Ruth Scheuer Siegler and Ilsa Scheuer Nathan were as close as sisters could be. Not only did they and their families spend much of their lives together in Birmingham, they were also inextricably connected by a childhood experience that no one should have ever had to endure, as Jewish survivors of the Nazi death camps.

Last month, on Aug. 23, Ilse died at the age of 98. On Sept. 3, Ruth passed away at age 95. Their deaths bring ever closer the day when the last Holocaust survivors living in Alabama are gone.

Despite their passing, Ilse’s and Ruth’s story of survival as orphans and survivors of the Holocaust – both of their parents and their brother perished in the camps – will live on and continue to be told, thanks to the work of the nonprofit Alabama Holocaust Education Center. Both sisters were involved in the work of the center and its mission to educate Alabamians about the history and lessons of the Holocaust.

“They were together through their entire life’s journey,” said Ann M. Mollengarden, education director at the center. When Ilse and her husband moved to the Birmingham area, Ruth and her family followed, Mollengarden said. For decades, the sisters “lived literally two blocks from each other” until Ruth, later in life, moved into a local independent living facility.

“They held a special bond, before, during and after the Holocaust. Every day they talked,” Mollengarden said. 

Learn more about these remarkable sisters in the article below, shared courtesy of the center, which will hold its annual fundraiser Sept. 18 at Birmingham’s Red Mountain Theatre.

Ilse was 9 and Ruth was 6 when Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933. Over the next 12 years, the sisters would lose their family and their youth.

Born in Germany, the Scheuer sisters spent their formative years in relative peace and comfort until November 1938, when the events of Kristallnacht resulted in their father, Jakob, escaping to Bilthoven, Holland, to avoid arrest. He joined Ilse’s and Ruth’s brother, Ernst, who was in school and living there already.

In late August 1939, Ilse, Ruth and their mother, Helene, joined Jakob and Ernst in Holland. The family planned to obtain visas for passage to England and then the United States. Before they had the chance to leave, World War II began, and the borders were closed. They were trapped. Germany invaded Holland in May 1940, and Jakob was sent to Westerbork, a refugee/transit camp. Two years later, the family voluntarily reported to Westerbork rather than be deported. They were all given jobs at the camp.

Ruth, age 7, with her parents. (Alabama Holocaust Education Center)

Every Tuesday morning, 1,000 people were sent out by train to the unknown, but with jobs, the family was safe. In January 1944, Ernst was arrested for not removing his cap in the presence of a German officer. He was slated for transport; the family decided to stay together. Jakob’s Iron Cross medal from World War I allowed them to be taken to Theresienstadt transit camp in what was then Czechoslovakia.

One month later, the Scheuers were transported from Theresienstadt to Auschwitz II (Birkenau), an extermination camp. Selected for work, the girls and their mother were forced to undress and turn in all personal belongings. They were given striped clothing, a bowl and consecutive numbered tattoos. During a later SS selection, the girls were separated from their mother, never seeing her again. (The SS originated as the elite guard of the Nazi Party. Later SS units were fanatical soldiers and concentration camp guards.)

It was in Birkenau that the Scheuers last saw their father, after he managed to slip them the address of a cousin in the U.S. and to poignantly bless them. Ernst was also sent to work, but later died at a camp in Germany, days before liberation.

The girls worked carrying bricks from one end of the compound to the other for hours at a time. Ilse sewed gun covers and uniforms. Working close to the crematory ovens, they saw mountains of shoes. For the first time, they realized that their fellow prisoners were being killed and cremated.

In July 1944, Ilse and Ruth were sent to the concentration camp of Stutthof in Poland, where they were forced to sleep outside. By midsummer, they were transported to Praust, Poland, to clear runways for German planes. During the freezing winter, the girls were given a blanket, which was used resourcefully to sew slacks for warmth.

Ilse as a child. (Alabama Holocaust Education Center)

In February 1945, with Russian troops advancing, 800 girls were taken on a four-week death march toward the Baltic Sea, where presumably they were to be drowned. Only 50 survived that march; the others died en route.

With the Russian Army approaching, the girls were abandoned by their captors. Weak, ill and with nowhere to go, they were left on the side of a road to die. They walked through fields to the first farmhouse they found, but to their dismay, SS troops answered the door and took them in. The next morning, abandoned in the house to die, the sisters contemplated suicide. They were kept alive by the hope that family members may have survived. The girls connected with a liberating soldier on the street and were taken to Russian headquarters.

They were transported to a hospital in Putzig, Poland, where Ruth would recover from typhus, typhoid and an infection resulting from an earlier beating by an SS woman. Both girls began to heal and gain weight. They were transferred to a Russian hospital in Krakow, Poland, but ran away, becoming stowaways on a coal train heading for Prague. They found the Dutch Army in Pilsen, Czechoslovakia, and were directed to Bamberg, Germany, to get proper documentation to return to their home in Holland. The number on their arm served as their train ticket.

Upon returning to Utrecht in Holland, the girls were able to locate their mother’s brother and younger sister, who had both survived by hiding. It was here that the girls reestablished their lives. Remembering their father’s wish to have them move to the United States, the sisters contacted family members in Omaha, Nebraska, and Brooklyn, New York. In July 1946, they arrived in Mobile, Alabama, and traveled to Omaha. A few weeks later, they accepted a cousin’s invitation to move to Brooklyn. They settled there, working in a glove factory and learning English at night school and by watching movies.

Ilse and Ruth were close throughout their lives. (Alabama Holocaust Education Center)

Both girls met and married German-born Jews in 1949. Ilse married Walter Nathan and they had two children and five grandchildren. Ruth married Walter Siegler and they had three children and seven grandchildren. In 1960, Ruth and Walter moved to Birmingham to be closer to Ilse, who had moved there with her husband in 1949. Both women were subsequently widowed.

Ilse and Ruth were so close in the camps, that to avoid confusion, friends would call them each Ilse-Ruth. Sisters and best friends, they remained close until their deaths.

Learn more about Alabamians who survived the Holocaust by visiting the website of the Alabama Holocaust Education Center, which is expected to unveil its new Birmingham facility soon. The website also provides information about the center’s programs and schedule of events, including the upcoming L’Chaim 2022 annual fundraiser. The center has received support from the Alabama Power Foundation.