Barbara Ledermann

Barbara Ledermann was born in Berlin on September 4, 1925, the daughter of the lawyer Franz Anton Ledermann and his wife Ilse Luise Ledermann, née Citroen. She also had one sister, Susanna, who was born in 1928. The family lived at Genthiner Strasse 5a (today No. 14).

To escape Nazi persecution, the Ledermann family moved to the Netherlands in October 1933 and settled in Amsterdam. Barbara went to school there. She was friends with Margot and Anne Frank.

With the German invasion of the Netherlands in 1940, the Ledermann family once again faced the harassment they left Germany to escape. The daughters had to go to a Jewish school. On June 20, 1943, Barbara's parents and her sister Susanna were arrested and interned in the Westerbork camp. From there they were deported to Auschwitz in November and murdered there.

Barbara Ledermann managed to hide in Amsterdam until May 1945 when the city was liberated. In 1947 she emigrated to the USA. There she married Martin Rodbell and had four children. She now lives in in Baltimore, Maryland.