Guest Post: My Cousin Miki Katzenstein’s Trip to Jesberg and Munich—Retrieving History and Honoring the Past

Posted on September 6, 2023 by Amy

A few months ago I wrote about how I had connected with my cousin Miki Katzenstein Dror from Israel. Miki is a daughter of Aryeh Katzenstein, who was murdered in a terrorist attack in Munich, Germany, in 1970, when he was just 32 and Miki was a young child. Aryeh gave his life to save the lives of others, including the life of his father, Heinz Katzenstein. The city of Munich is now planning to install a memorial to Aryeh on the grounds where the attack occurred in collaboration with a corporation called BrainLab, which now owns the land where Aryeh was killed.

In preparation for this memorial, Miki and her brother Ofer and their spouses recently traveled to Germany to meet with the people there who are working on the memorial. In addition, Miki made a trip to Jesberg, the small village where our mutual Katzenstein ancestors once lived and where Miki’s grandfather Heinz Katzenstein lived until he left for Palestine in the 1930s. I asked Miki if she would share her thoughts on her visit to her grandfather’s childhood home in Jesberg and also on her trip to Munich, and she has graciously done so. All photos are also courtesy of Miki.

Miki wrote:

For many years I dreamed of traveling to Germany with my grandfather, Heinz Katzenstein, to see the districts of his childhood. I hadn’t heard much about his childhood in Germany, except for the simple facts he told me; he said that he was born in Kassel, immigrated to Palestine in 1933, and had managed to return to Germany in 1936 to take his parents and siblings to his new home. My grandfather often returned to Germany to go to Baden-Baden, but always refused to travel with me to the region where he grew up. I thought it was because it would have been hard for him to see again the home he ran away from so many years ago.

After my grandfather passed away, it became clear to me that although he always talked about Kassel, he actually was born and raised in the village of Jesberg, a really small village about a 40-minute drive from Kassel. Maybe it was easier for him to talk about a more well-known city. I became even more curious, and when the municipality of Munich invited us in June 2023 to preparatory meetings for the establishment of the memorial site for my late father, Aryeh Katzenstein, I decided to combine a roots trip to Jesberg with the meetings in Munich.

I started the preparations with the help of my cousin Amy Cohen, whose blog I found when I was looking for information about Jesberg online. Thanks to her, I met a lovely man named Heinz Hildebrandt, who volunteered to guide me in the village along with his wife Erika. I told him a little about our family, and he told me not to worry – he would already know what to show me. We set a date, and I waited anxiously. In the meantime, I had a lot of preparatory work for the meetings in Munich, and time was running out.

On June 16^th my husband and I took off to Frankfurt; from there we went to Kassel and walked around the city for two days. On June 18, we met with the Hildebrandt family in Jesberg at 9 am, as prearranged. I will never forget the Jesberg welcome. Heinz and his wife Erica, Mrs. Regina Ochs, Herald England, Mayor Heiko Mans, and Pastor Reinhard Keller all accompanied us for the visit, and we ended up staying with them until six in the evening. Hans-Peter Klein and his friend Irina also came especially to meet us. It was one of the most exciting days of my life.

Miki and her husband with the mayor of Jesberg

Amy, my cousin, had given me a piece of advice: imagine the life your grandfather lived in the village while visiting there. This is what I did: we saw the tower overlooking the village and the surrounding agricultural area, we saw the well-kept village and all the Jewish houses that remained mostly in their original form, including the ancient synagogue that is now used as a residence.

Overlooking Jesberg with Miki, her husband, and their guide Heinz Hildebrandt

We even managed to enter the house where my grandfather was born and raised, thanks to the current owner, Michael Jung. It was very emotional for me; the house is in need of repairs and is about to be completely renovated. But I could easily see its beauty, size, and even glory. The ceiling is spectacular. In some ways the house reminded me of my grandfather’s home in Haifa, with all the wooden hand-crafted furniture.

Miki standing in front of the house where her grandfather lived in Jesberg

We said Kaddish at the well-preserved grave of Levi Katzenstein and Jeanette Bendheim, my grandfather’s grandparents, and we saw a gravestone for the victims of the First World War from which the name of our relative Max Katzenstein had been erased during the Nazi era; his name was returned to that memorial a few decades ago. A fascinating presentation was prepared for us that dealt with the history of the Jewish families in the village and in the region, especially the story of our Katzenstein family. It amazes me to think that if my grandfather could have remained in Jesberg undisturbed, my children would have been the 11th generation in the village.

The grave of Levy Katzenstein, Miki’s great-great-grandfather

World War I memorial in Jesberg where you can see that Max Katzenstein’s name was removed and then later restored

My grandfather loved Germany all his life and missed it endlessly. There wasn’t a year he didn’t go there. It also became clear to me from records Mrs. Ochs shared that a year before his death he even came to Jesberg, but without me.

The second part of this busy week was no less emotionally difficult. We went to Munich for three days where we met my brother and sister-in-law who came from Israel and were hosted by the people of the municipality, whom we were very happy to meet after about three years of seeing them only on the small screens of Zoom in our conference calls. The program was very busy, and the terrible heat and the fact that there was no air conditioning made it very difficult. The truth is that even there we were shocked by the welcome we received.

The project to commemorate my father, which started from a humble initiative of family friends, Michael Weidenhiller and Werner Haberkorn, has developed into a huge project that combines our family, the municipality of Munich, and the high-tech company BrainLab. We were invited to lunch with the mayor of Munich, with the head of the Jewish community in Munich, and with the Israeli consulate there. We visited BrainLab’s amazing offices and met with the CEO, Stefan Fieldsmeier, his employees, and the artist chosen to create the artwork that will be erected on the site. We participated in a press conference where the launch of the project was announced, and millions of German residents were exposed to it.

Miki at the press conference in Munich

The site where the memorial to Aryeh Katzenstein will be installed

The highlight for me and my brother was the visit that was organized for us at the municipal archives, where we were exposed for the first time to four huge files of evidence that were prepared for the trial of the three terrorists who murdered my late father. Those files were never used because the terrorists were released without a trial three months later when a Pan Am jet was hijacked and the German government agreed to release those three terrorists in exchange for the safe release of the three hundred passengers on that plane.

The files from the Munich Archives about the 1970 terrorist attack

[For more on this exchange and its historical significance, here is one writer’s views.]

Our faithful translator translated for us from German into Hebrew the testimonies of my grandfather, who was interrogated right after the terrorist incident while he was injured in the hospital, of Hana Maron, the Israeli actress who was seriously injured in the attack, of Uri Cohen, the heroic captain who fought the terrorists with his bare hands, and the bus driver who drove the passengers from the terminal to the plane.

The pictures were very difficult to see but important. We saw drawings of the terminal and timeline of the chain of events. We read what they found with my father after his death: coins, a horseshoe-shaped gold necklace that I really remember as a child, a list my mother sent with him of things to buy in Germany including Pantene diaper cream and decorations for a Purim party they were planning to throw for their friends, and a picture of us – his three children.

We left with tears in our eyes and a heavy heart. On the other hand, we now know much more than we knew before the visit, we met lovely people who tried to help with infinite sensitivity, and we are waiting for the launch of the memorial website, which will be in 2024.

Thank you, Miki, for sharing this with me and my readers. We will always remember the story of your father and the lessons we all must learn about the destructive consequences of hatred in all forms.

Genealogy Fun: How My Friend and I Discovered We Have Mutual Cousins

Posted on August 9, 2023 by Amy

One of the first people I ever met who did genealogy research is my friend Amanda Katz Jermyn. I met Amanda through mutual friends over thirty years ago, and we have been members of the same small havurah group for many years now. When Amanda long ago described her genealogy research and the connections and stories she had found, I was amazed. She helped to inspire me to start my own journey.

Amanda and I both have paternal ancestry from Germany, and over the years we’ve wondered whether we would ever find an overlap in our German Jewish ancestry. Well, I finally found one, although it is very attenuated and only by marriage. Nevertheless it was fun to find this connection.¹ Here’s the story of my third cousin, twice removed, Moritz Rosenberg, and his wife Berta Blum, Amanda’s third cousin, once removed.

As we saw in my earlier post, Moritz, the third child of Rebecca Blumenfeld and Mendel Rosenberg, was born on September 15, 1887, in Rosenthal, Germany, and married Berta Blum on August 10, 1919, in Frankenau, Germany. Berta was born on September 5, 1896, in Frankenau to Elias Blum and Amalie Katz.

Marriage of Moritz Rosenberg and Berta Blum, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Signatur: 3254, Year Range: 1919, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930

Moritz and Berta had two children, Jacob (later Theodore), born on January 17, 1921,² and Rebecca (later Ruth), born on January 4, 1925, both in Rosenthal, Germany.³

Moritz and his family were among the very fortunate ones who all were able to escape safely from Nazi Germany. Moritz, Berta, and their 13-year-old daughter Rebecca arrived in New York on September 15, 1938. Moritz listed his occupation as a butcher. Berta’s cousin Herman Blum was listed as the person they knew in the US.⁴

It took me longer to find out when Jacob arrived in the US because I was searching for him as Jacob, as that is how he was listed on Moritz’s naturalization petition. But the 1940 census has him identified as Theodore (and Rebecca as Ruth),⁵ and that gave me the necessary clue to find Jacob a/k/a Theodore’s naturalization petition. He arrived in the US as a 16-year-old on May 15, 1937. And on his 1942 petition he used his newly adopted name, Theodore.

Moritz Rosenberg, Declaration of Intention, (Roll 548) Declarations of Intention For Citizenship, 1842-1959 (No 426401-427400), Ancestry.com. New York, U.S., State and Federal Naturalization Records, 1794-1943

Theodore Jack Rosenberg a/k/a Jakob Teo Rosenberg, 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 561) Declarations of Intention For Citizenship, 1842-1959 (No 438701-439600), Ancestry.com. New York, U.S., State and Federal Naturalization Records, 1794-1943

The date of his arrival helped me locate Theodore’s ship manifest, where he identified his father as the person he was leaving behind, and his uncle, Herman Blum, as the person he was going to in the US. He is identified as Teo Rosenberg. (See the last line on the image below.)

Teo Rosenberg, ship manifest, The National Archives and Records Administration; Washington, D.C.; Passenger and Crew Lists of Vessels Arriving at and Departing from Ogdensburg, New York, 5/27/1948 – 11/28/1972; Microfilm Serial or NAID: T715, 1897-1957, Ship or Roll Number: Manhattan, Ancestry.com. New York, U.S., Arriving Passenger and Crew Lists (including Castle Garden and Ellis Island), 1820-1957

In 1940, Moritz, Berta, and both of their children were living in New York City. Moritz and Berta were both working as salespeople for a wholesale dress business, and Theodore was a handyman for a venetian blinds company. They also had four lodgers living with them.

Moritz Rosenberg and family, 1940 US Census, Year: 1940; Census Place: New York, New York, New York; Roll: m-t0627-02670; Page: 1A; Enumeration District: 31-1885, Ancestry.com. 1940 United States Federal Census

But while I was searching for information about Theodore/Jacob, I found Moritz and Berta and their children on an Ancestry family tree called the 2020 Jermyn Tree, owned by someone with a memorable name, James Bond. I might have thought that that name was a pseudonym, but fortunately I knew that my friend Amanda had a distant cousin with that name. So seeing the title with her surname and the name of the owner, I assumed there had to be some connection between my relative Moritz Rosenberg and his family and my friend Amanda.

Although Amanda’s name wasn’t revealed on the tree since she is still living, I knew her parents’ names, and they were on the tree. The connection appeared to be through Moritz Rosenberg’s wife Berta Blum, whose mother was Amalie Katz, but I couldn’t quite sort out how Robert Katz, Amanda’s father, was related to Amalie Katz.

I contacted Amanda, and she confirmed the connection and said that Berta Blum was in fact her relative—her third cousin, once removed, through Berta’s mother Amalie Katz and Amanda’s father Robert Katz. Even better, Amanda had been in touch with Moritz and Berta’s daughter Ruth (born Rebecca) and was able to provide me with more information about Ruth and her brother Theodore and their children.

For example, Amanda shared that Ruth had told her that her brother Theodore had enlisted in the US Army in the intelligence division and that the army had him change his surname from Rosenberg to Rogers since he was being sent to Germany. This helped me locate Theodore’s draft registration, which I had had trouble locating when searching for Theodore Rosenberg.

Theodore registered for the draft on February 15, 1942, and was still working for the venetian blinds company at that time. As you can see, he crossed out Rosenberg on his draft registration and inserted Rogers as his surname.

Theodore Rosenberg/Rogers, 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

Ruth Rosenberg married Henry Hammer (born Hammerschlag) after the war; their New York City marriage license is dated June 12, 1945.⁶ Henry was born on March 29, 1919, in Giessen, Germany.⁷ In 1950, Ruth and Henry were living in New York City, and Henry was working as a salesman for wholesale dry goods company. Ruth and Henry would have two children.⁸

Meanwhile, in 1950, Moritz, Berta, and Theodore were living together (along with Berta’s mother Amalie Blum) in New York City. Moritz and Berta now were in the wholesale liquor business together, and Theodore was continuing to sell venetian blinds.

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: 4547; Page: 3; Enumeration District: 31-1731, Ancestry.com. 1950 United States Federal Census

Theodore didn’t marry until 1960 when he was 39 years old.⁹ His wife was Sylvia Kapp (originally Kappenmacher), born on February 20, 1938, in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, to Willi Kappenmacher and Erna Wolf. Sylvia and her parents had immigrated to the US on June 8, 1946,¹⁰ and were living in New York City in 1950. Theodore and Sylvia had two children born in the 1960s.

Sadly, those children lost their father when they were very young as Theodore died on November 13, 1971, at the age of fifty.¹¹ He was survived not only by his wife and children, but also by both of his parents and his sister Ruth and her family.

Fortunately, Theodore’s father and especially his mother and sister were graced with very long lives. Moritz Rosenberg died on September 22, 1976, five years after his son. He had turned 89 years old just a week before.¹²

Berta Blum Rosenberg achieved a remarkable distinction—living to 112 years and becoming the oldest living Jewish person in the world at that time, as reported in her obituary in the January 30, 2009, Hackensack (NJ) Record:

The Record Hackensack, New Jersey • Fri, Jan 30, 2009 Page L6

Berta died on January 28, 2009, in New York.¹³ She was survived by her daughter Ruth and her grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Her daughter Ruth also lived a long life. She died on March 8, 2021, at the age in 96; her husband Henry Hammer had predeceased her by many years, having passed away on May 17, 1986, at the age of 67.¹⁴ Ruth was survived by her children and grandchildren as well as the children and grandchildren of her brother Theodore.

Those children and grandchildren of Ruth and Theodore create a link between my friend Amanda and myself. They are our mutual cousins—the descendants of my cousin, Moritz Rosenberg, and Amanda’s cousin, Berta Blum.

Isn’t genealogy fun?

Amanda also shares some DNA with my husband, but given the different ancestral homes of each of them and the very small amount of DNA shared, it is likely just endogamy. ↩
Theodore Jack Rosenberg a/k/a Jakob Teo Rosenberg, 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 561) Declarations of Intention For Citizenship, 1842-1959 (No 438701-439600), Ancestry.com. New York, U.S., State and Federal Naturalization Records, 1794-1943 ↩
Moritz Rosenberg, Declaration of Intention, (Roll 548) Declarations of Intention For Citizenship, 1842-1959 (No 426401-427400), Ancestry.com. New York, U.S., State and Federal Naturalization Records, 1794-1943 ↩
Ibid. ↩
Moritz Rosenberg and family, 1940 US Census, Year: 1940; Census Place: New York, New York, New York; Roll: m-t0627-02670; Page: 1A; Enumeration District: 31-1885, Ancestry.com. 1940 United States Federal Census. See image below. ↩
Ruth R Rosenberg, Gender Female, Marriage License Date 12 Jun 1945
Marriage License Place Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA, Spouse Henry M Hammer. License Number 14437, New York City Municipal Archives; New York, New York; Borough: Manhattan; Volume Number: 21, Ancestry.com. New York, New York, U.S., Marriage License Indexes, 1907-2018 ↩
Henry Hammerschlag 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 ↩
Henry Hammer and family, 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: 4377; Page: 19; Enumeration District: 31-2183, Ancestry.com. 1950 United States Federal Census ↩
Theodore Rogers, Gender Male, Marriage License Date 1960, Marriage License Place Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA, Spouse Sylvia Kapp, License Number 11021, New York City Municipal Archives; New York, New York; Borough: Manhattan, Ancestry.com. New York, New York, U.S., Marriage License Indexes, 1907-2018 ↩
Kappenmacher, ship manifest, The National Archives and Records Administration; Washington, D.C.; Passenger and Crew Lists of Vessels Arriving at and Departing from Ogdensburg, New York, 5/27/1948 – 11/28/1972; Microfilm Serial or NAID: T715, 1897-1957, Ship or Roll Number: Marine Tiger, Ancestry.com. New York, U.S., Arriving Passenger and Crew Lists (including Castle Garden and Ellis Island), 1820-1957. Erna Kapp, SSACI, Ancestry.com. U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007. ↩
Theodore Rogers, Birth Date 17 Jan 1921, Death Date 13 Nov 1971, SSN 116105571, Enlistment Branch ARMY, Enlistment Date 3 Mar 1943, Discharge Date 23 Dec 1945, Ancestry.com. U.S., Department of Veterans Affairs BIRLS Death File, 1850-2010 ↩
Moritz Rosenberg, SSDI, Social Security Administration; Washington D.C., USA; Social Security Death Index, Master File, Ancestry.com. U.S., Social Security Death Index, 1935-2014. Headstone at Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/36414768/moritz-rosenberg: accessed 07 August 2023), memorial page for Moritz Rosenberg (15 Sep 1887–Sep 1976), Find a Grave Memorial ID 36414768, citing Cedar Park Cemetery, Paramus, Bergen County, New Jersey, USA; Maintained by dalya d (contributor 46972551). ↩
Berta Rosenberg, SSDI, Social Security Administration; Washington D.C., USA; Social Security Death Index, Master File, Ancestry.com. U.S., Social Security Death Index, 1935-2014 ↩
Henry Hammer, Age 67, Birth Date 29 Mar 1919, Death Date 17 May 1986
Death Place North Bergen, Hudson, New Jersey, USA, New Jersey State Archives; Trenton, New Jersey; New Jersey, Death Indexes, 1904-2000, Ancestry.com. New Jersey, U.S., Death Index, 1848-1878, 1901-2017 ↩

Rebecca Blumenfeld Rosenberg’s Daughter-in-Law Bella: An Admirable Woman

Posted on August 1, 2023 by Amy

Rebecca Blumenfeld and Mendel Rosenberg’s second child was their son Joseph. As we saw, Joseph was born on February 4, 1886, in Rosenthal, Germany, and married Bella Oppenheim on February 21, 1913, in Bad Hersfeld, Germany. Bella was born there on June 8, 1891, to Aron Oppenheim and Hannchen Klebe. Bella’s sister Emma Oppenheim had married Meier Blumenfeld III on April 5, 1905, in Bad Hersfeld. Meier, the son of Giedel Blumenfeld and Gerson Blumenfeld, her first cousin, once removed, was thus Joseph Rosenberg’s first cousin, since their mothers Giedel and Rebecca were sisters.

Joseph and Bella had one child, Kurt, born in Sobernheim, Germany, on April 20, 1914.¹ As I wrote in my earlier post, Sobernheim is not in the Hesse region where both Joseph and Bella were born and raised and where they married, but over 160 miles away in the Rhine Palatinate region.

Tragically, as we saw, Joseph, who was a doctor, died on May 4, 1922, at the age of 36, and was buried in Frankfurt, so perhaps he and his family had relocated from Sobernheim. His son Kurt was only eight years old when he lost his father.

Bella remarried a year after losing Joseph. Her second husband was Arthur Marx, born in Kempten, Germany, on August 4, 1890. They married in Frankfurt on June 22, 1923, in Frankfurt, and were living in Frankfurt.

Marriage of Bella Oppenheim Rosenberg to Arthur Marx, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 903, Year Range: 1923, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930

Kurt immigrated to the United States on October 16, 1937, when he was 23.² His mother Bella and stepfather Arthur left Germany for the United States on May 27, 1938, and arrived in New York on June 2, 1938.

Arthur and Bella Marx passenger manifest, Year: 1938; Arrival: New York, New York, USA; Microfilm Serial: T715, 1897-1957; Line: 5; Page Number: 142, Ship or Roll Number: Europa,
Ancestry.com. New York, U.S., Arriving Passenger and Crew Lists (including Castle Garden and Ellis Island), 1820-1957

Bella Oppenheim Rosenberg Marx then played a pivotal role in saving her niece Ruth Blumenfeld, the daughter of Emma Oppenheim and Meier Blumenfeld III, as I wrote about here. According to Ruth’s grandson Matthew, Bella, Ruth’s aunt, sponsored Ruth’s entry into the United States on March 4, 1940. Ruth was the only member of Emma and Meier’s family to survive the Holocaust. Her parents and her two sisters and their families were murdered by the Nazis. Matthew shared this photograph of Bella with her niece Ruth and Ruth’s husband Leo Friedman.

Bella Oppenheim Marx, Leo Friedman, and Ruth Blumenfeld Friedman. Courtesy of Matthew Steinhart

On the 1940 census, Bella and Arthur were living in Brooklyn, New York, and Arthur was working as a bank clerk and Bella as a practical nurse. They had two boarders living with them in addition to a niece (not Ruth), but not their son Kurt.

Arthur Marx and family 1940 US census, Year: 1940; Census Place: New York, Kings, New York; Roll: m-t0627-02580; Page: 4B; Enumeration District: 24-1310, Ancestry.com. 1940 United States Federal Census

Kurt, like his father Joseph, had become a doctor and was residing at Boulevard Hospital in Queens, New York, at the time of the 1940 census.² He registered for the draft on October 16, 1940.

Kurt Rosenberg 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

After the war Kurt married Gertrude Stein,³ and in 1950 they were living in Queens and Kurt was practicing medicine.⁴ Kurt and Gertrude would have three children.

Unfortunately, like his father before him, Kurt died too young. He was 56 years old when he died suddenly on January 28, 1970, at the hospital where he worked as a gynecologist in Queens, New York. He was survived by his wife and children as well as his mother Bella.⁵

Bella died at the age of 94 on December 22, 1985.⁶ She had outlived her first husband Joseph Rosenberg and then her second husband Arthur Marx, who died on November 14, 1963, as well her son Kurt.⁷ She also had outlived her niece Ruth Blumenfeld Friedman, whose life she had helped to save back in 1940. Although she was only related to me by her marriage to my cousin Joseph Rosenberg, I feel a deep respect and a connection to her because of the life she lived and the things she endured along the way.

Kurt Rosenberg, 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 ↩
Kurt Rosenberg, 1940 US census, Year: 1940; Census Place: New York, Queens, New York; Roll: m-t0627-02721; Page: 7A; Enumeration District: 41-105, Ancestry.com. 1940 United States Federal Census ↩ ↩
New York City Municipal Archives; New York, New York; Borough: Queens, Ancestry.com. New York, New York, U.S., Marriage License Indexes, 1907-2018 ↩
Kurt Rosenberg and family, 1950 US census, United States of America, Bureau of the Census; Washington, D.C.; Seventeenth Census of the United States, 1950; Record Group: Records of the Bureau of the Census, 1790-2007; Record Group Number: 29; Residence Date: 1950; Home in 1950: New York, Queens, New York; Roll: 4301; Sheet Number: 10; Enumeration District: 41-1012, Ancestry.com. 1950 United States Federal Census ↩
Obituary for Kurt Rosenberg, Daily News, New York, New York, Thu, Jan 29, 1970
Page 318. Kurt Rosenberg, Gender Male, Birth Date 20 Apr 1914, Death Date Jan 1970
Claim Date 7 Mar 1970, SSN 072164680, Ancestry.com. U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007 ↩
Bella Marx, Social Security Number 079-22-4508, Birth Date 8 Jun 1891, Issue year Before 1951, Issue State New York, Last Residence 11375, Flushing, Queens, New York, USA, Death Date Dec 1985, Social Security Administration; Washington D.C., USA; Social Security Death Index, Master File, Ancestry.com. U.S., Social Security Death Index, 1935-2014; Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/77845632/bella-marx: accessed 29 May 2023), memorial page for Bella Marx (unknown–22 Dec 1985), Find a Grave Memorial ID 77845632, citing Mount Hebron Cemetery, Flushing, Queens County, New York, USA; Maintained by Athanatos (contributor 46907585). ↩
Arthur Marx, Age 73, Birth Date abt 1890, Death Date 14 Nov 1963, Death Place Queens, New York, New York, USA, Certificate Number 14536, Ancestry.com. New York, New York, U.S., Death Index, 1949-1965 ↩

Hilde Blumenfeld Meinrath, Part II: Leaving Germany and Life in Brazil

Posted on April 11, 2023 by Amy

As we saw in my prior post, I had learned more about Hilde Blumenfeld Meinrath, thanks to connections made through her granddaughter Gabriela. I learned that after spending four years in New York working as a German-English translator, Hilde decided to return to Germany in 1932 for what was initially supposed to be an extended visit with her family. But then she met and married her husband Ludwig Meinrath and decided to stay longer. She found employment as a translator and secretary for the American author, William March.

But everything began to change after Hitler came to power.

As Hilde reported in her Shoah Foundation interview, her employer William March was attacked by Nazi youths because he was mistakenly identified as Jewish and ended up in the hospital. He decided to leave Germany and urged Hilde to leave before it was too late; he invited her to come and work for him in New York. .¹

Meanwhile, a month after Hitler came to power in April 1933, Hilde’s husband Ludwig, who had been working as a representative for German companies making ribbons and wool products, lost his job as a sales agent because he was Jewish.. So Hilde and Ludwig agreed it was time to leave Germany.²

But Hilde and Ludwig disagreed about where to go, according to their son Roberto. Hilde wanted to return to New York, but Ludwig feared that he would be unable to make a living there with only a high school education. He had a cousin Helmut in Rio de Janeiro who persuaded him that life was wonderful there, so they went to Brazil in 1934, even though neither of them knew any Portuguese.³

HIlde and Ludwig Meinrath ship manifest, Month: Band 424 (Mär 1934)
Staatsarchiv Hamburg. Hamburg Passenger Lists, 1850-1934

Hilde continued to be a true go-getter. Roberto wrote:

Upon arrival in Rio by ship, and literally one block from the harbor, was Rio’s largest high rise of the day (some 20 stories). On top of the building was a large advertising poster for US Steel. My mom walked right into the building to find out whether US Steel would be interested in a German/English secretary, not knowing that at that time Brazilian secretaries were mostly male. Of course, at that time, Rio was Brazil’s capital and … home to the president of US Steel, who immediately hired her at a salary that was higher than what cousin Helmut was then earning, after a year in Rio. Anyway, due to my mom’s high salary, my father was able to dedicate his time to learn Portuguese and to become a wholesale textile salesman for several companies.

Hilde and Ludwig’s first child (Gabriela’s father) Pedro John Meinrath was born in 1936; according to Roberto, his mother insisted that Pedro have an American/English middle name, presumably because of her fond memories of living in the United States.

Meanwhile, back in Germany, conditions worsened for Hilde’s parents and her sister Gretel and her family. After Kristallnacht in November, 1938, Salomon Blumenfeld and his son-in-law David Katz were arrested and sent to Buchenwald.⁴ After they were released, Hilde used her connections and borrowed money to bring her parents to Brazil. Hilde stated in her Shoah Foundation interview that when her parents arrived in Brazil, her father looked emaciated from his time in Buchenwald, despite the fact that his son-in-law had given Salomon half of his own rations so that Salomon would survive. ⁵

Hilde’s parents lived with her and her family in Rio for a short time, but according to Hilde, the climate there didn’t agree with them, so she and Ludwig purchased a small house in Petropolis, a city in the mountains north of Rio for her parents, and they moved out of their apartment in Rio and moved to a rented room. When the war in Europe started, Ludwig’s import business suffered, so Hilde had to work full-time to help support the family. Pedro, who was just a four year old at the time, stayed with his grandparents in Petropolis, and Hilde and Ludwig would come on the weekends to be with them all. ⁶

Here are two photographs that Gabriela shared with me of Pedro with his maternal grandparents Salomon and Malchen Blumenfeld:

Malchen Levi, Pedro Meinrath, and Salomon Blumenfeld c. 1939 Courtesy of the family

Pedro Meinrath with his parents and maternal grandparents c. 1940 Courtesy of the family

Ludwig and Hilde’s second child Roberto came along five years later in 1941—he was, as he wrote, “a surprise baby.” Hilde’s job at the US Embassy ended up being important in saving Roberto’s life. When Roberto contracted diphtheria when he was three years old, his mother Hilde was able through her job at the American Embassy to obtain life-saving penicillin, which was not otherwise readily available in Brazil at that time because of the war.⁷

Hilde Blumenfeld Meinrath with her sons c. 1941 Courtesy of the family

Pedro Meinrath, Salomon and Malchen Blumenfeld, Hilde Blumenfeld Meinrath, Roberto Meinrath 1944 in Petropolis Courtesy of the family

According to Roberto, after the war ended in 1945, Ludwig was able to restart his import business, and Hilde and Roberto moved to Petropolis. But Hilde’s parents at that point decided to leave Brazil because there was no kosher food or orthodox synagogue in Petropolis; they went to New York where Hilde’s sister Gretel was living. Hilde and her sons stayed in Petropolis until 1950 when Hilde and Roberto moved back to Rio. Pedro stayed in Petropolis where he went to boarding school until he graduated and went to university.

Malchen and Salomon Blumenfeld USA 1953 Courtesy of the family

Roberto described his life in Rio as an idyllic adventure for a young boy; he sadly described the changes that came to Rio in the 1960s:

I basically grew up as a single child in Rio, right in between Copacabana and Ipanema beaches. Once or twice a week, I helped fishermen bring in their nets with piles of fish and, as compensation, got a free take home fish. At that time, Rio had trees everywhere, few cars, cobblestone streets and tramways (which I took every day to school). With the advent of the car industry in Brazil in the sixties, Rio’s streets were asphalted and widened, trees had to be cut down as most of the buildings had been built without garages and cars had to park on streets and sidewalks. I miss old Rio, new Rio is sort of a tourist mecca only because of the beaches and the largest city park in the world.

Hilde and Ludwig belonged to a liberal Jewish synagogue in Rio, and Hilde insisted that Roberto attend after school classes in Hebrew and Jewish history. Roberto described an experience that ended up being a turning point in his life:

Because our synagogue was not very large, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur services were held in the headquarters of one of Rio’s great soccer teams… and while watching the team practice during the 1959 Yom Kippur service, I was asked whether I would be interested in representing our congregation in the year-long youth leadership training program in Israel. I jumped at that, as I sought personal freedom from what I felt to be a fairly strong-willed mom.

Roberto’s trip to Israel in 1960 allowed him to meet and get to know Hilde’s sister Jenny and her husband Sigmund Warburg. And thus he was able to give me information about Jenny and Sigmund and answer the questions I’d been hoping to answer when I wrote the blog post about the three sisters back in May, 2022. More on that in my next post.

But first a photograph that Gabriela shared with me of Hilde and her sons taken at her 100th birthday party in 2011. She died six years later in 2017 at the age of 106. She was truly a remarkable woman.

Pedro Meinrath, Hilde Blumenfeld Meinrath, and Roberto Meinrath 2011 Courtesy of the family

The references in this post to the interview of Hilde Meinrath and the information contained therein are from her interview with the Shoah Foundation, March 18, 1998, which is in the archive of the University of Southern California Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education. For more information: http://dornsife.usc.edu/vhi Roberto, Hilde’s son, also told me this story in his emails to me. ↩
Ibid. ↩
All the information in this post attributed to Roberto Meinrath as well as the quotations were shared through emails sent between February 11 and February 16, 2023. ↩
Phone conversation with Michael Katz, March 9, 2023. ↩
See Note 1, supra. As we will see in a later post, William March helped get Gretel and David Katz out of Germany and into the US. ↩
See Notes 1 and 3, supra, . ↩
See Note 3, supra. ↩

Rudolph Meyer: “A Great Man”

Posted on March 14, 2023 by Amy

Back in late December, a new reader, Candice, left a comment on my blog saying that her grandparents were Rudolph Meyer and Ruth Cohn and that we were related. I love when a new cousin finds my blog and seeks to connect with me.

Candice and I are fifth cousins, once removed, through my Blumenfeld branch. Her grandfather Rudolph was the son of Rebecca Strauss, the grandson of Dusschen Blumenfeld Strauss, the great-grandson of Isaak Blumenfeld I, the great-great-grandson of Moses Blumenfeld I, and the great-great-great-grandson of Abraham Blumenfeld I, my four times great-grandfather. This chart shows Rudolph’s relationship to my father; they were fourth cousins, so Rudolph was my fourth cousin, once removed:

I wrote about Rudolph and his family here, but Candice and her father Albert were able to give me a more complete portrait of Rudolph and his wife Ruth Cohn. I already knew that Rudolph was born in Bonn, Germany, in 1908, and had arrived in the US from Germany in 1937 and settled first in New York City. By 1940 he was living in Albany, New York, and working for Cotrell & Leonard, a manufacturer of graduation caps and gowns.

Rudolph’s son Albert filled in some of the gaps in the story in the obituary he wrote about his father in 1984. Albert wrote in part:

Rudolf Raphael Meyer was born in Bonn, Germany, on March 17, 1908. He was to experience many of the history shaping events which influenced the course of his life and development. As the child of Albert and Rebecca Meyer with his sister Ilse he at the ages through 6-10 went through the trauma of World War I. The war brought hardship to him as did the period following it. The economic chaos of Weimar Germany with its rampant inflation left its mark on him in that no matter how well might do, he felt he never knew if he and his family would have enough just to provide for the basic necessities of life.

As the economic and political situation remained explosive in Germany and with Anti-semitism on the rise, he, his sister, and mother, his father having died, immigrated to the United States. However, life in the new country soon underwent its earthquake also with the coming of the Great Depression and World War II. The Depression only added to his feelings of anxiety regarding economic matters and [he] became a fervent supporter of the new deal with Franklin Delano Roosevelt and then Harry Truman representing the type of leadership he felt a society needed.

During the later years of the 30s he met Ruth Cohn and after a 3 year courtship they were married on August 10, 1941.

Rudolph enlisted in the US Army on September 6, 1943, and successfully petitioned for naturalization three months later in December 1943 from Spartanburg, South Carolina, where he was then stationed. What I did not know was that Rudolph then served overseas in Europe, fighting against the Nazis and the country where he was born.

Candice shared this photograph of her grandfather Rudy (as he was known) in uniform during World War II.

Rudolph Meyer during World War II. Courtesy of the family

Rudy wrote this poem about his outfit in World War II, the Blue Devils. Obviously, he was a proud American soldier out to defeat his former home country.

“Blue Devils,” by Rudolph Meyer c. 1944 (c) Courtesy of the family

What I also had not realized until Candice shared the family story is that Ruth was pregnant when Rudy left for Europe; their son Albert was born while he was abroad, fighting the Nazis. Rudy did not meet his child until after the war was over when Albert was already sixteen months old. Albert addressed this in his 1984 obituary for his father:

[Albert was born] while [Rudolf] was stationed overseas in Italy. The notice of his birth filled him with special joy as can be told by a reading of his letters from the war. As an additional sacrifice he did not get to see his child for another year.

Although the war was difficult and he was certainly not a young man while fighting in both North Africa and Italy for the Allies, his experience in the army gave him great pride. He felt he contributed to the service of his country and had helped to smash the Fascist Beast that had destroyed so many Europeans who could [not] leave and so many of his religious faith.

In fact among the things that gave him pride were his experience as a soldier, his role as a law abiding citizen, a good family provider. His citizenship was marked by regular voting, paying debts, attention by regular public affairs, and occasionally involvement in Democratic Party politics.

Here is a photograph of Albert as a baby taken while his father was away at war:

Albert Meyer Courtesy of the family

Ruth wrote this wonderful tribute to her husband, Rudy, whom she considered a “great man.”

Essay by Ruth Cohn Meyer (c) Courtesy of the family

A Great Man

My choice for the meaning of the word Great would be important. I write of a great man that I knew many years ago. His name was Rudolph Meyer. Now Rudy had a loving wife, and as is the nature of things, she became pregnant—and Rudy and his wife were very happy.

But then came fears of war from a country across the sea—a country from far away which hundreds of people were fleeing for they were afraid of what might now happen at this time. And Rudy and many of his fellow countrymen had found refuge in this country, the good old USA.

Then came the day when their fears for their country were alas confirmed. Atrocities! Tortures—and then War and Holocausts! Rudy immediately went to enlist. But at the recruitment center, he was told that because of his poor eyesight he would have to be rejected. But Rudy insisted—he must fight against the evil ones were who trying to destroy civilization. So—Rudy went to war!

I was sad. I was pregnant—but I knew in my heart that it was for those qualities in him—great devotion to family and country—that I loved him. And though I was sad—I was proud. My Love was a great man.

I waited—I would go to the grocery store. A pound of butter, if you please. Hey, Lady—don’t you know there’s a war on. Ah,yes—there’s a war on over there!

It is 4 years later—the end of the war. Rudy comes home. He holds in his arms a loving wife and 16 mo. old son. A great man has come home to us.

This was obviously a strong and loving marriage that endured for many years after Rudy returned home. This photograph of Ruth and their son Albert was taken after the war.

Albert Meyer and Ruth Cohn Meyer. 1948. Courtesy of the family

As I wrote in my earlier post, Rudy and Ruth moved to the Bronx after the war, and in 1950 they were living in the Bronx, and Rudy was now an accountant for motion pictures distributors. Ruth was an elementary schoolteacher. Rudy’s mother Rebecca and Ruth’s father Benjamin were also living with Rudy and Ruth and their child, and Benjamin was working as a tailor.

I want to express my gratitude to Candice and her father Albert for sharing these stories and photographs about my cousin Rudolph Meyer, a man who truly lived up to his wife Ruth’s description, a great man.

Irmgard Johanna (Joan) Lorch Staple (1923-2022): A Woman Ahead of Her Times

Posted on February 28, 2023 by Amy

Last month my cousin Wink Lorch informed me that her aunt and my fourth cousin, once removed, Joan Lorch Staple had passed away on November 27, 2022, after living a remarkable life for more than 99 years. Joan was related to me through our mutual ancestors, Jacob Seligmann and Martha Mayer, she through their daughter Martha and me through their son Moritz, my three-times great-grandfather.

Joan was born in Offenbach, Germany, on June 13, 1923, escaped from Nazi Germany to England with her parents during the 1930s, and married Peter Staple in England in 1952. Together they had two sons and immigrated to the US, settling first in Alabama and later in Buffalo, New York. Joan also had a long and successful career while raising her family; she was truly a woman ahead of her times..

Joan had a remarkable career as a scientist and as a scholar and teacher, as described below in her obituary, and she wrote two memoirs about her life: Chance and Choice: My First Thirty Years (2007) and Change and Challenge: My Life After Thirty (2009). I have read them both, and they are fascinating. They tell not only the story of Joan and her family, but provide valuable historical insights into living in Germany before the Nazi era, the persecution of Jews during the Nazi era in Germany in the 1930s, life in England during World War II, and racism in Alabama before and during the Civil Rights movement, as well as the struggles of being a woman scientist in the years before, during, and after the Women’s Movement.

But the obituary written by Joan’s sons tells her story much better than I can. Thank you to my cousin Wink Lorch, Joan’s niece, for sharing it with me.

Irmgard Joan Staple: Path-Breaking Canisius Scientist and Women’s Advocate Has Died

Joan Staple (known professionally as Dr. I.J. Lorch) passed away at the age of 99 on November 27, 2022, in her home at Canterbury Woods, Williamsville, New York.

A Professor of Biology at Canisius College for more than 30 years, Dr. Lorch also pioneered women’s studies programs at Canisius. Her ground-breaking research in the field of cell biology at the University of Buffalo was recognized by the New York Times and led to more than 30 publications in peer-reviewed scientific journals.

Early Life and Education

Dr. Lorch was born into a Jewish family in Offenbach am Main, Germany. Her father was a co-owner of Rowenta, the innovative electric appliance brand. Her family escaped the Nazis by fleeing to Birmingham, England in 1938. Lorch’s forced emigration from Germany is marked by a series of Stolpersteine — commemorative bronze plaques — set into the sidewalk outside her former home at 19 August Bebel Ring.

She attended public schools in Offenbach until 1935 when Jewish children were banned from secondary education. After emigrating, she continued her education at King Edwards High School for Girls and later graduated from Birmingham University. She went on to earn a PhD in histochemistry from the University of London in 1949.

Scientific Career

As one of the very few women working in the ‘hard sciences’ at that time, she continued her post-doctoral research on cellular aging at Kings College, London. Rosalind Franklin worked in the lab next door. The many challenges facing women in building scientific careers are well documented in the struggle to properly credit Franklin for her critical role in discovering the structure of DNA.

In 1952, Dr. Lorch married Dr. Peter H. Staple, research dentist and fellow post-doctoral student. For the next 10 years she became a homemaker raising two sons and over-seeing the family’s move to Birmingham, Alabama in 1959, and then to Buffalo in 1963.

Once in Buffalo, Dr. Lorch rejoined her King’s College mentor and colleague, James Danielli, who was then the Director of The Center for Theoretical Biology at the University of Buffalo. The team was funded by NASA and carried out pioneering work on how cells age and whether living cells can be created from cellular components. This work came to a spectacular conclusion from the controversy created by the Nov. 13, 1970 New York Times article declaring that University of Buffalo scientists had documented “the first artificial synthesis of a living and reproducing cells”. Hundreds of media outlets picked up on the story that UB scientists were creating living cells that might be shipped by NASA on spaceships to Mars.

These reports misrepresented the research and the ensuing publicity upended the research agenda. In 1973, Dr. Lorch left the University of Buffalo accepting an offer from Canisius College.

She shifted her professional focus from research to teaching becoming Professor and Chair of the Department of Biology. To address the discrimination against women in scientific fields, with the support of the Canisius College leadership, she spent over 20 years training and hiring women scientists and also broadening the scope for women’s participation in the management of the College. Dr. Lorch founded the women’s studies program at Canisius, now called Women and Gender Studies. She created a course for non-majors called the Biology of Women (sex ed for college kids) that soon attracted so many men that she had to limit enrollment.

In recognition of her devoted advocacy for women, in 1992 Canisius established the annual I. Joan Lorch Award to “honor a person who has made a significant contribution to women and who exemplifies the pursuit of liberation and justice regarding sex, gender, and sexuality.”

Following her retirement from Canisius in 2003, Dr. Lorch published a two-volume memoir: Chance and Choice (2007) and Change and Challenge (2009).

As recounted in her memoir, Dr. Lorch witnessed many of the 20th century’s historic events. She saw Hitler speak at the opening of an autobahn near Frankfurt in 1935, and Martin Luther King at Kleinhans Music Hall in Buffalo in 1967. She personally knew the discoverers of DNA (Watson, Crick and Franklin) and saw the fruits of her own research on amoeba used for cloning new organisms.

In 2019, Canisius College awarded Dr. Lorch the degree of Doctor of Humane Letters to celebrate “her exceptional achievements in scientific research, unwavering dedication as an educator and for being a steadfast advocate for women.”

Since learning to ski as child in Switzerland, Dr. Lorch was also an avid outdoors woman. She skied well into her eighth decade in Europe and North America and was also an active member of the Adirondack Mountain Club. In recent years, she loved playing Scrabble with her family and connecting on-line daily with other players of “Words with Friends”.

She was pre-deceased by her husband of almost 60 years, Dr. Peter Staple, Professor of Oral Biology at the University of Buffalo’s Dental School. She is survived by her sons Gregory (Siobhan) of Chevy Chase, Maryland, and Alan of Chestertown, Maryland; four grandchildren, Nicole, Nico, Justin and Camille; and one great grandchild, Naomi Joan.

A memorial service will be held at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Amherst in 2023. Donations, in lieu of flowers, should be made to Hospice & Palliative Care Buffalo. https://www.hospicebuffalo.com/give-get-involved/donate-now

A more abbreviated version of her obituary appeared here in The Buffalo News on December 4, 2022.

Joan’s life and career are an inspiration. She overcame leaving her homeland, adjusting to two different countries (and two different regions within the US), learning English, separating from her family, facing prejudice and discrimination, and nevertheless having a highly successful career balanced with a highly successful family life. Her two memoirs taught me so much about grace and strength and persistence.

My Fifth Cousin Matthew, Ruth Blumenfeld Friedman’s Grandson

Posted on January 3, 2023 by Amy

Happy 2023, everyone! For today’s post I am updating a post I wrote back in April 2022. Thank you to my cousin Matthew Steinhart for making this post possible.

Back on April 22, 2022, I wrote about the children of Meier Blumenfeld III and Emma Oppenheim and the teamwork it took to locate their three daughters, Gertrud, Ruth (also known as Bertha), and Hanna. Meier, my second cousin, three times removed, was the son of Giedel Blumenfeld, Isaak’s daughter, and her first cousin, once removed, Gerson Blumenfeld I (not to be confused with Giedel’s brother Gerson Blumenfeld II, whose story I just completed.)

Meier and Emma and their family were destroyed by the Holocaust. Of the five of them, only Ruth managed to escape from Germany in time to survive the Holocaust. The others were all murdered by the Nazis.

Ruth immigrated to the US and settled in New York City, where she married Leo Friedman on March 21, 1942, as I wrote about here. Ruth and Leo had two children, and I was recently contacted by one of Ruth and Leo’s grandsons, Matthew Steinhart, son of Eileen Dinah Friedman Steinhart.

Matthew works in video production and is the manager of the video production team at the United States Holocaust Museum and Memorial in Washington, DC.¹ He created three short videos about his search to learn more about his grandparents and their families. With his permission and courtesy of the USHMM, I can provide links to those three videos. They are very touching, and I highly recommend you spend the time watching them.

Matthew also shared some wonderful photographs of his grandmother and her family and generously has allowed me to share them on the blog. He also shared some family stories and other information to fill in some of the holes in the story of Ruth and her family that were left unanswered in my April 22, 2022 post.

One of those unanswered questions involved the fate of Ruth’s sister Gertrud. Yad Vashem reported that she had been killed in the Holocaust, but an Arolsen Archive document indicated that she and two children had left for the US. Which was true? Sadly, Matthew confirmed for me that the Yad Vashem information was accurate. He wrote that “the story I was told of Gertrud was that she and her husband and children intended to leave but Erwin, her husband, had an eye condition which prevented him from emigrating. Gertrud refused to leave without him, and eventually all four were deported to Lodz. All four perished.”²

I also asked Matthew about Ruth’s younger sister Hanna because again there were records that suggested she had escaped the Holocaust because she had a visa for Cuba. But Matthew had to confirm that Hanna was in fact killed in the Holocaust. He wrote that he was told that “she and her husband [Siegfried Levi] took a train to Portugal with the intent to emigrate to Cuba. In fact, Hanna had sent some of her furniture and clothing to Ruth in anticipation for her eventual arrival to the US. Apparently, this train was stopped and turned around to France. Both were put into slave labor camps. Hanna was eventually deported to Auschwitz and died. Her husband survived and emigrated from Luxembourg.”³

Matthew’s grandmother Ruth was sponsored by her aunt Bella Oppenheim Marx, her mother’s sister, and was the only one who was able to leave Germany and get to the US safely.⁴

Matthew has a large collection of old photographs of the family, but unfortunately, he has been only able to identify the people in a limited number of those photographs. I am sharing only those he could label with certainty. Most of those are of his grandparents, Ruth Blumenfeld and Leo Friedman.

Here are two photographs of Ruth, one as a baby and the other as a toddler.

Ruth Blumenfeld, c. 1920. Courtesy of Matthew Steinhart

Ruth Blumenfeld, c. 1922 Courtesy of Matthew Steinhart

These two photos show Ruth as a younger adult, but are undated. They may have been taken in the US since Ruth was nineteen when she immigrated, but they also might have been taken in Germany. We do not know who the woman is on the left in the first photo or who the child is in the second.

Ruth Blumenfeld on right. Date and place unknown. Courtesy of Matthew Steinhart

Ruth Blumenfeld with unknown child. Courtesy of Matthew Steinhart

The next photograph is of Ruth and Leo with Ruth’s aunt, Bella Oppenheim Marx, the woman who sponsored Ruth when she left Germany in 1940. I am sorry the image is so small.

Bella Oppenheim Marx, Leo Friedman, and Ruth Blumenfeld Friedman. Courtesy of Matthew Steinhart

This next group of photographs were taken in 1972 when Ruth and Leo visited their respective hometowns in Germany. Unfortunately we cannot identify who the couple is standing with Ruth or where these photos were taken—presumably either Bad Hersfeld, where Ruth grew up, or Crailsheim, Leo’s hometown.

Ruth Blumenfeld and Leo Friedman, 1972, in Germany. Courtesy of Matthew Steinhart

Ruth and Leo in Germany, 1972 Courtesy of Matthew Steinhart

Ruth with unknown couple, 1972, in Germany. Courtesy of Matthew Steinhart

Speaking of Bad Hersfeld, here is a postcard depicting the town sent to the family of Leo Friedman in Forest Hills, New York, from someone named Minna.. I can’t decipher the date on the postmark, but it must have been written after June 1, 1963, because that is when the US adopted zip codes.

Thank you to Simone Simiot of the GerSIG Facebook group for translating the message on the card; she said that Minna wrote that she had moved and gave her new address. She said it was fine that she moved because Dudenstrasse had become too busy and noisy. She also said that she could have moved in with her son Josef but she doesn’t want to be away/move from her pretty Bad Hersfeld. And she sent regards to Tante Bella—Aunt Bella Oppenheim Marx. I don’t know who Minna is, but if she was a relative, she must have been related to Ruth’s mother.

Since there are so many other photographs that Matthew cannot provide labels for, I have suggested that he contact Ava Cohn a/k/a Sherlock Cohn, the photogenealogist, for help in identifying the people in the other photographs. I hope that he has success doing that.

I am very grateful to my cousin Matthew for sharing his videos, his photographs, and his stories with me. It is always good to be able to have faces to put with the names and answers to questions, but it is especially meaningful to be able to connect with a new cousin who can share all this with me.

Email from Matthew Steinhart, September 24, 2022. ↩
Email from Matthew Steinhart, October 11, 2022. ↩
Ibid. ↩
Ibid. I will be writing more about Bella in an upcoming post. ↩

Gerson Blumenfeld II, Final Chapter: Katinka Blumenfeld Rosenberg and Her Family

Posted on December 21, 2022 by Amy

This is the final chapter in the story of the children of Gerson Blumenfeld II, son of Isaak Blumenfeld I. It completes the story of the family of Gerson’s daughter, Katinka Blumenfeld Rosenberg. Thank you to my cousin Michael, Katinka’s grandson, and his uncle, Henry, Katinka’s son, for sharing their family’s story.

Michael shared this adorable photograph of Katinka’s three sons, Guenther, Heinz, and Walter, taken in 1931 when they were still in Germany. Walter was ten, Guenther five, and Henry two years old.

Guenther, Heinz, and Walter Rosenberg, 1931. Courtesy of Michael Rosenberg

Michael also provided me with scans of his grandmother Katinka’s German passport, which included photographs of Katinka and her two younger sons, Guenther and Heinz.

As we saw, the family arrived in the US in early 1940, and when the 1940 US census was taken, Katinka and her husband Emanuel (known primarily as Emil) Rosenberg and their three sons, Walter, Guenther, and Heinz, now Henry, were living in Manhattan, and Emanuel was a salesman for a retail grocery business. Walter, then 19, was a machine operator in a watch factory. Gunter (14) and Henry (11) were in school.

Katinka filed a declaration of intention to become a US citizen on July 5, 1940, as did her husband Emanuel. Their son Walter filed his two weeks later on July 20, 1940.

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 Source Information Ancestry.com. New York, U.S., State and Federal Naturalization Records, 1794-1943

Walter Rosenberg 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 596) Declarations of Intention For Citizenship, 1842-1959 (No 468501-469500), Ancestry.com. New York, U.S., State and Federal Naturalization Records, 1794-1943

Walter registered for the draft on February 15, 1942. Although the official records from the National Archives and Records Administration show that Walter enlisted on November 27, 1942,¹ his petition for naturalization dated April 21, 1945, states that he joined the US Army on December 5, 1942. His petition was granted, and Walter became a US citizen that day in Alexandria, Louisiana, where he was stationed. Because he knew German, he worked as a translator interrogating German POWs.

Walter Rosenberg, 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

Walter Rosenberg petition for naturalization, National Archives and Records Administration – Southeast Region (Atlanta); Atlanta, GA; Petitions For Naturalization, Compiled 1922-1964; Series Number: 648598; Record Group Title: Records of District Courts of the United States; Record Group Number: 21 Naturalization Petitions, 1944-1945, Ancestry.com. Louisiana, U.S., Naturalization Records, 1836-2001

On his eighteenth birthday, July 7, 1943, Guenther Rosenberg registered for the draft. He was then working for his cousin, Kurt Simon, son of his aunt Meta Blumenfeld Simon, and living in Wayawanda, New York, where Kurt was also living, as we saw. Guenther entered the US Army on June 28, 1944, and on September 15, 1944, he became a US citizen in Jacksonville, Florida, where he was stationed. He was honorably discharged from the army on November 5, 1944,² after his foot was injured by a hand grenade.³

Guenther Rosenberg, World War II draft registration, National Archives at St. Louis; St. Louis, Missouri; WWII Draft Registration Cards for New York State, 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

Guenther Rosenberg, petition for naturalization, The National Archives at Atlanta; Atlanta, Ga; ARC Title: Petitions For Naturalization, 1880-1975; NAI Number: 2111793; Record Group Title: Records of District Courts of the United States, 1685-2009; Record Group Number: 21
Jacksonville Petition and Records, Oct 1944 – Jan 1945 (Roll 190), Ancestry.com. Florida, U.S., Naturalization Records, 1847-1995

Henry (now using that name), the youngest son, also registered for the draft shortly after his eighteenth birthday; he filed his registration on August 22, 1946. He was living at home with his parents in New York and was a student. Fortunately, by that time World War II had ended.

Katinka became a citizen on December 6, 1945.

Katinka Blumenfeld Rosenberg certificate of naturalization. Courtesy of Michael Rosenberg

After Walter was discharged from the US army, he returned to New York and opened up a grocery store with his brother Guenther in 1947, located on Broadway at 163rd Street in Washington Heights and called Rosenberg Brothers Dairy.⁴

On July 10, 1949, Walter Rosenberg married Margot Scharlack in New York City. They met when she came into his grocery store.⁵ Margot was born in Frankfurt, Germany, on May 24, 1924, to Max Scharlack and Recha Hirsch,⁶ and had immigrated to the US with her family on November 1, 1937.⁷ In 1940, she and her family were living in San Antonio, Texas, where her father was a bookkeeper for a music store.⁸

In 1950, Walter and Margot were living in New York City where Walter owned a retail grocery store and Margot was a radio assembler.⁹ Walter and Margot would have two children, my cousins Michael and Gary.

Michael shared with me these photographs taken in the early 1950s, one of him as a baby with his Uncle Henry and the other with his grandparents Katinka and Emil, and one of his grandparents alone.

Katinka Blumenfeld Rosenberg, Michael Rosenberg, Emil Rosenberg. Courtesy of Michael Rosenberg

Michael Rosenberg and Henry Rosenberg. Courtesy of Michael Rosenberg

Katinka and Emil Rosenberg Courtesy of Michael Rosenberg

Meanwhile, Katinka, Emanuel (using Emil here), and their other two sons Guenther, here listed as George, and Henry were also living in New York City in 1950, not too far from Walter and Margot. Emil listed his occupation as a shipping clerk for a wholesale grocery store and George reported that he was the proprietor of a retail grocery store, the store he owned with his brother Walter. Henry had no occupation listed.

Emil Rosenberg and family, 1950 US census, United States of America, Bureau of the Census; Washington, D.C.; Seventeenth Census of the United States, 1950; Record Group: Records of the Bureau of the Census, 1790-2007; Record Group Number: 29; Residence Date: 1950; Home in 1950: New York, New York, New York; Roll: 3572; Sheet Number: 7; Enumeration District: 31-2292, Ancestry.com. 1950 United States Federal Census

On June 17, 1951, Guenther/George married Lottie Rosenthal in Napa, California.¹⁰ She was the daughter of Frederick Rosenthal and Bella Lorch and was born in Frankfurt, Germany, on May 8, 1929.¹¹ She came with her parents to New York on November 11, 1937,¹² but then sailed from New York to San Francisco, California, on November 27, 1937, arriving there on December 13, 1937.¹³ Lottie and her parents settled in Napa, California, where her father worked as a power machine operator in a garment factory in 1940.¹⁴

According to Lottie’s obituary, “[i]n 1950, she traveled to New York City to visit family, and, in turn, met her future husband, George. Married in 1951, they continued in the family business of Rosenthal’s Fresh Ranch Eggs, which later changed to the Rosenthal’s Dried Fruit and Nut business, which is now known as Napa Nuts. In 1953, both Lottie and George along with several other families co-founded Congregation Beth Shalom, where she was an active member for more than 50 years.” George and Lottie had two children born in the 1950s.¹⁵

Henry Rosenberg married Victoria Hammerschlag in 1963. Victoria was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1937, after her parents immigrated there from Germany. Victoria is the second cousin, once removed, of Vera Hammerschlag, who later married Milton Hamburger, Henry’s first cousin, once removed. Henry and Victoria have three children, seven grandchildren, and six great-grandchildren.¹⁶

A year after Henry married Victoria, Emil Rosenberg died at age 79 on August 1, 1964.¹⁷ Katinka survived her husband by less than three years; she died on April 19, 1967, at the age of 75.¹⁸

Photo courtesy of Michael Rosenberg

Their son Guenther/George also did not live to see his eightieth birthday. He died on October 27, 1998, in Napa, California; he was only seventy-three.¹⁹ Fortunately, both of his brothers have had greater longevity. Walter Rosenberg was 94 when he died on November 28, 2014, in New York.²⁰ And Henry Rosenberg, with whom I had the great pleasure of speaking, is still alive and well at 94.

Thank you again to my cousins Michael Rosenberg and Henry Rosenberg for sharing their stories, memories, and photographs.

That completes the story of Gerson Blumenfeld II and his family. Tomorrow morning I will be participating in a Blumenfeld Hanukkah Zoom with some of Gerson’s descendants as well as many descendants of other Blumenfeld ancestors. I will be sure to report on that next week.

Happy Hanukkah, everyone!

Walter J Rosenberg, Race: White, Marital Status: Single, with dependents (Single)
Rank: Private, Birth Year: 1920, Nativity State or Country: Danzig or Germany, Citizenship: Not Yet a Citizen, Residence: New York, New York, Education: 2 years of high school, Civil Occupation: Semiskilled occupations in manufacture of clocks, watches, jewelry, and articles of precious metals, Enlistment Date: 27 Nov 1942
Enlistment Place: New York City, New York, Service Number: 32645393, Branch: Branch Immaterial – Warrant Officers, USA, Component: Selectees (Enlisted Men)
Source: Civil Life, Height: 66, Weight: 114, National Archives at College Park; College Park, Maryland, USA; Electronic Army Serial Number Merged File, 1938-1946; NAID: 1263923; Record Group Title: Records of the National Archives and Records Administration, 1789-ca. 2007; Record Group: 64; Box Number: 05442; Reel: 208, Ancestry.com. U.S., World War II Army Enlistment Records, 1938-1946 ↩
Guenther G Rosenberg, Race: White, Marital Status: Single, without dependents (Single), Rank: Private, Birth Year: 1925, Nativity State or Country: Danzig or Germany
Citizenship: Not Yet a Citizen, Residence: New York, New York, Education: 2 years of high school, Civil Occupation: Skilled occupations in the manufacture of miscellaneous products, Enlistment Date: 28 Jun 1944, Enlistment Place: Camp Upton Yaphank, New York, Service Number: 42138415, Branch: No branch assignment, Component: Selectees (Enlisted Men), Source: Civil Life, National Archives at College Park; College Park, Maryland, USA; Electronic Army Serial Number Merged File, 1938-1946; NAID: 1263923; Record Group Title: Records of the National Archives and Records Administration, 1789-ca. 2007; Record Group: 64; Box Number: 15088; Reel: 20, Ancestry.com. U.S., World War II Army Enlistment Records, 1938-1946 ↩
Email from Michael Rosenberg, November 30, 2022. ↩
Ibid. ↩
Ibid. See also Walter J Rosenberg, Gender: Male, Marriage License Date: 5 Jul 1949, Marriage License Place: Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA, Spouse:
Margot Scharlack, License Number: 18136, New York City Municipal Archives; New York, New York; Borough: Manhattan; Volume Number: 26, Ancestry.com. New York, New York, U.S., Marriage License Indexes, 1907-2018 ↩
Margot Scharlack, [Margot Rosenberg], Gender: Female, Race: White, Birth Date: 24 May 1924, Birth Place: Frankfurt, Federal Republic of Germany, Death Date: 3 Apr 2005, Father: Max Scharlack Mother: Recha Hirsch, SSN: 461261953, Ancestry.com. U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007. ↩
Margot Scharlack, ship manifest, Year: 1937; Arrival: New York, New York, USA; Microfilm Serial: T715, 1897-1957; Line: 15; Page Number: 81, Ancestry.com. New York, U.S., Arriving Passenger and Crew Lists (including Castle Garden and Ellis Island), 1820-1957 ↩
Scharlack family, 1940 US census, Year: 1940; Census Place: San Antonio, Bexar, Texas; Roll: m-t0627-04206; Page: 3A; Enumeration District: 259-149, Ancestry.com. 1940 United States Federal Census ↩
Walter Rosenberg, 1950 US census, United States of America, Bureau of the Census; Washington, D.C.; Seventeenth Census of the United States, 1950; Record Group: Records of the Bureau of the Census, 1790-2007; Record Group Number: 29; Residence Date: 1950; Home in 1950: New York, New York, New York; Roll: 3572; Sheet Number: 71; Enumeration District: 31-2291, Ancestry.com. 1950 United States Federal Census ↩
Guenther G Rosenberg, Gender: Male, Estimated Birth Year: abt 1926
Age: 25, Marriage Date: 17 Jun 1951, Marriage Place: Napa, California, USA
Spouse: Lottie Rosenthal Spouse Age: 22, Ancestry.com. California, U.S., Marriage Index, 1949-1959. ↩
Napa Valley Register (August 19, 2014) , obit for Lottie Rosenberg, GenealogyBank.com (https://www.genealogybank.com/doc/obituaries/obit/14FD71AE3A70B180-14FD71AE3A70B180 : accessed 2 December 2022) ↩
Rosenthal family, ship manifest, Year: 1937; Arrival: New York, New York, USA; Microfilm Serial: T715, 1897-1957; Line: 15; Page Number: 171, Ancestry.com. New York, U.S., Arriving Passenger and Crew Lists (including Castle Garden and Ellis Island), 1820-1957 ↩
Rosenthal family, ship manifest, The National Archives at Washington, D.C.; Washington, D.C.; Passenger Lists of Vessels Arriving At San Francisco, California; NAI Number: 4498993; Record Group Title: Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, 1787-2004; Record Group Number: 85, Ancestry.com. California, U.S., Arriving Passenger and Crew Lists, 1882-1959 ↩
Rosenthal family, 1940 US census, Year: 1940; Census Place: Napa, Napa, California; Roll: m-t0627-00269; Page: 12A; Enumeration District: 28-12A, Ancestry.com. 1940 United States Federal Census ↩
See Note 11, supra. ↩
Phone conversation with Henry Rosenberg on October 30, 2022. Email from Michael Rosenberg, November 30, 2022. ↩
Emanuel Rosenberg, Social Security Number: 092-16-4853, Birth Date: 29 Jun 1885 Issue Year: Before 1951, Issue State: New York, Death Date: Aug 1964, Social Security Administration; Washington D.C., USA; Social Security Death Index, Master File, Ancestry.com. U.S., Social Security Death Index, 1935-2014 ↩
Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/236669638/katinka-rosenberg: accessed 02 December 2022), memorial page for Katinka Rosenberg (1891–1967), Find a Grave Memorial ID 236669638, citing Cedar Park Cemetery, Paramus, Bergen County, New Jersey, USA; Maintained by dalya d (contributor 46972551) . (Headstone has date.) ↩
Guenther Rosenberg, [George G Rosenberg], [George Rosenberg], Gender: Male
Race: White, Birth Date: 7 Jul 1925, Birth Place: Frankfurt MA, Federal Republic of Germany, Death Date: 27 Oct 1998, Father: Emil Rosenberg Mother: Katinka Blumenfeld, SSN: 093129735, Ancestry.com. U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007 ↩
Information from Michael Rosenberg, email dated December 21, 2022. ↩

Gerson Blumenfeld II: His Surviving Son Friedrich and His Family in America, Keeping Tradition Alive

Posted on December 13, 2022 by Amy

I have been very fortunate to connect with four more Blumenfeld cousins, Steven, Milton, Alan, and Debbie, four of the grandchildren of Friedrich Blumenfeld, the last surviving son of Gerson Blumenfeld II. Alan has generously shared with me some wonderful family photographs, including the first I’ve seen of Gerson Blumenfeld II, Alan’s great-grandfather.

Gerson Blumenfeld II. Courtesy of his family.

Alan also shared these photos of his grandparents Friedrich and Lina and their two children, Gretel and Guenther (later spelled Gunter).

Fritz Blumenfeld as a young man. Courtesy of the family.

Lina Neuhas and Fritz Blumenfeld at their wedding, October 26, 1921. Courtesy of the family

Guenther and Gretel Blumenfeld, c. 1928 Courtesy of the family

Friedrich (also known as Fritz) and his wife Lina and their two children Gretel and Guenther were safely in the US by 1939 and were living in the Bronx, according to the declaration of intention to become US citizens that Friedrich filed that year.

Friedrich Blumenfeld 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 567) Declarations of Intention For Citizenship, 1842-1959 (No 444001-444900), Ancestry.com. New York, U.S., State and Federal Naturalization Records, 1794-1943

Alan also shared this photograph of his father Guenther’s immigration card:

Guenther Blumenfeld immigration card, 1939. Courtesy of the family

By 1941 when Gretel filed her own declaration of intention, the family was living in the Washington Heights area of Manhattan. Gretel was then eighteen and working as an “operator.” According to her sons, she was working for a company manufacturing army blankets.¹

Gretel Blumenfeld 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 622) Declarations of Intention For Citizenship, 1842-1959 (No 492901-493800), Ancestry.com. New York, U.S., State and Federal Naturalization Records, 1794-1943

Her brother Gunter (now using that spelling) registered for the draft on February 23, 1944; they were still living in Washington Heights, and he was a high school student at that time and had just turned eighteen. He enlisted in the US Army on January 30, 1945, and served until August 28, 1946.²

Gunter Blumenfeld, 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

Alan shared this photograph of his father Gunter in uniform during World War II:

Gunter Blumenfeld, c. 1945. Courtesy of the family

Gretel Blumenfeld married Joseph Hamburger on January 18, 1946.³ Joseph was born in Heuttengesass, Germany, on February 4, 1915, son of Simon Hamburger and Bertha Adler,⁴ and had immigrated to the US on April 2, 1936.⁵ According to his sons Steven and Milton, Joseph would have left earlier, but had to wait until he was twenty-one to leave without his parents’ consent; he had wanted to leave three years earlier when the Nazis prohibited Jews from being butchers, Joseph’s livelihood, but his parents refused. Gretel and Joseph met before the war, but waited to marry until after he came back from serving in World War II.⁶

In 1950, they were living in New York City, and Joseph was the owner of a kosher butcher shop. Gretel and Joseph had three children.

Joseph Hamburger 1950 US census, United States of America, Bureau of the Census; Washington, D.C.; Seventeenth Census of the United States, 1950; Record Group: Records of the Bureau of the Census, 1790-2007; Record Group Number: 29; Residence Date: 1950; Home in 1950: New York, New York, New York; Roll: 3572; Sheet Number: 71; Enumeration District: 31-2292, Ancestry.com. 1950 United States Federal Census

Gretel’s parents Friedrich and Lina and her brother Gunter were also living in New York City in 1950, and Friedrich was working as merchandise distributor for a clothing manufacturer. Gunter was working as a television mechanic.

Friedrich Blumenfeld 1950 US census, United States of America, Bureau of the Census; Washington, D.C.; Seventeenth Census of the United States, 1950; Record Group: Records of the Bureau of the Census, 1790-2007; Record Group Number: 29; Residence Date: 1950; Home in 1950: New York, New York, New York; Roll: 3572; Sheet Number: 73; Enumeration District: 31-2289, Ancestry.com. 1950 United States Federal Census

Gunter took out a marriage license to marry Hilde Hes on August 14, 1951.⁷ Hilde was born on April 8, 1931, in Bremen, Germany, and immigrated with her parents Paul Hes and Gertrude Wolff on September 14, 1939.⁸ Gunter and Hilde would have two children.

The extended family all lived close by in Washington Heights and were very close; Debbie and Alan lived in the same apartment building as their grandparents Fritz and Lina and saw them all the time, including regular shabbat dinners. Debbie shared that Lina was an excellent cook, and she has many warm memories of growing up with her cousins and other relatives.⁹

Alan shared this photo of Friedrich and Lina at the celebration of their 50th wedding anniversary in 1971:

Lina Neuhaus and Friedrich Blumenfeld, 1971. Courtesy of the family

Friedrich and Lina and their two children all lived relatively long lives and remained in New York City for the rest of their lives. Friedrich was 88 when he died in New York on November 14, 1977.¹⁰

Fritz Blumenfeld death notice, Aufbau, November 25, 1977, p. 28, found at https://archive.org/details/aufbau431977germ/page/n677/mode/1up?view=theater

Lina died three years later on December 15, 1980. She was 86. ¹¹

Lina Blumenfeld death notice , Aufbau, Jan 2 1981, p. 24, found at https://archive.org/details/aufbau471981germ/page/n11/mode/1up?view=theater

Gretel Blumenfeld Hamburger died on July 25, 2008, when she was 85;¹² her husband Joseph had predeceased her, dying on December 18, 2004, when he was 89.¹³ Gunter Blumenfeld died on July 16, 2010; he was 84.¹⁴

Perhaps some of my favorite photographs of those shared by Alan are these three that show the Sefer Torah (Torah scroll) that had been rescued by Friedrich Blumenfeld during Kristallnacht while the Momberg synagogue was burning and then safely brought to the US from Momberg by the family.¹⁵ The photographs were taken at Alan’s son’s bar mitzvah and show Gunter, Alan, and his son Sandy honoring that Sefer Torah during the bar mitzvah service.

c. 2008 Courtesy of the family

Friedrich and Lina are survived by their grandchildren and great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren. I was privileged to connect with four of their five grandchildren—Steven, Milton, Alan, and Debbie (and will be talking to the fifth, Kenny, soon during a Blumenfeld family zoom). Thank you all for sharing these fabulous photographs and your stories with me and for keeping alive the memories, traditions, and legacy of your family.

Zoom call with Steven Hamburger and Milton Hamburger, November 10, 2022. ↩
Gunter Blumenfeld, Race White, Marital Status Single, without dependents (Single)
Rank Private, Birth Year 1926, Nativity State or Country Danzig or Germany, Citizenship Not Yet a Citizen, Residence New York, New York, Education 3 years of high school, Enlistment Date 30 Jan 1945, Enlistment Place New York City, New York, Service Number 42205064, Branch No branch assignment, Component Selectees (Enlisted Men), Source Civil Life, Height 80, Weight 995 [??], National Archives at College Park; College Park, Maryland, USA; Electronic Army Serial Number Merged File, 1938-1946; NAID: 1263923; Record Group Title: Records of the National Archives and Records Administration, 1789-ca. 2007; Record Group: 64; Box Number: 15188; Reel: 30, Ancestry.com. U.S., World War II Army Enlistment Records, 1938-1946 ↩
Gretel Blumenfeld, Gender: Female, Marriage License Date: 18 Jan 1946, Marriage License Place: Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA, Spouse:
Joseph Hamburger License Number: 2005, New York City Municipal Archives; New York, New York; Borough: Manhattan; Volume Number: 3, Ancestry.com. New York, New York, U.S., Marriage License Indexes, 1907-2018 ↩
Joseph Hamburger, Gender: Male, Race: White, Birth Date: 4 Feb 1915, Birth Place: Huettengesae, Federal Republic of Germany, Death Date: 18 Dec 2004, Father:
Simon Hamburger, Mother: Bertha Adler, SSN: 077073405, Ancestry.com. U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007 ↩
Joseph Hamburger, passenger manifest, Year: 1936; Arrival: New York, New York, USA; Microfilm Serial: T715, 1897-1957; Line: 20; Page Number: 39, Ancestry.com. New York, U.S., Arriving Passenger and Crew Lists (including Castle Garden and Ellis Island), 1820-1957 ↩
See Note 1, supra. ↩
Gunter Blumenfeld, Gender: Male, Marriage License Date: 1951, Marriage License Place: Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA, Spouse: Hilde M. Hes, License Number: 21506, New York City Municipal Archives; New York, New York; Borough: Manhattan, Ancestry.com. New York, New York, U.S., Marriage License Indexes, 1907-2018 ↩
Paul Hes, 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 569) Declarations of Intention For Citizenship, 1842-1959 (No 445801-446600), Ancestry.com. New York, U.S., State and Federal Naturalization Records, 1794-1943 ↩
Email from Debbie Salamon, December 7, 2022. ↩
Friederich Blumenfeld, Social Security Number: 065-12-8954, Birth Date: 7 Dec 1888, Issue Year: Before 1951, Issue State: New York, Last Residence: 10033, New York, New York, New York, USA, Death Date: Nov 1977, Social Security Administration; Washington D.C., USA; Social Security Death Index, Master File, Ancestry.com. U.S., Social Security Death Index, 1935-2014 ↩
Lina Blumenfeld, Social Security Number: 119-18-7181, Birth Date: 19 Sep 1894, Issue Year: Before 1951, Issue State: New York, Last Residence: 10033, New York, New York, New York, USA, Death Date: Dec 1980, Social Security Administration; Washington D.C., USA; Social Security Death Index, Master File, Ancestry.com. U.S., Social Security Death Index, 1935-2014 ↩
Gretel Hamburger, Social Security Number: 081-12-7517, Birth Date: 21 Aug 1922, Issue Year: Before 1951, Issue State: New York, Last Residence: 10040, New York, New York, New York, Death Date: 28 Jul 2008, Social Security Administration; Washington D.C., USA; Social Security Death Index, Master File, Ancestry.com. U.S., Social Security Death Index, 1935-2014 ↩
Joseph Hamburger, Social Security Number: 077-07-3405, Birth Date: 4 Feb 1915, Issue Year: Before 1951, Issue State: New York, Last Residence: 10040, New York, New York, New York, USA, Death Date: 18 Dec 2004, Social Security Administration; Washington D.C., USA; Social Security Death Index, Master File, Ancestry.com. U.S., Social Security Death Index, 1935-2014 ↩
Gunter Blumenfeld, Social Security Number: 081-20-7923, Birth Date: 22 Feb 1926, Issue Year: Before 1951, Issue State: New York, Last Residence: 10040, New York, New York, New York, Death Date: 16 Jul 2010, Social Security Administration; Washington D.C., USA; Social Security Death Index, Master File, Ancestry.com. U.S., Social Security Death Index, 1935-2014 ↩
Email from Alan Blumenfeld, December 6, 2022. ↩

Gerson Blumenfeld II, Part IV: Leaving Germany

Posted on November 15, 2022 by Amy

Three of the four surviving children of Gerson Blumenfeld II made it out of Germany in time to escape from the Nazis.

The family of Mina Blumenfeld Simon were the first descendants of Gerson Blumenfeld II to leave Germany. Mina’s son Josef arrived in New York on February 5, 1937. He listed his occupation as a butcher and his prior residence as Wetzlar, a town near Hermannstein where he was born.

Josef Simon ship manifest, Year: 1937; Arrival: New York, New York, USA; Microfilm Serial: T715, 1897-1957; Line: 10; Page Number: 35, New York Passenger Lists, 1820-1957, Ancestry.com

His brother Kurt arrived eight months later on October 1, 1937; he listed his occupation as a merchant and last residence as Wetzlar.

Kurt Simon ship manifest, Year: 1937; Arrival: New York, New York, USA; Microfilm Serial: T715, 1897-1957; Line: 3; Page Number: 38, Ship or Roll Number: New York, Ancestry.com. New York, U.S., Arriving Passenger and Crew Lists (including Castle Garden and Ellis Island), 1820-1957

The rest of the family—Albert, Mina, and Grete—arrived the following year on August 18, 1938. They also had been living in Wetzlar where Albert was a merchant.

Albert Meta Grete Simon passenger manifest, Year: 1938; Arrival: New York, New York, USA; Microfilm Serial: T715, 1897-1957; Line: 12; Page Number: 8, Ship or Roll Number: Washington
Ancestry.com. New York, U.S., Arriving Passenger and Crew Lists (including Castle Garden and Ellis Island), 1820-1957

Mina had officially changed her name from Mina Blumenfeld Simon to Meta Simon by the time she filed her Declaration of Intention to become a US citizen on January 24, 1939.

Meta Blumenfeld Simon 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 549) Declarations of Intention For Citizenship, 1842-1959 (No 427401-428300), Ancestry.com. New York, U.S., State and Federal Naturalization Records, 1794-1943

The family was reunited and living together as of the 1940 US census. They were living in New York City, and Albert and his two sons Kurt and Joseph (as spelled here) were working as butchers.

Albert Simon and family 1940 US census, Year: 1940; Census Place: New York, New York, New York; Roll: m-t0627-02670; Page: 11B; Enumeration District: 31-1895, Ancestry.com. 1940 United States Federal Census

Friedrich Blumenfeld and his family, including his mother Berta Alexander Blumenfeld, were the next family members to arrive in the US. They left shortly after Kristallnacht.

I had the great pleasure of Zooming with two of Friedrich’s grandsons last week, Steven and Milton, and they shared with me a story about their grandmother Berta’s reaction to Kristallnacht. Apparently when the Nazis came around to arrest Jewish men in the aftermath of Kristallnacht, Berta was so angry that she took the medals awarded to the family in honor of Moritz and Isaak, the two sons who died fighting for Germany in World War I, and threw them at the Nazi soldiers, yelling that she had lost two sons already. According to the family, the soldiers backed off and left the family alone. Soon thereafter the family was able to get visas to leave Germany.¹

Friedrich, Berta, and their two children arrived in the US on January 13, 1939. Friedrich’s occupation on the ship manifest is listed as shoe manufacturing, but his grandsons told me he was actually a dry goods salesman in Momberg.

Friedrich Blumenfeld and family passenger manifest, Year: 1939; Arrival: New York, New York, USA; Microfilm Serial: T715, 1897-1957; Line: 23; Page Number: 150, Ship or Roll Number: Hansa
Ancestry.com. New York, U.S., Arriving Passenger and Crew Lists (including Castle Garden and Ellis Island), 1820-1957

I cannot locate them on the 1940 census, but on October 16, 1939, they were all living together in the Bronx, according to Friedrich’s Declaration of Intention filed on that date. Friedrich was unemployed at that time.

Friedrich Blumenfeld 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 567) Declarations of Intention For Citizenship, 1842-1959 (No 444001-444900), Ancestry.com. New York, U.S., State and Federal Naturalization Records, 1794-1943

Katinka Blumenfeld Rosenberg was the last of the children of Gerson Blumenfeld II to escape Nazi Germany in time. Their departure was delayed because, as I learned from Katinka’s son Heinz/Henry, after Kristallnacht, Katinka’s husband Emanuel and son Walter were taken to Buchenwald where Walter spent two months and Emanuel spent five weeks. After they were released in early 1939, the family was determined to leave, but it was very difficult to find a sponsor to help them get permission to immigrate to the US. Finally a stranger from Texas who was not even related to the family came forward with an affidavit and sponsored the family. They took a train to Italy and sailed to the US from Genoa. As Henry and I discussed during our conversation, it is somewhat miraculous that they were to get out of Germany after World War II had started since for so many the borders closed after September 1, 1939.²

Katinka, her husband Emanuel Rosenberg, and their three sons Walter, Guenter, and Heinz arrived in New York on February 1, 1940. Emanuel listed his occupation as a trader, and Momberg was their last residence.

Emanuel Rosenberg and family passenger manifest, Year: 1940; Arrival: New York, New York, USA; Microfilm Serial: T715, 1897-1957; Line: 6; Page Number: 37, Ship or Roll Number: Conte Di Savoia, Ancestry.com. New York, U.S., Arriving Passenger and Crew Lists (including Castle Garden and Ellis Island), 1820-1957

Henry said they at first lived with cousins in the Bronx, but soon moved to Washington Heights in Manhattan where so many German Jewish refugees settled in the 1930s and 1940s. Henry quickly learned English and soon was able to not only catch up with his classmates but to excel in school.³

When the 1940 US census was taken a few months after their arrival, the Rosenbergs were all living in New York City. Emanuel was working in a grocery store, and Walter was a machine operator in a watch factory.

Emanuel Rosenberg and family 1940 US census,Year: 1940; Census Place: New York, New York, New York; Roll: m-t0627-02670; Page: 9A; Enumeration District: 31-1887, Ancestry.com. 1940 United States Federal Census

Thus, Mina, Friedrich, and Katinka and their families were able to escape to the US in time and survived the Holocaust.

Tragically, the youngest child of Gerson Blumenfeld II, Sitta Blumenfeld Spier, did not leave Germany in time to escape the Holocaust. Her family’s story in my next post.

I will be taking next week off to be with my family, who are coming to visit for Thanksgiving. Have a great Thanksgiving to all my US readers!

Zoom with Steven Hamburger and Milton Hamburger, November 10, 2022. ↩
Phone conversation with Henry Rosenberg, October 30, 2022 ↩
See Note 2, supra. ↩

Brotmanblog: A Family Journey

Adventures in Genealogy

Category Archives: Leaving Germany

Guest Post: My Cousin Miki Katzenstein’s Trip to Jesberg and Munich—Retrieving History and Honoring the Past

Genealogy Fun: How My Friend and I Discovered We Have Mutual Cousins

Rebecca Blumenfeld Rosenberg’s Daughter-in-Law Bella: An Admirable Woman

Hilde Blumenfeld Meinrath, Part II: Leaving Germany and Life in Brazil

Rudolph Meyer: “A Great Man”

Irmgard Johanna (Joan) Lorch Staple (1923-2022): A Woman Ahead of Her Times

My Fifth Cousin Matthew, Ruth Blumenfeld Friedman’s Grandson

Gerson Blumenfeld II, Final Chapter: Katinka Blumenfeld Rosenberg and Her Family

Gerson Blumenfeld II: His Surviving Son Friedrich and His Family in America, Keeping Tradition Alive

Gerson Blumenfeld II, Part IV: Leaving Germany

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