Ilse Holzmann is the younger sister of Margot and Charlotte Holzmann, who are also listed in this memorial book. Their parents were Paul and Hulda Holzmann, born Bernstein. Ilse was born in Wroclaw in 1916, where the family lived before moving to Halle/Saale (Magdeburgerstr. 13^th) in the 1920s.

The mother, Hulda Holzmann, died at the age of only 32on 15 April 1925. Ilse was 8 years old at the time. Presumably because traveling extensively as a merchant, the father gave his daughters in the care of the home "Isenburg". Ilse and Charlotte Holzmann arrived in Neu-Isenburg at the end of October 1926. Their older sister Margot stayed here already since the summer of 1925.

In the spring of 1928, the girls returned to Halle to their father. In 1929, Paul Holzmann married for the second time. Margot, Charlotte and Ilse now lived in the household of their father and their stepmother Lea (Leonore), born Grünbaum. Ilse applied to the School of Applied Arts in Halle, but was refused because she was Jewish. She was destitute and reliant on the support of her father and her eldest sister.

Presumably in the mid-1930s, the three sisters moved to Berlin, where Ilse worked in a Jewish household and in a steam laundry. When the company was "Aryanised" in 1938, Ilse Holzmann lost her job. Shortly before the beginning of the war she succeeded in emigrating to England in January 1939.

Sources: Stadtarchiv Neu-Isenburg; Margot Holzmanns Biographie wurde von Ingeborg Boxhammer erforscht und veröffentlicht: Marta Halusa und Margot Liu. Die lebenslange Liebe zweier Tänzerinnen. Jüdische Miniaturen, Bd. 175, Hentrich & Hentrich Verlag, Berlin 2015; https://www.geni.com/people/Ilse/6000000070249459841 (opens in a new tab)