Another AI Tale: Who’s the Winner? A World War I Postcard Transcribed

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Today I want to share a fascinating postcard that my cousin Meir shared with me. It was written by his grandfather Berthold Rothschild to his grandmother Selma Adler before they were married. Berthold was serving in the German army during World War I and stationed at the front in Berdowka, a town now located in Belarus, and Selma was back home in Frankfurt. The postcard was sent on October 5, 1918, just a month before World War I ended on November 11, 1918.

Postcard from Berthold Rothschild to Selma Adler, 1918
Courtesy of the family

The postcard is written in German in Kurrentschrift and was undecipherable to me and to Meir. So I decided to use AI to transcribe and translate it. First, I turned to Claude.ai, which provided me with this translation of the text of the postcard:

Your two dear letters from the 26th of September have made me very happy, especially that the fur has suited you well. The cold weather is here now. I hope only that we won’t be harmed by bullets and bombs. Please greet the household immediately and warmly. I’m looking forward to some rest. Tomorrow my eldest goes with [someone?] to the [front?]. Dorothea came yesterday or the day before. Before I go, I’ll write to you more thoroughly. I must finally summon the courage to send you the last two letters — with warmest greetings,

The text made sense to me except for the reference to his “eldest” since Berthold had no children and was the oldest sibling. But I otherwise accepted that it was an accurate translation.

But to doublecheck, I also ran it through ChatGPT and got this translation:

Your dear letter of Sept. 26 made me very happy, especially that you liked the picture so much. The recuperation/rest cure is difficult for me. Even though I put so much effort into the painting, the colors can change. Please send the main material immediately after [unclear]. I very much wish to have it. Tomorrow I am going to [unclear] with [unclear] in order to bring you the lecture/[reading?] … when I go out the door I will still [unclear]. I will probably not come [for] a whole [unclear] because of the proper/right [unclear].

Greetings and kisses,

How could this transcription/translation be so different? Was Berthold an artist? I knew he later had a photography studio, so I guessed it was possible. But I was doubtful that he had time to be painting at the front—although maybe it was while he was recuperating? But since ChatGPT had many words left out as unclear, I was skeptical.

Then I received an email from MyHeritage saying they now had a tool for transcribing and translating documents, so I figured I’d give that a try, and I received this translation:

Your two dear letters of Sept. 26th gave me great pleasure, especially that you liked the fur. The lining is just poor. Please store it in such a way that it suffers no damage from moths, etc. Please send the crocheted collar to Graf immediately. I need it for the next package. Tomorrow a small box with 17 eggs will be sent to you. Sausage went out yesterday. I will let you know about the eggs. Could I finally receive a good photograph of you? Many heartfelt greetings and kisses

This one was closer to the Claude translation with the reference to the fur. But now instead of bombs and bullets, we have references to eggs and sausage! What in the world?

MyHeritage provided this comment:

The letter provides a fascinating glimpse into the wartime economy and logistics; Berthold discusses sending food items like eggs and sausage, as well as a fur coat, back to Germany. This was a common practice, as soldiers in occupied agricultural territories sometimes had better access to provisions than civilians suffering under the Allied blockade in Germany.

So which translation was best? Well, I ran the MyHeritage and Claude translations into ChatGPT to see what that AI platform said about its competitors, and ChatGPT said it believed that MyHeritage was likely the most accurate; I did the same with Claude, and Claude agreed: MyHeritage was the most accurate.

But I wasn’t convinced about Berthold sending seventeen eggs from Belarus to Frankfurt during the war, so I decided to rely on a human being, actual not artificial intelligence, for help. I asked Cathy Meder-Dempsey of the wonderful genealogy blog, Opening Doors in Brick Walls, whether she would help, and she kindly agreed.

Here’s Cathy’s translation:

My dear Selma!

Your last two letters of September 26th made me very happy, especially that you liked the fur coat. The lining is just poor. Please protect it so that it doesn’t get damaged by moths, etc. Please send the trouser fabric to Hoof immediately. I bought it for my father. Tomorrow a box of (word in Hebrew letters) is going to you. From (a person or place) was sent yesterday. I’ll let you know when it arrives. Couldn’t I finally get a good photograph of you?

Many heartfelt greetings and kisses,
Berthold

Cathy is fluent in German and reads Kurrentschrift all the time in her own research, so there is no doubt in my mind that this is the accurate reading  as well as the most sensible reading, proving once again that the human brain and human eyes are far superior to the artificial ones.

There was one word written in Hebrew script that neither Cathy nor I could translate, so I sent that on to the GerSIG group on Facebook to see what they could come up with, and Bernhard Kukatzki of that group told me that the Hebrew letters spelled out “eiern” or eggs in Yiddish (or eier in German). So MyHeritage was right to translate the word in Hebrew script as eggs.

But why did Berthold write the word in Hebrew letters? Was it code for something else? Or was he really sending eggs from Belarus to Frankfurt?

I dug a little deeper into the history of World War I to find out why a German soldier at the front might be sending food back home and whether there were any restrictions on soldiers being able to do that. I learned that due to the British blockade stopping ships from sending supplies to Germany during World War I, there was a very severe food shortage in Germany, one that had been developing and worsening throughout the war.

One source described the effects in graphic detail, including this quote from the diary of Princess Blücher, an Englishwoman married to a Prussian aristocrat:

[W]e are all growing thinner every day, and the rounded contours of the German nation have become a legend of the past. We are all gaunt and bony now, and have dark shadows round our eyes, and our thoughts are chiefly taken up with wondering what our next meal will be.

There were food riots, rationing, hoarding, a black market exploiting consumers with exorbitant prices, and “hamstering,” as described here:

Food was more readily available in the countryside, and urban consumers came to believe that rural producers were profitting from their suffering. If the urban poor had relatives in the countryside they could obtain food from them, or they could ‘hamster’ – travel into the countryside and barter, buy or steal from rural producers, though they ran the risk of having the food confiscated by inspectors at railway stations on their return. On one day in June 1917 inspectors at a small West German town confiscated ’36 pounds of butter, 421 eggs, 5 hundredweight of flour, nearly 30 pounds of peas, 42 pounds of veal and 12 pounds of ham’.

That article continued, “From 1917 onwards a deterioration in the health of the nation was clearly visible, with increases in stomach and intestinal illnesses. The Germans estimated that some 763,000 people died during the war from malnutrition and its effects.”

It is thus not surprising that German soldiers like Berthold Rothschild wanted to send food back home to their loved ones. But were they allowed to do that? Although I could not find a specific prohibition against sending food home, I did learn from this source that German soldiers did try to send food home to their families during World War I.

The dispatch of parcels from soldiers to their families also became increasingly problematic. Facing shortages in Germany, many soldiers sought to send home food and various goods, often purchased or looted from occupied territories.

When Allied offensives breached the German front, the military postal service was forced to retreat alongside the troops. The lack of transport options significantly slowed mail and parcel deliveries, even as their volume remained high. By October 1918, even the most modest soldiers recognised the war’s inevitable outcome. Many sought to send home whatever they could—food, objects, clothing, fabric, and money—before the collapse of the front.

Another source suggested reasons why a soldier like Berthold might have been somewhat concerned about being caught sending eggs back to his family in Frankfurt:

The brisk traffic in parcels from the front line to the homeland – via the military postal system or sent back with fellow-soldiers on home leave – played a significant role in supplying families with food and commodities.

At the same time the sending of parcels by soldiers and officers represented a huge burden for the civilian population in the occupied territories, as foodstuffs, commodities and raw materials were frequently requisitioned according to the provisions of the Kriegsleistungsgesetz (War Requirements Act), that is, confiscated and commandeered.

In addition to requisitioning there were frequent occurrences of theft and plundering, which was forbidden by martial law.

Although I cannot prove it, I believe that the reason Berthold wrote the word “eggs” in Hebrew letters was to hide the fact that he was sending eggs back to Germany.

What a remarkable postcard this is—a true historical document. Thanks to Cathy and to Bernhard, I now can decipher this message and understand why Berthold was sending furs, fabric, and food back to Selma and his family. I also better understand how desperate the situation was for Germans during World War I and afterwards, all of which tragically contributed to the Nazi takeover in the 1930s, World War II, and the Holocaust.

And once again, I’ve learned not to trust AI for transcriptions but to turn to reliable human beings for help.

 

 

 

Julius Goldfarb and Ida Hecht: A Granddaughter’s Memories

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Recently my cousin Debrah posted some memories of her grandparents, Julius Goldfarb and Ida Hecht, on Facebook. I was so touched by what she wrote that I asked if I could share it on my blog, and she happily agreed. Julius Goldfarb was my grandmother Gussie Brotman Goldschlager’s first cousin. His mother Sarah Brod was the older sister of my great-grandmother Bessie Brod. Ida Hecht, Debrah’s grandmother, was my mother’s first cousin; her mother Taube Brotman was my grandmother’s half-sister.

Here are Debrah’s touching childhood memories of Julius and Ida:

I spent every summer until I was 10 at my grandmother‘s cottage in Long Beach Long Island. It was a small cottage, had a small front yard with a white fence and a glider. The back of the house had a dense wall of honeysuckle and a hose to wash your feet so no sand got into the house. It’s where I learned how to suck on a honeysuckle blossom.

The address was 25 New Hampshire Ave. It was a block from the beach and in that small house my grandmother had room for three of her daughters and their children and on weekends their husbands. And her husband, my grandfather, would come down on weekends also. It was a zoo.

I was blessed to have this. I thought it was the norm, and as I grew up, I strived to give this to my children, but I was unable to; life got too complicated.

My grandmother Ida was feisty, fierce, independent, tough, and beautiful. She had purchased the cottage on her own without my grandfather‘s aid or permission, which was unheard of at that time. It was her domain and we were all allowed in.

My grandmother died the spring I was 11 years old and that was the end of Long Beach. But not the end of my obsession with the beach, I still love it.

My grandfather and his four daughters opted not to keep the cottage, and it was sold. I have had occasion to drive past it, and it’s completely different. It’s been remodeled. It lives on in my memory vividly, as do my grandmother and my grandfather.

My grandfather Julius was a character. He was a true curmudgeon. He used to say four daughters is no laughing matter in Yiddish. I think he was perpetually offended that he had never had a son. He used to stick his knee in my back and pull my shoulders back when he didn’t like my posture.

I once gave him a gift. I must’ve been 12. It was in a small box, and he said so small. I said grandpa good things come in small packages to which he replied so does poison. His favorite expression was ah Kayelya which in Yiddish means Oh cholera. He said he was going to teach me how to swim, walked me down to the waters edge, grabbed my hands, and swung me in–I was 5.

I believe there was love between my grandparents. They were distant cousins. My grandmother was American born. My grandfather was born in Polish Austria. But it was a contentious marriage. A lot of bickering went on.

Still those memories frozen in time, I hold them together.

Julius Goldfarb and Ida Hecht at their wedding in 1913
Courtesy of the family

Julius and Ida Goldfarb at their granddaughter Sue’s wedding in 1959 Courtesy of the family

Scrap–Salvaging A Family by Luanne Castle: A Must Read

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Have you ever picked up a book, not knowing what to expect, and become so wrapped up in the story and the writing that you just don’t want to put it down? That was my experience  reading Luanne Castle’s newest book Scrap: Salvaging a Family. From the first page until I finished it, I was spellbound.

Luanne has published four volumes of poetry and many poems and flash prose pieces1 in numerous publications, but I first encountered her writing through her genealogy blog, The Family Kalamazoo, and although Scrap is not about genealogy per se, it is about family history: how our parents and our grandparents and those before them all shape the people we become. In this memoir, we see how Luanne’s father was affected by his family history and how that in turn affected the author, his daughter.

The book is written in a series of short “flashes” of specific memories tied together into a revealing and heart-wrenching story of her relationship with her father, a man she both loved and feared. Her writing is clear and beautiful and although written in prose, the language is poetic. The images she creates are powerful and resonant.

Here are two examples, one showing how much she loved her father when she was a little girl, the second showing how much she feared him. Notice how she uses images of his arms in both, each image serving to evoke a specific emotion.

“A man throws his efforts into the project. A little girl, face like a cup, watched his Superman arms crank on the vise handle and tighten the grip. The girl is me, and the workbench, its surface scarred by hammer blows, belongs to the shoemaker’s elves that visit the man when I am asleep. He presides over the saw, aiming for the pencil line, sawdust falling away on each side as snow does from a plow. On the pegboard, pliers and screws line up by size like Goldilocks’ bears. I sit behind the man who is my father, the chilled concrete floor twanging my backside.”

In this second memory those arms she admired for their strength as she watched him work turn into something much more threatening.

“Daddy tickles me, and when I squirm away, giggling, he rolls me on the planked floor where we play wrestle. When I tickle him, he belly-shake laughs. When I don’t want to go to bed until it’s black outside, his joy dissolves fast and leaves an unpleasantness that charges to anger. I watch for the inside of his tanned arms. When I see the flash of their snake-white underbellies, I try to run. One of them catches me by the back of my shirt. The other pulls up my skirt and down my panties. Daddy raises that arm up above us before he smacks it down on my bottom.”

Those arms reappear many other times in Luanne’s memories, most often in ways that are threatening and angry. But I will leave it to you to read the book to see how the author’s story develops and how she learns to understand her father’s anger and where it comes from. I promise you that you will be moved to tears, some of grief, some of anger, and some of joy. There were even times I laughed. And there were many times that I sat back and re-read a page a few times over, marveling in the language, the depth of feeling, and the universality of some aspects of her story. Aren’t we all somewhat mystified by who our parents are and why they are the way they are? Luanne Castle had the courage to dig deeply enough to learn who her father was and why he was the way he was.

You can purchase the book here or here, and you can learn more about the author and her other works at her website here.

Luanne Castle’s story, “Garden Seasons,” was selected for Best Microfiction 2026. Her poetry and prose have appeared in Copper Nickel, River Teeth, Your Impossible Voice, JMWW, Grist, Fourteen Hills, Verse Daily, Disappointed Housewife, Lunch Ticket, Saranac Review, Pleiades, Cleaver, Moon City, Moon Park, Anti-Heroin Chic, Bending Genres, BULL, The Mackinaw, The Ekphrastic Review, Phoebe, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Gone Lawn, and many other journals. She has published four award-winning poetry collections.  Her ekphrastic flash and poetry collection Hunting the Cosmos is forthcoming from Shanti Arts in fall 2026.

 

 

 

 

 

  1. I was unfamiliar with the literary term “flash” until I started reading Luanne’s works. I asked her for a definition, and she sent me this explanation: “Flash–both fiction and nonfiction–is a prose story told in fewer than 1,000 words–and frequently less than 300 when it can sometimes be referred to as microfiction. Unlike short stories which can be up to 7,500 words, flash cannot contain unnecessary words and images. This does not mean that flash should not contain specific and important details. Finally, much is told by innuendo, by suggestion, and by placement of one image or phrase next to another.” ↩

Photo update: The Family of Berthold Rothschild

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Two weeks ago I posted an update about my relative Berthold Rothschild after receiving information about his family from his grandson in Israel, Meir. Now Meir has shared a collection of photographs and given me permission to share them on the blog. Answers to any questions about the background of this family can be found in my two earlier posts about Berthold, here and here.

First, some photographs of Meir’s grandmother Sarah Adler Rothschild. You may recall that Sarah died in 1937 in Germany. Sarah was also known as Selma. She was quite a beautiful woman.

Sarah Selma Adler Rothschild
courtesy of the family

Sarah Selma Adler Rothschild courtesy of the family

Sarah’s daughter Helene (later known Hana in Israel) bore a striking resemblance to her mother. She left Israel in 1937, the same year her mother died, and immigrated to what was then Palestine. This photograph of her on the ship to Palestine is my favorite in this collection. It shows her youthful innocence and excitement. She was only fifteen and traveling without her family. The blue arrow points to Helene.

Helene Rothschild,1937, on the ship to Palestine
Courtesy of the family

This next photograph shows Helene working at the kibbutz where she met her husband, Benjamin Kestenbaum, who later changed his surname to Armon.

Helene (Hana) Rothschild c. 1937 courtesy of the family

Meir recalled that his grandfather Berthold Rothschild came to live in Israel for about a year in the 1950s. These two photographs presumably were taken during that time.

Berthold Rothschild, c. 1956
courtesy of the family

Berthold Rothschild with his daughters Adi (to his right) and Hana (to his left), 1956
courtesy of the family

Finally, Meir shared with me some photographs taken when his mother Hana and aunt Adi visited Germany in 1998. Here are Adi and Hana in Hoof, the town where there father was born.

Adi and Hana in Hoof, 1998
courtesy of the family

Here the sisters are visiting the graves of their paternal grandparents, Meier Rothschild and Berta Lorge.

Ani and Hana at their grandparents’ graves in Germany, 1998 courtesy of the family

I asked Meir if he could decipher the Hebrew on the stone and then translate it for me. This is what he could read, as translated:

Berta side : “Mrs. Berta, daughter of Selma, wife of Meir, crown of … and the glory of her children, died on (Hebrew date), and was buried on (Hebrew date).”

Meier side : “Meir, son of Rabbi Shimon, a teacher and faithful prayer leader, died on (Hebrew date) and was buried on (Hebrew date).

I am so grateful to my cousin Meir, my fifth cousin, for sharing these wonderful photographs of his family so that I could add faces to the names of the people I have researched.

 

ANOTHER UPDATE: Gertrud Rothschild Neuhahn and Family

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Today I am sharing another update, this time with additional information about Gertrud Neuhahn Rothschild, whose family I wrote about just three weeks ago. I had many questions left even after I wrote that post, including how this family survived the Holocaust.

My cousin and fellow family history researcher Richard Bloomfield left a comment on that blog post, saying, “Did you know that Gustav was first missing and then a POW in WWI? He belonged to the Infanterie-Regiment Nr. 83 – 9. Kompanie according to the records published on August 31, 1916. His return was recorded on May 14, 1918. From the German lists of ‘Losses.’ ”

As always, Richard is a superb researcher, and I am blessed to have his support. Richard sent me the two records he’d found. Although I had written in the blog post that Gustav had served in World War I, I had not researched his service details. I went back to Ancestry and located citations for the two lists that Richard sent me. The first document, dated August 31, 1916, reported that Gustav (misindexed as “Reuhahn”) had been previously reported missing but was now in captivity:

Gustav Neuhahn, Residence Year 1914, Residence Country Deutschland (Germany), List Date 31 Aug 1916, List Number 1131, Volume 1916_XVIII, Ancestry.com. Germany, World War I Casualty Lists, 1914-1919, Original data: Deutsche Verlustlisten 1914 bis 1919. Berlin, Deutschland: Deutsche Dienststelle (WASt).

A second record, dated May 14, 1918, reported that Gustav had been released from captivity:

Name Gustav Neuhahn, Residence Year 1914, Residence Country Deutschland (Germany)
List Date 14 Mai 1918 (14 May 1918), List Number 1894, Volume 1918_XVI, Casualty List: Verlust-Liste Nr 1894 (14 Mai 1918), Ancestry.com. Germany, World War I Casualty Lists, 1914-1919 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011.
Original data:Deutsche Verlustlisten 1914 bis 1919. Berlin, Deutschland: Deutsche Dienststelle (WASt).

He then returned to Germany, and as I wrote in my prior post, he married Gertrud Rothschild on May 16, 1919, in Hoof, almost exactly a year after his release. They had two daughters, Ruth on March 18, 1920, and Ursula (later known as Tirza) on March 9, 1921, according to what Richard found on MyHeritage in the “Jewish Holocaust Memorials and Jewish Residents of Germany 1933-1945” database. I searched for actual birth records for Ruth and Ursula/Tirza in the Hesse online archives, but the birth records available there do not extend as recently as the 1920s.

The family lived in Grebenstein at least until 1924, as seen in a page about Grebenstein from the Alemannia Judaica that Richard shared with me.  That page mentions Gustav Neuhahn as one of the leaders of the Grebenstein Jewish community in 1924 when there were 53 Jewish residents out of a population of almost 2500 people.

What I still don’t know is what Gustav and Gertrud and their daughters did after Hitler came to power. As I wrote in that prior post, I know all four survived the Holocaust and ended up in Palestine/Israel since they were all registered as voters in Tel Aviv as early as 1944. But I don’t know when they left Germany.

In the JewishGen Online Worldwide Burial Registry, Richard found a listing for a Tirza Rosenbaum, born Tirza Neuhahn, born in 1921. Thus, it appears that Tirza may have married someone named Rosenbaum, presumably sometime after 1944 when she was still listed as Neuhahn with her parents in the Tel Aviv voter registry. But I cannot find a marriage record for her on the IGRA website.

When I saw that Tirza was buried in the Menuha Nehona Alternative Cemetery in Kefar Sava, Petach Tikva, Central District, Israel, I searched for another Rosenbaum buried in that cemetery to see if I could find her husband. I found a Manfred Rosenbaum, born in 1924 who died in 2023, buried in that same cemetery. But was that Tirza’s husband?

A man with that same name, Manfred Rosenbaum, who was born in Berlin in May 15, 1924, was interviewed by the Shoah Foundation in 1997 in Tel Aviv,1 and his wife is identified on that site as Tirza Rosenbaum, but I cannot access the actual interview to verify that that is my relative, Tirza/Ursula Neuhahn. Ancestry’s data for that interview, however, lists Tirza’s birth date as March 9, 1921, the same date that was listed on MyHeritage for my relative, as seen above.2

However, it also lists Tirza’s death date as January 8, 1990,3 not in 2012, as listed in the JOWBR. Since these sources—the MyHeritage database, the JOWBR, the table of contents to the Shoah interview, Ancestry’s index to the interview, and BillionGraves—are not primary sources, I cannot say with any certainty whether Tirza Neuhahn married this Manfred Rosenbaum, but it seems a possibility. I also cannot say with any certainty when she died.

Richard also found Gertrud (Gerta) in the JOWBR, showing that she died on December 28, 1973.

Gertrud Rothschild Neuhahn burial record

Once I saw where Gertrud (Gerta) was buried, Kiryat Shaul cemetery in Tel Aviv, I searched for Gustav there, using the Hebrew version of the name Neuhahn, נויהן, and found Gustav’s gravestone on the Gravez.com website. He died on May 18, 1960, when he was 74.

With Richard’s help, I now know a great deal more about Gertrud Rothschild Neuhahn and her family.  I am still hoping to learn more, including more about when they immigrated to Israel and more about their daughters Ruth and Tirza and their families. I will continue to update the blog as I learn more.

Thank you, Richard!

  1. Manfred Rosenbaum, Gender Male, Birth Date 15 May 1924, Birth Place Berlin, Germany, Interview Date 4 Mar 1997, Interview Place Givatayim, Tel Aviv, Israel, Relationship Self (Head), Role Interviewee, USC Shoah Foundation; Los Angeles, CA, USA; Visual History Archive: the Holocaust, Free Access: USC Shoah Foundation, Holocaust – Jewish Survivor Interviews, Original data: Visual History Archive: The Holocaust. Los Angeles, CA, USA: USC Shoah Foundation. Also, see https://vha.usc.edu/testimony/28600?mm=bio for the Shoah Foundation page for Manfred Rosenbaum. ↩
  2. Name Tirza Rosenbaum, Gender Female, Birth Date 9 Mar 1921, Birth Place Germany, Death Date 8 Jan 1990, Relationship Wife, Role Relative of Interviewee,
    Survivor No, USC Shoah Foundation; Los Angeles, CA, USA; Visual History Archive: the Holocaust, Free Access: USC Shoah Foundation, Holocaust – Jewish Survivor Interviews, Original data: Visual History Archive: The Holocaust. Los Angeles, CA, USA: USC Shoah Foundation. ↩
  3. Ibid. ↩

UPDATE! Berthold Rothschild and His Family

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On March 11, 2026, just a little over a month ago, I wrote about the family of Berthold Rothschild and his family, including his wife Sarah Adler and their daughter Adelheid. As I wrote in that blog post, I did not know very much about how Berthold survived the Holocaust but knew he ended up in South Africa. I also knew that Adelheid had been in Amsterdam and sent to Bergen-Belsen with her husband Manfred Samson and that they both survived and possibly ended up in Israel after the war. But there were definite holes in my story, and I hoped a family member would find me and help fill in those holes.

Then, lo and behold, last week I heard from Meir, a grandson of Berthold Rothschild, who coincidentally was researching his family and looking to learn what had happened to his grandmother Sarah at just about the same time that I posted about his grandparents.

From Meir I learned that Berthold and Sarah had had a second daughter, Helene, Meir’s mother. Helene (who later became Hana in Israel) was born on March 30, 1922, in Frankfurt. In 1937 at the age of just fifteen she immigrated alone to what was then Palestine. On the Israel Genealogy Research Association website I located a document showing that Helene registered with the German consulate in Palestine in 1938, where she indicated that she intended to stay there indefinitely and that her German passport had expired. Here are those documents, the passport provided by Meir and the consulate registration from IGRA:

Helena Rothschild’s German passport
Courtesy of the family

 

Helene Rothschild registration form for the German Consulate in Jerusalem, 1938, found at IGRA, https://genealogy.org.il/AID/index.php

Helene Rothschild registration form for the German Consulate in Jerusalem, 1938, found at IGRA, https://genealogy.org.il/AID/index.php

In Israel she met and married Benjamin Kestenbaum, who later changed his surname to Armon in Israel. He was born in Berlin on July 28, 1918, and also immigrated to Palestine in 1937. He and Hana met while they were both working on Kibbutz Ein HaNetziv in the early 1940s. After marrying, they moved to Jerusalem where they had three children, including Meir, all born in Jerusalem. Meir’s father Benjamin died on February 20, 2000, and his mother Hana died on November 23, 2023, at the age of 101.1

Meir could not answer some of my questions about his grandfather Berthold—how he survived the Holocaust, when or why he ended up in South Africa, or whether he ever remarried. He did recall that Berthold came to Israel in the late 1950s with a South African woman and operated a photography studio in Jerusalem, but after a year or so they returned to South Africa.2

As for Meir’s aunt Adelheid (or Adi, as she was known in Israel), Meir wrote that her marriage to Manfred Samson was a marriage of convenience so that they could get a certificate to go to Bergen-Belsen. I am still trying to learn more about what that means. In any event they did not stay married after the war, but both did end up in Israel. There Adi married Asher Zarkover, another survivor, in 1948. They had two sons and divorced in 1960. Adi died in 2013 at the age of 93.3

Finally, Meir shared a photograph of his grandfather Berthold and his mother Hana.

Helena (Hana) Rothschild and her father Berthold Rothschild, undated. Courtesy of the family

I am so delighted that Meir reached out to me, and we are still exchanging emails, so if I learn more, I will update again.

  1. Email correspondence with Meir Armon, April 2026. Also, I found Benjamin’s burial record on JewishGen at https://www.jewishgen.org/databases/notglue_s2.php?rec=J_ISRAEL_bg1089704  In addition, I found a record on the IGRA website that shows the legal name chance from Helene Kestenbaum to Hana Armon dated 1953. ↩
  2. Email correspondence with Meir Armon, April 2026. ↩
  3. Ibid. ↩

Meier Rothschild’s Daughter Gertrud Rothschild Neuhahn and Her Family: How and Where Did They Survive the Holocaust?

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Finally, after a few weeks without a post, I return to the children of Meier Rothschild and Bertha Lorge. Meier was the youngest child of Gelle Blumenfeld and my second cousin, three times removed. I am up to his third child, Gertrud.

As with her brothers Berthold and Theodor, I have also struggled to find reliable information about the third child of Meier Rothschild and Bertha Lorge, their daughter Gertrud Rothschild, her husband Gustav Neuhahn, and their daughter Ruth.

I found Gertrud on a passenger manifest card dated January 22, 1962, for a flight to Houston from Mexico City. On that card her residence is given as Tel Aviv, Israel. I could not find a comparable card for Gustav or their children.

Gertrud Rothschild Neuhahn passenger manifest card, The National Archives At Washington, D.C.; Washington, D.C.; Series Title: Passenger and Crew Manifests of Airplanes Arriving At Houston, Texas; ARC Number: A3982; Record Group Title: Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, 1787-2004; Record Group Number: 85, NARA Roll Number: 50, Ancestry.com. Texas, U.S., Arriving and Departing Passenger and Crew Lists, 1893-1963

I searched for them all in Israel and found this interesting document in the Israel Genealogical Research Association (IGRA) website:

This is a list of packages sent from Israel to people in Europe who were Holocaust survivors; the program was organized by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. One of those sending packages in 1945 was “Neuhahn-Rothschild,” presumably Gertrud, and the intended recipient was Theodor Rothschild, her brother, in Monte Carlo, Monaco. That reaffirms the fact that Theodor was in Monaco and also establishes that Gertrud was in Tel Aviv in 1945, but not anything more.

A search on the IGRA site for Ruth Neuhahn revealed more evidence of the Neuhahn family in Palestine in 1944. A list of registered voters in 1944 shows Ruth, her parents, and a previously undiscovered sister Tirza living in Tel Aviv.

Neuhahn family on 1944 Voters Registration list found at IGRA, https://genealogy.org.il/AID/

This translates as:

Yosef Neuhahn, son of Zelig

Gertrud Neuhahn, daughter of Shlomo

Ruth Neuhahn, daughter of Yosef

Tirza Neuhahn, daughter of Yosef

That matches what I know about Gustav; his father was Selig Neuhahn. Gustav’s Hebrew name must have been Yosef. I was confused by Gertrud’s name since her father was Meier, but perhaps he used Shlomo as his Hebrew name. And I have no prior record for a daughter named Tirza or by any other name. Unfortunately, I cannot find any later record for Tirza Neuhahn.

I did, however, locate a marriage record for Ruth Neuhahn on the IGRA website:

Marriage of Ruth Neuhahn to Moritz Neumann, found at IGRA, https://genealogy.org.il/AID/

The record shows that Ruth Neuhahn, daughter of Yosef and Gertrud Neuhahn, age 22, married Moritz Neumann, son of Shimon and Chaya Neumann, age 35, on  February 2, 1945, in Tel Aviv. Both resided in Petah Tikva, Moritz was a clerk, and Ruth a typist.

On Ancestry I located some passenger manifest cards for Ruth and two women with the same surname and addresses who I presume are her daughters. For example, here is a passenger card for Ruth Neumann in June 1959, stating that her nationality was Israeli, but her residence was in Mexico. She was traveling and staying in San Antonio, Texas. She also traveled in Miami in 1960 and in 1962,1 reporting the same facts. Her residence in Mexico may explain why her mother Gertrud had been flying from Mexico to San Antonio in 1962, as seen above.

Ruth Neumann passenger manifest card 1959, The National Archives At Washington, D.C.; Washington, D.C.; Series Title: Passenger Manifests of Airplanes Arriving At San Antonio, Texas; ARC Number: A3524; Record Group Title: Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, 1787-2004; Record Group Number: 85, NARA Roll Number: 28, Ancestry.com. Texas, U.S., Arriving and Departing Passenger and Crew Lists, 1893-1963

Thus, in 1962 Ruth was still living in Mexico, still an Israeli citizen, and now visiting Miami, Florida. As for her husband Moritz, one tree on Ancestry shows that he died in Mexico City in 2003 and that Ruth died there as well. I have written to the owner of that tree and am hoping that she can share more information about Gertrud, Gustav, and Ruth, and their family.

If I can get more information about Gertrud and her family, I will update the blog. But for now this is the best I can do. The good news is that it appears that all of Gertrud’s family all survived the Holocaust.

  1.  Name Ruth Neumann, Nationality Israeli, Arrival Age 40, Birth Date 18 Mar 1920
    Birth Place Kassel, Germany, Record Type Arrival Arrival Date 2 May 1960, Arrival Place Miami, Florida, USA, Flight Number 150, Airline Guest Aerovias Mexico, The National Archives in Washington, DC; Washington, DC, USA; Series Title: Passenger and Crew Manifests of Airplanes Arriving At Miami, Florida.; NAI Number: A3995; Record Group Title: Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, 1787-2004; Record Group Number: 85, Ancestry.com. Florida, U.S., Arriving and Departing Passenger and Crew Lists, 1898-1963; Ruth Neumann, Nationality Israeli, Arrival Age 42, Birth Date 18 Mar 1920, Birth Place Germany, Record Type Arrival, Arrival Date 19 May 1962, Arrival Place Miami, Florida, USA, Flight Number 100, Airline Gam, The National Archives in Washington, DC; Washington, DC, USA; Series Title: Passenger and Crew Manifests of Airplanes Arriving At Miami, Florida.; NAI Number: A3995; Record Group Title: Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, 1787-2004; Record Group Number: 85, Ancestry.com. Florida, U.S., Arriving and Departing Passenger and Crew Lists, 1898-1963 ↩

Happy Passover and Happy Easter

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To all my readers, family, and friends,

I didn’t post this past week because we were away celebrating with our family in St Martin. It was a truly wonderful time–being on the beach with our children and grandchildren, snorkeling, swimming, watching them on standup paddleboards, playing Marco Polo, and eating fabulous meals together. We are so grateful that everyone was able to make this happen to mark our 50th anniversary coming up in June.

And I won’t be posting this coming week because Passover begins Wednesday evening, and I won’t have time to post and moderate comments. So my next post will be April 8, 2026.

In the meantime, I wish all of you a meaningful and joyous holiday whether you are celebrating Passover or Easter or some other celebration that comes this time of year.

 

Meier Rothschild’s son Theodor Rothschild and His Family: How and Where did They Survive the Holocaust? And Who Was Willie Weisbecker?

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Although it was hard to find much about the life of Berthold Rothschild and his family after the Nazis came to power in Germany, I was able to scratch together some basics: the death of his ex-wife in a Nazi-run hospital in Herborn, his death in South Africa, his profession (photographer), the marriage of his daughter Adelheid to Manson Samson at Westerbork, and the young couple’s survival of their time in Nazi concentration camps.

Turning to Berthold’s oldest sibling Theodor Rothschild and his family, my research was also less than complete. But I did find out a few things.

First, a file in the Arolsen Archives included the name of Theodor Rothschild.1 A translation of that file reveals its purpose:

To all German universities

Breslau, 12 February 1941

The following named persons have, on the basis of § 2 of the Law on the Revocation of Naturalizations and the Deprivation of German Citizenship of 14 July 1933, been declared to have forfeited German citizenship.

In view of this, the academic doctoral degrees awarded to them by the competent faculties of the University of Breslau have been revoked by resolution of the Dean’s Committee of the Silesian Friedrich-Wilhelms University of Breslau dated 5 February 1941.

The revocation becomes effective with this publication. No legal remedy is permitted.

Theodor Rothschild is listed as one of those whose degree was being revoked. He is grouped with those with a doctorate in dentistry and identified as follows: “Rothschild, Theodor, born 16 Mar. 1891 in Hof, district of Kassel, doctorate 26 Sept. 1929.” This meant that Theodor had lost his citizenship as well as his doctorate.

By doing a full-text search on FamilySearch, I found a letter written by someone named Willie Weisbecker to the US State Department on July 7, 1941, requesting the appropriate forms to apply for visas for eight different families. Theodore Rothschild and his wife and daughters were one of the listed families (#7), as was someone named  Berthold Rothschild and his wife Minna (#2). I learned that Willie Weisbecker was a German-born immigrant to the US who was an attorney and active in helping former German Jews recover compensation for property that was confiscated by the Nazis.2

“United States records,” images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/
ark:/61903/3:1:3QHV-V386-M93C-G?view=fullText : Feb 6, 2026), image 1058 of 1101;
United States. Department of State. Image Group Number: 008699970
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QHV-V386-M93C-G?view=fullText

Although Theodore was described as a second cousin to Willie, Berthold was described as his brother-in-law. I have no record of Theodor’s brother Berthold being married to a woman named Minna, though we know that his first wife Sarah had died in 1937. I thus am not sure that the Berthold Rothschild listed was the same person as Theodor’s older brother Berthold. I did find a tree on JewishGen with a different Berthold Rothschild married to a woman named Minna Weisbecker, so assuming that is accurate, the Berthold Rothschild in Willie’s letter is not my relative.

That made me wonder whether the Theodor Rothschild in Willie’s letter was in fact the same Theodor Rothschild on my family tree. I spent a great deal of time down the rabbit hole without any luck, trying to figure out how Willie Weisbecker was a second cousin (or any cousin) to Theodore Rothschild or his wife Bettina Schiff. The fact that Willie listed Theodor as from Monaco and having two daughters supports the assumption that this was the same Theodor Rothschild who was the son of Meier Rothschild and thus my cousin because other documents (discussed below) revealed that Theodor did live in Monaco. And I knew that he did have two daughters, Doris and Ellen.

But if Theodor and Willie were second cousins, they would share great-grandparents; same if Theodor’s wife Bettina and Willie were second cousins. So far, however, I have not found any commonality in the ancestries of Theodor and Willie or Bettina and Willie. I have contacted a person who has an extensive Ancestry tree for the Weisbecker family to see if he can help me find a link.

In any event, the State Department responded to Willie’s letter, agreeing to send the required forms for all the people listed in the letter except for those still in Germany.

“United States records,” images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/
ark:/61903/3:1:3QHV-V386-M97K-M?view=fullText : Feb 6, 2026), image 1060 of 1101;
United States. Department of State. Image Group Number: 008699970
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QHV-V386-M97K-M?view=fullText

I don’t know whether Theodor ever completed those forms and applied for a visa, but in any event I have no record of him or his family ever coming to the United States.

Rather, I found on MyHeritage references for the French naturalization for both Theodor and his daughter Ellen on May 27, 1949. 3 But I did not find any naturalization references for either Theodor’s wife Bettina or his older daughter Doris. Willie Weisbecker’s letter indicated that Monaco was part of the unoccupied territory of France in July 1941, and I don’t think that’s technically correct since Monaco has always been a separate sovereign country. But France did allow residents of Monaco to become French citizens by decree if certain conditions were met.4

Although I did not find a naturalization record for Theodor’s daughter Doris, I did find a French death record showing that she died in Saint-Gratien, Val-d’Oise, France, on February 13, 2017. She would have been 97 years old.5

For Theodor and Bettina, the only other references I could find are a FindAGrave memorial showing that they both died and are buried in Monaco. Theodor died in 1961, Bettina in 1982.6

I don’t know how accurate those memorials are, but those same dates and locations also appear in an Ancestry family tree that could be that of a descendant. I have written to the tree owner for more information, hoping she knows the story of Theodor and Bettina and their daughters. Her tree has more information about the daughters and their marriages, but I’d prefer to wait to learn more than to rely on a tree alone. For now, this is all I have records for about the lives of Theodor Rothschild and his family.

If and when I learn more, I will update the blog accordingly.

  1.  1 Incarceration Documents / 1.2 Miscellaneous / 1.2.1 Deportations and Transports /, Glatz (Lower Silesia): Minutes and correspondence concerning the collection of Jewish property, compulsory names, expatriation and deportation of the Jewish population (1938-1943), Reference Code 10007588 Creation Date 1938-12-06 – 1943-05-10 ↩
  2. “Willie Weisbecker, Lawyer and Writer,” The New York Times, December 4, 1955, p. 88 ↩
  3. Ellen ROTHSCHILD, Birth Mar 7 1929, Kassel, District de Kassel, Hesse, Allemagne, Naturalization May 27 1949, France, Notes Cette personne était un enfant mineur lorsque ses parents ont bénéficié d’un décret de Naturalisation, de Réintégration ou d’Admission sur lequel elle a été mentionnée, il est donc Français par EFFET COLLECTIF., Source Les naturalisations entre 1900 et 1963, Decree Number 12302-38, Reference Number H002-NAT1056319, Sources Journal Officiel, found at MyHeritage, https://www.myheritage.com/research/record-14015-409204/ellen-rothschild-in-france-naturalizations?s=OYYV67OZ5BWBQ5GHZXDK3ZTZXZLZYQY; Théodore ROTHSCHILD
    Birth Mar 16 1891, Hoof, Schauenburg, District de Kassel, Hesse, Allemagne
    Naturalization May 27 1949, France, Notes A l’origine cette personne était de nationalité étrangère, elle est devenue française en bénéficiant d’un décret de NATURALISATION. Le premier texte concernant les naturalisations d’étrangers en France est un arrêt du Parlement de Paris daté de 1515: “L’enfant né en France de parents étrangers est Français s’il choisit de se fixer définitivement en France”
    Source Les naturalisations entre 1900 et 1963, Decree Number 12302-38
    Reference Number H002-NAT1056334, Sources Journal Officiel, found at https://www.myheritage.com/research/record-14015-765667/theodore-rothschild-in-france-naturalizations ↩
  4. Ordonnance n° 45-2441, 19 oct. 1945 (Fr.), Code de la nationalité française art. 60–62 (1945). ↩
  5. Doris Rothschild, Gender femme (Female), Death Age 97, Birth Date févr. 1920 (Feb 1920), Birth Place Kassel, Allemagne (Germany), Death Date 13 févr. 2017 (13 Feb 2017), Death Place Saint-Gratien, Val-D”Oise (Val-d’Oise), France, Certificate Number 27, URL https://www.data.gouv.fr/fr/datasets/fichier-des-personnes-decedees/, Institut National de la Statistique et des Etudes Economiques (Insee); Paris, France; Fichier des personnes décédées; Roll #: deces-2017.txt, Ancestry.com. Web: France, Death Records, 1970-2021 ↩
  6. Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/99379564/theodore-rothschild: accessed February 5, 2026), memorial page for Dr Theodore Rothschild (1891–1961), Find a Grave Memorial ID 99379564, citing Cimetière de Monaco and Columbarium, Monaco-Ville, Monaco; Maintained by: Find a Grave. ↩

Meier Rothschild’s Son Berthold And An Important Lesson about AI

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Although I had a fairly easy time locating the names, birth dates, marriages, and children of the five children of Meier Rothschild and Bertha Lorge and I knew that all five lived beyond World War II, I have had a much harder time finding information about how they survived the Holocaust—did they leave in time or did they get sent to the camps? And where did they go after the war?

Each of those five children presented some research challenges because it appears that none of them ended up in the same place and almost all ended up somewhere other than the United States. So the records are harder to locate—if they exist at all. But I will do my best to trace their histories during the 1930s and thereafter.

Starting with the oldest child, Berthold Rothschild, his wife Sarah Adler, and their daughter Adelheid, one fact I was able to establish was that Sarah died on May 15, 1937, when she was only 43. The death record says she died in Herborn, which is a small town about 60 miles from Frankfurt, where the death record states she was living. So why was she in Herborn and not Frankfurt where Berthold lived? What caused her death? Was it related to the persecution of Jews by the Nazis? I didn’t know.

Sarah Rotschild, Maiden Name Adler, Gender weiblich (Female), Death Age 43, Birth Date Abt 1894, Death Date 15 Mai 1937 (15 May 1937), Death Place Herborn, Hessen (Hesse), Deutschland (Germany), Civil Registration Office Herborn, Certificate Number 74, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Personenstandsregister Sterberegister; Bestand: 4139; Laufende Nummer: 911, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Deaths, 1851-1958

I thought that perhaps there was more information in the parts of the death record that I could not read and asked in the GerSIG group on Facebook for help. Ralf, a member there, provided me with this translation:

The management of the state sanatorium has announced that Sara Rothschild, née Adler, without occupation, 43 years old, resident of Frankfurt am Main, born in Rüsselsheim, district of Gross-Gerau, divorced, died in the state sanatorium in Herborn on the afternoon of the fifteenth of May 1937 at five and a half o’clock.

I added the emphasis to two parts here. First, Sarah’s marital status was reported as divorced. I went back to the marriage record for Berthold and Sarah and now saw there was a marginal comment that in fact says that they were divorced as of August 22, 1927.

From the marriage record of Berthold Rothschild and Sarah Adler, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 903
Source Information
Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930

Then I looked a little further and learned that there was (and is) a psychiatric hospital in Herborn known then as Landesheil- und Pflegeanstalt Herborn (State Healing and Nursing Institution Herborn).  I was disgusted when I learned that this hospital was a place used by the Nazis for forced sterilization; 561 women and 623 men were forcibly sterilized, many after a diagnoses of “feeblemindedness.”  Patients slept on straw sacks instead of mattresses. Later, after Sarah’s death, Jewish patients were deported from the hospital to the concentration camps. I don’t know what circumstances caused Sarah to be sent to Herborn, but I imagine that the conditions there and the Nazi control of the facility were factors in her early death at 43.

As for her ex-husband Berthold, I have not been able yet to locate his whereabouts before 1943. As seen below, I know that in 1943 he was living in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, and in 1957 he traveled from Port Elizabeth, South Africa, to England, reporting that he was a photographer. The passenger manifest indicates that he planned to stay in England permanently.1

But he died on May 17, 1964, in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, not in England. The death certificate reported that he was a photographer, a widower, and wanted to be buried in Jerusalem, Israel. Unfortunately, I have not found any further information yet. I don’t know when he left Germany, when he ended up in South Africa, or anything else about his life between his divorce in 1934 and his travels in 1959 and then his death in 1964.

Berthold Rothschild death certificate, “South Africa, Civil Death Registration, 1953-1967”, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:6Z3Z-F3SN : Wed Jan 15 15:31:44 UTC 2025), Entry for Berthold Rothschild, 17 May 1964.

As for Berthold and Sarah’s daughter Adelheid, I also only have random pieces of information about her life.  I have inferred that she was sent to Westerbork sometime during the Nazi era—that is, the detention camp outside of Amsterdam where Jews were sent before being transported to the death camps. A record on the WieWasWie site includes the marriage certificate of Adelheid Rothschild and Manfred Samson. They were married on November 22, 1943, in the Westerbork camp.

Marriage record for Adelheid Rothschild and Manfred Samson, found at https://www.wiewaswie.nl/nl/detail/111087321

I asked ChatGPT, having been told that AI can be helpful on translations, to transcribe and translate this marriage record. And this is a warning to anyone else who relies on ChatGPT for this type of inquiry. It made several errors. This was the first translation it produced.

Record No. 116. On Thursday, 23 December 1943, before me, Registrar of Civil Status of the municipality of Westerbork, appeared for the purpose of entering into marriage:

Manfred Samson, aged  29, merchant, born in Leipzig, Germany, residing in Westerbork, son of Sami Samson and Berta Samson, both residing in Bielefeld.

Adelheid Rothschild, aged 29, without occupation, born in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, residing in Westerbork, daughter of Siegfried Rothschild, merchant, residing in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, and Paula Rothschild, without occupation, residing in Baden.

After the required announcements and with no impediment having appeared, they declared that they accepted one another as husband and wife.

I knew that the information in bold could not be correct. On the WieWasWie page itself, it had different information based on the same record. After several inquiries about this to ChatGPT, it admitted it had read the handwriting incorrectly and made the changes. The translation now reads:

Manfred Samson, aged  19, merchant, born in Leipzig, Germany, residing in Westerbork, son of Josef Samson and Zerlina Hoelzer, both residing in Bielefeld.

Adelheid Rothschild, aged 22, without occupation, born in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, residing in Westerbork, daughter of Siegfried Rothschild, merchant, residing in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, and Sarah Adler, deceased.

Thus, a word of caution to those relying on ChatGPT or any other AI tool for transcribing records: DO NOT TRUST THEIR WORK!!!

But one thing that I did learn from the translation is that Berthold was already in South Africa in 1943 when his daughter Adelheid was married in Westerbork. Why had she gone to the Netherlands instead of to South Africa with her father? I wish I knew.

Manfred Samson was born on December 2, 1923, in Leipzig and was a student of agriculture and horticulture.2 A record in the Arolsen Archives indicates that Manfred left Leipzig for Holland on November 28, 1938. He was sent to Westerbork on November 7, 1942.3

Manfred Samson registration as Jew in Leipzig, Arolsen Archives, 7 Archival records of microforms (new material / document acquisition) / 7.5 Document acquisition in Germany / 7.5.4 Leipzig, Archiv der Israelitische Religionsgemeinde /Mitgliederkartei, Reference Code
754003

Other Arolsen Archives records, one for Manfred and one for Adelheid, both contain the notation “BB 11.1.44,” I wondered whether that meant that Adelheid and Samson were deported to Bergen Belsen on January 11, 1944.

Manfred Samson, Arolsen Archives, 1 Incarceration Documents / 1.2 Miscellaneous / 1.2.4 Various Organizations /Documents with names from SALOMONS, Eva, Reference Code
01020402 220

Adelheid Samson Arolsen Archives, 1 Incarceration Documents / 1.2 Miscellaneous / 1.2.4 Various Organizations /Documents with names from ROSIANSKI, Jozef, Reference Code
01020402 217

Fortunately both Adelheid and Manfred survived the camps. They are both listed on several documents created after the war by the Joint Distribution Committee that identify Jews who were liberated from the Celle/Frankfurt an der Oder camp.4

I had never heard of this camp before but learned that it was located eleven miles north of Bergen-Belsen, so that reinforces my assumption that BB stood for Bergen Belsen and that Celle was just another way of referring to Bergen-Belsen or a satellite camp nearby.

For a long time I could find no clue as to where Manfred and Adelheid went after being liberated from the camp. Then I saw the reverse of one of the Arolsen Archives documents and noticed this:

Manfred Samson, Arolsen Archives, 7 Archival records of microforms (new material / document acquisition) / 7.5 Document acquisition in Germany / 7.5.4 Leipzig, Archiv der Israelitische Religionsgemeinde /Mitgliederkartei, Reference Code 754003

From this document it appears that Manfred (and perhaps Adelheid) ended up in a kibbutz in Israel. But I haven’t found any other records for them on either the IGRA website or the Israel State Archives website. Kibbutz Schluchoth was the first kibbutz created after the formation of the State of Israel, according to their website, and was founded primarily by Holocaust survivors from Germany and Austria. I sent them an email asking if they had information about Manfred and Adelheid Samson, but have not received a response.

It took hours of work to string together this information about Berthold and his family, and I wish I knew more. But perhaps the biggest lesson I learned from this research is NOT to rely on ChatGPT to transcribe and translate documents accurately.

  1. Berthold Rothschild, passenger manifest, The National Archives in Washington, DC; London, England, UK; Board of Trade: Commercial and Statistical Department and Successors: Inwards Passenger Lists; Class: Bt26; Piece: 1382; Item: 67, Month: Jun, Ancestry.com. UK and Ireland, Incoming Passenger Lists, 1878-1960 ↩
  2.  Arolsen Archives; Bad Arolsen, Germany; Record Group 1 Incarceration Documents; Reference: 1.2.4.2, Ancestry.com. Germany, Incarceration Documents, 1933-1945; https://www.wiewaswie.nl/nl/detail/111087321 ↩
  3. Arolsen Archives, 1 Incarceration Documents / 1.2 Miscellaneous / 1.2.4 Various Organizations /Documents with names from SALOMONS, Eva, Reference Code
    01020402 220 ↩
  4. E.g., Adelheid Samson, Manfred Samson, Arolsen Archives; Bad Arolsen, Germany; Registration of Liberated Former Persecutees at Various Locations (F18 lists); Reference: DE ITS 3.1.1.3 DE, Reference Number: 008804350, Ancestry.com. Registration of Liberated Former Persecutees, 1945-1950 ↩