Category Archives: Reflections

Our Last Two Days in Germany—Worms and Heidelberg—and Some Final Thoughts on the Trip

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Why did we go to Worms? Not for any genealogy reason, but for its significance to Jewish history generally and to German Jewish history more particularly. It is one of the so-called ShUM cities, the three cities (Speyer (Sh), Worms (U), and Mainz (M) where Jewish scholars and rabbis in the Middle Ages had a widespread impact on Jewish religious and cultural practices.  Some of the greatest medieval Jewish scholars studied and taught in the ShUM cities, including Rashi, who is considered one of the greatest Talmudic scholars of all time. Many of the melodies used even today in Jewish religious services were developed in the ShUM cities. It seemed that it would be wrong to go all the way to Germany and not see Worms.  (Speyer, unfortunately, we could not fit into our itinerary, and we had seen Mainz.)

Worms is a short train ride from Heidelberg, so it made sense to go there during one of our three days in Heidelberg.  On May 13, we took a morning train to Worms to meet our tour guide. [For various reasons we were not very pleased with this guide, so I’ve decided not to use her name in this post. If anyone wants to know why, I will be glad to share privately but not on the blog.]

The guide met us at the train station and showed us the reliefs sculpted over the doorways to the train station, one showing different modes of transportation and the other, the doorway used by the wealthy, showing kings and nobles.  The station was built in the early 1900s and, as the guide said, was considered a sign of modernity and of the status of Worms as an important city.

From the station we walked a few blocks to the Jewish cemetery, which has existed since the eleventh century and is considered the oldest Jewish cemetery in Europe.  We could not enter as it was Shabbat (Saturday), and the cemetery was closed.  But we could see the old stones and the very well-maintained grounds. The guide told us about some of the important scholars buried at the cemetery and how the cemetery is a pilgrimage site for Jews from all over the world.

From the cemetery we walked through a park where there was a statue of Martin Luther, for whom Worms was also an important city because, according to the guide, it was in Worms that his movement for Reformation became a movement adopted by the people, not just a theoretical idea. The guide also pointed out to us that the park we were walking through was where the moat had been located when Worms was a walled city in medieval times.  Once the wall was taken down and the moat filled, it became a ring of green space surrounding the city.

Martin Luther statute

We continued to follow the former moat towards the old Jewish quarter in Worms. Along the way we passed several stolpersteine, including one for Herta Mansbacher, who is considered an important heroine in the story of the Jews of Worms.  She was a teacher in a non-Jewish school until 1933 when she lost her job and took a teaching job in a Jewish school.  She then stayed in Worms to help the children and to encourage families to emigrate from Germany.  After the Worms synagogue was burned during Kristallnacht, Herta Mansbacher ran to rescue what she could and to try and put out the fire.  In 1942, she was deported and murdered by the Nazis.

Stolpersteine for Herta Mansbacher and others

Former home of Herta Mansbacher

A short distance past the home of Herta Mansbacher we reached the former Jewish quarter of Worms. Turning left on Judengasse it felt like we had entered not only a difference place but a different time. You could visualize what the quarter was like a hundred years earlier.

Judengasse in Worms

The Jewish quarter in Worms

There are two synagogue buildings in the Jewish quarter.  They are located at opposite ends of a small plaza in the center of the quarter. The Levy’sche synagogue is now a residential building.

 

Across from it was the other synagogue, the Old Synagogue—where there is a sculpture commemorating Rashi; Rashi studied at the yeshiva attached to this synagogue.  The building dates from the 12th century and is claimed to be the oldest synagogue in existence north of the Alps.   The building is today used for religious purposes and also for cultural events. There is a separate building where the yeshiva was located and also a mikveh on the grounds.   Behind the synagogue is a Jewish museum displaying Judaica and historical documents from the region; the most moving display was of the Torah scrolls and wimpels that were burned during Kristallnacht.  Perhaps these were the ones rescued by Herta Mansbacher, for whom there is a memorial plaque in the synagogue.

Old synagogue in Worms

Statue honoring Rashi

Interior of Old Synagogue

The synagogue was rebuilt after the war, but some of the original structure still was standing and is part of the building today.  Seeing the Jewish quarter allowed me to imagine in a concrete way how the Jews once lived in this section of the city.

After leaving the Jewish quarter, we stopped for lunch, and then the guide showed us Trinity Church, a very large Lutheran church built in the 18th century.  It was destroyed by Allied bombing in World War II and rebuilt in the 1950s.

Trinity Church

Interior of Trinity Church

Our last stop in Worms was at St. Peter’s Cathedral, which was built in the 12th century.  It is an impressive structure, and the altar is quite elaborate and beautiful.

St Peter’s Cathedral, Worms

Altar in St Peter’s Cathedral

We then walked back to the train station and returned to Heidelberg.

The next day, our last day in Germany, we were back on our own.  We took the funicular up to the castle that hovers over the city and can be seen quite dramatically from across the river.

We strolled around the grounds where the views of the river and the city of Heidelberg are stunning. Because you cannot get into the castle without a guided tour, we waited for the guided tour at 10 am.  Fortunately there were only three of us on the tour, plus the guide.  (There were hundreds of people wandering around the grounds being led by Viking Cruise guides, all with earplugs in their ears to listen to their guides, but they did not enter the buildings.)

The guide was delightful with a very dry and sarcastic sense of humor, and we all got a big kick out of him.  He entertained us with stories of political intrigue, romance, and wars to give us the colorful history of the complex of buildings that make up the castle.  The castle predated the city; it was originally built for strategic purposes with its towers and walls overlooking the valley below. Then, as medieval times moved into the Renaissance era, it became more a home for the local noble to impress his wife and entertain their guests.  Even Hitler used the castle at some point as a place to house soldiers.  I wish I could remember all the details of the guide’s stories, but suffice it to say he kept us interested, and he not only was amusing but very well-informed about the history of the region.

After returning to the city below, we spent our last afternoon in Germany wandering through the beautiful city of Heidelberg.  Unlike every other city we’d visited—Mainz, Bingen, Cologne, Wurzburg, and Worms—Heidelberg did not sustain any significant damage from Allied bombing during World War II, so it retains its architectural heritage as originally built.

The city has so much to offer—a world-renowned university, a scenic location on the Neckar River, a fascinating castle with gorgeous views, and churches and buildings that are rich in architectural detail.  The winding narrow streets and wide plazas, the youthful population, and the multitude of restaurants, bars, and stores make it an interesting and exciting place to visit. It made it all that much harder to pack our bags and head to the airport where we would stay our last night in order to catch our flight the following morning.

And so we said Auf Wiedersehen to Germany, land of my paternal ancestors, a country I had truly learned to appreciate during our stay, a place where the beer, the bread, the cities, the villages, the landscapes, and especially the people are just wonderful.  I was sad to leave, but ready to come home and have a chance to digest and remember it all.

Looking back on the trip now that we have been home for well over a month, it almost seems like a dream.  Was I really there? Did I really walk in the footsteps of my ancestors, see their gravestones, and meet my cousins, their descendants? Writing these blog posts has helped me remember and process everything we saw and experienced.  Looking at the photographs reminds me of all the people we met and all the beauty we saw as well as all the reminders of what happened during Hitler’s reign.

Much of what we experienced was bittersweet—bitter because of all the awful killings and destruction, sweet because of the kindness of the people we met and the hope they gave us for a future where people are tolerant and understanding and loving of each other despite their differences.  As I now return to the task of learning about and writing about my family’s history, I can better visualize where they lived and what their lives were like.  It will make what has already been a fascinating and rewarding journey that much more meaningful and satisfying.

Thank you for following me on this journey.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why Germany?

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Before we left for Germany, we received many strange reactions when we would tell people we were traveling to Germany.  Some people were quite blunt: how could we visit that country after what they did to the Jews in the Holocaust? Others were more subtle and just shrugged and said, “Why would you go there?” Others simply looked bemused.  Some people said, “Just Germany?” I know if we were going to Italy or England, no one would have reacted that way.  Germany just did not seem to be an appealing destination to many of the people we know.

Even when I explained that I was going to see the places where my father’s ancestors had lived and meeting cousins who live in Germany, people reacted strangely. So now that we are back, I can better explain why we went to Germany and why other people might want to go there as well. I will write about the specific experiences we had in the various places we visited in later posts, but first I want to put the trip in perspective and give some overall thoughts about what we saw and what we learned.

First, Germany is a beautiful country with so much to see and experience.  The Rhine River and the rolling hills and wide open green spaces are a delight.

On the Rhine from Bingen to Koblenz

Some of the cities and towns we saw are as charming, interesting, and historically and culturally rich as any we have seen in other places.  In particular, Mainz, Wurzburg, and Heidelberg are beautiful with storybook churches, elegant palaces, and inviting and exciting markets and squares.  The houses range from half-timber fairy tale houses to rococo-decorated merchant homes.

Mainz

In the smaller villages and towns, you get a feeling for how life has been lived in such places for centuries.  They are not like the small town where I now live.  There are clusters of houses around a central square with a church and town hall anchoring that common space.   Surrounding these clusters of homes and buildings are miles and miles of open land.

Countryside near Sielen

Second, people need to see and understand the damage that war can do. The places destroyed by the Nazis—especially the synagogues and cemeteries—are terribly heartbreaking to see, and there are constant reminders of the Jews who were deported and killed by the Nazis. You cannot go any place in Germany without being reminded that there were once Jews there and that they were persecuted and murdered.

Stolpersteine in Bingen

And some of the places we visited—Cologne, Kassel, and Bingen, in particular—were devastated by Allied bombing during the war.  They’ve been rebuilt, but quite often the new architecture is bland and boring. Often people would comment on how beautiful a city had been before the bombing. The Germans live with daily reminders of what their country did during the Third Reich and also what the war cost them.

A street in Cologne showing a Roman arch at the end of a post war street.

I can’t say that as an American Jew, I felt any guilt about the damage my country did to Germany in order to stop the Nazis.  But I also never once heard any of the many Germans we spoke to express resentment or hostility towards the Allies for the harm done to their country.  They seem to understand and accept that the Allied attacks were a necessary response to the aggression and genocide committed by the Nazis. Nevertheless, as the world continues to use violence and destruction as a means of settling disputes, we all should understand the consequences of war—not only in terms of loss of life, but also in terms of loss of culture, history, art, and architecture.

Which brings me to the third important lesson we learned while in Germany.  There are many non-Jewish Germans who are working with a true passion and commitment to preserve and restore the history of the Jewish communities that were wiped out during the Holocaust.  These people by and large are volunteers—good and dedicated people who were born either during or after the war and who are horrified by what the Nazis did.  We spent a great deal of time with six of these people in a number of different towns where my ancestors once lived.

Just a few of the good people we met in Germany (and my husband Harvey)

We asked all of them why they are doing this work.  Their answers varied; one said it was because she’d had a Jewish teacher as a child with whom she’d been very close; another said that it was discovering a former synagogue that had been desecrated; another mentioned that it was learning what had happened to the Jews in his small town that had motivated him to learn more.  They are all warm, thoughtful, and kind people. They became friends.  One man, with tears in his eyes, spoke about his gratitude to the US for the aid it provided to German citizens after World War II.  These people spent many hours with us and did not charge us one cent.  They just wanted to help.  They want Jews to know about the work they are doing; they want us to come and visit and reclaim our history.  They want to help us reclaim that history, and they want us to help them preserve it.

And that’s what I did in Germany.  I stood where my ancestors once stood.  I staked my claim as a person whose family once lived and thrived in the towns of Germany, as a person who is also a part of the history of that place.  I wanted to make a visible statement that Hitler did not win because Jews still exist; we survived, and we are as entitled as anyone to walk the streets of Germany.  By going to Germany and talking to those who live there, I was able to let them know that we have not forgotten what happened during the Third Reich, but we also have not forfeited our claim to our history in those places.

Standing at the graves of my 3x-great-grandparents, Scholum Katzenstein and Breine Blumenfeld in Haarhausen cemetery

I understand that not everyone will feel as I do. And it’s not my intention to change anyone’s mind.  I just want to explain my feelings to those who have asked and will continue to ask me with that skeptical look, “Why would you go to Germany?” Because we can.  Because the Nazis did not win.  Because we have every right to claim our rich heritage and our long history in that country. And because many people who live there want us to do just that.

Pacific Street: Inspired by Facts and Love

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Some of you know that since I retired two and a half years ago, I’ve been working on a novel inspired by my grandparents’ lives and the discoveries I’ve made about them and their extended families through my genealogy research.  Well, I finally put my “pen” down and decided to call it done.

Amy Gussie and Isadore

My grandparents, Gussie Brotman and Isadore Goldschlager, and me

It’s been an exciting process for me because ever since I learned to read, I’ve wanted to write a novel.  All through my career when I was writing long, boring articles for law journals, I wished that instead I was writing a novel. Novels have been my refuge all my life. I love being transported to different times and places and seeing into the hearts and minds of all kinds of characters.  I just wanted a chance to try to create some characters of my own.  When I retired, I promised myself that I would give it a try.

One friend reprimanded me when I said I was trying to write a novel.  She said, “Don’t say that.  Say you are writing a novel.”  I was and am insecure about the whole thing.  I never took a fiction writing course, participated in a writing workshop, or wrote any fiction at all, not since I wrote stories as a young child. What did I know?

My only sources of information about writing a novel were all the novels I’d read starting when I read Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White when I was eight years old.  That book transported me in ways that changed the way I felt about reading.  I cried so hard (spoiler alert) when Charlotte died.  And she was just a spider! A fictional spider! How had the author made her so real and moved me to care so much?

Charlotte's Web

Charlotte’s Web (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Now that I’ve written my own novel, I am even more in awe of the many great authors whose books have moved me so deeply. I am humbled by what those authors were able to do with words, and thus I feel presumptuous trying to promote my own book, despite my friend’s reprimand.

But it was a labor of love—love for family and love for the magic of the written word.  I wrote this book for my children and grandchildren so that they would have a taste of what their ancestors’ lives were like. I had lots of help and inspiration from my family and friends, as I acknowledge at the end of the book.  And so despite this aching feeling of insecurity, I do want to share and promote my book so that others will also know the story I’ve created about my grandparents—grounded in fact, but expanded upon by my imagination.

I hope that you will be tempted to read it.  You can find it on Amazon both as a paperback ($6.99) and as a Kindle ebook ($2.99) at https://www.amazon.com/dp/1541170369

If you do read it, I’d love your feedback.  Thank you!

Season’s Greetings and Thank You

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The winter solstice has passed, and so every day will bring more light.  We sure do need it this time of year.  The lights added by Hanukkah and Christmas—the candles and the trees—help us all to see beyond the darkness and the cold.  And so I wish for all of you a season of lights and a time to find joy and hope and happiness.


Embed from Getty Images

I also want to express my gratitude for all the help I’ve received this past year. I cannot express adequately how grateful I am to those cousins who shared family photographs and letters and writings so that I could see the faces behind the names I’d researched, read their own words, and get a real feel for the personality of the individuals whose lives I described.  Thank you to Ron, Steve, Sue, Lisa, Celena, Gordon, Ashley, Tracy, Ginger, Sharon and Ezra, Trisha, Maxine, and all the others who shared photographs, stories, letters, and memories of their family members.  I hope we all get to meet in person someday soon.

Empire State Building exhibiting decorative li...

Empire State Building exhibiting decorative lights for both Chanukah and Christmas. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

My cousin Wolfgang continued to discover and share with me information about my Seligmann ancestors and their families, which led me to the memoirs of Mathilde Gross Mayer, which inspired me to start learning German.  I am so looking forward to going to Germany and meeting Wolfgang and his family and testing my German.

I also am deeply appreciative for all the help I’ve gotten from the members of numerous genealogy Facebook groups and from my fellow genealogy bloggers.  Whether it’s helping with research or translation or reading and commenting (and finding errors) on my blog, the genealogy village continues to amaze me with its generosity and dedication.

Looking ahead to 2017, we must continue to do what we can to protect those who are most vulnerable in this country and across the world.  Looking backwards as much as I do, I’ve seen what small-mindedness, prejudice, selfishness, and greed can do to a person, a family, a society.  As we anticipate 2017, we still need to learn from the past so that we can ensure the best future for everyone and for our world.


Embed from Getty Images

On that note, I wish you all a joyous holiday season—whatever holiday you may be celebrating.  I find it particularly sweet that this year the first night of Hanukkah and Christmas Eve coincide as if the universe is telling us we all came from one source and whatever rituals or traditions or beliefs we have, in the end all that matters is that we honor and respect and love each other despite those differences.  May 2017 be a peaceful and healthy and happy year for everyone!


Embed from Getty Images

 

 

 

 

No Genealogy Today

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I can’t bear to talk about the past today because I am too filled with despair about the future.  I have spent the day mourning the election results and reaching out to others who shared my desolation.  I have found myself again and again in tears, sometimes tears of grief for what has happened to our country, sometimes tears of relief when someone has touched me with words of comfort or hope.

In the aftermath of the election results, my daughter shared this photograph of my grandsons.  It made me smile and cry.  It represents all my hopes and all my fears.

nate-and-remy-november-2016

I have gone through at least the first few stages of grief—shock and denial, anger, and now depression.  (I skipped over bargaining, although I did find myself last night saying I’d accept a tie in the Electoral College).

Here’s what I posted on Facebook early Wednesday morning:

I am devastated. Don’t tell me it will all be okay. Don’t tell me to unite behind Trump. It won’t, and I won’t.

I am devastated for my daughters and all the women who believed that America would elect a highly qualified woman over an inexperienced and ignorant man.

I am devastated for all in the LGBTQ community who must see the progress of recent years hanging by a thread.

I am devastated for all people of color, all immigrants, all Muslims, who must feel even more frightened than I do.

I am devastated for those who will see their health insurance disappear.

I am devastated for our planet, which will now see nothing done about climate change.

I am devastated that nothing will be done about gun violence.

I could go on. But mostly I am devastated that my grandsons live in a country filled with so much hate and ignorance.

They say the next stage of grief is acceptance.  I won’t get to that one.  What I hope I can get to is action to fight acceptance.  We need people to unite against these forces of darkness, to work together to protect the rights of those who are most vulnerable, to preserve our rights to choice and to healthcare, to work to protect our planet and the values of free speech, freedom of religion, and freedom from discrimination.  I fear we will instead drift into acceptance.

I admit that I have no idea how we start this movement.  I am hoping that someone with more skills and experience than I have will get us mobilized. Perhaps it will be some of those who felt the Bern, perhaps some of those who fought so hard for Hillary.  Or perhaps it will be someone entirely new.

I want to be a part of whatever it takes to make this country a place where those two little boys pictured above and all those who come after them can grow up without fear and filled with love and hope and acceptance of all people. Where everyone can, regardless of race, religion, sexual orientation, gender, nationality, age, or disability.

As my husband said, our ancestors didn’t come here so that we could give up on our dreams.  We need to mourn first and then pick ourselves up and fight for what we believe.

 

 

The Work is Never Done

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It’s time to move on to the next family line, although there is still so much to do on those I’ve started.  As my most recent discoveries about the Brotman line reveal, there is always more to learn, more to find. I still have collateral lines to complete in the Schoenthal family—the families of my great-great-great-aunts, Mina Schoenthal Rosenberg and Fradchen (Fanny) Schoenthal Goldschmidt. In fact, however, Fanny’s family is intertwined with the next family’s story as well.

Because now it is time to turn to my remaining great-grandparent—my father’s maternal grandmother, Hilda Katzenstein Schoenthal, wife of Isidor Schoenthal and mother of my grandmother, Eva Schoenthal.  Hilda was the daughter of Gerson Katzenstein of Jesberg, Germany, and Eva Goldschmidt of Oberlistingen, Germany.  My grandmother Eva was presumably named for her grandmother, Eva Goldschmidt.

Hilda Katzenstein Schoenthal

Hilda Katzenstein Schoenthal

Just over a year ago, I wrote about the crazy twist in my family tree involving Eva Goldschmidt, my great-great-grandmother.  She was the daughter of Seligmann Goldschmidt, a brother of Simon Goldschmidt, who married Fanny Schoenthal, my great-great-grandfather’s brother.

 

Marriage of Simon Goldschmidt and Fradchen Schoenthal HHStAW Abt. 365 Nr. 669, S. 11

Marriage of Simon Goldschmidt and Fradchen Schoenthal
HHStAW Abt. 365 Nr. 669, S. 11

In other words, my great-grandmother Hilda was a Goldschmidt, and her husband, my great-grandfather Isidore Schoenthal, was the nephew of Fanny Schoenthal Goldschmidt and thus had cousins named Goldschmidt.  In fact, one of those cousins, Simon’s son Jacob Goldschmidt from his first marriage, was likely the first member of the extended family to settle in Washington, Pennsylvania, where my grandmother was born in 1904.   More on the Goldschmidt family tree twist here. And more on the Goldschmidt family to come.

But for now I am going to focus on the Katzenstein side of my great-grandmother Hilda’s family. As I’ve indicated before, when I first started looking into my family’s history, this was the one line that had already been extensively researched by others.  Long before I started my own research, David Baron and Roger Cibella had posted their research on an old Geocities page.  And who even remembers Geocities!? Roger is my third cousin, once removed. I had contacted David and Roger years ago when I somehow fell upon their website (I don’t remember how), and was amazed that they were able to trace my family back to Gerson Katzenstein, my great-great-grandfather.gerson-to-me

 

And although I was fascinated by their research, I didn’t pursue it further. I hadn’t yet been bitten by the genealogy bug.

Isidore, Hilda (Katzenstein), and Eva Schoenthal

Isidore, Hilda (Katzenstein), and Eva Schoenthal

Then when I was first bitten in 2012 and started to explore genealogy on my own, I found a family tree on Ancestry that included some of my Katzenstein relatives, and I contacted the tree owner, a woman named Jennifer with whom I’ve been in contact ever since as we continue to find ways that our families overlap.  Back in June 2012, Jennifer put me in touch with an entire group of people with ties to the Katzenstein family, and from that group I also received a copy of the extensive report on the Jesberg Katzenstein family that had been done by a researcher named Barbara Greve.

Barbara Greve was born in Berlin, Germany after World War II.  As an adult, she developed an interest in the history of the Jewish communities that had once lived in the Hesse region where she now lived and taught school. She began to research those communities and what had happened to the people who had lived in them, compiling extensive information and genealogies for those Jewish families, including the Katzensteins of Jesberg. In 2010, Greve received the esteemed Obermayer German Jewish History award.  You can read more about her here.

I was both awestruck and overwhelmed by Barbara Greve’s research.  At that point in time I was a total newbie and knew nothing about genealogy research or about my family’s history.  All I had done at that point was the fourteen day free trial on Ancestry, where I had randomly searched for any name I knew from my family’s history. She had traced the Katzenstein line back another whole generation before Gerson Katzenstein to Scholum Katzenstein, my three-times great-grandfather, and included not only Gerson and his descendants, but Gerson’s four siblings and many of their descendants.  Now I could trace the family back as early as 1769 when Scholum was born in Jesberg, Germany.

family-sheet-for-scholem-meier-katzenstein

I had no idea that there were ancient records still in existence in places like Germany.  Seeing all those names and dates going back over 200 years was amazing to me.

My reaction to the Katzenstein research at that time in 2012 was—well, I guess it’s all done.  Nothing much left for me to do.  This was over a year before I started blogging.  I thought just collecting the names and dates was all I needed to do, and someone else had done it.  So I moved away from the Katzensteins and returned to the other lines where the research was not as complete.

And along the way I learned that genealogy is not just about collecting names and dates, although that is a big part of the work.  It’s also about trying to learn the stories of the lives of all those people behind the names and dates.  It’s about putting yourselves in their shoes and recognizing the legacy that we have all inherited from our ancestors.

HIlda (Katzenstein) Schoenthal, Eva (Schoenthal) Cohen, Eva HIlda Cohen, and Harold Schoenthal

HIlda (Katzenstein) Schoenthal, Eva (Schoenthal) Cohen, Eva HIlda Cohen, and Harold Schoenthal

Thus, I now return to the Katzensteins knowing that there is still work to be done.  There are stories to tell about these people, questions to ask, memories to honor. The work is never done.

 

 

Mark Twain on Learning German

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I am continuing to try and learn German, studying about thirty minutes a day on Duolingo, and at times I feel like I have reached a plateau.  The more words I learn, the more I forget the ones I learned just a month ago.  All those words that end in –ung and/or start with ver- are getting too hard to keep straight.  And why are there at least two words for so many things?  Sure, I know that’s true in English also, but it was a lot easier learning English when my brain was young and flexible and everyone around me spoke it all the time.  Learning German at my age without some immersion is, to the say least, a challenge.

So I took great comfort in Mark Twain’s 1880 essay, “The Awful German Language.” Vera Meyer of the Facebook group “JEWS—Jekkes Engaged Worldwide” (“Jekke” or “yekke” has various specific meanings, but most broadly refers to a person of German-Jewish background) sent me a link to Twain’s essay the other day, and it made me laugh out loud several times over.

By Mathew Brady [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) By Matthew Brady [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AMark_Twain%2C_Brady-Handy_photo_portrait%2C_Feb_7%2C_1871%2C_cropped.jpg

Twain is one of my favorite authors, but I’d never before read this essay, and if I had, I would not have appreciated it before my own struggles with German.  You can find the entire essay here and I recommend it highly, but I want to quote just a few of my favorite passages.  Favorite because I relate so well to what Twain is saying.

This complaint is one that also gives me great frustration:

Personal pronouns and adjectives are a fruitful nuisance in this language, and should have been left out. For instance, the same sound, sie, means you, and it means she, and it means her, and it means it, and it means they, and it means them. Think of the ragged poverty of a language which has to make one word do the work of six — and a poor little weak thing of only three letters at that. But mainly, think of the exasperation of never knowing which of these meanings the speaker is trying to convey. This explains why, whenever a person says sie to me, I generally try to kill him, if a stranger.

And then there is the endless battle to figure out what is the gender of a particular noun so that you know what articles, pronouns, and adjectives to use:

Every noun has a gender, and there is no sense or system in the distribution; so the gender of each must be learned separately and by heart. There is no other way. To do this one has to have a memory like a memorandum-book. In German, a young lady has no sex, while a turnip has. Think what overwrought reverence that shows for the turnip, and what callous disrespect for the girl. ….

To continue with the German genders: a tree is male, its buds are female, its leaves are neuter; horses are sexless, dogs are male, cats are female — tomcats included, of course; a person’s mouth, neck, bosom, elbows, fingers, nails, feet, and body are of the male sex, and his head is male or neuter according to the word selected to signify it, and not according to the sex of the individual who wears it — for in Germany all the women either male heads or sexless ones; a person’s nose, lips, shoulders, breast, hands, and toes are of the female sex; and his hair, ears, eyes, chin, legs, knees, heart, and conscience haven’t any sex at all. The inventor of the language probably got what he knew about a conscience from hearsay.

And then finally, Twain’s overall lament about learning German:

My philological studies have satisfied me that a gifted person ought to learn English (barring spelling and pronouncing) in thirty hours, French in thirty days, and German in thirty years. It seems manifest, then, that the latter tongue ought to be trimmed down and repaired. If it is to remain as it is, it ought to be gently and reverently set aside among the dead languages, for only the dead have time to learn it.

Alas, at my age, if it really takes thirty years, it will take the rest of my life (if I am very lucky) to learn German.

But like Mark Twain, I will continue to muddle along, at least knowing that I am in good company in my struggles.

Sliding Doors

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Back in April, I wrote about the family of Rosalie Schoenthal, my great-grandfather’s sister, the one who stayed in Germany to marry Willy Heymann.  Most of what I knew of their fate I learned from the memoir written by Ernest Lion, the man who married Rosalie and Willy’s granddaughter, Liesel Mosbach.  Liesel, her sister, her parents, and her aunt, were all victims of the Holocaust. Ernest Lion memorialized them all in his heartbreaking memoir, The Fountain at the Crossroad.

As I mentioned in a subsequent post written for Yom Hashoah in May, I was so moved by Ernest’s story that I tracked down his son Tom to ask about getting it published so that it could be more widely read.  Since then, I have been working with Tom to edit and format the memoir for publication.  (We’ve run into a few obstacles, but that’s a story for another day.)  I am hoping that sometime soon the book will be available for distribution. When it is, I will post the relevant information on the blog.

But none of this would be possible without the help of another of my cousins by marriage, Sharon.  Sharon is married to the great-grandson of Simon Schoenthal, who was also my great-grandfather’s brother as well as Rosalie Schoenthal Heymann’s brother.  And Sharon, who writes the blog The Heart and Craft of Life Writing, has a great deal of knowledge not only about writing, but also about getting your writing published.  Sharon and her husband were the ones who shared with me the remarkable memoir written by Hettie Schoenthal Stein.  So when I decided to try and get Ernest Lion’s book into a publishable format, I turned to Sharon for help.

Sharon spent hours through email and Skype instructing me on how to turn a typed manuscript into a format that is not only more readable, but also professional looking.  She has been incredibly patient with me, as all this was new to me, and the old brain isn’t quite as flexible as it once was.  I cannot possibly express how grateful I am to her for her help.

One of the last things we worked on was inserting photographs into the memoir, and as she was doing this, Sharon was struck by the resemblance she saw between Liesel Mosbach Lion, Ernest’s first wife and our mutual cousin, and Sharon’s mother-in-law, Blanche Stein Lippincott.  She sent me a photograph of Blanche and her family that I had not previously seen.

ezzie-blanche-parvin-1940

Blanche Stein Lippincott and her family 1940 Courtesy of the Lippincott family

And here is a photograph of Liesel Mosbach and Ernest Lion that I obtained from Ernest’s son to put into his book:

wedding-ernest-liesel-dec-18-1940-600-dpi

Liesel Mosbach and Ernest Lion Courtesy of the Lion Family

 

The resemblance is striking.  Blanche and Liesel were second cousins, but from these two photographs, they could have been sisters.

jpg-blanche-to-liesel

 

But what different lives and fates they had, and the expressions on their faces in these two photographs reflect those differences. While Blanche looks healthy and happy, Liesel looks drawn and sad, even on her wedding day.

Blanche was born in 1912 in Tucson, Arizona, and grew up living on the American frontier in the 1910s and 1920s.  Her mother Hattie and her aunt Gertrude had ventured out west after growing up in Philadelphia and Atlantic City.  They did later return to the East, as I’ve written, and Blanche spent the rest of her life living in New Jersey.  She married in 1937 and raised two children with her husband Ezra.  Blanche lived a long and happy life, making it to almost 101 years old before dying in 2013.  Her mother Hettie had made it to 103.

Blanche Stein Lippincott with her great-granddaughter 1996

Blanche Stein Lippincott with her great-granddaughter 1996

In contrast, Liesel lived a short and tragic life.  She was born in 1921 in Germany, where her father Julius Mosbach owned a fruit and vegetable stand. The family was probably living a comfortable enough life until Hitler came to power.  When Liesel married Ernest Lion on December 18, 1939, conditions for Jews were terrible in Germany, and the young couple had no idea what the future would bring.

There would, in fact, be no future. As a result of the Nazi oppression and the loss of his business, Julius Mosbach suffered a nervous breakdown; in 1941, he was sent to an institution where instead of being treated, he was murdered by the Nazis. In 1942, Liesel’s mother, sister, and aunt, and Ernest’s father were all deported and eventually killed in a Nazi concentration camp.  In 1943, Liesel and Ernest were deported to Auschwitz, where Liesel was killed.  Ernest survived and eventually escaped; he became the voice for the whole family.

Thus, Blanche and Liesel, second cousins who looked like sisters, had far different lives and fates.  I can’t help but think, what if Rosalie and Willie had come to the US like almost all of Rosalie’s siblings? What if Liesel and her sister Grete had grown up in Pennsylvania or anywhere else in the United States?

As the president of our synagogue reminded us on Rosh Hashanah, we cannot control where we are born, when we are born, or to whom we are born.  Some of us are blessed with good luck in all of those things while others are not.  We should never take that for granted.

Shana tova—A Good Year

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By slgckgc (Shofar and Candlesticks) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

By slgckgc (Shofar and Candlesticks) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons

Once again the Jewish calendar is about to end one year and begin another.  I will be observing the holiday with my children and grandchildren and will not be posting again until after the holiday when I will continue the amazing story of my discovery of the Goldfarbs and the Hechts.

So before I take this time to be with my children and grandchildren and celebrate the holiday, I wanted to look back and think about what I’ve learned about my extended family during this year.  For the most part this has been the year of the Schoenthals, and what a journey it has been.  I had known very little about my paternal grandmother’s paternal family before I started researching, and they have inspired me in many ways and in some ways saddened me.

My great-grandfather Isidor Schoenthal and his many siblings were all born in Sielen, Germany, and all but two came to the United States in the second half of the 19th century and, for at least some time, lived in western Pennsylvania.  They were a large and interconnected family, and so many of them did interesting things.  Henry, the oldest brother, was a scholar and a community leader as well as his family’s leader.

Julius served in the US Army and lived in Washington, DC.  Felix was a successful businessman in the typewriter repair business; he moved to Boston.  Simon had a very large family, and his children not only ran hotels in Atlantic City; some of them settled in the wild west of Arizona, as my cousin Hettie Schoenthal Stein so beautifully described in her memoirs.

Martin Schoenthal, Gertrude Sch., Hettie Sch Blanche Walter

Martin Schoenthal, Gertrude Schoenthal, Hettie Schoenthal Stein, Blanche and Walter Stein

Amalie Schoenthal married Elias Wolfe, a cattle drover, and they raised a large family.  Amalie moved to Ohio after her husband died. Hannah Schoenthal Stern survived being widowed at a young age and came to Pennsylvania with her young children and raised them on her own in a new country.

Jennie Stern Arnold, center, and perhaps Sarah Stern Ostreicher on the right and Edith Stern Good on the right

Jennie Stern Arnold, center, and Sarah Stern Ostreicher on the left and Edith Stern Good on the right

And my great-grandfather himself was a pioneer—first moving to Pennsylvania, and then moving his family from the small town of Washington, Pennsylvania, to Denver, Colorado so that his asthmatic son would have a better place to live.

Isidore Schoenthal

Isidor Schoenthal

These were adventurous and interesting people who were willing to take risks in order to secure better lives for them and their family.  I’ve had the pleasure of connecting with a number of their descendants—my cousins Steve, Ron, Jacquie, Maxine, Elaine, Linda, Sharon and Ezra, and Betty, who passed away just this summer.

But not all the Schoenthal siblings left Germany, and the fate of the children of Jakob Schoenthal and of Rosalie Schoenthal Heymann broke my heart.  One of my most meaningful new projects is the work I am doing with Tom Lion (with the invaluable help of my cousin Sharon, also a Schoenthal cousin) to ensure that the memoir of Tom’s father Ernest Lion is preserved and made as publicly accessible as possible.  Ernest’s first wife, Liesel Mosbach, Rosalie’s granddaughter, was killed during the Holocaust as were her parents, her aunt, and his sister; Jakob Schoenthal’s daughter Henriette Schoenthal Levi and her husband were also murdered by the Nazis.  Other family members were forced to uproot themselves, lost everything, but somehow survived and started over in a new country.  They were all my cousins.

Liesel Mosbach Lion alone and in wedding picture with Ernst

Liesel Mobach and Ernest Lion

I also learned about more of my Seligmann relatives—Mathilde Gross Mayer, her parents, her siblings, and all of their children.  They also endured the Holocaust, some of them escaping in time, others being murdered by the Nazis.  Mathilde’s book motivated me to start learning German so that I could better understand her life and her experiences.  And along the way I also found another living descendant, my cousin Susan.

Mathilde Gross from Judische Bingen site

Mathilde Gross Mayer

But most of my experiences this year have been uplifting. I had the pleasure of connecting with and meeting my cousin Rob, a Hamberg descendant.  I still haven’t told the whole story of the Hamberg family, but my great-great-grandmother Henriette Hamberg Schoenthal had a large family, most of whom unfortunately stayed in Germany.  Their story is yet to come.  But I was able to explore the story of Amalia Hamberg Baer, whose children founded the Attleboro jewelry company today known as Swank.  And I have been fortunate to connect with two of the descendants of Amalia Hamberg and Jacob Baer.

Wedding photograph of Flora Baer and Julius Adler, March 15, 1915 Courtesy of the Adler family

Wedding photograph of Flora Baer and Julius Adler, March 15, 1915
Courtesy of the Adler family

And now in the past week or so I have returned to the Brotman story as I’ve discovered new connections and new members of my maternal grandmother’s extended family, the Goldfarbs and the Hechts.  More on that to come after the holiday.  That work also has given me the blessings of new cousins like Sue, Lisa, Debrah, and Jan.

So when I look back on the year, I don’t just see all those people from the past.  I see all the people who are my cousins, many of whom I never knew before.  Some of us are as distant as fifth cousins, some as close as a second cousin, once removed.  But without exception these new cousins have added joy and a sense of fulfillment to the work I am doing to tell the story of my family—their family—our family. There is nothing that makes me feel better about doing this than when one of these newly found cousins thanks me for finding the story of their ancestor’s lives.  I never really think that I am doing this for others since I personally get so much out of doing it, but the excitement that others have expressed to me about my work makes it ever so much more worthwhile.

What lies ahead in my research? In this coming year I hope to be able to learn about the last of my great-grandparents.  I have researched seven out of the eight so far, and although I still have more to learn about the families of Joseph Brotman and Bessie Brod, Moritz Goldschlager and Ghitla Rosenzweig, Emanuel Cohen and Eva Seligmann, and Isidore Schoenthal, I’ve not even started to tell the story of my remaining great-grandparent, my father’s maternal grandmother Hilda Katzenstein.  She was the daughter of Gerson Katzenstein and Eva Goldschmidt, and their stories will likely be the next major research project on my list.

Hilda Katzenstein Schoenthal

Hilda Katzenstein Schoenthal

May all of my cousins, newly found and otherwise, and all of my family and friends and fellow genealogy researchers and bloggers be blessed with a sweet, healthy, and happy New Year.  And may all those who came before us be remembered with honor and gratitude. Shana tova! A good year for all!

By Gilabrand (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

By Gilabrand (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons

 

 

Imprisoned on the Isle of Man

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Some of my readers were disturbed, as was I, to learn that England imprisoned Jewish refugees in internment camps on the Isle of Man during World War II; one of those imprisoned was my cousin Ilse Gross, daughter of Karl Gross, as I wrote about here.

By one of those strange incidences of serendipity, someone on the JewishGen listserv and on one of my Facebook groups today posted a link to a recent story on the B’nai Brith International website about these camps.  It gives a much fuller picture of the history of the camps, what conditions were like, and why England did this.  It demonstrates how fear can lead us to do things that are fundamentally unfair and discriminatory, judging people by their race, religion, or national origin.

Here is one excerpt from the article.  You can find the rest here:

On May 27, 1940, Isle of Man residents gathered behind barricades at the docks, witnessing the arrival of the first 823 prisoners. Leaving the boat under armed guard, they included German Nazi sympathizers, mixed in with Jewish men in their 20s and 30s, as well as a few school boys, conspicuous in short pants. They would set the pattern for those coming in the next weeks and months, assigned to camps located in Ramsey, Douglas, Onchan and other seaside spots. Cleared of tourists, ordered to leave behind their sports equipment for the inmates, quaint Victorian rooming houses and private hotels were grouped together and ringed with barbed wire to form compounds. In some, Jews and Nazis shared the same spaces.

Additional information can be found at the following links:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hutchinson_Internment_Camp

http://timewitnesses.org/english/IsleOfMan.html