Beigel Family Collection

Liane Melitta Beigel (née Bick) was born in Berlin, Germany on March 2, 1926; her sister Norma Evelyn Friedman (née Bick), was born November 16, 1927, also in Berlin. They were the daughters of Martin and Hildegard Bick. Liane Bick attended elementary school from 1932 to 1940; in 1941 she went on to study in a Jewish commercial school until it was closed by the Nazis. In 1941 their mother died. In 1942 Liane together with her father and sister were arrested by the Gestapo. They never saw their father again. Liane and Norma were first sent to the camp in Terezin (Theresienstadt), then to Auschwitz in 1944, and were liberated from Bergen-Belsen in May 1945 by the British army. After the liberation in 1945, Liane and Norma spent the next two years in Sweden. Liane worked first in Sigtuna in a hospital’s kitchen, and then in an office in Stockholm, having learned Swedish well. Meanwhile, Norma was recovering from tuberculosis and malnourishment in a clinic in Uttran.

Liane and Norma Bick immigrated to New York, USA in 1947. Liane Bick married Horst Beigel on June 5,1948 in New York City and in 1949 had a daughter Larraine. Liane Beigel worked part-time office jobs but was unable to keep them due to the traumatic effects of the war on her physical and psychological state. She died in 2002.

Norma Bick married Sam Friedman on Nov 19, 1950, in Brooklyn and the couple had three children: Martin, born 1951, Robert, born 1953, Andrew, born 1956. Norma Friedman died in 1997.

Horst Siegbert Beigel, known in the USA as Bert, was born June 1, 1926, in Berlin. His brother Gerald (Gerhard) Beigel, born 1928, Berlin and his father Leo Beigel, born 1901, in Kosten were the only survivors of their 35 family members, who perished in the camps. Horst Beigel attended elementary school from 1932-1938, then from 1938-1939 the Jewish commercial school in Pankow, Berlin until he was forced to quit school and report to the Employment Office to do compulsory labor until 1942. From 1942-1943 Horst lived illegally in Berlin until his arrest. From 1943-1945 he was in camp Buna in Auschwitz and was forced to work for I.G. Farbenindustrie A.G. In 1945 Horst escaped from the death march and walked back to Berlin where he remained in hiding until the end of the war. In 1946 he arrived in New York City. Horst was a successful real estate broker. He died on January 26, 2009, in Clearwater, Florida.