Edith Moses Mayer correspondence

Edith Mayer (1929-2017) was born Edith Moses on September 20, 1929 in Glan-Münchweiler, Germany, to Ludwig Moses (April 10, 1901-June 1947), a farmer, and Martha Heilbronn Moses (September 27, 1905-September 1942), a housewife. In March 1939, she was sent on an Œuvre de secours aux enfants (OSE) children's transport to France and spent time in a children's home. Sponsored by the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), she immigrated to the United States on September 22, 1941 aboard the SS Serpa Pinto as part of a U.S. Committee for the Care of European Children (USCOM) transport. Her father was arrested during Kristallnacht in 1938, imprisoned at Zweibrücken and Dachau, and released in April 1939. Her parents were deported to France in October 1940 and imprisoned at Gurs. In September 1942 her mother was transferred to Drancy and Auschwitz and killed. Her father may have been transferred to Rivesaltes before also being transferred to Drancy and then Auschwitz in September 1942. He was assigned to the Auschwitz subcamps at Laurahütte and Blechhammer, transferred to Buchenwald in February 1945, and liberated in April 1945. He returned to Glan-Münchweiler and passed away in June 1947. Edith passed away in New Jersey on September 19, 2017. The Edith Moses Mayer correspondence primarily consists of postwar letters Ludwig Moses addressed from Germany to his daughter Edith and other relatives in the United States. The correspondence also includes a 1942 letter Edith wrote from Baltimore to her parents in the Gurs concentration camp in France and a 1944 letter to Edith from a maternal relative in New Jersey. Edith’s 1942 letter was returned to her, likely because it did not reach Gurs before her parents were deported to Auschwitz.