Elli Kamm: personal papers on Terezin ghetto

Max Kamm was born in Königshütte, Upper Silesia, in 1879. He moved to Aachen in 1908 where he worked as a self-employed watch wholesale dealer. In the same year he got married to Erna Jellinek. They had two daughters: Helga (b 1909) and Elli (b 1913). Max Kamm served in the army during the First World War. After the war he worked as a representative of watchmakers Adolf Gegenbach in Pforzheim, Baden-Württemberg. The family moved to Cologne in 1928.

Helga studied at the Commercial College in Aachen. She worked as office clerk and secretary until the Aryanisation made it impossible to find work. In 1937 she was secretary for the Hilfsverein der Juden in Deutschland (Relief organisation of Jews in Germany). Elli trained as a nursery school teacher. She founded her own nursery for Jewish children in 1934 which was so successful that she had to employ an assistant. By 1938 large numbers of Jewish children were leaving the country which forced her to close down her business. Elli and Helga emigrated to England in 1939 where they initially worked as household assistants. Elli moved to the United States in 1940 where she worked as a nanny until 1948. She later worked as a retail manager. Helga got married to H H Aronsfeld in 1945.

Their parents' lives became increasingly difficult in Cologne in the late 1930s. Max Kamm was made redundant and the couple lost most of their possessions. They were deported to Riga in December 1941. The couple was taken to another concentration camp, possibly Auschwitz, in November 1943 from where they did not return.