Rosel Kahn, also Rose, was the youngest of the three daughters of Berthold and Selma Kahn and was born in Mainz on March 20, 1930. She grew up with her sisters Hilde and Inge in the family home at Spelzengasse 47, where her father ran a butcher's shop. 

In 1937, the family was forced to sell their house and business in Spelzengasse. They first moved to Schulstraße in Mainz, and from October 30, 1937 to Adam-Karillon-Straße 52. 

Berthold Kahn had the look-ahead and bought a house in Souleuvre in Luxembourg, where the parents moved with Rosel in December 1938. Her two sisters were able to emigrate to England via an Au-Pair program. 

Rosel attended elementary school in Souleuvre until Luxembourg was invaded by the German Wehrmacht on May 10, 1940. She fled with her mother on a bicycle to Metz, was arrested there and interned in the Gurs concentration camp. 

Her father was arrested in Luxembourg and interned separately in various camps. The internment in Gurs was followed by deportation to Aix-en-Provence. She was able to escape from there and lived in various illegal apartments from 1940 to 1944. Rosel emphasizes in her notes that she and her mother received a great deal of help from the local population. 

In Aix-en-Provence, she was even able to attend elementary school and, from 1942, secondary school. Father Berthold rejoined his family in 1943. After the Allies liberated France in 1944, the family returned to Luxembourg. Rosel completed her schooling there in 1949 with the Abitur (high school diploma). 

On January 16, 1952, Rosel, her parents and her sister Ilse travelled on the French ship "Liberté" from Southampton to the USA. They arrived in New York six days later.

In 1953, she married Paul Ernst Westheimer, who was born in Basel in 1930 and was able to emigrate to the USA with his parents in 1942. The wedding took place in Shoharie, where the parents-in-law ran a farm and the young family created a livelihood for themselves with a vegetable farm.

Daughter Carol Rhoda was born in 1954, son Alan Jay in 1955 and daughter Kim in 1960. 

Rosel became an American citizen on December 7, 1956 and became involved in many ways in her new home country. In 2015 she moved with her husband to Malborough/ Massachusetts/ USA, where she died on May 13, 2021 at the age of 89. She was buried in the Agudat Achim Cemetery, Rotterdam, Schenectady, New York/USA.

(Mechthild Rühl)