Susan Warsinger papers

Susan Warsinger was born Susi Hilsenrath on May 27, 1929 in Bad Kreuznach, Germany to Israel Hilsenrath (1902-1984) and Annie Hilsenrath (1908-1972), Susan had two younger brothers: Joseph Hilsenrath (b. 1930) and Ernest Hilsenrath (b. 1938). Mr. Hilsenrath owned a successful linen store, and Mrs. Hilsenrath took care of Susan and her brothers.

After the Nazis came to power in 1933, the Hilsenraths began to feel the effects of increased antisemitism. Due to antisemetic legislation in Germany, Susan was forced to leave public school and attend a Jewish school. Mr. Hilsenrath was forced to display a sign indicating his store was a Jewish-owned business. With fewer customers, he then had to close the business and sell fruit door-to-door. The family moved from their house to an apartment building.

During Kristallnacht in November 1938, the family’s apartment windows were smashed and their belongings were destroyed. The Hilsenraths hid in the building’s attic for three days. After the pogrom, they made plans to emigrate from Germany to the United States, but immigration quotas limited their chances. Mr. and Mrs. Hilsenrath used the family’s savings to pay a French woman to smuggle Susan and Joseph to France by train. Ernest remained with his parents. Susan and Joseph met a third cousin in Paris and resided with him for a few weeks before arrangements were made for them to relocate to a children’s home in the suburbs.

In May 1940, the German army invaded France. Susan and Joseph fled with many others to Versailles, where they were temporarily housed in Louis XIV’s palace. Soon German soldiers arrived and the children fled with their guardians to the Vichy-controlled unoccupied zone of France. With the assistance of the aid organization Oeuvre de Secour aux Enfants, they were sheltered at the Château des Morelles in the village of Broût-Vernet near Vichy.

After a year, with the help of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (Hias), the American Friends Service Committee, and the US Committee for the Care of European Children, Susan and Joseph received permission to immigrate to the United States. After crossing the Pyrenees into Spain, the two sailed from Lisbon, Portugal to New York in September 1941. They were reunited with their parents and Ernest, already in the United States by February 1940. The family settled in Washington, D.C.

Susan attended an Americanization school to learn English before attending junior and senior high school. She continued her studies at the University of Maryland where she received her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees. On December 25th, 1948, Susan married Irving Warsinger (1924-2006). Irving had served in the US Army during the war. The couple had three daughters. Susan taught in the Prince George’s County Maryland school system for 27 years. She is now a volunteer for the US Holocaust Memorial Museum.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Susan Warsinger

Funding Note: The cataloging of this collection has been supported by a grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.

Funding Note: The accessibility of this collection was made possible by the generous donors to our crowdfunded Save Their Stories campaign.

Susan Warsinger donated her papers to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in three separate donations in 1995, 2000, 2002, and 2003. These papers were assigned accession numbers 1995.A.0470, 2000.127, 2002.427.1, and 2003.56.1, respectively at the time of each donation. These have since been unified into this collection.