Elisabeth Plaut, née Kronthal was born in Garitz (now a suburb of Bad Kissingen) on November 2, 1929 as the second child of Ferdinand Kronthal and his wife Kläre, née Reinstein. Her father came from Obbach near Schweinfurt and her mother was born in Gochsheim and had also grown up there. After the wedding, the parents had moved to Garitz where their two children were born. In 1933, the parents divorced, Ferdinand moved to his relatives in Obbach and worked on his father’s farm. In April 1942, he was deported to Krasniczyn and murdered in the vicinity of Lublin.

Elisabeth and her brother were temporarily placed in “Wilhelmspflege”, a Jewish Orphanage near Esslingen. They managed to flee to the United States just like their mother.

In March 1940, Elisabeth, her mother and her brother Werner went on board the “Pennland” in Antwerp and emigrated to the USA. In New York, they were first taken care of by Kläre’s brother Julius. According to US Census 1940, at that time, 10-year-old Elisabeth, her mother, her uncle Julius and his wife, and their aunt Thekla lived in a shared apartment in Manhattan. Her brother Werner lived in Manhattan, too.

In 1952, Elisabeth Kronthal married (Gotthelf) Joseph Plaut from Frielendorf in Hessian Marburg. They had a daughter and two sons who were born in New York between 1956 and 1960 (Descendants of Eichanon Haune Plat, 5^th generation, Nr. 136).

She died on September 26, 1986 at the age of 56. Her husband outlived her by nearly two decades and died in September 2008 at the age of 84.