Elsie (Ilse) Phillips, née Hamburger came from a long-established Jewish family whose roots in Kissingen can be traced back to the 17^th century. Since the 18^th century, their ancestors had been butchers. Elsie was born on October 23, 1923 as the daughter of Heinrich Hamburger and his wife Rosa, née Walter from Sugenheim. The family owned a butchery in Grabengasse 9. The little girl spent a happy childhood there in her first years of life until ostracism against the family began with the Nazis’ seizure of power. Elsie Phillips remembers the boycott against their butchery, “brownshirts” (The Nazis wore brown shirts.) and their parades. Her parents were no longer allowed to hire employees for the butchery. One day, she had to sit apart from her fellow students. Nobody dared talk to her from that time on, as people doing that faced the danger of sanctions which they had been threatened with. (Saale-Zeitung, Mit dem Boykott fing damals alles an, October 15, 1988). The young woman, who described herself “a passionate swimmer”, was no longer allowed to swim in the Municipal Swimmingpool in the Saale River as there was a ban for Jews to use swimmingpools in 1933. 

The Hamburgers realized early that they had to leave Germany as the life for Jewish citizens became increasingly unbearable. Her parents sent the 13-year-old girl to the United States on October 26, 1936 before they themselves started their escape with their younger daughter Ruth a year later. There, Ilse changed her first name into Elsie, repressed the German language and married the Polish Jew Harry Phillips who had also fled from the Nazis in 1946. She lived with him in Dumas in the State of Arkansas; their first daughter Rose Maria was born there in September 1948. In March 1953, their younger daughter Susan followed.

In 1988, Susan persuaded her mother to accept the invitation of the Kissingen Mayor Georg Straus to visit her hometown again after 53 years. That was surely no easy step after her bitter experiences of the 1930s. Elsie Phillips declared, nevertheless, that she had never hated but was glad that she didn’t live in Germany any longer. “Germany didn’t want us. Therefore, I became an American – and I’ll stay to be one” (Saale-Zeitung, October 15, 1988). In spite of that, she was happy because of the joy of reunion, the talks and the exchange of good and bitter memories.” 

 Elsie’s husband died in August 1993, she died seven years later at the age of 77, on November 9, 2000 in Pickens/ Arkansas.