Erna Edelstein

Location 
Oranienstr. 198
District
Kreuzberg
Born
07 March 1935 in Berlin
Deportation
on 03 March 1943 to Auschwitz
Murdered
in Auschwitz
Erna Edelstein was born on 7 March 1935, the youngest of four children born to Abraham and Bertha Edelstein in Berlin. Her parents, both devout Jews, had emigrated to the German Reich from Poland shortly after the end of the First World War.

When Erna Edelstein was born, the Nazis had been in power for two years. Erna possibly never knew her two eldest siblings, Rosa and Benno Edelstein (born 1919 and 1921 respectively). They managed to emigrate from the German Reich and so save their lives. Erna’s parents, Abraham and Bertha Edelstein, her older brother by eight years, Günther, and Erna herself stayed in Berlin. In 1938 the four remaining Edelsteins moved into a 1½ room apartment on the 3rd floor of the courtyard building at Oranien Strasse 198, Kreuzberg. Abraham Edelstein and his son Günther performed forced labour.

During the “factory campaign”, Erna was deported to Auschwitz on 3 March 1943, on the 33rd “transport to the East” along with her parents Abraham and Bertha. Erna Edelstein, still only seven years old, was probably murdered on arrival in the extermination camp’s gas chamber. None of the deported members of the Edelstein family survived the camp.