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.