She was born Cilly Edelberg in Libau (Liepaja) Latvia, at the time a province of the Tsarist Empire, on August 15, 1899. Her mother stemmed from China, while her father was a Russian Jew. The couple had two daughters, Cilly and Fani. As a child, Cilly played with the costly silks and brocades her mother had brought from China and thus began to dance.
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In January 1944 Tatjana was arrested and interned in the assembly and detention camp at Drancy, a suburb of Paris. From there she was dispatched to Auschwitz, where she was gassed on February 6, 1944. Her sister, who had visited Tatjana both in Berlin (c. 1928) and in Paris (c. 1935), was deported to Poland, together with her illegitimate son in June 1943 and never returned. Her stepmother was killed in the murderous action on the shore of the Baltic Sea on December 15, 1941.