Ellen J. Kaufmann

Ellen J. Kaufmann
Personal details
Birth name	Ellen Kaufmann Boucher
Born	1920 Mainz, Germany
Died	2014
Nativity	Germany
Known for	Pacific Military Intelligence Research Section (PACMIRS)
Military service
Allegiance	United States
Branch	Women's Army Corps
ASN	A-206769
Rank	Technician Fourth Grade

Interview Watch Ellen J. Kaufmann on Canandaigua cable interview (1995).

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Ellen J. Kaufmann (1920–2014), later Ellen Kaufmann Boucher, was a Mainz-born Women's Army Corps Technician Fourth Grade who instructed German interrogation at Camp Ritchie.

Biography

Ellen J. Kaufmann was born in 1920 in Mainz, Germany, to Hermann Kaufmann and Ella (née Barth) Kaufmann; her mother died in childbirth, and her father later married Else Wallach. In the 1930s the family faced Nazi anti-Jewish restrictions, including the loss of Hermann's dry-goods store. Ellen emigrated to the United States in 1937 with her maternal grandmother Amalie Barth. She later learned that her parents and sister Marianne had been deported in 1942.

Kaufmann joined the Women's Army Corps in 1943 (service date recorded 5 November 1943). By 6 January 1944 she was at the Military Intelligence Training Center at Camp Ritchie as a German instructor in the unit training interrogators of German prisoners (personnel notes also associate her with PACMIRS Section V, Enemy Armies). She held the rank of Technician Fourth Grade (ASN A-206769) and was released on 23 October 1945.

At Camp Ritchie she met Melville Boucher; they married there in 1946. In later life she wrote a memoir and gave a 1995 cable-television interview in Canandaigua, New York, about her childhood, immigration, and family losses. She died in 2014. Her papers are held by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (Accession 2018.38.2).

Research notes

• Personnel card: 3-by-5 personnel card (A)
• Pacific Military Intelligence Research Section (PACMIRS)
• Section V (Enemy Armies); German Instructor;
• Service date (spreadsheet): 5 November 1943
• Military Intelligence Training Center date (spreadsheet): 6 January 1944
• Release date (spreadsheet): 23 October 1945
• Also known as / alternate name: Boucher
• Also listed on thin page Boucher, Ellen K. (WAC); prefer this ASN page as canonical.
• USHMM collection includes extensive family correspondence and photographs; only military/bio-relevant items are attached to the profile.

Gallery

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Technical record

Field	Imported value
row_source	wac_eddy_gross_2021
spreadsheet_row	94

Timeline

• 1920 — Born in Mainz, Germany.
• 1937 — Emigrated to the United States with grandmother Amalie Barth.
• 1942 — Learned of deportation of parents and sister Marianne.
• 5 November 1943 — Entered Women's Army Corps (spreadsheet service date).
• 6 January 1944 — At Camp Ritchie MITC as German interrogation instructor (T/4).
• 23 October 1945 — Released from service.
• 1946 — Married Melville Boucher at Camp Ritchie.
• 1995 — Canandaigua, N.Y., cable interview (Holocaust testimony).
• 2014 — Died.

Sources

• Medium / Memory Action — Ellen Kaufmann Boucher profile
• YouTube — Ellen Kaufmann Boucher interview / related testimony
• USHMM collection description / RB Archive Ellen.txt summary of Accession 2018.38.2 (memoir, correspondence, 1995 interview transcript)
• USHMM — Ellen Kaufmann Boucher papers (Accession 2018.38.2)
• Dan Gross and Beverley Driver Eddy, WACs at Camp Ritchie roster research spreadsheet (Gross base list; Eddy additions, 2021)