Rosa Bechhöfer was born on July 7, 1898, in Bechhofen. Her parents were Gabriel Bechhöfer and Sarah (Ursula), née Liebenstein. They resided in Bechhofen.
Rosa Bechhöfer had twelve siblings, who were born between 1883 and 1894. She grew up as the second youngest of Gabriel and Sarah´s the thirteen children. Rosa and five of her sisters did not survive the Shoah. One of her brothers, Isaak, born on February 3, 1892, in Bechhofen, emigrated to the USA and died in New York on July 31, 1974.
Following the early death of her parents (her father died on May 16, 1905, in Bechhofen), Rosa and her younger sister Betty were placed in the Fürth orphanage when Rosa was six years old. There, Rosa later worked as a saleswoman in the shoe shop owned by her sister Frieda Behr.
On September 6, 1935, Rosa moved from Fürth to Munich. Starting from February 1935, she was employed as a domestic servant by the Kreschower family, who soon emigrated to the USA. She then worked for the Levinger family.
Shortly before the birth of her daughters, Rosa atttempted to emigrate to the USA. The father of her twin daughters was Otto Hald, a non-Jewish man who left Munich before their birth. The twins, Susi and Lotte, were born on May 17, 1936, in Munich. They were placed in the Antonienstrasse children’s home.
Rosa Bechhöfer and Alice Bendix, the head of the children´s home, ensured that both girls were able to leave Germany on the Kindertransport to England in May 1939. Although Rosa was still living in Munich, the girls were adopted by the couple Frederick and Audrey Legge. Their Jewish origins were concealed from them. Frederick Legge, a Baptist Reverend in Cardiff, had the girls baptized. Lotte became Eunice Mary, and Susi became Grace Elizabeth. Lotte later died young from a brain tumor. Susi became a victim of sexual abuse by her adoptive father. In December 1966, she married Alan Stocken, and in the following year their son Frederick was born.
In 1996 her book „Rosa’s Child. The True Story of One Woman’s Quest for a Lost Mother and a Vanished Past“, which she wrote with Jeremy Josephs, was published. In 2016, her second book was published with the title „Rosa“. Susi’s story was used by W. G. Sebald in his novel „Austerlitz“.
After working for the Levinger family Rosa was employed as a domestic servant for the Bacher family on Leopoldstrasse. During the Nazi years, Rosa was repeatedly forced to move, including to Martiusstrasse 8, where she shared the apartment of Charlotte Perutz with several others from March 21 to March 28, 1941. On April 7, 1941, she was relocated to Leopoldstrasse 52a, one of the so called “Jewish houses”. On October 17, 1941, she was sent to the „Jewish settlement“ at Knorrstrasse 148. During this time, Rosa was forced to work at the Flachsröste flax roasting plant) in Lohhof. Her name was listed among the 343 Munich Jews scheduled for deportation to Piaski in November 1941. Due to her breast cancer, Rosa received a deferral and on November 1, 1941, she was admitted to the „Home for Jews“ at Clemens-August-Strasse 9. She underwent surgery at the Israelite Hospital at Hermann-Schmid-Strasse 9 (about Jewish houses, Mass quarters for Jews und the Lohhof flax roastery see article “old peoples´s homes …). On April 1, 1942, Rosa was transferred back to Knorrstrasse 148 but, just a week later, she was returned to Clemens-August-Strasse 9.
On March 1, 1943, the facility at Clemens-August-Strasse was dissolved, and all residents were deported to Auschwitz. Rosa Bechhöfer arrived there on March 13, 1943, and was murdered in the extermination camp.