the city of Hamburg. Fleeing the falling bombs, Ilse’s mother ran with Ilse and her sister to the nearest underground shelter. Her father remained outside for fear that his Jewish identity would be discovered. After the raid the girls’ mother found him alive, injured and bleeding from a wound to the back of his neck.
For the rest of the war Ilse, along with her mother and sister, survived in hiding. Aided by a family friend, they stayed in remote locations in the countryside, at one point living in an attic unbeknownst to the residents below. They survived on raw potatoes and turnips stolen from the surrounding fields. The three did not know where Ilse’s father was or if he was still alive.
The German military in Hamburg surrendered to British forces on May 3, 1945. Ilse’s father was reunited with the family. Ilse and her mother and sister learned that their father had been living in army barracks where the German military relied on his skills as an electrician. After the war, the family lived in a crowded apartment in the historically Jewish section of Hamburg. Ilse saw her first synagogue at the age of 12. She later described it as “the most beautiful building I ever saw.”
In January 1950, Ilse, her sister and parents boarded a ship for the United States. They arrived in Galveston on February 28. A local charity helped her father find work as a cotton baler. Meanwhile, Ilse and her twin sister enrolled in high school, picking up the English language with the help of a German-English dictionary.
A few years later, Ilse met her future husband Jacob Goldberg at an event at the Houston Jewish Community Center. The couple married in 1953 in an Orthodox Jewish ceremony. Together they raised three children.
Parents:
Fritz Josef Meyer, survived
Hedwig Erlemann Meyer, survived
Siblings:
Olga, survived