Erich Dan de Beer

Adolf Daniel de-Beer was a prominent member of the Jewish community in Oldenburg Germany. Adolf's wife Matilde Rebecca was a convert to Judaism and held a regular identification card. This probably saved their lives. They remained in Germany during the war and survived the Allied bombings of Hamburg. They are buried in the Jewish cemetery of Oldenburg. Several decades after the war, a street was named after Adolf de-Beer in the Free City of Oldenburg. They had four children: Charlotte, Ilse, Erich and Hilde. Charlotte de-Beer Seligmann (b. 9/1/1906) and her husband immigrated to Uruguay and spent the war in Montevideo. They returned to Germany after the war and lived in Oldenburg and Munich. They are also buried in Oldenburg. Ilse Hirsch de-Beer (b. 7/22/1908) and her husband Herman Hirsch remained in Germany. They were deported to Auschwitz in April 1943. Ilse was transfered to Ravensbrueck where she perished on July 20, 1944. Her husband also perished. Erich de-Beer illegally immigrated in 1937 to Palestine to join his sister Hilde and the extended de-Beer family who settled legally in Palestine in 1936. Hilde de-Beer was the donor's maternal grandmother. She married Helmuth Benjamin de-Levie, a Dutch subject. After she divorced her husband she moved to Palestine in 1936. Her daughter Hedwig Jocheved joined her there the following year. Helmuth Benjamin de-Levie survived the war in The Netherlands. Most of the rest of his family perished including Hilde later remarried Dr. Walther Risenfeld in Palestine. Erich de- Beer joined the British Army and won his parole. He was taken prisoner on the Isle of Crete. He spent the rest of the war at POW camps in Germany ( Stalag XI V and Stalag VIIIb). In captivity as a British POW, he sent letters via the Red Cross to his parents in Germany. After the war, he was sent to England for recuperation. There, like many demobilized Palestinian soldiers, he married a young Jewish refugee in order to facilitate her immigration to Palestine. He later married his wife Hannah Rabinovic and settled on a farm in Kfar Bnai Zion where he is buried.