Edith H. Tarcov (1919–1990)

Edith H. Tarcov, née Hamberg, was born to a Jewish family in Hannover, Germany. Her parents were Sally and Minna Braunsberg Hamberg. She had one sister, Margot (later Ward). Her father was a World War I veteran. Edith was an active Zionist and worked at Jewish orphanages in Hannover and Kassel. At age 20 in 1939, she fled Germany for England, and then went to the USA the following year, sponsored by her American relative Milton Mayer. She settled in Chicago, Illinois. Her sister Margot went on a Kindertransport rescue mission to England the same year. She married a German refugee and remained in the UK. Edith was introduced to Oscar Tarcov by their mutual friend, writer Saul Bellow; the couple married in 1942 and had two children. Edith and Milton tried unsuccessfully to help her parents emigrate and lost all contact with them by late 1941. Sally and Minna Hamberg were deported by the Nazis to Riga, Latvia in December 1941. Sally was deported to the Salaspils concentration camp, where he likely died in 1942. Minna died in 1943 or 1944, likely in Riga or the Stutthof concentration camp. Edith went on to have a successful career as a writer and editor. She compiled The Portable Saul Bellow, published in 1978. She also wrote books jointly with her husband.