Oestreicher, Elsa, 1878-1963

Elsa Herz was born in Berlin on November 6, 1878, as the first child of Salomon Herz and Anna Margarete Alexander. In 1898 she married the physician Dr. Jacques Oestreicher and in 1899 their daughter Anni Henriette Oestreicher, who immigrated to the U.S. in 1935, was born.

During World War I Elsa Oestreicher worked as a Hilfsschwester (assistant nurse) for the Red Cross for more than 4 years and received two medals, a Zivilverdienstkreuz and the Rote Kreuzmedaille, for her efforts. After World War I she worked as a cooking instructor for about five years at the Schule der Hausfrauen (Am Karlsbad 13, Berlin) and wrote a number of cookbooks. Due to growing anti-Semitism she had to give up her position there and she opened a private cooking school which operated successfully until Elsa was at first forbidden to instruct Christian students and later on, to teach Jewish students as well.

After that, Elsa Oestreicher worked in a Jewish hospital, the Siechenheim der Reichsvereinigung in Gross-Lichterfelde and when it was dissolved, in the kitchen of the Durchgangslager (transit camp), Grosse Hamburgerstrasse, Berlin. Three months after her husband’s death in August 1942, she was deported to Theresienstadt on November 4, 1942.

In Theresienstadt Elsa Oestreicher worked as a cook, a cooking instructor and as head of the soup-kitchen. After the liberation of Theresienstadt she had to stay at the Displaced Persons Center Deggendorf until she immigrated via Sweden to the United States in 1946, where she died in New York in 1963.

From the guide to the Elsa Oestreicher Collection, 1878-1957, bulk 1942-1945, (Leo Baeck Institute)