Regina (Ina) Freibaum was born in Giershagen, Germany, the daughter of Salomon and Rosalie Hagedorn Freibaum. Rosalie died in 1897 when Ina was just five years old. Ina had four siblings. Her brother, Lee, had come to this country as a teenager in 1903. Lee, already well established in Alabama, signed affidavits for 29 relatives still in Germany, promising to be responsible for them personally and financially if the United States government would allow them to enter this country.

Felix and Regina married in Emmerich in 1911 and had three children: Herta (Helen), Heinz (Henry), and Margareta Sybilla (Greta). When Felix and Ina were making plans to leave Germany, they converted all their money into possessions as Jews leaving Germany were not allowed to take money but could take possessions. Once they arrived in Anniston in early 1937, one of the boxes that had held their possessions became the home for the chickens raised in their yard on Walnut Avenue.

Ina died in Anniston and is buried in the Temple Beth El portion of Hillside Cemetery.

From: Survivors’ Stories: Anniston’s Temple Beth-El and the Holocaust by Sherry Blanton, 2010.