Hedwig Baruch grew up with her parents, Jacob and Regina Baruch née Landsberg, in Elberfeld. Before she married Hugo Israel from Langenberg on December 24, 1923, she had completed training as a teacher. The internship which she completed in 1938 at “Heim Isenburg,” was presumably part of this training.

The couple Hugo and Hedwig Israel had two children. The son was rescued from Germany by children’s transport, and he survived the Shoah. The daughter Eva Regina lived with her parents in the Ghetto house, Briller Straße 34 in Wuppertal. The 15-year-old was deported in April 1942 along with 63 other residents of the ghetto house to the Izbica camp near Lublin. Hedwig and Hugo Israel were deported on July 21, 1942, from Düsseldorf to ghetto Theresienstadt. There, Hedwig Israel died on the morning of August 3, 1943, at 9.10 am of pneumonia according to the death certificate. Her husband was transported to the Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp on September 28, 1944. No trace of him exists from there on.

Quellen: Gedenkbuch des Bundesarchivs: Opfer der Verfolgung der Juden unter der nationalsozialistischen Gewaltherrschaft in Deutschland 1933 - 1945; Datenbank der Theresienstädter Häftlinge, Institut Theresienstädter Initiative: https://www.holocaust.cz/de/opferdatenbank/opfer/16633-hedwig-israel/ (opens in a new tab)