Rosalie Eilander was Jewish, originated from the province of Tacovo in Slovakia and left her country to go to Belgium where she arrived with her sister Regina on November 24th 1937. Rosalie lived in Brussels with her cousin, Herman Weider at 101, rue de l’Instruction in Anderlecht and held Czechoslovakian passport no. 26/27, issued on the 6th of November. She did not request the status of political refugee, but simply reported her presence to the Belgian administration in December 1937. In March 1938, she registered at the office for foreigners but gave only as her motivation for coming to Belgium the simple “wish to be near her cousin”.
The Austrian circle
Rosalie rapidly became known by the Belgian intelligence services as politically active, as she belonged to the “Oesterreichischer Kulturverein” (the Austrian cultural society), which was a gathering point for foreigners. They would meet at the Café du Cygne in Brussels. Amongst them figured many exiled communists. According to a report of June 17th 1939, the members of the organization “are very cautious from a political point of view. No clear cases of propaganda have ever been recovered against them.” It was in Brussels that Rosalie was to meet her future husband, Wilhelm Linder. It is written in a police document that she frequented the “Secours populaire” (people welfare) and the Maison des Tramwaymen,( house of Tramwaymen) and we know that Wilhelm also went to these places.
Exodus
After the arrests of May 10th 1940, Rosalie, who was pregnant, was evacuated to France and with a group of other refugees who had come from Benelux, and she was sent to Salleles d’Aude, where she was registered on June 4th 1940. Soon Wilhelm and her brother Bertrold, who had escaped from the St Cyprien camp, joined her. In January 1941, Rosalie and Wilhelm had a son, Raymond, who was born in Narbonne. They married a year later in January 1942.
During the waves of arrests of August 1942, Rosalie, now Linder, found herself on the road again; the group went to Lamalou les Bains. The journey continued, since the group came to settle in St Martin Vésubie in spring 1943. Rosalie and her sister-in-law Gisela Linder Spira took care of the laundry in the launderette that the two families set to earn a little money. In September 1943, the armistice between the allies and Italy was signed, and the group was again in danger. They attempted to flee by heading for Italy via the Alps, where on arrival they fell into the hands of the Wehrmacht and the SS. Rosalie Eilander was interned with her husband and their son in the Borgo San Dalmazzo camp, and they were deported together via Nice to the Drancy camp, and then on the 7th December they were sent on to Auschwitz. On the 12th December on the arrival of convoy 64, Rosalie and her son Raymond were gassed.
