When Hitler came to power in Germany in 1933, Regina Goldschmidt Meyer had already outlived her husband Aaron Meyer, who had died in 1902, and two of her seven children, Sally having died in childhood and Jacob in 1928. Her other five children—Alfred, Max, Siegfried, Ferdinand, and Amalie— were still living as well as a number of grandchildren.
But Regina died in Frankfurt on October 7, 1938, just a month before Kristallnacht. She was 83 years old.
Some of her five surviving children fared better than others during the Holocaust. For some, I ran into brick walls when I tried to learn more about their lives during or after the war. For others, I discovered tragedy. This post will focus on her four oldest children and their families.
The fate of Regina’s oldest child, Alfred Meyer, is somewhat unclear. I found only two documents for him after his birth record. First, I found this card in the Arolsen Archives:
With help from the German Genealogy group, I learned that this card says that Alfred was a widower and that he had no occupation. The final column indicates that Alfred was still living in Frankfurt on April 24, 1939, and then left for France and was there until November 3, 1939.
The second card, also from the Arolsen Archives, came up through a search on Ancestry.com:
According to the description on Ancestry, this document was prepared after the war by the American forces occupying West Germany as an attempt to document the Jews who had been persecuted by the Nazis. This particular document lists those who had become or were French citizens. Under the last category, “Aufenthaltsdaten,” or dates of stay, it says April 24, 1939, to November 3, 1939. This appears to be consistent with the other card from the Arolsen Archives.
But what happened to Alfred after November 3, 1939? Did he return to Frankfurt and survive? Was he killed? He does not appear in either the Yad Vashem database or the US Holocaust Memorial and Museum database. There are many other post-war records for men named Alfred Meyer, but the name is so common and the records so vague in identification information that I have no idea what happened to my cousin Alfred Meyer. Cibella and Baron say he died in a concentration camp, and I fear that that is probably the case even though I can’t find him at Yad Vashem.
As noted above, Alfred’s brother Jacob Meyer had died in 1928, leaving his wife Elli and their children to survive him. I was able to find records for Elli showing that she had immigrated to England by 1939; she and her son Arthur are listed together on the 1939 England and Wales Register.
Arthur also registered as an enemy alien in 1939; at that time he was working as an apprentice shirt cutter for Harrod’s. Note that his address is 28c Maida Avenue.
Also living at 28c Maida Avenue in 1939 when she registered as an enemy alien was Arthur’s sister Hilde Meyer, who was a student and an unemployed domestic worker.
On the 1939 England and Wales Register, Hilde was working as a parlor maid and living elsewhere, so she must have found work by the time that was enumerated.1
As for the third child whom Cibella/Baron identified as a child of Jacob and Elli Meyer, Lotte Henriette Meyer, I did not have much luck locating records. Cibella/Baron report that she married Helmut Leopold Wallach in Frankfurt on April 27, 1934, and that they had twin daughters born in 1935, but I could not find a marriage record or birth records for the twins. I did find a 1937 ship manifest for a Lotte Wallach with two daughters born in 1935, heading from England to Argentina2 and a separate 1937 manifest for a Helmut Leopold Wallach heading to Uruguay,3 but nothing more specific to tie Lotte to Jacob and Elli Meyer or to Helmut Wallach.
Elli Loeser Meyer lived the rest of her life in England, dying there on April 18, 1966. The listing for her in the England & Wales, National Probate Calendar names “Arthur Meyers, company director,” as one of the executors.4 I have been unable so far to find any other later records for any of her children. Thus, I do not know when or where they died, whether or not they married or had children, or anything else.
Max Meyer and his family escaped from Nazi Germany to Argentina. It appears that their son Arnold had immigrated there in July, 1936, but had been living in Basel, Switzerland prior to heading to Buenos Aires:
According to Cibella/Baron, Arnold’s parents Max and Anna also both immigrated to Buenos Aires and died there, Anna in 1941 and Max in 1952. Unfortunately, I have no records for these events or for Arnold’s death in 1959.
Siegfried Meyer met a tragic end. He immigrated to the Netherlands, but on April 21, 1943, he was deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp, where he was murdered on November 23, 1943, and cremated.5
Thus, for Regina’s four oldest children, I have mixed results. Jacob’s family ended up in England and possibly Argentina; Max’s family ended up in Argentina. Tragically, Siegfried was murdered by the Nazis, and Alfred probably was also.
The next post will report on Regina’s youngest son, Ferdinand, and his family.
- Hilde Meyer, Gender: Female, Marital status: Single, Birth Date: 21 Nov 1912, Residence Year: 1939, Address: 24, Residence Place: Yiewsley and West Drayton, Middlesex, England, Occupation: Parlourmaid, Schedule Number: 167, Sub Schedule Number: 3, Enumeration District: BZAA, Registration district: 127/1, The National Archives; Kew, London, England; 1939 Register; Reference: RG 101/994A, Ancestry.com. 1939 England and Wales Register ↩
- Lotte Wallach, Gender: Female, Age: 31, Birth Date: abt 1906, Departure Date: 16 Oct 1937, Port of Departure: Southampton, England, Destination Port: Buenos Aires, Argentina, Ship Name: Almanzora, Shipping Line: Royal Mail Lines Limited, Official Number: 136353, Ancestry.com. UK and Ireland, Outward Passenger Lists, 1890-1960 ↩
-
Helmut Wallach, Gender: Male, Age: 31, Birth Date: abt 1906, Departure Date: 5 Feb 1937, Port of Departure: Southampton, England, Destination Port: Montevideo, Uruguay, Ship Name: Arlanza, Shipping Line: Royal Mail Lines Limited
Official Number: 132021, Ancestry.com. UK and Ireland, Outward Passenger Lists, 1890-1960 ↩ - Elli Meyer, Death Date: 18 Apr 1966, Death Place: London, England, Probate Date: 6 Jun 1966, Probate Registry: London, England, Ancestry.com. England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1858-1995 ↩
- Siegfried Meyer, entries at Yad Vashem: https://tinyurl.com/yazazrxa and https://tinyurl.com/y6v946fm ↩
It must be very frustrating for you to hit a brick wall and find so little information on the fate of those family members who emigrated to Argentina or Uruguay. Perhaps this is caused by the lack of keeping records in these South American countries? Have a great weekend, Amy!
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I think it’s at least that there are no records easily found online. When I’ve had the amazing good fortune to find relatives who went to South America, it’s because some kind person helped me search in the local country. Not knowing Spanish or Portuguese is a real handicap as I can’t use Google easily either. Sometimes just by publishing the names a relative will find me years later on the blog and fill in the rest of the story.
Thanks, Peter—you have a great weekend also.
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I hope this expectation is fulfilled, Amy. The direct line descendants may provide the info needed to fill in the spaces. When this has happened to me it is very uplifting and exciting.
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Thanks, Emily!
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Hi Amy, I’ve tried searching the UK records for you referring to The Meyers. I note Arthur was a trainee shirt cutter in Harrods store which is one of the most prestigious retailers in the UK. I’ve been looking at some records from our BMD but there’s no listing for Meyer that would fit the time frame. It’s frustrating when there are no obvious records for you to further your research
in South America too.
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Thank you so much, Shirley, for trying! I appreciate that so much. Isn’t it odd (and frustrating) how people just disappear? Thank you again!!
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Always so many mixed feelings reading the stories of families, those who survived and those who didn’t. Always reminds me of the heartache those who survived felt.
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Even after reading so much over the years about the Holocaust, it’s still unfathomable to me.
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I feel your frustration here Amy. Hopefully, as you note, publishing these names will lead to someone with more information getting in touch.
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Thanks, Su. I mostly want to know what happened to Alfred Meyer. And if I find a descendant of one of the other siblings, maybe I will.
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I hope so.
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I love reading your posts and have spent this early afternoon catching up on the last two weeks or so. How I wish I could be as productive as you have been during our confinement. We have been riding a lot which gives me time to think but the ideas just haven’t made it to the WordPress editor. We had planned a 100 km bike ride today but weather conditions changed and we are under a yellow alert. Stay safe, my friend.
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Thanks, Cathy. I have only six more “prepared” posts (90% ready to go), and I haven’t started a new one in weeks. So pretty soon I have to start working on a new one, but have not been motiviated. So I know what you mean. What is a yellow alert? Happy US Mothers’ Day! You stay safe and healthy also.
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Yellow alert is a level below red alert. I don’t know who or how they measure these. Just expecting bad thunderstorms sometime today.
Happy Mothers’ Day to you. Ours is in June🤗
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Ah, it’s a weather thing. Not a security thing (which they use here for terrorism).
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Sorry if I scared you, Amy.
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No, I’m already anxious about everything else!
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After I studied several old poems my mother had written about hard times in Texas during the Great Depression, I searched for statistical information on poverty during 1929 to 1930 and found a site about Germany’s situation during that time period. There was a general worldwide depression everywhere and Germany was no exception. It made sense to me that Hitler would covet the Jews’ possessions and determine to enlarge his own coffers by exterminating them. On the other hand, my mother-in-law’s family (Wiebe and Braun) were landowners who were driven to Canada. They had earlier been ousted from Russia because of their beliefs.
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Of course, Hitler condemned much of the art as primitive and corrupt and destroyed a great deal of it. So although I am sure some of the motivation was greed, sadly most of it was based on hatred. Thanks for your thoughts!
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I always wonder how much contact relatives had with each other as the Nazis forced them to other countries or concentration camps – I suspect it was little to none.
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I think it probably depended. I doubt whether there was much if someone was in a camp, but if they’d escaped to England or the US, I’d assume there was some mail exchanged at least up until the war started.
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It occurred to me in reading this that another tragedy of the Holocaust besides the obvious is how families were split up all over the world. In addition to genocide, it’s a whole “new” diaspora.
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Yes, so many of my recent posts have been about families that were spread all over the globe.
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It’s true.
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