Erica van Adelsberg / Erica Herz (F / Germany, 1928), Holocaust survivor

Erica van Adelsberg / Erica Herz (F / Germany, 1928), Holocaust survivor

Ernest Herz (M / Germany, 1930?), Holocaust survivor

• KEYWORDS : <Germany> <Refugees> <Netherlands> <Westerbork> <Bergen-Belsen> <Troebitz Train>

USHMM

Erica Van Adelsberg (née Herz), born in Munich, Germany in 1928, describes her assimilated, liberal Jewish family; leaving Germany with her parents and younger brother in 1932 to live in Aerdenhoudt, Holland; living comfortably and the decency of the Dutch people; how in 1940 after the German occupation, her family was designated as being stateless; being forced to move and conditions worsening; being sent to Westerbork internment camp in 1942; continuing her education and being trained as a laboratory technician at age 14; becoming part of a Zionist youth group, which heightened her Jewish identity in contrast to her parents' assimilated orientation; life in the camp, including her friend's wedding as well as the weekly transports to Auschwitz; being sent with her family on February 15, 1944 to Bergen-Belsen; the camp routine and her work in a plastic pipe factory; the cruelty of the Polish Kapos; contracting with para-typhoid for several weeks with no medication; the family being transported by train in April 1945 with about 600 others for two weeks; enduring bombings by Allied planes; being liberated by two Russian soldiers on horseback in Trbitz, near Leipzig, Germany; the Russians setting up a hospital and caring for the survivors, many of whom succumbed to typhoid fever; how six weeks later the Americans took her family back to Holland, where her brother became the first to celebrate a bar mitzvah after the war; going to the United States in 1946; and attending a Quaker school.

Echoes and Reflections

Erica van Adelsberg (née Herz) was born on October 2, 1928, in Munich, Germany. She had one younger brother, Ernest. Erica grew up in a secular Jewish family.

In August 1933, Erica’s parents decided to leave Germany for the Netherlands, fearing that the Nazi rise to power would be dangerous for the Jewish population. As her father had a business connection in Amsterdam, they moved to Aerdenhout, a suburb west of the city.

Shortly following the German invasion in May 1940, Erica and her family moved to Hilversum on September 9, 1940. She and her brother moved in with the family’s former housekeeper for six months before finding somewhere the family of four could live together.

In January 1942, Erica and her family were ordered to Westerbork, which was then a camp for legal and illegal Jewish refugees under the supervision of the Dutch Ministry of Justice, with a 24-48 hour notice. Soon, the camp was taken over by German Security Forces and became a detention and transit camp. While most deportations of prisoners from Westerbork began in July 1942, her father’s administrative work allowed their family to stay for a few more months.

The Hertz family was given a 24-hour notice that they would be deported from Westerbork to Bergen-Belsen, a concentration camp in Germany, on February 15, 1945. They were sent on a transport with other passengers possessing foreign papers or passports. At the time Erica arrived, there were roughly 15,000 inmates across the various divisions of the camp.

While in Bergen-Belsen, Erica worked in a textile factory setting, and then was re-assigned to look after 20-30 children.

On April 9, 1945, the Hertz family sent on a cattle train carrying about 1,200 others from Bergen-Belsen. During the transport, Erica’s grandmother was among the 500 that died. In the town of Trobitz, two young Russian soldiers liberated her transport on the morning of April 23.

After liberation, Erica and her entire immediate family were eventually sent back to the Netherlands. They lived in Amsterdam for one year before Erica immigrated to New York alone in 1946. Her family moved to the United States while Erica was in college studying languages. After graduating, she became a teacher.

In 1955, Erica married Martin van Adelsberg, whom she had met during her one year of school in Amsterdam. The couple moved to Syracuse, New York, where they had two children. The family later moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.