Ilse Weber

Ilse Weber

Ilse Weber (nee Herlingerová) was born on January 11, 1903 in Witkowitz, Margraviate of Moravia, Austria-Hungary (today Vítkovice, the Czech Republic.)

Born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire she learned to speak in both Czech and German.

Her Father died when she was 10 years old.

She wrote Poetry, Children’s Books and Songs that were published throughout Europe.

In 1930 she married Willi Weber and had their first Son, Hanus in 1931.

They then moved to Prague where she worked with the Czechoslovak Radio including as a Producer.

When the Germans invaded Czechoslovakia in 1939 Ilse was able to send her Son, Hanus, to England in the Kindertransport (a rescue program in 1938-1939 that saved 10,000 Jewish Children from Nazi Germany and German-Occupied Austria and Czechoslovakia and brought them to the United Kingdom.)

Ilse, Willi and their younger Son, Tomas were sent to the Terezín (Theresienstadt) Concentration Camp near Prague on February 8, 1942.

There Ilse worked as a Night Nurse in the Children’s Hospital doing everything she could for the young Patients without the aid of medicine – which was forbidden by the Germans.

At the same time she wrote 60 poems and songs. Setting her songs to deceptively simple tunes and imagery to describe the horror of her surroundings.

Ilse was so sad about having to give up Hanus that she wrote the song “Und der Regen rinnt” (“And the Rain Falls”) while in Terezin.

In the beginning of October 1944 Willi was placed on the deportation list to go to Auschwitz in German-Occupied Poland.

Ilse and Tomas volunteered to go with him so they would not be separated.

Before leaving, Willi hid Isle’s poems and songs.

They arrived at the Auschwitz Death Camp on October 4, 1944 where Ilse and Tomas were gassed to death and their bodies burnt within hours of arriving.

It is reported by a Member of the Sonderkommando (the Group of Prisoners the Germans forced to work inside the Gas Chambers and Crematorium) that Isle sang Tomas a lullaby while they were undressing before going to the Gas Chamber.

Willi survived Auschwitz and the War and returned to Terezin and found Ilse’s poems and songs.

Hanus survived the War and was reunited with Willi in Prague.

During the Prague Spring in 1968 Hanus fled Communist Czechoslovakia and moved to Sweden where he lived until he died in 2021.

On April 15, 2018, one of her Patients from Terezín, Aviva Bar-On, sang one of Ilse Weber's songs during a concert in Jerusalem, without a written trace and only from memory.