United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Processing history: Colleen Benoit, May 2016; biography updated by Adam Fielding, February 2025
Susan Warsinger was born Susi Hilsenrath on May 27, 1929 in Bad Kreuznach, Germany to Israel Hilsenrath (1902-1984) and Annie Hilsenrath (1908-1972), Susan had two younger brothers: Joseph Hilsenrath (b. 1930) and Ernest Hilsenrath (b. 1938). Mr. Hilsenrath owned a successful linen store, and Mrs. Hilsenrath took care of Susan and her brothers. After the Nazis came to power in 1933, the Hilsenraths began to feel the effects of increased antisemitism. Due to antisemetic legislation in Germany, Susan was forced to leave public school and attend a Jewish school. Mr. Hilsenrath was forced to display a sign indicating his store was a Jewish-owned business. With fewer customers, he then had to close the business and sell fruit door-to-door. The family moved from their house to an apartment building. During Kristallnacht in November 1938, the family’s apartment windows were smashed and their belongings were destroyed. The Hilsenraths hid in the building’s attic for three days. After the pogrom, they made plans to emigrate from Germany to the United States, but immigration quotas limited their chances. Mr. and Mrs. Hilsenrath used the family’s savings to pay a French woman to smuggle Susan and Joseph to France by train. Ernest remained with his parents. Susan and Joseph met a third cousin in Paris and resided with him for a few weeks before arrangements were made for them to relocate to a children’s home in the suburbs. In May 1940, the German army invaded France. Susan and Joseph fled with many others to Versailles, where they were temporarily housed in Louis XIV’s palace. Soon German soldiers arrived and the children fled with their guardians to the Vichy-controlled unoccupied zone of France. With the assistance of the aid organization Oeuvre de Secour aux Enfants, they were sheltered at the Château des Morelles in the village of Broût-Vernet near Vichy. After a year, with the help of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (Hias), the American Friends Service Committee, and the US Committee for the Care of European Children, Susan and Joseph received permission to immigrate to the United States. After crossing the Pyrenees into Spain, the two sailed from Lisbon, Portugal to New York in September 1941. They were reunited with their parents and Ernest, already in the United States by February 1940. The family settled in Washington, D.C. Susan attended an Americanization school to learn English before attending junior and senior high school. She continued her studies at the University of Maryland where she received her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees. On December 25th, 1948, Susan married Irving Warsinger (1924-2006). Irving had served in the US Army during the war. The couple had three daughters. Susan taught in the Prince George’s County Maryland school system for 27 years. She is now a volunteer for the US Holocaust Memorial Museum.
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Copyright Holder: Ms. Susan Warsinger
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The Susan Warsinger papers are arranged as single series.
The Susan Warsinger (Hilsenrath) papers comprise documents and photographs related to Susan Warsinger’s Holocaust experiences as a Jewish child from Bad Kreuznach, Germany who took refuge in France from 1939 until she immigrated to the United States in 1941. Much of the collection pertains to Susan’s life while living in the OSE home Chateau les Morelles in Broût-Vernet, France, which she describes in a diary and through a series of correspondence to her parents and little brother in the United States. Also comprised is correspondence with the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society and American Friends Service Committee as well as identification documents for herself and her brother. Photographs included in this collection largely depict the Hilsenrath family in Bad Kreuznach, Germany before the outbreak of World War II.
Susan Warsinger papers