Dear Ms. Ida Fischer!
You were born on August 28th 1878 in Laa an der Thaya. I am going to school in this very town today.
Later in life you met and fell in love with your later husband Samuel Fischer. After your marriage you moved with him to Eggenburg into a beautiful house with two floors and garden. I wonder how your wedding may have been. With many guests or only a few?
You named your daughter Frieda and I bet she was the big joy in your life. Thanks heaven, she was able to survive these horrible times in exile.
The First World War took your husband from you, but you were proud that he gave his life for his motherland Austria. This can be deducted from your calling yourself a war-widdow.
It certainly was not easy for you to leave your beautiful home and move to foreigners into a forced collective-apparement in Große Schiffgasse 5/23 in Vienna. We were only able to find out that you were transported on October 15th 1941 with the 6th transport and the individual number 431 in the direction of Poland. It is so sad to know that you never saw your daughter again. The aim of your trip was Lodz. Under which circumstances you had to travel, live and die there are not capable for our imagination.
I wonder how you endured this all: that you lost your husband, daughter and all your belongings. At the end you were all alone. This must have been the hardest.
My class tried to give you back your life-story, which was threatened of being forgotten. We hope that you like that.
Life records of Ms. Ida Fischer:
Ida Fischer was born on August 28th (1871) in Laa/Thaya
nee Schweinburg
married to Samuel Fischer, who died in the First World War
for a while she lived in in Eggenburg, Rathausstr. 8
daughter: Frieda Fischer survived in exile
Ida’s last known adress: Wien 2, Große Schiffgasse 5/23 (most likely a forced collective appartment)
On October 15th 1941 she was deported to Lodz (Litzmannsstadt) in Poland with the 6th transport and the individual number 431. It is known that of the 5000 Jews from Vienna, who were deported to Lodz in fall 1941, only 34 returned. Therefore it is most likely that Ida Fischer died there. The date of her death remains unknown.
Ida Fischer lived in a very cruel time, which caused a lot of victims. Thousands of people lost everything: their belongings, home, even their life. They were brought to gettos or concentration camps only because they were considered differently.
In the future nobody should ever endure what Ida Fischer had to suffer. To grant this, we have to get used to judging people not for their religion, color of their skin or appearance, but only because of their character. I hope that I will have the courage and strength to act when human dignity is endangered.
