Holocaust survivor dies at 100

Trude Simonsohn was a "remarkable, outstanding woman," said Frankfurt Jewish community chief Salomon Korn on Thursday.

Announcing the death of the 100-year-old, who for decades bore public witness to Nazi atrocities, Korn praised her for "campaigning for reconciliation and respectful coexistence in our country."

Born Trude Gutmann in Olomouc, in what is now the Czech Republic, in 1921, she was the only child of German-Czech parents. Her parents were politically progressive and would eventually both be deported by the Nazis and murdered in concentration camps.

Following the assassination of high-ranking SS officer Reinhard Heydrich by the Czech resistance, Simonsohn was caught up in the wave of reprisals against Czech civilians that followed. She was convicted of treason and illegal communist activity.

In the Theresienstadt camp, she met Berthold Simonsohn, whom she married before they were both deported to Auschwitz.

Trained as a nurse, social worker

After the war, the couple emigrated to Switzerland, where they worked for a Jewish refugee aid organization. She trained as a nurse and a social worker and began caring for traumatized and ill Jewish children whose parents had been murdered by the Third Reich.

In 1950, the Simonsohns returned to Germany, first to Hamburg and then Frankfurt, to take on social work and counseling for the local Jewish communities. 

From 1975, Trude regularly gave speaking engagements at German schools, testifying to her experience in the concentration camps.

She was the recipient of numerous prizes, including the Ignatz Bubis Prize for Understanding.