'When Ilse died, I think Ruth was ready'
(Photo by Melissa Askew on Unsplash)
(Photo by Melissa Askew on Unsplash)
(AP) — BIRMINGHAM, Alabama — Two sisters who survived the Holocaust as girls and moved to the United States afterward died just days apart in their adopted home of Alabama.
The Alabama Holocaust Education Center said Ruth Scheuer Siegler died Saturday at the age of 95. Her sister, Ilse Scheuer Nathan, died 10 days earlier at the age of 98.
The women were born in Germany and were girls when Adolf Hitler rose to power in the 1930s. After losing their parents and older brother in the Holocaust but surviving Nazi death camps themselves, the two women were inseparable, the center said in an announcement.
Both women married fellow Holocaust survivors in 1949. Ruth and Walter Siegler moved to Birmingham in 1960 to be with Ilse and Walter Nathan, who already lived in the area.
The women, who taught lessons about the Holocaust, were both widows and remained best friends until the end, living within walking distance of each other for years.