Wilhelm Neuburger was born on February 5, 1896 to the silk goods wholesaler Isidor Neuburger and his wife Alice. During the First World War he volunteered for military service and fought in Serbia. After the end of the war, Wilhelm Neuburger joined the family business. In his spare time, he enjoyed skiing; he even won a Bavarian ski championship. In 1925, he met Irene Gundelfinger at a ball and married her one year later. On Fridays, he often surprised his wife with a gift of flowers or a book. The couple had two daughters: Erica Else, born in 1927, and Marion Therese, born in 1930. The Neuburgers lived in a villa at Innstraße 18. The Nazi seizure of power drastically changed the life of this Jewish family. At the end of 1936 Wilhelm and Irene Neuburger emigrated with their daughters to Amsterdam, where Wilhelm Neuburger opened a stamp shop. With the occupation of the Netherlands by German troops on May 10, 1940 the Neuburgers were subjected to numerous repressive measures. On December 30, 1942 Wilhelm Neuburger, his wife and daughters, were taken to “Hollandsche Schouwburg” assembly camp in Amsterdam and from there to Westerbork transit camp on January 14, 1943. Because Irene Neuburger's mother, who lived in Switzerland, had obtained passports for them to Uruguay and because Irene Neuburger had held an English passport since birth, the family evaded deportation to Auschwitz extermination camp. In February 1944 the SS deported Wilhelm Neuburger together with Irene, Erica and Marion Neuburger to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Because of their foreign passports, they were considered “preferential prisoners” and were sent to the so-called exchange camp for Jewish hostages. Wilhelm Neuburger contracted typhus and diarrhea and died on January 22, 1945. Nor did his wife and his mother survive the Shoah. His daughters Erica and Marion were liberated by the Red Army while on a death march near Riesa. They moved in with their grandmother in Switzerland after the end of the war. (text Irene Shilling, editor C. Fritsche, translation T. Axelrod)
