Felix Oestreicher with daughters Helly and Maria, with Lisbeth Oestreicher in background, Holland, 1 June 1941

Felix Oestreicher - Death after liberation

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“In Tröbitz, Wednesday, 2 May 1945.
The children have been the first to recover.
Children behave impeccably, eat everything.
Maria finds it hard to refrain from licking her fingers.
Monday, 14 May 1945
Gerda’s wish to eat her fill of bread has come true.
It is a real effort to make her understand that she has to eat meat.
She wants to save the tins.
We went ahead and opened one, she had a good helping.”

In April 1945 the Soviet army liberates around 2,000 Jewish prisoners from a train that has come to a halt in Tröbitz, in the German state of Brandenburg.
Among the prisoners are the doctor Felix Oestreicher, his wife, Gerda, and their daughters, Beate and Maria.
The family has been deported from the Netherlands to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
A few days before the liberation of the camp, the SS locked them in a train, which was sent on an odyssey through war-ravaged Germany.
Felix Oestreicher is a doctor and writes in his diary about the catastrophic conditions.
He also makes notes about his family.
On 20 May Felix Oestreicher records that his wife, Gerda, has a fever.
He notices that he too has symptoms.
The diary entries stop on 22 May 1945.
Gerda Oestreicher dies of typhus a few days later.
Felix Oestreicher dies on 9 June.
Their daughters, Maria and Beate, are taken to relatives in the Netherlands.