Category Archives: Genealogy

Clara Rothschild Katz, Part I: Living in and Escaping from Germany

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Doing family history research is a labor of love. I have said that many times over the almost fifteen years that I’ve been engaged in this work. Being able to honor the memories of those I never knew but who are somehow related to me is a joy and a privilege. Connecting with and getting to know so many living “long-lost” cousins has given me great joy.

Researching the family of Clara Rothschild and Moritz Katz has led me to a really special opportunity for such joy—-the opportunity to talk to their son Hal Katz, my one-hundred-year-old fourth cousin, once removed. Imagine having lived through an entire century and seeing all the horrors and all the miracles since 1924—the Holocaust, World War II, the creation of the state of Israel, the Cold War, the social activism and unrest of the 1960s and the 1970s, the Vietnam War, all the civil rights movements, the election of the first African-American president, the COVID pandemic, and the introduction of so many scientific inventions good and bad—-the atomic bomb, television, cell phones, the internet, and now AI. It’s mind-boggling how much the world has changed in the last hundred years.

Hal Katz has lived through it all, starting as a small boy in Germany, living in a small town, escaping from Germany in 1938 shortly after his bar mitzvah, settling in New York City as a young teenager, fighting for the US in World War II, building a lifelong career with General Electric, marrying and having children, and now still living on his own, playing bridge, and talking to me on Zoom as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Over the course of three Zoom calls, I have been blessed to talk to Hal as well as his daughter, his nieces, his nephew, and another Rothschild cousin, all of whom are my cousins.

And so now as I turn to the story of the sixth of Gerson and Fanny’s children who lived to adulthood, their daughter Clara Rothschild, I feel so fortunate that I was able to hear her story and the stories of her family from her son Helmut Harold “Hal” Katz. Unless otherwise indicated, the information in this post came from Zoom calls or emails with Hal and members of the family or from interviews with Hal or Hal’s brother Otto done by Otto’s daughter Judy, Hal’s niece.1

As we saw, Clara Rothschild was born on July 15, 1891, in Waltersbrueck, Germany.  According to Hal, this photograph of Clara was probably taken when she was nineteen and working as an apprentice bookkeeper in a dry goods store.

Clara Rothschild c. 1910
Courtesy of the family

On November 1, 1921, she married Moritz Katz, who was born in Neuenhain, Germany, on November 4, 1894. Here is a photograph of Moritz taken in 1912 when he was eighteen, a photograph of Clara in the 1920s, and an undated one of Clara and Moritz taken years later.

Moritz Katz in 1912. Courtesy of the family.

Clara Rothschild in the 1920s. Courtesy of the family.

Clara Rothschild and Moritz Katz undated
Courtesy of the family

Clara and Moritz had three children, Otto, born in 1922, Helmut (Hal) born in 1924, and Ilse, born in 1928. Hal told me that until he was six years old, he and his family lived with his paternal grandmother, Caroline Rosenblatt Katz, in Neuenhain. His paternal grandfather Jacob Katz had died many years before in 1899. Neuenhain was a very small village, about two hundred people. Hal’s parents and grandmother ran a grocery business out of their home selling produce grown on their farm. This is a photograph of Hal’s paternal grandmother Caroline in 1930 in Neuenhain.

Caroline Katz 1930. Courtesy of the family

Hal said that they were the only Jewish family in the village, and he never understood how his father had become so knowledgeable about Judaism and Hebrew since there was no Hebrew school in Neuenhain. The closest synagogue was within walking distance, but it was a challenge finding the ten men to make a minyan. His father was able to lead services and even acted as the kosher butcher on the side.

Here is a beautiful photograph of Hal with his older brother Otto taken when they lived in Neuenhain. Hal looks no more than two years old, so this photograph was probably taken in about 1925-1926.

Otto and Helmut Katz, c. 1925-1926. Courtesy of the family

I asked Hal what he remembered about his maternal grandfather Gerson Rothschild, and he told me that he was in the coal business. He also said that the first funeral he ever went to was Gerson’s funeral in 1930 when Hal would have been six years old.

When Hal was six, the family moved to a larger town, Borken, which was about six miles from Neuenhain and had a population of about two thousand people and more of a Jewish community than Neuenhain. There his father Moritz had a business selling the raw materials needed to make clothing. Hal compared it to being a peddler. From the way Hal spoke, it sounds like those early years of his life were happy and secure. He had many cousins from his Rothschild side—-all the children of his mother’s siblings—who were living in other towns in the Hessen region. He also had many relatives from his Katz side.

This is a photograph of the three Katz siblings taken in Borken in 1934. It was probably Ilse’s first day of school since she is holding a cone filled with candy traditionally given to children in Germany on their first day of school.

Otto, Ilse, and Hal Katz 1934 in Borken. Courtesy of the family

Of course, everything changed after Hitler came to power. In an interview Judy did with her father Otto, he reported that once the Nazis came to power, the children had to change schools as they were no longer allowed to go to school with Christians, so they went to a Jewish school. In addition, the family was forced to sell their land and their business and lived on the money from those sales until that money ran out.

In 1937 when he was fifteen, Otto left school and was doing an apprenticeship in a retail clothing store in Wolfhagen, a town about 40 miles north of Borken. Apparently this was a common practice—-to send a teenage boy to live with another Jewish family and learn a trade. In an interview with his daughter Judy,  Otto said that the store had so little business that he spent his days gardening. One day Otto was riding his bike in Wolfhagen and a group of Hitler Youths tried to take his bike from him; Otto hit them with the bike pump and escaped. When Otto told the man with whom he was apprenticing what had happened, that man contacted Moritz.

Moritz went to Wolfhagen and took Otto to Kassel to stay with relatives for six months. Fortunately, Moritz had had the foresight to see what was happening with the Nazis, and this gave him the extra incentive to work on getting them out of the country. He was able to get the necessary papers to leave Germany with the help of the Hebrew Immigration Aid Society and a sponsor named Albert Decker. First, Moritz left with Otto and went to Hamburg where the two of them were able to board a ship and travel to America. Leaving Clara, Hal, and Ilse behind was very difficult because none of them knew when they would see each other again.

Hal believes this family photograph was taken not too long before Moritz and Otto left Borken for the US.

Katz family in Borken, maybe 1936. Courtesy of the family

Moritz and Otto arrived in New York on August 27, 1937.2

Fortunately, Clara was able to leave with Hal and Ilse eight months later, just a few months after Hal celebrated his bar mitzvah in Borken without his father or brother. In an interview Judy did with Hal in 2023, Hal told her that Clara and the children were living with a family from Borken, the Blums, until April 8,1938 when they left to go to the US. First, they took a train to Antwerp, where they stayed with the Tiefenbrunners at the orphanage they were running. (See earlier blog post here.) Then they boarded a freighter, a slower moving form of transport that was crowded with mostly Jewish people escaping Hitler. This photograph was taken before they boarded the ship to leave Germany on April 11, 1938.

Clara, Ilse, and Hal (on the right side of the photo) on the day they left Germany for the US in 1938. Courtesy of the family

They arrived in New York after an uncomfortable eleven day journey on April 21, 1938.3

Thanks to Moritz’s foresight, he and Clara and their children were now safely out of Germany, and they were the first ones in the extended Rothschild family to get out—-before Siegmund and before Max, Clara’s brothers.

And as we have already seen, most of the rest of the family did not escape in time. Hal said that his parents did all they could to get other family members out, but unfortunately as we have seen and as we will see, those efforts did not succeed. Hal said that they eventually lost contact with those still in Germany. When I asked why those who remained—-e.g., Clara’s sisters Katchen, Auguste, Jenny, Rosa and Amalie—-hadn’t also tried to get out of Europe when Moritz and Clara did, Hal said he thought they all just believed it would all blow over and that they would be safe.

But Clara, Moritz, Otto, Hal, and Ilse were now in New York, starting over in a new country.

More on that to come in my next post.

  1. Zoom calls with Hal Katz and family, May and June 2025. Interviews with Hal and Otto over the years by Judy Katz. ↩
  2. Moritz Katz, ship manifest, Departure Port Hamburg, Germany, Arrival Date 27 Aug 1937, Arrival Port New York, New York, USA, Ship Name Hansa  The National Archives in Washington, DC; Washington, DC, USA; Passenger and Crew Lists of Vessels Arriving at New York, New York, 1897-1957; Microfilm Serial or NAID: T715; RG Title: Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, 1787-2004; RG: 85, Ancestry.com. New York, U.S., Arriving Passenger and Crew Lists (including Castle Garden and Ellis Island), 1820-1957 ↩
  3. Clara Katz ship manifest, Place of Origin Germany, Departure Port Antwerp, Belgium, Arrival Date 21 Apr 1938, Arrival Port New York, New York, USA
    Ship Name Gerolstein, The National Archives in Washington, DC; Washington, DC, USA; Passenger and Crew Lists of Vessels Arriving at New York, New York, 1897-1957; Microfilm Serial or NAID: T715; RG Title: Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, 1787-2004; RG: 85, Ancestry.com. New York, U.S., Arriving Passenger and Crew Lists (including Castle Garden and Ellis Island), 1820-1957 ↩

Jeanette “Jenny” Rothschild Abraham: An Entire Family Murdered

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Turning now to Jeanette or Jenny Rothschild, the fifth of the eight Rothschild children who survived to adulthood, we saw that she married Salomon Abraham on November 11, 1920, and that they had two children: Walter, born in 1921, and Herta, born in 1928.

This photograph is possibly of Jenny and Salomon:

Maybe Jenny Rothschild Abraham
Courtesy of the family

Unfortunately, Jenny and her family suffered a fate like those of her older sisters Katchen and Auguste and not like those of her older brothers Siegmund and Max, both of whom survived the Holocaust. Jenny, Salomon, Walter, and Herta were all murdered in the Holocaust.

This document from the census taken in 1938-1939 by the Nazis of any household where a resident had at least one Jewish grandparent shows us that Jenny and Salomon and their children were living in Kassel at that time. It also shows that none of them had finished high school or vocational school and that all of them had four Jewish grandparents.

Salomon Abraham and family, RG-14.013M.0216.00000011, German minority census of 1939, United States Holocaust Museum and Memorial, also summarized at MyHeritage at   https://www.myheritage.com/research/record-10901-14585/herta-greta-abraham-in-german-minority-census?fbclid=IwY2xjawJyNahleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHjMpngFoUVAHvZ8hfTE5lCsMwdc-9bHAeMU5opyaipBCxYmQYX8bXBPReDTp_aem_DvzcPxQysQHhqKjX3STcgw

Another document created by the International Tracing Service reveals that in 1939-1940, Salomon Abraham was working in Kassel for the Georg Sauer railway, road, and underground construction company.1

Yad Vashem files and the Gedenkbuch report that on December 9, 1941, Salomon, Jenny, and their thirteen-year-old daughter Herta were deported along with over a thousand other Jews from Kassel and surrounding towns and sent to the Jewish ghetto established by the Nazis in Riga, Latvia. According to an article about the transport on Yad Vashem, “The deportees were told to bring a sum of 50 Reichmarks, a suitcase, a set of clothes, suitable shoes, bedding, tableware, and food supplies for a few days. They were also required to produce an inventory of all their properties. In the Kassel district, the Jews received notification that all furniture was to be carefully packed and placed in one room of the apartment. Household valuables were to be deposited in a closet together with a list of contents.”

The train took three days to get to Riga, arriving on December 12, 1941; according to one account by a survivor as quoted in the same Yad Vashem article, “The temperature was 40 degrees below freezing. Most of the luggage was left at the train station and we never saw it again. We had to walk to the ghetto while a terrible snow storm was blowing.”

Unfortunately, I do not have any specific information about what happened to Salomon or Jenny after arriving in Riga, except I know that they did not survive. Readers may recall that Jenny’s sisters Auguste and Katchen as well as Katchen’s husband Adolf Hirschberg and their son Ludwig Hirschberg were also deported to Riga on December 9, 1941, and that none of them survived the Holocaust either. According to the Yad Vashem article, “little is known about the further fate of the deportees from Kassel in the Riga ghetto. More than 900 Jews were shot in several “Aktionen” in the Bikerniki forest. Others were transported to Auschwitz-Birkenau or to Stutthof concentration camp for forced labour. According to the historian Monica Kingreen only 137 Jews from this transport survived.”

Records show that little Herta was one of those transported to the Stutthof concentration camp. The report from the ITS on Herta Abraham states that she was sent to Stutthof on October 1, 1944.2  I do not know what happened to Herta after that, but she also did not survive the Holocaust.

As for Walter Abraham, he had moved to Berlin sometime after the 1939 Minority Census was taken and was working as a baker. One document seems to suggest he had left Kassel on April 28, 1940. Unfortunately Walter’s move to Berlin did not save his life. On December 7, 1943, he was deported from Berlin to Auschwitz. I don’t know when exactly Walter was killed there, but like his mother, father, and sister, he was murdered by the Nazis.3

There thus are no descendants of Jenny Rothschild Abraham. Her entire family was wiped out by the Nazis.

 

 

 

  1. Tracing and documentation case no. 416.705 for ABRAHAM, SALOMON born 14.08.1898, Reference Code 06030302.0.382.916, 6 Records of the ITS and its predecessors / 6.3 Inquiry processing / 6.3.3 ITS case files as of 1947 / 6.3.3.2 Repository of T/D cases / Tracing and documentation cases with (T/D) numbers between 250.000 and 499.999 / Tracing and documentation cases with (T/D) numbers between 416.500 and 416.999 ITS Digital Archive, Arolsen Archives ↩
  2. See Note 1, supra. ↩
  3. Welle 61 – 47. Osttransport in das KL Auschwitz, 07.12.1943, 1 Inhaftierungsdokumente / 1.2 Verschiedenes / 1.2.1 Deportationen und Transporte / 1.2.1.1 Deportationen / Deportationen aus dem Gestapobereich Berlin /  Signatur 15510056b, Entstehungszeitraum. 1943-12-07 – 1943-12-10, Anzahl Dokumente 4, ITS Digital Archive, Arolsen Archive ↩

Auguste Rothschild Feldheim: Another Life Destroyed

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As I move on now to the next child of Gerson Rothschild and Fanny Kugelmann, I am struck by the differences in the fates of their eight surviving adult children. Siegmund and his wife and all his children left Germany in time to escape death at the hands of the Nazis. Katchen and her husband and son were all killed by the Nazis. Max and his family escaped to Argentina, but their son Erich died shortly after arriving from cholera; that might not have happened if they hadn’t had to leave Germany. Why were some able to escape while others were not? Fate seems so cruel and unpredictable.

Now I turn to the fourth child, Auguste “Gusta” Rothschild Feldheim. And sadly, Auguste’s fate was more like that of her sister Katchen than that of her brothers Siegmund and Max.

As we saw, Auguste married Wolf Feldheim on March 18, 1919, in Zimmersrode. Wolf was a widower. His first wife Johanna Risch died on April 29, 1916,1 less than a week after giving birth on April 23, 1916, to her fourth child with Wolf, their son  Arthur/Aharon.2 Wolf and Johanna also had three daughters born before Arthur/Aharon: Ruth, Selma, and Else, and all were younger than five years old when their mother died.3

Auguste married Wolf three years after Johanna’s death, and thus Johanna’s four children with Wolf were all still very young when Auguste became their stepmother. Here is a photograph of Auguste with her four stepchildren. Look how sad those children look. It’s heartbreaking.

Auguste Rothschild Feldheim with her four stepchildren. Courtesy of the family

And then Wolf and Auguste had their own child together, a son Bruno who was born in Fulda, Germany, on November 12, 1921.4

Auguste’s husband Wolf Feldheim died of a heart attack on October 4, 1940, in Fulda, Germany, where he and Auguste were living. Wolf was 65 years old. Was his death caused directly or indirectly by the Nazi persecution? I don’t know.5

Just over a year later Wolf’s widow Auguste was deported from her home in Fulda to Riga. A Page of Testimony filed at Yad Vashem by her stepson, Aharon Feldheim, reported that he believed she died there on or about December 8, 1941, the day after Pearl Harbor. The Gedenbuch summarized at Yad Vashem says she was deported to Riga on December 9, 1941, and died there in March, 1942.6 And then there is a second Page of Testimony for Auguste filed by her sister-in-law Elise Rothschild, wife of Siegmund Rothschild, saying that Auguste was deported to Bergen-Belsen. I don’t know which date or which place is more accurate. But the bottom line is the same. Auguste Rothschild Feldheim died at the hands of the Nazis.

Page of testimony at Yad Vashem filed by Aharon Feldheim. found at https://collections.yadvashem.org/en/names/13532864

Page of Testimony filed at Yad Vashem by Elise Rothschild, found at https://collections.yadvashem.org/en/names/798469

Bruno Feldheim survived the Holocaust by going to Palestine. His application for citizenship in Palestine in 1946 indicates that he arrived on March 27, 1939, from Fulda.

Bruno Feldheim Palestine immigration papers found at the Israel State Archives at https://search.archives.gov.il/

At some point after the war, Bruno moved to Belgium, where he had a diamond business, according to his cousin Hal Katz. Hal’s tree on Ancestry reports that Bruno died in Belgium on September 16, 2016. He was survived by his children and grandchildren. Here is a photograph of Bruno with his family, courtesy of Judy Katz, his first cousin, once removed.

Bruno Feldheim and family. courtesy of the family

I did not really research in depth the four stepchildren of Auguste, relying primarily on the Ancestry tree created by their stepcousin, Hal Katz. That tree reported that two of those stepchildren, Selma and Aharon, survived the Holocaust and ended up in Israel, but a third, Else, was murdered by the Nazis.

As for the remaining stepchild, Ruth, Wolf and Johanna’s oldest child, I went down a deep rabbit hole to learn what happened to her. It’s a Holocaust story I had not known before and that may not be very widely known.

Ruth was born on October 28, 1912, in Fulda, Germany.7 She married Jonas Tiefenbrunner, who was born in Wiesbaden on June 19, 1914. Sometime after Hitler came to power, Jonas left Germany for Belgium and established a youth home and yeshiva for religious boys in a town near Antwerp. Ruth later also left Germany for Belgium, and she worked as a cook in a different children’s home. According to a recorded interview with their daughter Judith, they had first met in Frankfurter, but reconnected and became a couple in Belgium. Ruth and Jonas were married on May 9, 1940, the day before the Nazis invaded Belgium.8

As told by Jonas and Ruth’s daughter Judith in that interview, after the Nazis invaded, the Queen Mother of Belgium intervened to protect the Jewish children and elderly. She convinced the commandant overseeing the Nazi deportation of Jews back to Germany, purportedly for “work,” that children younger than seventeen and the elderly would not be productive workers and that they should not be sent back to Germany. A number of orphanages and homes for the elderly were established, and Jonas Tiefenbrunner was made the head of one of those orphanages, the one in Brussels and the only one that was observant of Jewish laws and holidays, according to Ruth’s daughter.9

Jonas and Ruth took in up to fifty or sixty children at a time. They faced constant danger of raids by the Nazis, who accused them of hiding children who were over the age of sixteen or children who had not been properly registered with the Nazi regime in Belgium. Jonas was arrested once, but quickly released.10

In 1943, Ruth, Jonas, and their first-born daughter Jeanette had an opportunity to escape from the Nazis and emigrate from Belgium by obtaining what are now known as Mantello certificates. As described on JewishGen:

George Mandel was a Hungarian Jewish businessman who befriended a Salvadoran diplomat, Colonel José Arturo Castellanos, in the years leading up to World War II.  After Castellanos was named El Salvador’s Consul General in Geneva, he appointed Mandel, who had assumed a Spanish-sounding version of his last name, “Mantello,” to serve as the Consulate’s first secretary.  Even in Nazi-occupied Europe, Jews who were citizens of or held official documents from other countries were often able to escape deportation.  With the consent of Castellanos, George Mandel-Mantello used his diplomatic position to issue documents identifying thousands of European Jews as citizens of El Salvador.  He sent notarized copies of these certificates into occupied Europe, in the hope of saving the holders from the Nazis. … Word then spread among representatives of various Jewish organizations, who also approached Mandel-Mantello, each providing data and photographs of the people they wanted to try to save. … In total, Mandel-Mantello may have issued as many as five thousand certificates, many with the names and photographs of several family members.

Jonas and Ruth Tiefenbrunner were among those who received a Mantello certificate, describing them as citizens of El Salvador. They even applied for a Swiss passport relying on the evidence of their Salvadoran citizenship.  They could have left Belgium for a safer country by using those certificates as many others were able to do.

Jonas Tiefenbrunner application for Swiss passport, found at USHMM at https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1169302

But as described by their daughter Judith, they refused. Jonas would not abandon the children he was caring for so the family stayed in Belgium for the duration of the war.11

In August 1944, the Nazis decided to deport all the remaining Jews in Belgium including the children. “Luckily, Jonas received advanced warning and was able to take all the children to a convent run by an acquaintance, Father R.P. Robinet. Two weeks later, Brussels was liberated.”12 In the end, it is estimated that Jonas and Ruth were able to save over one hundred children.

Tragically, Jonas Tiefenbrunner died in Belgium in 1962 from a heart attack when he was only 48 years old. From what I can gather from various sources including Judith’s interview, Ruth and their three daughters all eventually ended up in Israel.13 Unfortunately I have not been able to find further information about Ruth or her daughters.

Although Ruth Feldheim and Jonas Tiefenbrenner were not my genetic relatives, I felt their story was important and wanted to share it with my readers.

  1. Johanna Risch Feldheim death record, Arcinsys Archives of Hessen, HHStAW, 365, 348, p. 11, found at https://digitalisate-he.arcinsys.de/hhstaw/365/348/00011.jpg ↩
  2. Arthur/Aharon Feldheim immigration papers found in the Israel State Archives at https://search.archives.gov.il/ ↩
  3. Ruth was born on October 28, 1912, according to this entry at Yad Vashem, https://collections.yadvashem.org/en/names/13474776  Selma was born on April 6, 1913, Selma Feldheim, Enemy Alien Registration card, The National Archives; Kew, London, England; HO 396 WW2 Internees (Aliens) Index Cards 1939-1947; Reference Number: HO 396/172, Piece Number Description: 172: German Internees Released In UK 1939-1942: Fa-Fl, Ancestry.com. UK, World War II Alien Internees, 1939-1945. Else was born on November 5, 1914, Arolsen Archives; Bad Arolsen, Germany; Record Group 1 Incarceration Documents; Reference: 1.1.46.1, Ancestry.com. Germany, Incarceration Documents, 1933-1945 ↩
  4. I still have not found a record linking Bruno to Auguste and Wolf, but Bruno’s first cousin Hal Katz confirmed that Auguste and Wolf did have a son Bruno, and that is certainly a reliable first hand source. Zoom call with Hal Katz on May 8, 2025. ↩
  5. Wolf Feldheim on a grave registration document found at Arolsen Archives, Digital Archive; Bad Arolsen, Germany; Lists of Persecutees 2.1.1.1, Description
    Reference Code: 02010101 oS, Ancestry.com. Free Access: Europe, Registration of Foreigners and German Persecutees, 1939-1947 ↩
  6. Entry at Yad Vashem for Auguste Rothschild Feldheim, found at https://collections.yadvashem.org/en/names/13532864 ↩
  7. See Note 3, supra. ↩
  8. The information in this paragraph came from an interview with Ruth and Jonas’ daughter that is available on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1q4KCKrMjY Also, see Jonas Tiefenbrunner’s application for a Swiss passport below. ↩
  9. Ibid. ↩
  10. Biography of Jonas Tiefenbrunner found at the USHMM website at  https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1144757 ↩
  11. See Note 8, supra. ↩
  12. See Note 10, supra. ↩
  13. See Note 8, supra. ↩

Max Rothschild: Escape to Argentina

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Fortunately, the story of the third child of Gerson Rothschild and Fanny Kugelmann, their son Max, does not end as tragically as that of his sister Katchen. Max was born in 1886, and, as we saw, he married Johanna Katz on October 19, 1919, in Zimmersrode, Germany. They had three sons, Erich, Fritz, and Richard. According to his marriage record, Max was a merchant in Zimmersrode.

Max Rothschild and Johanna Katz marriage record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 920; Laufende Nummer: 9581, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930

Max and his family were among those who were able to leave Germany in time and thus survived the Holocaust. Thank you to Donna Levinsohn from the GerSIG Facebook group for finding them on a list of immigrants to Argentina at the CEMLA website. From that website I learned that Max listed his occupation as “agricola” and his sons listed theirs as “practicante agricola,” or in the practice of agriculture. Their date of arrival in Buenos Aires was May 25, 1939, on the ship Cap. Norte. Missing from this list is the third son of Max and Johanna, Fritz. According to Hal Katz. Max’s nephew and first cousin to his sons, Fritz immigrated with his parents and brothers, so I cannot account for the fact that he is missing from this passenger ship manifest index.1

Ship manifest facts for Max Rothschild and family from CEMLA website at https://cemla.com/buscador/

Although the family escaped the tragedy of being murdered by the Nazis, their life was not without tragedy. Just one month after arriving, Erich Rothschild died, perhaps from cholera, according to one tree on Ancestry. He was only eighteen years old. How devastating it must have been for the family to escape safely from Germany only to lose Erich so soon after leaving.

Andra Marx from the GerSIG Facebook group located Erich’s burial record on JewishGen; he was buried in the Jewish section of the cemetery in Moisesville, Argentina.

Erich Rothschild death and burial info from JewishGen, found at https://www.jewishgen.org/databases/cemetery/jowbr.php?rec=J_ARGENTIN_0260737

When I saw the name of the town—-Moisesville—-on that burial record in JewishGen, my immediate reaction was “Moses town,” that is, that it had to be a Jewish settlement in Argentina, and in fact that’s what it was. Interestingly, it was not founded by Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany, but many years before as a refuge for Russian Jews escaping persecution. According to Wikipedia, “Moises Ville was founded by a group of Russian Jewish immigrants who arrived in August 1889 aboard the SS Weser from Kamenetz-Podolsk, Ukraine.” But during the 1930s and 1940s, some German Jewish refugees like my Rothschild cousins were welcomed into that community. At one time there were four synagogues in Moisesville; today there are only 119 Jewish families there.

I do not know more about what life was like for Max, Johanna, Fritz (who became Frederico in Argentina), and Richard (who became Ricardo) in Argentina. Andra Marx located a notice in the Aufbau newspaper that announced that Max Rothschild died on January 14, 1962, at the age of 75 after a serious illness. He was mourned by his wife Johanna, who was living in Buenos Aires, his sons Frederico and Ricardo and Ricardo’s wife Ruth Heymann Rothschild, and other family members.

Death notice for Max Rothschild in The Aufbau, January 19, 1962, p. 29, found at https://archive.org/details/aufbau291962germ/page/n46/mode/1up?view=theater

Max is buried in Buenos Aires. His wife Johanna (Juana) survived him by 21 years; she died on December 27, 1983, and is buried next to Max in Buenos Aires. She was 91 years old.

Max Rothschild burial record from JewishGen, found at https://www.jewishgen.org/databases/cemetery/jowbr.php?rec=J_ARGENTIN_0226824

Johanna Katz Rothschild burial record at Jewish Gen, found at https://www.jewishgen.org/databases/cemetery/jowbr.php?rec=J_ARGENTIN_0226822

Their son Richard or Ricardo Rothschild died on August 18, 2012, at the age of 89. He is buried in the Jewish cemetery in Palacios Luis, Argentina, where his wife Ruth, who died on April 28, 1995, is also buried.

The inscriptions on both headstones read, “tu esposo/a hijos hijas  politicas y nietos te recuerdan con carino,” or “Your husband/wife, sons, daughters-in-law and grandchildren remember you fondly.” Ricardo and Ruth thus had at least two sons and grandchildren who survived them. I assume the sons are Eric (presumably named for his deceased uncle) and Mario Rothschild, who were named as mourners in the death notice for Max Rothschild.

Judy Katz, Hal Katz’s niece, informed me that Fritz also married and had children and grandchildren. They lived in Argentina and Germany. Fritz died in Germany just a few years ago.2  There are thus living descendants for Max and Johanna and their family.

Thank you again to Donna Levinsohn and to Andra Marx from the GerSIG Facebook group for their help in locating information about the Rothschilds in Argentina. And special thanks to my cousins Hal, Sandy, and Judy for sharing their memories of Max and his family.

 

 

  1. Zoom with Hal Katz and family on May 8, 2025. ↩
  2. Email from Judy Katz, May 8, 2025. ↩

Katchen Rothschild Hirschberg: A Family Destroyed

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The second oldest child of Gerson Rothschild and Fanny Kugelmann was their daughter Katchen, born in 1885 in Waltersbrueck. As we saw, she married Adolf Hirschberg in 1914, and they had one child, a son Ludwig born in 1920. According to their marriage record, Adolf was a merchant and a butcher. They were living in Kassel, Germany, when Ludwig was born in 1920. Unfortunately, I do not know much more about their lives before the Nazi era. But I know that all three were persecuted and killed during the Holocaust. But the records of where and how they died are in conflict.

Katchen Rothschild and Adolf Hirschberg marriage record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 920; Laufende Nummer: 9576, Year Range: 1914, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930

First, there are records at the Arolsen Archives showing that both Adolf and Ludwig were incarcerated at Buchenwald for some period of time after Kristallnacht in 1938.

Then, according to entries in the Gedenbuch (“Victims of the Persecution of Jews under the National Socialist Tyranny in Germany 1933 – 1945″ prepared by the German Federal Archives) as recorded at Yad Vashem, Katchen, Adolf, and Ludwig Hirschberg were all deported from Kassel on December 9, 1941, to the Riga ghetto in Latvia. As best I can determine from records at Yad Vashem, Katchen died in the Riga ghetto, but no date was given. For Adolf, the Gedenbuch reported that he died there on August 24, 1943.

Pages of Testimony were filed at Yad Vashem for Katchen, Adolf, and Ludwig by Katchen’s sister-in-law, Elise Block Rothschild, the wife of Siegmund Rothschild, one of the few siblings to survive the Holocaust. Elise filed many Pages of Testimony for the family members murdered by the Nazis, as we will see. Her Pages of Testimony for Katchen and Adolf state that they died at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, but after searching the Arolsen Archives lists of those killed at Bergen-Belsen, I was unable to find either Adolf or Katchen’s name, so I do not know how accurate Elise’s information was. Did they die in Riga, or were they at some point transferred to Bergen-Belsen and killed there? I don’t know.

Adolf Hirschberg Page of Testimony filed at Yad Vashem, found at https://collections.yadvashem.org/en/names/14982438

Katchen Rothschild Hirschberg Page of Testimony filed at Yad Vashem, found at https://collections.yadvashem.org/en/names/645337

As for Ludwig, there is also conflicting information. The Gedenbuch summary at Yad Vashem reports that Ludwig was killed at the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp in France on December 24, 1944. A record in the Arolsen Archives also indicates that he died at Natzweiler-Struthof on that date, and there is also a record on Ancestry that seems to confirm that Ludwig was imprisoned at Natzweiler-Struthof during the Holocaust.1 Both records indicate that Ludwig was transferred to Natzweiler-Struthof from the camp in Dautmergen, a town in southwest Germany about 100 miles from Natzweiler-Struthof in France.

Ludwig Hirschberg record at Arolsen Archives, 2 Registration of Foreigners and German Persecutees by Public Institutions, Social Securities and Companies (1939 – 1947) / 2.3 Post-war Evaluations of Various Organizations / 2.3.3 Haut-Commissariat de la République Française en Allemagne / 2.3.3.1 Card file of persecutees in the later French zone and of French persecutees in other areas / Documents without (captured) names and names from A; further sub-structure available /, Reference Code
02030301001.474

But other records on JewishGen and Ancestry2 indicate that Ludwig was at the Stutthof concentration camp in Poland. Those records, however, are confusing because they say “Riga/Stutthof/Natzweiler.” Did they mean Stutthof, or did they mean Struthof/Natzweiler?

But this card from the Arolsen Archives is clearly marked only Stutthof and indicates that Ludwig Hirschberg was incarcerated there.

Ludwig Hirschberg at Stutthof, 1 Incarceration Documents / 1.1 Camps and Ghettos / 1.1.41 Stutthof Concentration Camp / 1.1.41.2 Individual Documents Stutthof / Personal Files – Stutthof Concentration Camp / Files with names from HERZ , Reference Code
01014102 047.243found at https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/document/4493200

Could he have been at both camps? Or is one of these records incorrect? After all Struthof and Stutthof could be easily confused. The Page of Testimony filed by Elise Block Rothschild does not resolve this confusion because it only reported that his place of death was unknown.

Ludiwg Hirschberg page of testimony at Yad Vashem, found at https://collections.yadvashem.org/en/names/622945

Only to add to the confusion, the Projekt Judische Leben Frankfurt states that Ludwig was one of the passengers on the St. Louis, the ship that was turned back in 1939 after being refused entry by both Cuba and the United States, and that he was later killed at Auschwitz. I searched the list of St. Louis passengers on file at the US Holocaust Museum and Memorial, however, and did not find Ludwig Hirschberg on that list. Nor does any record at Yad Vashem or on JewishGen or on Ancestry indicate that Ludwig was murdered at Auschwitz.

One might conclude that Ludwig was at Natzweiler-Struthof based on the larger number of records so indicating, but how did he get there from the Riga ghetto? They are more than 1200 miles apart. Not that Riga is close to Stutthof either (469 miles), but still much closer. Also, the JewishGen database devoted to Stutthof includes a description that states, “The Stutthof camp was originally not designed to hold Jews, but, beginning in 1944, substantial numbers (30,000-50,000) of Jews were sent there, primarily from Kovno, Rīga and Auschwitz.” So it would make sense that Ludwig would have been sent from Riga to Stutthof, not to Natzweiler-Struthof.

Unless Ludwig was in fact on the St Louis? Since many of those passengers did end up in France after being turned back by the US and Cuba, that might explain how Ludwig ended up in Natzweiler-Struthof. But if he was on the St Louis in 1939 and then sent to France, how could he have been deported to Riga from Kassel with his parents in 1941? Something didn’t add up.

I was very fortunate to speak with Ludwig’s first cousin Hal Katz on May 8, 2025, and he confirmed that Ludwig was not on the St. Louis. That makes it even less likely that Ludwig ended up in France and thus in Natzweiler-Struthof. My best guess at this point is that Ludwig was sent to Stuffhof along with other prisoners from Riga. My hunch, totally speculative, is that somewhere someone mixed up Struthof and Stutthof and wrote the wrong name on one of Ludwig’s records.

Sadly, in the end, these details do not change the ultimate outcome. Katchen, Adolf, and Ludwig Hirschberg were all murdered by the Nazis during the Holocaust. One family story shared with me in my conversation with Hal Katz and his daughter Sandy and niece Judy is that Ludwig survived in the camp and was shot in cold blood by a guard on the day the camp was to be liberated.

May the names and memories of Katchen, Adolf, and Ludwig be preserved forever.

 

 

  1. Name Ludwig Hirschberg, Nationality German Jew, Birth Date 1 Feb 1920
    Transfer Place In Dautmergen, Death Date 24 Dec 1944, Prisoner Number 34908
    Microfilm/Roll/Section A3355/2/4, Alphabetical/Roll/Section A3355/76/GOE-HUA
    Record Number 24120, Irvin Horn, comp. France, Natzweiler-Struthof Concentration Camp Record Book, 1940-1945 ↩
  2. Ludwig Hirschberg, Birth Date 1 Feb 1920, Birth Place Kassel, Residence Kassel, Camp Riga/Stutthof/Natzweiler, Ancestry.com. Poland, German Jews at Stutthof Concentration Camp, 1940-1945. See also the same information at JewishGen found at https://www.jewishgen.org/databases/jgdetail_2.php ↩

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 ↩

Siegmund Rothschild and His Family: Life in America

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After escaping from Nazi Germany to England, the family of Siegmund Rothschild chose to immigrate from England to the United States in September 1940.

First, Siegmund and his younger son Werner left on August 30, 1940, arriving in Boston on September 14, 1940, and then Elise and their older son Ernst left England on September 18, 1940, arrived in Quebec, Canada, on September 27, 1942, then crossed the border into the United States.1 Elise must have been waiting for Ernst to be released from being interned as an enemy alien in England. Both Siegmund and Elise reported on their respective ship manifests that they were teachers, the profession they had practiced in Frankfurt before the Nazi era.

Siegmund and Werner Rothschild ship manifest, The National Archives in Washington, DC; Washington, DC; Series Title: Passenger Lists of Vessels Arriving At Boston, Massachusetts, 1891-1943; NAI Number: 4319742; Record Group Title: Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, 1787-2004; Record Group Number: 85; Series Number: T843; NARA Roll Number: 450, Ancestry.com. Massachusetts, U.S., Arriving Passenger and Crew Lists, 1820-1963

Elise and Ernst Rothschild, ship manifest, The National Archives; Kew, Surrey, England; BT27 Board of Trade: Commercial and Statistical Department and Successors: Outwards Passenger Lists; Reference Number: Series BT27-145937, Month: Sep, Ancestry.com. UK and Ireland, Outward Passenger Lists, 1890-1960

The family settled in New York City where on April 23, 1941, Siegmund filed a Declaration of Intention to become a United States citizen, now listing his occupation as a salesman.

Siegmund Rothschild 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, Description: (Roll 613) Declarations of Intention For Citizenship, 1842-1959 (No 484001-485000), Ancestry.com. New York, U.S., State and Federal Naturalization Records, 1794-1943

As the Projekt Judische Leben Frankfurt described their early life in America, “The new beginning in the USA was associated with challenging times for the couple. Neither of them could ever be active in the profession they had learned. Siegmund, with a doctorate in philosophy, first worked as a dishwasher. Until the end of his life he mostly kept his head above water with mini jobs.” Imagine how frustrating that must have been for Siegmund and Elise. And what  a waste of their knowledge and skills.

Both Siegmund and his older son Ernst, now using the more Anglicized Ernest, registered for the World War II draft; I haven’t found any evidence that either served in the military during the war. As their registration statements indicate, they were living at 558 West 164th Street in New York City in the Washington Heights neighborhood where so many Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany settled. Siegmund was working for the Gibraltar Manufacturing Company in Jersey City, New Jersey, and Ernest was working for Hugo Brand in Brooklyn.

Siegmund Rothschild, World War II draft registration, The National Archives At St. Louis; St. Louis, Missouri; Record Group Title: Records of the Selective Service System; Record Group Number: 147, Ancestry.com. U.S., World War II Draft Registration Cards, 1942

Ernest Rothschild, World War II draft registration, National Archives at St. Louis; St. Louis, Missouri; Wwii Draft Registration Cards For New York City, 10/16/1940 – 03/31/1947; Record Group: Records of the Selective Service System, 147, Ancestry.com. U.S., World War II Draft Cards Young Men, 1940-1947

Werner may have had the easiest transition to life in the United States. According to the report in the Projekt Judische Leben Frankfurt website, “Werner was 12 years old in 1940 and felt like an American from day one, he emphasized. In order to contribute to the family income, he took various jobs. Early in the morning before school at 5:30 a.m. he delivered bread rolls, delivered meat to the households or brought the clothes from the dry cleaners to the apartments, seven days a week, upstairs and downstairs. He immediately felt like an American in his school too. He studied with 35% Afro-Americans and classmates of different nationalities. Something like normal came back to life.”

The 1950 US census shows Siegmund without a job, but both Ernst, now 28, and Werner, now 22, were working. Ernst owned a laundry where both young men were working. According to the Projekt Judische Leben Frankfurt website, however, that laundry did not provide much income for the family until a few years later.

Siegmund Rothschild, 1950 US census, National Archives at Washington, DC; Washington, D.C.; Seventeenth Census of the United States, 1950; Year: 1950; Census Place: New York, New York, New York; Roll: 3572; Page: 72; Enumeration District: 31-2290, Ancestry.com. 1950 United States Federal Census

Here is a photograph of Elise and Ernest in their laundromat:

Elise Bloch Rothschild and her son Ernest in their laundromat. Courtesy of the family

Sadly, Siegmund died on October 2, 1952, at the age of sixty-eight.2 According to the Projekt Judische Leben Frankfurt website, he suffered a heart attack after receiving an injection from a contaminated needle.

Ernest Rothschild married Margot Ochs in New York in 1954.3 Margot was born in Duren, Germany, on July 29, 1923,and like her husband Ernest, she had first escaped from Germany to England before immigrating to the US on December 27, 1939.4 Ernest and Margot had one child; he was given the middle name Siegmund presumably in memory of Ernest’s father Siegmund Rothschild.

Werner Rothschild married Audrie Max on December 21, 1958.5 Audrie was born in Allentown, Pennsylvania, on September 18, 1929, to Isadore Max and Minnie Vinkelstein.6 According to the Projekt Judische Leben Frankfurt website, Werner and Audrie met while vacationing in Florida. Werner and Audrie have three children.

The engagement announcement for Audrie and Werner in the Allentown newspaper, The Morning Call, on October 5, 1958 (p. 25) reported that Werner was a graduate of City College of New York and had received a master’s degree in school administration from Columbia University. He was working at that time as a teacher in Levittown, New York. How interesting that Werner pursued the teaching profession, the profession both his parents had lost as a result of Nazi persecution.

Ernest and Werner’s mother Elise Block Rothschild lived to 102, dying on May 2, 1991.7 As reported on the Projekt Judische Leben Frankfurt website, “Elise outlived her husband by 42 years and died very old at 102. She led a very independent life; it wasn’t until the age of 90, after a hip fracture, that she was admitted to the Margaret Tietz Nursing Home. … Elise worked in the family laundromat, taught English to German immigrants, and volunteered at the Young Men’s Hebrew Association, YMHA, library. She fought for compensation for many years and got a small pension from the 1950s onwards. Of course, this amount could not even come close to compensating for the enormous financial losses that had arisen as a result of the Nazi era and emigration and that shaped her life from then on.”

Ernest Rothschild died on December 11, 2011; he was 89 years old.8 His younger brother Werner is living, and I am hoping to be in touch with him soon. His first cousin Hal and Hal’s daughter Sandy and niece Judy are trying to connect me with Werner.

Given what happened to so many of Siegmund’s siblings and their families, Siegmund and his wife and children might by some be considered lucky because they survived. And yes, in some ways that is true. But look at how they also suffered because of Nazi persecution. Both Siegmund and his wife Elise lost their chosen careers as teachers; Ernest never became a dentist. These were psychological losses as well as financial losses. They also lost their homeland and most of their close family members. No one who was touched by Nazi persecution should ever be considered lucky.

For more information and photographs of the family, please see the Projekt Judische Leben Frankfurt website.

 

  1. Elise and Ernst Rothschild, The National Archives in Washington, DC; Washington, DC, USA; Manifests of Passengers Arriving At St. Albans, Vt, District Through Canadian Pacific and Atlantic Ports, 1895-1954; NAI: 4492490; Record Group: Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, 1787 – 2004; Record Group Number: 85; Series Number: M1464; Roll Number: 611, Ancestry.com. U.S., Border Crossings from Canada to U.S., 1895-1960; Elise and Ernst Rothschild, The National Archives at Washington, D.C.; Washington, D.C.; Series Title: Index to Alien Arrivals at Canadian Atlantic and Pacific Seaports; NAI Number: 3000080; Record Group Title: Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, 1787-2004; Record Group Number: 85, Ancestry.com. U.S., Index to Alien Arrivals at Canadian Atlantic and Pacific Seaports, 1904-1944 ↩
  2. Siegmund Rothschild, Age 66, Birth Date abt 1886, Death Date 2 Oct 1952
    Death Place Manhattan, New York, New York, USA, Certificate Number 20929, Ancestry.com. New York, New York, U.S., Death Index, 1949-1965 ↩
  3. Ernest Rothschild and Margot Ochs, Marriage License, Ernest Rothschild
    Gender Male, Marriage License Date 1954, Marriage License Place Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA, Spouse Margot Ochs, License Number 7121, New York City Municipal Archives; New York, New York; Borough: Manhattan, Ancestry.com. New York, New York, U.S., Marriage License Indexes, 1907-2018 ↩
  4. Margot Ochs, Declaration of Intention, Margot Ochs, Gender Female, Race
    White, Declaration Age 18 Record Type Naturalization Declaration, Birth Date
    29 Jul 1923, Birth Place Duren, Germany, Departure Place Southampton, England
    Arrival Date, 27 Dec 1939, Arrival Place New York, New York, USA Declaration Date
    24 Apr 1942, Declaration Place New York, Court U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, Declaration Number 520250, Box Number 395, 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, Ancestry.com. New York, U.S., State and Federal Naturalization Records, 1794-1943 ↩
  5. Werner Rothschild, Gender Male, Residence Date Abt 1958, Residence Place New York City, Marriage Date 21 Dec 1958, Spouse Audrie Max, The Morning Call; Publication Date: 21/ Dec/ 1958; Publication Place: Allentown, Pennsylvania, USA; URL: https://www.newspapers.com/image/275138958/?article=8c58a828-c766-4dff-8c86-8cceadb65bd&focus=0.38331795,0.5598585,0.4987282,0.6864521&xid=3398
    Ancestry.com. U.S., Newspapers.com™ Marriage Index, 1800s-current ↩
  6. Audrie M Rothschild, Birth Date 18 Sep 1929, Residence Date 1993, Address 14 Joyce Ln, Residence Woodbury, NY, Postal Code 11797-2115, Ancestry.com. U.S., Public Records Index, 1950-1993, Volume 1; “Rothschild,” South Florida Sun Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, FL), September 7, 2016, p. B6; Minnie Vinkelstein and Isadore Max marriage announcement, The Times-Tribune, Scranton, PA, November 18, 1919, p. 18; Isadore Max and family, 1930 US census, Year: 1930; Census Place: Allentown, Lehigh, Pennsylvania; Page: 12A; Enumeration District: 0038; FHL microfilm: 2341798, Ancestry.com. 1930 United States Federal Census ↩
  7. Elise O Rothschild, Birth Date 4 Apr 1892, Death Date 2 May 1994, Claim Date 6 Apr 1957, SSN 080181441, Ancestry.com. U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007 ↩
  8. Ernest Rothschild and Margot Ochs Rothschild gravestones at Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/245622521/ernest-rothschild: accessed April 7, 2025), memorial page for Ernest Rothschild (1922–2011), Find a Grave Memorial ID 245622521, citing Beth-El Cemetery, Paramus, Bergen County, New Jersey, USA; Maintained by dalya d (contributor 46972551). ↩

Siegmund Rothschild: Escape from Nazi Germany

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It’s been a few weeks since I wrote about the family of Gelle Blumenfeld Rothschild, given the breaks for some updates, Passover, and our trip to England. Today I return to Gelle’s story, specifically the story of her son Gerson Rothschild. In my last post about Gerson, we saw he died in 1930 and was survived by his wife Fanny Kugelmann and eight children.

In my next series of posts, I will write about the eight surviving children of my cousin Gerson Rothschild and his wife Fanny Kugelmann. Only three of those children survived the Holocaust, making this task a very painful one. But I can start with one of those three who survived, the oldest child of Gerson and Fanny, their son Siegmund.

As we saw, Siegmund married Elise Olga Block on December 22, 1919, in Frankfurt, and they had two sons, Ernst, born March 1, 1922, and Werner, born January 12, 1928, both in Frankfurt. There is a wonderful resource about this family on the Projekt Judische Leben Frankfurt am Main website. Based in part on information obtained during a visit to Frankfurt by Werner Rothschild in 2019, the website details the family’s life before, during, and after the Nazi era. Much of the information in this post came from that website.

According to that website, Siegmund Rothschild moved to Frankfurt in 1911 and was known as “a valued historian with good contacts abroad and president of the liberal main synagogue in Frankfurt.”  He taught at Philanthropin, a free Reform Jewish school founded in 1804 in Frankfurt. An article from the Encyclopedia of Jewish History and Culture abstracted here states that the school was “one of the most significant German Jewish Reform projects in the first half of the 19th century.” Siegmund’s wife Elise also taught at Philanthropin on and off between 1913 and 1939.

UPDATE: I learned from Siegmund’s grandson Alex that Siegmund fought for Germany during World War I. Here is a photo of him from that time.

Siegmund Rothschild c. 1915
Courtesy of the family

Siegmund and his family were living a good life in Frankfurt, identifying more as German than Jewish, until Hitler came to power in 1933. Siegmund’s son Werner recalled that one friend joined Hitler Youth and stopped talking to him. Another time while visiting family in Borken, he and his cousins were tormented by Hitler Youth.

Here is the family in January 1938:

Siegmund, Werner, Ernst, and Elise (Bloch) Rothschild, January 1938.

As for Ernst, the older son, according to the Projekt Judische Leben Frankfurt website, he had always dreamed of being a dentist, but under Nazi persecution he was not allowed to pursue the studies to reach that goal. Instead he ended up working as an apprentice in a leather dressing business after leaving school in 1937. But when that business was Aryanized in 1938, Ernst lost his job.

The family’s situation became even more dire in November 1938 with Kristallnacht.  As reported on the Projekt Judische Leben website, “For Werner… the worst day of his young life was the so-called “Reichskristallnacht.” He saw furniture fly out of the windows and buildings burn. Immediately afterwards, his father was picked up by the Gestapo. They gave [Siegmund] ten minutes to pack his things, then they deported him to Buchenwald. Fortunately, [Ernst] was not at home or he would have been arrested too.” Elise did everything she could to get Siegmund released; he was released in December 1938 with orders to leave Germany quickly.

The Projekt Judische Leben Frankfurt website continued, “Siegmund was a broken man when he came home and it took weeks and intensive care from his wife before he regained his strength. As soon as his health permitted, he traveled to England with his son Ernst, with ten Marks in his pocket. More was not allowed per person. The only contact there was with two of Elise’s brothers who had emigrated from Ratibor in 1935 and opened a dental practice in London.”

Meanwhile, Elise and Werner remained in Frankfurt until Elise arranged in 1939 for Werner to leave Germany as part of the Kindertransport program. Werner took the train alone to Hamburg and was forced to strip naked so that the Gestapo could check to be sure he wasn’t taking anything prohibited with him. In Hamburg he took a ship to England, where he  was placed in a youth hostel.1

Once Elise also was able to escape to England, the family was reunited in London and Werner was able to attend school.   The 1939 England & Wales Register shows Siegmund and Elise living in London.2 But after the war started against Germany in September 1939, Ernst was interned as an enemy alien; Siegmund and Elise, however, were exempted from internship. Werner was just a child.

Siegmund Rothschild, The National Archives; Kew, London, England; HO 396 WW2 Internees (Aliens) Index Cards 1939-1947; Reference Number: HO 396/238, Piece Number Description: 238: Dead Index (Wives of Germans Etc) 1941-1947: Rosenber-Schitz, Ancestry.com. UK, World War II Alien Internees, 1939-1945

Elise Rothschild, The National Archives; Kew, London, England; HO 396 WW2 Internees (Aliens) Index Cards 1939-1947; Reference Number: HO 396/238, Piece Number Description: 238: Dead Index (Wives of Germans Etc) 1941-1947: Rosenber-Schitz, Ancestry.com. UK, World War II Alien Internees, 1939-1945

Ernst Rothschild, The National Archives; Kew, London, England; HO 396 WW2 Internees (Aliens) Index Cards 1939-1947; Reference Number: HO 396/193, Ancestry.com. UK, World War II Alien Internees, 1939-1945

Ernst was eventually released, and the family was finally able to immigrate to the United States in the summer of 1940, as we will see. Then they had to start their lives all over again. More on their life in the US in the next post.

  1. Werner Rothschild, Gender Male, Record Type Refugee List, Birth Date 12 Jan 1928, Residence Place Frankfurt, Document Date 22 Mär 1939 (22 Mar 1939)
    Permit Number 3813, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum; Washington, D.C.; Series: Selected Records Relating to Kindertransports; Record Group: RG-59.075; File Number: mh55-704.00000088, Ancestry.com. UK, Selected Records Relating to Kindertransport, 1938-1939 (USHMM) ↩
  2. Siegmund Rothschild, The National Archives; Kew, London, England; 1939 Register; Reference: RG 101/244E, Description Enumeration District: Akde, Ancestry.com. 1939 England and Wales Register ↩

Six Days in Merry Old England

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We just returned from a wonderful trip to England where our daughter Maddy ran her eighth marathon and her first one outside of the United States. It was, as it always is,  a bit nerve-racking to think of her running 26.2 miles, especially alone and in a foreign country, but as always she came through, despite the unusually warm weather and the unknown city. We were delighted to see her at Mile 6 and then after she finished in St. James Park.

We are so grateful to Maddy for getting us to go to England, our first trip outside the country since COVID (and England was the last place we visited outside the US before COVID in 2019). We kept this tour focused on fun and new adventures, a tour of Notting Hill (and we’d watched the movie this winter together to refresh our memories) and a pub tour of SoHo.

Notting Hill tour:

Ben, our guide, in front of George Orwell’s house in Notting Hill

Banksy art in Notting Hill

Notting Hill—where parts of the Paddington Bear movies were filmed

Alas, Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts were not around…

SoHo pub tour:

Carlos, our guide, and most of the tour group enjoying one last beer

After Maddy left to return to Boston, we traveled north to Liverpool, fulfilling a definite bucket list item for me. I fell in love with the Beatles in February 1964 when I was eleven, and that love has never faded. Seeing where the four young teenagers lived and met and first played together was heartwarming and exciting. Little eleven year old Amy could not believe she played Paul’s piano or stood in the churchyard where Paul and John first met or met Pete Best’s nephew, who gave us a tour of the Casbah where the Beatles (with Pete, not Ringo) first played together as a band.

Mural dedicated to Ringo down the alley from where he grew up

St Peter’s Church where Paul first met John playing with the Quarrymen at a church festival

Did you know there was a real Eleanor Rigby? She is buried in the graveyard at St Peter’s where John was a choirboy and where he first met Paul

John’s childhood home

The kitchen in John’s home

Outside John’s home

Paul’s childhood home

Paul’s backyard and outhouse

Paul’s piano (which I played!) where he and John wrote many of their early songs

George’s childhood home

Alley where George lived

Gate to Strawberry Fields

There are stones with quotations from John’s songs throughout Strawberry Fields

Inside the Casbah on a tour with the nephew of Pete Best, the original drummer for the Beatles

The Casbah stage

If you know the lyrics to Penny Lane, you’ll know what this store is.

Some of you have likely seen some of these photos on Facebook, but I wanted to share these with those blog readers who may not be on Facebook with me.

Special thanks to my cousin Mark Morreau, who met us in Notting Hill and helped us navigate the Underground back to our hotel, and to our tour guides in London and Liverpool, Ben, Carlos, and Dave.

Yom Hashoah 2025

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Before I started researching my family history back in 2010, I believed that I had no relatives who were killed in the Holocaust. Since then I have learned that there are so many of my cousins who were killed by the Nazis that I have lost count—babies, children, teenagers, mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, grandparents, the frail and the elderly—innocent people who were put to death for no reason other than their Jewish identity.

Here we are 80 years after the Holocaust and we are still seeing people being despised and targeted because of their identities. There is still widespread antisemitism, but also widespread racism and islamophobia. We seem to have learned nothing.

On Yom Hashoah let’s work for and hope for the end of all kinds of intolerance and hatred.