Skirt made by a German Jewish woman to demonstrate her sewing capabilities

Elfriede Gerson (later Hillelsohn, 1917-2014) was born in Osnabrück, Germany to Emanuel (1881-1926) and Rosa (nee Schulenklopper, 1889-1971) Gerson. She had two siblings, Margot (later Hirsh, 1914-2005) and Albert (1921-2013). The family lived in Weener, a town near the northern coast of Germany with a small Jewish population. Emanuel worked as a cattle dealer, but died from an infection when Elfriede was still a young girl. On January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany. The German authorities passed anti-Jewish decrees that restricted every aspect of Jewish life. In February 1935, Albert was sent to the United States, where he lived with a foster family, who offered to care for a German-Jewish child. The following September, the Nazis announced the Nuremberg Laws, which excluded Jews from citizenship and prohibited them from marrying or having relations with non-Jewish persons. In 1936, Elfriede completed vocational school in Weener, and moved to Hamburg with her sister, Margot. Their mother, Rosa, moved to Hamburg the following year. In February 1938, Albert’s foster family brought Margot to the United States, so she could help care for her brother. While in Hamburg, Elfriede belonged to a German-Jewish youth movement, and met Kurt Hillelsohn (1914-1979) at the city’s main synagogue. The couple fell in love and became engaged. On November 9 and 10, 1938, German officials instigated pogroms of violence and destruction against Jews and their property, known as Kristallnacht. On the night of November 9, most of Hamburg’s synagogues were looted and vandalized and prayer books and Torah scrolls were torn and burned. 30,000 Jewish men, including 910 from Hamburg, were also incarcerated in German concentration camps and held unless they promised to leave Germany. These events spurred many Jews to emigrate from Germany. Kurt had papers to immigrate to the United States, and sailed from Hamburg on November 16. In New York City, Kurt found lodging and work as porter with the Hebrew Orphan Asylum. After Kurt emigrated, Elfriede and her mother moved in with Kurt’s mother, Rosa Hillelsohn, and youngest brother in the Altona district of Hamburg. Elfriede worked as a forced labor seamstress in a German uniform factory. In 1941, with assistance from Kurt, who had been sending them money from the U.S., they were finally able to escape Germany. They traveled through Spain, sailed from Lisbon, Portugal, and arrived in New York on June 13, 1941. Kurt’s mother and brother, Rosa and Wolfgang, remained in Hamburg until they were deported to the Minsk ghetto on November 18, 1941. They both perished in the ghetto. After arriving in New York, Elfriede and Kurt married on September 14, 1941. While Britain and France had declared war on Germany in September 1939, the United States remained neutral until Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Germany then declared war on the United States on December 11. Kurt was drafted by the U.S. Army and first served as a mess sergeant, and later was sent to cryptology school to work as a translator. He served as part of the “Ritchie Boys,” a group that included many German-Jewish refugees who were recruited for their knowledge of the German language and culture, and received special training at the Military Intelligence Training Center at Camp Ritchie, Maryland. He was stationed in the United States, and Elfriede joined him at his post, where they later began their own family.

The skirt was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2017 by Michael Hillelsohn, son of Kurt and Elfriede Gerson Hillelsohn.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Michael Hillelsohn