Tag Archives: Eschwege

Moritz Werner And Family, Part III: After The War

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After the war Max Werner, now 25 years old, married Klara Reiss on January 5, 1947, in London, England.1 Klara (known by the family as Klari) was born in Vienna, Austria, on September 27, 1920, to Ida Spergel and Salomon Reiss. According to his granddaughter Joyce:2

Salomon Reiss had made a fortune in Vienna and was a well-known multi-millionaire. After the Anschluss (March 1938) [he] was arrested at the seder table [and] stripped of his Austrian wealth, and the family managed to escape to Prague (not at the time under German control and where my grandfather owned assets).

Klara’s brothers were able to immigrate to Palestine, but Klara didn’t want to leave her parents so stayed with them in Prague. But as things became more dire, she was able to obtain a visa to go to England, as seen on her exit visa from Prague shown below. As Joyce noted, Klara left Prague “quite late in August 1939. Her entry Visa in Dover is stamped 30st August. The curtain came down [two days later started on September 1, 1939, when Germany invaded Poland and World War II started.]”

Klara Reiss 1939 visa for travel to England

Klara’s parents were, however, stuck in Prague once the war started and unable to escape. They were eventually deported to Theriesenstadt and then from there on one of the last transports from Theriesenstadt to Auschwitz, where they were murdered.3

Klara met Max Werner eight years later in England. As Joyce tells the story,

Our parents met at a friend of Moritz and Jenny on a Shabbat afternoon in 1946. The couple were cousins of Klari’s father and, apparently, when [Max] got home, he told his parents he had met the girl he was going to marry. He was two years younger than Klari, involved with Klari’s cousin, and Klari told him to go away. Repeatedly. My father did not take no for an answer and pursued her relentlessly. She gave in and went on a date with him. The rest is history.

Judith provided these additional insights:

My mother liked my Dad when they met but felt that as a sophisticated dress designer she was way too old for the very young looking Max. She had a career path that she had worked very hard to carve out for herself and was in line to go to Paris for her firm.  She wasn’t interested in marriage at that point in her life especially after learning what happened to her parents. I believe her long range plan was to join her brothers in Israel. When however my Dad persisted, she relented…. They were married 6 months later on 5th January, 1947.

Joyce and Judith shared these photographs of their parents Max and Klara:

Max and Klara Werner Courtesy of the family

Max and Klara Werner Courtesy of the family

At the time of his marriage, Max was working for his father Moritz in the Benlo company in London. In 1949, Moritz was able to buy back LS Brinkmann from the man who purchased it. As his son Max told the story (and as I previously shared here),

A Catholic named Rhode from Kassel, who produced goods for the armaments industry, had bought L.S. Brinkmann. After the war, when Rhode was terminally ill, he developed feelings of remorse and tracked down my father Moritz in England. Mr. Rhode asked for a visit and my father and he made a contract, i.e. my father bought the company back – that was at a time when there was no official reparation! In 1949 the takeover was perfected. …

When my father had celebrated his 25th anniversary with the company in 1931, the staff had donated a bronze plate with a dedication and two knitting hands for him. During the forced sale [1939] the plate suddenly disappeared.

In 1949, when my father was sitting in his office again for the first time, there was a knock at the door and a small delegation of employees came in… They struggled to carry a box containing this bronze plate. Before taking over the company, these employees had fastened the plate in the chimney with strong wires and thus hidden it.

Joyce and Judith shared this photograph of the plaque that had been given to honor Moritz in 1931 and then hidden by his employees to keep it safe from the Nazis.

Moritz and Jenny did not remain in Germany, but Moritz did continue to oversee LS Brinkmann from England. He gave a large share of the business to his sister Elsa Werner Loewenthal, wife of Julius Loewenthal, whom I wrote about here.

Meanwhile, according to Judith, there were problems within the partnership of Benlo; contrary to an informal agreement between Moritz and his partner, the partner brought a new partner into the business, and together they took over control of the business and away from Moritz. Eventually, the two other partners drove Moritz out of the business and moved his son Max from company headquarters in London to a sales job, which he found to be unsatisfying and a dead end position.

Here is a photograph of Max and Klara in the early 1950s:

Max and Klara Werner c. 1953 Courtesy of the family

Thus, in 1953, Max decided to move to Germany and take over LS Brinkmann after his father Moritz retired. By that time, both Judith and Joyce were born, and Judith was already in school. Max, Klara, and Joyce went to Eschwege, and Judith stayed behind with her grandparents Moritz and Jenny in England to continue her schooling. Under Max’s leadership, LS Brinkmann once again became a highly successful knitware company.

But after a relatively short time, Klara and Joyce returned to England as Klara was not happy living in Eschwege, where there was no longer a Jewish community after the Holocaust. Max would come to England periodically, usually for Jewish holidays, and Klara and their daughters would spend the summers in Eschwege.

Joyce and Judith have wonderful memories of spending summers in Eschwege. Judith wrote:

Part of the perks of working for LSB was reduced rental flats on the factory property. It was great fun for us children of the workers. Every afternoon and early evening when the workday was over we would gather in the courtyard and play all kinds of games, including hide and seek and different ball games.

Judith shared this photograph of the LS Brinkmann grounds along with this description:

On the far left are the worker residences including ours. Bottom right is the green house. The larger tree in front of the white knitting operation was a delicious pear tree under which our pet dog Cracky was buried. The other greenery were apple, pear, plum, and cherry (not seen) trees. We had all kinds of berries that I used to spend many hours picking and eating. In the distance is the very picturesque town of Eschwege.

LS Brinkmann factory grounds Courtesy of the family

Joyce added this memory:

I also remember those holidays as a time of freedom. We played with local children as Judy said and were left largely to our own devices. Judy and some of the older kids would take me along to the local swimming pool or they Iet me trail along and join in with whatever they did. My own age group was a group of dare-devil boys. In the foreground (front left side) [of the photograph] is a grey roof above the dustbins [trash cans] with a drop of about 6 to 7 feet to the rear exit road below. All the boys and I used to play a ‘chicken’ type game jumping off with as much bravado as possible.

By 1958, Moritz Werner’s health had declined, and he and Jenny decided to leave England for a better climate and move to Lugano, Switzerland. He died eight years later in 1966 at the age of 78. This photograph of Moritz was taken at the celebration of the 100th anniversary of LS Brinkmann’s founding in 1965.

Moritz Werner 1965 Courtesy of the family

Jenny kept the apartment in Lugano and remained there, although she spent the first year after Moritz’s death living with Klara and the girls in London. Eventually, when she could no longer live alone, she moved to an assisted living facility in Zurich, where she died in November 1987 at the age of 93. Here is a beautiful photograph of Jenny:

Jenny Kahn Werner Courtesy of the family

Max Werner eventually retired from LS Brinkmann and returned to England. Judith shared this memory with me:

My father had a fantasy of living in Devon, England on the coast. He had fallen in love with the Devon and Cornwall coastline when he was a very young man. So when he was about 55 [about 1977], he sold [the home in] London and bought a house in Devon. He proceeded to knock most of it down and rebuilt it to his own specifications. This home was on the top of the hill that he owned overlooking the channel. On this hill he had an area for a pool and a rock garden. And when we swam in this pool, you could overlook this beautiful seaway.

Max Werner and his wife Klara died within eight months of each other. Klara died at age 90 in April 2011 in Devon, England, and Max died in December of that year, also in Devon, England. He was 89.4

I am so deeply grateful to Judith and Joyce for sharing their family’s stories and photographs. The story of their grandparents and parents is one of persistence and strength despite being subjected to harassment, theft of their business, and loss of their home and their homeland. Somehow they rebuilt their lives and their business and found ways to survive both before, during, and after World War II.

  1.  Max H Werner, Registration Date: Jan 1947, Registration Quarter: Jan-Feb-Mar, Registration District: Hendon, Inferred County: Middlesex, Spouse: Amalia K Reiss, Volume Number: 5f, Page Number: 529General Register Office; United Kingdom; Volume: 5f; Page: 529, Ancestry.com. England & Wales, Civil Registration Marriage Index, 1916-2005 ↩
  2. As with the two prior posts, most of the information in this post came from a series of emails exchanged among Max and Klara’s daughters Judith, and Joyce and myself during May and June, 2022. ↩
  3. https://yvng.yadvashem.org/nameDetails.html?language=en&itemId=4788092&ind=1; https://yvng.yadvashem.org/nameDetails.html?language=en&itemId=4783626&ind=1 ↩
  4. These dates came from Max and Klara’s daughters Joyce and Judith. ↩

Moritz Werner and Family, Part II: From Comfort to Escape 1922-1945

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When Max Werner II was born on September 5, 1922, in Eschwege, Germany, to Moritz Werner and Jenny Kahn, his paternal grandparents Max Werner I and Helene Katzenstein had both passed away. His father Moritz was one of the owners of the LS Brinkmann Knitwear Company, and the family was living a very comfortable life.

Max’s daughter Joyce described her father as “an indulged only child from a wealthy local family.” Her sister Judith noted that their father “was an only child, and he was a very solitary child. His main companions were the chauffeur Petach and his dog.”1

Here are some photos of Max as a child including two with the dog, two in the garden of the family’s home in Eschwege, and one with his nurse or nanny.

Max Werner with nurse Courtesy of the family

Max Werner Courtesy of the family

Max Werner in the garden of his family home in Eschwege Courtesy of the family

Max Werner in the garden of his family home in Eschwege Courtesy of the family

Max and his dog Courtesy of the family

Max Werner c. 1934

But everything changed with the rise of the Nazis. Joyce and Judith both shared what they knew about the way life changed for their father and grandparents. Judith wrote, “Things became more and more difficult at school for my father, but he never complained to his parents. Except one day the kids from his school surrounded him with knives, and my father was seen fending them off with his leather satchel by friends of my grandparents.”

Joyce shared additional details about that incident:

Our father, a tall, strong pre-teen, was having terrible trouble at school. Not only did he face taunting and attacks from boys in the Hitler Youth, but teachers also joined in the Jew baiting. I recall that he told me on one occasion that another Jewish boy (small and reedy) had been beaten up by some classmates and the child made the mistake of telling the teacher. The teacher got out his strap and announced to the class, ‘Now I will show you how you should beat a Jew.’ Our father in general held his own well and was known to be strong and aggressive, and classmates generally steered clear of him. However, the incident Judy described was a final straw – especially as during the ensuing fray which took place on the school stairwell after class, he picked up the lead troublemaker and hurled him down a few stairs causing a broken nose. At home, he couldn’t hide the marks of the fight, confessed all and was sent that same night to Zurich to his Aunt Rosa [Werner] Wormser [sister of their grandfather Moritz Werner].

Max spent four or five years living away from his parents in Zurich. Although he was generally happy and became very close to his cousin Julius Wormser during those years, Joyce described the deeper impact these experiences had on Max:

The experience was formative for him. Although he had many good memories of his life in Zurich, he was separated from his home, parents, and his former life. I think the main lesson he learned was ‘fight back’. Sadly (in my opinion) he also learned that, in reality, ‘might is right’. I believe it was this which affected his personality. Used to getting his own way as an adored (and unexpected) child, seeing the brutality of life in Germany and the fact that bullies get what they want and the weak suffer, he made a decision there and then. It shaped him as a person who was determined and uncompromising. He was logical and intelligent, but when he was crossed or disagreed with someone, he could be very aggressive – both verbally and physically.

Meanwhile, Max’s parents Moritz and Jenny were still in Eschwege, Germany. Judith wrote that:

My grandfather was generous with everybody and was always ready to help those in need whether Jewish or not. He and my grandmother for many years helped to support and educate a young boy whose father had died and whose mother needed assistance. In the 1930s, my grandfather … was helping members of the family and others leave Germany but he himself did not believe that Nazism would survive in Germany. My grandmother, on the other hand, was ready in 1933 and packed. But they did put a lot of money into antiques and Old Master pictures. They were aware that they were not allowed to take much money but were allowed to take personal possessions.

Joyce also described the way their grandparents differed in their reactions to the rise of Hitler:

Our grandmother Jenny was alert to the danger Hitler posed from the very start. She believed his rhetoric and said that if he came to power, he would enact every threat against the Jews he had scapegoated for Germany’s ills. Our grandfather Moritz, like so many, believed such things would never happen in the ‘fatherland’ for which he had fought at great personal cost and for which his brother had given his life.  Consequently, she quietly prepared for emigration by investing in ‘movable assets’ e.g. art and antiques.

Here’s a photo of their grandmother, Jenny:

Under Hitler’s Aryanization program, Moritz was forced to sell LS Brinkmann in 1938, as I wrote about here. According to Judith, shortly before World War II started in September 1939,

The Bishop of the area came to my grandpa and told him it was time for him to leave. That it was too dangerous for him to stay. … So after that my grandfather went to the area comandante in Kassel in order to get a pass to exit the country. This person happened to be somebody who had served in the first World War under my grandfather in the cavalry. So this gentleman gave my grandfather a bit of a problem, and my grandfather, who had the use of a stick, banged it on the man’s desk and gave him a thorough dressing down. He got his pass. Then my grandparents took the chauffeur driven car up to either Hamburg or Bremen and took a ship to England.

Max soon thereafter joined his parents in England and attended school and then Leeds University, where he studied engineering. Moritz and Jenny were able to sell some of the art and antiques they took with them from Germany not only to support themselves, but to invest in a new company in England. Joyce wrote:

My grandfather – with extraordinary energy and determination in my opinion – found a couple of partners and started a new company ‘Benlows’ selling cigarette lighters. It became so successful that after the war it became a public company floated on the Stock Exchange.

Thus, Moritz, Jenny, and Max were able to escape from Nazi Germany and survive the Holocaust. But not without enduring a forced sale of their successful business, harassment and violence, displacement from their home in Eschwege, and a long separation of Max from his parents. As Joyce wrote, this had a lasting impact on Max and presumably also on Moritz and Jenny.

In the next post, Joyce and Judith will share the story of what happened to the family after World War II ended in 1945.

 

  1. Again as in the last post, the quotes, photos, stories, and information from Joyce and Judith came from a series of emails we all exchanged during May and June, 2022.  I am so grateful for all their help and generosity. ↩

Moritz Werner and Family Revisited, Part I

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I will return to the Blumenfeld saga soon, but first I want to share another chapter in my Goldschmidt family history. In early May I received a comment on my blog from a woman named Joyce who turned out to be my fifth cousin on the Goldschmidt branch of my family tree. Since finding my blog, Joyce and her sister Judith have both been in touch and have been incredibly generous in sharing the stories and many photographs of their branch of the Goldschmidt family tree.1

Joyce and Judith and I are all descended from Jacob Falcke Goldschmidt and Eva Seligmann, our mutual four-times great-grandparents. Joyce and Judith are descended from their son Meyer Goldschmidt, and I am descended from their son Seligmann Goldschmidt. This chart shows our relationship to each other with my line of descent to my father John Cohen on the left and Judith and Joyce’s line of descent to their father Max Werner on the right.

I was particularly pleased to hear from Joyce and Judith because I had, as the title of this post reveals, many unanswered questions about their grandfather Moritz Werner and his family. To recap what I did know, as you can see in greater detail and with citations and images in my earlier posts, Helene Katzenstein, the daughter of Amalie Goldschmidt, had first married Moritz Brinkmann, son of Susskind Brinkmann, who had founded the successful knitwear company LS Brinkmann. Moritz and his brother Levi Brinkmann were also partners in LS Brinkmann. (Levi Brinkmann was married to Lina Stern, daughter of Sarah Goldschmidt, Amalie Goldschmidt’s sister, so Levi and Moritz married two women who were first cousins.)

Joyce and Judith shared these photographs of Susskind Brinkmann, Levi Brinkmann, and Moritz Brinkmann.

Susskind Brinkmann Courtesy of the family

Levi Brinkmann Courtesy of the family

Moritz Brinkmann Courtesy of the family

Sadly, Moritz Brinkmann died just six years after marrying Helene on September 8, 1878, at the age of thirty-two. Three years later on February 7, 1881, Helene married Max Werner, who was also partner in LS Brinkmann.

Helene and Max had five children, and Joyce and Judith’s grandfather Moritz, born in 1888, was their fourth child and first son and was named, according to the family, in honor of Helene’s first husband Moritz Brinkmann. I find that an incredibly generous and loving gesture on the part of Max Werner—to have his own son named in memory of his wife’s first husband. But obviously Max had also worked with Moritz Brinkmann and thus had his own relationship with him.

Mortiz Brinkmann and Max Werner, the two husbands of Helene Katzenstein  Courtesy of the family

Helene Katzenstein Werner died on December 31, 1912, when she was 58. Here are a few photographs of Max and Helene Katzenstein Brinkmann Werner, courtesy of their great-granddaughters.

Max Werner Courtesy of the family

Helene Katzenstein Werner Courtesy of the family

Max and Helene Werner Courtesy of the family

Max and Helene Werner Courtesy of the family

Max and Helene Werner Courtesy of the family

Helene and Max’s youngest child and second son Karl was killed on September 25, 1916, fighting for Germany in World War I, as I wrote about in greater detail here. Joyce and Judith shared this wonderful photograph of Karl in uniform (far right) with his parents Max and Helene and one of his sisters sitting in a carriage.

Karl Werner, far right. Max and Helene Werner in rear seat. Driver and a Werner daughter in front. Courtesy of the family

They also sent me these photographs of Karl’s gravestone and the memorial notice published in his memory by his parents.

Joyce translated the memorial notice as follows:

On 25th September our hopeful and beloved son, our brother, nephew, uncle and in-law, our pride and joy, went on patrol.

Underofficer

Karl Werner

Of the defence and infantry regiment

 

At the young age of barely 23 years died a hero’s death for his fatherland.

He was a son full of life, a faithful comrade. Those who knew him know what we have lost.

His sorely tried and bereft

(father)

Max Werner

Reading that conveys so painfully even after 106 years what the family lost and how heartbroken they were by this loss.

What I did not know before Joyce contacted me was that Max and Helene’s only other son, Moritz, also served in the German army during World War I, and he suffered grievous injuries during his service. Joyce was not certain about how he was injured, but he suffered a crushed hip perhaps from being run over by a tank or the wheels of a gun carriage while serving in France. He was physically impaired for the rest of his life, relying on crutches and later a wheelchair to get around.

Here are some photographs of Moritz before his injury and then afterwards.

Moritz Werner in World War I uniform Courtesy of the family

Moritz Werner in World War I uniform Courtesy of the family

Moritz Werner in World War I uniform Courtesy of the family

Moritz Werner in World War I uniform Courtesy of the family

Moritz Werner after suffering injuries in World War I Courtesy of the family

But before he was sent off to fight for Germany, Moritz had met a young woman named Jenny Kahn and fallen deeply in love. As Moritz’s granddaughters Joyce and Judith tell the story, Jenny’s father Moses Kahn arranged for Jenny to meet eligible men, but warned her not to make any commitments until after the war, fearing that the man she chose would be severely injured during the war. He allowed her to meet Moritz Werner since he came from a respectable Orthodox family and was a friend of Jenny’s brother.

Well, according to Joyce and Judith, Jenny and Moritz fell in love at first sight. She was taken by his good looks and his piercing dark eyes, and when he proposed that very afternoon, she accepted, ignoring her father’s request that she hold off making any commitments until after the war.

And then Moritz went off to war, and as Moses Kahn had feared, suffered a devastating injury. He wrote to Jenny from the field hospital, releasing her from their engagement and telling her to keep the ring and find someone else. According to Joyce, Jenny’s response was something like, “The engagement is off when I say it’s off!”

And so they were married on August 19, 1918. Joyce and Judith shared a photograph of their wedding. You can see that Moritz has a cane in his hands. According to his granddaughters, he had to be carried to the chuppah.

Wedding of Moritz Werner and Jenny Kahn 1918 Courtesy of the family

Four years later on September 5, 1922, Jenny gave birth to their only child, Max Werner, named for his grandfather Max Werner, who had died on October 2, 1919, a year after his son’s wedding. Here is a photo of Jenny, one of Max, and one of the entire family.

Jenny Kahn Werner Courtesy of the family

Max Werner c. 1926  Courtesy of the family

Moritz, Jenny, and Max Werner c. 1928

Of course, the world would change for this family like so many in the 1930s. I wrote a bit about that in my earlier post, but there were many questions I could not answer that Joyce and Judith have now answered. More on that and more photos in my next post.

 

  1. All references to the stories shared by Joyce and Judith came in several emails exchanged during May and June 2022. ↩

Fredericke Katzenstein Goldmann, Part I: Her Daughters and Granddaughters

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Having told as much as I’ve learned about Helene Katzenstein Werner and her descendants, I will now move on to Amalie Goldschmidt and Juda Katzenstein’s second child Fredericke, born July 13, 1855, in Eschwege. As we saw, she married Leopold Goldmann, also a native of Eschwege, in Eschwege on November 16, 1875.  They settled in Eschwege, where their three children Clementine, Karl, and Meta were born.

Clementine was born on November 9, 1876, just a week short of Fredericke and Leopold’s first anniversary.

Clementine Goldmann, birth record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 923; Laufende Nummer: 1829, Year Range: 1876, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901

Karl was born July 24, 1878.

Karl Goldmann, birth record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 923; Laufende Nummer: 1832, Year Range: 1878, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901

And Meta was born September 9, 1884.

Meta Goldmann, birth record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 923; Laufende Nummer: 1838, Year Range: 1884, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901

(For those who get confused by all the names, here is a family tree chart you can click on to see the relationships.)

Clementine married Alexander Joel in Eschwege on November 8, 1898, the day before her twenty-second birthday. He was born on July 20, 1871, in Hamburg, to Aron Ephraim Joel and Rika Koch.

Marriage record of Clementine Goldmann and Alexander Joel, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 923; Laufende Nummer: 1883, Year Range: 1898, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930

Then, just two months after Clementine’s wedding, her father Leopold died on January 12, 1899, in Eschwege. He was fifty years old and left behind his wife Fredericke, who was 43, and their three children Clementine, Karl, and Meta.

Leopold Goldmann, death record, Personenstandsregister Sterberegister; Bestand: 923; Laufende Nummer: 1944, Year Range: 1899, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Deaths, 1851-1958

Clementine and Alexander Joel had three daughters. Esther Edda Joel was born in Hamburg on May 27, 1901.

Esther Edda Joel, birth record, Year Range and Volume: 1901 Band 03
Ancestry.com. Hamburg, Germany, Births, 1874-1901. Original data:Best. 332-5 Standesämter, Personenstandsregister, Sterberegister, 1876-1950, Staatsarchiv Hamburg, Hamburg, Deutschland.

Lizzie Joel was born August 22, 1902, in Hamburg.1 And Ille Joel was born in 1904, also in Hamburg.2

Clementine’s younger sister Meta married Adolf Hammerschlag on November 13, 1908, in Eschwege. Adolf was born June 23, 1877, in Minden, Germany, near Hannover. His parents were Simon Hammerschlag and Sarchen Katz.

Marriage record of Meta Goldmann and Adolf Hammerschlag, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 923, Year Range: 1908, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930

Meta and Adolf had two daughters, Lieselotte, born August 10, 1910, in Gottingen, Germany,3 and Irmgard, born March 4, 1915, in Gottingen.4

Clementine and Meta’s brother Karl did not marry and died when he was only 36 on January 30, 1914, in Eschwege. I wish I knew why he died so young.

Karl Goldmann death record, Personenstandsregister Sterberegister; Bestand: 923; Laufende Nummer: 1960, Year Range: 1915, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Deaths, 1851-1958

In the 1920s, the daughters of Clementine Goldmann and Alexander Joel began to marry. Although I don’t have marriage records, I assume that Clementine’s daughter Esther Edda Joel married Hermann Wolf in the early 1920s because they reportedly had two sons born before 1925, Fernand Moshe Werner and Pierre Kurt, at least one of whom was born in Saarbrucken, a city at the border between France and Germany.5 According to his death record, Hermann was the son of “Mauricio” Wolf and Clare Tannenberg, but since, as we will see, he died in Mexico, I assume that his father’s name was more likely Moritz than Mauricio. Hermann was born in Hannover in 1897.6

Esther Edda Joel’s sister Lizzie also must have married in the 1920s as she also had two children born in that decade, Vera in 1925 and Ruth in 1928.7 Lizzie married Siegfried Haas, who was born in Mardorf, Germany, on February 6, 1896, to Adolf Haas and Fredericke Marx.8

The youngest Joel sister, Ille, also married in the 1920s, I assume, as she had two children in the 1920s. Her husband was Walter Cunow, and unfortunately I have no primary sources for either Ille or Walter, only profiles on My Heritage and Geni that do not provide sources. However, one of the profile managers for their profiles and for those of Ille’s sisters may be a relatively close relative, whom I have contacted but not yet heard back from. At any rate, according to My Heritage, Walter Cunow was born on February 2, 1899, in Berlin to Martin Cunow and Helene Friedenberg.9

Fredericke lived to see at least some of her granddaughters marry and the birth of her first great-grandchild. She was 68 when she died on February 4, 1924.

Fredericke Katzenstein Goldmann death record, Year Range and Volume: 1924 Band 01
Ancestry.com. Hamburg, Germany, Deaths, 1874-1950. Original data:Best. 332-5 Standesämter, Personenstandsregister, Sterberegister, 1876-1950, Staatsarchiv Hamburg, Hamburg, Deutschland.

Fredericke Katzenstein Goldmann had outlived her husband Leopold by 25 years and her son Karl by ten years. She was survived by her two daughters, Clementine and Meta, her five granddaughters, and that first great-grandchild with the others born after her death. As we will see, she was blessed in some ways to have died before the Nazis took control of Germany in the 1930s.

 

 

  1.  Lizzie Haas, [Lizzie Joel] , Gender: Female, Age: 55, Marital status: Married, Birth Date: 22 Aug 1902, Birth Place: Hamburg, Germany, Death Date: 6 Feb 1958, Death Place: Indianapolis, Marion, Indiana, USA, Father: Alexander Joel, Mother: Blementine Joel, Indiana Archives and Records Administration; Indianapolis, IN, USA; Death Certificates; Year: 1958; Roll: 03, Ancestry.com. Indiana, Death Certificates, 1899-2011 ↩
  2. Profile on My Heritage found at https://www.myheritage.com/research/record-1-400415261-19-501023/sprinze-philippine-ilse-cunow-nee-joel-in-myheritage-family-trees ↩
  3. Yad Vashem entry, found at https://yvng.yadvashem.org/nameDetails.html?language=en&itemId=11476670&ind=1 ↩
  4. Stolpersteine family biography, found at https://www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de/en.php?MAIN_ID=7&BIO_ID=90 ↩
  5. My Heritage profile, found at https://www.myheritage.com/person-19501021_400415261_400415261/edda-esther-joel-wolf; Pierre Kurt Wolf
    Birth Date: 30 Sep 1924, Birth Place: Saarbrucken, Federal Republic of Germany
    Death Date: Jun 1979, Father: Hermann W Tannenberg, Mother: Edda E Joel
    SSN: 262757686, Ancestry.com. U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007 ↩
  6. Hermann Wolf Tannenberg death record, Archivo de Registro Civil de Distrito Federal (Civil Registry Archives); Federal District, Mexico, Ancestry.com. Federal District, Mexico, Civil Registration Deaths, 1861-1987 ↩
  7. See Vera Haas, Birth Date: 4 Feb 1925, Birth Place: Hamburg, Federal Republic of Germany, Death Date: 29 Apr 2007, Father: Fred Haas, Mother: Lizzie Joel
    SSN: 311221178, Ancestry.com. U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-200; Ruth Friedericke Haas, Birth Date: 21 Sep 1928, Birth Place: Hamburg, Federal Republic of Germany, Death Date: 8 May 1998, Father: Fred Haas, Mother: Lizzie Joel, SSN: 307322906, Ancestry.com. U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007 ↩
  8.  Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 915; Laufende Nummer: 5891, Year Range: 1896, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901 ↩
  9. My Heritage profile, found at https://www.myheritage.com/research/record-1-400415261-19-501023/sprinze-philippine-ilse-cunow-nee-joel-in-myheritage-family-trees ↩

Unanswered Questions: Rosa Werner Wormser and Moritz Werner

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Although I was able to learn a fair amount about two of the children of Helene Katzenstein and Max Werner, Elsa Werner Loewenthal and Henriette Werner Cohen, it was much more difficult to find information about their other two children, Rosa Werner Wormser and Moritz Werner. I can only report what I’ve learned, primarily from secondary sources, and hope that perhaps by publishing this, someone who knows more about these relatives of mine will find this and provide me with more information and sources. This may be my worst sourced post ever!

Rosa Werner, as we saw, married Josef Wormser in Eschwege in 1908.  According to entries on My Heritage, Rosa and Joseph had four children, Esther (1909), Raphael (1911), Julius (1914), and Helene (1917), all born in Zurich, Switzerland, where Rosa and Joseph had relocated after marrying. It also appears that Rosa and Josef remained in Zurich during the Nazi era and survived, but I have no records of their lives there during that time. According to the information on My Heritage, Josef died in 1940 in Zurich, Rosa thirteen years later in 1953, also in Zurich.

As for their children, three of the four immigrated to Palestine/Israel. I have seen documents1 showing that Esther Wormser immigrated to Palestine, where she married Max Leo Koplowitz, who had immigrated there as early as March 28, 1932, and became a naturalized citizen of Palestine on November 19, 1937. Max was born on March 29, 1907, in Strasbourg when it was under German control before World War I (later and currently part of France). He was an agricultural worker in Palestine. According to a document in his immigration file, he and Esther Wormser married on May 21, 1939, in Petach-Tikvah, and she became a Palestinian citizen by virtue of her marriage to Max Koplowitz.

UPDATE: Thank you to Cathy Meder-Dempsey of Opening Doors in Brick Walls for finding the Strassbourg birth record for Max Koplowitz, which can be located here.

I do not have any further information yet for Esther, although David Baron and Roger Cibella reported that she and Max had two sons born in the 1940s. Max died October 26, 2006, in Israel, according to his gravestone at BillionGraves.com. There was no date or place of death reported for Esther.

BillionGraves.com
Grave record for ישראל מקס קופלוביץ (1907 – 2006), BillionGraves Record 19495247 כפר הרא”ה, Central District, Israel

Update: Thank you to Aaron Knappstein who located Esther’s grave memorial on Billion Graves. She died on 8 Iyar 5739 or May 5, 1979, in Israel.

BillionGraves.com
Grave record for אסתר קופלוביץ (), BillionGraves Record 18779827 כפר הרא”ה, Central District, Israel

Raphael Wormser also immigrated to Israel at some point. My Heritage reports that he married Greta Aufsasser in 1954. According to his gravestone at BillionGraves, he died August 5, 1973.

BillionGraves.com
Grave record for רפאל וורמסר (), BillionGraves Record 12700234 Holon, Central District, Israel

As for Helene Wormser, My Heritage shows that she married Dr. Herman Halberstadt and that they had two children; in addition, My Heritage reports that she died in Jerusalem, but did not provide a date of death.

Update: Thanks again to Aaron Knappstein, who found this entry at Gravez, showing that Helene Wormser Halberstadt died on June 22, 2007, in Israel.

The only Wormser child who did not immigrate to Palestine/Israel was Julius. He remained in Zurich where he married Betty Loewenthal and had several children, according to Baron/Cibella. Julius died in Zurich on May 11, 1989, according to My Heritage.

Thus, my information about the Wormser family is quite thin and based almost completely on My Heritage profiles. I’ve sent a message to the manager of those profiles, but have not heard anything back.

That brings me to Helene Katzenstein and Max Werner’s youngest surviving child, Moritz. We saw that Moritz married Jenny Kahn in Frankfurt in 1918 and that they had a son, Max, born in 1922. The only records I have for Moritz and Jenny after their marriage record are the 1939 England and Wales Register and their exemptions from being deemed enemy aliens in England. Thus, they had immigrated to England by 1939. Unfortunately part of the of the right margin of the 1939 Register is not visible, but it looks like Moritz was the director of London Win(dow?) Display Ltd.

Moritz and Jenny Werner,The National Archives; Kew, London, England; 1939 Register; Reference: RG 101/828B, Enumeration District: BKER, Ancestry.com

He was exempted from being interned as an enemy alien; on this form he described his occupation as the company director of manufacturing company.

The National Archives; Kew, London, England; HO 396 WW2 Internees (Aliens) Index Cards 1939-1947; Reference Number: HO 396/101, Piece Number Description: 101: Internees at Liberty in UK 1939-1942: Wem-Wid, Ancestry.com. UK, World War II Alien Internees, 1939-1945

Here is Jenny’s exemption documentation:

The National Archives; Kew, London, England; HO 396 WW2 Internees (Aliens) Index Cards 1939-1947; Reference Number: HO 396/101, Piece Number Description: 101: Internees at Liberty in UK 1939-1942: Wem-Wid, Ancestry.com. UK, World War II Alien Internees, 1939-1945

This quotation, found on Moritz Werner’s Geni profile and translated by DeepL, from a book written by Anna Maria Zimmer, Juden in Eschwege:Entwicklung und Zerstörung der jüdischen Gemeinde, von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart (1993), p. 272, provides some touching details about Moritz Werner and his life during and after the Nazi era:

Moritz Werner was – like his father Max Werner – a partner and manager of the important textile factory Brinkmann since 1916. Because of the National Socialist persecution, Moritz Werner was forced to sell the company and flee to England.

His son Max Heinz Werner recalls this:

“In mid 1938 the purchase was perfected. A Catholic named Rhode from Kassel, who produced goods for the armaments industry, had bought L.S. Brinkmann. After the war, when Rhode was terminally ill, he developed feelings of remorse and tracked down my father Moritz in England. Mr. Rhode asked for a visit and my father and he made a contract, i.e. my father bought the company back – that was at a time when there was no official reparation! In 1949 the takeover was perfected. …

When my father celebrated his 25th anniversary with the company in 1931, the staff donated a bronze plate with a dedication and two knitting hands for him. During the forced sale [1939] the plate suddenly disappeared.

In 1949, when my father was sitting in his office again for the first time, there was a knock at the door and a small delegation of employees came in… They struggled to carry a box containing this bronze plate. Before taking over the company, these employees had fastened the plate in the chimney with strong wires and thus hidden it.”

My Heritage reports that Moritz died in Lugano, Switzerland, on April 27, 1966, and that Jenny died in Chile (no date provided). When had Moritz and Jenny moved from England? Why did he die in Switzerland, she in Chile? So many unanswered questions.

I cannot find their son Max on either the 1939 Register or on an enemy alien registration. Max would have been a teenager at the time. Where could he have been? All I could find for Max was an entry in the England & Wales, Marriage Index on Ancestry for his marriage in 1947 to Clara Amalia Reiss,2 and I know nothing more about Clara or Max except what I found on My Heritage and on David Baron and Roger Cibella’s family report: that Clara was born in Vienna on September 27, 1920, that she and Max had two children, that Clara died on April 6, 2011, and that Max died eight months later on December 9, 2011. According to their profiles on My Heritage, both Max and Clara are buried in Jerusalem.

UPDATE: My cousin Joanne Warner-Loewenthal shared a link with me about Max Werner, her cousin. It reports that he graduated from the University of Leeds in England and became a naturalized English citizen. After the war, however, he returned to Germany to become a director of the LS Brinkmann knitwear company in Eschwege. He also developed an interest in race cars and in photographing racing, as described here.

  1. A month or so ago I saw Max’s immigration file on the Israel Archives and saved the link, but did not download the documents, figuring I’d come back later. Then the Archives shut down for several weeks. They’ve since come back online, but Max’s file is now listed as “not yet scanned.” Fortunately, I took notes on what is in that file, and when it becomes available, I will update this post. ↩
  2.  Max H Werner, Registration Quarter: Jan-Feb-Mar, Registration District: Hendon
    Inferred County: Middlesex, Spouse: Amalia K Reiss. Volume Number: 5f, Page Number: 529, General Register Office; United Kingdom; Volume: 5f; Page: 529,
    Ancestry.com. England & Wales, Civil Registration Marriage Index, 1916-2005 ↩

Henriette Werner Cohen and Her Children: Escaping from Germany

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Helene Katzenstein Werner died in 1912, and her husband Max died seven years later in 1919. Their son Carl was killed fighting for Germany in World War I. Helene and Max were survived by four of their five children—Henriette, Elsa, Rosa, and Moritz—and many grandchildren. What happened to those children and grandchildren when Hitler came to power in 1933?

We know that Elsa and her husband Julius Loewenthal survived and immigrated eventually to the US, as did two of their four children, but their daughter Ruth and her husband were killed in a terrible car accident in Switzerland in 1937, and Ruth’s orphaned daughter Margot was later murdered by the Nazis at Sobibor. Their son Herbert spent the war years in a sanitorium in Zurich and lived the rest of his life in Switzerland.

What about Elsa Werner Loewenthal’s three siblings? What happened to them? As we will see, they all survived, but ended up spread throughout the world. Today’s post is about her sister Henriette Werner Cohen.

Henriette and her family ended up in the United States, as had Elsa. But Henriette first endured the tragedy of losing her husband Julius Cohen. He died on June 7, 1933, in Hamburg, just two months after Hitler’s rise to power; he was 64.

Julius Cohen death record, Year Range and Volume: 1933 Band 01, Ancestry.com. Hamburg, Germany, Deaths, 1874-1950

Julius was survived by Henriette and their three children, Mary, Manfred, and Willy, who all left Germany for the US in the 1930s. Manfred left first; he arrived in the US on December 24, 1936, but the ship manifest indicated that he was only planning to stay for three months. The person he listed as his contact in the US was a cousin, Max Stern. I assume this referred to Hilda Loewenthal’s husband Max Stern, the founder of Hartz Mountain Corporation. Manfred listed his mother as his contact back in Germany; she was still living in Hamburg, but Manfred listed his last residence as Eschwege, his mother’s birthplace. I wonder whether he was working for his uncle/cousin Julius Loewenthal.1

Manfred returned home to Germany, but then came again to the US two years later on April 4, 1938, this time intending to stay permanently. By that time he was married to Caecilie Gundersheimer. Caecilie was born on February 10, 1915,2 the daughter of Samuel Gundersheimer and Bertha Schwarzschild.3  According to the ship manifest, she was born in “Kleinheubad,” Germany, which I assume is a misspelling of Kleinheubach, as I cannot find any place (in Germany or elsewhere) named Kleinheubad. When Caecilie’s parents immigrated to the US the following year, they were going to Reading, Pennsylvania, where Manfred and Caecilie had settled.4

Manfred Cohen, ship manifest, Year: 1938; Arrival: New York, New York, USA; Microfilm Serial: T715, 1897-1957; Line: 1; Page Number: 46, Ship or Roll Number: Queen Mary,
Ancestry.com. New York, Passenger and Crew Lists (including Castle Garden and Ellis Island), 1820-1957

Manfred’s brother Willy Wolf Cohen also immigrated permanently to the US in 1938. He arrived on August 19 of that year, listing his mother Henriette in Hamburg as the person left behind and his brother Manfred of Reading, Pennsylvania as the contact person in the US.5  He filed his declaration of intention to become a US citizen on October 12, 1938, at which time he was living in Reading, presumably with his brother Manfred.

Willy Wolf Cohen, declaration of intention, The National Archives at Washington, D.C.; Washington, D.C.; ARC Title: Naturalization Petition and Record Books for the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, Eastern Division, Cleveland, 1907–1946; NAI: M1995; Record Group Title: Records of District Courts of the United States; Record Group Number: 21
Petition Number: 104154 – 104657, Ancestry.com. Ohio, Naturalization Petition and Record Books, 1888-1946

Their mother Henriette and sister Mary finally arrived the following year, January 26, 1939, also listing Manfred as the person they were going to in the United States.6 On the 1940 census, Henriette was living with her son Manfred in Reading, along with his wife and his in-laws.  Manfred was the owner of a mushroom plant there, and his wife Caecilie worked there as well, as did her father Samuel Gundersheimer.

Manfred Cohen, 1940 US census, Census Place: Reading, Berks, Pennsylvania; Roll: m-t0627-03679; Page: 9A; Enumeration District: 70-53, Ancestry.com. 1940 United States Federal Census

But when he registered for the World War II draft in 1942, Manfred listed his employer as the American Photocopy Equipment Company.

Manfred Cohen, World War II draft registration, The National Archives in St. Louis, Missouri; St. Louis, Missouri; WWII Draft Registration Cards for Pennsylvania, 10/16/1940-03/31/1947; Record Group: Records of the Selective Service System, 147; Box: 439, Ancestry.com. U.S., World War II Draft Cards Young Men, 1940-1947

Manfred’s siblings Mary and Willy do not appear on that 1940 census with him and his mother although Mary’s declaration of intention filed on June 26, 1939, shows she was still residing in Reading at that time.

Mary Cohen, declaration of intention, The National Archives at Washington, D.C.; Washington, D.C.; ARC Title: Naturalization Petition and Record Books for the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, Eastern Division, Cleveland, 1907–1946; NAI: M1995; Record Group Title: Records of District Courts of the United States; Record Group Number: 21
Petition Number: 104154 – 104657, Ancestry.com. Ohio, Naturalization Petition and Record Books, 1888-1946

I am not certain, but I think I located both Mary and William living in New York at the time of the 1940 census. There is a Mary Cohen, age 35, working as a maid in Brooklyn, who could be Mary as her residence in 1935 was Hamburg, Germany. But Mary would have been 37 in 1940, so I can’t be positive this is the same Mary Cohen, although this is the only Mary Cohen who comes close to matching my Mary.7

There was a Willy Cohen living in Queens, New York, in 1940, married to a woman named Hilda who had last been living in Strasbourg, France.8  But I don’t think this is my Willy; according to my Willy Cohen’s petition for naturalization, filed in June 1944, he didn’t marry his wife, Hildegarde Goldbach, until March 15, 1942, at which time he was living in Cleveland. Hildegarde, who was born on May 13, 1920, in Eschwege, immigrated in August 1940; she was the daughter of Abraham Goldbach and Luise Muller.9

Willy Wolf Cohen, naturalization petition, The National Archives at Washington, D.C.; Washington, D.C.; ARC Title: Naturalization Petition and Record Books for the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, Eastern Division, Cleveland, 1907–1946; NAI: M1995; Record Group Title: Records of District Courts of the United States; Record Group Number: 21
Petition Number: 104154 – 104657, Ancestry.com. Ohio, Naturalization Petition and Record Books, 1888-1946

So where was Willy Wolf Cohen in 1940? There is a William H. Cohen living in Manhattan as a lodger on the 1940 census, single, 34 years old, born in Germany, with no occupation listed. Again, I can’t be certain this is the right person, but he is the only other William Cohen on the 1940 census who matches the age and birthplace of my Willy, and as noted on his petition for naturalization, Willy had adopted the name William Henry Cohen in the US, matching “William H. Cohen.”

William H. Cohen, 1940 US census, Census Place: New York, New York, New York; Roll: m-t0627-02641; Page: 9B; Enumeration District: 31-736, Ancestry.com. 1940 United States Federal Census

But not long after the enumeration of the 1940 census, Henriette, Mary, and William all moved to Cleveland, Ohio. As seen above, William’s 1944 petition for naturalization indicates that he’d moved to Cleveland by June 1, 1940; the petition also lists his occupation as a service engineer.

Henriette moved to Cleveland by November 1940, according to her petition for naturalization filed in 1944.10 Mary moved to Cleveland in March 1941, according to her petition for naturalization filed in 1944; she was working as a nurse at that time.11

Comparing all three petitions, it appears that Henriette, Mary and William were all living at the same address, 1040 Parkwood Drive in Cleveland, when they petitioned for naturalization. Henriette’s petition is also interesting in that it reports that by 1944, Manfred had moved to Philadelphia from Reading, Pennsylvania.

Unfortunately, I could not find any information for Henriette or any of her children after the 1940s except for information about their deaths. Henriette died in March 1951 in Cleveland, as seen in this death notice from the Cleveland Plain Dealer of March 21, 1951; she was 69 years old.

Henriette Cohen, obituary, Cleveland Plain Dealer, March 21, 1951, p. 30.

Aside from a 1950 telephone directory listing, I cannot find any other record of Manfred in Philadelphia except for this obituary from the November 30, 1973 Philadelphia Jewish Exponent:

Manfred Cohen, obituary, The Philadelphia Jewish Exponent, November 30, 1973, p. 67

He died on November 18, 1973, in Philadelphia; he was 69, the same age his mother had been when she died and just five years older than his father had been at his death in 1933.

But Henriette’s other two children both lived longer lives. Mary died on February 10, 1993, in Beachwood, Ohio; she was 90.11 William died at 89 on April 9, 1995. 12 Unfortunately I was unable to find an obituary or a death notice for either of them.

Henriette and her children were survived by the children of Manfred and William; Mary has no direct descendants. There are many other descendants living today because Henriette and her children were able to get out of Germany in time.

 

  1. Manfred Cohen, ship manifest, Year: 1936; Arrival: New York, New York, USA; Microfilm Serial: T715, 1897-1957; Line: 1; Page Number: 203, Ship or Roll Number: Manhattan, Ancestry.com. New York, Passenger and Crew Lists (including Castle Garden and Ellis Island), 1820-1957 ↩
  2. Caecilie Cohen, Social Security Number: 179-14-7310, Birth Date: 10 Feb 1915, Issue Year: Before 1951, Issue State: Pennsylvania, Last Residence: 21215, Baltimore, Baltimore City, Maryland, Death Date: 21 Jan 2010, Social Security Administration; Washington D.C., USA; Social Security Death Index, Master File, Ancestry.com. U.S., Social Security Death Index, 1935-2014 ↩
  3. Obituary of Bertha Gundersheimer, The Philadelphia Inquirer, April 16, 1968, p. 32; Berta Gundersheimer, Maiden Name: Schwarzschild, Birth Date: 6 Sep 1887, Birth Place: Schluchtern, Last Residence: Frankfurt/M., Departure: Emigrated, Date of Departure: 2 Apr 1939, Destination: North America, German Special Interest Group of JewishGen, comp. Germany, Data on 7,400 North Bavarian Jews ↩
  4. Samuel and Bertha Gundersheimer, ship manifest, Year: 1939; Arrival: New York, New York, USA; Microfilm Serial: T715, 1897-1957; Line: 29; Page Number: 46; Ancestry.com. New York, Passenger and Crew Lists (including Castle Garden and Ellis Island), 1820-1957 ↩
  5. Willy Wolf Cohen, ship manifest, Year: 1938; Arrival: New York, New York, USA; Microfilm Serial: T715, 1897-1957; Line: 3; Page Number: 93, Ancestry.com. New York, Passenger and Crew Lists (including Castle Garden and Ellis Island), 1820-1957 ↩
  6. Henriette Cohen and Mary Cohen, ship manifest, Year: 1939; Arrival: New York, New York, USA; Microfilm Serial: T715, 1897-1957; Line: 10; Page Number: 47, Ancestry.com. New York, Passenger and Crew Lists (including Castle Garden and Ellis Island), 1820-1957 ↩
  7. “United States Census, 1940,” database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QSQ-G9MY-RH6G?cc=2000219&wc=QZXR-H21%3A790105101%2C795835101%2C804245901%2C804301301 : accessed 27 August 2020), New York > Kings > New York City, Brooklyn, Assembly District 18 > 24-2048B New York City, Brooklyn Borough Assembly District 18 (Tract 343 – part) > image 1 of 16; citing Sixteenth Census of the United States, 1940, NARA digital publication T627. Records of the Bureau of the Census, 1790 – 2007, RG 29. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 2012. ↩
  8. “United States Census, 1940,” database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QS7-L9MB-GJSV?cc=2000219&wc=QZXT-HLF%3A790105101%2C805603701%2C805654201%2C805688901 : accessed 14 August 2020), New York > Queens > New York City, Queens, Assembly District 3 > 41-679B [from 41-679]: New York City, Queens Borough Assembly District 3 (Tract 271 – part) > image 18 of 30; citing Sixteenth Census of the United States, 1940, NARA digital publication T627. Records of the Bureau of the Census, 1790 – 2007, RG 29. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 2012. ↩
  9. Hildegarde Goldbach, petition for naturalization, The National Archives at Washington, D.C.; Washington, D.C.; ARC Title: Naturalization Petition and Record Books for the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, Eastern Division, Cleveland, 1907–1946; NAI: M1995; Record Group Title: Records of District Courts of the United States; Record Group Number: 21, Petition Number: 106651 – 107164, Ancestry.com. Ohio, Naturalization Petition and Record Books, 1888-1946. Hildegard Doris Cohen, [Hildegard Doris Goldbach] , Birth Date: 13 May 1920, Birth Place: Eschwege, Federal Republic of Germany, Death Date: Mar 1993, Father: Abraham Goldbach, Mother: Luise Mueller, SSN: 285420684, Ancestry.com. U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007 ↩
  10. Henriette Cohen, Naturalization petition, The National Archives at Washington, D.C.; Washington, D.C.; ARC Title: Naturalization Petition and Record Books for the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, Eastern Division, Cleveland, 1907–1946; NAI: M1995; Record Group Title: Records of District Courts of the United States; Record Group Number: 21, Petition Number: 104154 – 104657, Ancestry.com. Ohio, Naturalization Petition and Record Books, 1888-1946 ↩
  11. Mary Cohen, Age: 90, Birth Date: 21 Sep 1902, Death Date: 10 Feb 1993, Death Hospital: Other/Nursing Home, Death Place: Beachwood, Cuyahoga, USA, Father: Cohen, Occupation: Nursing aides, orderlies, and attendants, Ohio Department of Health; Columbus, Ohio; Ohio Deaths, 1908-1932, 1938-1944, and 1958-2007, Ancestry.com and Ohio Department of Health. Ohio, Death Records, 1908-1932, 1938-2018 ↩ ↩
  12. William H Cohen, Birth Date: 29 Mar 1906, Death Date: 9 Apr 1995, Claim Date: 14 Dec 1970, SSN: 063144546, Ancestry.com. U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007 ↩

Helene Katzenstein Brinkmann Werner: Losing A Son in World War I

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When Amalie Goldschmidt Katzenstein died in 1903, she was survived by four of her children and eleven grandchildren. As we move into the twentieth century, I will focus on each of those four children separately, starting with Amalie’s oldest child, Helene Katzenstein Brinkmann Werner.

We already saw that Helene had first married Moritz Brinkmann in 1872 and that he had died six years later; she then married Max Werner in 1881, and they had three daughters and two sons.

Their first child was Henriette, born on January 15, 1882, in Eschwege.

Henriette Werner birth record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 923; Laufende Nummer: 1836, Year Range: 1882, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901

Then came Elsa, who was born on June 27, 1883, in Eschwege.

Elsa Werner birth record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 923; Laufende Nummer: 1837, Year Range: 1883, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901

Rosa, the third daughter, was born in Eschwege on January 15, 1885.

Rosa Werner birth record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 923; Laufende Nummer: 1839, Year Range: 1885, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901

Moritz was born September 12, 1888, in Eschwege.

Moritz Werner birth record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 923; Laufende Nummer: 1842, Year Range: 1888, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901

And finally their fifth child Carl was born on February 21, 1894, in Eschwege.

Carl Werner birth record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 923; Laufende Nummer: 1848, Year Range: 1894, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901

Helene and Max’s children began to marry in the first decade of the 20th century. Henriette Werner married Julius Cohen on November 11, 1901, in Eschwege. Julius was born January 9, 1869, in Altona, Germany, a town neighboring Hamburg, to Salamon Cohen and Emma Moeller.

Henriette Werner marriage to Julius Cohen, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 923; Laufende Nummer: 1886, Year Range: 1901,
Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930

Henriette and Julius settled in Altona, where their daughter Mary was born on September 21, 1902.1 She was followed by her brother Manfred on June 1, 1904,2 and a second brother, Willy Wolf, on March 29, 1906.3

Henriette’s sister Elsa Werner married Julius Loewenthal on November 16, 1903, in Eschwege; as has already been discussed, Julius was her second cousin as his grandmother Sarah Goldschmidt Stern was the sister of Elsa’s grandmother Amalie Goldschmidt Katzenstein.

Having already discussed the story of Elsa and Julius and their children here and here, as well as in Julius’ memoir, discussed here, here, here and here, I will simply refer you back to those sources.

Helene and Max’s third daughter Rosa Werner married Josef Wormser on June 15, 1908. Joseph was the son of Raphael Wormser and Fanni Hirsch and was born in Karlsruhe, Germany, on October 17, 1874.

Rosa Werner marriage to Josef Wormser, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 923, Year Range: 1908, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930

Rosa and Josef had four children, all born in Zurich, Switzerland, where Rosa and Josef had settled. Esther was born on October 13, 1909, Raphael on April 17, 1911, Julius was born on January 8, 1914, and Helene on January 22, 1917.4

Unfortunately, Helene Katzenstein Werner did not live to see the birth of her grandchildren Julius and Helene. She died on December 31, 1912, in Eschwege. She was 58. Her granddaughter Helene Wormser was presumably named for her.

Helene Katzenstein Werner death record, Personenstandsregister Sterberegister; Bestand: 923; Laufende Nummer: 1957, Year Range: 1912, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Deaths, 1851-1958

In some ways Helene’s death was a blessing because she was spared the suffering caused by World War I, including the death of her son Carl (sometimes spelled Karl) on September 25, 1916, while fighting for Germany. According to his death record filed in Eschwege, he died at the eastern front in Russia-Poland at the Schtschara-Serwetsch battle site. Thank you to the members of the GerSIG group on Facebook for their help in transcribing and translating Carl’s death record:

Karl Werner death record, Personenstandsregister Sterberegister; Bestand: 923; Laufende Nummer: 1962, Year Range: 1916, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Deaths, 1851-1958

Translation: Eschwege, October 11, 1916 The commander of the replacement battalion Landwehr Infantry Regiment 6 has announced that the non-commissioned officer in the 8th company of this regiment, businessman Karl WERNER, 22 years old, Mosaic religion, living in Eschwege, Friedrich Wilhelmstrasse 48, born in Eschwege, is single , Son of the businessman Max WERNER, residing in Eschwege, and his late wife Helene, née KATZENSTEIN, most recently residing in Eschwege, where the Shchara in Russian Poland died on the twenty-fifth (25) September of the year thousand nine hundred sixteen. The exact time of death has not been established.

The Shchara River is in what is now Belarus, not too far from the border with Poland. As noted on the death record, Carl was a member of the Third Landwehr-Division, Infantry Regiment No. 6. According to Wikipedia, “The 3rd Landwehr Division fought on the Eastern Front in World War I. It was on the front in Poland from the early days, and participated in the Gorlice-Tarnów Offensive, crossing the Vistula in July and advancing toward the Bug, and eventually reaching the line between the Servech and Shchara rivers, where the front stabilized. It remained in the line there until the armistice on the Eastern Front in December 1917.” It was obviously during one of the battles at this front that young Carl Werner was killed; he was only twenty-two years old when he gave his life for Germany.

Third Landwehr Division at the Eastern Front in World War I, found at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gorlice_bitwa.jpg#filelinks (public domain)

Max Werner died almost exactly three years after his son Carl on October 2, 1919; he was seventy.

Max Werner death record, Personenstandsregister Sterberegister; Bestand: 923; Laufende Nummer: 1965, Year Range: 1919, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Deaths, 1851-1958

Neither Max nor Helene lived to see the birth of their last grandchild. Their son Moritz married Jenny Kahn on August 19, 1918; Jenny was born May 7, 1894, in Baisingen, Germany. She was the daughter of Moses Kahn and Amalie Marx.

Moritz Werner marriage to Jenny Kahn, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 903, Year Range: 1918, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930

Moritz Werner and Jenny Kahn had one child, born in Eschwege in 1922, named Max, presumably for his paternal grandfather Max Werner.5

Thus, Helene Katzenstein and Max Werner were survived by four of their five children and numerous grandchildren. They lost their son Carl in World War I, but despite that sacrifice, Carl’s siblings all had to flee from Germany during the Nazi era. We’ve already seen the fate—some tragic—of Elsa Werner Loewenthal and her family. In the next post we will see what happened to Carl and Elsa’s sister Henriette and her family.

  1. Mary Cohen, naturalization petition, The National Archives at Washington, D.C.; Washington, D.C.; ARC Title: Naturalization Petition and Record Books for the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, Eastern Division, Cleveland, 1907–1946; NAI: M1995; Record Group Title: Records of District Courts of the United States; Record Group Number: 21, Ancestry.com. Ohio, Naturalization Petition and Record Books, 1888-1946 ↩
  2. Manfred Cohen, World War II draft registration, The National Archives in St. Louis, Missouri; St. Louis, Missouri; WWII Draft Registration Cards for Pennsylvania, 10/16/1940-03/31/1947; Record Group: Records of the Selective Service System, 147; Box: 439, Ancestry.com. U.S., World War II Draft Cards Young Men, 1940-194 ↩
  3. William Wolf Cohen, World War II draft registration, The National Archives in St. Louis, Missouri; St. Louis, Missouri; Draft Registration Cards for Ohio, 10/16/1940-03/31/1947; Record Group: Records of the Selective Service System, 147; Box: 261,
    Ancestry.com. U.S., World War II Draft Cards Young Men, 1940-1947 ↩
  4. I have no primary sources for these birth dates. They come from family trees on My Heritage and gravestones on BillionGraves. More on that later. ↩
  5. My source for this date is My Heritage. https://www.myheritage.com/research/record-40000-498970540/max-heinz-werner-in-geni-world-family-tree?s=260189871&indId=externalindividual-c8fe96479a56fe6e8786b0d8055934c5 ↩

Amalie Malchen Goldschmidt and Juda Julius Katzenstein, Part I: A Growing Family

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My four-times great-uncle Meyer Goldschmidt and his wife Lea Katzenstein had seven children, six of whom lived to adulthood. I’ve already written about the oldest three: Ella, Sarah, and Jacob Meier. Now I turn to their fourth child, third daughter, Amalie. She was my great-grandmother Eva Goldschmidt Katzenstein’s first cousin.

Amalie was born in Grebenstein, Germany, on June 19, 1826. When she was twenty-six years old, she married Juda (Julius) Callman Katzenstein, the son of Callman Katzenstein and Jettchen Wertheim. He was born May 1, 1824, in Eschwege, where they were married on June 7, 1853, and where they settled.

Marriage record of Malchen Goldschmidt and Juda (Julius) Katzenstein, HHStAW Fonds 365 No 147, p. 26

What I’ve not been able to determine is whether Juda Katzenstein was related to his mother-in-law Lea Katzenstein, who was born in Grebenstein, a town 45 miles from Eschwege. I also have not found any connection to my Katzenstein relatives from Jesberg from either Juda’s family or Lea’s family; Jesberg is about 50 miles from Grebenstein and about 63 miles from Eschwege. Perhaps Katzenstein was just a popular name. Since I can trace all three lines back to before 1800 when surnames were first adopted by Jews, I am not sure there is any way to figure out whether these three lines are genetically connected or not. They may have just adopted the same surname.

Amalie Goldschmidt and Juda Katzenstein had five children, four daughters and one son. Their first born was Helene Katzenstein; she was born on April 21, 1854, in Eschwege.

Helene Katzenstein birth record, HHStAW Fonds 365 No 145, p. 57

A second daughter, Fredericke or Rickchen, was born in Eschwege a year later on July 18, 1855.

Fredericke Katzenstein birth record, HHStAW Fonds 365 No 145, p. 62

Amalie and Juda’s third child Regine died in infancy. She was born on January 1, 1857, and died six days later on January 7, 1857, in Eschwege.

Regina Katzenstein birth record, HHStAW Fonds 365 No 145, p. 64

Regina Katzenstein death record, HHStAW Fonds 365 No 146, p.33

A fourth daughter Henriette was born a year later on February 13, 1858, in Eschwege.

Henriette Katzenstein birth record, HHStAW Fonds 365 No 145, p. 68

Finally, Amalie and Juda’s last child and only son Meyer (presumably named for Amalie’s father Meyer Goldschmidt) was born August 9, 1860, in Eschwege.

Meyer Katzenstein birth record, HHStAW Fonds 365 No 145, p. 75

Thus, Amalie and Juda had four children who survived to adulthood.

By the 1880s, all three surviving daughters—Helene, Fredericke, and Henriette—had married and had children.

As discussed by her cousin Julius Loewenthal in his memoir, as we saw here, Helene Katzenstein was first married to Moritz Brinkmann, the brother of Levi Brinkmann, who was married to Lina Stern, Helene’s first cousin. Lina was the daughter of Sarah Goldschmidt Stern, the sister of Malchen Goldschmidt Katzenstein.

Helene married Moritz on November 19, 1872, in Eschwege, where he also was born. Moritz was born on October 15, 1846, to Susskind Brinkmann and Goldchen Plock.

Helene Katzenstein marriage to Moritz Brinkmann, HHStAW Fonds 365 No 147, p. 46

Sadly, Moritz did not live long after their marriage. He died less than six years later on September 8, 1878, when he was not yet 32 years old. Helene and Moritz had not yet had children.

Moritz Brinkmann death record, HHStAW Fonds 365 No 146, p.60

Helene remarried three years later. Her second husband Max Werner was Levi Brinkmann’s partner in LS Brinkmann in Eschwege, the knitwear company later run by Julius Loewenthal. Max was born in Muensterberg, then part of Prussian territory, now in Poland, on August 11, 1849. He and Helene were married on February 7, 1881. They would have five children: Henriette (1882), Elsa (1883), Rosa (1885), Moritz (1888), and Karl (1894). More to come on the children in my next post.1

Helene Katzenstein marriage to Max Werner, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 923; Laufende Nummer: 1865, Year Range: 1881, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930

Helene’s sister Fredericke married Leopold Goldmann on November 16, 1875, in Eschwege. He was also a native of Eschwege, born in 1849 to Philipp Goldmann and Zerlina Jaffa. They would have three children, Clementine (1876), Karl (1878), and Meta (1884).

Fredericke Katzenstein marriage to Leopold Goldmann, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 923; Laufende Nummer: 1858, Description, Year Range: 1875, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930

Henriette, the youngest of the three surviving daughters of Amalie and Juda, married Simon Schnadig on August 20, 1877, in Eschwege.  Simon was the son of Joel Schnadig and Johanna Ebertshausen and was born in Heddernheim, a district of Frankfurt, on October 10, 1849.

Henriette Katzenstein marriage to Simon Schnadig, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 923; Laufende Nummer: 1860, Description Year Range: 1877, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930

Henriette and Simon had three children, Julius (1878), Helene (1881), and Elsa (1890). Sadly, Julius died when he was only two years old.

Julius Schnadig death record, Personenstandsregister Sterberegister; Bestand: 903; Signatur: 10336, Year Range: 1880, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Deaths, 1851-1958

As for Amalie and Juda’s only son, Meyer (sometimes spelled Meier or Meir), he left Germany for the United States in 1888, arriving in New York City on October 10 of that year.2 He settled in New York where he married Emma Bachrach on October 27, 1891.3 Emma was also a German immigrant; she was born in Mainz on July 5, 1869, to Jakob Bernhard Bachrach and Sophia Pfann, and had immigrated to the US in the fall of 1889.4 Meyer and Emma had one child, a daughter Sophia, born in New York on August 19, 1892.5

Thus, by 1892, Amalie and Juda had eleven surviving grandchildren, including one born and living in the US. The family had grown steadily since their marriage in 1853, but suffered two losses in the 1890s. Juda Katzenstein died on September 27, 1896, in Eschwege; he was 72 years old and was survived by his wife Amalie, his four surviving children, and his grandchildren.

Juda Katzenstein death record, Personenstandsregister Sterberegister; Bestand: 923; Laufende Nummer: 1941, Year Range: 1896, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Deaths, 1851-1958

Then three years later Fredericke Katzenstein Goldmann lost her husband Leopold Goldmann on January 12, 1899. He was only 50 years old; he was survived by Fredericke, who was only 44, and their three children.

Leopold Goldmann death record, Personenstandsregister Sterberegister; Bestand: 923; Laufende Nummer: 1944, Year Range: 1899, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Deaths, 1851-1958

Thus, at the turn of the century, Amalie had lost one child in infancy, one grandchild as a toddler, her husband Juda, and her son-in-law Leopold. She herself died in Eschwege on January 7, 1903, at the age of 76.

Malchen (Amalie) Katzenstein death record.Personenstandsregister Sterberegister; Bestand: 923; Laufende Nummer: 1948, 1903, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Deaths, 1851-1958

She was survived by four children and eleven grandchildren. Their lives in the 20th century will be told in the posts that follow.

  1. Sources for the births of Amalie and Juda’s grandchildren will be provided in later posts. ↩
  2. Meier Katzenstein passport application, National Archives and Records Administration (NARA); Washington D.C.; Roll #: 623; Volume #: Roll 623 – 13 May 1903-18 May 1903, Volume: Roll 623 – 13 May 1903-18 May 1903, Ancestry.com. U.S. Passport Applications, 1795-1925 ↩
  3. Meir Katzenstein, Gender: Male, Marriage Date: 27 Oct 1891, Marriage Place: Manhattan, New York, USA, Spouse: Emma Bacharach, Certificate Number: 13220
    Ancestry.com. New York, New York, Extracted Marriage Index, 1866-1937 ↩
  4. Emma Bachrach birth record, Stadtarchiv Mainz; Mainz, Deutschland; Zivilstandsregister, 1798-1875; Signatur: 50 / 72, Year Range: 1869, Ancestry.com. Mainz, Germany, Births, Marriages and Deaths, 1798-1875; Emma Bachrach passport application, National Archives and Records Administration (NARA); Washington D.C.; Roll #: 1994; Volume #: Roll 1994 – Certificates: 179100-179475, 26 May 1922-26 May 1922, Volume: Roll 1994 – Certificates: 179100-179475, 26 May 1922-26 May 1922, Ancestry.com. U.S. Passport Applications, 1795-1925 ↩
  5.  Sophia Katzenstein, Birth Date: 19 Aug 1892, Birth Place: New York, New York
    Certificate Number: 32010, New York City Births, 1891-1902; Title: Births Reported in August, 1892.; Certificate #: 32010, Ancestry.com. New York, New York, Birth Index, 1891-1902 ↩

The Memoir of Julius Loewenthal, Part IV: Tragedy Strikes

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When we last left Julius Loewenthal, he was still a successful businessman, living in Eschwege, Germany, with his wife Elsa, but he was worried about the dark clouds of anti-Semitism and the economic disasters that were feeding it.

In this next section, Julius writes about the period between 1933, when the Nazis took control of Germany, and the death of his daughter Ruth and son-in-law Leonhard Fulda in October 1937. This section was obviously painful for him to write, and I had to do a bit of reorganizing to tell his story in chronological order. The text is so powerful that it needs no images, which would only detract from it.

When I look back today on my life, I must say that I made every effort, spared no money to give my children the opportunity to learn and obtain an education in some trade. My daughter Ruth went to business college, Herbert went to other plants in Germany and England, Hilde went to the famous Art College in Berlin and Basel, Switzerland, and Karl Werner [Garry] went to the Textile College in Leicester, England as well as having served an apprenticeship in our factory for some years. The small town we lived in forced us to send our children away at an early age as they did not have the opportunity in Eschwege.

To describe the time between 1933 and our final departure from Germany causes my hand to hesitate. The wounds are too deep. Only an expert writer could describe the torture and the poison with which the German Fuhrer persecuted the Jews wherever they were. It started already in 1933 and the events were such and so often and so horrible that I will not recount the same here, and they are and will be well documented in the time to come. Little by little the personal life, the business activity was choked off with rules, laws and regulations that in the end nothing was left, and no Jew could work. The congregations which existed for 1000 years became mere shadows. … No one in the beginning was able to understand or to comprehend. After all we were descendants of people who had lived in the communities throughout Germany for 1000 years.

… When I traveled to Palestine (Israel) in the year of 1933, I received news of the Nazi takeover of Germany. Our business still operated, and the profit was no smaller. However, the political events cast a very dark shadow. At first the peace between employer and employees was being disturbed by a daily dose of stories of the unmoral character of the Jews. One would think that mature men who had been with us for long times, many 40 years, were mature enough to form their own opinions. It was, however, different. Little by little the whole German nation was saturated with the antisemitic poison, a steady unrelenting barrage. Thus, we were eventually forced to sell our business as we no longer were masters in our own house.

….[In 1933] I was forced to sell my home in Bad Sooden. It was a sad hour for me as I had spent many happy hours there. We rented a small house in Frankfurt where we spent many happy hours in seclusion. However, the pressure of the German Internal Revenue was such that we were forced to give up the house in 1937. Frankfurt had become a disappointment for me. The many once well established relatives, the many wealthy and substantial families had become poor, and many lived in worse than pleasant circumstances. Many had left or wanted but did not have the funds to do so as the tax levied on leaving the country meant leaving absolutely everything behind.

…We made the salient mistake of not leaving Germany in 1933. It was a most difficult decision, and no one anticipated the murderous and vicious intentions and its consequences in a Nation of such high culture. In 1934, I fell [and broke both legs] and was confined to a hospital for better than one year and that also contributed in not making a decision. We bought property, land, and a house, in Israel in order to have some possibility of having funds or roots abroad, but as it turned out the Company who sold us the land was operated by Jews abroad who would prey on the adversity of others, and the whole huge amounts of money were fleeced except for the land itself. It was later sold.

… In 1935 my son Herbert left Germany. He recognized the situation better than we did. It was a blow because I had hoped that some day he would take over the reins of the business. He went to New York where he became active in the business world at once. Unfortunately [he was afflicted by] a lingering ever progressing sickness which might have been overlooked because of the troubled and unstable times with its unbelievable personal and survival problems, together with the limited medical knowledge which was available at the time….

[In October 1937, My daughter Ruth, her husband Leonhard Fuld and I] traveled together to Muensingen in Switzerland in order to find a Sanitorium for Herbert. …. We arrived in Zurich, where we stayed over, then on to Muensingen, then Interlaken, and after Shabbos we started back to Germany…. We remained in our room because the place was full of Nazis.

The following morning on October 2nd, 1937, we continued the trip toward Rottweil when a Truck with an empty trailer came toward us, and it was speeding. The trailer swung around like a huge baseball bat and hit us. Ruth, who was driving, and Leonard, who was sitting behind her, had both their heads crashed in. Ruth fell dead in my arms, and Leonard died on October 4, 1937, in the hospital in Rottweil. … The death of my beloved children was a terrible blow to all of us and to the Jewish community of Germany…. …. We were forced to travel to America in January 1938 and escort [Herbert] to Switzerland where he was confined to a Sanitorium….

The world had grown dark for us. We had to bear this burden and much more what was to come toward us. Today when I write this almost 3 years have passed, and I am convinced that the good Lord arranged it so, as much pain and suffering was spared my children as the destiny of the Jew in Germany was to end in tragedy.

It was not long after the tragic deaths of Ruth and Leonhard and the commitment of Herbert to a sanitorium in Switzerland that Julius and Elsa made the heart-wrenching decision to leave Germany. More about that in the next post.

 

 

The Memoir of Julius Loewenthal, Part III: World War I and Its Aftermath of Darkening Clouds

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By the turn of the 20th century, Julius Loewenthal was a young man in his late twenties who was making his mark as a business leader in his uncle’s knitwear business in Eschwege, Germany. The first three decades of the new century would provide him with many personal and professional challenges, as we will see.

In 1903 I married my second cousin Elsa Werner. I was 29 years old, and she was 20. We lived in the Reichensachser Strasse in an small apartment. In 1905 my daughter Ruth was born. Our happiness was great… Now that I had become a family man I was happy in a time before the 1st World War. The record player was invented and we were able to sit and listen to records. It was a monumental experience, to sit and listen to the latest opera and concerts. Guests came, and everybody was enchanted by the quiet life we were leading and the good food. In 1909 my son Herbert was born. He was a good son but had later on many problems, some of which were hard for me to understand.

Julius and Elsa (Werner) Loewenthal.
Courtesy of Joanne Warner-Loewenthal

In 1907 my dear uncle Levy died. The sorrow was great.

[Julius then described the growth of the family knitwear business in Eschwege after Levy Brinkmann’s death.]

The outbreak of the war changed everything. Jobs which had been done by men were now being done by women. There was great shortage of every imaginable item. Regulations came down which made life impossible and business worse. We worked full blast for the Army making sweaters and underwear. We were very strictly controlled and regulated, and one had one foot always in jail. German industries were not at all prepared for war, and chaos prevailed….

There were great shortages of raw materials, and we started to manufacture underwear from paper yarns which stood up well considering….Food was very short. My dear wife ran around the surrounding villages begging for a few eggs, milk, and butter. Our Matzoh on Passover was black like coal. Butter and meat could only be bought on the black market.

During the third year of the war I received prisoners from Belgium….They unfortunately all died of different diseases they contracted in the war zone. I lived between the living and the dead. I had to empty bed pans and play nurse, Doctor, Business Manager, etc. Doctors were not available because they were all at the front.

I was unable to have a free minute. I yearned for a vacation spot and a place of recreation. Thus, I got the idea to buy a house in Bad Sooden near Eschwege where we could vacation and spend the weekends. We called it Villa Elsa. It had a beautiful view of the forests and surroundings, and we owned the house from 1917 to 1933. …We spent as much time as we could in Bad Sooden. We kept 2 horses in Eschwege, which were used by the factory for hauling cases to and from the Station. On weekends we used them to take us to Sooden in a Landau, which was an experience in itself to travel the 10 miles by horse drawn carriage.

Bad Sooden, Germany
Jörg Braukmann / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)

In 1920 a lot of refugees came to Eschwege and in particular to Sooden… One of the outstanding events of those days was the fact that already Antisemitism reared its ugly head. It became very widespread in Sooden. Our friendly relations with our neighbors became more and more strained because people lived from hand to mouth. Taxes were very high, and there existed sorrow and desperation among most people.

The stories were spread that the Jews were the cause of all that sorrow and were the cause of the War when the truth was that the Jews participated equally in the war and made their own bloody sacrifices as well as participated in the rebuilding of the country…. We were of the belief that this had all disappeared with the middles ages; however, we were wrong. … The hate remained and had nothing to do with reason. The seeds which were planted already then throughout the country were to blossom out in full during Hitler’s time.  We did not recognize the depth of all this and were subsequently taught a terrible lesson.

With the occupation of the Ruhr district by the French Army came the Inflation. Nobody knew what it was, nobody understood what it was, and subsequently poor were made out of the wealthy overnight and turned the whole nation into beggars and brought sorrow and desperation to each and every household. The wealth of my own family and that of my relations were gone overnight. Only a few ever recovered in their lifetime. Only those who had a business were able to recover and pull themselves out of the poorhouse.

In spite of that, the house in Sooden became a beautiful escape spot even though we no longer spoke with the neighbors. We lived alone for us. We were still respected and tolerated, but the Sun had grown darker.

Ruth had married Dr. Leonard Fulda from Mainz. He was a wonderful kind man, and the two were very happy with each other….

Already before the 1st World war was it our intention to build ourselves a house in Eschwege. The houses which were available were old, old-fashioned, and many without gas or electric. ….[w]ith the outbreak of the war we postponed the building. I was not called to the colors as my work was considered more important.

In 1926 we started to build…It was a house that was the talk of many throughout Europe as it incorporated many features which at that time were new, modern, unheard of, and the house remains just as modern today as it was at that time. [What follows is a detailed description of the house.] My daughter Hilde was married in the house, and the ceremony as well as the set table for more than 30 guests did not interfere with each other. We lived in this house from 1926 until 1938. We lived there happily until we were chased out of Germany by the Nazis. At this moment [1940] the Nazis have converted the house into a temporary hospital.

Home of Julius and Elsa (Werner) Loewnethal in Eschwege Courtesy of Joanne Warner-Loewenthal

[In the next section of his memoir, Julius described how despite the economic conditions in Germany generally, he was able to make extensive expansions in the family business including the construction of a new factory.]

The years 1924 through 1933 passed with growing political and unemployment tensions. …and the Jews became a very convenient place to heap the blame …[i]n spite of the fact that the German Jews were through their activity still one of the stable areas in the floundering economy. There were many Jewish owned businesses of different sizes throughout Germany, and nearly all commanded the respect of the business world including my own fine reputation, which reached far beyond the borders of Germany. This, while other non-Jewish businesses went bankrupt, contributed to the hate and jealousy of those unfortunate and unemployed. It was a vicious circle.

Somehow despite the awful economic suffering experienced throughout Germany after World War I, Julius Loewenthal managed to continue to expand his business and live comfortably both in Eschwege and in their vacation home in Bad Sooden. But he and his family were already experiencing the growth of anti-Semitism. They likely, however, had no idea just how bad things were going to get.

More in the next segment of Julius Loewenthal’s memoir in my next post. I will be taking a short break this week, but will post Parts IV and V next week.