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Biografie

Inge Auerbacher c. 1940 Photo: private

  • 31 December 1934: born in Kippenheim (Baden) to Berthold and Regina Auerbacher
  • 1938: on the night of the November pogrom, Inge’s father and grandfather are deported to Dachau, where they are imprisoned for several weeks.
  • In 1939, the family are forced to sell their house in Kippenheim; they move to Jebenhausen to live with Inge’s grandparents, Betty and Max Lauchheimer
  • From 1940, Inge attends the Jewish school in Stuttgart
  • 1 December 1941: Inge’s grandmother is deported to Riga, where she is murdered
  • 1941: shortly after the grandmother’s deportation, the family has to leave Inge’s grandparents’ house and move to quarters in a so-called Judenhaus (“Jew’s house”)
  • On 22 August 1942, Inge and her parents are deported to Theresienstadt. They are imprisoned there until the camp is liberated by the Red Army on 8 May 1945.
  • After a brief stay at a camp in Stuttgart, the Auerbacher family return to Jebenhausen. Shortly afterwards, they move to Göppingen, where they live until May 1946.
  • 1946: the family emigrates to the USA
  • Shortly after her arrival in New York, Inge Auerbacher falls ill with tuberculosis, a legacy of her incarceration in Theresienstadt.
  • From 1948: discharge from hospital; education initially at home, then locally; interrupted by health setbacks
  • 1950: completion of junior high school, graduation in 1953, Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry in 1958. Inge Auerbacher works as a chemist from then on.
  • Inge Auerbacher is granted U.S. citizenship in 1953.
  • 1966: first return visit to her former home in Kippenheim
  • In 1986, she publishes her childhood memoirs under the title “I am a Star”; a German translation is published in 1990. Other publications follow, including “Beyond the Yellow Star” in 2005
  • Inge Auerbacher is still active as a contemporary witness today and pays special attention to young people when telling her life story.
  • Inge Auerbacher has received several awards in Germany and the USA for her work as a contemporary witness and a promoter of German-Jewish understanding; these include the German Federal Cross of Merit.
  • On Holocaust Remembrance Day on 27 January 2022, she was speaking in the German Bundestag. In her speech, she appealed to the people of Germany to oppose anti-Semitism.
  • October 2022: Inge Auerbacher is interviewed in New York, D.C. for Dimensions in Testimony

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