Ilse Franziska Felicitas Frankenbusch Part 1

Ilse Franziska Felicitas Frankenbusch was born on the 9th November 1915 in Unter-Polan, a place in what was then Czechslovakia.  Her parents, Rudolf Frankenbusch and Hulda Kohn were both born into Jewish families in Prague and Vienna respectivley but just before they married on the 30th May 1909 Hulda converted and became protestant.  I do not know when Rudolf converted.

Rudolf and Hulda had two children Ilse, and her older sister Anna Gisela Eugenie Frankenbusch.  Initially, they all lived together in Czechslovakia, but after Hulda caught Rudolf having an affair with Johanne Tietze, who was the children's governess, Rudolf and Hulda divorced.  Anna stayed with her father in Czechslovakia and Ilse went to live with her mother in Vienna.

After the divorce, Hulda needed to work, so for about 18 months in the early 1920's she worked for Margaret Draper, an American hieress who had married an Italian Prince, and it was after the marriage ended, when Hulda came to work for her.  Hulda helped Margaret Draper sort out her affairs before she left Europe for America.

During this time, I am not sure where Ilse was living, she was either with her mother in Fiume or living with her grandparents in Vienna.  When her grandfather Rudolf Kohn died in 1924, her grandmother Gisela used her savings and along with Hulda, they opened a hotel in the Viennese woods.  They ran the hotel until Hitler annexed Austria in 1938.

In 1938 Ilse left her mother and grandmother behind in Vienna and fled to England via Holland.  In Holland, Ilse stayed for a little while with her sister Anna, who by this time had married Wim Heniger, a Dutch man.

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