Ilse van Collem was born in Amsterdam on 26 September 1926. She lived with her father Henri van Collem (1894-1945), mother Lotte van Collem-Randerath (1900-1993), and sister Marty van Collem (1929) at Stadhouderskade 127 above the Wilhelmina billiards factory.^[1] Her father held the position of proxy holder there for her great uncle who had founded the factory in 1898.^[2] From 1934, the Van Collem family took in several people who had fled Nazi Germany. From these refugees, the Van Collem family learned stories about the treatment of Jewish people by the Nazis, and the concentration camps.^[3]

Ilse van Collem attended Montessori education since kindergarten: first at the Wilhelmina-Catherina School at Weteringschans 263, then at the Montessori Lyceum and later, because of anti-Jewish measures, at the Jewish Montessori Lyceum.^[4]

Liberal Jewish Congregation

Ilse van Collem's parents were involved in setting up the Liberal Jewish Congregation (LJG), which had been founded in Amsterdam on 31 October 1931.^[5] At the LJG, the Van Collem family also got to know the Frank family. Ilse was the same age as Margot; her younger sister Marty was the same age as Anne. The families would see each other regularly in synagogue and visit each other on (religious) holidays.^[3] Ilse said in an interview with the Anne Frank House that she went to weekly Jewish classes and met Margot there. During the week, Ilse and Margot had no contact; they were at a different school and did not live near each other.^[4]

Deportation

The Van Collem family was rounded up on 20 June 1943 during the large raid in Amsterdam South and East. From Amsterdam, they were deported that same day by train to Camp Westerbork. The Van Collem family stayed there for almost seven months. Ilse had to harvest potatoes and, when the harvest season was over, worked with her mother at the laundry.^[4]

In Westerbork, Ilse met her future husband Gunther Ludwig Zilversmit (1926-1987). Gunther Zilversmit asked her every Tuesday morning if she wanted to go with him to the performance on Tuesday night. The Tuesday performances were organised to provide distraction when a transport left that day.^[6] Gunther and Ilse became good friends but separated when the Van Collem family were transported to Bergen-Belsen camp on 1 February 1944.^[3] Gunther would only meet Ilse again after the war.^[6]

Bergen-Belsen

In Bergen-Belsen, the Van Collem family ended up in the Sternlager.^[3] There, Ilse's mother became a hut supervisor. Together with her mother, she worked in the kitchen there for a few months. Ilse was thus able to smuggle out extra food which helped the family suffer less hunger.^[4]

After Ilse stayed in the Sternlager for about a year, her sister Marty heard from camp companion Hanneli Goslar that Anne Frank was also in Bergen-Belsen.^[7] At the time, Anne was staying in the Kleine Frauenlager, which was adjacent to the Sternlager, but separated by a fence with wire netting and barbed wire with straw or reeds in between.^[8] Marty recalled how she had contact with Anne there. Her older sister Ilse and Hanneli Goslar were also there, according to Marty.^[9] Ilse herself said she heard Anne through the fence, but otherwise remembered little of the exact details

The lost transport

On 3 April 1945, Ilse's father died in Bergen-Belsen. On 10 April, Ilse was put on a transport with her sister and her mother which was intended to go to Theresienstadt, but it never arrived there. This train journey is also known as the "lost transport". For thirteen days, the train with 2,500 prisoners roamed more than six hundred kilometres through Germany, finally being liberated on 23 April 1945 by the Soviet army near the town of Tröbitz.^[10]

After the train journey, a typhus epidemic broke out among the former prisoners.^[11] Ilse and her sister also contracted it and were hospitalised by Soviet soldiers after 14 days of fever. Their mother was also seriously ill with phlebitis (arteritis) on her leg and was sent to a hospital in Liège. With the help of the Dutch Red Cross, Ilse and her sister arrived back in the Netherlands in late June 1945.^[12]

Back in the Netherlands

Once back in the Netherlands, Ilse's mother was in good contact with Otto Frank. Her sister Marty recalled being shown around the Secret Annex with Ilse by Otto Frank in the summer of 1945.^[13]

On 3 November 1945, by chance, Ilse and Gunther found each other again in The Hague. Gunther Zilversmid wrote the following about this meeting in his memoirs:

'When I asked her who the young lady was she told me: her name is Ilse van Collem. I blushed and Mrs. Sonnenfeld immediately reacted with: 'You know the girl!!?' When I asked 'Is she the daughter of Mr. van Collem who owns Pento Cosmetics?' she said yes, but that she had lost her father in Bergen Belsen. I was utterly delighted to meet her again. (...) The weekend came, November 3, 1945 and there she was, head covered and as good looking as I remembered her. The old spark was still there and re-ignited the old fire. To make a long story short, we hit it off just fine.'^[14]

On 6 July 1949, Ilse van Collem married Gunther Zilversmit in Amsterdam. A baby daughter was born in 1950. In October 1951, the young family emigrated to Montreal, Canada.^[6]

Addresses: Stadhouderskade 127hs, Amsterdam. From October 1951 Montreal, Canada.