Bertha Reif (Strakosch)

Bertha Strakosch was born May 21, 1870 in Brno (see image in MEDIA). She had no middle name; any website that shows "Sara" is only reflecting the name the Nazi regime assigned to many or all Jewish women.

Bertha married Moriz Reif, after a two-year engagement, on April 19, 1891 in Wien: Reif, Moriz & Strakosch, Bertha, per genteam.at Index of the Jewish Records of Vienna (Num. 648).

Recorded in Indexes as taking place in "Stadttempel," the wedding ceremony actually took place at Bertha's neighborhood synagogue, Schmalzhoftempel, a brand new building in Wien VI, Schmalzhofgasse 3, in the Mariahilf district. Built in 1883/84 in the neo-Gothic style, it was destroyed in November 1938 (Kristallnacht) and fully demolished in 1940.

The engagement photograph of Bertha & Moriz was made by the "premier society photographer of Vienna," Fritz Luckhardt. They lived a fine life, according to her granddaughter EKC, with fur coats for Bertha -- but not mink coats).

Bertha and Moriz lived in 1894 and 1897 at Schottenring 17, Wien I. By 1906, and until 1938, their apartment in Vienna was at Veithgasse 11, Wien III.

Sometime in/after June 1938 Moriz & Bertha were evacuated by their son Paul, to Holland. (On 15 December 1938, the Dutch government closed its border to refugees.) Bertha and Moriz would not go on further (to the U.S.), and Paul could not have gotten them visas in any case, since America's quota for Czechs was full. Bertha and Moriz remained living in a farmhouse (two older granddaughters believed) near the North Holland village of Bergen, by the sea and dunes and the Bergen woods. In fact their Bergen lodgings were at Breelaan 47, a very large house later broken into about six apartments: Breelaan 47 Bergen NH.

One of their granddaughters, born in Holland, wrote:

"I know that they were living in Bergen when we lived there [prior to December, 1939]. As a little girl I used to have Sunday dinner with them in their pension. Father would take me on the back of his bike. I must have been 4 and 5. It was an adventure for me. After dinner we would play tiddly-winks up in their room. Once I spilled some salt on the white tablecloth during dinner and they seemed furious with me and I remember dying of shame. In the U.S. at some point after the war we were told that both of them were probably deported to Auschwitz and probably died on the way there. Father had given his Mother something to take in just such an emergency . . . he always said that his Mother was the strong[er] one [of the two]." --MHR to EKC May 2001 (DL)

Moriz and Bertha Reif were relocated from Bergen to Amsterdam (Holbeinstraat 31) in March 1942. They were deported from Amsterdam on 25 Mar 1943 to the Germans' holding camp in northern Holland, from where a train left each Tuesday for "the east," taking three days to arrive (in this case, at Sobibór). Moriz and Bertha's train left Westerbork on 06 Apr 1943 (source: Herinneringscentrum kamp Westerbork, email G. Rossing Apr 5, 2016). They died on April 9, 1943 at Sobibór camp in Poland; see the Dutch Community Joods Monument online.

• Reif, Moriz Israel. 25-1-1860 Ostra, 9-4-1943 Sobibór.
• Reif-Strakosch, Bertha Sara. 25-5-1870 Brünn, 9-4-1943 Sobibór.

Per their granddaughter EKC, "Israel and Sara were names assigned to Jewish citizens by the Nazis. Ordinary Austrians, Czechs, Germans, etc. did not generally have middle names, with the exception of Roman Catholics here and there" (email, Feb. 2007).

Address at deportation was: Breelaan 47, Bergen (NH) per Digital Monument website listed above. It says "the addresses are those entered in 1941 and 1942 on the forms used to compile the [Nazi] register lists. The address used closest to 1 February 1941 was designated as the primary address" by those creating the online monument.

Yadvashem entry is at http://db.yadvashem.org/names/nameDetails.html?itemId=4285105&langu...

For a complete discussion of deportations from Holland to extermination camps, see the Holocaust Research Project's Netherlands Deportations. On Tuesday, March 2, 1943, the first transport train heading for Sobibór in Poland left the Westerbork transit camp in northern Holland; the trip took three days. "The great majority of those who passed through the [Westerbork] camp only stayed for a few hours or days...." Transport trains left Westerbork on Tuesdays; Bertha and Moriz Reif died on Friday, April 9, 1943 at Sobibór. The train leaving on Tuesday, April 6 carried 2,020 individuals (per Westerbork Transport Schedule).

"To go into hiding [in Holland] cost a great deal of money. Suitable hiding places were few and far between, as were people who were willing and able to fully provide for those in hiding. The SD, a branch of the SS, and Dutch collaborators were permanently on the lookout for Jews. ‘Hiding’ had to mean becoming invisible. Transport was another problem; there were very few cars and travel on public transport was virtually impossible because of severe restrictions frequent spot-checks. Several thousand Jews who were in hiding [in the Netherlands] during World War II were betrayed . . . . From 1943, members of the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) could claim a bounty for every Jew who was arrested. In the larger cities this was also extended to some police departments. In Amsterdam the Colonne Henneicke (a group of Dutch bounty-hunters) arrested more than 8,000 Jews. For every Jewish person arrested, members could claim at least 7.50 Guilders in bonuses." --Westerbork Memorial Center, Netherlands.

"Der liebe Herrgott weiss warum die Bäume nicht in den Himmel wachsen" (as our grandmother used to say--EKC). "Only the good Lord knows why the trees don't grow all the way to heaven."

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On March 28 [2020], two Stolpersteine ["stumbling blocks"] will be placed by the German artist Gunter Demnig in front of the pension "De Haemstede" in Bergen NH, the place where Moriz Reif and Bertha Reif Strakosch lived before they were deported via Amsterdam and Westerbork to Sobibor. Eighteen ... Jewish victims will have a Stolperstone in Bergen or in Amsterdam that day.