Ellen Wolf was born April 23, 1930 to Harry and Selma Salomon in Berlin. Ellen doesn’t remember much of her childhood in Berlin, but she does remember the night of Kristallnacht. One of her father’s (Dutch) patients called Harry in the middle of the night and told them to leave. The Salomon family stayed with the Dutch people for a couple days before returning to their home, which had been spared from the pogrom.

Ellen’s father started to make arrangements for the family to leave Germany. When he learned of Shanghai as a place of refuge, Harry left ahead of Selma and his children to make sure it would be fit for his family. A year later, on March 7, 1940, Ellen arrived in Shanghai with her mother, sister, and grandmother.

After the war, the Salomons left Shanghai on March 20, 1947, and arrived in the United States on April 7, 1947.

You can read Ellen’s full story in the article below, entitled, Family of Good Fortune: The Salomons’ Journey from Berlin to Shanghai to Chicago, written by Professor Kevin Ostoyich.

 

[Pictured Left to Right: Herb Wolf (Ellen’s husband), Danny Spungen, Rebecca Ostoyich, Kevin Ostoyich, and Ellen Wolf. December 1, 2018.]

 

 

 

[Note: Our website is a work in progress. More images of Ellen will be added in the future. In the meantime, if you have any questions about Ellen or the following article, please send an email to Mikayla Hoppe at: mikayla@spungenfoundation.org]