View source for Ruth Gabriele Silten (F / Germany, Netherlands, 1933), Holocaust survivor

'''Ruth Gabriele Silten''' (F / Germany, Netherlands, 1933), Holocaust survivor.

* KEYWORDS : <[[Westerbork]]> <[[Theresienstadt]]> <[[Liberation of Theresienstadt]]> - <Netherlands>

== Biography ==

Born May 30, 1933 - Berlin, Germany

NOTES : From Berlin, Germany the family moved to Amsterdam in 1939. After German invasion, the family was deported to [[Westerbork]] and then  to [[Theresienstadt]], where they remained until liberation in May 1945. After the war they resettled in Amsterdam.

== USHMM's ID Card ==

* [https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/id-card/ruth-gabriele-silten USHMM ID Cards]

Gabriele was the only child of Jewish parents living in the German capital of Berlin. Her grandfather owned a pharmacy and a pharmaceuticals factory, where Gabriele's father also made his living.

1933-39: In 1938 the Nazis forced Ruth's grandfather to sell his factory and pharmacy for very little money to an "Aryan" German. After that, her father decided they should move to Amsterdam where it was safer for Jews. She was 5 years old and wanted to stay in Berlin. She didn't understand why she had to leave her toys and friends. In Amsterdam Ruth had to learn a whole new language when she began elementary school, but she soon began to make new friends there.

1940-44: In May 1940 Germany invaded the Netherlands. Ruth remembers being frightened seeing the German troops march into the city. When she went to school she had to wear a yellow Jewish star, and she couldn't play with her Christian friends anymore. When she was 9, her family was deported to a camp in the eastern Netherlands called Westerbork. There, during the day while her parents worked, Ruth learned to steal things to barter for food. A year later Ruth and her family were sent to the Theresienstadt ghetto. In the ghetto she was hungry all the time.

Twelve-year-old Gabriele and her parents were liberated from Theresienstadt in May 1945. That June, the Silten family returned to Amsterdam, where they resettled.

== Museum of Tolerance ==

Gabriele, the daughter of Fritz and Ilse (Teppich) Silten, was born in Berlin, Germany. Berlin, a sophisticated and cosmopolitan city, was home to a highly assimilated Jewish community. Gabriele's father was a pharmacist and the Siltens had a comfortable life.

After Hitler came into power in Germany in 1933, life for Germany's Jews became increasingly difficult. Hitler's Nazi party passed various antisemitic measures stripping German Jews of their citizenship, cutting them off from all social interaction with non-Jews, and harshly restricting Jewish economic life. Jews were barred from most professions and the majority became impoverished. In 1938, Gabriele and her family fled to Holland. Settling in Amsterdam, Gabriele made friends with a girl her own age living in the same building. They attended kindergarten together, and Gabriele quickly learned Dutch.

The Nazis invaded Holland in May 1940, just before Gabriele's seventh birthday. Gabriele was no longer allowed to play with her non-Jewish friends. She had to attend a private school for Jewish children and wear the yellow star.

Arrested in a massive raid on June 20, 1943, Gabriele and her family were sent to the Westerbork transit camp. In January 1944, Gabriele and her parents were transported in cattle cars to the Theresienstadt ghetto in Czechoslovakia. Conditions were horrible. The ghetto was extremely overcrowded and infested with typhus-spreading vermin. Gabriele was fortunate to be able to stay with her mother and father. Nearly everyone worked 10 hours a day, seven days a week. There was little food, and Gabriele often went hungry. Ten year-old Gabriele was put to work as a message carrier in the old-age home.

Prisoners at Theresienstadt were generally transported to other camps in Poland, where they were murdered. Gabriele and her parents were still in Theresienstadt when it was liberated on May 8, 1945. They were weak and in poor health.


[[Category:Holocaust Children, 1933 (subject)|1933 Silten]]

[[Category:Westerbork (subject)|1933 Silten]]
[[Category:Theresienstadt (subject)|1933 Silten]]
[[Category:Liberation of Theresienstadt (subject)|1933 Silten]]