personal data


Appel Irene

Surname
Appel
Birth Name
Löwenthal
First Name
Irene
Date of Birth
12.06.1904
Place of birth
Darmstadt
Other family members

Parents: Mayer and Clothilde Löwenthal née Ehrmann
Siblings: Fanny and Bertha Löwenthal
Spouse: Machiel Appel
Children: 1 son (later adopted)

Address

Promenadestraße 3 (today 7)

Profession
Emigration/Deportation

April 1933 emigrated to the Netherlands
1943 deported from Appeldoorn to Auschwitz

Date of death
01-25-1943
Place of death
Auschwitz

biography


Irene Löwenthal was the daughter of the Bad Kissingen cattle dealer and producer of mattresses Maier Löwenthal and his wife Clothilde, nèe Ehrmann from Darmstadt. She was born in Darmstadt on June 12, 1904. One year later, the family moved to Bad Kissingen where Irene’s younger sisters Fanny (1906) and Bertha (1908) were born.

After short stays in Düsseldorf and Berlin in 1932, Irene Löwenthal emigrated to the Netherlands in 1933. There she married Machiel Appel who had been born in Amsterdam in 1899. In August 1938, she was visited by her parents and her sister Fanny who took their leave from her and emigrated to the USA.

Irene and her husband became victims of Nazi tyranny. In August 1940 – shortly after the invasion of the German troops – their son S. was born. Whereas Irene’s parents and her two sisters could emigrate to the USA in 1938, Irene Appel, who lived in the "Het Apeldoornsche Bosch" psychiatric clinic in the town of Appeldorn since April 1941, was deported from there to Auschwitz/ Oświęcim Concentration Camp in 1943 where she was murdered at the age of 38. As her date of death January 25, 1943 is registered. Her husband was also a victim of the Nazi tyranny. From October 1941 he had to do forced labor first in the Netherlands and later in occupied Poland before he was finally murdered in Auschwitz in March 1944. Only their child survived the Shoa. During the war the little boy was hidden in the Dutch Underground by two Christian families. The father of the second family later became the Chief Justice of the Dutch Supreme Court.

At the beginning of 1947, the then six-year-old boy could emigrate to his grandparents in New York. His grandfather Maier Löwenthal wrote about this in a letter to a Bad Kissingen acquaintance: “Unfortunately, we also had to sacrifice our oldest daughter (Irene) and her husband in Holland to this gang of criminals. We have had their youngest offspring of six years of age, who had been hidden by a Christian family for four years, brought to us three months ago. He is a beautiful, clever boy who enjoys us a lot” (letter of Maier Löwenthal from March 23, 1947, privately owned). The boy grew up as an adoptive child in a Rabbi’s family in Boston and studied physics. 

Irene-und-Machiel-Appel
Irene Appel née Löwenthal and her husband Machiel Appel


References


Korrespondenz Maier/Clothilde Löwenthals mit einem Bad Kissinger Bekannten, Briefe in Privatbesitz
Bundesarchiv Koblenzexterner Link
Yad Vashem Zentrale Datenbank..externer Link
Joods Monumentexterner Link
Meldeunterlagen Stadt Bad Kissingen
Informationen Hans-Jürgen Beck, Mail, 23. April 2022: Einzelheiten zur Deportation von Irene und Machiel Appel

Photo credits


© Bild in Privatbesitz



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