Tauba Nussbaum. Collection

Taube alias Tauba Nussbaum, commonly known as Thérèse, was born in Siedlec, Poland, on 30 January 1896 as the daughter of Isaac Nussbaum and Esther Rosenman. Tauba’s family emigrated from Russia to Belgium in 1906, and first lived at Vandenpeereboomstraat 34 in Borgerhout, but then changed addresses frequently before fleeing to London, the United Kingdom, upon the outbreak the First World War. Upon their return to Belgium in 1920 the Nussbaum family again lived in Antwerp where Tauba found employment as a handbag manufacturer. In early 1924 Tauba relocated to Liège where she was introduced to Leizer Ber alias Boris Scherber (sometimes Serberis) by Yocheved Karny-Chamech. Boris was born in Kaunas, Lithuania, on 25 August 1894. He was a Russian World War One veteran who initially worked as a shoe salesman upon his arrival in Belgium in 1918. On 18 November 1924 Tauba and Boris celebrated their wedding. A son named Fernand was born in Liège on 16 September 1925 and a daughter named Dora on 7 August 1931. By 1932 Tauba’s husband Boris owned his own shoe store located at Rue Grétry 121 in Liège and in 1935 the Scherber-Nussbaum family obtained Belgian nationality. However, that same year their business went bankrupt, forcing Boris and Tauba to work as travelling merchants, selling shoes at different markets. When Nazi-Germany invaded Belgium on 10 May 1940, Tauba and her family lived at Rue Théodore Bouille 30 in Liège. They fled to Toulouse, France, but returned to Belgium in September 1940. The family was subsequently forced to obey the anti-Jewish decrees. They registered in the municipal Jewish register and, in March 1942, became members of the Association of Jews in Belgium. In August 1942 Tauba’s husband Boris and their son Fernand were added to a list of forced labourers. However, because of medical reasons both were eventually exempted. In January 1943, Tauba contacted Max-Albert van den Berg and arranged for her daughter Dora to be hidden at a school colony in Saint-Georges-sur-Meuse run by the Soeurs de la Miséricorde . Tauba herself was arrested on the La Batte market in Liège a few weeks later and spent a month in the Liège citadel (prison) before she was brought to the SS-Sammellager Mecheln (Dossin barracks). Tauba was deported from Mechelen to Auschwitz-Birkenau via transport XXIIB on 20 September 1943 and was murdered. A few weeks after her arrest Tauba’s son Fernand was placed in hiding at the Colonie des Enfants au Grand Air in Stoumont. His father Boris survived the war in hiding in the Liège countryside. Dora, Fernand and Boris were reunited in Liège upon Liberation.

On 29 October 1998, Dora Luthers-Scherber, daughter of Tauba Nussbaum, kindly permitted the Jewish Museum of Deportation and Resistance, predecessor of Kazerne Dossin, to digitise the two documents in this collection. These documents were taken from Tauba Nussbaum upon her arrival at the SS-Sammellager Mecheln (Dossin barracks) in 1943, and were stored in the camp archive until they were returned to Tauba’s descendents by the Belgian War Victims Administration in 1988.

Dora Luthers-Scherber, 1998