Dr. Herman Tersch (1895-1976), an Austrian Jew, was born on October 8, 1895 in Vienna to Adolf and Amalia Tersch (nee Schmied). Prior to World War II, he earned a doctoral law degree from the University of Vienna but never practiced law. Herman’s wife Josephine Tersch (1899-1984) was born on June 6, 1899 in Vienna. Josephine’s family was not Jewish. She was a housewife. They had two daughters, Gertrude “Trudi” (June 2, 1924-October 12, 2006) and Edith (b. March 3, 1928).
In 1938, Herman was fired from his job at an export company. On one occasion, Tersch and other Jews were forced to scrub the streets of Vienna with toothbrushes. The day following Kristallnacht, Tersch was expected to report to the Social Security office in order to collection his unemployment payment. Instead, Tersch signed over power of attorney to his wife Josephine, who was not Jewish, and she went to the office to collect the payment.
Desperate to leave Vienna and immigrate to the United States, Tersch reached out to various organizations. Raymond E. Law (b. 12/11/1894), the president of the Exchange National Bank in Chicago and a Catholic, filed an affidavit in support of the Tersch family. The Tersch family left Vienna on August 24, 1939 with two steamer trunks and 10 Austrian schillings per person. The family was delayed for six weeks in Trieste, Italy. With limited financial resources, the family depended on a loan from a former co-worker of Herman’s and unnamed Jewish agencies. The family set sail on the Saturnia and arrived in New York, New York on October 12, 1939. The next day the family traveled to Chicago, Illinois, where they settled. In preparation for the family’s arrival, Law had rented a furnished apartment in Hyde Park, Chicago, and stocked the pantry. Several other refugees had settled in the area of Hyde Park.
The Tersch family sent correspondence and money to family members in Europe. However, correspondence stopped in 1941.
Norbert Tersch, an Austrian Jew, was born on December 11, 1899 to Adolf and Amalia Tersch (nee Schmied). He was the brother of Herman Tersch and was deported with Transport 1 from Vienna to Opole Lubelskie, Poland on February 15, 1941. According to family testimony he died in 1942.
Ernestine Tersch (nee Batscha, b. 9/26/1862), Herman’s stepmother, was deported from Vienna to Theresienstadt concentration camp on July 15, 1942. She died at Theresienstadt on July 29, 1942.
Gertrude married Norman Kimmel (b. 7/27/1924) on July 9, 1945. They had two sons, Robert Alan born on July 21, 1950 and Lawrence David born on April 2, 1954. Edith married Walter J. Strauss, a refugee from Germany who had served with the United States Army, on September 8, 1949. They met while pursuing their bachelor's degrees at the University of Chicago. They had two children, Lynn Janice Strauss born on May 24, 1953 and Jeffery David born on May 16, 1955.
