Lilli Tauber's parents Wilhelm und Johanna Schischa in Opole ghetto

This is a picture of my parents, Wilhem and Johanna Schischa [nee Friedmann], in Opole ghetto in July 1941. My father had asked the local Jewish photographer to take pictures of the ghetto. Back then he still had enough money to pay for these photos and send them to his relatives in Vienna.

My parents were deported to Opole ghetto in Poland from Vienna on 26th February 1941. They were murdered a year later in either Belzec or Sobibor concentration camp.

I own a large number of letters, which my parents wrote to Aunt Fany, Aunt Berta and my grandmother from the ghetto before they were murdered. Aunt Berta gave me a little leather suitcase after the war which included all documents and letters she had collected before Aunt Fany and my grandmother were deported. That way all these valuable documents were preserved.

Apart from these letters, my father also sent photos from Opole ghetto. Opole was a village that had been sealed off. Jews who lived there weren't allowed to leave, and more and more Jews arrived. There were a bakery, a butcher's shop, a barber's shop, restaurants and a photo shop, just like in any normal village. However, nothing could be brought into the ghetto, so food soon became extremely expensive, and my parents' depended on help from their relatives in Vienna.

The last letter from my father arrived in December 1941. In Mai 1942 a deportation transport left from Opole to Belzec concentration camp, and in October for Sobibor concentration camp. I don?t know on board which transport my parents were.

Photos from this interviewee