Found! Hermann Ringel’s sister Betty Twiasschor
Until now, we didn't have much information about Hermann Ringel's sister Betty. We knew about Rosa Ringel Shatner, the mother of Zeev, who died with her daughter Margot after a roundup in Belgrade. We knew Betty had two daughters, Edith and Gena, who later lived in London.
Today I was searching in the Yad Vashem database in order to mention it in my article, Searching on Ringel and Rzeszow, the eleven matching records included one name, Zierel Apfelbaum, that was familiar to me, and another, Betty Twiasschlor, that just seemed weird. I checked up on Zierel and saw she was a daughter of Schija Ringel's brother Judah, thus Hermann's first cousin. She also came to Berlin and married Josef Apfelbaum. She was deported from Berlin 9/27/1942 and perished at Auschwitz.
At first I paid no attention to Betty with the funny last name, but when I idly clicked through the detailed information I saw that her maiden name was Ringel and she was born in Rzeszow in 1880. There are actually two records about her in the YV database with slightly different information about her date and place of death. I will copy both records in full below.
So then I started looking in Ancestry and JewishGen to see what I could find out about a Betty Twiasschor in Berlin. Well, there was another Twiasschor family in Berlin (the name goes back to several towns in east Galicia/Ukraine), so that made the search slightly difficult. This other Twiasschor was in business and had phone and address listings in many directories. He and his wife were also deported and their family sponsored a Stolpersteine for them, so most of the Google hits are about that.
However, several of the directories had an address for another Twiasschor resident, possibly a widow, at an address on Lothringerstrasse that looked familiar. I checked and confirmed that it was indeed the same building as one of Hermann Ringel's old addresses. Several other directory listings had tantalizing bits. One listing was for the Geschwister Twiasschor, meaning siblings. Another listed Fanny Twiasschor, geboren Ringel, as the occupant. (I don't know if Fanny was another name for Betty or if that is someone else, but the name sure rings a bell.)
I didn't see anything about an Edith or Gina at first, but then this 1945 item in Die Aufbau showed up. The Aufbau was the German language Jewish paper that published lists of victims and survivors after the war. It also covered happier news, such as this paid announcement of the engagement of Edith Twiasshor and Rudi Krausz in London. I am not sure what "fly" means, but it seems to suggest the bride came originally from Berlin and the groom from Vienna.
I am pretty sure this must be Helga's cousin Edith. I don't know if she was still married to Herr Krausz when we visited Edith and her sister for tea in 1961. I had the impression they were both unmarried but what did I know?
Other than the Aufbau item, there wasn't any other information I could find about Edith or Gena. But now we have their birth surname and have learned of their mother's fate. Both of Hermann's sisters were killed in extermination camps.
See the detailed info about Betty below.
| Deportations from Berlin | Murdered Jews from Germany | |
|---|---|---|
| Last Name | Twiasschor | Twiaschor |
| First Name | Betty | Betty |
| Maiden Name | Ringel | Ringel |
| Gender | Female | Female |
| Date of Birth | 03/05/1882 | 03/05/1882 |
| Place of Birth | Rzeszow,Rzeszow,Lwow,Poland | Rzeszow,Rzeszow,Lwow,Poland |
| Citizenship | Germany | |
| Permanent Place of Residence | Berlin,Berlin (Berlin),City of Berlin,Germany | Berlin,Berlin (Berlin),City of Berlin,Germany |
| Place during the War | Berlin,Berlin (Berlin),City of Berlin,Germany | Berlin,Berlin (Berlin),City of Berlin,Germany |
| Origin of Deportation | Berlin,Berlin (Berlin),City of Berlin, Germany |
Berlin,Berlin (Berlin),City of Berlin,Germany |
| Destination of Deportation | Sobibor,Extermination Camp,Poland | Eastern Europe |
| Place of Death | Majdanek,Camp,Poland | |
| Deporation Date and Details | 13/06/1942 | Transport from Berlin,Berlin (Berlin),City of Berlin,Germany to Warszawa,Ghetto,Poland on 14/04/1942 |
| Status according to Source | murdered | missing |
| Source | List of Jewish victims from the Memorial book "Victims of the Persecution of Jews under the National Socialist Tyranny in Germany 1933 - 1945" prepared by the German Federal Archives | Source Gedenkbuch Berlins der jüdischen Opfer des Nazionalsozialismus, Freie Universität Berlin, Zentralinstitut für sozialwissenschaftliche Forschung, Edition Hentrich, Berlin 1995 (Memorial Book of the Jewish victims of National Socialism in Berlin, Free University of Berlin) |
| Type of material | List of murdered Jews from Germany | List of deportation from Berlin |
| Item ID | 11647578 | 4137642 |
