Bertha Nussbaum née Breindel

Bertha Nussbaum was born Ester Breindel on  June 18,  1898 in Rozwadow, Poland. She was the middle of three children. Her older brother Chamel perished in the holocaust and her younger sister Suci, eventually emigrated to Israel.

 With the advent of World War 1,  Bertha was evacuated from her village and went to late Czechoslovakia where she worked in a munitions factory and then in a clothing factory.

She moved to Berlin in  1918, when she married the merchant  Oscar Aron Nussbaum. As a young married woman, she lived quite a privileged life,  enjoying the opera, theatre and other cultural activities. Their sons Paul and Leo were born in 1920 and 1923. The family lived at Lothringer Straße 34/35 (today Torstraße 89) where the home was always full of guests and visitors. They attended the Adass Yisroel synagogue in Artilleriestraße (now Tucholskystraße) and as well as raising her two sons,  Bertha was involved with a number of Jewish organisations.

At the beginning of 1934,  in the face of Nazi terror, Oscar and Bertha decided to leave Germany with their two sons. After travelling to London, the family boarded a ship in Southampton and sailed to Cape Town in South Africa. From Cape Town, they went by train to Bulawayo, Southern Rhodesia, where Bertha had a family member who worked in the local synagogue. There they settled and built a new life.  With her husband Oscar they opened a dress shop called Robertas, and Bertha was known for her warm interpersonal skills and excellent customer service.  Her six grandchildren, Mark, Barbara, Clive, Naomi, Janet and Judy were central to her life and they in turn loved her and respected her, and enjoyed her warm gregarious nature, her humour and her gift for storytelling.

Bertha Nussbaum died in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, on September 16, 1982.