Category Archives: Germany

Leaving Germany: The Family of Toni Hoxter Goldschmidt

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By 1930, the three daughters of Caroline Blumenfeld and Simon Hoxter were married, and each had two children. Their son Siegmund had been killed fighting for Germany in World War I, but their lives otherwise as middle-class German Jews must have seemed secure and comfortable. Here is a wonderful photograph of Caroline and Simon, shared by their great-grandson Peter:

Simon and Karoline (Blumenfeld) Hoxter. c. 1930 Courtesy of the family.

The next decade saw the family ripped apart and separated as each daughter and her family had to find a way to escape from Nazi Germany. But even before Hitler came to power, the family faced another loss. Simon Hoxter died in Marburg, Germany, on June 10, 1932, at the age of 79.

Simon Hoxter death record, Personenstandsregister Sterberegister; Bestand: 915; Laufende Nummer: 5739, Year Range: 1932, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Deaths, 1851-1958

Less than a year later, Hitler came to power, and soon thereafter members of the family began to look for ways to leave Germany. I am grateful to the Shoah Foundation for providing me with access to the interview given by Arthur Goldschmidt, Caroline and Simon’s grandson and the son of Toni Hoexter and Sally Goldschmidt, in which Arthur shared much of the story of how most of his relatives escaped from Germany. Much of the information in this post came from Arthur’s interview, except where noted.1

Arthur and his sister Miriam were among the first to make plans to leave Germany. Arthur, who had been raised in the town of Hersfeld, described a relatively innocent childhood in that town. It was a town of about 12,000 people where most people worked as cattle dealers, but also as lawyers and doctors and merchants and other tradesmen. His father Sally owned a haberdashery store and did business with Jews and non-Jews in the town. Aside from some anti-Semitic taunting on occasion, Arthur experienced no sense of danger and no physical assaults. He went to school with and was friends with both Jewish and non-Jewish children. When he was sixteen, Arthur left school and left Hersfeld. He went to the city of Hamm in Westphalia about three hours from Hersfeld, where he trained in a department store to be a salesman. He was there for four years until Hitler came to power in 1933.

Here is a photograph of Hersfeld that Arthur shared with the Shoah Foundation. The building in the left background with the two little turrets is the house where Arthur and his family lived.

Arthur Goldschmidt. Arthur Goldschmidt, Interview 8542,  Visual History Archive, USC Shoah Foundation,  November 10, 1995. Accessed 15 August 2021, from the archive of the University of California Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education, found at https://sfi.usc.edu/what-we-do/collections

In October 1933, Arthur joined a cousin in Berlin where a Zionist organization was training young people to become farmers in preparation for immigration to Palestine. Arthur was there until June 1934, working for a farmer who happened to be a Nazi, but who, according to Arthur, was very kind to him and the other Jewish youth. (He did note that they were providing the farmer with free labor.)  From there, Arthur was sent by the Zionist organization to Yugoslavia to continue his training until December 1935 when he received a certificate to go Palestine. He arrived in Palestine in January 1936.

Meanwhile, the rest of his immediate family was also experiencing relocation. His parents Sally Goldschmidt and Toni Hoxter relocated from Hersfeld to Marburg in 1933 after Sally’s haberdashery business began to fail as a result of Nazi persecution. He no longer could do business with non-Jewish residents, and many of the Jewish residents were leaving or planning to leave Germany. They decided to move in with Toni’s mother, Caroline Blumenfeld Hoxter, who still owned her home in Marburg after the death of her husband Simon in 1932.

Their daughter Miriam left Marburg for New York, arriving on November 1, 1934. She listed her occupation on the ship manifest as a clerk and listing her cousin Rosalie Livingston as the person she was going to in the US.2 On September 27, 1936, after settling in New York, she married Rudolf Lauter, who was also a refugee from Germany. Interestingly, Rudolf was born and had last lived in Hamm, Germany, the same city that Miriam’s brother Arthur had lived in from 1929 to 1933. Rudolf was born on April 27, 1906, the son of Isidore Lauter and Helene Schonberger.3

Thus, by 1936 Toni and Sally’s children Arthur and Miriam were safely out of Germany. Arthur was living on a kibbutz near Rehovoth in Palestine, working at the new port in Tel Aviv that had opened after the Arab-controlled port in Jaffa was closed to Jewish businesses. Miriam urged Arthur to come to the US, and in 1938 when she was able to provide an affidavit for her brother, he was able to do that. He arrived on May 31, 1938,4 and after a brief stay with Miriam and Rudolf, he got a job on a farm in upstate New York in the town of Windsor near Binghamton; he was living there with some paternal cousins in 1940.

But Toni Hoxter and Sally Goldschmidt, Arthur and Miriam’s parents, were still in Germany, living in Marburg. According to Arthur’s testimony, his father was taken to Buchenwald. Arthur didn’t know when or for how long, but he said the experience forever changed his father; my guess is that this was after Kristallnacht in November 1938 when thousands of Jewish men were rounded up and taken to Buchenwald. Sally had served for Germany in World War I, earning the Iron Cross. His brother and his brother-in-law Siegmund Hoxter, Toni’s brother, were both killed fighting for Germany in that war, and Sally could never forgive Germany for ignoring his service and those sacrifices just twenty years later, imprisoning him in a concentration camp and destroying his business and his family’s life.

By the spring of 1940, Arthur was able to provide an affidavit for his parents to leave Germany, and on April 29, 1940, Toni and Sally (soon to be known as Sol) arrived in New York.5 According to Arthur, that was the last or one of the last ships allowed to sail from Europe after the war broke out. At that time Arthur’s sister Miriam and her husband Rudolf and their daughter were living in Bridgeport, Connecticut, where Rudolf was working as a butcher.6 Thus, Toni Hoxter Goldschmidt’s family was safely out of Germany by the spring of 1940.

What about Toni’s sisters Betty and Gerda and their families? And what about their mother Caroline? What happened to them? And what happened to Toni and Sol and their children Miriam and Arthur after arriving in the US? Those stories will be told next.

But not until early January 2022. I will be taking the next couple of weeks off from blogging.

Happy Holidays to All! I wish all my readers who celebrate a merry Christmas and a happy New Year to everyone! May 2022 bring us all good health and peace and progress on the many challenges facing us all, globally and personally.

 

 

 

 

  1. The information in this post, except where otherwise noted, is from the Shoah Foundation interview with Arthur Goldschmidt. Arthur Goldschmidt, Interview 8542,  Visual History Archive, USC Shoah Foundation,  November 10, 1995. Accessed 15 August 2021, from the archive of the University of California Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education, found at https://sfi.usc.edu/what-we-do/collections ↩
  2. Miriam Goldschmidt, Gender: Female, Ethnicity/ Nationality: Hebrew, Marital status: Single, Age: 23, Birth Date: abt 1911, Birth Place: Germany, Other Birth Place: Hersfeld, Last Known Residence: Frankfurt, Germany, Departure Port: Hamburg, Germany,Arrival Date: 1 Nov 1934, Arrival Port: New York, New York, USA, Final Destination: Chicago, Illinois, Years in US: Permanently, Citizenship Intention: Yes, Height: 5 Feet, 8 Inches, Hair Color: Blonde, Eye Color: Blue, Complexion: Fair, Money in Possession: 50 Person in Old Country: Sally Goldschmidt, Person in Old Country Relationship: Father Person in Old Country Residence: Marburg.gy, Person in US: Rosalie Livingston, Person in US Relationship: Cousin, Father: Sally Goldschmidt, Ship Name: Manhattan Year: 1934; Arrival: New York, New York, USA; Microfilm Serial: T715, 1897-1957; Line: 12; Page Number: 32, Ancestry.com. New York, U.S., Arriving Passenger and Crew Lists (including Castle Garden and Ellis Island), 1820-1957 ↩
  3. Naturalization papers for Rudolf Lauter and Miriam Goldschmidt, Court District: Southern District, New York, Description: (Roll 1332) Petition No. 383569 – Petition No. 383997, The National Archives and Records Administration; Washington, D.C.; Petitions for Naturalization from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, 1897-1944; Series: M1972; Roll: 1332, Ancestry.com. New York, U.S., Naturalization Records, 1882-1944. The naturalization papers filed for both Rudolf and Miriam indicate that they were married on September 27, 1936, but that Rudolf did not arrive in the US until December 24, 1936. I had no way to reconcile these two recorded assertions, but I then I found Rudolf on a passenger manifest arriving in New York on August 20, 1936. Given that there was just a month between his arrival and his marriage to Miriam, I believe they must have known each other in Germany before immigrating to the US. Since on that manifest Rudolf indicated he was intending to stay only four months, my hunch is that he then returned to Germany after they married and came back to the US permanently on December 24, 1936, as indicated on his naturalization papers. Rudolf Lauter, Marital status: Single,Age: 30, Birth Date: abt 1906, Birth Place: Germany, Other Birth Place: Hamm, Last Known Residence: Amsterdam, Hamburg??
    Place of Origin: Germany, Departure Port: France, Arrival Date: 20 Aug 1936
    Arrival Port: New York, New York, USA, Years in US: 4 Months, Citizenship Intention: No, Height: 5 Feet, 11 Inches, Hair Color: Brown, Eye Color: Brown, Complexion: Dark
    Money in Possession: $200, Person in Old Country: Helene Lauter, Person in Old Country Relationship: Mother, Person in Old Country Residence: Germany
    Person in US: George H Lauter, Mother: Helene Lauter, Ship Name: Washington
    Year: 1936; Arrival: New York, New York, USA; Microfilm Serial: T715, 1897-1957; Line: 3; Page Number: 108, Ancestry.com. New York, U.S., Arriving Passenger and Crew Lists (including Castle Garden and Ellis Island), 1820-1957 ↩
  4.  Arthur Goldschmidt, Gender: Male, Ethnicity/ Nationality: Hebrew, Marital status: Single, Age: 24, Birth Date: abt 1914, Birth Place: Germany, Other Birth Place: Hersfeld
    Last Known Residence: Telaviv, Palastine, Place of Origin: Palastine, Departure Port: Cherbourg,France, Arrival Date: 31 May 1938, Arrival Port: New York, New York, USA
    Final Destination: L. I., New York, Years in US: Permanently, Citizenship Intention: Yes
    Height: 5 Feet, 9 Inches, Hair Color: Brown, Eye Color: Brown, Complexion: Fair
    Money in Possession: 19.00, Person in Old Country: Sally Goldschmidt, Person in Old Country Relationship: Father, Person in Old Country Residence: Marburg. Person in US: Miriam Lauter, Person in US Relationship: Sister, Father: Sally Goldschmidt
    Sibling: Miriam Lauter, Ship Name: Aquitania, Year: 1938; Arrival: New York, New York, USA; Microfilm Serial: T715, 1897-1957; Line: 18; Page Number: 103, Ancestry.com. New York, U.S., Arriving Passenger and Crew Lists (including Castle Garden and Ellis Island), 1820-1957 ↩
  5. Sally and Toni (Hoxter) Goldschmidt ship manifest, Year: 1940; Arrival: New York, New York, USA; Microfilm Serial: T715, 1897-1957; Line: 9; Page Number: 85, Ancestry.com. New York, U.S., Arriving Passenger and Crew Lists (including Castle Garden and Ellis Island), 1820-1957 ↩
  6. Lauter family, 1940 US census, Year: 1940; Census Place: Bridgeport, Fairfield, Connecticut; Roll: m-t0627-00532; Page: 7A; Enumeration District: 9-92, Ancestry.com. 1940 United States Federal Census ↩

Caroline Blumenfeld Hoxter and Her Family, Part I: A Son Killed in Battle

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Having told the stories of seven of Abraham Blumenfeld IIA’s eight children,1 I now turn to his youngest child, his daughter Gelle. She was born on July 16, 1857. Later records refer to her as Caroline (or Karoline) and so I will refer to her by that name was as well.2

Birth record of Gelle Blumenfeld, Arcinsys Hessen Archives, HHStAW Fonds 365 No 608, p. 5

Caroline married Simon Hoxter on November 30, 1882, in Neustadt, Germany. Simon was born in Gemunden, Germany, on August 26, 1852, to Anselm Hoxter and Betty Blumenthal. (Hoxter is spelled with an umlaut or an “oe” in German, but for simplicity purposes, I am just going to spell it Hoxter.)

Jettchen Blumenfeld, Gender: weiblich (Female),Age: 25, Birth Date: 16 Jul 1857
Marriage Date: 20 Nov 1882, Marriage Place: Neustadt, Hessen (Hesse), Deutschland (Germany)
Civil Registration Office: Neustadt (Hessen), Father: Abraham Blumenfeld, Mother: Güdel Blumenfeld, Spouse: Simon Thoxter, Certificate Number: 16, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 915; Laufende Nummer: 6492, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930

Thank you to my cousin Peter Keibel, great-grandson of Caroline and Simon, for sharing these two photographs of his great-grandparents.

Caroline Blumenfeld Hoxter. Courtesy of the family

Simon Hoxter. Courtesy of the family

Caroline and Simon had four children, one son and three daughters. Their son Siegmund was born on December 5, 1883, in Gemuenden.

Siegmund Hoexter birth record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Signatur: 4110, Year Range: 1883, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901

Their daughter Toni was born on October 14, 1885, in Gemuenden.

Toni Hoxter birth record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Signatur: 4112
Year Range: 1885, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901

Then came Betty, born August 3, 1889, in Gemuenden.

Betty Hoexter birth record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Signatur: 4116, Year Range: 1889, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901

Finally, Gerda, the youngest child, was born June 7, 1895, in Gemuenden.

Gerda Hoexter birth record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Signatur: 4122, Year Range: 1895, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901

I am grateful to my cousin Peter Keibel for sharing this wonderful photograph of the four children of his great-grandparents Simon Hoxter and Caroline Blumenfeld: Betty, Siegmund, Gerda, and Toni.

Betty, Siegmund, Gerda, and Toni Hoxter, c. 1910. Courtesy of the family

Toni married Sally (later Sol) Goldschmidt on July 6, 1910. He was born on July 4, 1881, in Bad Hersfeld, Germany, to Isaak Goldschmidt and Malchen Greif.

Marriage record of Toni Hoxter and Sally Goldschmidt, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 915; Laufende Nummer: 5625, Year Range: 1910, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930

Toni and Sally had two children, a daughter Miriam born on April 23, 1911, in Hersfeld,3 and a son Arthur born on August 9, 1913, in Hersfeld.4

The family’s life was cruelly disrupted when Caroline and Simon’s son Siegmund was killed while fighting for Germany in World War I. He was killed during the Second Battle of Ypres on May 8, 1915. His death record says that he was the Vizefeldwebel (vice-sergeant) of the Königlich-Preussisches Reserve-Infanterie-Regiment 46 No. 234, 8. Kompanie and died in Wieltje, Belgium. He was one of over 35,000 German soldiers killed in that battle; the Allies lost roughly 59,000 troops, making this one of the costliest battles in World War I. It is perhaps mostly remembered as the first time the Germans used chlorine gas in combat on the Western front, explaining why so many more Allies died as compared to the German losses.[5]

Siegmund Höxter, Age: 31, Birth Date: abt 1884, Death Date: 8 Mai 1915 (8 May 1915)
Death Place: Marburg, Hessen (Hesse), Deutschland (Germany), Civil Registration Office: Marburg, Father: Simon Höxter, Mother: Karoline Höxter, Certificate Number: 331, 
Personenstandsregister Sterberegister; Bestand: 915; Laufende Nummer: 5705, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Deaths, 1851-1958

Caroline and Simon thus lost their oldest child and only son fighting for Germany in the war. Here is a beautiful photograph of Siegmund wearing his World War I uniform, courtesy of Peter Keibel and the family.

Siegmund Hoxter. Courtesy of the family

Five months after Siegmund’s death, his sister Betty married Max Oppenheimer on October 5, 1915. Max, a doctor, was born on August 28, 1886, in Hadamar, Germany, and was the son of Adolf Oppenheimer, a teacher, and Johanna WInkelstein.5

Betty and Max had two children, Lotte and Franz Siegmund. Lotte was born on January 29, 1917, in Posen in what was still a province of Germany at that time and  is now part of Poland, as it became in the aftermath of World War I.6 Franz Siegmund, presumably named in memory of Betty’s brother, was born on February 17, 1920, in Friedberg, Germany.7 I don’t know why Betty and Max’s children were born in two different cities, one quite far from the Hesse region where both Betty and Max were from.

Betty’s younger sister and Caroline and Simon’s youngest child Gerda married Adolf Goldschmidt on May 8, 1922, in Marburg, Germany. Adolf was the son of Louis Elieser Goldschmidt and Sophie Adler and was born on March 11, 1885, in Eldagsen in the Hanover region of Germany. Adolf Goldschmidt and Toni’s husband Sally Goldschmidt were first cousins, both grandsons of  Feist Goldschmidt and Minna Wallach.8

Marriage record of Gerda Hoxter and Adolf Goldschmidt, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 915; Laufende Nummer: 5640, Year Range: 1922, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930

Gerda and Adolf’s grandson Peter shared this beautiful photograph of his grandparents:

Gerda Hoxter and Adolf Goldschmidt. Courtesy of the family

Gerda and Adolf had two daughters. Inge was born in Dusseldorf, Germany, in 1923, and Lore was born three years later on March 23, 1926, in Elberfeld, a section of Wuppertal not far from Dusseldorf where Adolf now owned a department store.9 This adorable photo of Inge (later Jane) and Lore (later Alice) was provided by Jane’s son, my cousin Peter.

(Alice) Lore Goldschmidt and (Jane) Inge Goldschmidt, c. 1931. Courtesy of the family

Thus, by 1926, Caroline Blumenfeld and her husband Simon Hoxter had six grandchildren. They had tragically lost their son Siegmund during his service for Germany in World War I, but I hope they were finding joy in those grandchildren and with their three daughters in the years after Siegmund’s death.

Of course, the family’s life would change drastically in the 1930s.

To be continued.

  1. As mentioned earlier, the sixth child Rebecca died when she was four years old, and the seventh child Heinemann married my cousin Caroline Katzenstein and their story and that of their children was told when I was writing about my Katzenstein family line. ↩
  2. Her marriage record refers to her as Jettchen Blumenfeld, but I don’t see that name used on any other records. ↩
  3.  Miriam Lauter, Social Security Number: 112-05-7561, Birth Date: 23 Apr 1911
    Issue Year: Before 1951, Issue State: New York, Last Residence: 11375, Flushing, Queens, New York, USA, Death Date: 7 Jan 1988, Social Security Administration; Washington D.C., USA; Social Security Death Index, Master File, Ancestry.com. U.S., Social Security Death Index, 1935-2014 ↩
  4. Arthur Goldschmidt, 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 ↩
  5. The marriage date came from Peter Keibel, grandson of Toni Hoxter and Sally Goldschmidt, and thus the nephew of Betty Hoxter Oppenheimer. Peter also provided me with some other information, as will be noted. Max’s birth and parent information was found on his birth record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 912; Laufende Nummer: 1832, Year Range: 1886, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901. Thank you to the members of the German Genealogy group for helping me to decipher Adolf’s mother’s birth name. ↩
  6. Lotte’s birth information was found in her immigration file at the Israel State Archives, which can be found by searching for her name at https://www.archives.gov.il/en/ ↩
  7. Franz Siegmund’s birth information was found in his father’s immigration file at the Israel State Archives, found by searching for his name at https://www.archives.gov.il/en/ ↩
  8. The familial connection between Adolf and Sally Goldschmidt was pointed out to me Peter Keibel; I then found the marriage records of their respective parents, which corroborated that their fathers were both the sons of Feist Goldschmidt and Minna Wallach. ↩
  9. Inge is still living, so I will not reveal her exact birth date; Lore’s birth information came from Ancestry.com. U.S., Public Records Index, 1950-1993, Volume 2. Inge (later Jane)’s son Peter provided the information about his grandfather’s store in Wuppertal. ↩

Moses Blumenfeld IIA’s Surviving Children All Died Between 1930 and 1939

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Moses Blumenfeld IIA and his wife Fanny Bachrach had two children who predeceased them, Frida and Karl, and three children who survived them after Moses died in 1911 and Fanny in 1928: Antonie Blumenfeld Katz, Hedwig Blumenfeld Kaufmann, and Ernst Blumenfeld. By 1939, all three had died, Ernst at 46, Hedwig at 57, and Antonie at 63.

Hedwig died first on September 5, 1934 in Marburg.

Hedwig Blumenfeld Kaufmann death record, Personenstandsregister Sterberegister; Bestand: 915; Laufende Nummer: 5744, Year Range: 1934, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Deaths, 1851-1958

She was survived by her husband Moritz Kaufmann, who died just four months later on January 10, 1935. He was 79 years old. He also died in Marburg.1 I found it interesting to see that Hedwig and Moritz had returned to Germany after living some years in Paris, where their children were both born.

Hedwig and Moritz were survived by those two children. Their daughter Rachel Gertrude Anna Kaufmann (known as Anna) had married Julius Leyser on February 9, 1928, in Marburg. Julius was born in Marburg on June 2, 1898 to Markus Leyser and Lina Baum.2

Marriage record of Anna Kaufmann and Julius Leyser, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 915; Laufende Nummer: 5650, Year Range: 1928, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930

Julius and Anna had two children: Ernst, born on February 7, 1930, in Marburg,3 and Hans, born June 18, 1932, in Marburg.4

Moritz and Hedwig’s second child, their son Albert, married Dorothy Alice Schimmelfennig in Berlin on February 10, 1928. Dorothy was born in London on April 11, 1907, the daughter of Leo Schimmelfennig and Cecelia Sarah Pick. As far as I’ve been able to determine, they did not have children. Their marriage ended in divorce.

Dorothy Schimmerfennig birth record, Registration District: Fulham, Subdistrict North East Fulham, County of London, 1907.

Marriage record of Albert Kaufmann and Dorothy Schimmelfennig, Landesarchiv Berlin; Berlin, Deutschland; Personenstandsregister Heiratsregister; Laufendenummer: 132, Register Year or Type: 1928 (Erstregister), Ancestry.com. Berlin, Germany, Marriages, 1874-1936

Ernst Blumenfeld, Moses and Fanny’s only surviving son and last born child, died on April 24, 1935, in Marburg. His three children Lore, Franz, and Paul were only eight, six and three years old, respectively, when they lost their father. Ernst was also survived by his wife Bella, who was widowed at 35.

Ernst Blumenfeld death record, Personenstandsregister Sterberegister; Bestand: 915; Laufende Nummer: 5745, Year Range: 1935, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Deaths, 1851-1958

Antonie Blumenfeld Katz was the first-born child of Moses and Fanny and the one who survived the longest. She outlived all her younger siblings. Yet she was only 63 when she died of uterine cancer on April 24, 1939, in Marburg. She was survived by her husband Moritz Katz and her children Artur/Avraham and Margarete.

Antonie Blumenfeld Katz death record, Personenstandsregister Sterberegister; Bestand: 915; Laufende Nummer: 5754, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Deaths, 1851-1958

Antonie’s death record is one of the very few German death records I’ve seen that listed a cause of death, and it was very useful to resolve a question I had about a document filed at Yad Vashem by Antonie’s son Artur, later known as Avraham. He wrote that his mother Antonie had been murdered. I found this a bit surprising since in April 1939, as far as I knew, Nazis were not generally killing Jewish women in their hometowns in Germany, though certainly there were persecution and deaths even that early. Why would Antonie have been killed at that time?

Antonie Blumenfeld Katz, Page of Testimony at Yad Vashem, found at https://yvng.yadvashem.org/nameDetails.html?language=en&itemId=842831&ind=1

In searching for the answer, I asked for help in translating Antonie’s death record. Kira Dolcimascolo of Tracing the Tribe first alerted me to the fact that the death record included a cause of death and that it was uterine cancer, and  then Cathy Meder-Dempsey and Katherine O’Grady of the German Genealogy group  were able to transcribe and translate the remainder of the cause of death—cancer achexia or extreme weight loss and muscle wasting.

Antonie was not murdered, but died of natural causes, according to her death record. Did her son Avraham not believe the death record? Or did he somehow link his mother’s medical condition to the Nazi persecution going on in Germany in the 1930s? Was she unable to get medical help? Had she refused medical help because of persecution? I don’t know. 5

In any event, by April 1939, all three of Moses IIA and Fanny (Bachrach) Blumenfeld’s children had died. What about the seven grandchildren—the children of Antonie, Hedwig, and Ernst? Their story will be told in the next post.

 

 

  1.  Moritz Kaufmann, Age: 79, Birth Date: abt 1856, Death Date: 10 Jan 1935
    Death Place: Marburg, Hessen (Hesse), Deutschland (Germany), Civil Registration Office: Marburg, Certificate Number: 21, Personenstandsregister Sterberegister; Bestand: 915; Laufende Nummer: 5745, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Deaths, 1851-1958 ↩
  2. Julius Leyser birth record,Birth Date: 2 Jun 1898, Birth Place: Marburg, Hessen (Hesse), Deutschland (Germany), Civil Registration Office: Marburg, Father: Markus Leÿser, Mother: Lina Leÿser, Certificate Number: 306, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 915; Laufende Nummer: 5583, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901 ↩
  3. Entry at Yad Vashem, found at https://yvng.yadvashem.org/nameDetails.html?language=en&itemId=11572295&ind=1 ↩
  4. Entry at Yad Vashem, found at https://yvng.yadvashem.org/nameDetails.html?language=en&itemId=4266841&ind=1 ↩
  5. I also found an interview that Antonie’s grandson Yoram Jacobson gave in 2012 in which he said his grandmother died in 1939, but did not attribute her death to the Nazis. See the interview at http://www.garten-des-gedenkens.de/?page_id=414&lang=EN ↩

My Cousin Moses Blumenfeld (1849-1911) of Momberg, Part I

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I now turn to the fifth of the eight children of Abraham Blumenfeld II and Giedel Strauss, their fourth son Moses Blumenfeld IIA, named presumably for his grandfather Moses Blumenfeld, the brother of my 3x-great-grandmother Breine Blumenfeld Katzenstein.  He was one of six cousins named Moses Blumenfeld on my tree, all presumably named for their grandfather (or great-grandfather) Moses Blumenfeld I.  I am referring to this Moses as IIA, the A signifying Abraham II, Moses Blumenfeld I’s oldest son and father of Moses IIA.

Moses IIA was born on December 31, 1849, in Momberg, Germany.

Arcinsys Archives Hessen,HHStAW Fonds 365 No 628, p. 17

On May 25, 1875, he married Fanny Bachrach. She was born in Rhina, Germany, to Kallman Bachrach and Jette Klebe on October 30, 1853.1

Marriage record of Moses Blumenfeld and Fanny Bachrach, Arcinsys Archives Hessen, HHStAW Fonds 365 No 585, p, 27

Moses IIA and Fanny had five children. Their first was Antonie Blumenfeld, born March 8, 1876, in Momberg.

Antonie Blumenfeld birth record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 915; Laufende Nummer: 5555, Year Range: 1876, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901

Second born was Hedwig Blumenfeld, born in Marburg on July 8, 1877.

Hedwig Blumenfeld birth record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 915; Laufende Nummer: 5556, Year Range: 1877, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901

Frida, a third daughter, was born on December 29, 1879.

Frida Blumenfeld birth record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 915; Laufende Nummer: 5559, Year Range: 1880, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901

She was followed by Moses IIA and Fanny’s first son, Karl, who was born on November 27, 1881, in Marburg.

Karl Blumenfeld birth record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 915; Laufende Nummer: 5560, Year Range: 1881, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901

Sadly, both Frida and Karl died in March, 1882, Karl on March 3 at three months of age, and Frida eleven days later on March 14 at age two . I can’t begin to imagine the family’s grief over losing these two young children. 2

Frida and Karl Blumenfeld deaths, Arcinsys Archives Hessen, HHStAW Fonds 365 No 586 p. 35

Moses IIA and Fanny had one more child, another son, Ernst, born February 22, 1889, seven years after the deaths of Frida and Karl.

Ernst Blumenfeld birth record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 915; Laufende Nummer: 5570, Year Range: 1889, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901

Fortunately, Ernst and his older sisters Antonie and Hedwig lived to adulthood.

Antonie married Morris Katz sometime before 1902. Morris was born in Mollenfelde, Germany, on October 28, 1870.3  Antonie and Morris had two children, a son Artur (Avraham) Katz, born September 6, 1902, in Goettingen, Germany,4 and a daughter Margarete Martha Katz, born in Marburg on September 17, 1906.5

Hedwig Blumenfeld married Moritz Kaufmann on March 16, 1900, in Marburg. Moritz, son of Jacob Kaufmann and Betty Mayer, was born on July 12, 1855, in Schotten, Germany. He was living in Paris when he married Hedwig.

Hedwig Blumenfeld and Kaufmann marriage record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 915; Laufende Nummer: 5614, Year Range: 1900, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930

Their two children were born in Paris where they settled: Rachel Gertrude Anna Kaufmann, born on January 12, 1901, and Albert Kaufmann, born on May 15, 1902.

Rachel Gertrude Anna Kaufmann birth record, Archives de Paris; Paris, France; Etat Civil 1792-1902, BrowseLevel: 62058_B964336, Paris, France, Births, Marriages, and Deaths, 1792-1930

Albert Kaufmann birth record, Archives de Paris; Paris, France; Etat Civil 1792-1902, BrowseLevel: 62058_B960111, Paris, France, Births, Marriages, and Deaths, 1792-1930

Moses Blumenfeld IIA did not live to see his youngest child and only surviving son Ernst get married. He died on June 3, 1911, in Marburg when he was 61.

Moses Blumenfeld IIA death record, Personenstandsregister Sterberegister; Bestand: 915; Laufende Nummer: 5700, Year Range: 1911,  Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Deaths, 1851-1958

Ernst Blumenfeld married on December 12, 1921, ten years after his father died . He married Bella Tannenbaum in Bad Hersfeld, Germany, where she was born on March 2, 1900, to Levi Tannenbaum and Rosa Katz.6

Ernst Blumenfeld and Bella Tannenbaum marriage record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 907, Year Range: 1921, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930

Ernst and Bella had three children. Lore was born in Marburg on March 13, 1927.7 Her brother Franz was born two years later on March 21, 1929, in Marburg.8 The third child Paul was born three years after Franz on February 2, 1932, in Marburg.9

Fanny Bachrach Blumenfeld did not live to see the births of her last two grandchildren Franz and Paul. She died at 74 on April 9, 1928, in Marburg. She was survived by three of her children, Antonie, Hedwig, and Ernst, and by seven grandchildren.

Fanny Bachrach death record, Personenstandsregister Sterberegister; Bestand: 915; Laufende Nummer: 5731, Year Range: 1928, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Deaths, 1851-1958

Unfortunately, the three surviving children of Fanny and Moses Blumenfeld IIA would not survive the 1930s. More on their stories and those of Moses and Fanny’s grandchildren in my next post.

UPDATE: Thank you to my cousin Richard Bloomfield, who sent me these two documents, the first noting the 25th anniversary of Moses Blumenfeld IIA’s service as a mohel in Marburg in 1909, the second a death notice for Moses in 1911 extolling his services to the Jewish community there. I had not known that Moses was a mohel (someone who performs ritual circumcisions at the bris ceremony for newborn boys on the 8th day).

1909-10-29 Neue jüd Presse 3 Mohel Blumenfeld Moses Blumenfeld IIA

1911-06-29 Der Israelit Moses Todesanzeige Moses Blumenfeld IIA

  1. Arcinsys Archives Hessen, HHStAW Abt. 365 Nr. 687, 49. ↩
  2.   A separate death record for Karl states that he died on March 10. I don’t know which one is more accurate. See Personenstandsregister Sterberegister; Bestand: 915; Laufende Nummer: 5662, Certificate 90, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Deaths, 1851-1958 ↩
  3. Moritz Katz, Gender: männlich (Male), Nationality: Deutsch Juden, Residence Age: 68, Record Type: Residence, Birth Date: 28 Okt 1870 (28 Oct 1870), Birth Place: Mollenfelde, Sojourn Start Date: 2 Sep 1939, Residence Place: Marburg Marburg an der Lahn, Sojourn End Date: 5 Sep 1942, Reference Number: 02010101 oS, Document ID: 70454287, Arolsen Archives, Digital Archive; Bad Arolsen, Germany; Lists of Persecutees 2.1.1.1, Ancestry.com. Free Access: Europe, Registration of Foreigners and German Persecutees, 1939-1947. I was unable to locate an actual birth record for Moritz or a record of his marriage to Antonie. ↩
  4. The only “source” I could find for his birth date was an entry on Geni at https://www.geni.com/people/Abraham-Katz/6000000028354088593?through=6000000028354250250. I don’t know how reliable this is given that no real sources were provided on Geni. ↩
  5. Margarete’s birth date was found on her Palestine immigration papers found at the Israel State Archives, by searching for her Friedrich Max Jacobsohn,https://www.archives.gov.il/en/catalogue/group/1?kw=max%20jacobsohn ↩
  6.  Bella Tannenbaum, Gender: weiblich (Female), Birth Date: 2 Mrz 1900 (2 Mar 1900), Birth Place: Hersfeld, Bad, Hessen (Hesse), Deutschland (Germany), Civil Registration Office: Bad Hersfeld, Father: Levi Tannenbaum, Mother: Rosa Tannenbaum, Certificate Number: 39, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 907; Signatur: 907_7150, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901 ↩
  7. Lore Gertrude Blumenfeld, [Lore Ger Oppenheim], Gender: Female, Race: White
    Birth Date: 13 Mar 1927, Birth Place: Marburg, Federal Republic of Germany, [Marbury, Federal Republic of Germany], Death Date: 14 Nov 1991, Father: Ernest Blumenfeld
    Mother: Bella Tannenbaum, SSN: 132142097, Ancestry.com. U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007 ↩
  8. Frank Martin Blumenfeld, Gender: Male, Race: White, Birth Date: 21 Mar 1929
    Birth Place: Marburg, Federal Republic of Germany, Death Date: 22 Mar 2002
    Father: Ernest Blumenfeld, Mother: Bella Kannenbaum, SSN: 120204479, Ancestry.com. U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007 ↩
  9. Paul F Blumenfeld, Gender: Male, Race: White, Birth Date: 2 Feb 1932, Birth Place: Marbery, Federal Republic of Germany, Death Date: Jun 1986, Father:
    Ernst Blumenfeld, Mother: Bella Tannenbaum, SSN: 105247709, Ancestry.com. U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007 ↩

German Jewish Immigrants in America in the 1800s: The Livingstons in Bloomington, Illinois, as a Classic Example

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In 1882, Dora Blumenfeld Loewenstein and six of her children arrived from Germany and settled with her husband Meyer Loewenstein in Bloomington, Illinois, where they had two more children, completing their family. But why Bloomington? What brought them there? It was not near any major city—about 140 miles from Chicago, 170 from Indianapolis. But between 1850, when there were only about 1500 people living there, and 1880, when there were about 17,000 people, it had experienced a huge population explosion. Its rich farm land attracted settlers, and it grew to be a center for trade in central Illinois. Even Abraham Lincoln was known for traveling there from his home in Springfield, Illinois, seventy miles away.

But why did Meyer choose Bloomington? A February 10,1927, article (pp. 3, 5) from The Pantagraph, the Bloomington newspaper, provided the background to answer that question.

History of Livingston Family in Bloomington -

History of Livingstons in Bloomington part 2 -

The Pantagraph, February 10, 1927, pp, 3, 5

I will excerpt from and summarize some of the pertinent parts of this long article. Note that Meyer is spelled “Mayer” in this article as it sometimes was on other records as well.

Probably no other family in Bloomington has played such a prominent part in the mercantile history of the community as the Livingston. No other has produced so many buildings or taken such an active part in the commercial affairs of the city. Dating back to the middle ages and originating in Hessen, Germany, the father of the first representatives of the Livingston family to reach Bloomington was Hirsch, who resided at Daubriegn [sic], a suburb of Giessen in Hessen. He was the fiscal agent for a baronetcy and very prominent in that locality.

It was in the early fifties that two of his sons, Sam and Aaron, then in their teens, decided to emigrate to America to carve their fortune in the land of liberty. … They came over in a sailing vessel and the voyage required two months. …

The two lads came to Cincinnati where an uncle, Mayer Livingston [note: not Dora’s husband, but his uncle], was in business and with whom they resided until they had mastered the English language. They then started out with peddlers packs upon their backs and sold merchandise thru Ohio. Reports of a more prosperous condition in Illinois, led to their shift to this state in 1852, and they did so well with their merchandising that they were able to buy a horse and wagon with which they traveled from farm to farm. They found the farmers hospitable and the two boys accumulated a little money.

Aaron was the first to reach Bloomington, coming in 1855 and renting a little shack at the southwest corner of Main and Washington streets for a clothing store. ….

Prosperity came and a few months later, the brother Sam also laid aside the peddler’s pack and also opened a clothing store at the southwest corner of Main and Front streets…These two establishments marked the inaugural of the Livingston business in Bloomington….

On the early seventies Sam and Aaron erected the building at the northwest corner of Center and Washington streets [which a third brother, Maik, managed]. …Aaron also launched a dry goods store at the south side of the square and which he turned over to his cousins….

That was a notable event in the Livingston family when their beloved father, Hirsch, was induced to join his sons here and see the prosperity that had come to them. The old man made the long voyage in 1880, just arriving to witness the death of Aaron. Hirsch, a fine type of the old school of German families, was greatly interested in Bloomington, saw the need of a Jewish synagogue here and was the founder of the Moses Montefiore edifice which was erected in the early eighties. Hirsch passed to his forefathers in 1885, his couch surrounded by his sorrowing children and grandchildren.

When Aaron died, the remainder of the family sent for Isaac and Mayer to come over from Germany….Mayer arrived in 1881 and Isaac in 1882. [This confirmed my hunch that the Isaac Loewenstein sailing with Dora and her children was indeed her brother-in-law.] Following a conference, it was decided that Mayer should take charge of the clothing store at the corner of Main and Front streets; Isaac, the clothing store [at Main and Washington]; while Sam was to take charge of the 640-acre farm in Old Town township.

The article continues and brings the history of the Livingston family in Bloomington up to 1927, but I will stop here for now and return to the specific story of Meyer and Dora and their eight children.

The story of Hirsch Loewenstein and his sons is so typical in many ways of the German Jews who immigrated to the US in the mid-nineteenth century. Like my Katz/Katzenstein, Schoenthal, and Nusbaum families in particular, the Loewensteins/Livingstons came as young men, became peddlers traveling to far flung and rural parts of the growing country, eventually becoming successful enough to settle in one place and establish permanent stores there. Those stores grew to become department stores, leading to prosperity and security for those young immigrants and their families. It was not only my family’s story, but the story of many of the great department stores that grew all over this country in the mid to late 19th century, many of which still exist today.

 

Dusschen Dora Blumenfeld and Her Children: Immigrating to America in 1882

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I am now up to the fourth child and first daughter of Abraham Blumenfeld II and his wife Giedel Strauss, Dusschen Blumenfeld. Dusschen would have eight children, and I admit that when I looked at that list, I grew a bit weary. After all, Dusschen is only the fourth of the eight children of Abraham II, and Abraham II is the oldest of the three children of Moses Blumenfeld, the oldest sibling of my three-times great-grandmother Breine Blumenfeld Katzenstein.

So I still have so much to do on this Blumenfeld branch of my tree. I am not complaining; well, not really. It’s all good. I am glad to have the work. But sometimes it does feel overwhelming. Does anyone else ever feel that way about researching large families with many children?

And then, to make things even more overwhelming, I ended up confusing two different Dusschen Blumenfelds, one the daughter of Abraham II, one the daughter of his brother Isaac. After getting a lot of help from other researchers, I managed to sort it out and learned which one was born when, which one married which man.1

Anyway, enough kvetching! On to Dusschen Blumenfeld I, the daughter of Abraham Blumenfeld II and Giedel Strauss.

She was born on June 27, 1847, in Momberg, Germany.

Birth record of Dusschen Blumenfeld I, daughter of Abraham Blumenfeld. Arcinsys Archives Hessen, HHStAW Fonds 365 No 628, p. 16

Unfortunately, that is the only German record I can find for Dusschen I. Since she was later known as Dora, I will use that name going forward when I refer to her.

In 1868, Dora married Meyer Loewenstein,2 who was born in Daubringen, Germany, on November 9, 1839.3 Unfortunately, I do not have an actual birth or marriage record for Meyer, but had to rely on the information that he provided after he immigrated to the United States. Similarly, I had to rely on US records to find the birth dates for his children. Giessen, the town where Dora and Meyer lived in Germany, does not have records online for the dates that are relevant to this family.

UPDATE: Since publishing this post, I was able to obtain a book titled Juden in Giessen 1788-1942 by Hanno Miller (Giessen, 2012) that lists on p, 392 information about Meyer, Dora, and six of their children. Although no primary sources are included, the descriptions of the records include enough detail (time of birth, witnesses to each birth) that the information appears to be quite reliable. According to this source, Meyer was born on November 9, 1839, and Dora and Meyer were married on April 23, 1868.

Hanno Miller, Juden in Giessen 1788-1942 (Giessen 2012), p. 392.

I have noted below where the Juden in Giessen book provides different birth dates for the children of Dora and Meyer than those found in US sources. These discrepancies corroborate the accepted notion that birthdays were less important to European Jews than here in the US and that people estimated their birthdates rather than knowing them exactly.

As noted above, Dora and Meyer had eight children, and the first six of those children were born in Germany. Their first born was Rosalie, born April 3, 1869.4 Then came Moritz, born January 14, 1871.5 A second son Sigmund was born on December 13, 1872,6 and then Hermann, their third son and fourth child, was born December 25, 1874.7

After giving birth to four children in five years, Dora may have had a bit of a respite. Her fifth baby Aaron (later Alfred) was born on January 15, 1879.8 Perhaps that break came because Meyer had been traveling; I found a Meyer Loewenstein from Germany who was 41 years old on an 1878 ship manifest from Hamburg to New York.9 But I can’t be certain that is the same Meyer, given the lack of identifying information on the manifest and the discrepancy in the age.10

Dora and Meyer did have one more child in Germany before immigrating. Their sixth child and second daughter Auguste or Gussie was born on October 30, 1881.11 Dora and her six children sailed to New York from Bremen, arriving on September 9, 1882. The children are listed as Pauline (11 ½), Moritz (10), Sigmund (1 ½ ??), Hermann (7), Alfred (3), and Auguste (1). Meyer was not sailing with them so perhaps he’d returned to the United States before his wife and children though I cannot find him on any manifest after the 1878 one mentioned above.

Listed right above Dora on the 1882 manifest is another Loewenstein family: Isaac Loewenstein (38), his wife Rosa (28) and their two children (presumably), Rosalie (11) and Hermann (9).

Dora Loewenstein and children on ship manifest, Year: 1882; Arrival: New York, New York, USA; Microfilm Serial: M237, 1820-1897; Line: 1; List Number: 1286, Ship or Roll Number: Elbe
Ancestry.com. New York, U.S., Arriving Passenger and Crew Lists (including Castle Garden and Ellis Island), 1820-1957

I speculated that Isaac was the brother of Meyer Loewenstein. Why? Both ended up settling in Bloomington, Illinois, and both changed their surnames to Livingston (sometimes spelled Livingstone).

In any event, Dora and the children arrived in October 1882 and settled in Bloomington, Illinois, where on January 2, 1884, Dora gave birth to their seventh child and fifth son, Isaac, later Irvin.12 Their last child, Harold, was born on November 16, 1887, in Bloomington.13

Why Bloomington, Illinois? Why did Meyer and Isaac choose that city? I didn’t know the answer until I found a long news article from the Bloomington newspaper, The Pantagraph, dated February 10, 1927. More on that in my next post.

  1. Thank you so much to Richard Bloomfield and Michael Rosenberg for the invaluable assistance with straightening out the two Dusschen Blumenfelds, including helping me find and transcribe their birth records, which appear on the same page of the Momberg registry. ↩
  2. Livingston family, 1900 US census, Year: 1900; Census Place: Bloomington Ward 1, McLean, Illinois; Page: 6; Enumeration District: 0080; FHL microfilm: 1240321, Ancestry.com. 1900 United States Federal Census ↩
  3. Hanno Miller, Juden in Giessen 1788-1942 (Giessen, 2012), p. 392. Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/9198505/mayer-livingston : accessed 27 October 2021), memorial page for Mayer Livingston (Nov 1839–10 Oct 1915), Find a Grave Memorial ID 9198505, citing Jewish Cemetery, Bloomington, McLean County, Illinois, USA ; Maintained by Robin Farley Dixson Coon (contributor 46558224) . ↩
  4. Hanno Miller, Juden in Giessen 1788-1942 (Giessen, 2012), p. 392. Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/9198011/rosalie-m-livingston : accessed 27 October 2021), memorial page for Rosalie M “Rosa” Livingston (3 Apr 1869–19 Jul 1943), Find a Grave Memorial ID 9198011, citing Jewish Cemetery, Bloomington, McLean County, Illinois, USA ; Maintained by Robin Farley Dixson Coon (contributor 46558224) . ↩
  5. Hanno Miller, Juden in Giessen 1788-1942 (Giessen, 2012), p. 392. Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/9198500/maurice-livingston : accessed 27 October 2021), memorial page for Maurice Livingston (14 Jan 1871–19 Nov 1923), Find a Grave Memorial ID 9198500, citing Jewish Cemetery, Bloomington, McLean County, Illinois, USA ; Maintained by Robin Farley Dixson Coon (contributor 46558224) . ↩
  6. Hanno Miller, Juden in Giessen 1788-1942 (Giessen 2012), p. 392. US sources say December 27, 1872 or December 29, 1872. Sigmund Livingston, Age: 39, Birth Date: 27 Dec 1872, Birth Place: Giessen, Germany, Residence Place: Bloomington, Illinois, Passport Issue Date: 25 Mar 1912
    Has Photo: No, Certificate Number: 68761, National Archives and Records Administration (NARA); Washington D.C.; Roll #: 155; Volume #: Roll 0155 – Certificates: 68321-69176, 18 Mar 1912-30 Mar 1912, Ancestry.com. U.S., Passport Applications, 1795-1925 ↩
  7. Hanno Miller, Juden in Giessen 1788-1942 (Giessen 2012), p. 392. US sources say December 29, 1874.  Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/9199176/herman-livingston : accessed 27 October 2021), memorial page for Herman Livingston (29 Dec 1874–17 Feb 1951), Find a Grave Memorial ID 9199176, citing Jewish Cemetery, Bloomington, McLean County, Illinois, USA ; Maintained by Robin Farley Dixson Coon (contributor 46558224) . ↩
  8. Hanno Miller, Juden in Giessen 1788-1942 (Giessen 2012), p. 392.Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/9199178/alfred-livingston : accessed 27 October 2021), memorial page for Alfred Livingston (15 Jan 1879–1 Apr 1949), Find a Grave Memorial ID 9199178, citing Jewish Cemetery, Bloomington, McLean County, Illinois, USA ; Maintained by Robin Farley Dixson Coon (contributor 46558224) . ↩
  9.  Meyer Loewenstein, Gender: Male, Ethnicity/ Nationality: German, Age: 41
    Birth Date: abt 1837, Place of Origin: Germany, Departure Port: Hamburg, Germany and Le Havre, France, Destination: USA, Arrival Date: 17 Dec 1878, Arrival Port: New York, New York, USA, Ship Name: Cimbria, Year: 1878; Arrival: New York, New York, USA; Microfilm Serial: M237, 1820-1897; Line: 53; List Number: 1326, Ancestry.com. New York, U.S., Arriving Passenger and Crew Lists (including Castle Garden and Ellis Island), 1820-1957 ↩
  10. The 1900 US census indicated that Dora had given birth to eighteen children, eight of whom were still living. So perhaps that gap between 1874 and 1879 reflects at least some children who did not survive. But ten deceased children in five years seemed unlikely, and when I checked the 1910 US census, it reported that Dora had had eight children, all of whom were still living. ↩
  11. Hanno Miller, Juden in Giessen 1788-1942 (Giessen 2012), p. 392. US sources say October 27, 1881. Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/9198642/gussie-l-wertheimer : accessed 27 October 2021), memorial page for Gussie L Wertheimer (27 Oct 1881–12 Sep 1957), Find a Grave Memorial ID 9198642, citing Jewish Cemetery, Bloomington, McLean County, Illinois, USA ; Maintained by Robin Farley Dixson Coon (contributor 46558224) . ↩
  12. Irvin I Livingston, Gender: Male, Race: White, Birth Date: 2 Jan 1884, Birth Place: Bloomington, Illinois, USA, Residence Place: Glencoe, Illinois, USA, Military Draft Date: 1942, Relationship to Draftee: Head, The National Archives at St. Louis; St. Louis, Missouri; World War II Draft Cards (Fourth Registration), for The State of Illinois; Record Group Title: Records of the Selective Service System; Record Group Number: 147; Series Number: M2097, Ancestry.com. U.S., World War II Draft Registration Cards, 1942 ↩
  13. Harold Hirsch Livingston, Gender: Male, Race: White, Birth Date: 16 Nov 1887
    Birth Place: Bloomington, Illinois, Father: Mayer Livingston, Mother: Dora Blumenfeld
    SSN: 336146596, Ancestry.com. U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007 ↩

Another Update from Another Cousin! The Story of Karl Gutmann

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Once again, I have been very fortunate because another cousin found my blog and connected with me, sharing information and photographs of members of my ever-growing family tree. This time it was my fifth cousin, once removed, Jennifer, the granddaughter of Karl Gutmann, who has enriched my understanding of my family history. The information in this post, except where otherwise noted, came from my email correspondence with Jennifer, as did all the photographs.

You can read more about Karl and his family here and here, but let me provide a brief overview. Karl, born in 1923, was the only child of Moritz Gutmann and my cousin Nelly Goldschmidt; Nelly was the daughter of Hedwig Goldschmidt and Marcel Goldschmidt who themselves were first cousins, the grandchildren of Meyer Goldschmidt, my four-times great-uncle.

Jennifer shared with me this photograph of her grandfather Karl with his mother Nelly as well as the one that follows of Karl as a young boy.

Nelly Goldschmidt Gutmann and her son Karl Gutmann, c. 1927-1928 Courtesy of the family

Karl Gutmann Courtesy of the family

Nelly’s sister Else was married to Siegfried Gutmann, brother of Moritz Gutmann. Else and Siegfried, like Nelly and Moritz, had only one child, a son named Hermann Gutmann, later known as Dennis Goodman. I wrote about Dennis and his experiences here and here. Thus, Karl and Dennis were first cousins, and according to Jennifer, the two boys were very close growing up in Germany. They were both born in 1923, Dennis in February, Karl in May. They must have been like brothers to each other.

Tragically, Karl and Dennis were separated from each other because of the Nazis. As I wrote in my earlier post, Karl’s father Moritz came to the US in 1936, leaving his wife Nelly and Karl behind. What Jennifer shared with me was that her great-grandmother Nelly had long suffered from mental illness and had been institutionalized for some time before the Holocaust. Moritz, who resented the fact that her family had failed to disclose her mental health issues before they married, filed for divorce once he was in the United States. Jennifer shared this photograph of her great-grandfather Moritz Gutmann, whom she described as a very difficult man.

Moritz Gutmann Courtesy of the family

Meanwhile, Moritz and Nelly’s son Karl was living in Amsterdam as were his grandmother Hedwig Goldschmidt and his aunt Else Goldschmidt and uncle Siegfried Gutmann.  His cousin Hermann (Dennis) was sent in 1936 to England where he attended a Jewish boarding school, and the following year Karl went to the US.

From the apparent age of Karl in this photograph (he appears to be at least thirteen), I would guess that this photograph was taken either in Amsterdam or after he came to the US. I don’t know who the other boy was.

Karl Gutman and friend Courtesy of the family

What I did not know until Jennifer shared it with me was that Karl’s father Moritz traveled to Amsterdam to get his son and bring him back to the US; I now was able to locate Moritz on the same ship as the one that brought Karl to the US. Moritz, however, was sailing in a second class cabin whereas his fourteen-year-old son was sailing third class in a separate cabin (last line on second image below).

Moritz Gutmann, Year: 1937; Arrival: New York, New York, USA; Microfilm Serial: T715, 1897-1957; Line: 1; Page Number: 124,  Statendam, Ancestry.com. New York, U.S., Arriving Passenger and Crew Lists (including Castle Garden and Ellis Island), 1820-1957

Karl Gutmann (last line), Year: 1937; Arrival: New York, New York, USA; Microfilm Serial: T715, 1897-1957; Line: 1; Page Number: 143,  Statendam, Ancestry.com. New York, U.S., Arriving Passenger and Crew Lists (including Castle Garden and Ellis Island), 1820-1957

Karl earned money selling newspapers when he first got to the US, but then enlisted in the US Army in 1943. By that time he had joined his father in the art dealing business and brought art work back and forth between Europe and the US during the war. Karl became one of the Ritchie Boys, the elite espionage unit made up of German Jewish refugees who used their knowledge of Germany and German to spy on the Nazis and obtain critical military intelligence for the Allies. Here is Karl in uniform during World War II.

Karl Gutmann, c. 1945 Courtesy of the family

But it was too late to save his mother Nelly, who was killed by the Nazis in 1940. Tragically, both of Dennis Goodman’s parents were also murdered in the Holocaust. Karl and Dennis’s grandmother Hedwig Goldschmidt, however, miraculously survived after hiding in the Netherlands during the war, as described here. Jennifer shared this photograph of Hedwig, taken after she had safely immigrated to the US after the war.

Hedwig Goldschmidt Gutmann  Courtesy of the family

When Karl returned to the US after the war, he married Joan Fenton. What I had not known before Jennifer contacted me was that Joan, her grandmother, was the best friend of Karl’s first cousin Gabrielle Heimerdinger, the daughter of Greta Goldschmidt, Karl’s aunt, his mother Nelly’s sister. Gabrielle introduced Joan to Karl, and together they had three children. Jennifer, Karl and Joan’s granddaughter, has many memories of visiting her relatives in New York, including her grandfather’s first cousin Gabrielle, whose children I wrote about here. Karl went into the television repair business after the war and became quite successful.

While serving overseas as one of the Ritchie Boys, Karl had run into his cousin Dennis, Karl fighting the Nazis for the US, Dennis fighting the Nazis for England. Once the two cousins reconnected, they remained close for the rest of their lives, traveling back and forth between England and the US after the war many times. Thanks to Jennifer, I can share this photograph of Karl and Dennis joyfully reunited after the war. The other man on the left is their paternal cousin John Gutmann, and the woman is Karl’s second wife Gisela.

John Gutmann, Karl Gutmann, Gisela Bartels Gutmann, and Dennis Goodman Courtesy of the family

Jennifer remembered her grandfather Karl as a man with a strong work ethic and one who never wanted to talk about his past. But through her grandmother Joan and other family members, Jennifer was able to learn more about her grandfather’s story and the tragedies that her other relatives suffered during the Holocaust. I am so grateful that she shared their stories and her photographs with me.

 

 

Salomon Blumenfeld’s Children Thekla and Felix: Killed by the Nazis

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In April, 1933,  Salomon Blumenfeld’s two children from his first marriage, Thekla Blumenfeld Gruenbaum and Felix Blumenfeld, were both living in Kassel, Germany. All of their children and grandchildren were also still in Germany. With Hitler’s rise to power, some of the family members left Germany not long afterwards. But others were not so fortunate.

Thekla Blumenfeld Gruenbaum was murdered by the Nazis. She was first deported to Theriesenstadt on July 25, 1942.  Two months later on September 26, 1942, she was sent to the extermination camp at Treblinka where she was killed. She was seventy years old. She had lived a hard life—losing her mother when she was just a toddler, being left behind by her father a few years later, losing her husband, and then being killed at Treblinka.

Thekla’s daughter Caecilie and her husband Walter Herzog were living in Krefeld, Germany, before the war. I am still researching where and when, but the evidence indicates that the two children of Caecilie and Walter, Renata and Manfred, were sent to England before the war.1 Walter was a successful silk tie manufacturer and had deposited a fair amount of money in a Swiss banking account; that account was confiscated by the Nazis.2 In December 1941, both Walter and Caecile3 were deported to the concentration camp in Riga, Latvia. Walter was later transferred to Buchenwald where he was “declared dead” on May 8, 1945.

Caecile was sent from Riga to the Stutthof concentration camp.4 The Holocaust Encyclopedia provided this information about the Stutthof camp:5

Conditions in the camp were brutal. Many prisoners died in typhus epidemics that swept the camp in the winter of 1942 and again in 1944. Those whom the SS guards judged too weak or sick to work were gassed in the camp’s small gas chamber. Gassing with Zyklon B View This Term in the Glossary gas began in June 1944. Camp doctors also killed sick or injured prisoners in the infirmary with lethal injections. More than 60,000 people died in the camp.

The Germans used Stutthof prisoners as forced laborers. … In 1944, as forced labor by concentration camp prisoners became increasingly important in armaments production, a Focke-Wulff airplane factory was constructed at Stutthof. Eventually, the Stutthof camp system became a vast network of forced-labor camps….

The evacuation of prisoners from the Stutthof camp system in northern Poland began in January 1945. When the final evacuation began, there were nearly 50,000 prisoners, the overwhelming majority of them Jews, in the Stutthof camp system. About 5,000 prisoners from Stutthof subcamps were marched to the Baltic Sea coast, forced into the water, and machine gunned. The rest of the prisoners were marched in the direction of Lauenburg in eastern Germany. They were cut off by advancing Soviet forces. The Germans forced the surviving prisoners back to Stutthof. Marching in severe winter conditions and treated brutally by SS guards, thousands died during the march.

In late April 1945, the remaining prisoners were removed from Stutthof by sea, since Stutthof was completely encircled by Soviet forces. Again, hundreds of prisoners were forced into the sea and shot. … It has been estimated that over 25,000 prisoners, one in two, died during the evacuation from Stutthof and its subcamps. 

Soviet forces liberated Stutthof on May 9, 1945, and liberated about 100 prisoners who had managed to hide during the final evacuation of the camp.

How did Caecilie manage to survive this ordeal? Was she one of the hundred who were hiding in the camp during its final evacuation? Her odds for survival were overwhelmingly low, yet somehow she did. After time as a displaced person and with the help of HIAS (Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society), she was able to immigrate to the US in July 1946.

Arolesn Archives; Bad Arlosen, Germany, Resettlement Year: 1946, Ancestry.com. Free Acces Africa, Asia and Europe, Passenger Lists of Displaced Persons, 1946-1971

I was able to locate more information about Thekla’s brother Felix Blumenfeld through several sources, including a detailed and well-sourced biography online. Felix had studied medicine at both the University of Marburg and the University of Munich. He served as a ship’s doctor and later as doctor in a POW camp during World War I. As we saw, Felix lost his first wife Thekla Wertheim in 1917, and on February 16, 1920, in Nordhausen, Germany, he married his second wife Helene Petri, who was not Jewish. She was born on October 20, 1894, in Nordhausen, the daughter of Fritz Petri and Bertha Peter. Felix and Helene were living in Kassel, where Felix was a practicing pediatrician.

The detailed biography of Felix I found online describes in great detail all the contributions that Felix made as a doctor and citizen in Kassel.

Encouraged by the high infant mortality rate among children of poor parents, he began to use his position as a doctor and to get involved in society. At his suggestion, milk kitchens were built in which perfectly hygienic milk-grain mixtures were produced as baby food and sold using a deposit bottle system . The products were also given free of charge to the poor.

He also served as the medical director of the children and infant’s home/hospital in the city and also was involved in other charitable and civic organizations.

Despite his service in World War I and all these contributions he made as a doctor and citizen, Felix was persecuted by the Nazis. 

Just a few weeks after the National Socialists came to power on April 1, 1933, as a Jew, he was deprived of the management of the children’s hospital, he was banned from working and had to give up his apartment and practice…. His property and library were confiscated and owing to the fact that his wife Leni was not Jewish, he was initially allowed to live in his summer house a…. He was forced to do auxiliary and road construction work and had to collect rags and scrap at the municipal scrap yard . He was exposed to constant discrimination and surveillance by the Gestapo.

A second biography written for the occasion of the installation of Stolpersteine in Felix Blumenfeld’s honor in Kassel also reported this information and explained that Felix ultimately decided to end his own life in order to avoid deportation and also to protect his wife Helene.

Before killing himself on January 25, 1942, Felix wrote a long letter to his two sons in America, Edgar and Gerd, explaining why he had decided to take his own life. The first part of the letter details some of the abuse and persecution he had endured, and then he ends with these paragraphs, as translated by DeepL:

But enough of that ! Let’s get to the main thing ! Life is no longer bearable for me! All my hope, to which I had clung, was to get out of this hell and to be united with you in a near or distant time. I dare not count on that hope any longer. For with the years of war my years of life also increase. But the worst thing at the present moment is that out of sheer arbitrariness they have deprived me of all my property and referred me to my hands work or to public welfare. Subsequently, they also “expropriated the wife of the Jew”, although since 1939 there had been a legal separation of property, i.e. there was no legal basis for this. Leni was in Berlin and has the prospect of getting part of her property back if she gets a divorce. I want to agree to this divorce in order not to endanger Lenimutter’s livelihood again and again through my person. In that case, however, my life, which has been ruined through no fault of my own, has lost all the more meaning, especially since it is not known what else will be done to us.

Under these circumstances, death seems more desirable to me than an existence with ever new torments. I am therefore leaving this world of meanness, baseness and inhumanity in order to enter eternal peace and to seek the path that leads from darkness to light.

My last thoughts belong to my faithful comrade, on an often thorny path, and to you my beloved children, my Edgar, Gerd, Annchen, Lotte and Little Gerard ! You will be with me in the hour that demands strength and courage. Especially with you, my Gerd, I would have liked to hold a conversation, you dear, you good one! Stay as good as you have been so far, and be the one who makes sure that you always stay together faithfully. Then I am always in your midst and remain eternally connected with you. Without looking backwards, move forward and build a more beautiful life in a hopefully better world. May it be a comforting thought to you that your father is relieved of all fear, worry and pain after his departure. We remain united ! ! You will never forget me, I know that, because my love for you was, is and will be infinite.

V a t e r

*** Translated with http://www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version) ***

Like his sister Thekla, Felix Blumenfeld lost his mother as a baby, then his father, and then his first wife. Nevertheless, he grew up to be a devoted father and pediatrician who contributed greatly to his community. Although not technically murdered by the Nazis, Felix is also rightfully counted among those whose deaths were caused by Nazi persecution.

There was one more death in the family attributable to Nazi Germany. Thekla Blumenfeld Gruenbaum’s grandson, Caecilie and Walter Herzog’s son Manfred, was killed in action while fighting for the Allies in Europe sometime in the spring of 1945.

Thus, the Nazis killed both Thekla and Felix, the two children Salomon Blumenfeld had with his first wife Caecilie Erlanger, as well as Thekla’s son-in-law Walter Herzog; in addition, Thekla’s grandson Manfred Herzog died fighting the Nazis in World War II. I can’t help but think about how Felix and Thekla’s lives would have been different if their father Salomon had taken them with him when he moved to Spain.

They were survived by the rest of the family. Their stories will be told in the next post.

  1. To be discussed in the next post. ↩
  2. Special Master’s Final Report on the Holocaust Victim Assets Litigation (Swiss Banks Settlement), Case No. CV 96-4849 (ERK)(MDG) (Consolidated with CV 96-5161 and CV 97-461) United States District Court, Eastern District of New York, pp.28-30. ↩
  3. Cecilia Herzog [Cecilia Gruenbaum] Birth Date: 26 Apr 1900 Birth Place: Kassel
    Residence: Krefeld Camp: Riga/Stutthof Ancestry.com. Poland, German Jews at Stutthof Concentration Camp, 1940-1945; Entry at the US Holocaust Memorial and Museum at https://www.ushmm.org/online/hsv/person_view.php?PersonId=3187531 ↩
  4. See Note 3. ↩
  5. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. “Stutthof.” Holocaust Encyclopedia. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/stutthof Accessed October 5, 2021. ↩

Salomon Blumenfeld, Part II: The Children He Left Behind in Germany

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When Salomon/Manuel Blumenfeld left Germany for Spain sometime in the 1880s accompanied by his second wife Emma Bendheim and their young son Moritz, what happened to the two children he’d had with his first wife, Caecilie Erlanger? Thekla, born March 18, 1872, and Felix, born May 2, 1873, were just babies when their mother died on December 31, 1873, and young children when their father married Emma in 1876. If Salomon and Emma left for Spain in 1883 or so, Thekla and Felix would only have been eleven and ten years old. Yet there is no record of them living with their father and stepmother and half-brother in Huelva, Spain.

As best I can tell, both children remained in Germany, probably with their mother’s family. Supporting that hypothesis is the fact that when Thekla married Max Gruenbaum on June 15, 1894, they were married in Marburg, the town where Caecilie Erlanger was born and where her parents and brother were still living in the 1880s. Note also that the witnesses were both named Erlanger.

Max Gruenbaum, the son of Hermann Gruenbaum and Betty Nussbaum, was born in Rotenburg an der Fulda on March 12, 1862, making him almost exactly ten years older than Thekla or 32 to her 22.

Thekla Blumenfeld and Max Gruenbaum marriage record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 915; Laufende Nummer: 5607, Year Range: 1894
Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930

Thekla and Max had their first child ten months after they married. Caecile Gruenbaum, obviously named for Thekla’s mother, was born on April 26, 1895, in Kassel.

Caecilie Gruenbaum birth record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 910; Signatur: 910_5118, Year Range: 1895, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901

Then came Curt Wilhelm Gruenbaum, born in Kassel on March 23, 1897.

Curt Wilhelm Gruenbaum birth record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 910; Signatur: 910_5127, Year Range: 1897, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901

Another son, Franz Moritz Gruenbaum, was born in Weimar, Germany, on April 9, 1899.

Franz Moritz Gruenbaum birth record, Stadtarchiv Weimar; Weimar, Deutschland; Geburtenbuch Weimar 1899; Series: Personenstandsregister Geburtsregister; Reference Number: 27 2/1 Bd 1899
Ancestry.com. Weimar, Germany, Births, 1876-1903

And finally arriving thirteen years later was Rosemarie Gruenbaum, born October 8, 1912, when Thekla was forty years old.1

Thekla’s brother Felix Blumenfeld married Thekla Wertheim on August 22, 1902, in Frankfurt, Germany,2 meaning Felix’s wife and his sister had the same first name. Thekla Wertheim was born on May 8, 1879, in Frankfurt to Louis Wertheim and Amalie Hammerschlag.

Felix Blumenfeld marriage to Thekla Wertheim, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 903, Year Range: 1902, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930

Felix and his wife Thekla had two children. Edgar Leo Blumenfeld was born on July 20, 1903, in Kassel.3 His brother Gerhard Max Blumenfeld was born in Kassel on March 3, 1906.4

Thus, Salomon Blumenfeld had six grandchildren living in Germany by 1912. Did he know them? Did he ever visit them in Germany? I don’t know.

Unfortunately, both Thekla Blumenfeld Gruenbaum and her brother Felix Blumenfeld lost their spouses at a relatively young age. Felix’s wife Thekla Wertheim Blumenfeld died when she was just 38 on August 20, 1917, in Kassel; her children were just fourteen and eleven at that time.5 And Felix’s sister Thekla lost her husband Max Gruenbaum when he was 61; he died on November 26, 1923, in Kassel,6 leaving behind his wife and their four children, ranging in age from eleven to 28 years old. Thus, both of Salomon’s children with his first wife Caecilie were widowed by 1923.

But there was good news as well. Thekla Blumenfeld Gruenbaum’s daughter Caecilie married Walter Herzog in Kassel on September 27, 1921. Walter was born on July 31, 1887, in Krefeld, Germany, to Moritz and Luise Herzog;7 he was a silk tie manufacturer. Caecilie and Walter had two children. Renata Herzog was born April 4, 1924,8 and her brother Manfred Herzog was born July 15, 1926, in Krefeld.9

Caecilie Gruenbaum and Walter Herzog marriage record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 910, Year Range: 1921, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930

Caecilie’s brother Curt Wilhelm Gruenbaum married Gertrude Babette Strauss in Worms, Germany, on March 9, 1930.10 She was the daughter of Leopold Strauss and Johanna Louise Goldschmidt and was born in Worms on May 20, 1901.11 Curt and Gertrude had a son Heinz Gruenbaum born January 29, 1932 in Kassel.12

Felix Blumenfeld’s son Edgar married Anna Hanau on March 27, 1933, in Neunkirchen, Germany. Anna was the daughter of Victor Hanau and Mina May and was born on March 27, 1906 in Schiffweiler, Germany. I found it sweet that Anna married Edgar on her 27th birthday.13

Unfortunately, the next month Hitler became Chancellor of Germany, and life changed dramatically for this family like it did for all Jews in Germany.

  1. Rosemarie’s birth place appears on this ship manifest: The National Archives at Washington, D.C.; Washington, D.C.; Series Title: Passenger Lists of Vessels Arriving at Boston, Massachusetts, 1891-1943; NAI Number: 4319742; Record Group Title: Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, 1787-2004; Record Group Number: 85; Series Number: T843; NARA Roll Number: 451, Ancestry.com. Massachusetts, U.S., Arriving Passenger and Crew Lists, 1820-1963. Her precise birth date appears on the England and Wales 1939 register, The National Archives; Kew, London, England; 1939 Register; Reference: RG 101/950H, Enumeration District: BWCO, Ancestry.com. 1939 England and Wales Register ↩
  2.  Thekla Wertheim, Gender: weiblich (Female), Birth Date: 8 Mai 1879 (8 May 1879)
    Birth Place: Hessen (Hesse), Deutschland (Germany), Civil Registration Office: Frankfurt a.M., Stadtteile, Father: Louis Wertheim, Mother: Amalie Wertheim, Certificate Number: 1570, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 903; Signatur: 903_8929, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901 ↩
  3. Edgar Leo Bloomfield, Declaration of Intention, National Archives at Chicago; Chicago, Illinois; ARC Title: Petitions for Naturalization, 1906-1991; Record Group Title: Records of District Courts of the United States, 1685-2009; Record Group Number: RG 21, Description: Petitions, V· 1323-1325, No· 327901-328515, 1945, Ancestry.com. Illinois, U.S., Federal Naturalization Records, 1856-1991; “Illinois, Cook County Deaths, 1871-1998,” database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:Q2MH-PGMM : 17 March 2018), Edgar L Field, 23 Jun 1954; citing Lincolnwood, Cook, Illinois, United States, source reference , record number , Cook County Courthouse, Chicago; FHL microfilm. ↩
  4. Gerard Max Bloomfield, Declaration of Intention, National Archives at Chicago; Chicago, Illinois; ARC Title: Petitions for Naturalization, 1906-1991; Record Group Title: Records of District Courts of the United States, 1685-2009; Record Group Number: RG 21, Ancestry.com. Illinois, U.S., Federal Naturalization Records, 1856-1991 ↩
  5. Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/230608646/thekla-blumenfeld : accessed 10 October 2021), memorial page for Thekla Blumenfeld (1879–1917), Find a Grave Memorial ID 230608646, citing Jüdischer Friedhof Kassel-Bettenhausen, Kassel, Stadtkreis Kassel, Hessen, Germany ; Maintained by Frank K. (contributor 46941322) . ↩
  6.  Max Grünbaum, Age: 61, Birth Date: abt 1862, Death Date: 26 Nov 1923
    Death Place: Kassel, Hessen (Hesse), Deutschland (Germany), Civil Registration Office: Kassel I, Certificate Number: 1141, Personenstandsregister Sterberegister; Bestand: 910; Signatur: 5591, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Deaths, 1851-1958 ↩
  7. Walter Herzog, Yad Vashem entry at https://yvng.yadvashem.org/nameDetails.html?language=en&itemId=1226964&ind=1 ↩
  8. Renata Herzog Cahn, ship manifest, The National Archives; Kew, Surrey, England; BT27 Board of Trade: Commercial and Statistical Department and Successors: Outwards Passenger Lists; Reference Number: Series BT27-, Ancestry.com. UK and Ireland, Outward Passenger Lists, 1890-1960 ↩
  9. Manfred Herzog, Yad Vashem entry, at https://yvng.yadvashem.org/nameDetails.html?language=en&itemId=1922326&ind=1 ↩
  10. Kurt Wilhelm Grunbaum, Petition for Naturalization, National Archives at Boston; Waltham, Massachusetts; ARC Title: Petitions and Records of Naturalization , 8/1845 – 12/1911; NAI Number: 3000057; Record Group Title: Records of District Courts of the United States, 1685-2009; Record Group Number: RG 21, Petition No 277730, Jayme Gonzalez – Petition No 278386, Sarah Govenar, Ancestry.com. Massachusetts, U.S., State and Federal Naturalization Records, 1798-1950 ↩
  11. Gertrude Babette Strauss birth record, Year Range: 1901 A, Ancestry.com. Worms, Germany, Births, 1876-1902 ↩
  12.  Henry W. Grunbaum, Social Security Number: 024-26-8623, Birth Date: 29 Jan 1932, Issue Year: 1951-1952, Issue State: Massachusetts, Last Residence: 02138, Cambridge, Middlesex, Massachusetts, Death Date: 22 Oct 2008, Social Security Administration; Washington D.C., USA; Social Security Death Index, Master File, Ancestry.com. U.S., Social Security Death Index, 1935-2014. Kurt Wilhelm Grunbaum, Petition for Naturalization, National Archives at Boston; Waltham, Massachusetts; ARC Title: Petitions and Records of Naturalization , 8/1845 – 12/1911; NAI Number: 3000057; Record Group Title: Records of District Courts of the United States, 1685-2009; Record Group Number: RG 21, Petition No 277730, Jayme Gonzalez – Petition No 278386, Sarah Govenar, Ancestry.com. Massachusetts, U.S., State and Federal Naturalization Records, 1798-1950 ↩
  13. Edgar Leo Bloomfield, Declaration of Intention, National Archives at Chicago; Chicago, Illinois; ARC Title: Petitions for Naturalization, 1906-1991; Record Group Title: Records of District Courts of the United States, 1685-2009; Record Group Number: RG 21, Description: Petitions, V· 1323-1325, No· 327901-328515, 1945, Ancestry.com. Anne Bloomfield, [Anne Field] [Anne Hanau] Gender: Female, Race: White, Birth Date: 27 Mar 1906, Birth Place: Schiffweiler, France [sic], Death Date: 24 Dec 1997, Father:
    Victor Hanau, Mother: Mina May, SSN: 361208715, Ancestry.com. U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007 ↩

Salomon Blumenfeld: My Cousin in Spain

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The life of Salomon Blumenfeld, the third child and third son of Abraham Blumenfeld II and Giedel Strauss, took a surprising (to me) turn and landed me in a country I had never before researched—Spain.

Salomon (also known as Scholem or Salli) was born on March 28, 1845, in Momberg.

Scholem Salli Blumenfeld birth record, Arcinsys Archives of Hessen, HHStAW Fonds 365 No 628, p. 14

According to one source, Salomon moved to Giessen, Germany, where he was the owner of a textile shop. Sometime before 1872 he married Caecilie Erlanger, the daughter of Moritz Erlanger and Rosa Wertheim. She was born on May 16, 1849, in Marburg.1

Salomon and Caecilie had two children. Thekla Blumenfeld was born on March 18, 1872, in Giessen,2 and her brother Felix was born there on May 2, 1873.3 I am very grateful to Michael Moritz for locating their birth records. Michael has been an immense help in my research of Salomon and his family, as you will see more of below. I never would have been able to decipher these records except for Salomon’s name at the bottom without Michael’s help.

Thekla Blumenfeld birth record, Matrikel, 1823-1909 Authors: Jüdische Gemeinde Gießen (KrSt. Gießen) (Main Author), Image 903 at https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CS8H-QH3X?cat=834331

Matrikel, 1823-1909 Authors: Jüdische Gemeinde Gießen (KrSt. Gießen) (Main Author), Image 923, found at https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CS8H-Q457?cat=834331

Then just seven months after giving birth to her son Felix, Caecilie Erlanger Blumenfeld died on December 31, 1873, or possibly January 1, 1874 (secondary sources vary, and even with Michael’s help, I cannot find a death record for her). She was only 24 years old, and Salomon was left with two babies, one just seven months old and the other not yet two years old. How was he able to care for those children? Or did he turn their care over to someone else—perhaps Caecile’s family?

I am not sure, but just over two years later on April 18, 1876, he married Emma Bendheim. Emma, the daughter of Loeb Bendheim and Carolina Lichtenstein, was born in Auerbach, Germany, on June 19, 1854.

Salomon Blumenfeld and Emma Bendheim marriage, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Signatur: 330, Year Range: 1876, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930

Salomon and Emma had one child together, a son Moritz, born on January 24, 1877, in Giessen, Germany.4

Sometime within the next six years or so, Salomon, Emma, and Moritz left Germany and moved to Huelva, Spain. It took some digging and the help of Michael Moritz to figure that out. Let me explain my research path.

In researching Salomon and Emma’s son Moritz Blumenfeld, I kept running across another man named Moritz Blumenfeld who was born in 1887 whereas my cousin Moritz was born in 1877. Numerous trees on Ancestry indicated that my Moritz Blumenfeld died in World War I, fighting for Germany, but my research of the relevant sources revealed that those trees were confusing the 1887 Moritz Blumenfeld with my cousin Moritz. I couldn’t, however, find any death record for my Moritz.

So I posted a question on Tracing the Tribe that included the marriage record for my Moritz (more on that below), and Michael Moritz provided the answer. What I couldn’t decipher on that record was that Moritz was living in Huelva, Spain at the time of his marriage in 1903, not in Germany where he was born and where he was married.

Snip of Moritz Blumenfeld’s marriage record showing he was living in Huelva, Spain. Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Signatur: 357, 1903, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930

Michael then searched on FamilySearch for Blumenfeld in Spain and found numerous records indicating that Salomon Blumenfeld, now known as Emanuel or Manuel Blumenfeld, his wife Emma, and their son Moritz, known in Spain as Mauricio, had been living in Huelva, Spain, since sometime in the early 1880s. Here, for example, is the 1888-1889 register for Huelva listing Manuel and Emma Blumenfelt [sic], indicating that they had been residing there for nine years (the last column on the right). (Emma was not 24, but rather 34, in 1888, and Manuel/Salomon would have been 43, not 42.)

“España, Provincia de Huelva, registros municipales, 1760-1950,” database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33SQ-GPJG-SPC?cc=2015357&wc=32PD-K68%3A336532701%2C336532702%2C336623501 : 20 December 2018), Huelva > Huelva > Padrones 1888-1889 > image 761 of 883; archivos municipales, Huelva (municipal archives, Huelva).

This is the 1894-1897 register showing Manuel, Emma, and Mauricio Blumenfels [sic] living in Huelva; this one says they’d been there for ten years. There is no sign of Thekla or Felix, the children born from Salomon/Manuel’s marriage to Caecilie Erlanger.

“España, Provincia de Huelva, registros municipales, 1760-1950,” database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33SQ-GPXW-SHPB?cc=2015357&wc=32PD-ZNL%3A336532701%2C336532702%2C336629901 : 20 December 2018), Huelva > Huelva > Padrones 1905-1906 > image 430 of 1083; archivos municipales, Huelva (municipal archives, Huelva).

What would have taken Salomon/Manuel to Spain and specifically Huelva, Spain? Huelva is a port city in southwestern Spain in Andalusia. It experienced tremendous growth in the 1870s and afterward due to the important copper mines located to its north owned by a British mining company, Rio Tinto. The Andalucia website described the impact of the mining industry on Huelva in the following terms:

Huelva was declared provincial capital in 1833 and by the end of the 19th century was undergoing a massive transformation with the influx of foreign capital from mining interests. Its main function as a maritime port became secondary to its industrial importance as mining activities grew, based on the exploitation of the Río Tinto mines by the Río Tinto Company and five other British mining firms. 

The mining companies changed the architectural face of Huelva, building industrial structures like the wharfs in the port used for unloading minerals, workshops and the railway. Culturally, Huelva underwent a revival and cultivated a more cosmopolitan atmosphere with the arrival of mainly British and German workers. This was a time of great surplus wealth, which was lavished on elegant edifices in the centre….

The Spanish records that appear above indicate that Manuel was a “sastre” or a tailor, so it would not appear that his specific occupation drew him to Huelva. Perhaps Salomon was drawn by the city’s growth and the potential for personal prosperity. Maybe he just needed to leave behind the tragedy of losing his first wife.

He certainly wasn’t drawn to Huelva for its Jewish community. Although Spain had once been a center for Jewish life, that ended with the Inquisition in the late 15th century when most Jews either converted or left the country or practiced Judaism in hiding or were killed. Even today there are only about 50,000 Jews in all of Spain, and they tend to live in the bigger cities such as Madrid and Barcelona, but not in Huelva or even in Seville, the closest big city to Huelva.

That may explain why Salomon and Emma’s son Moritz/Mauricio returned to Germany to marry. On February 15, 1903, he married Rosa Bendheim in Auerbach, Germany. Rosa was the daughter of Jonas Bendheim and Julie Kapp and was born in Auerbach on September 28, 1883. Jonas Bendheim was a first cousin to Moritz’s mother Emma Bendheim, making Moritz and Rosa second cousins as well as husband and wife.

Marriage record of Moritz Blumenfeld and Rosa Bendheim, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Signatur: 357, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930

Moritz and Rosa returned to Huelva to live after they married and had one child, a daughter Gertrudis, born in Huelva, Spain, on December 17, 1903.5

The last record I have for Salomon, Emma, and Moritz is the 1905-1906 register for Huelva. It shows that no one in the household had an occupation.

“España, Provincia de Huelva, registros municipales, 1760-1950,” database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33SQ-GPXW-SHPB?cc=2015357&wc=32PD-ZNL%3A336532701%2C336532702%2C336629901 : 20 December 2018), Huelva > Huelva > Padrones 1905-1906 > image 430 of 1083; archivos municipales, Huelva (municipal archives, Huelva).

I did find a 1922 ship manifest for Moritz’s wife Rosa and daughter Gertrudis that indicates that Gertrudis was living in Kassel, Germany, but Rosa was living in Seville, and that both were traveling from Hamburg to Seville.6

Another document also indicated that Gertrudis once lived in Kassel, but had left in 1921.

Arolsen Archives, Digital Archive; Bad Arolsen, Germany; Lists of Persecutees 2.1.1.1, Reference Code: 02010101 oS, Ancestry.com. Free Access: Europe, Registration of Foreigners and German Persecutees, 1939-1947

If Rosa was living in Seville, perhaps Salomon, Emma, and Moritz had also moved there sometime after 1905-1906. Or perhaps one or more of them had died by 1922. Unfortunately I cannot locate any record of their deaths nor do I have any record of Rosa’s death. I contacted someone in Seville, but he was unable to find any record of my Blumenfeld family living or dying there. I also asked a native of Seville who now lives in the US and is the son-in-law of our close friends to see if he could find anything, but he also had no luck. So I think I may never find a record for the deaths of Salomon/Manuel Blumenfeld, his wife Emma, or his son Moritz/Mauricio or his wife Rosa.

But I do know what happened to Salomon and Emma’s granddaughter Gertrudis Blumenfeld. In 1922 she married Maximo Jose Kahan. He was born Maximilian Josef Kahn, son of Isidor Kahn and Emma Nussbaum, on August 11, 1897, in Frankfurt, Germany.7

In about 1920, Maximilian left Germany and settled in Madrid, where he became Maximo Jose Kahan. He became a successful writer of essays and books and a frequent contributor to magazines and newspapers. How and where he met Gertrudis is not known. But soon after they married, they moved to Toledo, Spain. Then he and Gertrudis left Spain during the Spanish Civil War and immigrated to Mexico in about 1939.

It appears that Gertrudis remained in Mexico for the rest of her life, dying there on February 3, 1964, at the age of 60.

Gertrudis Blumenfeld Kahn, death record, Archivo de Registro Civil de Distrito Federal (Civil Registry Archives); Federal District, Mexico, Year: 1959 – 1964, Ancestry.com. Federal District, Mexico, Civil Registration Deaths, 1861-1987

Maximo, however, left Mexico (and presumably Gertrudis) and immigrated to Argentina, where he died on July 20, 1953. He was 55. As far as I can tell, Gertrudis and Maximo did not have children.

It was a challenge and fun to dive into a brand new country. Now I hope I can learn what happened to Salomon/Manuel, Emma, Moritz/Mauricio and Rosa Blumenfeld.

But in the meantime, what about Salomon’s two children with his first wife Caecile Erlanger, Thekla and Felix? What happened to them?

To be continued…

 

 

  1. I cannot locate any original records for the dates of either Caecilie’s birth or her marriage to Salomon, but those are the dates incorporated into numerous secondary sources, including JewishGen and several trees on Ancestry and MyHeritage. ↩
  2.  Thekla Blumenfeld, Gender: weiblich (Female), Age: 22, Birth Date: 18 Mrz 1872 (18 Mar 1872), Marriage Date: 15 Jun 1894, Marriage Place: Marburg, Hessen (Hesse), Deutschland (Germany), Civil Registration Office: Marburg, Father: Salomon Blumenfeld, Mother: Cäcilie Blumenfeld, Spouse: Max Grünbaum, Certificate Number: 47, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 915; Laufende Nummer: 5607, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930 ↩
  3.  Felix Blumenfeld, Age: 29, Birth Date: 2 Mai 1873 (2 May 1873), Marriage Date: 22 Aug 1902, Marriage Place: Frankfurt am Main, Hessen (Hesse), Deutschland (Germany), Civil Registration Office: Frankfurt am Main, Father: Salomon Blumenfeld
    Mother: Cäcilie Blumenfeld, Spouse: Thekla Wertheim, Certificate Number: 1776, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 903, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930 ↩
  4. Moritz Blumenfeld marriage record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Signatur: 357, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930 ↩
  5. Gertrude Blumenfeld, Gender: weiblich (Female), Nationality: Deutsch Juden
    Residence Age: 17, Record Type: Residence, Birth Date: 17 Dez 1903 (17 Dec 1903)
    Birth Place: Bluelva (Spanien. Last Residence: Kassel, Sojourn Start Date: 1 Aug 1921
    Residence Place: Kassel Kassel, Notes: Foreigners who were living in the location during the war – permanently or temporarily, Reference Number: 02010101 oS
    Document ID: 70442412, Arolsen Archives, Digital Archive; Bad Arolsen, Germany; Lists of Persecutees 2.1.1.1, Ancestry.com. Free Access: Europe, Registration of Foreigners and German Persecutees, 1939-1947 ↩
  6. Rose and Gertrudis Blumenfeld, ship manifest, Staatsarchiv Hamburg; Hamburg, Deutschland; Hamburger Passagierlisten; Volume: 373-7 I, VIII A 1 Band 289; Page: 1395; Microfilm No.: K_1844, Description Month: Band 289 (30 Sep 1922 – 10 Okt 1922, 10 Aug 1922 – 5 Sep 1922), Staatsarchiv Hamburg. Hamburg Passenger Lists, 1850-1934 ↩
  7. Maximilian Josef Kahn, birth record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 903; Signatur: 903_9188, Year Range: 1897, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901 ↩