Heinrich Baruch Rieser, born February 27, 1856 in Laupheim, died December 19, 1932 in Laupheim, married to Babette Rieser, nee Gump, born October 7, 1860 in Krumbach, died May 15, 1941 in Laupheim

- Hermine Rieser, born July 2, 1884 in Laupheim, died July 3, 1884 in Laupheim

- Clothilde Levy nee Rieser, born Feb 2, 1887 in Laupheim, deported on August 23, 1944 to Theresienstadt and then to Auschwitz on October 28, 1944, where she was murdered, married to Julius Levy, born May 29, 1877  in Buttenhausen, deported August 23, 1944 to Theresienstadt and then to Auschwitz on October 28, 1944, where he was murdered.

- Margaret Levy, born September 30, 1913 in Buttenhausen, emigrated on January 24, 1938 to New York, USA.

- Hedwig Meinstein, nee Rieser, born July 10, 1890, deported to Riga on November  28, 1941, killed February 28, 1942, married Hermann Meinstein  on July 19, 1882 in Fuerth, deported on November 28, 1941 to Riga, murdered on February 28, 1942.

- Elsa Ruth Rieser, born January 30, 1892 in Laupheim, deported on August 23, 1942 to Theresienstadt, died April 8, 1984 in Munich.

Clothilde Rieser between Bertl Einstein and Berta Adler

in a school photo taken 1895.

Elsa Ruth Rieser (middle) in a school photo of the same school ca. 1904.

After the death of her husband, Babette Rieser remained living with her daughter Clothilde, son-in-law Julius Levi and also granddaughter Margaret in the 29 Kapellen Street home. Nothing else about her life in Laupheim itself has been discovered. Her life is likely to have been limited to the welfare of her family, the Jewish community and immediate Christian neighborhood. For some time during 1939 and 1941, Babette Rieser lived in the Jewish old people's home, which was established in the former rabbinate. It is not known why she periodically stayed there. Perhaps the house at 29 Kapellen Street became too crowded after Hedwig and Hermann Meinstein moved in. In any case, it is thanks to her stay there, that we have two photos  of her. In the photo on the left, Rosa Einstein is shown with Babette Rieser at about age 80 behind her. In the better-known photo above of the Jewish old people's home, which was housed in the Laupheim rabbinate, Babette is seated on the right side of the festively decorated coffee table. On May 15, 1941 Babette Rieser died in Laupheim, and, like her husband, she is buried in the local Jewish cemetery.

 

 

 

 

Hedwig and Hermann Rieser

Hedwig Rieser was the middle child of the three daughters, born on July 10, 1890 and on October 31, 1919 married Hermann Meinstein born on February 19, 1882 in Zirndorf, District of Fuerth in Bavaria.

As was the custom at the time, she left her home and followed her husband. Nothing is known about her life after marriage until 1938. Their marriage remained childless. On December 7, 1938 Hedwig and Hermann Meinstein moved in with her mother, sister and brother-in-law at  29 Rad Street  in Laupheim. In October 1941 they were forcibly resettled with Clothilde and Julius Levi to the Wendelin Sand and Gravel pit outside the city. The couple were among the first to be deported from Laupheim, with 1011 other Jewish Wuerttembergers , to Riga in the East, on 28 November 1941, via the Stuttgart Killesberg mountains, to the East. On December 20, 1949, the District Court of Laupheim recorded their date of death as March 26, 1942. Hedwig and Hermann Meinstein were probably killed in one of the numerous mass shootings in the months after arrival in Riga on 3 December 1941.

 

Elsa Ruth Rieser

Unlike her two older sisters, Elsa remained unmarried. After high school, she trained as a nurse. As early as 1912 she had joined the Red Cross Aides for "The Volunteer Medical Team of the Red Cross" in Laupheim, where she was engaged in  emergency services and first aid, and also in provided preventive health care. In the case of war it was necessary to care for the wounded and injured, as decreed by the "Geneva Conventions" of 1864. The religious affiliation of the Red Cross members took second place, as is shown  in the photo opposite. The picture was taken in 1914, in front of the seat of the Senior District Administration,  showing 15 participants after they completed a medical course. Elsa is the only Jewish woman in the photo.

 

 

 

 

Elsa applied to the Jewish nurses’ home on Dillman Street in Stuttgart, as a professional nurse, and passed the state exam. Especially noteworthy is that she is the only female listed in the directory by Jonas Weil’s "directory of the war veterans of the Israelite community," assembled by Jonas Weil, because during the First World War, on August 15, 1914, she had was originally enlisted as a Red Cross nurse’s aide in the Laupheim Hospital as a nurse's aide from the Red Cross.

During the war she worked in battle field hospitals in Calimanesti in, in Romania and also in Morlanwelz in Belgium, as a Red Cross nurse’s aide Elsa was not only appointed Jewish Professional Nurse, but was also awarded  the Wuerttemberg Charlotte Cross and the Prussian Red Cross Medal. On 28 November 1918, she was dismissed to the Jewish nurses’ home in Stuttgart. Until 1933 she had been employed as a nurse for both Christian and Jewish patients, but afterwards only for patients of her own denomination.

On 28 November 1918, she was dismissed from the Jewish sister home in Stuttgart. Until 1933 she had been employed as a nurse by both Christian and Jewish patients, but afterwards only for patients of her own denomination.

Elsa Ruth Rieser described the period from 1933, in an impressive report of her experiences  on July 12, 1961, at the request of Dr. Maria Zelzer, on behalf of the City of Stuttgart, for the commemorative book "Path and Destiny of the Stuttgart Jews",

"Kristallnacht brought us a great change. Many people sought shelter. The next morning we were ordered to leave our house at Dillman Street. From then on we  were all continuous harassment as regards food , while eating and living Our new home was a collective accommodation with many others. In 1941, we were given only 12 hours’ notice  to evacuate this home, together with many old people and their nurses, for the use of the Hitler Youth. We were sent to a nursing home, and then finally to a collective accommodation in Dellmensingen

Of course the food was became scarce and the treatment accordingly bad. We could not leave without the permission of the local mayor.

On August 22, 1942 we arrived at the transit camp Killesberg / Stuttgart, from where 1200 people were deported to Theresienstadt. Healthy and sick people died during the journey. We were cooped up in cattle wagons, on the floor was a little straw, and of course there were no meals.  We were told we were being sent to another retirement home. We were greatly disappointed  when we arrived in Theresienstadt, and found ourselves in  the attic of a barracks. There were thousands of people already on the stone floor without any padding, the only bedclothes allowed were a pillow and a blanket. There were no windows and only a skylight.

So many people died from typhoid fever and dysentery, because of the little food received and the many other hardships. We were forced to carry water needed for cleaning in small pails, up four flights of steps from the court yard. Often the fountain was turned off. So we were forced to use chlorine for cleaning.

Every day transports went to the East. They arrived incessantly from Austria, Czechoslovakia, Holland, Poland and Germany. As soon as prisoners left Theresienstadt, new ones replaced them.

The people who were not too sick and too weak, had to work, partly in factories and plants for the military, or were employed in other types of work. There was never a day off, neither Sundays nor holidays.

In 1944 I got a blister while working on a broken furnace. My fingers were cut with a pair of unsterile scissors, which immediately caused blood poisoning. My body was completely malnourished and I weighed 70 pounds. The finger had to be amputated. The poisoning continued to spread to my arm and it could not be saved despite 18 operations. I lost my arm in February 1944 and could not get up for months. I was used for medical experiments for the military. My greatest sorrow was no longer being able to perform my job as a nurse. In spite of this, I was able to perform night rounds and some other work in the camp. "(City Archives Stuttgart SO 172, MR) 

From today's perspective it is hard to see how Elsa Ruth Rieser could survive these inhumane living conditions .Her character may have been marked by a profound will to live and an unbroken confidence, in order to withstand the hardships imposed by the Nazi regime. The nurse Resi Weglein from Ulm writes in her memoirs "As a nurse in Theresienstadt concentration camp": "Ruth Rieser, professional nurse from Stuttgart, who lost her left arm due to an accident at work, avoided two transports to the east by the last camp commandant Rham, by volunteering for experimental medical purposes "(p.44).In this context it is definitely not a question of volunteering, since Elsa desperately tried to escape the transports to the extermination camps of Auschwitz or Treblinka in the East and so, murder. Finally, she was one of the few inmates of the Theresienstadt concentration camp that survived and was liberated on 9 May 1945 by the Red Army.  The German Reich deported approximately 42,124 Jews to the Theresienstadt concentration camp between 1942 and 1945 on 329 transports from 19 areas. The percentage of  all deaths of Terezín prisoners, i.e. death in Theresienstadt and death after further deportation, was approximately 86 percent.

As for all the survivors of the concentration camps after their liberation, they faced the question of where they now should go. They were still in the land of their perpetrators, those that had imposed upon them long years of suffering and murdered their relatives. Elsa’s two sisters and their husbands had been murdered in their home country Germany. At first, Elsa Ruth Rieser probably remained for the next few weeks in Theresienstadt. This seemed the obvious thing to do from the point of view of finding food and shelter in the turmoil of the first post-war weeks. The nurse from Ulm, Resi Weglein, described this vividly in her memoirs on page 97: "Life went on without much change, except that we had enough to eat every day. However we weren’t able to  finish the allotted food of 500 grams. Our stomachs could no longer process so much food. Every fourth day we would give away a whole loaf of bread, and still had enough for ourselves. There were daily meals of barley for lunch and dinner, and once a week, 500 grams of potatoes and meat broth. "In 1945 tuberculosis and typhoid fever were highly prevalent and spread rapidly among the weakened ex-inmates of the concentration camps. Only through determined hygiene measures, quarantine, care and nutrition, could epidemics be brought under control in Theresienstadt, but this also led to a delayed homecoming. On 19 June 1945 three buses from Stuttgart arrived in Theresienstadt to pick up all the Jews from Wuerttemberg. 120 returned to Stuttgart, among them was Elsa Ruth Rieser. Since none of her relatives from Laupheim survived, she remained for her next four years in DP camps, located in the former sanatorium Katz, in Stuttgart-Degernloch. There she worked in the kitchen and house The abbreviation D.P. stands for Displaced Persons, that is, people who were not originally from this place, which was literally true for all concentration camp inmates and forced laborers of any origin. The DP camps had been set up for them by the French and American occupiers to provide them with a temporary residence until they could return to their homes or find individual solutions such as emigration to Palestine with the support of various organizations or to already emigrated relatives all over the world. In Ulm there had been a large DP camp.

 

In October 1945, Elsa Ruth Rieser, who now called herself Rosa Ruth Rieser,  attempted, from Stuttgart, to obtain the return of her parents' house,  29 Radstrasse, in Laupheim. With the deportation out of the German Reich of Clothilde and Julius Levi, Hedwig and Hermann Meinstein and Elsa Ruth Rieser the house had been confiscated, for the benefit of the German Reich, on order of the Stuttgart headquarters of the Secret Police (Gestapo) on 24. November, 1941 and on 21. August, 1942 . In 1950 the  Chamber for Restitution Claims at the District Court of Ravensburg decided in a judgment that Elsa, now Ruth Rieser, was to have her parents' house returned to her. For various reasons there was certainly no question of her returning to Laupheim at this time.  So the house was sold to the cattle dealer Albert Held in 1951. In addition, on 29 March 1946, she contacted  the mayor of Laupheim with the following request: "I would be grateful if you could send me the current payments of rent , because I need them." With this purpose, the municipal legal adviser informed the competent  tax office in Biberach, but its reply is not recorded. The transfer of the rental income to the rightful heiress of the house is to be assumed.

At the request of then Mayor of Laupheim Heynek on 24 October 1946  Elsa Ruth Rieser hand wrote an initial list of names of those who were sent to various concentration camps. She named 65 people, only - Resi Weglein - had survived, so 64 were victims - a number that sadly had to be revised upwards significantly. 81 people were deported from Laupheim, 68 were citizens of Laupheim and 13 citizens of Heggbach. If one would include close relatives of our former Laupheim Jews, the number would grow much higher.

 

The List of Laupheim Jews, who had perished in the concentration camps,
which was prepared by Elsa Ruth Rieser in 1946, had to be later corrected, unfortunately by adding more names.