us-005578-irn524209-irn519060
type: RecordSet
physical characterisitics and technical requirements: a. Small, circular, irregularly edged, thin, flat, translucent flake of the mineral, mica. b. Irregularly shaped, rectangular, thin, flat, translucent flake of the mineral, mica.
conditions of access: No restrictions on access
conditions of use: No restrictions on use
has beginning date: 1944-01-01
has end date: 1945-12-31
has or had holder: us-005578
has or had identifier: 1
has record set type: Item
history: The mica flakes were donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2007 by Ruth Gabriele S. Silten, the daughter of Ilse Silten, the daughter of Fritz and Ilse Silten.
history: Ilse Teppich was the eldest of three daughters born to a Jewish family in Berlin, Germany, on February 23, 1909. Her mother, Gertrude Herz Teppich, was born on February 12, 1880, in Berlin and her father, Richard, was born on June 27, 1869, in Koenigsberg, Prussia. Her oldest sister, Anita, died at the age of eight and her younger sister, Ursula [Ulle], was born on December 6, 1914, in Berlin. An assimilated family, they did not observe Jewish holidays or laws nor attend synagogue. Her father owned a dry cleaning business in the city and they lived in a large apartment and employed domestic help. When Ilse finished secondary school, she was sent to a finishing school in Switzerland and she studied to be a photographer. Her father died on July 18, 1931. She married Fritz Silten on August 6, 1931. Fritz, a pharmacist, worked in his father Ernst’s pharmacy, the Kaiser Friedrich Apotheke. Ilse gave up her commercial photography career and became a homemaker giving birth to the couple's only child, a daughter named Gabriele, on May 30, 1933. Hitler’s rise to power in 1933 led to increasingly severe restrictions on Jews. By January 1, 1938, German Jews were prohibited from operating businesses and trade. Her father-in-law was forced to sell his pharmacy and her husband, concerned about his family’s safety, left for Amsterdam in September 1938. He established a pharmaceutical processing and distribution business and sent for Ilse and Gabriele. In 1939, her father-in-law sent his wife, Marta, to live with them while he remained in Berlin. In May 1940, German troops occupied Amsterdam and in 1941 the Amsterdam ghetto was established. Most of the city’s Jews were forced to live there. Because Fritz had been appointed by the Germans to the Jewish council, the Silten’s were allowed to remain in their home. On November 18, 1942, Ilse’s mother received a notice of deportation from Berlin to Auschwitz concentration camp and committed suicide. Her father-in-law, Ernst, was arrested…
identifier: irn519060
is or was included in: us-005578-irn524209
record resource extent: a: Height: 2.500 inches (6.35 cm) | Width: 2.870 inches (7.29 cm) b: Height: 1.500 inches (3.81 cm) | Width: 4.120 inches (10.465 cm)
results or resulted from: 1
scope and content: Mica flakes from the glimmer [mica] factory near Theresienstadt where Ilse Silten was forced to work. The work of splitting the mineral mica into flakes created a dust that caused lung diseases among the workers. In 1939, Ilse, her husband, Fritz, and 10 year old daughter Ruth, fled Berlin for Amsterdam. Not long after Germany occupied Amsterdam in 1940, the family was sent to Westerbork transit camp. In January 1944, they were deported to Theresienstadt labor/ghetto camp in Czechoslovakia. The Germans abandoned Theresienstadt in May 1945. Ilse and her family returned to Amsterdam. She died in February 1977 from lung disease contracted while working in the factory.
title: Two pieces of mica from a forced laborer in a glimmer factory [mica]