Tag #157167 - Interview #78001 (Salomea Gemrot)

Mother's second sister, Berta, got married in Rzeszow, which was in Austria at that time, wasn't it? [Editor's note: Rzeszow was part of Galicia at the time.] So there was this Sternszus family in Rzeszow, a very respectable family, elegant, assimilated - of course Germanized. And one of those Sternuszuses married Berta out of great love. They later changed their name to Star. They settled in Germany, in Cologne on the River Rhein, and they opened a business there, just like the one they had in Rzeszow, that is they purchased dairy products from farmers in the area. They were quite successful. Berta had three sons. I remember one of them was named Erich. She also had a daughter called Roza. And this daughter, Roza Star, who was a pianist and a soprano, was employed at the theater in Cologne and she was a soloist there. She was very popular, but she didn't get married. There was a concentration camp near Lodz [Chelmno on the River Ner, an extermination camp, operated from November 1941 until April 1943. Since 1942 Jews from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia were also murdered there]. They deported them all there and Roza died there with her theater troupe.