Edith Schumer

Holocaust Survivor Edith Schumer was born in 1925 in Stockstadt, Germany. As the situation of German Jews became more precarious, her father learned of an opportunity for 1,000 German Jewish children to travel to the US. Because only one child per family was allowed to take part, the family determined that Edith’s older sister Betty would be the one to leave. Edith’s uncle Jack, in Chicago, arranged for a placement for Betty with a family, and she arrived in Chicago in 1937 at age 15.

In February 1938, Jack and his wife Mildred agreed to take in Edith, and she arrived in Chicago that March. Edith quickly learned English and acclimated into her new life. While in high school, Edith learned that her parents had been killed in a concentration camp.

After graduating from high school in 1944, Edith entered a nursing training program. She married, had two children, divorced, and remarried. In recent years, Edith and her daughter, Fern, have traveled to Stockstadt several times, reconnecting with the descendants of friends and neighbors from Edith’s youth. Fern has published several books based on her mother’s experience.

Photo Credit: Zachor – The Holocaust Memory Project