Inside of the concentration camps of the Second
World War, there were many people who found themselves inside of the barbed wire fences.

The camps were true hell on earth, and even
a princess succumbed to the conditions of an SS camp.

People came from all walks of life, and mass
deportations took thousands of people each day to sites such as Bergen-Belsen, Ravensbruck
and Auschwitz.

Inside these camps SS guards such as Irma
Grese, Elizabeth Volkenrath and commandants such as Rudolf Hoess would brutalise and commit
horrific crimes against humanity.

Thousands were executed and millions were
exterminated, and the Nazis did not care about the backgrounds of these people.

There were some parts of concentration camps
which were reserved for high ranking prisoners, or those who the Nazis believed were worth
a prisoner swap.

But sadly many of those people still succumbed
to the diseases and pestilences which were rife at camps within the Third Reich.

There was one woman who belonged to a family
that during the 19th century possessed the largest private fortune in the world, and
a family which were considered the richest in world history.

Elisabeth de Rothschild belonged to the Rothschild
family, but inside of Ravensbruck concentration camp she was brutally executed.

Elisabeth de Rothschild was born in Paris
as Elisabeth Pelletier de Chambure.

Her family were a very wealthy Catholic one
who emerged from the Burgundy region.

She was from good military heritage, as one
of her ancestors including a general in the Napoleonic wars.

She was known as Lily and was the daughter
of August Pelletier de Chambure, who was the Mayor of a small commune in south western
France.

As mentioned her family were wealthy, but
in 1923 Elisabeth married Jonkheer Marc Edouard Marie de Becker -Remy, who was a Belgian aristocrat.

They did have a son named Edouard who was
born a year after their marriage.

But then Elisabeth had an affair, and she
slept with Philippe de Rothschild, a member of the Rothschild banking dynasty, who was
also a Grand Prix motor racing driver and a bit of a wealthy playboy.

The Rothschild family throughout history have
been considered to have been some of the wealthiest people ever to have walked the earth.

They were a jewish family originally from
Frankfurt who today still possess huge business interests and have established a global enterprise.

Today their businesses cover real estate,
mining, energy, and winemaking.

Philippe de Rothschild was the heir and owner
of the Chateau Mouton Rothschild, the most prestigious vineyards and wine estate in the
world at the time.

Elisabeth slept with Philippe and they conceived
a child, but at the time of this child’s birth Elisabeth was still married to Jonkheer,
and he even threatened to kidnap his wife’s illegitimate child with Rothschild.

However Elisabeth would divorce Jonkheer in
1934, and then shortly after Elisabeth and Philippe de Rothschild married that year in
Paris.

But as Elisabeth married the Rothschild heir,
she then converted from Catholicism to Judaism and the religious ceremony was conducted by
the Grand Rabbi of Paris.

Together the Rothschild’s also had a son
named Charles Henri.

Philippe would describe their marriage as
one of great passion, bu also enormous tempestuousness and despair.

They seemed happy at times but there were
also times of Great Depression and anger.

The couple’s problems got worse following
the birth of their son who suffered from disabilities and then died afterwards, and the pair then
agreed to seperate around 1939.

But Elisabeth was a baroness through this
marriage, and she then reverted back to using her maiden name.

But at the time, the Second World War was
breaking out and Europe was plunged into the largest conflict that History had ever seen.

Hitler was invading a number of countries
and he wished to expand his empire, and then the invasion of France came.

It took in total 6 weeks for France to fall
to the Germans, and then parts of the country were placed under German and Italian military
occupation.

German units pushed through the country and
there were huge casualties, civilian and military ones.

But on the 22nd June 1940 the Second Armistice
and Compiegne was signed by France and Germany.

It wouldn’t be until 1944 that the country
was once again liberated from Nazi control by the Allies.

In France the Nazis also began to persecute
the jews, and there were around 49 concentration camps in use in France in which Jews were
sent there.

Many were then sent on to camps such as Auschwitz
where they were exterminated and killed as soon as they arrived.

Jews were forced to wear the Star of David,
and there were mass arrests.

The mortality rate of Jews was lower than
in other occupied lands, and some did manage to flee however ultimately the fates of those
who were deported was a tragic and harrowing one.

However following the German occupation of
France, Elisabeth and her estranged husband were captured and arrested by the Vichy government
and their vineyard property and land was seized along with all the wealth relating to it.

Following their interrogation, they were then
released and Philippe did the smart thing and left France to move to England.

Here he joined the Free French Forces and
would support Charles De Gaulle in his actions, however Elisabeth did not leave France.

In 1941, the Gestapo seed her and she was
arrested on charges of attempting to cross the line of demarcation with a forged permit.

This in a sense meant that she was trying
to flee with false papers, but there was also another rumour and story about her imprisonment.

It was said that in 1941 whilst attending
Elsa Schiaparelli’s fashion show there she showcased new seasonal designs, Elisabeth
was sat next to the wife of the German Ambassador to the Vicky government, Heinrich Otto Abetz.

However Elisabeth found this offensive, and
then changed seats which was seen as a mark of disgrace and it offended the wife of Heinrich
Abetz.

Following this it’s said she was then arrested.

Following her arrest she was imprisoned at
Ravensbruck Concentration Camp.

This was an all female camp in which 132,000
prisoners would be housed inside of the barbed wire fences.

It’s believed that up to 90,000 people were
killed inside of Ravensburck, and the women here were forced to live with horrific treatment
on a daily basis.

They had to put up with psychopathic SS guards
who would whip and beat them, and also turn pistols on them and execute those who they
didn’t believe were working hard enough.

One prisoner said, ‘We were to die of misery,
hunger and exhaustion.

.

.

when we arrived at Ravensbrück, it was the worst.

The first thing I saw was a cart with all
the dead piled on it.

Their arms and legs hanging out, and mouths
and eyes wide open.

They reduced us to nothing.

We didn’t even feel like we had the value
of cattle.

You worked and you died.

’ Whilst at Ravensburck, Elisabeth de Rothschild
was simply just another prisoner to the SS guards there.

She may have been persecuted due to her conversion
to Judaism also, and this would not have also helped her cause.

She may have been marked as a political prisoner
too.

The true story of Elisabeth’s downfall and
death and execution would be uncovered by her estranged husband Philippe.

When he returned to France he learned that
the Gestapo had deported his wife to Ravensbruck in 1941 and that she had managed to survive
there for a period of around 4 years.

However on the 23rd March 1943, she died within
Ravensbruck.

It was claimed and reported that Elisabeth
died from a huge typhus epidemic which was sweeping through the female camp in the final
days of the war.

This disease and pestilence was incredibly
deadly, but Philippe her husband then made an even more shocking claim about her execution.

When writing his memoir, he stated that Elisabeth
was instead executed by being thrown into the over at Ravensbruck Concentration Camp
alive.

This would have meant she was taken to the
crematoria, where guards would have forced her into the ovens either under sedation or
with her kicking and screaming.

The SS did have history in doing this, as
a number of former SOE spies inside of a concentration camp were injected with a sedative and then
thrown inside of the crematoria alive.

Around this time in the war, the Nazis were
evacuating mass transports of women, and many were being forced on death marches where they
were executed.

They tried to remove and kill s many prisoners
as they could, and they would execute prisoners on mass to wipe out any information of their
crimes getting out.

It’s possible that Elisabeth’s reputation
could have also led to her execution.

But during the Second World War, Elisabeth
de Rothschild was the only member of the Rothschild family to be executed or murdered in the holocaust
and during the conflict.

She was a woman who fell in love with an incredibly
wealthy French Baron and who was a member of the hugely rich family that owned one of
the most famous vineyards in France.

But Elisabeth was a woman who did experience
difficulty throughout her life, losing a child and also having to deal with a problematic
first husband.

However she was sent by the Nazis to Ravsnebruck
and it was within the barbed wire fences here that she either succumbed to a deadly disease,
or more horrifically was executed by being burned alive in the crematoria.

Today her story is not the most well known,
and it deserves to be told.

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