Rita Whipple (née Renate Tannenbaum) was born to Klara Tannenbaum on August 21, 1932, in the Hospital of the Israelite Community, Gagernstr. 36 in Frankfurt am Main. Together with her brother Egon, she lived in the Bertha Pappenheim House for two years (1935-37) before they moved back to Frankfurt with their mother Klara.

Until Renate was six and a half years old, she and her brother Egon stayed in Frankfurt with their mother. After experiencing Reichspogromnacht from a dry floor, Klara fled with the children to China in 1939. There they lived in the Shanghai ghetto until 1949, when they were able to sail on the USS General M. C. Meigs to San Francisco, California, in the United States. After a brief stay in San Francisco, they moved to New York.

Renate had learned English at the Kadoorie School in Shanghai, so she was able to work in the United States. She got a job as a telephone operator, a sales clerk in a department store, and worked on the chocolate box assembly line at Barricini Candies, one of the leading kosher candy manufacturers in America.

From then on, she went by the name 'Rita.'

In the mid-1950s, the family moved to southern Florida. In the meantime, Rita had born four daughters. She worked for many years as a waitress in various delicate shops and diners. She loved to crack jokes and entertain her customers until she retired at the age of 74.

Rita loved leopard print and costume jewelry, loved to dance and made sure no one left her house hungry. Her meatballs were the best and she could make something delicious out of nothing. Her house was full of dolls, teddy bears and fun things that she had to do without as a child. If her visitor took a liking to one of her "museum pieces," she gladly gave it to them. She was kind, loving and generous. She accepted everyone without judging him, and treated everyone she met with the same cordiality, whether he was rich or poor.

In 2019, her daughter and its partner began making a documentary film about Rita's life in Germany, Shanghai and in America. The film shows the complicated facets of the Shoah, the exile, and what it means to be German and Jewish. It also documents the long-term impact on a family.

While researching this film, the daughter and her partner came across the page in this memorial book and contacted the city of Neu-Isenburg. It turned out that Renate, who later became Rita, did not even know who her father was. Her daughter requested Rita's birth certificate from the city of Frankfurt. The name of the father - Wilhelm Eckhardt - was noted on it.

Wilhelm Eckhardt had recognized her as his daughter eight months after her birth. Apart from the father's name, only an address in Frankfurt was known. Through an entry in a house book the birthplace of the father - Sterbfritz - became known and so the research on Wilhelm Eckhardt began to intensify. His birth certificate gave a lot of information, but his last will, which could be requested with the help of Rita's birth certificate and a power of attorney, revealed even more information. His life could be well recontructed thanks to these two documents and further research. 

Eckhardt moved from Sterbfritz to Frankfurt in November 1932, but did not live with Klara Tannenbaum. In 1935 he married another woman with whom he moved near Heilbronn. He had a second daughter with whom the film crew met. Through her, a lot more information about him was added. Wilhelm Eckhardt died in a traffic accident in 1964.

On her 90th birthday, Rita received all the information about her father in a video call. She was beside herself with joy and spoke to her interlocutors in an almost fluent German with a Hessian tinge. Rita had found her father at the age of 90 and came a little closer to him through his researched life story. 

At the screening of the trailer of the film 'Brocken Dolls' on November 10, 2022, Rita was connected via video and spoke to the audience present. 

Although she never returned to Germany after leaving in 1939, she regained her German citizenship in December 2021.

On May 24, 2022, Rita passed away in South Carolina, USA.

Sources: Statdarchiv Neu-Isenburg; Standesamt Frankfurt am Main; Institut für Stadtgeschichte Frankfurt am Main; Standesamt Gemeinde Sinntal; Amtsgericht Heilbronn; conversations with Renate Tannenbaum (Rita Whipple) and her daughter Tracy Whipple in 2021.