Tag Archives: Antisemitism

Rosa and Amalie Rothschild, Gerson and Fanny’s Youngest Daughters

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Getting to know Hal Katz and his family and learning the stories about Clara Rothschild and Moritz Katz and their children and grandchildren has been a real highlight of the past few months. Now I turn to Clara’s two younger sisters, the seventh and eighth children of Gerson Rothschild and Fanny Kugelmann of those who survived to adulthood. And unfortunately there is no joy in telling their stories.

Rosa Rothschild, who was born on May 16, 1893, in Zimmersrode, married Meijer Franken sometime before April 23, 1936, when their son Gerson was born in Almelo, Netherlands. I don’t know whether Rosa married Meijer in the Netherlands or Germany because I cannot find a marriage record in either country.1 Meijer was Dutch, born in Haaksbergen, Netherlands, on March 16, 1873, making him twenty years older than Rosa. His parents were Levij Franken and Antje Goedhardt.2 Meijer had been previously married; his first wife Jeanette Herzog, died in Almela, Netherlands, on November 12, 1923.3

Presumably Rosa married Meijer sometime after November 12, 1923, when his first wife died, and before April 23, 1936, when Gerson was born in Almelo, Netherlands. I don’t know whether Rosa met Meijer before moving to the Netherlands or moved there to escape Hitler and met Meijer thereafter. I think it’s reasonable to assume she moved first sometime after 1933 when Hitler came to power and then met and married Meijer. Her mother Frommet “Fanny” Kugelmann Rothschild also moved to Almelo, Netherlands, either with Rosa or afterwards, and was living with Rosa, Meijer, and and her grandson Gerson, named for Rosa’s father and Fanny’s husband, Gerson Rothschild.4 Hal Katz told me that she came to his bar mitzvah in late 1937, but that she was already living in the Netherlands at that time.

Unfortunately, the move to the Netherlands did not protect Rosa, her mother, her husband, or her son from the scourge of the Nazis. On April 9, 1943, they were sent to the Herzogenbusch concentration camp near Vught in the Netherlands, and then on May 8, they were sent to Westerbork where they were then sent to Sobibor, where they were murdered by the Nazis: all four of them, 86 year old Fanny, 70 year old Meijer, 49 year old Rosa, and seven year old Gerson.

Arolsen Archives, DocID: 402367 (FROMMET ROTSCHILD KUGELMANN)
DeepLink: https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/de/document/402367

Arolsen Archives, DocID: 355979 (ROSA FRANKEN ROTHSCHILD)
DeepLink: https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/de/document/355979

Arolsen Archives, DocID: 355969 (MEIJER FRANKEN)
DeepLink: https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/document/355969

Arolsen Archives, DocID: 355947 (GERSON FRANKEN)
DeepLink: https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/document/355947

Here are the official Dutch death records for Rosa and her family, showing they were killed at Sobibor :

Rosa Rothschild Franken death record, BS Death Heritage institution Collection Overijssel Institution place Zwolle Collection region Overijssel Archive 0123 Registration number 16645 Sourcenumber 14 Registration date 09-01-1950 Document place Almelo Collection Civil Registry in Overijssel Book

Meijer Franken death record, Collection Overijssel location Zwolle in Zwolle (Netherlands), Civil registration deaths Burgerlijke Stand in Overijssel, Almelo, archive 0123, inventory number 16644, 29-12-1949, Register van overlijden, Almelo, record number 550

Gerson Franken death record, Collection Overijssel location Zwolle in Zwolle (Netherlands), Civil registration deaths Burgerlijke Stand in Overijssel, Almelo, archive 0123, inventory number 16644, 29-12-1949, Register van overlijden, Almelo, record number 549

Frommet Kugelmann Rothschild death record, Register of deaths, Almelo (Overijssel Collection, Zwolle location), Death Frommet Kugelmann, 14-05-1943, Type of deed :
death certificate, Date of deed: 09-01-1950 Location of deed: Almelo, born in Wohra (D); date of birth 11-09-1857, Access number : 0123 Civil Registry in Overijssel Inventory number :
16645 File number : 12

Rosa’s sister Amalie, the youngest of Fanny and Gerson Rothschild’s children, met a similar fate. Amalie, who was born on April 26, 1901, married Jakob Stiefel, who was born January 19, 1893, in Ziegenhain, Germany, and was the son of Michel Stiefel and Emilie Bachrach. As with Rosa Rothschild and Meijer Franken, I don’t have a marriage record for Amalie and Jakob, but according to Holocaust records, they had two children, Eva, born April 3, 1937, in Fritzlar, Germany, and Gerhard, born April 26, 1938, in Kassel, Germany. The family was living in Kassel at that time.

Amalie, Jakob, Eva, and Gerhard were among those who were sent from Kassel on December 9, 1941, to the Riga ghetto. Remember that Amalie’s older sisters Katchen, Auguste, and Jenny were also deported to the Riga ghetto on that same transport. In any event, they all ended up in Riga. In 1942, Jakob died in the Kaiserwald camp near Riga. On November 2, 1943, Amalie and her two young children, six year old Eva and five year old Gerhard were sent from Riga to Auschwitz, where they were murdered. Another family of Rothschild cousins was destroyed by the Nazis.

Thus, of the eight children of Gerson Rothschild and Fanny Kugelmann who had survived to adulthood, five of them were murdered by the Nazis: Katchen, Auguste, Jenny, Rosa, and Amalie, as well as their mother Fanny and almost all of their children. Only Siegmund, Max, and Clara and their families escaped in time, as well as Auguste’s son Bruno Feldheim. That is just one family’s saga, but it was multiplied millions of times over for all the other families who were torn apart and destroyed by the hatred of the Nazis and those who supported them.

What gives me hope after learning all this tragic information about the family of Gerson Rothschild is the incredible strength I’ve seen in the descendants of Siegmund and Clara, those who are here today because their parents or grandparents were able to escape in time. Those descendants are all examples of how good can conquer over evil and love can overcome hatred.

 

  1. I could not locate a marriage record for Rosa and Meijer in either the Dutch archives at WieWasWie or in the various Hessen archives for Zimmersrode or Waltersbrueck, Germany, where Rosa was presumably living before relocating to the Netherlands. But Rosa and Meijer are listed as Gerson’s parents on his Dutch death record and as each other’s partner on each of their Dutch death records. See images below. ↩
  2. Meijer Franken, Birth Date 16 mrt. 1873 (16 Mar 1873), Birth Place Haaksbergen
    Father Levij Franken, Mother Antje Goedhardt, Collectie Overijssel; The Hague, Netherlands; Burgerlijke stand. Ancestry.com. Netherlands, Birth Index, 1784-1923 ↩
  3. Jeannette Hertog, Age 52, Birth Date abt 1871, Birth Place Meerssen
    Death Date 12 nov. 1923 (12 Nov 1923), Death Place Almelo, Father Alexander Hertog, Mother Carolina Anschil, Historisch Centrum Overijssel (HCO); Den Haag, Nederland; Burgerlijke stand (overlijdensakten), Ancestry.com. Netherlands, Death Index, 1796-1973 ↩
  4. A document in the Arolsen Archives for Fanny shows that her residence before deported to a concentration camp was Wierdensestr. 119 in Almelo, Netherlands. A similar document in the Arolsen Archives for Rosa shows her living at the same address. See Arolsen Archives, DocID: 402367 (FROMMET ROTSCHILD KUGELMANN) at https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/de/document/402367 and DocID: 355979 (ROSA FRANKEN ROTHSCHILD), at https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/de/document/355979 ↩

Clara Rothschild Katz, Part III: Her Sons at War for America

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Once again proving how valuable immigrants have been to this country, Clara Rothschild Katz’s two sons, Otto and Helmut (Harold or Hal) both did outstanding service for their new country against their old country during World War II. These memories of their service during the war were collected by Otto’s daughter and Hal’s niece, Judy Katz, and she generously shared them with me. All of the details below came from Judy’s interviews with her father Otto in 2001 and 2016 and with her uncle Hal in 2019 or from my Zoom calls with Hal and his family this year.

Otto did basic training in Vancouver, Washington, and went overseas in January 1944. He was in training in England until June 1944. Otto told Judy in his 2016 interview that he was first stationed in Bournemouth, England, and then was sent to Plymouth, where they took landing craft to Normandy, landing there two or three days after D-Day (or June 8-9, 1944). Otto described walking through the water to get to the beach, holding onto a rope that extended from the landing craft to the beach and holding his weapon overhead. One soldier in the group took his pants off; the rest got their wool pants wet and were extremely uncomfortable until their pants dried. Then they walked fifteen miles from the beach where they were loaded onto trucks and taken into France towards the front with Germany where they dug foxholes to sleep in. During that summer the Allied troops made substantial progress in moving the German army east out of France and into Germany.

In his 2019 interview with Judy, Hal reported that his brother Otto was in the Quartermaster Corps in the Third Army in France and Germany, commanded by General George Patton. Otto was in a unit stationed near General Patton’s headquarters as the troops battled into France and thus was near the center of the army’s advance through France into Germany. According to several sources, the quartermaster corps was generally in charge of procuring and delivering supplies for the combat units, including food, clothing, fuel, ammunition, and general supplies. They also planned for transportation and handle other logistical matters. And they could often be in danger during combat, serving alongside their fellow soldiers in providing those goods and services to them.

Otto reported that he saw little fire as they moved through France. By the fall of 1944, they were stationed for several months about fifty miles from Metz, France, and by early January, 1945, his division had advanced into Metz, which is about fifty miles from the German border.

They were in Metz until the spring, and Otto reported that the captain of their unit was Jewish and allowed the Jewish soldiers to stay for Passover in Metz. By that time (March 28, 1945) the rest of the unit had begun moving into Germany. They were all reunited in early April in Eisenach, Germany, which was close to the Nazi camp in Buchenwald.1 Otto told Judy in 2001 that the Jewish captain of their unit sent the known antisemites in the unit to Buchenwald, now liberated, to see the results of Nazi persecution, and the soldiers who visited came back very upset by what they had seen. Unfortunately, that did not erase their underlying antisemitism, according to Otto.

Otto’s unit stayed in Eisenach for two weeks. When the war ended on May 8, 1945, he was then stationed near Nuremberg. He was camped in Furth, near Zirndorf, where he and Hal were reunited for a brief visit. This photograph was taken during that visit in July, 1945.

Otto and Hal Katz, July 1945, in Zirndorf, Germany. Courtesy of the family

Otto worked from March 1945 until August 1945 as a sewing machine operator, making snow suits and repairing army clothing. He was then transferred to Reims in France, and then Marseilles, where he waited to be sent to fight in the Pacific Theater. Fortunately, the war ended before he could be sent to the Pacific, and he was transferred to a suburb outside of Antwerp, where from August 1945 until November 1945, he was an inspector in a dry cleaning plant and was able to see Ruth and Jonas Tiefenbrunner. He returned home sometime after that and was discharged from the army on January 19, 1946.

Otto Katz at his sewing machine. Courtesy of the family

Here is a map showing Otto’s path from Normandy to Metz to Eisenach to Zirndorf to Reims to Marseilles and finally to Antwerp.

 

Meanwhile, Hal also was stationed overseas during the war. He provided Judy with many details about his training and his service during her interview with him in 2019. He was drafted in September 1943 and reported for duty in New York, bringing nothing with him except some underwear and toilet articles. He told Judy that he “wasn’t smart enough to be nervous.” He was not yet nineteen years old at the time.

He was taken by train to Fort Dix in New Jersey and then to Camp Landing in Jacksonville, Florida, for basic training where he learned how to march in formation and how to handle an M1 rifle. He claimed he was terrible at shooting because he couldn’t see the target (Hal wore and wears glasses). He became a low speed radio operator and rifleman. While in Florida he applied for and became a US citizen.

Here is Hal with his rifle:

Hal Katz during World War II. Courtesy of the family

From Florida he was sent to Newport News, Virginia, and after one night there he boarded a Liberty ship with five hundred other GIs. The ship was not built for passengers, and the bunks were stacked four to five high in the cargo hold. They sailed to Naples, Italy—a trip that took 28 days. They were sent to a “Repo Depot,” a replacement depot where the newly arrived soldiers were used to replace those who had been wounded, killed, or captured. He spent two to three weeks there, waiting for assignments and marking time. They lived in tents and slept on cots, ten people to a tent.

Hal became a radio operator in the 88th Division, 351st Regiment, Second Battalion, Company B, in the Fifth Army in Italy. By that time Italy had surrendered to the Allies and had joined them in the war against Germany. The Allies were at the time of Hal’s service trying to drive the Germans out of Italy. His division was assigned to areas in Italy between Naples and Rome, and it was mostly quiet for the sixteen months he was there. In the spring of 1945, his regiment would move forward a couple of miles a day, occasionally having contact with the Germany army, and “sometimes people were shot.”

It was during this time that Hal did something extraordinary for which he received a Bronze Medal, an experience he did not even discuss in his interview with Judy and was reluctant to discuss with me. I will transcribe the citation given when he received medal.

Bronze Star citation for Hal Katz

Headquarters 88th Infantry Division

United States Army

APO 88

SUBJECT: Award of Bronze Medal

To: Private First Class Harold Katz, 42043105, Company F, 351st Infantry Regiment

CITATION

Harold Katz, 42043105, Private First Class, Company F, 351st Infantry Regiment. For heroic achievement in action on April 19, 1945 in the vicinity of San Giacomo di Martignone Italy. When his platoon was fired on from a house three hundred yard to its front, Private KATZ volunteered to go forward dodging from cover to cover until he was within seventy-five yard of the house and within easy calling distance. Then stepping boldly out into the open Private KATZ shouted to the enemy in perfect German that their force was completely surrounded and further resistance would be suicide. His answer was a blast of machine pistol fire from an upper window. Private KATZ was entirely alone and the nearest friendly troops were three hundred yards from the house, he kept his nerve and negotiated the surrender of forty-six Germans through sheer bluff, telling them that if anything happened to him the house and all its occupants would be completely destroyed. This plucky action of Private KATZ removed a serious obstacle to the advance of his battalion and permitted the advance to continue with almost no delay. This action is typical of Private KATZ’s courageous conduct in battle, and he reflects the fine traditions of the Armed Forces. Entered military service from New York, New York.

J.C. FRY, Colonel, Infantry, Commanding

Imagine the scene. A house of Germans shooting at a company of American soldiers. Of the three hundred American GIs there, Hal Katz, all of 5’3 1/2” according to his draft registration, is the one to run up close to the house and yell, in German, that they were surrounded and had to surrender. And the Germans believed him and surrendered to him. I find it hard to imagine how he had the guts to do this.

Hal came home from Europe six months later in early September 1945 and was assigned to Fort Dix and then to Fort Wadsworth on Staten Island. He was able to sleep at home and report to duty at Fort Wadsworth during the day. He was finally discharged from the army on October 31, 1945. He had just turned 21.

As you can probably infer from these summaries of their interviews with Judy, both Otto and Hal spoke very modestly about their service during the war. Both of them played down the dangers they faced and the violence they must have seen. When I asked Hal on Zoom about his medal, he dismissed his heroic act as being just a stupid act by a very young man.

My cousins Otto Katz and Harold “Hal” Katz are two of the many men of the Greatest Generation who helped us defeat the Nazis: two young Jewish men, immigrants from Germany, who fought against Hitler and defended their new homeland here in the United States. We should all be eternally grateful to them.

Otto Katz and Hal Katz. Courtesy of the family

 

 

 

 

 

  1. Eisenach was heavily bombed by the Allies during World War II and was taken over by the Americans in April 1945 near the end of the war. It then was taken over by the Soviets and became part of East Germany. See website at https://www.germansights.com/eisenach/#:~:text=Eisenach%20was%20bombed%20heavily%20at,miles%20away%20from%20the%20town). ↩

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

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

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

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

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

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

Clara Rothschild c. 1910
Courtesy of the family

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

Moritz Katz in 1912. Courtesy of the family.

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

Clara Rothschild and Moritz Katz undated
Courtesy of the family

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

Caroline Katz 1930. Courtesy of the family

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

More on that to come in my next post.

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

Yom Hashoah 2025

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

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

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

Two Updates: Why Didn’t Mathilde Rothschild Leave Germany With Her Family? And How did Albert Alexander Meet His Wife?

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Before I continue the stories of the children of Gerson Rothschild and Fanny Kugelmann, I have three updates to earlier posts that I’d like to share. All three are possible because other researchers and family members found this blog and contacted me. These are true gifts from the genealogy village. I am so grateful.

Some of you may recall that back in May 2024, I wrote about my relative Hirsch “Harry” Rothschild and his three children, all of whom escaped from Nazi Germany to the United States before World War II started. But unfortunately Harry’s wife Mathilde did not escape with her family and was ultimately murdered by the Nazis.

In my blog post about this family I wondered why Mathilde had not come with Harry and her children when they left Germany. Was she ill, I speculated? I had no answers.

Now I have more information about the family of Harry Rothschild. A man named Fredo Behrens recently contacted me after seeing my blog post. He lives in Oldenburg, Germany, and as he told me in his email, he worked for the “Nordwestdeutsches Museum für Industriekultur” in Delmenhorst for several years 25 years ago, where his area of responsibility was museum education, exhibitions and a regional “Topography of the Nazi Era.” He also is on the board of the “Friends and Supporters of the Jewish Community of Delmenhorst,” and heads the Delmenhorst City History Working Group. More specifically, he has done research into the history of the Jewish people of Delmenhorst, including the Rothschild family.1

Fredo told me about a monograph by Dr. Enno Meyer from 1985 entitled “Die Geschichte der Delmenhorster Juden 1695-1945”, or the History of the Jews of Delmenhorst 1695-1945. Dr. Meyer was the head of “Gesellschaft für christlich-jüdische Zusammenarbeit” (Society for Christian-Jewish Cooperation) for at least 30 years, according to Fredo. Fredo sent me both a copy of Dr. Meyer’s monograph (in German) and also a copy of an article that Fredo himself wrote about the Jews of Delmenhorst that excerpts parts of Meyer’s monograph and adds to it.2 I was able to use DeepL to translate Fredo’s work and learn more about the Rothschild family’s life in Delmenhorst.

According to the works of Meyer and Behrens, Dr. Harry Rothschild came to Delmenhorst from Hesse in 1914 and was the first Jewish doctor to practice in that town. By 1925, he was one of the top two taxpayers in the town. Harry was not active in the organized Jewish community, however, until after the Nazis came to power.3 According to Fredo’s research, the growing antisemitism in the early 1930s prompted Harry to become more involved. By 1933 he was chairman of the local Zionist organization and on the Jewish community board.

When the Nuremberg Laws were adopted and Jews were no longer allowed to employ Aryans, Harry and his Aryan cleaning woman petitioned the mayor for permission to continue their employment relationship, but their petition was rejected.4

Fredo kindly shared with me this photograph showing the street where the Rothschild family lived in Delmenhorst in 1930. The arrow points to where Harry Rothschild practiced medicine and lived before he left Germany in 1939.

Rothschild house and office in Delmenhorst, 1930, courtesy of Fredo Behrens: Jüdisches Leben in der Langen Straße nach 1933. In: Die Lange Straße in Delmenhorst : Biographie einer alten Straße ; Begleitveröffentlichung zur Ausstellung in den Museen der Stadt Delmenhorst auf der Nordwolle vom 24.6. – 2.9.2001. Hg. vom Stadtmuseum Delmenhorst. Isensee, Oldenburg 2001, p. 60

Then on October 10, 1937, Harry and a number of other Jewish residents of Delmenhorst were arrested by the Gestapo without warning or warrants. According to the observations of a fellow prisoner who became Harry’s cellmate, Harry was particularly humiliated by this experience and was called a “dirty stinking Jew” by one of the Gestapo agents. Harry and his cellmate were in solitary confinement, and Harry remained in prison until the spring of 1938. Harry’s condition had deteriorated greatly during his imprisonment.5

On November 10, 1938 in the aftermath of Kristallnacht, Harry was again arrested and was one of fourteen Jewish men who were arrested and sent to the concentration camp at Sachsenhausen.6

By that time all three of Harry and Mathilde’s children had left Germany for the United States. Harry left in the spring of 1939 and went to Cuba, and he was finally able to join his children in the US in December 1939.

But as we know, Mathilde did not come with him, and she was eventually deported to Minsk and died there. Dr. Meyer shed some light on this in his monograph, also quoted in Fredo Behren’s work. On page 85 of his history of the Delmenhorst Jews, Enno Meyer wrote that Mathilde had stayed behind to try and sell the family house; then when the war started in September 1939, she was trapped in Germany and could not leave.7

If only Mathilde had left with Harry and had not tried to sell the family’s home, this family’s story would have had a much happier ending. There may be more to this story that we will never know, but if this account is accurate, it shows how one decision affected an entire family’s fate during the Holocaust.

I want to thank Fredo Behrens again for providing me with the information and the photograph used in this post and for the work he does to preserve the Jewish history of Delmenhorst.

The second update came from two newly found cousins—my fifth cousin Charles Alexander and his daughter Kate. They also found me through my blog. Charles is the grandson of Theresa Rothschild Alexander, and I wrote about that family here. Check out the update there and learn how Charles’ parents, Albert Alexander and Mary Jane Deiches, actually met. My original speculation proved to be incorrect.

Also, I’ve added to that post a photo Charles gave me from his father’s yearbook. I am also adding it here since I could not place it properly in the original post.

Finally, the third update will have to wait until next week.

  1. Email from Fredo Behrens, March 25, 2025. ↩
  2. Fredo Behrens, “Jüdisches Leben in der Langen Straße nach 1933. In: Die Lange Straße in Delmenhorst : Biographie einer alten Straße; Begleitveröffentlichung zur Ausstellung in den Museen der Stadt Delmenhorst auf der Nordwolle vom 24.6. – 2.9.2001. Hg. vom Stadtmuseum Delmenhorst. Isensee, Oldenburg 2001. ↩
  3. Enno Meyer, “Die Geschichte der Delmenhorster Juden 1695-1945,” (1985), pp. 48, 55, 60, as cited in Behrens,  Note 2, supra. ↩
  4. Behrens, Note 2, supra, citing a letter dated November 14, 1936, response from the mayor dated December 3, 1936. Exhibition “Delmenhorst in National Socialism.   based on a letter dated September 24, 1955, affidavit from Wilhelm Schroers for Dr. Rothschild. Exhibition “Delmenhorst under National Socialism.” ↩
  5. Letter dated September 24, 1955, affidavit from Wilhelm Schroers for Dr. Rothschild. Exhibition “Delmenhorst under National Socialism.” as quoted in Behrens, Note 2, supra. ↩
  6. Behrens, Note 2, supra. ↩
  7. Enno Meyer, “Die Geschichte der Delmenhorster Juden 1695-1945,” (1985), p. 85, as cited in Behrens, Note 2, supra. ↩

The Devastating Effects of Terrorism

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Today I am honored and moved to share an essay written by my fourth cousin, once removed, Miki Katzenstein Dror. Miki is the daughter of Arie Katzenstein1, an Israeli who was killed by terrorists on February 10, 1970, at the Munich airport while he was traveling with his father Heinz on business.

As I wrote here and here, Arie sacrificed his own life by throwing his body on a grenade, thus saving the lives of many others, including his father, who had fled to Israel from Nazi Germany in the 1930s. Miki and her two siblings were just young children at the time. Because of this horrible act of terror, they grew up without their beloved and courageous father.

Arye Katzenstein Courtesy of his family

As Miki wrote almost a year a half ago, the city of Munich decided to create a memorial to honor the memory of her father Arie and the others who were injured and terrorized on that day in 1970. On February 10, 2025, Miki and her siblings and other family members traveled to Munich to participate in the dedication of that memorial.

This video, in Hebrew but with English subtitles, includes interviews with Miki and her siblings and more information about Arie Katzenstein’s tragic murder. This video in German shows what the memorial looks like and also some images from the ceremony itself, including images of Miki and her brother and sister speaking at the ceremony. It also has some historic footage from coverage of the attack in 1970. Richard Bloomfield has provided me with this translation of the text of the second video.

55 years ago, members of a Palestinian terrorist organization tried to hijack an El Al Israeli airline plane. The victims and the heroes of the attack were commemorated today at the former tower.

Three golden clocks symbolize the times of the three detonations on February 10, 1970. They are located in front of the tower of the former airport in Munich-Riem. The artist Alicja Kwade created the work of art. At today’s inauguration of the memorial, Arie Katzenstein’s three children commemorated their father, who, through his courage, saved the lives of others exactly 55 years ago by throwing himself on a hand grenade. Palestinian terrorists had attacked the passengers during a stopover in Munich, killing the German-Israeli Katzenstein and injuring others. The captain of the aircraft also put up a courageous fight. The extent of the terrorist act had been clearly underestimated, said the mayor of Munich.

[The mayor] “However, I also find it shameful that it has taken half a century for us to finally publicly commemorate the terrible attack here in Munich on February 10, 1970. For this, I apologize. I am glad that we have finally found a worthy way to commemorate it.”

Brainlab, which is now located at the former tower, the city and the family worked closely together.

[Arie’s son] “It will remind people who come here of what happened. And it will make them think.”

A memorial plaque and a website [https://munich1970.de/en/] provide information about the attack. This is to keep the memory of the victims and heroes of Munich-Riem alive.

Here’s a photograph of the memorial:

I asked Miki if she would share with me and my readers her thoughts and feelings about the dedication and the memorial itself. This is what she wrote:

Finally, after fifty-five years, our heroic father was commemorated at the site of his murder in Munich, Germany.

On the afternoon of February 10, 1970, EL AL Flight 435 landed in Munich on its way to London. While waiting for the connecting flight, a squad of three terrorists attacked the passengers by firing pistols and throwing hand grenades.

Our father, the late Arie Katzenstein, who flew with his late father Heinz, for business, threw himself at one of the hand grenades that were thrown at the passengers, thus saving many others, but was killed on the spot.

At his death, he left behind a young widow and three small children between the ages of three months and six years: Miki Dror, Tami Meirovich and Ofer Katzenstein.

About a decade after his death, our mother received a letter from the President of Israel at the time, the late Yitzhak Navon, in which he wrote, among other things, that the State of Israel would cherish the memory of our father among its other heroes. Unfortunately, this promise was never kept, despite our many inquiries on the subject.

On the other hand, about five years ago, representatives of the Munich municipality contacted us, following a request from our German friends. They announced that the municipality intended to commemorate our father at the site of the attack – the old airport in Munich–Riem. As the Germans are using a newer airport these days, the old one is used as a big convention center and a high-tech park. From that moment on, a long process of conversations, meetings and discussions began between us and the Munich municipality regarding the manner of commemoration. At an early point, the high-tech company Brainlab joined the effort. Its offices are currently located in the area where the attack took place.

The company expressed its most generous consent to the existence of the memorial site on its premises and funded a work of art by the famous internationally acclaimed artist Alicja Kwade, to be displayed there.

On February 10, 2025, exactly fifty-five years after the murder of our father, the inauguration ceremony was held in the presence of the President of the Bavarian Parliament, Mrs. Ilse Aigner, the Mayor of Munich, Mr. Dieter Reiter, Founder of Brainlab, Mr. Stefan Viltsmeier, the Consul General of Israel in Munich, Ms. Talia Lador, the artist Alicja Kwade, family members of our Germans friends, other families of the victims and many, many more.

From left to right: Ms. Talia Lador, Consul of Israel to Munich; Mrs. Ilse Aigner, President of Bavarian Parliament; Ofer Katzenstein; Tami Katzenstein; Mr. Dieter Reiter, Mayor of Munich; Miki Katzenstein Dror;  and Mr. Stefan Viltsmeier, founder of Brainlab

During the ceremony, the German dignitaries gave moving speeches, and we, his three children, spoke about our father, his absence, and the long journey that had brought us to this day. In addition, we thanked the German government and their ambassador in Israel for their support in the struggle for the release of the Israeli hostages from Gaza and asked that they not give up until the last of the abductees was brought home.

The Katzenstein family attending the memorial dedication in Munich, February 10, 2025

The singing of opera singers Hagar Sharvit and Noa Beinart and pianist Amiel Bushkevich did not leave a dry eye.

We arrived to the ceremony with a full family lineup, including all of our father’s grandchildren, but unfortunately our mother Bilha, who passed away not long ago, did not get to attend this exciting event. At the end of the ceremony, we read Kaddish, and laid flowers, an Israeli flag, and a scarf of the Hapoel Haifa soccer team – which our father loved so much.

Ofer Katzenstein saying Kaddish at the memorial site for his father Arie Katzenstein

For us, this is a moment of partial closure and unparalleled excitement. After so many years of action, our father’s sacrifice is finally officially recognized.

Now, we have a place where we can come to with our families, relate to, and remember. We couldn’t have asked for more.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has helped us over the past few years to get to know our father better, to speak about him and to spread his heroic deeds.

And finally, I’m writing this post on the day that Hamas, the terror organization, released the bodies of Kfir and Ariel Bibas, two babies who were taken to Gaza as hostages more than a year ago. So sad that after 55 years it seems as if nothing has changed, and terror still strike Jews, in Israel and in the world.

When I received the email from Miki sharing this essay, I also was struck by the fact, as Miki observed, that this was the same day that the bodies of the two Bibas children were returned to Israel—two beautiful, innocent babies who were murdered by Hamas after they and their parents were kidnapped by Hamas on October 7, 2023. After first sending the wrong remains, Hamas later released the actual remains of their mother, Shiri Bibas. Their father Yarden Bibas survived his capture and confinement and was released back to Israel, but without his wife and children. Like the children of Arie Katzenstein and so many others, Yarden Bibas has had his family destroyed by terrorism.

Terrorism against Jews began centuries ago with the pogroms that chased some of my ancestors out of Europe, continued with the murder of six million Jews, including many of my relatives, during the Holocaust, and tragically continues to this very day with the nightmare of October 7, 2023, and its aftermath.

And it isn’t only Jews who have suffered because of the hatred, violence, and terror inflicted on one group by another. We still are seeing across the globe the bloodshed and tragedy that hatred produces.

How many more children will grow up without a parent? How many more parents will have to mourn their children? Will we ever learn?

May the memory of Arie Katzenstein be for a blessing, as well as the memories of Kfir, Ariel, and Shiri Bibas, and all the other victims of October 7. And may we someday finally learn, to paraphrase Martin Luther King, that only love can drive out hatred, only light can drive out darkness.

  1. Sometimes transliterated from Hebrew as Aryeh or Arye. ↩

A Brick Wall Tumbles: The Fates of August Felix Katzenstein and Julius Katzenstein, Orphaned Sons of Meier Katzenstein, Part I

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Thanks to my friend Aaron Knappstein and my cousin Richard Bloomfield, an old brick wall has recently come down. Over seven years ago I wrote about the tragic story of Meier Katzenstein and his family. You can find all the sources, citations, and details here. But I will briefly outline their story.

Meier, my great-grandmother Hilda Katzenstein Schoenthal’s first cousin, lost his first wife Auguste Wolf in 1876, shortly after she gave birth to their son August Felix Katzenstein. Meier remarried and had two more children with his second wife Bertha Speier:  Julius Katzenstein, born in 1879, and Ida Katzenstein, born in 1880. Both Ida and her mother Bertha died in April 1881, less than a year after Ida’s birth. Meier was left with two young sons, August, who was five years old, and Julius, who was two.

And then Meier himself died three years later in 1884, leaving August and Julius orphaned at eight and five, respectively. I couldn’t imagine what had happened to those two little boys. Who took care of them? What happened to them? This post will follow up on August, and the one to follow will be about his half-brother Julius.

I had been able to find out some of what happened to August as an adult when I initially wrote about him over seven years. He had married his first cousin, once removed, Rosa Bachenheimer in Kirchain, Germany, in 1900 when he was twenty-four years old. August and Rosa had two children, Margarete and Hans-Peter. All four of them were killed by the Nazis during the Holocaust. I knew that much, but there were still some gaping holes in my research. Where had August lived after his father died? Did he have any grandchildren? If so, did they survive the Holocaust?

So I went back now to to double-check my research and see if I could find anything more about August Felix Katzenstein and his family. I am so glad I did.

First, I learned at Yad Vashem that August and Rosa’s daughter Margarete had married Rudolf Loewenstein and had had two children with him: Klaus, born March 16, 1930, in Soest, Germany, and Klara, born June 9, 1932, in Soest, Germany. Unfortunately, Rudolf, Margarete and their two young children were also killed along with their grandparents and uncle during the Holocaust.

Then I found this Stolpersteine biography of August Katzenstein on a website about the history of the community of Essen, revised in 2024 by Mr. and Mrs. Hülskemper-Niemannn. It provides in part, as translated by Google Translate:

August Katzenstein was orphaned at a very early age. He then lived for a long time in the household of the parents of his future wife Rosa Bachenheimer from Kirchhain, whom he married around the turn of the century. The couple had two children: Margarethe (1901, later Loewenstein) and Hans (1905). August Katzenstein moved with his family to Steele in 1908 and took up a position as a teacher in the one-class Jewish elementary school at Isinger Tor. …

After 1933, the Katzensteins’ lives changed radically. In 1937, the Gestapo arrested the couple because they were allegedly managing the assets of a dissolved Jewish organization. After a search of their apartment and rigorous interrogation and warnings, the couple were released. Even worse happened to August Katzenstein, who taught at the Jewish elementary school in Essen on Sachsenstrasse after the Jewish elementary school in Steele was closed, during and after the November pogrom. The apartment on Grendtor (then Ruhrstrasse) was destroyed and looted, and he and his disabled son Hans were arrested. While the 62-year-old father was released from police prison after 11 days, Hans was taken to Dachau despite written requests from his parents, from where he was only released after four weeks.

In the autumn of 1941, the deportation of Jews began across the Reich, including in Essen. … Half a year later, Katzenstein and his entire family were deported to Izbica. 

So now I know who had taken care of August after his father died: Rosa’s parents Sussman Bachenheimer and his wife Esther Ruelf, my second cousin, twice removed. I wrote about them here. I also now know that August had become a teacher and lived in Steele, Germany, a suburb of Essen, Germany.

I found additional information about August and his family at Yad Vashem. The website has been updated since I had last researched August Katzenstein, and I found these documents I had not seen before from the Yizkor Book for the Jews of the Essen community who had been killed during the Holocaust. I asked my cousin Richard Bloomfield to translate these pages, and he graciously (and quickly!) agreed to do so.

Richard’s translation provides:

August Katzenstein was a Mensch.

He was a German citizen and of the Jewish faith, whose teachings shaped his life. He was born on September 13, 1876, in Jesberg/Hesse and lived in the Jewish community of Steinheim in Westphalia until 1908, where he held the office of teacher and religious official. With his wife Rosa, née Bachenheimer, he had a daughter Margarete, born in 1901, and a son Jacob (Hans), born in 1905.

August Katzenstein saw his work as a teacher not just as a profession, but as a vocation. In his eyes, the teacher was not only an imparter of knowledge, he was also a leading figure in the Jewish community who had to ensure a harmonious relationship between the community and school life.

Beginning at the age of 20, August Katzenstein decided to represent not only the interests of his community and pupils, but also those of German citizens of the Jewish faith as a whole.

He joined the “Central Association of German Citizens of the Jewish Faith” “Central-Verein deutscher Staatsbürger jüdischen Glaubens”.

Until he moved to Essen in 1908, he was a representative of the C.-V. local group in Steinheim.

After moving to Essen Steele, he taught at the Jewish elementary school there. The importance that Katzenstein attached to the new self-image of Jews as German citizens of the Jewish faith can be seen in his speech on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Jewish school, in which he states,

“For 50 years now, the youth of the Jewish community has received their education in the Jewish school to become faithful Israelites and loyal citizens who love their fatherland, in addition to their general education. May the Jewish school continue to work beneficially for God, for the fatherland and for humanity, true to its guiding principles.”

The mission of the independent order “Bnai Brith” founded in the USA, spiritual self-education, the promotion of science and art, help for the persecuted and needy and the defense of Jewish citizens in the event of anti-Semitic attacks led August Katzenstein to join the Glück-Auf-Lodge of “Bnai Brith” in Essen in 1911 and of which he was president until April 1935.

Until his retirement in 1937, he also headed the Jewish relief organization in Essen-Steele. But despite his retirement, he did not neglect the members of the community whose employ he had left.

The ban and immediate dissolution of the “Bnai Brith” order by Himmler’s decree of April 10, 1937, resulted in August Katzenstein’s arrest on April 19, 1937, after his apartment and all the rooms of the Glück-Auf-Loge had already been searched two days earlier.

August Katzenstein then had to endure hours of interrogation under threat of state police measures. He was forced to sign a declaration that he had no further property belonging to the Glück-Auf-Lodge at his disposal and that he was not aware of where further material might be hidden, as documented in the Gestapo protocol of the same day.

During the so-called Reichskristallnacht on November 9, 1938, the Katzenstein family’s home at Ruhrstrasse 24 was also severely damaged. One day later, August Katzenstein and his disabled son were arrested again. They were held in the police prison in Essen until November 19, 1938. After his release, August Katzenstein wrote a letter to the Gestapo asking them to release his son, who had been sent to Dachau concentration camp. His son Jacob (Hans) then returned on December 21, 1938.

However, not only the care of his family, but also the suffering of the community entrusted to him had become his life’s purpose. Even the destruction of the school and synagogue as the center of the community during the November pogrom could not break August Katzenstein’s will to live in the Jewish faith.

In January 1939, August Katzenstein carried out his last community-related activity, officiating at the wedding of a young couple in the wife’s parental home.

On April 22, 1942, August Katzenstein, his wife Rosa, his son Hans, his daughter Margarete, his son-in-law Rudolf Loewenstein and his two grandchildren were deported to Izbica. No trace of them remains.

His strong faith and the willpower born of it made him a lovable, upright person whose care for his Jewish community defined his life.

Contemporary Jewish witnesses describe August Katzenstein as a wonderful person of integrity, very wise, reserved and fully committed to his Judaism. As a teacher, he was not only a person of respect for the children, but “more like a father.” August Katzenstein was a man whose life was simply snuffed out because he was Jewish.

Nikolaus-Gross, Abendgymnasium Essen, Semester 4

I wondered whether August’s “retirement” from teaching was voluntary or forced upon him by the Nazis, and although it’s still not clear, Richard also found this article about August’s retirement published on November 1, 1936, in the Jüdische Schulzeitung [Monthly journal for education, instruction and school policy; official publication of the Reich Association of Jewish Teachers’ Associations], (p.6):

Richard translated the article for me:

On September 30, 1936, after 40 years of beneficial work in the service of Jewish schools and 7 years of work at the local Jewish elementary school in Essen, teacher and preacher August Katzenstein of Essen-Steele, who recently turned 60, retired. With him, one of the best representatives of the older Jewish generation of teachers leaves the teaching profession.

The school held a farewell party in the festively decorated classroom. Principal Isaac paid tribute to the departing teacher’s services to Jewish schools in general and to the Jewish Elementary School in Essen in particular. Principal Buchheim of Dortmund conveyed the wishes of the Association of Israelite Teachers of the Rhineland and Westphalia. Mr. Lieblich spoke as a representative of the Steele Synagogue community.

The children of the class that Mr. Katzenstein taught last, as well as the school choir led by teacher Levisohn, contributed to the ceremony with poems and songs.

Finally, colleague Katzenstein gave a heartfelt thank you.

Obviously, August was a well-loved, well-respected teacher and community leader. His early childhood was quite miserable—losing his mother, then his stepmother and half-sister, then his father—all before he was nine years old. But despite that tragic beginning, he lived a full and productive life, filled with meaning, faith, family, and love. How someone recovers from so much tragedy is amazing to me.

But then the Nazis came to power and destroyed August’s life and his family. I am so glad I went back to see if I could learn more about his life, and I am so grateful to Richard for his translation of the documents from the Essen Yizkor Book and for finding the article about August’s retirement. I found comfort in knowing that despite his tragic beginning and ending, August found fulfillment and meaning in his life.

But what about his younger brother Julius? I had known even less about him when I first researched this family. I couldn’t find anything that revealed what happened to him after his parents died. I couldn’t find a marriage record, a death record, a birth record for any children—-not one thing. Fortunately, he was not listed at Yad Vashem, so presumably had not shared the fate of his brother August. But where had he gone? Who had taken care of this little orphaned boy?

I will report on what I’ve learned about Julius in my next post.

 

 

 

New for 2025!

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Happy New Year to all my friends, family, and readers! I hope you all had a joyful and safe New Year’s Eve.

My first big news of 2025 is that my newest family history novel will be released at the end of January just thirty days from now. It’s titled Simon’s Story and was inspired by the story of my three-times great-grandfather’s younger brother Simon Goldschmidt. Although Simon’s life was the spark that led me to write this novel, the book itself is fiction wrapped around the skeleton of Simon’s life.

As described on Amazon, “Simon … came to the United States from Germany, a poor Jewish man whose first wife had died, leaving him with young children. After he remarried, he and his new wife and the children came to the United States. But Simon had a secret that he kept from his children. His daughter Hannah struggled all her life to understand her mysterious and aloof father. Why was he so cold, so withdrawn? What made him the way he was?”

The book is available for pre-order on Kindle now and you can find the link here. The paperback version will also be sold on Amazon and will be available on January 31, 2025.

I hope you will consider reading Simon’s Story, and if you enjoy it, please let me know and also please leave a review on Amazon.

Cousin Meetings: Richard and Max Meet in Merano, Max and I Meet on Cape Cod

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One of the greatest gifts I’ve received through my genealogy research is connecting with and getting to know new cousins. Some are as close as second cousins, some as distant as fifth or even sixth cousins. But none of that seems to matter once we have connected.

Sometimes these connections are only through email. Sometimes they are by phone. And sometimes I have been able to connect with cousins and get to see their faces and get to know them through Zoom. There are cousins from all over the US and the world with whom I have emailed, phoned, and/or zoomed—some as far away as Israel, Germany, France, Switzerland, England, and Australia, some as close as right here in Massachusetts.

I’ve been especially blessed when I’ve gotten to meet and spend time with a cousin in person. And that has happened far more times than I’d ever, ever have predicted. I have had meals with cousins in all kinds of places—in western Massachusetts where I once lived and on Cape Cod where I now live, in Florida and in New York City, in Boston and in Philadelphia, and even overseas—in Germany and in London. Each time it has been a truly joyful experience. Even though we had never met before and even though our connection may go back several generations to an ancestor we never knew, there was still something magical about meeting a cousin.

So I was somewhat envious but also thrilled when I learned that two cousins I’d found through my research and then connected to each other—Richard Bloomfield and Max Bermann—were able to meet in Merano, Italy, this past spring. Richard is my fifth cousin through his 3x-great-grandfather Jakob Blumenfeld, a younger brother of my 3x-great-grandmother Breine Blumenfeld; Max is also my fifth cousin, but through his 3x-great-grandfather Moses Blumenfeld, an older brother of Breine Blumenfeld, my 3x-great-grandmother. And Richard and Max are fifth cousins to each other; we are all the 4x-great-grandchildren of Abraham and Geitel (Katz) Blumenfeld.

Although I had zoomed and emailed with Max and Richard many times, I had never met either of them—until last Thursday, that is, when my husband and I had dinner with Max and his wife Glenna here on Cape Cod. Again, it was a magical and joyful experience. The warmth and connection were authentic and immediate, and we found so much to talk about in the three hours we sat at Fin, an amazing restaurant in Dennis. When we looked around at 10 pm, we realized we were the only ones left in the restaurant; the staff were all sitting around the bar politely not disturbing us, but obviously waiting for us to leave. After repeated promises to get together again, we all hugged goodbye, leaving as not just cousins but four new friends.

At dinner Max and Glenna told us about their trip in May, 2024, to Merano and meeting Richard and his wife Irma there. Why, you might ask, did they meet in Merano, Italy, a town not far from the Austrian border when Richard lives in Switzerland and Max in Massachusetts?

Well, that requires some background about Max’s life. I’ve shared Max’s story before on the blog, and I hope you will go back to the earlier blog posts for more details and photographs as well as for my sources for the information below. Also, Richard wrote a comprehensive biography of Max’s family.

But here is a very brief overview of why Max was visiting Merano:

Max’s mother was Edith Blumenfeld, daughter of Max Blumenfeld and Anna Grunwald. She married Joseph Bermann, Max’s father, in 1935.1 Joseph was born in Merano, Italy, where his father Max Bermann was a doctor and the director of the Waldpark Sanitarium. Joseph also became a doctor and worked there as well. After marrying, Edith and Joseph settled in Merano.

My cousin Max, grandson of both Max Blumenfeld and Max Bermann and named for both, was born in Merano a few years after his parents’ marriage. His father Joseph left Merano for the US in 1939 to escape from the Nazi and Fascist persecution and the impending war, intending to send for Edith, Max, and Max’s older sister Margherita once he was settled. But World Was II intervened, and Edith and the children could not get out of Europe.

They soon left Merano for Milan and then for the countryside of Italy where they hid their Jewish identity while Edith worked for the resistance as a courier. Once the war ended, Edith brought the children to the US, and they were reunited with Joseph. The story of how Edith kept herself, her mother, and her children safe during the war is a remarkable one and is described here on my blog and in Richard’s biography of Max’s family.

Max had never been back to Merano, his birthplace, after immigrating to the US in 1946, and he and his wife Glenna decided to visit there this year. The visit was motivated in part to see a painting of Max’s paternal grandfather, Max Bermann, a painting that Joseph Bermann had brought with him to the US in 1939 and that had been in Max’s parents’ home in New York City. It had then hung in Max and Glenna’s home for many years. Because he wanted to be sure that the painting was preserved in a safe and appropriate place in perpetuity, Max decided to donate the painting to the Jewish Museum in Merano, his birthplace and his father’s family home for many years. After shipping the painting there last year, Max and Glenna wanted to see it in its new home in Merano.

Meanwhile, Richard, born and raised in the United States, lives near St. Gallen, Switzerland, and thus about five hours from Merano. Richard had helped to connect Max with the Merano Jewish Museum, and when Richard learned that Max and Glenna were coming to Merano, he asked whether he and his wife Irma could meet them there. Max and Glenna were delighted.

Richard has generously shared with me some of the photographs of their meeting and an essay he wrote about the experience. I will quote parts of what he wrote rather than trying to paraphrase it.2 I am also going to include some of his photographs.

“Last Sunday we [Richard and Irma, his wife] stood on the balcony of our hotel room in Meran and looked across the Passer River at the Hotel Meraner Hof where Max and Glenna were going to be staying. It had been just two and a half weeks since Max had written me that he and Glenna were going to travel to Meran. Max had donated a painting of his grandfather [Max Bermann] to the Jewish Museum in Meran and wanted to have the experience of seeing it on display. When I asked Max if he would mind if Irma and I came to meet them there, Max wrote that he found that touching. Although we are 5th cousins, i.e. relatives, and had had email and Zoom contact, we didn’t want to intrude on Max’s first trip back to his place of birth since leaving it at age 2.

Our first live encounter took place when we waved to each other from our balcony to their terrasse. Shortly thereafter, we greeted each other with big hugs, sat down for a drink and exchanged the special, personal gifts we had brought for each other. We were joined by Sabine Mayr, researcher and co-worker at the Jewish Museum, and the museum’s director Joachim Innerhofer. Joachim and Sabine welcomed us like VIPs: Max, the long-lost son; I, the person who had connected Max with the museum in Meran and provided them with lots of information from my family research; Glenna and Irma as though they were long lost members of the Jewish community in Meran.

Remembering the adage that the way to the heart is through the stomach, we headed off to a restaurant for dinner. Unfortunately, Joachim had an appointment and couldn’t join us. Maybe we should have had an empty chair at the table for Amy, the person who had done the matchmaking between Max and me (and lots of other cousins!).

Richard, Sabina Mayr, Irma, Glenna, and Max

Monday morning we visited the synagogue and museum just behind Max and Glenna’s hotel. The first synagogue in Tirol was dedicated on 27 March 1901 and the interior has survived in its original form. When the Nazis removed the pews to use the room as a horse stall, the people of Meran saved them and returned them after the war. The very attractive Jewish Museum of Meran is located in the same building.

The sanctuary pictured below is warm – comfy – and inviting. Even with just seven rows of pews on the main floor, there is more than enough room for the 50 members of the community. Here is where Max’s family had worshipped. Today services with a rabbi are only held on holidays.

Merano synagogue

Irma, Richard, Max, and Glenna standing in front of the ark in the Merano synagogue

The name Bermann is embroidered into the parochet or curtain that covers the ark

At long last we descended the steps to the museum under the sanctuary. Just around the corner to the right of the entrance Max found his grandfather Max [Bermann]! …

Richard and Max standing in front of the portrait of Max’s paternal grandfather, also named Max Bermann

 This picture of [Max’s relatives’] wedding in 1926 hangs on the other side of the room to the right of [his grandfather] Max’s portrait. When Max saw it, he ex-claimed: “Look, there’s my father!” (1) (1898-1966). Joachim pointed to the right edge of the photo where Max’s grandfather with a long white beard is pictured (2) (1865-1933). “And there’s my grandmother next to him” (3) (1870-1958)….

…

A rather long and wet walk took us to the Waldpark Sanatorium where Max was born and lived for two years: In 1907, [his grandfather] Doctor Max Bermann acquired the Villa Paulista from John Stoddard and founded the Waldpark Sanatorium, which he ran as a specialist in internal medicine. In the early 1930s, two buildings were added, and in the following years the main building was renovated and enlarged. Claiming that the owners were indebted, the buildings and the large park surrounding them were sold at auction in 1941. (Source: Jewish Meran Walking Tour, Jewish Museum of Meran)

Although Max was only two when he left Meran in 1940, he thinks he remembers a white fence surrounding the Waldpark. Indeed, the fence is still white!

Max’s birthplace in Merano

…

On Tuesday it did not rain, and the sun eventually came out. A chair lift carried us up to a place above Meran where we had a good view of the city and the surrounding countryside….

….

Before dinner we wanted to visit the New (1908!) Jewish Cemetery where members of the Bermann family are buried. After a stop at the memorial for the victims of the Shoah… we went to visit the graves of Max’s grandfathers, Max Bermann and Max Blumenfeld….

Max is standing next to Grandfather Bermann’s headstone, and both of us touched together the gravestone of our common relative Max Blumenfeld (1880-1936). The common roots that Max and I have that we have talked and written about became something living here in the cemetery.”

—————————–

I am so glad that Richard and Max were able to meet and share this moving experience together. It makes me appreciate how fortunate I have been to find so many cousins and to help them find each other.

And now I also have had the special opportunity to spend time with my cousin Max and his wife Glenna and to feel those common roots. His life and mine had such different beginnings—his as a small child hiding from persecution in Italy, mine as a middle class American child growing up in suburban New York after the war, never worrying about antisemitism.

But here we are so many decades later, both living in Massachusetts less than ninety miles apart. In so many ways our lives have taken similar paths despite those very different beginnings, and we have far more in common than those different beginnings would have predicted.

I am so lucky and so grateful for all the gifts that genealogy has brought to my life, especially all my amazing cousins like Richard and Max!

  1. I have seen records that spell his name Joseph, others that spell it Josef. For consistency purposes I have used the American spelling Joseph since he was born Giuseppe and kept that name until he immigrated to the US in 1939. ↩
  2. Merano was once under Austrian control, but after World War I it became part of Italy. The town uses both the German-Austrian spelling Meran, which Richard uses, and the Italian spelling Merano, which I use. Both are equally acceptable. ↩

Levi Rothschild’s Daughters Thekla Rothschild Weinberg and Frieda Rothschild Phillipsohn: One Survived, One Did Not

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This is the story of the last two children of Levi Rothschild and Clara Jacob who lived to adulthood, their daughters Thekla and Frieda. Both have heartbreaking stories though Thekla survived and Frieda did not.

The fifth child of Levi and Clara, their daughter Thekla, married Manuel Edward Weinberg on August 19, 1907, in Borken. Manuel was born in Lichenroth, Germany, to Lazarus Weinberg and Karoline Oppenheimer on October 11, 1880.

Thekla Rothschild and Manuel Weinberg marriage record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 920; Laufende Nummer: 843, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930

Thekla and Manuel had a son Hans Herbert Weinberg born in Frankfurt, Germany, on November 2, 1908.1

After Kristallnacht in November 1938, Manuel Weinberg was imprisoned at Buchenwald for a short time,2 and that may have motivated the family to leave Germany. By 1940 if not before, the family had left Germany for France, and according to Yad Vashem, Thekla’s husband Manuel was deported in 1940 to the internment camp near Toulouse, France known as the Recebedou camp.3

According to one website, the camp of Recebedou was created in July 1940 to receive refugees and those who had been evacuated. It was turned into a hospital camp in February 1941. But conditions in the camp deteriorated over time due to the lack of adequate medical care and a shortage of food. By late 1941, there were 739 interns, many of whom were over 60 and ill; 118 of them died in the winter of 1941-1942. Manuel Weinberg was one of those who died; he died on March 4, 1942.4

I don’t know for certain whether Thekla or their son Herbert, as he came to be known, were also interned at Recebedou because there are no documents I can find that indicate that they were. However, I do know that they must have been in France because Herbert and his wife, Edith Seckbach, had a daughter Yvonne born in Toulouse, France sometime in 1943.5  I could not find a marriage record for Herbert and Edith, but according to other records, Edith was born in Wiesbaden, Germany, in about 1918. 6

Wherever they were in France, somehow Thekla, Herbert, Edith, and their baby daughter survived. A document on Ancestry’s collection of Munich, Vienna and Barcelona Jewish Displaced Persons and Refugee Cards, 1943-1959 (JDC) indicates that as of November 1942, Thekla, Herbert, Edith, and Yvonne were in Vigo, Spain, which is almost seven hundred miles from Toulouse, France. How they got there in the midst of the war is a story I do not know.

Ancestry.com. Munich, Vienna and Barcelona Jewish Displaced Persons and Refugee Cards, 1943-1959 (JDC)

From Vigo they went to Madrid as of December 26, 1943. The Refugee Card lists two people as the “parents,” which I assume really means sponsors in this situation. One was Walter Hirschmann, Thekla’s nephew, the son of her sister Betti Rothschild Hirschmann.7 The other, Jacob Bleibtreu, was a banker and later a governor of the New York Stock Exchange who had immigrated to the US from Germany as a young man in 1909. He also was on the Greater New York Army and Navy Committee of the Jewish Welfare Board. Perhaps he knew Walter from the banking and broker business and agreed to help rescue his aunt and other family members.8

On March 23, 1944, Thekla, Herbert, Edith, and Yvonne all arrived in Philadelphia after sailing from Lisbon, Portugal. The ship manifest shows that they all had last been residing in Madrid, Spain, and were heading to Montreal, Canada under the sponsorship of the Joint Distribution Committee. Herbert reported that he was a chemist by occupation.

Thekla Weinberg and family passenger manifest, The National Archives at Washington, D.C.; Washington, D.C.; Series Title: Passenger Lists of Vessels Arriving at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; NAI Number: 4492386; Record Group Title: Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, 1787-2004; Record Group Number: 85; Series: T840; Roll: 177, Ancestry.com. Pennsylvania, U.S., Arriving Passenger and Crew Lists, 1798-1962

Herbert’s wife Edith must not have lived very long after their voyage from Portugal to Philadelphia because on September 8, 1946, Herbert married his second wife, Anna or Anya Grodzky, in Hochelaga, Quebec, Canada. Anna was born in Russia on June 18, 1910, and was a beautician. Herbert is listed as a widower on their marriage record and as a chemist by trade.

Hans Herbert Weinberg marriage to Anna Grodsky, Marriage Sep 8 1946 Westmount, Québec, Canada, Groom Herbert Hans Weinberg, Groom’s birth 1908 Germany, Bride Anna Goodsky, Certificate number upd46-128967, Quebec Marriage Returns, 1926-1997, found at https://www.myheritage.com/research/record-10723-1831907/herbert-hans-weinberg-and-anna-goodsky-in-quebec-marriage-returns

The family all settled in Montreal, where Thekla died on March 11, 1962, at the age of 76.9 Herbert lost his second wife Anna on July 9, 1976.10 He died February 12, 2001, at the age of 92, and was survived by his third wife Sally Lazoff Bailen.11

I have not found any further information about Herbert’s daughter Yvonne despite searching everywhere I could and receiving help from members of Tracing the Tribe. I don’t know whether she died, married, or moved from Canada and changed her name. There just is no trace of her after a mention in her stepmother Anna’s obituary in 1976. She is not mentioned in her father’s obituary in 2001.12

Although Thekla Rothschild Weinberg survived the Holocaust, she lost her husband, her homeland, and, as we will now see, her sister Frieda to the Holocaust.

Frieda was born May 31, 1993, in Borken, Germany.  As we saw, she first married Leonard Marxsohn and was widowed and then married Paul Phillipsohn, with whom she had a daughter Hannelore, born December 3, 1926.

Unfortunately, I have no happy ending for Frieda, Paul, or Hannelore. On June 11, 1942, they were all deported to Theriesenstadt. None of them survived. According to Yad Vashem, Paul died on December 20, 1942. I have no exact dates for Frieda or Hannelore, only that they also died in about 1942.13

Thus ends the story of Levi Rothschild’s family. Although most of them survived the Holocaust and made it to the US, Israel, or Canada, they were scattered across the globe, and their lives were all forever changed. The family members who were killed must have left holes in their hearts forever.

 

 

  1. Hans Herbert Kaufmann Weinberg, Gender männlich (Male), Record Type Inventory, Birth Date 02 Nov 1908 (2 Nov 1908), Birth Place Frankfurt am Main,
    Last Residence Frankfurt am Main, Residence Place Frankfurt am Main, Father
    Edmund Weinberg, Mother Thekla Weinberg, Spouse Edith Seckbach, Notes Inventories of personal estates of foreigners and especially German Jews
    Reference Number 02010101 oS, Document ID 70370883, Arolsen Archives, Digital Archive; Bad Arolsen, Germany; Lists of Persecutees 2.1.1.1, Ancestry.com. Free Access: Europe, Registration of Foreigners and German Persecutees, 1939-1947 ↩
  2. Arolsen Archives, 1 Incarceration Documents / 1.1 Camps and Ghettos / 1.1.5 Buchenwald Concentration Camp / 1.1.5.3 Individual Documents male Buchenwald / Individual Files (male) – Concentration Camp Buchenwald / Files with names from SYS and further sub-structure / Files with names from WECK /, Personal file of WEINBERG, EMANEL, born on 11-Oct-1880, Reference Code, 01010503 002.042.476, Number of documents, 1, found at https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/document/7388346 ↩
  3. Yad Vashem entries for Manuel Weinberg, found at  https://collections.yadvashem.org/en/names/13545516 and at https://collections.yadvashem.org/en/names/3229127 ↩
  4. See Note 3, supra. ↩
  5. Yvonne Miriam Weinberg, passenger manifest, The National Archives at Washington, D.C.; Washington, D.C.; Series Title: Passenger Lists of Vessels Arriving at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; NAI Number: 4492386; Record Group Title: Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, 1787-2004; Record Group Number: 85; Series: T840; Roll: 177, Ancestry.com. Pennsylvania, U.S., Arriving Passenger and Crew Lists, 1798-1962 ↩
  6. Edith Weinberg, passenger manifest, The National Archives at Washington, D.C.; Washington, D.C.; Series Title: Passenger Lists of Vessels Arriving at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; NAI Number: 4492386; Record Group Title: Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, 1787-2004; Record Group Number: 85; Series: T840; Roll: 177, Ancestry.com. Pennsylvania, U.S., Arriving Passenger and Crew Lists, 1798-1962. See also Edith Weinberg geb. Seckbach, Arolsen Archives, Digital Archive; Bad Arolsen, Germany; Lists of Persecutees 2.1.1.1, Description Reference Code: 02010101 oS,
    Ancestry.com. Free Access: Europe, Registration of Foreigners and German Persecutees, 1939-1947 ↩
  7. It was Walter’s name on this card that led me to discover that he was the child of Betti and Emanuel Hirschmann. ↩
  8. “Jacob Bleibtreu, Former Governor of New York Stock Exchange, 90,” The New York Times, December 6, 1976. ↩
  9. Thekla Weinberg death notice, The Montreal Star, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, Mon, Mar 12, 1962, Page 16. ↩
  10. Anna (Anya) Weinberg death notice, The Montreal Star, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, Sat, Jul 10, 1976, Page 10. ↩
  11. Marriage of Herbert Weinberg to Sally Lazoff, Nov 15 1980, Côte St Luc, Québec, Canada, Groom Herbert Weinberg, Groom’s birth Nov 5 1908, Germany, Groom’s age 72, Bride Sally Lazoff, Bride’s birth Aug 15 1917, Québec, Canada, Bride’s age 63, Groom’s father Manuel Weinberg, Groom’s father’s birth Germany, Groom’s mother Thekla Rothschild, Groom’s mother’s birth Germany, Bride’s father Gedaliah Lazoff
    Bride’s father’s birth Russia, Bride’s mother Telia Brasgold, Bride’s mother’s birth Russia
    Certificate number upd80-141452, Quebec Marriage Returns, 1926-1997, found at https://www.myheritage.com/research/record-10723-2419633/herbert-weinberg-and-sally-lazoff-in-quebec-marriage-returns. Herbert Weinberg death notice, The Gazette
    Montreal, Quebec, Canada, Mon, Feb 12, 2001, Page 35. ↩
  12. Anna (Anya) Weinberg death notice, The Montreal Star, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, Sat, Jul 10, 1976, Page 10. Herbert Weinberg death notice, The Gazette, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, Mon, Feb 12, 2001, Page 35. ↩
  13. See Yad Vashem entries at https://collections.yadvashem.org/en/names/11607287 for Frieda, https://collections.yadvashem.org/en/names/14969310 for Paul, and https://collections.yadvashem.org/en/names/11607287 for Hannelore. ↩