Recha Stern

Recha Stern (née Löwenthal) was born in 1871 in Möhringen, a suburb of Stuttgart in southern Germany, to Salomon and Henriette Löwenthal. In 1896, she married the merchant Hermann Stern with whom she had two children, Käthe and Arthur. Upon becoming Hermann's wife, Recha settled in the small town Arnstadt in the German federal state of Thuringia, a place rich in its history, dating back to the early middle ages. For the upcoming decades the couple wouldn't leave Arnstadt, but only move within the town, the first time after daughter Käthe was born in 1896, a second time soon after when Recha and Hermann were expecting their second child Arthur who was born in 1901.

Following the Nazi dictatorship that wouldn't even leave the calm small town of Arnstadt untouched, Recha ended up being deported to Theresienstadt on 19 September 1942 from the close-by place Weimar. By then she was on her own, as her husband Hermann had died in 1939. The transport she was on carried the number XVI / 1-535. In early 1945, Recha found herself among the lucky 1200 people who were allowed on the exceptional transport from Theresienstadt into freedom in Switzerland, an initiative launched by the Agudah and the organisation of the Orthodox rabbis in the United States. However, the rescue of the 1200 Jewish was the result of successful negotiations by the then president of Switzerland Musy and Himmler. Yet, certain groups, among them intellectuals and relatives of people imprisoned in eastern concentration camps, were deprived of signing up for the transport, that originally aimed to free 20 000 Jews. Recha didn't settle in Switzerland, but emigrated to the UK where she moved in with her daughter Käthe who, due to her husband's employment at the "Lewastrumpf" textile company, lived in Leicester at the time. Leicester became Recha's home in her late life; she passed away in 1950. Her grave can be found on the Jewish cemetery in Leicester.