Gertrude Eckert (*1919) remembers:
When Emilie and Abraham Strauss died
The elder Mrs. Strauss died when I was a little girl. However, I still recall a
situation when I was sitting by the window, and she was resting in a deckchair on a
pillow. She was already a very sick women at the time. I remember exactly that my
mother said: ”You have to be very quiet since Mrs. Strauss is quite ill.”
The family physician at the time was most likely Dr. Richard at the ”Gartenstrasse”.
The Jews did not have a visiting nurse, for that the Jewish congregation was too
small. The catholic parish nuns from ”Joseph’s Home” were responsible for that
service. They cared for the elder Mrs. Strauss, and later on for Abraham also.
Abraham was bedridden and had to be cared for due to a stroke, I believe. Anyway, the
parish nuns came and cared for him. At that time the Strauss family sent laundry baskets
full of all kinds of things to the ”Joseph’s Home”, especially on Christian holydays.
Those gifts were for the children and the nuns. Out of gratitude they used
to take a basket of goodies on Holydays to the ”Home”, containing e.g. bags of coffee
for the nuns. Some of our schoolmates came from ”Joseph’s Home”. Orphaned
children or children from endangered families of the region used to live at the
”Joseph’s Home”. Those children used to attend the public schools. They were well
taken care of at ”Joseph’s Home”. When I was a child I used to get together with
some of them on Sundays, and we played and did all kinds of stuff.