VIDEO– Woman Returns 75-Year-Old Holocaust Letter to Family: ‘Thrilled Beyond Words’

A letter penned over 75 years ago at the close of the Holocaust was spotted at a New York flea market and is now in the hands of a family descendant.

Ilse Loewenberg jumped off a moving train bound for the Auschwitz concentration camp, escaping to Berlin for several months, ABC 7 reported Thursday.

However, she was captured again and was transported to a prison in Berlin.

Chelsey Brown works as an interior designer and heirloom detective whose hobby has garnered a lot of attention recently.

She searches the thrift stores, antique fairs, and flea markets of New York City and reunites items with their family’s descendants.

Video footage showed her looking through documents:

Heirloom detective Chelsey Brown returns thrifted items to their original owner’s family

She recently found a letter sent from a Holocaust survivor in Berlin in 1945. Check out more trending stories on ITK: https://bit.ly/39pSMAR

Posted by In The Know on Thursday, January 27, 2022

Not long ago, she came upon a letter mailed from Berlin in 1945 from Ilse to her sister, Carla, the sole family member to live through the Holocaust.

Brown noted, “Even though I couldn’t understand the translation because it was written in German — I can’t speak German — she signed her name ‘Ilse,’ so I knew this was written by her.”

The note told Carla some sad news:

“Through the kindness of our liberators, I am able to give you a sign of life from me after so many years,” she wrote in July of 1945. “Dad, Mom, Grete, Lottchen and Hermann: no one is alive anymore. My pain is unspeakably big. My husband, whom I married 3.5 years ago, was also taken from me!… When there will be a regular mail connection, I will tell you everything in detail.”

Carla and her husband did not have children, but his brother, Ludwig, apparently did.

Jill Butler, who is Ludwig’s granddaughter, had a close relationship with Loewenberg, and through records Brown located using MyHeritage.com, she was able to contact Butler, who resides in New Jersey, to hand over the letter.

Butler was unsure what to think at first but realized Brown simply wanted to return the special note.

Letter from Holocaust survivor found at flea market decades later Courtesy Chelsey Brown(NEW YORK) — Thrift stores,…

Posted by KTBB 97.5FM on Thursday, January 27, 2022

“Now every time I do a return, I think of her and I think of her incredible story,” Brown commented.

Carla and Ilse later found each other in New York and lived out their days together.

“My whole family is truly in awe of all you have done for us,” Butler said of the gesture.”We all loved our Great-Aunt Ilse and are thrilled beyond words to read her thoughts in her own handwriting after she emerged from the depths of the European inferno.”

“May God bless your noble work and may you receive many blessings in return for all you do for families like mine,” she added.

COMMENTS

Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.