Category Archives: Goldschmidt/Goldsmith

Lotte Nathan: Carrying and Passing on Family Trauma

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Although I couldn’t find out what happened to Bertha Katzenstein Nathan Langebartels, I learned from her naturalization papers that Bertha had had a child with her first husband, Hermann Nathan, named Lotte. Lotte, according to the naturalization petition, was born on May 1, 1915, in Hamburg, Germany. She would have been only eleven years old when her mother and stepfather immigrated to the US in 1926, but she did not come with them. The naturalization petition stated that she “lives in Germany.” The petition also indicated that Friedrich and Bertha had last resided in Hamburg before coming to the United States. I hoped to find Lotte as another way of learning what happened to her mother.

Bertha Katzenstein Langebartels Weber petition for naturalization, The National Archives and Records Administration; Washington, D.C.; Petitions For Naturalization From the U.s. District Court For the Southern District of New York, 1897-1944; Series: M1972; Roll: 542
Description
Archive Roll Descriptions: (Roll 0542) Petition No· 124777-Petition No· 125042
Source Information
Ancestry.com. New York, U.S., Naturalization Records, 1882-1944

My hunch is that Lotte stayed behind with her father Hermann Nathan, but I can’t be certain. But I do know that sometime during or before 1936 Lotte married Emil Fischbein because on September 8, 1936, they left Germany and immigrated to Palestine as a married couple.1 Emil was born in Duisburg, Germany, on September 15, 1912, but was of Polish nationality, according to his Palestine immigration documents; one tree on MyHeritage created by his great-grandson Gil reports that Emil’s parents were Isaak and Esther Fischbein, both born in what is now Poland. German law at that time provided that children born to non-German parents were not considered German.

Emil and Lotte’s Palestine immigration documents also include Lotte’s passport,2 which was issued as a Fremdenpass, or a passport issued by the German government to non-Germans living in Germany. Lotte was not eligible for a regular German passport—either because she had married a “foreigner” or because she was Jewish. Jews whose citizenship had been revoked also were granted Fremdenpasses, not regular German passports.

Lotte’s passport was issued on August 15, 1931, from Koeln (Cologne), which suggests that she was living in the German state of North Rhine Westphalia in 1931, not in Hamburg where she was born and where her mother and stepfather had been living before going to the US. It also appears that Lotte’s father Hermann Nathan was not living in North Rhine Westphalia; he was born in Wittingen3 and in 1939 was living in Hildesheim, both of which are located in the German state of Lower Saxony. Emil, however, was born in Duisburg, which is in North Rhine Westphalia, so perhaps that is where they connected with each other.

By October 15, 1940, when Lotte and Emil obtained Palestinian citizenship, they were living in Haifa and had a son, Hanan, who was born on August 11, 1937, in Haifa.4 Through MyHeritage, I located one of their descendants to learn more about Lotte and her family. Gil is Lotte’s great-grandson; his grandfather was Hanan, the baby born in Haifa in 1937. He told me that family lore is that Lotte left Emil and Hanan when Hanan was a child and went to England with an English soldier.

Some trees on Ancestry and MyHeritage indicate that she married Ronald Francis George Buchanan and died in England in 1971. There is a death record on Ancestry for  Lotte Emma B. Buchanan born on May 1, 1915, the day Lotte Nathan was born; the index indicated that she died in the fall of 1971 in Nottingham, England.5 Another record on Ancestry indicates that she died on November 21, 1971, and was cremated in Nottinghamshire on November 24, 1971.6

Lotte Nathan Fischbein Buchanan had a family history and personal history that was difficult. Her grandmother Bertha Metz died from complications of childbirth just two weeks after giving birth to Lotte’s mother Bertha Katzenstein in New York. Bertha Katzenstein was then taken by her father Adolf to Germany, away from her mother’s family.

Then Lotte’s mother Bertha married Hermann Nathan and had Lotte in 1915, only to be divorced from Hermann in 1919 and to marry Friedrich Langebartels in 1921. In 1926 Bertha and Friedrich came to the US and were there at least long enough to file for US citizenship in 1927, leaving Lotte behind in Germany at eleven years old. I don’t know what happened to Bertha after 1927 or whether Lotte ever reunited with her mother.

We know that there is truth to the concept of generational trauma—how the traumas and tragedies suffered by earlier generations are passed down to the children, grandchildren, and so forth of those earlier generations. Bertha Katzenstein grew up without a mother and was taken from the US to Germany as a child by her father, far from her maternal relatives. We don’t know how that trauma affected her, but in some ways her daughter Lotte suffered a similar trauma when her mother Bertha divorced her father, remarried, and left Lotte behind after moving to the US with her second husband. And then Lotte inflicted a similar trauma on her son Hanan, leaving him behind when she remarried and moved to England.

How tragic it is that the scars of one generation can be so easily passed on to the later generations.

 

  1. Emil and Lotte’s application for citizenship in Palestine in 1940 was found at the Israel State Archives website, temporarily found at https://search.archives.gov.il/, after a cyberattack on their main site. ↩
  2. See Note 1, supra. ↩
  3. Hermann Nathan and Bertha Katzenstein marriage record, Year Range and Volume: 1913 Band 01, Ancestry.com. Hamburg, Germany, Marriages, 1874-1920 ↩
  4. See Palestine immigration documents above. ↩
  5. Name Lottie Emma B Buchanan, Death Age 56, Birth Date 1 May 1915, Registration Date Oct 1971, [Nov 1971] [Dec 1971], Registration Quarter Oct-Nov-Dec, Registration District Nottingham, Inferred County Nottinghamshire, Volume 3c
    Page 1274, General Register Office; United Kingdom; Volume: 3c; Page: 1274, Ancestry.com. England & Wales, Civil Registration Death Index, 1916-2007 ↩
  6. Name Lottie Emma Bertha Buchanan, Register Type Cremation, Death Date 21 Nov 1971, Burial or Cremation Date 24 Nov 1971, Burial or Cremation Place Nottinghamshire, Deceased Online; Kettering, England, UK; Deceased Online Burial Indexes, Ancestry.com. Web: UK, Burial and Cremation Index, 1576-2024 ↩

How My American-born Grandmother Lost Her US Citizenship

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An update of a seven year old post:

Almost seven years ago I wrote about my grandmother Eva Schoenthal Cohen’s second cousin, Bertha Katzenstein, the great-granddaughter of Seligmann Goldschmidt, my three-times great-grandfather. Bertha was born on April 23, 1892, in New York City, to Adolf Katzenstein and Bertha Metz, who died less than two weeks after giving birth to her namesake Bertha.

As I wrote back in 2018, Bertha must have been living abroad for some part of her childhood with her father Adolf and stepmother. She was married on February 9, 1913, in Harburg, Germany, to Hermann Nathan. She was only twenty when she married, and six years later they were divorced on July 3, 1919, in Hannover, Germany.

Ancestry.com. Hamburg, Germany, Marriages, 1874-1920.
Original data: Best. 332-5 Standesämter, Personenstandsregister, Sterberegister, 1876-1950, Staatsarchiv Hamburg, Hamburg, Deutschland. Certificate Number: 62
Reference Number: 332-5_11409

That was the last document or record I had for Bertha Katzenstein for almost seven years. I didn’t know whether she’d returned to the US or stayed in Germany, but I couldn’t find her in the US or in Germany—not as Bertha Nathan or Bertha Katzenstein. If she remarried, I had no record of it.

And now, seven years later, I have learned more, thanks to Ines Weber, who left a comment on my original post revealing that Bertha had remarried. That led me to learn a lot more about Bertha’s life.

On January 14, 1921, she married Friedrich “Fritz” Wilhelm Langebartels. He was born in Hamburg, Germany, on June 5, 1894, the son of Rudolph Friedrich Albert Langebartels and Margaretha Johanna Henriette Dreyer.

Bertha Katzenstein Nathan marriage to Friedrich Wilhelm Langebartels, Landesarchiv Berlin; Berlin, Deutschland; Personenstandsregister Heiratsregister, Register Year or Type: 1921 (Erstregister), Ancestry.com. Berlin, Germany, Marriages, 1874-1940

On October 15, 1926, Friedrich and Bertha arrived in New York City after living in Berlin. Friedrich filed a declaration of intention to become a US citizen on June 14, 1927, listing Bertha as his wife.

Friedrich Langebartels declaration of intention, The National Archives at Philadelphia; Philadelphia, PA; NAI Title: Declarations of Intention For Citizenship, 1/19/1842 – 10/29/1959; NAI Number: 4713410; Record Group Title: Records of District Courts of the United States, 1685-2009; Record Group Number: 21, Roll 357) Declarations of Intention For Citizenship, 1842-1959 (No 226101-227150), Ancestry.com. New York, U.S., State and Federal Naturalization Records, 1794-1943

But what really puzzled me was this document: a petition for naturalization filed by Bertha herself. She was born in New York! Why was she filing for naturalization? It even says right on the petition that she was born in New York. I was mystified.

Bertha Katzenstein Langebartels Weber petition for naturalization, The National Archives and Records Administration; Washington, D.C.; Petitions For Naturalization From the U.s. District Court For the Southern District of New York, 1897-1944; Series: M1972; Roll: 542, Archive Roll Descriptions: (Roll 0542) Petition No· 124777-Petition No· 125042, Ancestry.com. New York, U.S., Naturalization Records, 1882-1944

And so I asked about this in the Facebook group Tracing the Tribe and learned that at one time, if a woman born in the US and thus a natural born citizen married a foreign born man, she forfeited her American citizenship. The 1907 Expatriation Act read in part: “That any American woman who marries a foreigner shall take the nationality of her husband…” Act of Mar. 2, 1907, ch. 2534, §3, 34 Stat. 1228.

Thus, under American law Bertha took her husbands’ German nationality when she married first Hermann and then Friedrich in Germany and thereby lost her US citizenship. That meant she had to apply for naturalization to become (again) a US citizen.

However, after women gained suffrage, a new statute overturned that provision. The Cable Act of 1922, Section 3 (ch. 411, 42 Stat. 1021), provided:

That a woman citizen of the United States shall not cease to be a citizen of the United States by reason of her marriage after the passage of this Act, unless she makes a formal renunciation of her citizenship before a court having jurisdiction over naturalization of aliens..[emphasis added]

But this didn’t apply to Bertha because she’d married Hermann in 1913 and Friedrich in 1921 before the Cable Act took effect.

After learning all this, I realized something—this also applied to my maternal grandmother Gussie Brotman, who was born in New York but married my Romanian-born grandfather Isadore Goldschlager in 1916. She lost her US citizenship once she married him. I was horrified, and that led me to try and determine whether my grandmother also had to petition for citizenship despite having been born in the US.

What I found was that my grandfather petitioned for naturalization and was sworn in as a citizen on May 18, 1920. Thus, by virtue of HIS naturalized citizenship, my grandmother once again automatically became a US citizen. What a crazy sexist world it was. Still is in many ways, but not as bad as it was back then.

Anyway, returning to Bertha Katzenstein Nathan Langebartels…

There are two other interesting things about Bertha’s petition: One, I learned that Bertha had had a child with her first husband, Hermann Nathan; Lotte Nathan was born on May 1, 1915, in Germany, and was still living in Germany in 1927 when Bertha filed the petition. I will follow up with what I have learned about Lotte in a subsequent post.

Also, it appears from this document that Bertha was known as both Bertha Langebartels and Bertha Weber. But why Weber? Who was that? I found a Friedrich Langebartels-Weber from Hamburg listed in a database of those injured fighting for Germany during World War I. So Weber appears to have been part of his name.1

I found his birth record, thinking that perhaps Weber was his mother’s birth name, but it was Dreyer.

Friedrich Langebartels birth record, Year Range and Volume: 1894 Band 04, Ancestry.com. Hamburg, Germany, Births, 1874-1901

I asked Ines about this, and she told me that the Weber came from Friedrich’s mother’s second husband, whom she married in 1905 when Friedrich was only eleven years old.

But then Bertha disappeared again. I cannot find anything later than her naturalization record seen above. I can’t find Bertha and Friedrich on the 1930 US census, but Ines found Friedrich as Fred Weber on his 1942 World War II draft registration. This appears to be the right person, given the birth date and birth place.

Fred Weber World War II draft registration, The National Archives At St. Louis; St. Louis, Missouri; World War Ii Draft Cards (Fourth Registration) For the State of New York; Record Group Title: Records of the Selective Service System; Record Group Number: 147; Box or Roll Number: 650, Ancestry.com. U.S., World War II Draft Registration Cards, 1942

But notice that Fred/Friedrich was now married to a woman named Erna, not Bertha. They also appeared as a married couple on the 1940 US census.2 And doing a full-text search on FamilySearch brought up Fred Weber’s second Declaration of Intention, and on that form he reported that he was married to Erna on December 20, 1940, in West New York, New Jersey.3 I also found Erna’s Declaration of Intention and learned her surname was Barsig before she married Fred.

So where was Bertha? Had she died? Were she and Friedrich divorced? Had she returned to Germany?  I wish I knew. I cannot find any references or records or even unsourced trees that reveal what happened to Bertha Katzenstein Nathan Langebartels Weber. She just seems to have disappeared. The search will continue.

  1. Friedrich Langebartels-Weber, Residence Year 1914, Residence Country Deutschland (Germany), List Date 07 Nov 1917 (7 Nov 1917). List Number 1701
    Volume 1917_XVI, Ancestry.com. Germany, World War I Casualty Lists, 1914-1919. ↩
  2. Fred Weber, 1940 US census, Year: 1940; Census Place: New Rochelle, Westchester, New York; Roll: m-t0627-02810; Page: 61B; Enumeration District: 60-243, Ancestry.com. 1940 United States Federal Census ↩
  3. Fred Weber, Petition for Naturalization, “New York, U.S. District and Circuit Court Naturalization Records, 1824-1991”, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:65DG-STLP : Tue Apr 15 00:10:46 UTC 2025), Entry for Fred or Fritz Weber or Langebartels and Erna, 18 May 1944. ↩

In Memory of Claire Booher Velzy

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I am sad to report that my cousin Claire Booher Velzy passed away on April 15, 2025, at the age of ninety-three. Claire was my fourth cousin on my Schoenthal side. We both were descended from Heinemann Schoenthal and Hendel Beerenstain, our mutual three-times great-grandparents. Heinemann and Hendel were the parents of Levi Schoenthal, my great-great-grandfather, and Fanny Schoenthal, Claire’s great-great-grandmother.

But Claire was also related to me through my Goldschmidt branch since her great-great-grandmother Fanny Schoenthal married Simon Goldschmidt, brother of my three-times great-grandfather Seligmann Goldschmidt. Thus, Claire was my fourth cousin, once removed, on the Goldschmidt line. We share mutual ancestors, Jacob Falcke Goldschmidt and Eva Seligmann, the parents of my three-times great-grandfather Seligmann Goldschmidt and the parents of Claire’s great-great-grandfather Simon Goldschmidt.

As readers of my latest novel Simon’s Secret know, Simon Goldschmidt was the inspiration for the title character of that book, Simon Handler. And his wife Fanny Schoenthal was the inspiration for Simon’s wife Fanny in the novel. Claire’s great-grandmother was Hannah Goldsmith Benedict, the inspiration for Hannah Handler Miller in Simon’s Secret. And Claire’s grandfather Jacob Benedict was the inspiration for Hannah’s oldest son Jonah in the novel.1

As I have written on my blog, Jacob Benedict’s daughter and Claire’s mother, Helen Benedict, married John Engstrom Booher in 1931, and Claire was born later that year. A second baby was stillborn three years later. And then tragically Claire’s father John died a month before Claire’s fifth birthday.

Claire’s son Bruce and I connected five years ago, and he shared many stories and photographs that helped me add authenticity to the story of his ancestors, Simon, Hannah, and Jacob in Simon’s Secret. He now has shared this amazing photograph with me that shows four generations of Claire’s family: her great-grandmother Hannah Goldsmith Benedict, her grandfather Jacob Benedict, her mother Helen Benedict Booher, and Claire, just a toddler when this photograph was taken in 1933.

From left to right: Claire Booher Velzy, her mother Helen Benedict Booher, her grandfather Jacob Benedict, and her great-grandmother Hannah Goldsmith Benedict. 1933 Courtesy of the family

In 1940, eight-year-old Claire was living in Pittsburgh with her mother Helen, her grandfather Jacob Benedict, and her aunt Marian Benedict, Helen’s sister. Helen was working as a probation officer.2 In 1950, they were all still living together in Pittsburgh, and Helen was working as a social worker for Allegheny County. Claire was now eighteen years old.3

Claire married Richard Velzy eight years later in 1958. Here is her photograph from the engagement announcement in the June 1, 1958, Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph.

Claire Booher and Richard Velzy engagement announcement, Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph, June 1, 1958, p. 42

Bruce shared his mother Claire’s obituary, which taught me more about her life:

Claire Booher Velzy was born in 1931 and raised in Pittsburgh, PA.  She went to and graduated from Flora Stone Mather College, which is now part of Case Western Reserve University.  She remained a loyal alumna for the remainder of her life.  Her first job was at a Baltimore-area Girl Scout Camp.  She married Richard Velzy in 1958, and they remained married for 57 years until he passed away in 2015.   They had (and have) three children (Suzanne, Bruce, and Greg) and four grandchildren (Andrew, Matt, Jackson and Tom).  While married, they lived in Cleveland, Ohio; Pittsburgh, PA; and since 1972, Richmond VA.  They enjoyed traveling.   She was a mental health caseworker for the City of Richmond for almost 20 years.  She was very active in her church, the Episcopal Church of the Redeemer, and made and maintained many friendships there.  She will miss her friends and her family and was thankful for the life she lived and her ability to do so mostly on her terms.  She passed away peacefully on April 15, 2025.

Bruce also shared this more recent photograph of his mother Claire:

Claire Booher Velzy
Courtesy of her family

In reading this, I was very moved and struck by the fact that Claire, after suffering the loss of her father at such a tender age, had nevertheless lived a long and happy life—-graduating from college in a time when not many women accomplished that, sharing a long and happy marriage with her husband Richard, raising three children, and having a successful and meaningful career. She followed in her mother Helen’s footsteps, becoming a social worker. Like her great-grandmother Hannah, whose mother died when she was a toddler, Claire had overcome the tragic loss of a parent at an early age but grew up to live a productive and fulfilling life. Her life story is an inspiration.

My condolences to all of Claire’s children and grandchildren. May her memory be a blessing to all of you.

 

  1. If you are interested in learning more about Claire’s ancestors, you can find Simon’s Secret here on Amazon. ↩
  2. Claire Booher, 1940 US census, Year: 1940; Census Place: Pittsburgh, Allegheny, Pennsylvania; Roll: m-t0627-03663; Page: 2B; Enumeration District: 69-390, Ancestry.com. 1940 United States Federal Census ↩
  3. Claire Booher, 1950 US census, National Archives at Washington, DC; Washington, D.C.; Seventeenth Census of the United States, 1950; Year: 1950; Census Place: Pittsburgh, Allegheny, Pennsylvania; Roll: 5287; Page: 2; Enumeration District: 77-471, Ancestry.com. 1950 United States Federal Census ↩

Another update: Alfred Meyer Survived The Holocaust

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Almost five years ago I wrote about Alfred Meyer, son of Regina Goldschmidt and Aaron Meyer and my third cousin, twice removed. He was born in Frankfurt, Germany, on June 16, 1875, and that was almost all I knew about him. The only other records I could find for Alfred were two Holocaust era records on file at the Arolsen Archives. Both indicated that Alfred had left Germany for France on April 24, 1939, and was still there as of November 3, 1939. I couldn’t find any other records for him.

Had he ever married? Did he have children? I didn’t know. Had he died in the Holocaust? There were no records for him at Yad Vashem or at the US Holocaust Memorial and Museum. I was left without any further information.

Until, that is, a few weeks ago when I received an email from another researcher named Ofra Karo. Ofra and I had been in touch over a year ago about a different branch of my tree, but now she was writing to say that she had found additional information about Alfred Meyer. For one thing, she had found a marriage record for Alfred indicating that he had married Augustine Marguerite K/Brat in Paris, France on August 11, 1911.

Alfred Meyer marriage record, Archives de Paris; Paris, France; État-Civil 1792-1902, Certificate Number: 0553-0836, Paris, France, Births, Marriages, and Deaths, 1555-1929

At first I was skeptical. What was Alfred doing in France in 1911 if he was in Frankfurt in 1939? Was this the same Alfred Meyer? But after studying the marriage record and relying on my rusty high school French, I saw that this was indeed the same man—-son of Regina Goldschmidt and Aaron Meyer, born in Frankfurt, Germany, on June 16, 1875. And he was at that time residing in Paris. Given that Alfred was a grandson of Jacob Goldschmidt, whose family owned the international art and antiques business, it wasn’t really surprising that Alfred was living in Paris in 1911, perhaps working for the family’s business.

Ofra also directed me to a death record for Alfred. He had not died in the Holocaust, but had lived long enough to die after World War II. He died on January 27, 1947, in Gennevilliers, France, and had been residing in Clichy, France, a suburb of Paris just a few miles from where he died. He was 71 and a widower at the time of his death. No occupation was listed.1

Unfortunately, I have no other sources at this time for Alfred. Ofra found a tree on Ancestry that appears to be created by Alfred’s granddaughter and has many photos of family members. I tried to contact that tree owner through Ancestry without success, and I have looked to see if I could find her outside of Ancestry without success. Because I cannot confirm the information in that tree, I am not comfortable relying on it. If it is accurate, it does appear that Alfred had a son and has living descendants, but I cannot confirm that at this time.

At any rate, I do now know that Alfred did not die in the Holocaust. How he survived remains a mystery.

  1. There are two men named Alfred Meyer on this page—same age, same day of death, both with spouses with the first name Augustine. Ofra suggested that the one on Line 14 is a correction of the one on Line 8. That seems a reasonable assumption. ↩

Simon’s Secret! Now Available on Amazon!

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Simon’s Secret is now available on Amazon in e-book, paperback, and hardcover!

My third family history novel, Simon’s Secret, is a story inspired by the lives of two of my Goldschmidt relatives, Simon and his daughter Hannah. Simon came to the US in the 1840s with a secret, one he wanted to hide from his family and his new country. His daughter Hannah never understood why he was such a curmudgeon. What was Simon’s secret? Will Hannah ever find out? And will she understand her father better if she does? Like all children, Hannah struggles to understand her father and his secrets.

This book follows the life of the fictionalized version of Simon Goldschmidt from Germany to America. We see how Simon and his family adapt to their new country while also trying to keep the traditions of Judaism that he brought with him from Germany. The story begins in 1826 and extends over a hundred years as we see what happens to Simon, Hannah, and Hannah’s children and grandchildren.

This is a story about a Jewish family, but its lessons are universal. Every generation has its secrets, and every immigrant brings their strengths and weaknesses to their new country as well as the gifts that will come with their descendants.

Celebration of the real Hannah Goldsmith Benedict’s 90th birthday in 1938.

You can find Simon’s Secret here on Amazon. I hope you enjoy it, and if so, please tell your friends and family and leave a review on Amazon.

Thank you!!

New for 2025!

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Happy New Year to all my friends, family, and readers! I hope you all had a joyful and safe New Year’s Eve.

My first big news of 2025 is that my newest family history novel will be released at the end of January just thirty days from now. It’s titled Simon’s Story and was inspired by the story of my three-times great-grandfather’s younger brother Simon Goldschmidt. Although Simon’s life was the spark that led me to write this novel, the book itself is fiction wrapped around the skeleton of Simon’s life.

As described on Amazon, “Simon … came to the United States from Germany, a poor Jewish man whose first wife had died, leaving him with young children. After he remarried, he and his new wife and the children came to the United States. But Simon had a secret that he kept from his children. His daughter Hannah struggled all her life to understand her mysterious and aloof father. Why was he so cold, so withdrawn? What made him the way he was?”

The book is available for pre-order on Kindle now and you can find the link here. The paperback version will also be sold on Amazon and will be available on January 31, 2025.

I hope you will consider reading Simon’s Story, and if you enjoy it, please let me know and also please leave a review on Amazon.

Good for A Single Journey by Helen Joyce: A Review of A Wonderful New Book and An Interview with the Author

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Today I have the great pleasure of sharing my virtual interview with author Helen Joyce. She has recently published a family history novel titled Good for A Single Journey, a moving and beautifully written telling of her maternal family’s story. Joyce’s great-grandparents were living in a small town in what was then Galicia in Eastern Europe in the early 20th century when oppression and poverty forced them to relocate to Vienna, where they hoped to have greater freedom and economic security. And they did find great success there. But like so many Jewish families, they eventually suffered from the horrors of the Holocaust. Although many, including Joyce’s mother, survived, many others were murdered, and all suffered from persecution and financial loss. And those who survived were once again forced to relocate and start all over in a new country.

Joyce has combined what she learned from her mother and other relatives with historical research to create a fascinating and illuminating look at the history of this era and its effect on one Jewish family. The book is a mix of fact and fiction, some parts totally created from her imagination and other parts entirely based on fact. The book reads like a novel. She has created wonderful three-dimensional characters, each with distinctive and memorable personalities and stories. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in history and in Jewish history in particular. It is appropriate for young adults as well as adults and available for purchase on Amazon and Barnes & Noble here.

Good for a Single Journey has received a finalist’s award in the 2023 Next Generation Indie Book Awards and has also received a highly favorable review from Neville Teller in the June 12, 2023, issue of The Jerusalem Report. You can also learn more about Helen Joyce and her book at her website found here.  And in the interest of full disclosure, I should reveal that she is my fifth cousin on her paternal side; we are both descended from Jacob Falcke Goldschmidt and Eva Seligmann, our mutual four-times great-grandparents.

And now, let me introduce you to Helen Joyce and her wonderful book, Good for a Single Journey..

Thank you so much for agreeing to do this interview with me and to share more about your book, Good for a Single Journey.  Have you ever written a book or other fiction/non-fiction before?

No! I have written the odd article, contributed a chapter to two each of two academic books, and edited a community magazine which often entailed tightening the contributions of others. Otherwise, no formal writing experience.

So what made you decide to write this book at this time?

Old age! I always wanted to write an account of my mother’s life and never found the right time. Work, kids, and life in general always interfered. That and the self-defeating belief that the project was beyond me; that I was deluding myself if I thought I could write an account/memoir/novel of the type I imagined would do justice to her story. Finally, the reality of the fact that I was not getting any younger and triggered by taking our youngest granddaughter on a trip to Vienna where we visited my mother’s birthplace proved to be the catalyst for getting to work.

The author’s parents Max and Klari. Courtesy of Helen Joyce

I really enjoyed reading the book, and it reads like fiction. But I know that the book is based on the real lives of your parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents as well as many aunts, uncles, and cousins. How much of the book is fictionalized and how much is non-fiction?

It would take a long time to unravel fact from fiction but basically, I knew the ‘bare bones’ of the stories of all the characters. In the case of the two brothers, Chiel and Beresh, I knew very little indeed beyond the fact that they made Aliyah to pre-State Israel long around WWI. Therefore, I invented their adventures. I gave them experiences and put them in situations which were factually correct and allowed some of the history of the early Yishuv to come to light. I knew a little about Peppi, my grandmother’s sister, and of course the story of Suzanne became legendary!

Zissel, my other great-uncle, was a closed book to me until I unlocked the memoir of his son Yitzchak. That gave me the details of not only his travels across Europe and today’s Ukraine before reaching the shores of British mandate Palestine, but also revealed the entire saga of his grandparents’ (my great grandparents’) flight from Rozwadów to Ukraine and onwards to Siberia. I knew a great deal about my grandparents from my mother’s tales and, again through her, background details about day-to-day life in Vienna and the market town of Rozwadów, which she visited frequently on trips to her grandparents. The rags to riches story of my grandfather is true. Accounts of the flight from Vienna, the period in Prague, my mother’s experiences in London are also from my mother’s various shared memories.

My independent sources of research (apart from the internet and the cousin’s memoir which I mentioned) were my mother’s diaries and a stash of family letters collated and self-printed by my late uncle which charted the agony of desperation and fear as various members of the family tried to help and find ways to get those still trapped in Europe out. Obviously the most fictionalized accounts are those of the imagined conversations and emotions displayed by the various characters. The best I could do was to try and imagine I was them and put myself in their place at that time. What would I feel? How would I react?

The author’s grandmother Ida. Courtesy of Helen Joyce
The author’s grandfather Salomon Courtesy of Helen Joyce

How did you decide where to create fictional elements versus non-fiction?

Honestly, I don’t know! It just sort of flowed seamlessly. I wove elements of drama and fiction around the basic facts I knew. For example, I needed to get the two brothers from Vienna to Palestine during WWI. How would they have gone? What might they have done? WWI was raging so I thought it would be interesting to place them into an Austro-Hungarian unit which ended up in Palestine. When I started researching that possibility, I learned a great deal about the involvement of Jewish soldiers in the army, the unit I put them in was a real one (as was the officer which commanded it). The facts surrounding Aaron Aaronsohn, NILI, and their role in helping the British defeat the Ottomans in
Palestine and how these contributed to the fact of the Balfour Declaration was too good an opportunity to miss including. So, I did! Throughout the book I also wanted to give the lie to the myth that Jews were passive, never fought in armies and were pale scholars led to slaughter like sheep. Jews fought bravely (on all sides) in every theatre of war.

How did you research the parts of the book that are fact-based?

I read several books on WWI, biographies about Aaron Aaronsohn and NILI as well as books about the history of the Middle East. My mother’s cousin’s memoir was also very helpful. The internet is also a phenomenal resource. What was the weather like in Gallipoli in November 1915 – click. What train routes were available on the Chemins de fer Orientaux during WWI – click! What date was Rosh Hashanah in 1914 – click. All there in your hand-held mobile phone!

Your book begins with your great-grandparents leaving Rozwadów. Why did you decide to begin there?

The book begins with a train journey, the journey of my great grandparents fleeing their hometown in Galicia. I decided to start with that train ride as it gave me the opportunity to introduce all the main characters as well as a major theme of the book. Migration and journeys. The entire book is about the journey of individuals, families, and the Jewish people. Trains feature quite prominently. That opening train ride. Greetings and goodbyes at train stations. The brothers’ train ride to war and onwards to Palestine. The train ride carrying my great grandparents and their youngest son to Siberia. The train ride my mother took to Scotland to meet her brother serving in the Jewish Brigade of the British army and of course the final horrific train rides to the death camps.

The author’s great-grandfather Shmaryahu Courtesy of Helen Joyce
The author’s great-grandmother Pessya Courtesy of Helen Joyce

You include some living people and some recently deceased people in the book. How did you approach the issues of privacy with respect to those people? Were there things you had to change or avoid to protect the interests of your family?

Yes, absolutely. A lot was excluded! However, in discussion with as many of my cousins as I could track down, I realized they were quite happy for me to give details of their stories. I offered each of them drafts so they could check they were happy with what I had written. However, as nearly all the family descendants live in Israel, many of them do not read in English. That said, they were quite happy to know I had written some account and did not mind if it was fictionalized. The Israeli branch is very easy going! I gave my sister an early draft and she enjoyed the first half but did have some comments and suggestions about the second half of the book. I have tried to accommodate her feelings on this but, ultimately, we agreed that the book was a fictionalized novel.

Your family endured many of the challenges and horrors faced by many Jewish families in the 20th century: immigration to new countries (several times), World War I, and Nazi persecution and the Holocaust. What impact do you think that history has had on you and the other living descendants of your great-grandparents?

It’s hard to speak about this in general. The impact is surely quite different for each family and on each individual. For me, knowing what previous generations lived and died for made me want to cling to a Jewish lifestyle replete with the traditions that Hitler tried so hard to erase. I didn’t want to give Hitler any kind of posthumous victory and so I have tried to raise a Jewishly faithful family. Beyond that? I guess a sense of the importance of justice and the need to respect equality of all people regardless of gender, race, or religion.

You ultimately decided to leave England and make Aliyah to Israel. What in your family history contributed to that decision? Have you made connections to the cousins who were refugees to Israel during the Nazi era?

Many factors contributed to that decision. My husband comes from a very ‘English’ Jewish family but his mother, eldest of ten, was the only child left in the UK after the creation of the State of Israel. The rest were all pioneers in Israel (although two had died before that was possible). So, he already has a huge network of family here. Our son made Aliyah twenty years ago and was raising his children here and of course we wanted to be close to them. We have a daughter with special needs and she made Aliyah with us – we couldn’t contemplate leaving her behind and she is so very happy here with excellent care. Our youngest child followed us five years ago and so, to our delight, all our children and grandchildren are here. Yes, I have contact with some of my many cousins, but they are numerous and spread out so we do not meet that often although I do meet my first cousins more frequently.

Your book has many themes and covers many topics: different ways to practice Judaism, antisemitism, Zionism, mental health, marriage, parental love, and so on. Was there a specific point or theme that mattered most to you?

They all mattered and, in a way, I suppose several of them nestle into each other like a set of Russian matryoshka dolls! Parental love leads to stability and contributes to the type of marriage partnership one is likely to create as does a strong sense of community and belonging. Antisemitism and Zionism also have a kind of Yin and Yang partnership! If I had to choose one (you didn’t ask me that!) maybe I would say resilience and survival!

Who did you see as the audience for your book? Your own family and descendants? Young adults? Jewish readers? The entire universe of adult readers?

The entire universe! My family and their descendants were not really the target audience. Had they been, the book would have been far more factual and memoir-based. I hoped it would appeal to young adults and prove educational and am being told that teenagers are totally gripped by the story – which, given the amount of history in it – is great! However, I would dearly love the non-Jewish world to gain insight about a Jewish way of life, the history of persecution and the holocaust but also the historical underpinnings of the State of Israel under international law which was brought about together with the dismantling of previous empires. If Israel is to be accused of being a ‘colonialist enterprise’ then equally so is Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Iraq. Not to mention the many ‘new’ European countries created in the wake of WWI. Without understanding the impact of WWI, nothing about the modern world makes sense (including current events in Ukraine!)

This book focused on your maternal family. Do you plan to write a book about your paternal side?

Yes! And your blog will be a fantastic resource for me!!! However, marketing this book is taking up a lot of time at the moment. I have been invited to take part in Jewish Book Week School Events for schools around the UK which is fantastic. Events can be online so I can do them from here. This is really part of my dream – to bring the reality of the Jewish experience to a wider audience.

The author, Helen Joyce. Courtesy of Helen Joyce

Thank you again for taking the time to answer my questions, and I look forward to reading your next book and hope that my research will be helpful to you! Best of luck in your marketing efforts—your book deserves a wide and large audience.

 

How Eugene Goldsmith Met May Jacobs

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Over four and a half years ago, I wrote about Eugene Goldsmith, my great-grandmother Hilda Katzenstein Schoenthal’s first cousin.

Eugene was born in 1859 and had lived with his parents, Meyer Goldschmidt/Goldsmith and Helene Hohenfels, and his brother Maurice all his life, first growing up in Philadelphia and then in New York City. Then in 1913 at the age of 54, he married May Jacobs, who was 41.

One of the questions I had about Eugene was how he met his wife May Jacobs. I wrote then:

In 1913, Eugene married May Jacobs in Philadelphia. He was 54, she was 41. May was the daughter of Michael Jacobs and Alice Arnold, both of whom were born in Pennsylvania. May’s father died when she was just a young child, and she and her three sisters were all living together with their mother in Philadelphia in 1910. I’d love to know how May connected with Eugene, who had by that time been living in New York City for over twenty years.

Well, four and a half years after posting that question, I heard from a cousin of May Jacobs, and she may have found the answer. Lynn Hsu wrote to me on the blog that she was the great-granddaughter of Oscar Arnold, who was a first cousin of May Jacobs. Lynn wrote that Oscar was in the business of manufacturing umbrellas in New York City, and since Eugene and his brother Maurice were in the business of selling umbrellas in New York City, we hypothesized that Eugene knew Oscar from business and that Oscar set up Eugene with his cousin May, who was living in Philadelphia.

But Lynn actually had found several other hints that suggested that there were numerous earlier connections between her Arnold/Jacobs cousins and my Goldsmith cousins. On August 5, 1892, the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent reported that May Jacobs was on the same Atlantic City sailing party as Rose and Florence Goldsmith, the two younger sisters of Eugene Goldsmith. So as early as 1892, some 21 years before Eugene married May, there was a meeting of May Jacobs and Eugene’s sisters Florence and Rose. Whether they had already known each other before the sailing trip isn’t clear, but certainly they did once that trip was over.

Philadelphia Jewish Exponent, August 5, 1892, p. 8

Also, three years before May married Eugene, she attended his mother’s funeral, as reported by the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent on March 4, 1910:

Philadelphia Jewish Exponent, March 4, 1910, p. 14

Why it took Eugene and May until 1913, when he was 54 and she was 41, to decide to get married will remain a mystery. My only hypothesis is that Eugene waited until both his parents had died before “striking out on his own.” His mother died in 1910, his father in 1911. And then Eugene married May in 1913. His brother Maurice never married.

There was one other unexpected bonus connection that I learned about as a result of connecting with Lynn. May Jacobs Goldsmith, the daughter of Alice Arnold Jacobs, was the niece of Clarissa Arnold, Alice’s sister. Clarissa was married to Ernst Nusbaum, younger brother of my three-times great-grandfather John Nusbaum, namesake of my grandfather John Nusbaum Cohen and my father John Nusbaum Cohen, Jr. I wrote about Clarissa and Ernst and their family here and in many other of the posts that follow that one.

So the tree continues to twist! And thanks to Lynn, I now know even more about the Goldsmith/Goldschmidt and Nusbaum families.

 

Moritz Werner And Family, Part III: After The War

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After the war Max Werner, now 25 years old, married Klara Reiss on January 5, 1947, in London, England.1 Klara (known by the family as Klari) was born in Vienna, Austria, on September 27, 1920, to Ida Spergel and Salomon Reiss. According to his granddaughter Joyce:2

Salomon Reiss had made a fortune in Vienna and was a well-known multi-millionaire. After the Anschluss (March 1938) [he] was arrested at the seder table [and] stripped of his Austrian wealth, and the family managed to escape to Prague (not at the time under German control and where my grandfather owned assets).

Klara’s brothers were able to immigrate to Palestine, but Klara didn’t want to leave her parents so stayed with them in Prague. But as things became more dire, she was able to obtain a visa to go to England, as seen on her exit visa from Prague shown below. As Joyce noted, Klara left Prague “quite late in August 1939. Her entry Visa in Dover is stamped 30st August. The curtain came down [two days later started on September 1, 1939, when Germany invaded Poland and World War II started.]”

Klara Reiss 1939 visa for travel to England

Klara’s parents were, however, stuck in Prague once the war started and unable to escape. They were eventually deported to Theriesenstadt and then from there on one of the last transports from Theriesenstadt to Auschwitz, where they were murdered.3

Klara met Max Werner eight years later in England. As Joyce tells the story,

Our parents met at a friend of Moritz and Jenny on a Shabbat afternoon in 1946. The couple were cousins of Klari’s father and, apparently, when [Max] got home, he told his parents he had met the girl he was going to marry. He was two years younger than Klari, involved with Klari’s cousin, and Klari told him to go away. Repeatedly. My father did not take no for an answer and pursued her relentlessly. She gave in and went on a date with him. The rest is history.

Judith provided these additional insights:

My mother liked my Dad when they met but felt that as a sophisticated dress designer she was way too old for the very young looking Max. She had a career path that she had worked very hard to carve out for herself and was in line to go to Paris for her firm.  She wasn’t interested in marriage at that point in her life especially after learning what happened to her parents. I believe her long range plan was to join her brothers in Israel. When however my Dad persisted, she relented…. They were married 6 months later on 5th January, 1947.

Joyce and Judith shared these photographs of their parents Max and Klara:

Max and Klara Werner Courtesy of the family

Max and Klara Werner Courtesy of the family

At the time of his marriage, Max was working for his father Moritz in the Benlo company in London. In 1949, Moritz was able to buy back LS Brinkmann from the man who purchased it. As his son Max told the story (and as I previously shared here),

A Catholic named Rhode from Kassel, who produced goods for the armaments industry, had bought L.S. Brinkmann. After the war, when Rhode was terminally ill, he developed feelings of remorse and tracked down my father Moritz in England. Mr. Rhode asked for a visit and my father and he made a contract, i.e. my father bought the company back – that was at a time when there was no official reparation! In 1949 the takeover was perfected. …

When my father had celebrated his 25th anniversary with the company in 1931, the staff had donated a bronze plate with a dedication and two knitting hands for him. During the forced sale [1939] the plate suddenly disappeared.

In 1949, when my father was sitting in his office again for the first time, there was a knock at the door and a small delegation of employees came in… They struggled to carry a box containing this bronze plate. Before taking over the company, these employees had fastened the plate in the chimney with strong wires and thus hidden it.

Joyce and Judith shared this photograph of the plaque that had been given to honor Moritz in 1931 and then hidden by his employees to keep it safe from the Nazis.

Moritz and Jenny did not remain in Germany, but Moritz did continue to oversee LS Brinkmann from England. He gave a large share of the business to his sister Elsa Werner Loewenthal, wife of Julius Loewenthal, whom I wrote about here.

Meanwhile, according to Judith, there were problems within the partnership of Benlo; contrary to an informal agreement between Moritz and his partner, the partner brought a new partner into the business, and together they took over control of the business and away from Moritz. Eventually, the two other partners drove Moritz out of the business and moved his son Max from company headquarters in London to a sales job, which he found to be unsatisfying and a dead end position.

Here is a photograph of Max and Klara in the early 1950s:

Max and Klara Werner c. 1953 Courtesy of the family

Thus, in 1953, Max decided to move to Germany and take over LS Brinkmann after his father Moritz retired. By that time, both Judith and Joyce were born, and Judith was already in school. Max, Klara, and Joyce went to Eschwege, and Judith stayed behind with her grandparents Moritz and Jenny in England to continue her schooling. Under Max’s leadership, LS Brinkmann once again became a highly successful knitware company.

But after a relatively short time, Klara and Joyce returned to England as Klara was not happy living in Eschwege, where there was no longer a Jewish community after the Holocaust. Max would come to England periodically, usually for Jewish holidays, and Klara and their daughters would spend the summers in Eschwege.

Joyce and Judith have wonderful memories of spending summers in Eschwege. Judith wrote:

Part of the perks of working for LSB was reduced rental flats on the factory property. It was great fun for us children of the workers. Every afternoon and early evening when the workday was over we would gather in the courtyard and play all kinds of games, including hide and seek and different ball games.

Judith shared this photograph of the LS Brinkmann grounds along with this description:

On the far left are the worker residences including ours. Bottom right is the green house. The larger tree in front of the white knitting operation was a delicious pear tree under which our pet dog Cracky was buried. The other greenery were apple, pear, plum, and cherry (not seen) trees. We had all kinds of berries that I used to spend many hours picking and eating. In the distance is the very picturesque town of Eschwege.

LS Brinkmann factory grounds Courtesy of the family

Joyce added this memory:

I also remember those holidays as a time of freedom. We played with local children as Judy said and were left largely to our own devices. Judy and some of the older kids would take me along to the local swimming pool or they Iet me trail along and join in with whatever they did. My own age group was a group of dare-devil boys. In the foreground (front left side) [of the photograph] is a grey roof above the dustbins [trash cans] with a drop of about 6 to 7 feet to the rear exit road below. All the boys and I used to play a ‘chicken’ type game jumping off with as much bravado as possible.

By 1958, Moritz Werner’s health had declined, and he and Jenny decided to leave England for a better climate and move to Lugano, Switzerland. He died eight years later in 1966 at the age of 78. This photograph of Moritz was taken at the celebration of the 100th anniversary of LS Brinkmann’s founding in 1965.

Moritz Werner 1965 Courtesy of the family

Jenny kept the apartment in Lugano and remained there, although she spent the first year after Moritz’s death living with Klara and the girls in London. Eventually, when she could no longer live alone, she moved to an assisted living facility in Zurich, where she died in November 1987 at the age of 93. Here is a beautiful photograph of Jenny:

Jenny Kahn Werner Courtesy of the family

Max Werner eventually retired from LS Brinkmann and returned to England. Judith shared this memory with me:

My father had a fantasy of living in Devon, England on the coast. He had fallen in love with the Devon and Cornwall coastline when he was a very young man. So when he was about 55 [about 1977], he sold [the home in] London and bought a house in Devon. He proceeded to knock most of it down and rebuilt it to his own specifications. This home was on the top of the hill that he owned overlooking the channel. On this hill he had an area for a pool and a rock garden. And when we swam in this pool, you could overlook this beautiful seaway.

Max Werner and his wife Klara died within eight months of each other. Klara died at age 90 in April 2011 in Devon, England, and Max died in December of that year, also in Devon, England. He was 89.4

I am so deeply grateful to Judith and Joyce for sharing their family’s stories and photographs. The story of their grandparents and parents is one of persistence and strength despite being subjected to harassment, theft of their business, and loss of their home and their homeland. Somehow they rebuilt their lives and their business and found ways to survive both before, during, and after World War II.

  1.  Max H Werner, Registration Date: Jan 1947, Registration Quarter: Jan-Feb-Mar, Registration District: Hendon, Inferred County: Middlesex, Spouse: Amalia K Reiss, Volume Number: 5f, Page Number: 529General Register Office; United Kingdom; Volume: 5f; Page: 529, Ancestry.com. England & Wales, Civil Registration Marriage Index, 1916-2005 ↩
  2. As with the two prior posts, most of the information in this post came from a series of emails exchanged among Max and Klara’s daughters Judith, and Joyce and myself during May and June, 2022. ↩
  3. https://yvng.yadvashem.org/nameDetails.html?language=en&itemId=4788092&ind=1; https://yvng.yadvashem.org/nameDetails.html?language=en&itemId=4783626&ind=1 ↩
  4. These dates came from Max and Klara’s daughters Joyce and Judith. ↩

Moritz Werner and Family, Part II: From Comfort to Escape 1922-1945

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When Max Werner II was born on September 5, 1922, in Eschwege, Germany, to Moritz Werner and Jenny Kahn, his paternal grandparents Max Werner I and Helene Katzenstein had both passed away. His father Moritz was one of the owners of the LS Brinkmann Knitwear Company, and the family was living a very comfortable life.

Max’s daughter Joyce described her father as “an indulged only child from a wealthy local family.” Her sister Judith noted that their father “was an only child, and he was a very solitary child. His main companions were the chauffeur Petach and his dog.”1

Here are some photos of Max as a child including two with the dog, two in the garden of the family’s home in Eschwege, and one with his nurse or nanny.

Max Werner with nurse Courtesy of the family

Max Werner Courtesy of the family

Max Werner in the garden of his family home in Eschwege Courtesy of the family

Max Werner in the garden of his family home in Eschwege Courtesy of the family

Max and his dog Courtesy of the family

Max Werner c. 1934

But everything changed with the rise of the Nazis. Joyce and Judith both shared what they knew about the way life changed for their father and grandparents. Judith wrote, “Things became more and more difficult at school for my father, but he never complained to his parents. Except one day the kids from his school surrounded him with knives, and my father was seen fending them off with his leather satchel by friends of my grandparents.”

Joyce shared additional details about that incident:

Our father, a tall, strong pre-teen, was having terrible trouble at school. Not only did he face taunting and attacks from boys in the Hitler Youth, but teachers also joined in the Jew baiting. I recall that he told me on one occasion that another Jewish boy (small and reedy) had been beaten up by some classmates and the child made the mistake of telling the teacher. The teacher got out his strap and announced to the class, ‘Now I will show you how you should beat a Jew.’ Our father in general held his own well and was known to be strong and aggressive, and classmates generally steered clear of him. However, the incident Judy described was a final straw – especially as during the ensuing fray which took place on the school stairwell after class, he picked up the lead troublemaker and hurled him down a few stairs causing a broken nose. At home, he couldn’t hide the marks of the fight, confessed all and was sent that same night to Zurich to his Aunt Rosa [Werner] Wormser [sister of their grandfather Moritz Werner].

Max spent four or five years living away from his parents in Zurich. Although he was generally happy and became very close to his cousin Julius Wormser during those years, Joyce described the deeper impact these experiences had on Max:

The experience was formative for him. Although he had many good memories of his life in Zurich, he was separated from his home, parents, and his former life. I think the main lesson he learned was ‘fight back’. Sadly (in my opinion) he also learned that, in reality, ‘might is right’. I believe it was this which affected his personality. Used to getting his own way as an adored (and unexpected) child, seeing the brutality of life in Germany and the fact that bullies get what they want and the weak suffer, he made a decision there and then. It shaped him as a person who was determined and uncompromising. He was logical and intelligent, but when he was crossed or disagreed with someone, he could be very aggressive – both verbally and physically.

Meanwhile, Max’s parents Moritz and Jenny were still in Eschwege, Germany. Judith wrote that:

My grandfather was generous with everybody and was always ready to help those in need whether Jewish or not. He and my grandmother for many years helped to support and educate a young boy whose father had died and whose mother needed assistance. In the 1930s, my grandfather … was helping members of the family and others leave Germany but he himself did not believe that Nazism would survive in Germany. My grandmother, on the other hand, was ready in 1933 and packed. But they did put a lot of money into antiques and Old Master pictures. They were aware that they were not allowed to take much money but were allowed to take personal possessions.

Joyce also described the way their grandparents differed in their reactions to the rise of Hitler:

Our grandmother Jenny was alert to the danger Hitler posed from the very start. She believed his rhetoric and said that if he came to power, he would enact every threat against the Jews he had scapegoated for Germany’s ills. Our grandfather Moritz, like so many, believed such things would never happen in the ‘fatherland’ for which he had fought at great personal cost and for which his brother had given his life.  Consequently, she quietly prepared for emigration by investing in ‘movable assets’ e.g. art and antiques.

Here’s a photo of their grandmother, Jenny:

Under Hitler’s Aryanization program, Moritz was forced to sell LS Brinkmann in 1938, as I wrote about here. According to Judith, shortly before World War II started in September 1939,

The Bishop of the area came to my grandpa and told him it was time for him to leave. That it was too dangerous for him to stay. … So after that my grandfather went to the area comandante in Kassel in order to get a pass to exit the country. This person happened to be somebody who had served in the first World War under my grandfather in the cavalry. So this gentleman gave my grandfather a bit of a problem, and my grandfather, who had the use of a stick, banged it on the man’s desk and gave him a thorough dressing down. He got his pass. Then my grandparents took the chauffeur driven car up to either Hamburg or Bremen and took a ship to England.

Max soon thereafter joined his parents in England and attended school and then Leeds University, where he studied engineering. Moritz and Jenny were able to sell some of the art and antiques they took with them from Germany not only to support themselves, but to invest in a new company in England. Joyce wrote:

My grandfather – with extraordinary energy and determination in my opinion – found a couple of partners and started a new company ‘Benlows’ selling cigarette lighters. It became so successful that after the war it became a public company floated on the Stock Exchange.

Thus, Moritz, Jenny, and Max were able to escape from Nazi Germany and survive the Holocaust. But not without enduring a forced sale of their successful business, harassment and violence, displacement from their home in Eschwege, and a long separation of Max from his parents. As Joyce wrote, this had a lasting impact on Max and presumably also on Moritz and Jenny.

In the next post, Joyce and Judith will share the story of what happened to the family after World War II ended in 1945.

 

  1. Again as in the last post, the quotes, photos, stories, and information from Joyce and Judith came from a series of emails we all exchanged during May and June, 2022.  I am so grateful for all their help and generosity. ↩