Ilse Weber (née Herlinger, was born in Witkowitz near Mährisch-Ostrau. A Jewish poet, she wrote in German, most notably songs and theater pieces for Jewish children.

She had learned to sing and play guitar, lute, mandolin and balalaika, but she had never sought a career as a musician. When the Nazis occupied Czechoslovakia in 1939, the Webers were able to get their eldest son to safety in Sweden through Kindertransport. Unfortunately, Ilse, her husband, and their younger son Tommy were sent to Theresienstadt in February 1942. She worked in the camp’s children’s hospital at night, doing all she could for the patients without the help of medicine, as it was forbidden for Jewish prisoners. She wrote many poems while she was there and set a good number of them to music. She would accompany herself on guitar while she sang her lullaby-like songs to children and the elderly of the ghetto. When her husband was deported to Auschwitz two years later, she and Tommy went with him so as not to break up their family. It is said that Ilse sang to her son and many other children as she accompanied them voluntarily into the gas chambers.