Alice Brigitta Leyser

Alice Brigitta Rechnitz was born on 4 November 1920 in Stolp in Poland. Stolp is a town on the coast 120 km from Gdansk. In February 1939 Gitta Rechnitz flees from Berlin to the Netherlands. In the Werkdorp Wieringermeer Gitta meets her future husband, Lothar Lazarus Leyser. They fall in love. After the German invasion they marry. Gitta is heavily pregnant at the time. Abel Herzberg, then director of the Werkdorp, is one of their witnesses on 23 September 1940. The other witness is Helene Hirsch, wife of the former director Moshe Katznelson. Daughter Gabriëlle Rebekka (Gabi) was born on 27 October 1940 in Amsterdam, where Lothar’s mother had already found refuge with her elderly parents.

After the Werkdorp was closed for good in August 1941, Lothar and Gitta ended up in Huizen with their little daughter. They lived in the garden house of a house at Patrijslaan 1.

Lothar worked in private gardens in the Huizen area. Gitta is expecting their second child. Daughter (Judith Ursela Lea) Ürsel was born on 23 January 1942 in Naarden, probably in the hospital there. In November 1942, all Jews in the Gooi region had to move to Amsterdam. The young family moved in with mother Gertrud, at Dintelstraat 34-hs.

On Sunday 20 June 1943 Lothar and Gitta and their children were rounded up in one of the large successive razzias and put on the train to Westerbork via Muiderpoort station. He had a sperr and she, his wife, too, but nevertheless, a few weeks later, on 6 July 1943, they were put on a transport to Sobibor, where all four were killed immediately upon arrival, on 9 July.

Gitta’s parents were put on the 15 East transport from Berlin to Madjenek and Sobibor on 13 June 1942. They were both killed immediately upon arrival.