Category Archives: Germany

Friederike Blumenfeld Schoen, Part I: Her Life and Her Children

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In my telling of the Blumenfeld saga, I am now up to Friederike Blumenfeld, the eighth child of Isaac Blumenfeld I and his second wife Gelle Strauss. Friederike was born November 2, 1858, in Momberg. Since Isaac and Gelle’s ninth child, Sara, died as a young child, Friederike was the youngest of their children to survive to adulthood, and her story is the final chapter in the story of the family of Isaac Blumenfeld I.

Friederike Blumenfeld birth record, Geburtsregister der Juden von Momberg (Neustadt) 1850-1874 (HHStAW Abt. 365 Nr. 608)AutorHessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv, WiesbadenErscheinungsjahr1850-1874, p. 5

Friederike married Mannes Schoen on January 28, 1884, in Niederurff, Germany. Mannes, the son of Wolf Schoen and Sarah Wallach, was born in Bischhausen, Germany, on May 14, 1852. Mannes was living in Niederurff at the time of their marriage.

Marriage of Friederike Blumenfeld and Mannes Schoen, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 920; Laufende Nummer: 6193, Year Range: 1884
Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930

Friederike and Mannes had five children, four sons and one daughter.

First born was Jakob, born on January 22, 1885, in Niederurff.

Jakob Schoen birth record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 920; Laufende Nummer: 6170, Year Range: 1885, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901

The only daughter, Auguste, was born in Niederurff on August 29, 1886.

Auguste Schoen birth record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 920; Laufende Nummer: 6171, Year Range: 1886, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901

Friederike and Mannes’ third child Willy was born April 10, 1888, in Niederurff. Sadly, he died on July 16, 1895, when he was only seven years old.

Willy Schoen birth record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 920; Laufende Nummer: 6173, Year Range: 1888, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901

Willy Schoen, death record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Personenstandsregister Sterberegister; Bestand: 6246; Laufende Nummer: 920, Year Range: 1895, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Deaths, 1851-1958

Moses, the fourth child, was born in Niederurff on July 6, 1890.

Moses Schoen birth record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 920; Laufende Nummer: 6175, Year Range: 1890, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901

And finally, the last child was Isaak, born June 25, 1893, also in Niederurff.

Isaak Schoen birth record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 920; Laufende Nummer: 6178, Year Range: 1893, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901

Their father Mannes died on July 7, 1913, in Niederurff. He was 61 years old.

Mannes Schoen death record, Standesamt Niederurff Sterbenebenregister 1913 (HStAMR Best. 920 Nr. 6264)AutorHessisches Staatsarchiv MarburgErscheinungsortNiederurff, p 7

World War I started the following year when Jakob would have been 29, Moses 24, and Isaak 21. Although I have no military records to establish that the sons served in the war for Germany, Moses Schoen’s son Kurt stated in an interview with the United States Holocaust Memorial and Museum that his father had served in World War I and was awarded an Iron Cross.1 In addition, Richard Bloomfield located an obituary for Jakob Schoen that mentioned his membership in the Reichsbund Jüdischer
Frontsoldaten [National Association of Jewish Frontline Soldiers], indicating that he also served for Germany in World War I.2  Perhaps their brother Isaak also served, but I’ve yet to locate any evidence of his service.

None of the children married until after the war ended. Jakob was the first to marry. He married Maria Anna (later identified as Johanna or Hannah) Freimark on June 10, 1919, in Frankfurt. Maria Anna was born in Homburg am Main on October 3, 1888, to Leopold Freimark and Frieda Lustig.

Marriage record of Jakob Schoen and Maria Anna Freimark, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 903, Year Range: 1919, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930

Jakob and Maria Anna had one child, a daughter Ruth, born in Frankfurt on January 1, 1924.3 If there were other children, I’ve yet to locate records for them.

Jakob’s sister Auguste married Willi Speier on November 26, 1920, in Niederurff. Willi, son of Julius Speier and Jettchen Rosenbach, was born September 24, 1893, in Kassel, Germany.

Marriage record of Auguste Schoen and Willi Speier, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 920; Laufende Nummer: 6226, Year Range: 1917-1924, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930

Auguste and Willi had one child, a son Julius, born August 10, 1922, in Niederurff.4 As with Jakob, if there were other children born to Auguste and Willi, I’ve yet to locate records for them.

Moses (also known as Moritz) Schoen married Else Freimark on February 13, 1923, in Kassel, Germany. Moses and Else had three children. Alice was born on January 14, 1924, in Kassel. Manfred was born on September 13, 1926, in Kassel. And Leopold (later known as Kurt Leopold) was born on December 14, 1927, in Kassel.5

Trees on Ancestry and Geni and a genealogy that Richard Bloomfield located done by a local Homburg historian named Dr. Leonhard Scherg have Else listed with the same parents as Jakob’s wife Maria Anna Freimark, Leopold Freimark and Frieda Lustig, meaning Moses married his brother Jakob’s sister-in-law. But Richard and I have not yet found any primary sources to corroborate that with absolute certainty.

However, Richard and I feel confident that Else was in fact Maria Anna’s younger sister and the child of Leopold Freimark and Frieda Lustig based on a few inferences. First, Leopold Freimark died on October 18, 1926. In the oral history interview Else’s son Kurt did for the USHMM,6 he mentioned that his maternal grandfather died shortly before he was born. As noted above, Kurt was born December 14, 1927.

In addition, Else and Moses’ third child was named Kurt Leopold, and given that in accordance with Ashkenazi Jewish tradition a child should be named for a close relative who has died, it would make sense that Else would have wanted her new son named for her recently deceased father. Also, Else’s daughter Alice later named one of her children Frances, perhaps for her grandmother Frieda Lustig.

And finally, on Else’s petition for naturalization, one of her supporting witnesses was Betty Kutz.7 In addition, on his 1938 ship manifest Moses Schoen listed his sister-in-law Betty Kutz as the person he was going to in the US. Betty Kutz was born Babette Freimark and was a daughter of Leopold Freimark and Frieda Lustig; thus, Betty would have been Else’s older sister.8

Thus, there seems to be several good reasons to believe that Else Freimark, wife of Moses Schoen, and Maria Anna Freimark, wife of Jakob Schoen, were also sisters. An actual record would be wonderful, but for now I am comfortable with that assumption.

The youngest child of Friederike and Mannes, Isaak, did not marry as far as I’ve been able to discover.

Friederike Blumenfeld Schoen died on May 25, 1927. Richard not only located her death record, but also a page describing her gravestone.

Friedericke Blumenfeld Schoen death record, LAGIS Hessian Vital Records,Standesamt Treysa Sterbenebenregister 1927 (HStAMR Best. 920 Nr. 8076)AutorHessisches Staatsarchiv MarburgErscheinungsortTreysaErscheinungsjahr1927, p. 44

The German inscription on her gravestone says:

Hier ruht:

Franziska Schön

geb. Blumenfeld,

geb. 2. 11. 1856,

gest. 25. 5. 1927.

This translates to

Franziska Schön

born Blumenfeld,

born November 2, 1856

died May 25, 1927.

(The birth date is incorrect as she was born on November 2, 1858, and that error is noted in the commentary on the page.)

The Hebrew inscription translates as follows:

a dear and pure woman,

perfect all their days:

Freidche, daughter of Yitzchak ha-Kohen.

She went into her eternity (on) 23.

Ijjar 687 ndk Z. (=25.05.1927).

Your soul is bound in the bond of life.

Friederike was 68 years old when she died; her death record states that she died in the Hephata Hospital in Treysa.  She was survived by her four surviving children, Jakob, Auguste, Moses, and Isaak, their spouses, and at least five grandchildren. They all  had to face the rise of the Nazis in the following decade, as we will see.

TO BE CONTINUED

  1. Oral History interview with Kurt L. Schoen, July 24, 2002, Accession Number: 1997.A.0441.512 | RG Number: RG-50.462.0512, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of the Gratz College Holocaust Oral History Archive, found at https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn566135 (hereinafter referred to as Kurt Schoen Oral History Interview). ↩
  2. Der Israelit, July 1, 1937, p. 11 ↩
  3. Entry at Yad Vashem, found at https://yvng.yadvashem.org/nameDetails.html?language=en&itemId=11628404&ind=1 ↩
  4. Julius Speier, Social Security Number 079-24-2442, Birth Date 10 Aug 1922, Issue year Before 1951, Issue State New York, Last Residence 33162, Miami, Miami-Dade, Florida, USA, Death Date 22 Nov 1992, Social Security Administration; Washington D.C., USA; Social Security Death Index, Master File, Ancestry.com. U.S., Social Security Death Index, 1935-2014 ↩
  5. Moses Schon, Declaration of Intention, The National Archives at Philadelphia; Philadelphia, PA; NAI Title: Declarations of Intention For Citizenship, 1/19/1842 – 10/29/1959; NAI Number: 4713410; Record Group Title: Records of District Courts of the United States, 1685-2009; Record Group Number: 21, Description
    Description: (Roll 555) Declarations of Intention For Citizenship, 1842-1959 (No 433201-434100), Ancestry.com. New York, U.S., State and Federal Naturalization Records, 1794-1943 ↩
  6. See Note 1, supra. ↩
  7. Else Schoen, Petition for Naturalization,  “New York, U.S. District Court Naturalization Records, 1824-1991”, database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QP76-DQ6K : 8 March 2021), Else Schoen or Freimark, 1940. ↩
  8. Moses Schoen, passenger manifest, The National Archives and Records Administration; Washington, D.C.; Passenger and Crew Lists of Vessels Arriving at and Departing from Ogdensburg, New York, 5/27/1948 – 11/28/1972; Microfilm Serial or NAID: T715, 1897-1957, Ancestry.com. New York, U.S., Arriving Passenger and Crew Lists (including Castle Garden and Ellis Island), 1820-1957. See also marriage record for Betty Freimark and Bernhard Kutz, “New York, New York City Marriage Records, 1829-1938”, database, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:243L-8BP : 20 June 2023), Bernhardt Kutz and Betty Freimark, 1912. ↩

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

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

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

Miki wrote:

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

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

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

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

Miki and her husband with the mayor of Jesberg

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Miki at the press conference in Munich

The site where the memorial to Aryeh Katzenstein will be installed

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

The files from the Munich Archives about the 1970 terrorist attack

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

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

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

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

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

 

Isaak Rosenberg: A Family With No Survivors

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The youngest child of Rebecca Blumenfeld and Mendel Rosenberg was their son Isaak. As we saw, Isaak was born in Rosenthal, Germany, on June 15, 1892, and on December 22, 1922, he married Bella Gans, daughter of Jacob Gans and Esther Ehrenreich, in Niederaula, Germany.

Isaak and Bella had one child, a daughter Rita Rosenberg, born on April 29, 1924 in Frankfurt.

Unfortunately, all of them—Isaak, Bella, and Rita—were murdered by the Nazis. According to Yad Vashem, Isaak was deported from Frankfurt on August 10, 1942, and sent to the concentration camp in Majdanek, Poland, where he was murdered. His wife Bella’s nephew Israel Gans filed this Page of Testimony at Yad Vashem in his memory. The Hebrew written where it says “circumstances of death” merely says “perished in the Holocaust.” (Thank you to Hanna Gafni of Tracing the Tribe on Facebook for translating this line on this Page and the two below.)

The information available regarding the fates of Bella and Rita is far less specific. The Gedenbuch (Memorial Book) only reports that Bella was deported to Poland and killed there; perhaps she was deported on the same date as Isaak and to the same camp, but that isn’t stated. Nor does the Page of Testimony filed at Yad Vashem by Bella’s nephew Israel Gans provide any further details. The line for “Circumstances of Death” translates as “deported to Poland. Her fate is not known. Perished in the Holocaust.”

The information about Rita is even more limited. The Gedenbuch doesn’t even have information about where she was deported to or killed nor does her cousin Israel Gans’ Page of Testimony for her. The Hebrew written where it says “circumstances of death” says “perished in the Holocaust.”


This may be the first time that I have learned of family members who were killed in the Holocaust for whom there are no recorded details of their fates. Did Bella and Rita accompany Isaak to Majdanek? Or was the family separated? The lack of information somehow makes their deaths sting even more. The fact that the Nazis didn’t even document their murders makes it more likely that those deaths would have been somehow swept under the rug. So it is my task here to make sure that their lives and their murders are not forgotten.

That brings me to the end of the story of Rebecca Blumenfeld Rosenberg, the seventh child of Isaak Blumenfeld I and Gelle Strauss. Although Rebecca lost one son, Willi, as a young adult, and her son Isaak and his family were all murdered in the Holocaust, she was survived by seven grandchildren and has descendants still living today in Israel and the United States.

Next I turn to Rebecca’s younger sister, Friederike Blumenfeld, the eighth child of Isaak Blumenfeld I and Gelle Strauss and the last of their children to live to adulthood.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Theodore Jack Rosenberg a/k/a Jakob Teo Rosenberg, Declaration of Intention, The National Archives at Philadelphia; Philadelphia, PA; NAI Title: Declarations of Intention For Citizenship, 1/19/1842 – 10/29/1959; NAI Number: 4713410; Record Group Title: Records of District Courts of the United States, 1685-2009; Record Group Number: 21, Description: (Roll 561) Declarations of Intention For Citizenship, 1842-1959 (No 438701-439600), Ancestry.com. New York, U.S., State and Federal Naturalization Records, 1794-1943

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

National Archives at Washington, DC; Washington, D.C.; Seventeenth Census of the United States, 1950; Year: 1950; Census Place: New York, New York, New York; Roll: 4547; Page: 3; Enumeration District: 31-1731, Ancestry.com. 1950 United States Federal Census

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

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

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

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

Berta Blum Rosenberg obit

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

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

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

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

Isn’t genealogy fun?

  1. Amanda also shares some DNA with my husband, but given the different ancestral homes of each of them and the very small amount of DNA shared, it is likely just endogamy. ↩
  2. Theodore Jack Rosenberg a/k/a Jakob Teo Rosenberg, Declaration of Intention, The National Archives at Philadelphia; Philadelphia, PA; NAI Title: Declarations of Intention For Citizenship, 1/19/1842 – 10/29/1959; NAI Number: 4713410; Record Group Title: Records of District Courts of the United States, 1685-2009; Record Group Number: 21, Description: (Roll 561) Declarations of Intention For Citizenship, 1842-1959 (No 438701-439600), Ancestry.com. New York, U.S., State and Federal Naturalization Records, 1794-1943 ↩
  3. Moritz Rosenberg, Declaration of Intention, (Roll 548) Declarations of Intention For Citizenship, 1842-1959 (No 426401-427400), Ancestry.com. New York, U.S., State and Federal Naturalization Records, 1794-1943 ↩
  4. Ibid. ↩
  5. Moritz Rosenberg and family, 1940 US Census, Year: 1940; Census Place: New York, New York, New York; Roll: m-t0627-02670; Page: 1A; Enumeration District: 31-1885, Ancestry.com. 1940 United States Federal Census. See image below. ↩
  6. Ruth R Rosenberg, Gender Female, Marriage License Date 12 Jun 1945
    Marriage License Place Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA, Spouse Henry M Hammer. License Number 14437, New York City Municipal Archives; New York, New York; Borough: Manhattan; Volume Number: 21, Ancestry.com. New York, New York, U.S., Marriage License Indexes, 1907-2018 ↩
  7. Henry Hammerschlag World War II draft registration, National Archives at St. Louis; St. Louis, Missouri; Wwii Draft Registration Cards For New York City, 10/16/1940 – 03/31/1947; Record Group: Records of the Selective Service System, 147, Ancestry.com. U.S., World War II Draft Cards Young Men, 1940-1947 ↩
  8. Henry Hammer and family, 1950 US census, National Archives at Washington, DC; Washington, D.C.; Seventeenth Census of the United States, 1950; Year: 1950; Census Place: New York, New York, New York; Roll: 4377; Page: 19; Enumeration District: 31-2183, Ancestry.com. 1950 United States Federal Census ↩
  9. Theodore Rogers, Gender Male, Marriage License Date 1960, Marriage License Place Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA, Spouse Sylvia Kapp, License Number 11021, New York City Municipal Archives; New York, New York; Borough: Manhattan, Ancestry.com. New York, New York, U.S., Marriage License Indexes, 1907-2018 ↩
  10. Kappenmacher, ship manifest, The National Archives and Records Administration; Washington, D.C.; Passenger and Crew Lists of Vessels Arriving at and Departing from Ogdensburg, New York, 5/27/1948 – 11/28/1972; Microfilm Serial or NAID: T715, 1897-1957, Ship or Roll Number: Marine Tiger, Ancestry.com. New York, U.S., Arriving Passenger and Crew Lists (including Castle Garden and Ellis Island), 1820-1957.  Erna Kapp, SSACI, Ancestry.com. U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007. ↩
  11. Theodore Rogers, Birth Date 17 Jan 1921, Death Date 13 Nov 1971, SSN 116105571, Enlistment Branch ARMY, Enlistment Date 3 Mar 1943, Discharge Date 23 Dec 1945, Ancestry.com. U.S., Department of Veterans Affairs BIRLS Death File, 1850-2010 ↩
  12. Moritz Rosenberg, SSDI, Social Security Administration; Washington D.C., USA; Social Security Death Index, Master File, Ancestry.com. U.S., Social Security Death Index, 1935-2014. Headstone at Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/36414768/moritz-rosenberg: accessed 07 August 2023), memorial page for Moritz Rosenberg (15 Sep 1887–Sep 1976), Find a Grave Memorial ID 36414768, citing Cedar Park Cemetery, Paramus, Bergen County, New Jersey, USA; Maintained by dalya d (contributor 46972551). ↩
  13. Berta Rosenberg, SSDI, Social Security Administration; Washington D.C., USA; Social Security Death Index, Master File, Ancestry.com. U.S., Social Security Death Index, 1935-2014 ↩
  14. Henry Hammer, Age 67, Birth Date 29 Mar 1919, Death Date 17 May 1986
    Death Place North Bergen, Hudson, New Jersey, USA, New Jersey State Archives; Trenton, New Jersey; New Jersey, Death Indexes, 1904-2000, Ancestry.com. New Jersey, U.S., Death Index, 1848-1878, 1901-2017 ↩

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  1. Kurt Rosenberg, World War II draft registration, National Archives at St. Louis; St. Louis, Missouri; Wwii Draft Registration Cards For New York City, 10/16/1940 – 03/31/1947; Record Group: Records of the Selective Service System, 147, Ancestry.com. U.S., World War II Draft Cards Young Men, 1940-1947 ↩
  2. Kurt Rosenberg, 1940 US census, Year: 1940; Census Place: New York, Queens, New York; Roll: m-t0627-02721; Page: 7A; Enumeration District: 41-105, Ancestry.com. 1940 United States Federal Census ↩ ↩
  3.  New York City Municipal Archives; New York, New York; Borough: Queens, Ancestry.com. New York, New York, U.S., Marriage License Indexes, 1907-2018 ↩
  4. Kurt Rosenberg and family, 1950 US census, United States of America, Bureau of the Census; Washington, D.C.; Seventeenth Census of the United States, 1950; Record Group: Records of the Bureau of the Census, 1790-2007; Record Group Number: 29; Residence Date: 1950; Home in 1950: New York, Queens, New York; Roll: 4301; Sheet Number: 10; Enumeration District: 41-1012, Ancestry.com. 1950 United States Federal Census ↩
  5. Obituary for Kurt Rosenberg, Daily News, New York, New York, Thu, Jan 29, 1970
    Page 318. Kurt Rosenberg, Gender Male, Birth Date 20 Apr 1914, Death Date Jan 1970
    Claim Date 7 Mar 1970, SSN 072164680, Ancestry.com. U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007 ↩
  6. Bella Marx, Social Security Number 079-22-4508, Birth Date 8 Jun 1891, Issue year Before 1951, Issue State New York, Last Residence 11375, Flushing, Queens, New York, USA, Death Date Dec 1985, Social Security Administration; Washington D.C., USA; Social Security Death Index, Master File, Ancestry.com. U.S., Social Security Death Index, 1935-2014; Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/77845632/bella-marx: accessed 29 May 2023), memorial page for Bella Marx (unknown–22 Dec 1985), Find a Grave Memorial ID 77845632, citing Mount Hebron Cemetery, Flushing, Queens County, New York, USA; Maintained by Athanatos (contributor 46907585). ↩
  7. Arthur Marx, Age 73, Birth Date abt 1890, Death Date 14 Nov 1963, Death Place Queens, New York, New York, USA, Certificate Number 14536, Ancestry.com. New York, New York, U.S., Death Index, 1949-1965 ↩

Blanka Rosenberg and Hugo Blumenfeld, Or How I Learned I’d Made An Error

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Searching for information about Blanka Rosenberg, the first child born to Rebecca Blumenfeld and Mendel Rosenberg, revealed a mistake and a gap in my earlier research, and I am indebted to my cousin Richard Bloomfield for helping me to correct that mistake and find accurate information about Blanka and her family.

So let me take you down my crooked path. When I started searching for information about Blanka, I easily found her birth and death records on Ancestry.  I knew it was the right death record because the birthdate and birth place matched Blanka, and I could see on that death record that Blanka had married someone named Blumenfeld.

Blanka Rosenberg birth record, LAGIS Hessen Archives, Standesamt Rosenthal Geburtsnebenregister 1882 (HStAMR Best. 922 Nr. 9638)AutorHessisches Staatsarchiv MarburgErscheinungsortRosenthalErscheinungsjahr1882, p. 35

Blanka Rosenberg Blumenfeld death record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Personenstandsregister Sterberegister; Bestand: 7389; Laufende Nummer: 923
Year Range: 1932, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Deaths, 1851-1958

But I could not find a marriage record for Blanka. I noticed that several Ancestry trees had her married to Hugo Blumenfeld—which I couldn’t decipher myself from the death record— but even with his full name, I couldn’t find a marriage record.

I had a Hugo Blumenfeld on my tree; he was the son of Abraham Blumenfeld III and Friedericke Rothschild and the grandson of Isaak Blumenfeld I and his first wife, Frommet Kugelmann. But when I’d researched that Hugo, I had concluded that he never married or had children. I now realized I might have been wrong if those Ancestry trees for Blanka Rosenberg were right.

But since I don’t trust the trees on Ancestry without corroboration with actual records or at least reliable secondary sources, I was reluctant to add Hugo Blumenfeld as Blanka Rosenberg’s husband. I turned to my cousin Richard Bloomfield for help, and he first pointed out that Blanka’s death record revealed that her husband’s name was in fact Hugo. This was another time that my struggles with reading the German script hampered the progress of my research.

So I was now persuaded that Blanka had married a man named Hugo Blumenfeld, but was it the same Hugo whom I had concluded had never married? And where was their marriage record? I had assumed that Blanka would have married in Rosenthal where her family lived since almost all the German Jewish marriages I’d researched took place where the bride’s family lived, but my search through the Hessen archives for Rosenthal did not turn up a marriage record.

Richard, however, located the marriage in the records for the town of Frankenau, which is fifteen miles from Rosenthal. They were married there on July 23, 1907.  And that record confirmed that Blanka was the daughter of Rebecca Blumenfeld and Mendel Rosenberg and that Hugo was the son of Abraham Blumenfeld III and Friedericke Rothschild.

Marriage of Hugo Blumenfeld and Blanka Rosenberg, Arcinsys Hessen Archives, HHStAW Fonds 365 No 175, p. 11

Blanka and Hugo were, of course, therefore related. They were both grandchildren of Isaak Blumenfeld I, but only half-first cousins since Hugo’s father Abraham III was Isaak’s son from his first marriage and Blanka’s mother Rebecca was Isaak’s daughter from his second marriage.

With Richard’s help, I was able to locate three children born to Blanka and Hugo, all born in Frankenau. Julius was born on March 7, 1908. Erwin Jacob was born on May 29, 1911, and Martin was born January 6, 1913 (all found on the same page in the Frankenau birth records).

Birth record of Julius Blumenfeld, Arcinsys Archives of Hessen, HHStAW Fonds 365 No 174, p. 25

Birth record of Erwin Jakob Blumenfeld, Arcinsys Archives of Hessen, HHStAW Fonds 365 No 174

Birth record of Martin Blumenfeld, Arcinsys Archives of Hessen, HHStAW Fonds 365 No 174

Blanka died before any of her sons were married. She was only fifty years old when she died on July 24, 1932, in Witzenhausen, Germany, which is about sixty miles northeast of Frankenau. From the death record (seen above), it appears that she and Hugo were living in Witzenhausen at the time of her death. According to a document Richard located, Hugo was teaching in a Jewish school there.1

Blanka’s middle son Erwin Jakob Rosenberg married Martha Schoendelen on September 21, 1938, in Hannover, Germany. Martha was born on June 17, 1915, in Krefeld, Germany. Erwin and Martha escaped from Nazi Germany and immigrated to the US on April 1, 1940.2

They settled in New York City where, at the time of the 1940 census, Erwin was looking for work as an auto mechanic.3 When he registered for the draft on October 16, 1940, he was working for A.E. Littman.

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

Erwin entered the US Army on June 25, 1943, and was stationed at Fort Meade in Maryland, where he petitioned for and was granted naturalization on December 15, 1943.

Erwin Jakob Blumenfeld Naturalization Petition, The National Archives at Philadelphia; Philadelphia, Pa; Petitions For Naturalization, 1903-1972; NAI Number: 654310; Record Group Title: Records of District Courts of the United States, 1685-2009; Record Group Number: 21
Description: Petitions 24751-25075, Ancestry.com. Maryland, U.S., Federal Naturalization Records, 1795-1931

In 1950, Erwin was working as a buyer for a wholesale clothing business, and he and Martha and their daughter were living in New York City.4 Erwin was 63 when he died on August 27, 1974.5 He was survived by his wife Martha, who died on November 6, 2006,6 and their daughter.

Blanka’s two other sons immigrated to Palestine/Israel in the 1930s. Julius arrived on August 23, 1934, and married Ettel Helfgott on March 26, 1940, in Haifa. On his naturalization application, Julius reported that his occupation was a well borer.

Julius Blumenfeld Palestine immigration file from the Israel State Archives, at https://www.archives.gov.il/en/

I don’t have an exact date for Martin’s arrival, but he married Carna Weinberg in Petah Tikvah on December 19, 1939, so must have arrived sometime before then. I have no further information about either Julius or Martin or their families at this point.

UPDATE! I now have some additional information about Julius. See my post here.

Martin Blumenfeld Palestine immigration file from the Israel State Archives, at https://www.archives.gov.il/en/

Although all three of his sons escaped from Nazi Germany in time, Hugo Blumenfeld himself was not as fortunate. He had remarried after Blanka died; his second wife was Frieda Stern, who was born on May 31, 1896, in Zimmersrode, Germany.7 I wrote back on February 8, 1922, that Hugo “was deported from Frankfurt to Theriesenstadt on August 14, 1942, and then to Auschwitz on October 16, 1944, where he was killed.” I did not know then that he was accompanied by his second wife Frieda and that she was also killed at Auschwitz.8 I also did not know that he was survived by three sons, all of whom had escaped from Nazi Germany.

I am so grateful to Richard Bloomfield for helping me not only to find information about our cousin Blanka Rosenberg, but also for helping me find information to correct and complete the story of our cousin Hugo Blumenfeld.

 

  1. Führer durch die Jüdische Gemeindeverwaltung und Wohlfahrtspflege in Deutschland 1932-1933, p. 180. (Guide to the Jewish Community Administration and Welfare in Germany 1932-1933). ↩
  2. Erwin Jakob Rosenberg, Declaration of Intention, The National Archives at Philadelphia; Philadelphia, PA; NAI Title: Declarations of Intention For Citizenship, 1/19/1842 – 10/29/1959; NAI Number: 4713410; Record Group Title: Records of District Courts of the United States, 1685-2009; Record Group Number: 21, Description: (Roll 648) Declarations of Intention For Citizenship, 1842-1959 (No 516701-517600), Ancestry.com. New York, U.S., State and Federal Naturalization Records, 1794-1943 ↩
  3. Erwin and Martha Blumenfeld, 1940 US census, Year: 1940; Census Place: New York, New York, New York; Roll: m-t0627-02641; Page: 9A; Enumeration District: 31-763, Ancestry.com. 1940 United States Federal Census ↩
  4. Erwin Blumenfeld, 1950 US census, United States of America, Bureau of the Census; Washington, D.C.; Seventeenth Census of the United States, 1950; Record Group: Records of the Bureau of the Census, 1790-2007; Record Group Number: 29; Residence Date: 1950; Home in 1950: New York, New York, New York; Roll: 4546; Sheet Number: 15; Enumeration District: 31-1703, Ancestry.com. 1950 United States Federal Census ↩
  5. Erwin Blumenfeld, Gender Male, Birth Date 29 May 1911, Death Date Aug 1974
    Claim Date 16 Sep 1974, SSN 093169515, Ancestry.com. U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007 ↩
  6. Martha Blumenfeld, Social Security Number 064-18-2853, Birth Date 27 Jun 1915
    Issue year Before 1951, Issue State New York, Last Residence 10034, New York, New York, New York, Death Date 6 Nov 2006, Social Security Administration; Washington D.C., USA; Social Security Death Index, Master File, Ancestry.com. U.S., Social Security Death Index, 1935-2014 ↩
  7. Birth record of Frieda Stern, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 920; Laufende Nummer: 9534, Year Range: 1896, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901 ↩
  8. Entry at Yad Vashem for Frieda Stern Blumenfeld, found at  https://yvng.yadvashem.org/nameDetails.html?language=en&itemId=11476884&ind=1 ↩

Rebecca Blumenfeld Rosenberg and Her Family, Part I

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It’s been a really, really long time since I continued the story of the children of my four times great-grandparents Abraham Blumenfeld and Geitel Katz (other than with the updates about those I’d already discussed). I left off with the story of the ten children of the second child (Isaak Blumenfeld I) of the oldest child (Moses Blumenfeld I) of the six children of my four-times great-grandparents.

Here’s a chart showing where I am in reporting on the descendants of Abraham and Geitel. As you can see, I have a long, long way to go.

I am now up to Isaak Blumenfeld’s eighth child, Rebecca Blumenfeld, who was born on August 23, 1856, in Momberg Germany.

LAGIS Hessen Archives, Geburtsregister der Juden von Momberg (Neustadt) 1850-1874 (HHStAW Abt. 365 Nr. 608), p. 4

On August 9, 1881, she married Mendel Rosenberg, son of Jacob Rosenberg and Betti Kaufmann. Mendel was born in Rosenthal, Germany, on May 19, 1854, and was the uncle of Emanuel Rosenberg, who later married Katinka Blumenfeld, Rebecca’s niece (her brother Gerson II’s daughter).

Rebecca Blumenfeld and Mendel Rosenberg marriage record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 915; Laufende Nummer: 6491, Year Range: 1881, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930

Rebecca and Mendel had five children.

Blanka was born in Rosenthal on July 9, 1882.

Blanka Rosenberg birth record, LAGIS Hessen Archives, Standesamt Rosenthal Geburtsnebenregister 1882 (HStAMR Best. 922 Nr. 9638)AutorHessisches Staatsarchiv MarburgErscheinungsortRosenthalErscheinungsjahr1882, p. 35

Joseph was born in Rosenthal on February 4, 1886.

Joseph Rosenberg birth record, LAGIS Hessen Archives, Standesamt Rosenthal Geburtsnebenregister 1886 (HStAMR Best. 922 Nr. 9642)AutorHessisches Staatsarchiv MarburgErscheinungsortRosenthalErscheinungsjahr1886, p. 7

Moritz was born in Rosenthal on September 15, 1887.

Moritz Rosenberg birth record, LAGIS Hessen Archives, Standesamt Rosenthal Geburtsnebenregister 1887 (HStAMR Best. 922 Nr. 9643), p. 40

Willi was born in Rosenthal on April 24, 1889.

Willi Rosenberg birth record, LAGIS Hessen Archives, Standesamt Rosenthal Geburtsnebenregister 1889 (HStAMR Best. 922 Nr. 9645)AutorHessisches Staatsarchiv MarburgErscheinungsortRosenthalErscheinungsjahr1889, p. 17

And finally, Isaak was born in Rosenthal on June 15, 1892.

Isaak Rosenberg birth record, LAGIS Hessen Archives, Standesamt Rosenthal Geburtsnebenregister 1892 (HStAMR Best. 922 Nr. 9648)AutorHessisches Staatsarchiv MarburgErscheinungsortRosenthalErscheinungsjahr1892, p. 32

For now I will just identify the spouses of those children and their marriage dates, and then I will return to their stories in subsequent posts.

Blanka married Hugo Blumenfeld on July 23, 1907, in Frankenau, Germany.

Marriage of Hugo Blumenfeld and Blanka Rosenberg, Arcinsys Hessen Archives, HHStAW Fonds 365 No 175, p. 11

Joseph married Bella Oppenheim on February 21, 1913, in Bad Hersfeld, Germany. They had one child, a son Kurt, born on April 20, 1914, in Sobernheim, Germany,1 a town in the Rhine Palatinate region of Germany about 160-170 miles from Bad Hersfeld and Momberg where Bella and Joseph were born, respectively.

Marriage of Joseph Rosenberg and Bella Oppenheim, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 907, Year Range: 1913, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930

Unfortunately, Rebecca and Mendel’s family then had two losses over the next two and a half years. Willi Rosenberg was only 25 when he died on December 31, 1914. I wondered whether he was killed fighting for Germany in World War I, but I’ve found no record indicating that that was the case.

Willi Rosenberg death record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Personenstandsregister Sterberegister; Signatur: 9757
Source Information
Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Deaths, 1851-1958

A year and a half later Rebecca Blumenfeld Rosenberg died in Rosenthal on June 6, 1915. She was 58 years old.

Rebecca Blumenfeld death record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Personenstandsregister Sterberegister; Signatur: 9757, Year Range: 1915, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Deaths, 1851-1958

Her son Moritz married Berta Blum on August 10, 1919, in Frankenau.

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

And then the family suffered another tragic loss when Joseph Rosenberg, the second oldest sibling, died at the age of 36 on May 4, 1922, as seen on his headstone below. Thank you to my cousin Michael Rosenberg for locating this image. According to the headstone, Joseph was a doctor.

Joseph was survived by his wife Bella Oppenheim and their son Kurt. More on their story in a post to come.

Finally, Isaac Rosenberg, the youngest child of Rebecca Blumenfeld and Mendel Rosenberg, married Bella Gans on December 22, 1922, in Niederaula, Germany.

saak Rosenberg marriage to Bella Gans, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 907; Laufende Nummer: 3665, Year Range: 1922, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930

When I look at the names of the daughter and the three daughters-in-law of Rebecca and Mendel—Blanka, Bella, Berta, and Bella—I have to wonder how confusing it must have been when they were all together. I can hear my mother-in-law running through the four names repeatedly before reaching the right one! (Click on the image immediately above to see the names of Rebecca’s family more clearly.)

Mendel Rosenberg died on December 22, 1928, in Marburg. He was 74 and was survived by three of his five children and, as we will see, many grandchildren.

Mendel Rosenberg death record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Personenstandsregister Sterberegister; Bestand: 5732; Laufende Nummer: 915, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Deaths, 1851-1958

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

The Magic of Finding Family Connections: Guest Post by My Cousin Ellen Mandelberg

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Just over a year ago, I wrote a post about the family of Moritz Blumenfeld, my second cousin, three times removed, and concluded at the end that none of his five children had had any children and that therefore there were no descendants. But I concluded that post by saying, “there is always the possibility that I just haven’t found those descendants yet.”

Well, a year later I heard from one of those descendants. A woman named Ellen Mandelberg contacted me and told me that she was the granddaughter of Moritz’s Blumenfeld’s daughter Flora Blumenfeld  Vorchheimer. You can imagine my delight. Moritz did have descendants. And Ellen shared with me several stories about Flora. I’ve invited her to tell those stories in her own voice as well as to share some of her photos. So today’s post is by my newly found fifth cousin Ellen.

Through the Google galaxy, and a spur-of-the-moment decision to see if there was anything out there written about my paternal grandmother, Flora Blumenfeld Vorchheimer, I found Amy’s blog earlier this year. I saw that she did not know that Flora had descendants and contacted her to share the good news. I am one of those descendants.

Flora Blumenfeld did have family; by marrying recent immigrant Felix Viktor Vorchheimer in late 1940 and raising his motherless son Umberto (who became Bert in Vineland, NJ, in the 40s), Flora became a wife, mother, constant helpmate on a chicken farm in Vineland, NJ, and, later, a deeply kind and loving grandmother to two little girls, my sister and me.

Flora Blumenfeld Vorchhiemer Courtesy of the family

Felix Vorchheimer Courtesy of the family

Here is a photograph of young Bert with his father Felix and maternal grandmother before Felix and Bert left for America in 1940; it was the last time he saw her. Flora’s father, Moritz, had suffered early maternal loss, as had Flora, and this must have made her especially sensitive as she raised young Bert. 

Umberto V. on left (age 7); Karolina Schild Kahn, Umberto’s maternal grandmother in middle; Felix V. on right.
Courtesy of the family

Flora became a loving Oma in 1958 and 1960, when Bert and his wife had two daughters, my sister and me.

Flora, Ellen, and Felix Vorchheimer c. 1958
Courtesy of the family

Flora cooked wonderful German-Jewish dishes, kept a candy dish of dark chocolates on the table for all guests, and was observant in a quiet and accepting way. Each time her family came to visit, before they left, she would bless us girls, placing her hands on our heads, whispering quietly in Hebrew a prayer that she never shared in English with us. At 4’10”, she would place her hands on our heads and murmur the blessing, making us feel protected and loved.

Flora blessing Ellen c 1970
Courtesy of the family

After Felix died, at age 69, in 1965, Flora lived with her older sister Gerda in an apartment in Washington Heights until her death in 1974 at age 75. Flora continued to be the epitome of chesed, or lovingkindness. Her memory is always a blessing.

Flora and Felix Vorchheimer in Vineland, New Jersey
Courtesy of the family

Years later, in 1996, a surprising encounter brought connections to my extended Blumenfeld family and much joy into my life. That year, my husband and I, after living in West Hartford, CT, for 14 years, and having belonged to a chavurah, decided we needed to join a synagogue that would provide a Hebrew school for our kids, who were 11 and 7 at that time. We decided to join Congregation Tikvoh Chadoshoh in Bloomfield, CT, which had been founded by German-Jewish refugees.

On Simchat Torah, with the music and everyone swirling about in small circles, I asked an “older” woman to dance; pulling people into the circle is something I’ve always done. The woman hesitated and asked me if I was Israeli.

Something possessed me to blurt out, “No, I’m not Israeli; I’m half-German, and my maiden name is Vorchheimer.”

The woman blurted out, “Vorchheimer, I know that name….I made the shidduch!”

I asked her, “Really? Tell me!”

So she continued, “Well, there was a widower with a little boy who had just come to America, and I matched up my cousin with him! I was at the wedding! In 1940!”

It felt like time stood still, and I said, “Was your cousin’s name Flora Blumenfeld?”

She said, “Well, yes, how do you know?!”

I pointed to my son, then 7, born on 2/4, my father’s birthday, and said, “Look, my son is the same exact age my father was when you last saw him in 1940! And that widower was my Opa Felix. Your cousin was my beloved Oma Flora, whom my daughter is named after!”

That woman, Grete Simon Spanier, was my grandmother Flora’s second cousin, as I later learned from Amy. They were both great-granddaughters of Isaak Blumenfeld and Gelle Strauss.

It was a remarkable and life-affirming moment. What are the odds? What if I’d just pulled Grete into the circle, and said, no, I’m not Israeli!?

Grete had been lost to my family for 56 years until that moment. Grete told me how Julius Vorchheimer, my grandfather’s brother, part of the Washington Heights community, had asked her if she had a relative who might be a suitable match for his recently-arrived brother Felix, and she’d thought of her cousin Flora.

Grete married Erwin Spanier shortly after attending my grandfather’s wedding to Flora and moved to West Hartford. She lost touch with Flora; Flora was very busy working on a chicken farm and raising a little boy who had been through much loss, and she was married to a man who had also seen too much loss, in both his native Germany and the place he moved to after he fought in WWI for the Germans, Milan, Italy, before emigrating to America in 1940.

The only part of this story I knew all my life was that my grandfather Felix had gotten his older brother Julius out of Dachau in 1934/35, going to the Nazis with some line (and probably money) about “How dare you imprison the brother of an Italian citizen?”

Felix freed his brother in 1934/5; Julius returned the favor by being a matchmaker in 1940. It was that chance Simchat Torah dance that brought Grete back to my family.

It felt like a curtain was pulled back on mystery, allowing me to see the invisible hand of fate in life.

Getting to know Grete and her daughters was an unexpected and wonderful gift. Grete’s memory is always a blessing.

I am so grateful to Ellen for finding me and sharing her story and photographs on my blog. The magic of family connections continues to inspire me to keep searching for all my long lost relatives.

 

 

Hilde Blumenfeld Meinrath: A Strong and Determined Woman

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Once again, a new cousin found my blog and helped me find information that I could not find through traditional research, this time because the family had ended up in Brazil. Not speaking Portuguese and thus not having easy access to any Brazilian sources, I had hit a brick wall when it came to the family of my cousin, Hilde Blumenfeld Meinrath, whom I wrote about here back on May 31, 2022.

On January 30, 2023, I heard from Ana Gabriela Meinrath, my fifth cousin, once removed, who left the a comment on my blog, telling me that she is the granddaughter of Hilde Blumenfeld Meinrath. Here is a chart showing my father’s connection to Hilde:

Hilde was the youngest of the three daughters of Salomon Blumenfeld and Malchen Levi: Gretel (born 1906), Jenny (born 1907), and Hilde (born 1911). Gabriela shared this wonderful photograph of the three sisters:

Jenny, Hilde, and Gretel Blumenfeld c. 1917 Courtesy of the family

Gabriela shared some family stories and many photographs and connected me to her uncle Roberto Meinrath, who added more information and stories about Hilde and her family. Roberto then connected me to Michael Katz, grandson of Gretel Blumenfeld Katz. Michael shared this photograph of Salomon and Malchen with all three of their daughters:

Salomon Blumenfeld and family Courtesy of the family

First, a summary of what I knew before Gabriela found me: I knew from my research that Salomon and Malchen and all three of their daughters survived the Holocaust by leaving Germany in time. Hilde, in fact, had left Germany as a seventeen year old in 1929, years before Hitler came to power. Later, she married Ludwig Meinrath, and eventually they immigrated to Brazil. Her parents followed her there, but later immigrated to the US where their second daughter Gretel and her family were living. The third daughter Jenny ended up in Israel.

But I had many questions left unanswered when I published that post on May 31, 2022, including why Hilde had left Germany in 1929 when she was only seventeen, how Hilde had met Ludwig and when they had married, why they had gone to Brazil, and whether Hilde and Ludwig had had more than one child. I also had questions about Hilde’s sister Jenny: had she married Siegmund Warburg, as many trees reported, and did she have children? And I knew few details about Gretel and her family.

Hilde had been interviewed by the Shoah Foundation, but unfortunately it was in Portuguese, and I couldn’t find anyone to translate it.

Most of my unanswered questions have now been answered, and I’ve learned a great deal more about the family from my cousins Roberto, Gabriela, Michael, and Simeon Spier. In addition, I’ve once again been working with my cousin Richard Bloomfield, and he was able to find someone to translate Hilde’s Shoah Foundation interview.

First, let me share the new information I have about Salomon Blumenfeld and his wife Malchen or Amalie Levi and their youngest daughter Hilde Blumenfeld Meinrath.

I learned from Hilde’s Shoah Foundation interview1 (as translated by Manuel Steccanella from Portuguese to German and then translated by Richard Bloomfield from German into English) that her father Salomon had served in the German military and fought for Germany during World War I, serving in France and Belgium, and leaving behind his wife and three young daughters. According to Hilde, when her father returned to Kirchhain from the war, he brought a hundred prisoners with him. Salomon owned a large hotel in Kirchhain, and the prisoners lived in the hotel and worked in Kirchhain. Hilde said that on Sundays, the prisoners butchered small animals and once made her a doublet from the fur to wear in the cold weather. They also shared with her the cookies and other baked goods they received from their families back in France and Belgium.

Gabriela shared this photograph of her great-grandfather’s hotel in Kirchhain:

Salomon Blumenfeld’s hotel in Kirchhain, Germany Courtesy of the family

Hilde reported that although her father was liberal in his Jewish observances, her mother was more orthodox. They would all go to synagogue on shabbat and on holidays, however. On Sundays, the children had religious instruction. But during the week they went to a non-religious school attended by Jews and non-Jews. Hilde would play with the non-Jewish children next door, and she recalled that their family was the only Jewish family on their street.2

After ten years at the local school in Kirchhain, Hilde went to study at the Elisabethschule in Marburg an der Lahn to study to become a librarian. She then worked at the Jewish library in Kassel for a year. At that time (1929), Hilde’s maternal uncle suggested that she come with him to the US to continue her studies.3 Hilde’s son Roberto had an additional insight into Hilde’s reason for going to the US. 4 he wrote that she left home at seventeen because she had socialist political opinions that created conflicts with her religious parents.  Her parents permitted her to go for a year.

Hilde lived with her uncle and his wife in New York for a year, learning English and secretarial skills. But when that year was up, Hilde did not return to Germany. By then she had saved enough money from working while going to school to get her own rented room, and she then got a job doing German-English translation for Siemens-Schuckert in their patent department. (According to Britannica, at that time Siemens was making medical diagnostic and therapeutic equipment, especially X-ray machines and electron microscopes.) She worked there for three years. At night she continued her studies.5

Hilde had serious intentions of staying in the US, as seen in her Declaration of Intention to become a US citizen, filed in 1931.

Hilde Blumenfeld Declaration of Intention. Courtesy of the family

But her life changed when she went back to Germany in 1932 to visit her family; she at first intended to stay for only six months and then return to New York, but then she met her future husband, Ludwig Meinrath, at a Purim ball and decided to stay in Germany longer.6 Here is a photograph of Hilde with Ludwig:

Hilde Blumenfeld and Ludwig Meinrath Courtesy of Richard Bloomfield

Hilde Blumenfeld and Ludwig Meinrath Courtesy of the family

Hilde began working for an American author named William March; Roberto told me that she was helping him with his manuscript for his book Company K. According to the description on Amazon.com, Company K is the “greatest First World War novel to come out of America[.] Company K is the unforgettable account of one US Marine company, from initial training, through to the trenches in France and post-war rehabilitation. Written in 1933 by a decorated Marine hero, this is an unflinching, visceral depiction of the brutal reality of war.”

William March was apparently quite fond of Hilde. Richard Bloomfield found this quote from a letter written by William March to John B. Waterman on February 18, 1933, as quoted in an article about March from the Fall 1977 issue of The Mississippi Quarterly written by R. S. Simmons (warning—it is quite sexist, but typical of its times): 7

[March] had this to say about the German secretary he had engaged: “As a matter of interest for the company’s records, Miss Blumenfeld is quite in the tradition of the Waterman Line not only for beauty but for intelligence.” He added whimsically: “Of course, the latter was merely a happy accident.”

It appeared that Hilde was not planning to leave Germany now that she was married and happily employed. But, of course, everything changed when Hitler came to power. More on that in the post to follow.

 

  1. The references in this post to the interview of Hilde Meinrath and the information contained therein are from her interview with the Shoah Foundation, March 18, 1998, which is in the archive of the University of Southern California Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education. For more information: http://dornsife.usc.edu/vhi ↩
  2. Ibid. ↩
  3. Ibid. ↩
  4. All the information in this post attributed to Roberto Meinrath as well as the quotations were shared through emails sent between February 11 and February 16, 2023. ↩
  5. See Note 1, supra. ↩
  6. See Note 1, supra. ↩
  7. R.S. Simmons, “William March’s ‘Personal Letter:’ Fact into Fiction,” The Mississippi Quarterly (Fall 1977), p. 625, 629, found at https://www.jstor.org/stable/26474519 ↩

Rudolph Meyer: “A Great Man”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rudolph Meyer during World War II. Courtesy of the family

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Albert Meyer Courtesy of the family

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

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

A Great Man

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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