Gertrude Grünhut

 

© Grünhut descendants

Gertrude, also known as Trude, was born in Lichtenfels on February 12, 1907, the oldest of three children of the Jewish couple Salomon and Anna Grünhut. She spent almost her entire childhood and youth in Lichtenfels and lived with her family at Coburger Straße 106.

In 1929, she married Julius Sichel, a Jewish merchant from Gaukönigshofen (Ochsenfurt district).

© Grünhut descendants

Shortly after their marriage, they moved to Munich.

 

On February 14, 1932, Beatrix Sichel, future Eisemann, was born. She was the only child of Gertrude and Julius Sichel.

 

The young family stayed in Germany for a very long time. Salomon Grünhut, Trude's father, lived with them as early as 1933/34 after the experiences of the SA terror in Lichtenfels (including arbitrary "protective custody" in 1933). In 1937 he moved completely to Munich. But at the latest after the experiences in the November pogroms in 1938 and the weeks-long internment of the men in the Dachau concentration camp, the family finally saw no future in Germany and decided to flee the country before it was too late.

They left for London on March 31, 1939. From there they soon continued to New York to Gertrude's siblings. Gertrude and her husband were not allowed to take any possessions with them when they fled Germany. Only articles of clothing on the body were allowed; everything else, such as valuables, was confiscated by the Nazis. Others were less fortunate, such as a brother of Julius who did not manage to escape and was murdered by the Nazis in Kaunas in 1941.

 

Gertrude Sichel died on July 04, 2007 in the presence of her family, with whom she always maintained very close contact.