Ogutsch and Katz Family Collection

Wilhelm Ogutsch was born in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, on June 17, 1893. He studied religion and music to become a cantor and religious teacher. He received an Honorary Cross for Combatants for serving in World War 1 until he was wounded in 1916,. He moved to Berlin to resume his music studies and started working at an orphanage for a few years. He also passed his second teacher examination there. In 1921 he moved to Essen, Germany, to work as a cantor and teacher of Jewish religion. He continued to teach until he and his wife Erna were deported to Theresienstadt in 1942. There he worked as an advisor at a children’s home. Wilhelm worked with others teaching the children and holding religious services. He worked until he had no energy left due to malnutrition and sicknesses. He died of pneumonia at the age of 50.

Erna Ogutsch, née Katz, was born in Witzenhausen, Germany, on January 12, 1893. She got married to Wilhelm on December 14, 1925. They were deported to Theresienstadt on July 20, 1942. Prior to their deportation they sent their daughter Edith on Kindertransport to London, England. Erna survived Theresienstadt and was rescued by the allies. She immigrated to the United States in 1947 where she reunited with her daughter and her sister Emmy Katz. Erna died in January 1972 in New York City.

Edith Ogutsch was born in Essen, Germany, on January 30, 1929. When she was ten years old, she was sent to London, England, by Kindertransport and was eventually adopted by the British family Acker in Manchester. They had hotels in different places and Edith helped out working in them. After living with the Ackers for eight years, she immigrated to the US in July 1947 and became a naturalized citizen in 1953. She was a poet, and many of her poems were published in magazines such as Good Housekeeping, the New Yorker and Reader’s Digest. She was found dead on her kitchen floor in Los Angeles, CA, on February 25, 1990. Notes in her diary indicate that she had been very ill prior to her death.

Emmy Katz was born in Witzenhausen, Germany, on November 27, 1896. She managed to leave Germany before the war in 1939 and escaped to London, where she worked as a servant for a family until the end of the war. She immigrated to the U.S. in 1947 where she reunited with her sister Erna Ogutsch. Emmy died on November 27, 1977 in New York.