By 1939, all three of the children of Moses Blumenfeld IIA had died, leaving behind their children, the seven grandchildren of Moses Blumenfeld IIA. Their fates were determined by the Nazis. This post will examine the fates of the children of Moses’ daughter Antonie Blumenfeld Katz and her sister Hedwig Blumenfeld Kaufmann as well as that of Antonie’s husband Moritz Katz.
Antonie’s husband Moritz Katz stayed in Marburg after Antonie died in 1939 until he was deported to Theriesenstadt on September 7, 1942; he was killed there on September 11, 1944, at the age of 73. He and Antonie were survived by their two children, Artur Katz and Margarete Martha Katz Jacobsohn. Those two children survived by leaving Nazi Germany and immigrating to Palestine (now Israel) in the 1930s.
Moritz Katz Page of Testimony at Yad Vashem, found at https://yvng.yadvashem.org/nameDetails.html?language=en&itemId=1627679&ind=1
Artur was a lawyer in Berlin until the Nazis deprived of him his right to practice law after 1933. According to his nephew Yoram Jacobson, Artur soon left for Palestine, where he changed his name to Avraham (which was probably always his Hebrew name). According to a profile on MyHeritage, Avraham was married to Edith (Hannah) Walter, and they had three children. I have no other sources so far to verify that information. Avraham Katz died on October 22, 1978, in Haifa, Israel.
Artur Avraham Katz gravestone on Gravez, found at https://gravez.me/en/deceased/275CF393-EB17-4B26-8BBF-D82EC06FEB94
Antonie’s daughter Margarete Martha Katz had married Friedrich (Fritz) Max Jacobsohn sometime before they immigrated to Israel in 1939. Fritz was born in Hanover, Germany, on July 13, 1899; his father’s name was Abraham. I have no information about his mother. Fritz, an insurance agent, had been taken to Buchenwald Concentration Camp after Kristallnacht in November 1938 and was determined to leave Germany once he was released. With the help of his brother-in-law Avraham Katz, he and Margarete immigrated to Palestine/Israel on July 24, 1939. They became citizens of Palestine on October 20, 1941.1
Margarete and Fritz Jacobsohn Palestine citizen certificate, found at the Israel State Archives website at https://www.archives.gov.il/
Margarete and Fritz had one child, their son Yoram, who was born on November 27, 1944, in Haifa. Yoram Jacobson became a prominent Kabbalist and Hasidic scholar. He taught at several academic institutions in Israel, including Hebrew University and Tel Aviv University, and overseas, including at Harvard. He was also the author of many books and articles. Yoram was married twice and had four children.
Fritz Jacobson died August 24, 1963, in Haifa. He was 64. He was survived by his wife Margarete Katz Jacobson, who died forty years later on April 12, 2003, at the age of 96. They were survived by their son Yoram and his children. Yoram died April 16, 2017, in Israel. He was 72.
Although Moritz Katz died at the hands of the Nazis in Theriesenstadt, the two children he had with Antonie Blumenfeld survived by immigrating to Palestine. Today they have living descendants in Israel.
The story of Antonie’s sister Hedwig Blumenfeld Kaufmann does not end as well.
Hedwig’s daughter Anna Kaufmann and her husband Julius Leyser did not go to Palestine with their cousins. They did, however, leave Germany for Amsterdam, but sadly that was not enough to escape the Nazis. Anna, her husband Julius, and their two young sons Ernst and Hans were all deported from the Westerbork detention camp in Amsterdam to the extermination camp at Sobibor on July 23, 1943, and were murdered there. Anna was 42, Julius was 45, Ernst thirteen, and Hans eleven. An entire family wiped out, including two young boys.
Anna Kaufmann Leyser page of testimony at Yad Vashem, found at https://yvng.yadvashem.org/nameDetails.html?language=en&itemId=3827826&ind=1
Julius Leyser Page of Testimony at Yad Vashem, found at https://yvng.yadvashem.org/nameDetails.html?language=en&itemId=808099&ind=1
Ernst Leyser Page of Testimony at Yad Vashem, found at https://yvng.yadvashem.org/nameDetails.html?language=en&itemId=8897102&ind=1
Hans Leyser page of testimony at Yad Vashem, found at https://yvng.yadvashem.org/nameDetails.html?language=en&itemId=8897103&ind=1
Hedwig’s son Albert Kaufmann survived the Holocaust by immigrating to Brazil. His marriage to his first wife Dorothy had ended before she died on March 31, 1938, in Berlin, Germany.2 Albert had traveled to Brazil in 1924 before he’d married Dorothy, so perhaps he knew it was a good place to immigrate.3 He died in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on June 10, 1986, at the age of 84. According to his death record, he was survived by his second wife Georgina Correa. She was born in Brazil in 1921, the daughter of José Correa de Mendonça and Anna Emilia da Conceicao.4 The death record indicates that Albert left no children. He died from cancer.
Brasil, Rio de Janeiro, Registro Civil, 1829-2012,” database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:S3HY-6QQP-KV?cc=1582573&wc=9GYK-DPJ%3A113334201%2C120190503%2C122537201 : 7 January 2019), Rio de Janeiro 02ª Circunscrição Óbitos 1985, Nov-1987, Jan image 172 of 304; Corregedor Geral da Justicia (Inspector General of Justice Offices), Rio de Janeiro.
UPDATE: I received an email today (1/5/22) from the daughter of Paul Blumenfeld. I learned from her that Albert Kaufmann did have a daughter named Inge and that Inge had two sons. So Albert Kaufmann, and thus his mother Hedwig Blumenfeld Kaufmann, do have living descendants!
The story of the family of their brother Ernst will be told in the next post.
- The immigration papers for Fritz and Margarete (Katz) Jacobsohn can be found at the Israel State Archives website at https://www.archives.gov.il/. You can also see them here at Friedrich Max Jacobsohn and Margarete Katz immigration documents from Israel Archives. Some of the information in this paragraph also came from the online interview with Fritz and Margerete’s son Yoram, found here. ↩
- Dorothy Kaufmann, Maiden Name: Schimmelpfennig, Gender: weiblich (Female)
Age: 30, Birth Date: abt 1908, Death Date: 31 Apr 1938, Civil Registration Office: Wilmersdorf, Death Place: Berlin, Berlin, Deutschland (Germany), Certificate Number: 545, Berlin, Deutschland; Landesarchiv Berlin; Personenstandsregister Sterberegister; Laufendenummer: 1625, Ancestry.com. Berlin, Germany, Deaths, 1874-1955 ↩ - Albert Kaufmann, ship manifest, Albert Kaufmann, Gender: männlich (Male), Ethnicity/Nationality: Hessen, Marital Status: ledig (Single), Departure Age: 22, Birth Date: abt 1902, Residence Place: Marburg, Departure Date: 9. Jul 1924 (9 Jul 1924)
Departure Place: Hamburg, Deutschland (Germany), Destination: Buenos Aires
Arrival Place: La Coruna; Vigo; Rio de Janeiro; Buenos Aires; Brasilien; Uruguay; Argentinien, Occupation: Kaufmann, Ship Name: Württemberg, Shipping Clerk: Hamburg-Amerika Linie (Hamburg-Amerikanische Packetfahrt-Actien-Gesellschaft)
Shipping Line: Hamburg-Amerika Linie (Hamburg-Amerikanische Packetfahrt-Actien-Gesellschaft), Ship Type: Dampfschiff, Ship Flag: Deutschland, Accommodation: 3. Klasse, Volume: 373-7 I, VIII A 1 Band 316, Staatsarchiv Hamburg; Hamburg, Deutschland; Hamburger Passagierlisten; Volume: 373-7 I, VIII A 1 Band 316; Page: 90; Microfilm No.: K_1856, Staatsarchiv Hamburg. Hamburg Passenger Lists, 1850-1934 ↩ - Brasil, Rio de Janeiro, Registro Civil, 1829-2012,” database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:77HZ-FXW2 : 9 April 2020), Albert Kaufmann in entry for Georgina Correa Kaufmann, ; citing Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil; Corregedor Geral da Justicia (Inspector General of Justice Offices), Rio de Janeiro. ↩
Brotmanblog: A Family Journey 
It is comforting to read that many members of the Blumenfeld branch of your family were able to escape the horrors of the Holocaust. I wonder by what means the family was able to bring about Fritz’s release. Perhaps a ransom was paid or they had some influential friends who managed to arrange the seemingly impossible.
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Actually most of the men who were taken to Buchenwald after Kristallnacht in November 1938 appear to have been released within a few months or few weeks. I don’t know what the thinking was except perhaps to scare the Jews still in Germany to leave ASAP. Once the war started in September 1939, that became a lot more difficult.
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That’s certainly the experience my grandfather David Weinstein had. My grandmother Alice did tell some stories about her negotiations with the local authorities, the distribution of her possessions to friends and her packing and concealing things until all her papers and tickets to England were approved. After the final bureaucrats took their bribes David was dropped off in front of her house in Eschwege 2 days before the ship was to leave, with the threat that both would be taken into custody if they remained. Of course they left and made it onto the boat to England and then the US in early 1939. In 1989, when I was in Eschwege for the reconciliation events my father, mother and I went to visit a woman whose mother had been a friend of my grandmother, and at her house we visited the silver coffee and tea set Alice gave to the family on the way out of Germany. I don’t have words to describe my feelings at that moment.
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Hi Bob, Thanks for sharing this. How did your parents feel, returning to Germany after fifty years? And I assume you are referring to your grandfather’s experience at Buchenwald (I get these comments out of context, so it sometimes confuses me!).
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My mother was not a German;she was born in Brooklyn of Romanian parents. My father left Eschwege in 1935. He was very closed mouthed about it and so his behavior was more like someone at a 50th reunion. Others were far more openly bitter. The whole week is burned into my memory, filled with conflicting emotions and thoughts. One revelation I had, sitting out in the sun having an afternoon coffee alone was “They won!”. It’s a very pretty town, reasonably prosperous and very well preserved, with polite memorials to its former Jewish population on the old synagogue and at the cemetery. And no jews at all. They chased out many and killed the rest. It was time for me to get the hell out of there; I got in my rent-a-car and cranked up the stereo and played an entire Tom Petty album, tears running down.
This is the first time I ever wrote that down. But the memory is very present.
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I am sorry that it caused you pain. I know what you mean, and I felt that in Germany at times. On the other hand, I also felt like WE won—because we ARE still here. And we can go back to Germany and remind them that we are here and we are not going away. And that we can walk the streets of Germany without fear.
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Sad tales, but the comment string with Bob is heart rending. I can hardly imagine what it would be like to have a family history like that and to visit Germany now.
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I agree. I am so glad he shared his story. It’s important for all of us to recognize the pain and loss so many suffered at the hands of the Nazis.
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An entire family gone – what a tragedy! And thanks to Bob for sharing his story.
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One little decision helped to determine their fates. Leave or stay. Go to Israel (Palestine then) or Amsterdam. etc I think a lot of people forget that though Anne Frank grew up in Amsterdam, she was born in Germany and that her parents were Jewish Germans. They had already been uprooted because of the Nazis at the time that Anne began her diary. To think of what her father went through surviving after those decades is truly beyond imagination. Sorry for that tangent.
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Not a tangent at all. It’s all interconnected.
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It was in my mind, at least.
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CONGRATULATIONS! Your blog has been included in INTERESTING BLOGS in FRIDAY FOSSICKING at
https://thatmomentintime-crissouli.blogspot.com/2021/12/friday-fossicking-17th-dec-2021.html
Thank you, Chris
Such a powerful story, as always… I am in awe of your detailed research.
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Thank you so much!!
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How awful that the whole family was murdered – it’s inhumane. Even though I KNOW what happened, every time I read an account like yours, I’m baffled anew at the thought process one must go through to decide it’s necessary to murder people just because their religion is different from your own. It makes no sense.
I’m relieved that Albert at least survived…but still, it mustn’t have been an easy life for him knowing what had happened to his sister.
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There is nothing sensible about hatred or violence. Nothing at all.
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