Irma (Wertheim) Oppenheim was born in 1924 in Falkenberg, a small community near Kassel, Germany. She had one older sister, Lotte Wertheim. Their father was a successful merchant, but her family suffered from anti-Semitism all the years of her childhood. Irma’s aunt immigrated to the United States in 1936 and started immediately working to secure visas for Irma and her family. Following Kristallnacht, in November 1938, her family moved to Frankfurt to wait for their visas, hoping to soon leave Germany.
On June 26, 1939, Irma, who was 14-years-old (thereby under the upper age limit of 15) was sent on the Kindertransport to London. Her sister, Lotte, was 16-years-old and above the age limit and was barred from leaving. Their parents had managed, through private means, to secure Lotte’s departure, which was scheduled to take place on September 28, 1939. However, with Hitler’s invasion of Poland on September 1, which ushered in World War II, Britain closed their doors to Lotte, her family, and all Germans trying to escape. Irma’s parents died in Terezin, and Lotte was killed in Auschwitz.
Irma lived in Coventry, Birmingham until 1946, when she was able to come to the United States with the help of her aunt. In 1947, in New York City, she met her future husband, William Oppenheim, who was a native El Pasoan. They owned and managed Oppenheim Mercantile business in downtown Juarez, Mexico, which had been started by William’s father in 1892. William died in 1993. Irma lived in El Paso until 2010 when she moved to Scottsdale, Arizona to be near her children. Irma died on June 2, 2017.