Thekla Blumenfeld Gruenbaum and her brother Felix Blumenfeld lost their lives in the Holocaust as did Thekla’s son-in-law Walter Herzog; Thekla’s grandson Manfred Herzog was killed fighting against Nazi Germany. But Thekla and Felix’s children and the other grandchildren all survived because most of them were able to leave Germany before it was too late.

Thekla Blumenfeld Gruenbaum’s Children and Grandchildren

Franz Moritz Gruenbaum, Thekla’s younger son, was in South Africa by 1935¹ and on March 18, 1937, he immigrated to the United States.²  Franz soon settled in Springfield, Massachusetts, just a few miles from where I now live, where he married a woman named Maria Pauline Strasser in 1938.³ Maria was born in Munich, Germany, on April 21, 1901, and was previously married to Richard Bachmann.⁴ Maria had known Franz in Kassel before they all immigrated, and she and Franz had spent time together in South Africa and traveled back to the US together in March 1937 as you can see on this ship manifest.⁵

Sometime after immigrating, Franz changed his name to Frank Gruen. He and Maria settled in Springfield and lived there for at least twenty years where Frank worked in the printing business⁶ and Maria taught German.⁷ At some point they relocated to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where they were living in 1980 when they died. Frank and Maria died within months of each other, Maria in January 1980,⁸ Frank two months later in March.⁹ She was 78, and he 80.

Thekla’s older son Curt Wilhelm Gruenbaum was still in Kassel, Germany, in 1935,¹⁰ but thereafter left for England and then arrived in the US on May 9, 1939. He was living with his brother Franz in Springfield by 1939, and his wife Gertrude and son Heinz joined him in Springfield on May 25, 1939.¹¹ By 1940 Curt and his family had relocated from Springfield to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Curt, like his brother Franz, was working in the printing business.¹²

In 1942, Curt, who changed the spelling of his name to Kurt, was working for the Fuller Brush Company.

Kurt and Gertrude’s son Heinz, who changed his name to Henry, married Barbara Ann Gillespie in 1955 in Cambridge, Massachusetts.¹³ She was born on December 23, 1933, in Boston to Leslie and Pearl Gillespie.¹⁴ Henry and Barbara Ann had two sons.

Kurt and his wife Gertrude remained in Cambridge for the rest of their lives, which may explain why his brother Frank and Maria relocated there. Gertrude died at the age of 76 on July 7, 1977;¹⁵ Kurt died eight years later on February 6, 1985.¹⁶ He was 87 years old. They were survived by their son Henry and his wife and children. Henry died October 22, 2008;¹⁷ he was 76; his wife Barbara Ann survived him by seven years. She died on April 24, 2015, at 81. The family created a tribute page to Henry and his family with many photos of Henry and his parents Kurt and Gertrude here.

While the two sons of Thekla Blumenfeld Gruenbaum ended up in Massachusetts, her two daughters Caecile and Rosemarie ended up in New York.

Rosemarie Gruenbaum first immigrated to England. I don’t know when, but she is listed with her husband Ernest Heymann on the 1939 England and Wales Register.¹⁸ Ernest, a silk merchant like Rosemarie’s brother-in-law Walter Herzog, was born January 24, 1902, in Brussels.¹⁹ I was unable to learn more about Ernest’s family background or to find a record for their marriage. They had one child born in England in 1940.

UPDATE: Thank you so much to Cathy Meder-Dempsey who read this post and on her own decided to look up Ernest Heymann’s birth record. Now I know that he was the son of Edouard Heymann, a trader who was  born in Krefeld, Germany, and Mathilde Kaufmann, who born in Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle), Germany. Although I was able to go back another generation and find Eduoard’s parents’ names, I am still looking for a marriage record for Ernest and Rosemarie.

On November November 19, 1940, Rosemarie, Ernest, and their daughter left England for the US, arriving in the US in Boston on December 5, 1940.²⁰ By February 1942 when he registered for the draft, Ernest and his family were living in Kew Gardens, Queens, New York, and he was working for Goodman and Theise, Inc., a textile company in New York City.

Ernest Heyman (he later dropped the second N) died when he was 74 in 1976.²¹ His wife Rosemarie Gruenbaum Heyman outlived him by almost thirty years. She died at the age of 91 on April 14, 2004. They were survived by their daughter and her family.

After surviving persecution in two concentration camps—at Riga and Stuffhof, Caecilie Gruenbaum Herzog arrived in New York on July 17, 1946. The manifest indicates that she was headed to 83-57 118^th Street in Kew Gardens, Queens, New York, the same address listed on Ernest Heyman’s draft registration depicted above.  I have no records for Caecile between 1946 and when she died on December 13, 1990, at the age of 95 in New York.²²

Caecile’s daughter Renata married Hermann Luedecke in London in the summer of 1944²³ and had one child with him in 1947.²⁴ She later married Gunther Cahn in 1952,²⁵ and they immigrated to Canada in 1955.²⁶ Renata died in Toronto in 1995 Her husband Gunther died in 2012 in Canada.²⁷

Felix Blumenfeld’s Children and Grandchildren

As for the children of Felix Blumenfeld, Felix’s son Edgar Blumenfeld and his wife Anna Hanau left Germany by 1935 and were living in Paris, France, when their son Gerard Blumenfeld was born on August 20, 1935. They later left for Cuba and finally immigrated to the US on October 13, 1942.

They settled in Chicago and first changed their surname to Bloomfield and then to just Field. Edgar was a chemical engineer. Edgar died on June 23, 1954, in Chicago. He was only fifty years old.²⁸ His wife Anna later remarried and died in 1997 when she was 91.²⁹

Edgar’s brother Gerhard Blumenfeld was still in Germany when he married Lotte Hedwig Rosenthal on June 21, 1936, in Giessen.³⁰ Lotte was born in Giessen on February 27, 1915; her parents were Max and Emma Rosenthal. By 1939 Gerhard (known as Gerd) and Lotte were living in London with Lotte’s parents and siblings. I wonder whether the two blacked out names under the names of Gerd and Lotte Blumenfeld on the 1939 England and Wales Register are the two children of Gerd’s cousin Caecilie Gruenbaum Herzog, Renata and Manfred.

Gerd and Lotte came to the US on November 16, 1940³¹ and settled in Chicago also. Gerd also changed his surname to Bloomfield (but not later to Field). He was an engineer like his brother Edgar and worked for Union Asbestos & Rubber Company.

Gerd and Lotte had two sons born in Chicago after the war. Like his brother Edgar, Gerd died in his fifties. He was fifty-three years old when he died on August 11, 1959,³² leaving behind his wife and young children. Like her sister-in-law Anna, Gerd’s wife Lotte remarried after Gerd’s early death. Lotte died on October 18, 2010, at the age of 95.³³

Thus, although Thekla Blumenfeld Gruenbaum and Felix Blumenfeld,  Salomon Blumenfeld’s two children with his first wife, both were killed during the Holocaust, they have living descendants today to carry on their legacy.

Salomon Blumenfeld’s connection to his children Thekla and Felix may have been long ago broken after their mother Caecilie Erlanger died and he remarried and moved to Spain, but he has descendants today only through those children.