Another Twisted Family Tree Story: The Goldsmiths/Goldschmidts

Posted on October 2, 2015 by Amy

One thing that has amazed me before in my research is how often various lines in my family interconnect, like the Hano, Nusbaums, and Cohens in Philadelphia. In researching the Schoenthals, I’ve once again encountered one of those twists in my family tree.

In my September 25 post I shared the numerous records I was able to find, with the help of several others, for my Schoenthal ancestors, including the marriage record of my great-great-grandparents, Levi Schoenthal and Jhette (or Henrietta) Hamberg in 1839. That record revealed that Levi’s father was Heinemann Schoenthal and his mother Hendel (or Handel) Beerenstein. For the moment that is as far back as I’ve been able to go with my Schoenthal line, though I hope to be able to find more about the earlier history of both the Schoenthal line and the Beerenstein line.

Marriage record for Levi Schoenthal and Jhette Hamberg
HHStAW, 365, 386

Thanks to the research done by David Baron and my third cousin Roger Cibella, I now know that Heinemann and Hendel had at least one other child, a daughter named Fradchen or Fanny, who was born in 1800 in Sielen, making her twelve years older than her brother Levi. (Hans-Peter Klein has uncovered another sibling, Minna, but that’s a story for another day.)

Unfortunately I’ve not yet found a birth record for Fanny, but there is a marriage record to support that conclusion. David and Roger sent me a copy of this marriage record dated September 10, 1844 from Oberlistingen, a town very close to Breuna (and now one of the districts of the town Breuna).

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

As translated for me by Matthais Steinke, the record records the marriage of Fradchen Schoenthal, daughter of Heinemann Schoenthal and Hendel Beerentstein, to Simon Goldschmidt, son of Jacob Goldschmidt and Hewa Seligmann. (No, I do not think Hewa Seligmann was related to my Seligmanns, but who knows? But that’s not the twist here.) The record lists Fanny as 37 years old in 1844, thus born in 1807. Simon is listed as 42 on the marriage record and is described as a master tailor.

According to David and Roger’s research, Simon had been married once before to Edeline or Ella Katzenstein. (I also don’t know if Simon’s first wife was related to my Katzensteins, but I am looking into that. But that also is not the twist here.) Simon and Ella had five children before Ella died in 1840. Their children ranged from Jacob, who was 16 when his mother died, down to Josias, who was only a year old when Ella died. There were also two daughters, Lena and Hewa (Eva), and another son, Joseph. Four years after Ella died, Simon married Fanny.

Almost exactly a year after their wedding, Simon, Fanny, and Simon’s nine year old daughter Eva (Hewa) from his first marriage emigrated from Germany to the United States, arriving in Baltimore on the ship Marianne on September 20, 1845. Simon listed his occupation as a tailor on the ship manifest.

Passenger manifest for Simon Goldschmidt, Fanny Schoenthal and Eva Goldschmidt
Ancestry.com. Baltimore, Passenger Lists, 1820-1964 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2006.
Original data: Selected Passenger and Crew Lists and Manifests. National Archives, Washington, D.C.

On January 10, 1847, Fanny gave birth to a son, Henry. One year later Fanny and Simon had another child, a daughter named Hannah, born on June 5, 1848. Both Henry and Hannah were born in Baltimore, Maryland.[1] In 1850, the family was living in Pittsburgh along with Simon’s two daughters from his first marriage, Eva and Lena. (The census record has many errors, but it is clear that this is Simon and Fanny’s family even though the record has the names mixed up and the ages inaccurate.)

Simon Goldsmith and family 1950 US Census Year: 1850; Census Place: Pittsburgh Ward 3, Allegheny, Pennsylvania; Roll: M432_745; Page: 135A; Image: 274

Tragically for the family, just two years after giving birth to Hannah, Fanny died in 1850. She was buried at Troy Hill Jewish Cemetery in Pittsburgh. Some readers might remember that that is also where the elusive Fanny Wiler is buried, another mother who left young children behind after an untimely death.

By 1860, Simon Goldsmith had moved with his two young children to Washington, Pennsylvania, a town about 28 miles to the southwest of Pittsburgh. Simon, Henry, and Hannah were living with Simon’s son from his first marriage, Jacob, who was now 35 years old, according to the 1860 census, and working as a merchant. Jacob and his wife had six young daughters of their own by 1860, so it must have been quite a crowded household.[2]

Simon Goldsmith and family 1860 US census
Year: 1860; Census Place: Washington, Washington, Pennsylvania; Roll: M653_1192; Page: 1188; Image: 627; Family History Library Film: 805192

Washington, Pennsylvania (called “Little Washington” by some locals) was then a town of 3,587 people, according to the 1860 census reports, and had grown by 34% since the prior census in 1850. There was not yet a railroad line to the town at that time. What drew all those people to this town? The town’s website does not provide many clues in its history section:

With immigrants from the west of Scotland and the north of Ireland, and with many transferring their homes from the eastern and central parts of Virginia, the vicinity of Washington was settled in 1768. The Pennsylvania legislature passed an act on March 28, 1781, erecting the County of Washington and naming Catfish Camp as the place for holding the first election. This was the first county in the U.S. to bear the name of Washington.

David Hoge laid out a plan of lots immediately after the action of the legislature. His original plot bears the name “Bassett, alias Dandridge Town,” but before the plot was recorded, lines were drawn through “Bassett, alias Dandridge Town” with ink, and the word “Washington” was written above.

The town started with every evidence of progressive tendencies, as the original plot dedicated a tract of ground to the people for recreational purposes. A lot was given for a courthouse where the current building now stands, and Lots 43 and 102, according to the plan, were presented by Mr. Hoge to “His Excellency, General Washington, and Mrs. Washington.” Part of the townsite had been the camp of Tingoocqua, who was a chief in the Kuskuskee tribe of Indians.

The town was incorporated as a borough on February 13, 1810, and became a city of the third class in 1924.

Map of Washington County, Pennsylvania, United States Public School Districts (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

There is a very detailed history[3] of Washington, Pennsylvania, available online through the University of Pittsburgh Historic Pittsburgh website. One tidbit I picked up from this history was that Jacob Goldsmith served on the town council in 1858.

Unfortunately, most of this text is devoted to describing the political history of the area and the individuals who were political leaders, and I could not get a sense of what drew people to the area initially. Was it the proximity to Pittsburgh? Was it a good location for trade? Was agriculture the primary source of income? Whatever the reason that drew people there initially, the town had existed for many years by the time my relatives arrived. From the 1860 census, I know that Jacob was a merchant, and I assume that with a town of over 3,500 people, there would have been a large enough population to support many merchants.

English: Map of Washington Pennsylvania from 1897 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

One thing seems clear, however. When Simon Goldsmith lived in Washington, Pennsylvania, in 1860, there was no synagogue there. The first synagogue in all of Washington County, Beth Israel, was not founded until 1891. Although my ancestors had lived in small towns in Germany with very small Jewish communities, they had at least had synagogues and schools and cemeteries for their community. I am not sure that when Simon arrived, there were any such facilities.

Why, you might wonder, am I dwelling on this town in western Pennsylvania where the widower of my great-great-grandfather’s sister lived with his two children? Because six years later, my great-grandfather’s brother Henry Schoenthal arrived in Washington with his wife and children, and some of his siblings followed in the years after. Last to come in 1881 was my great-grandfather Isidore, accompanied by his mother Henrietta and his sister Rosalie. And 23 years later in 1904, my grandmother Eva Schoenthal was born in Washington, Pennsylvania, the youngest child and only daughter of Isidore Schoenthal and Hilda Katzenstein. It seems to me that Henry did not choose Washington randomly, but rather based on the fact that his first cousin Jacob Goldsmith and his aunt’s widower Simon Goldsmith were living there.

But I promised you a twist, and I still haven’t delivered. Here it is. Simon Goldsmith was not only my great-great-aunt’s husband; he was also my four-times great-uncle himself. Simon Goldsmith, husband of Fanny Schoenthal, had a brother named Seligmann Goldschmidt. Seligmann had a daughter named Eva, just as his brother Simon did (both named for their grandmother, Simon and Seligmann’s mother Hewa). Seligmann’s daughter Eva Goldschmidt was my great-great-grandmother; she married Gerson Katzenstein, my great-great-grandfather, and they were the parents of Hilda Katzenstein, who married Isidore Schoenthal, nephew of Fanny Schoenthal. Hilda Katzenstein and Isidore Schoenthal were my great-grandparents.

Stated as simply as possible, Simon Goldsmith was my four times great-uncle. His wife Fanny Schoenthal was my three times great-aunt. My grandmother Eva Schoenthal was a first cousin once removed from Henry Goldsmith, Simon and Fanny’s son, through her father’s side and his mother’s side:

She was also his first cousin twice removed through her mother’s side and his father’s side:

They may have all left Germany, but they were still marrying within families they knew from back home. Just another twist in my increasingly twisted family tree. And more evidence of the limited gene pool created by endogamy and of the limited value of DNA predictions for Ashkenazi Jews.

[1] Fanny’s headstone says she was born in 1800. I think it’s unlikely that Fanny had two children at ages 47 and 48, which is what she would have been if born in 1800 as her headstone indicates. If, as her marriage record and the passenger manifest suggest, she was born in 1807, then she would have been having children at 40 and 41, which seems much more realistic.

[2] One thing that bothers me is that I cannot find out what happened to some of the other children of Simon Goldsmith and Ella Katzenstein. Lena moved to Columbus, Ohio, after marrying Gustav Basch, and Joseph had died as a baby in Germany even before Ella died. Eva immigrated with her father and step-mother, but then disappeared after the 1850 census; I assume she married. I’ve no idea what happened to Josias; perhaps he died before Simon left Germany, or maybe Simon left him behind with another family member. Since they are not directly related to me, I am trying not to get too distracted looking for them, but eventually I will have to try and find out what happened to Josias and Eva.

[3] Title: History of Washington County, Pennsylvania: with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men

Authors: Crumrine, Boyd, 1838-1916, Ellis, Franklin, 1828-1885, Hungerford, Austin N.

Collection: Historic Pittsburgh General Text Collection

Quick Blog Update

Posted on September 28, 2015 by Amy



Embed from Getty Images

I am deep into researching both the Schoenthals and the Hambergs, and I am not sure which way to turn first. The resources are so rich, and I keep stepping further into both lines, going backwards, forwards, and sideways! I've been so fascinated with the research that I've not had much time to write about what I am finding, but I will get there. Right now my biggest question is---do I finish researching the Hambergs or spend time writing about the Schoenthals? I am not good at being torn in two different directions. I've got one post ready to go for tomorrow about the Hambergs, but I think after that I will go back to the Schoenthal side.

Anyway, in between digging through German birth, marriage, and death records, I realized that I had neglected to update the family tree pages on the blog. I’ve now updated the Seligmann family tree page and added a family tree page for the Nusbaum and Dreyfuss lines. I have also added a Schoenthal page, subject to more updating (as are they all), and eventually I will also add a Hamberg page. These pages can all be found in the header at the top of the page.

Now back to struggling between more research or some writing….



http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/171139712

Moritz James Oppenheimer: The (More) Complete Story

Posted on August 24, 2015 by Amy

Several weeks ago I received a comment on the blog from Angelika Oppenheimer, the granddaughter of Moritz James Oppenheimer, whose life I wrote about here. He was the successful businessman who owned the horse breeding farm in Germany that was appropriated by the Nazis. Moritz Oppenheimer died in 1941, an apparent suicide after being “visited” by the Gestapo.

Angelika found the blog because she was interested in knowing more about her grandfather’s family, and I am grateful because I now have learned more about her grandfather’s life and about the lives of his children and grandchildren.

Angelika Oppenheimer photo courtesy of Angelika

Angelika is my third cousin, once removed. Here is a chart explaining our relationship:

Moritz James Oppenheimer was born in 1879 in Butzbach, Germany, the youngest child of Maier Oppenheimer and Pauline Seligmann. As seen above, he was the grandchild of Moritz Seligmann and Babetta Schoenfeld, my three-times great-grandparents. Here is a photo of him as a young man from Fred Michel’s photo album,

Moritz Oppenheimer Photo courtesy of the Michel family

According to a resume provided to me by Angelika, in 1901 he founded the Mitteldeutsche Papierwarenfabrik situated in the Hanauer Landstraße and the Rheinische Sackfabrik. Moritz was a member of the board of directors of several companies throughout Germany, including the Kostheimer Cellulose und Papierfabrik (Kostheim-Mainz), the Danziger Verpackungsindustrie at Danzig, the Fabbrica Italiana Sacchi Ercole at Villanovetta, the Mechanische Papiersackfabrik A.G. at Saarbrücken, the Sankt Georg Verlag at Berlin and the Bayrische Reitschule at Munich.

Emma Neuhoff and Moritz James Oppenheimer
photo courtesy of Angelika Oppenheimer

Sometime before 1902, Moritz married Emma Katherina Neuhoff, who was not Jewish. According to Angelika, she was a descendant of Theodor Neuhoff, born in Cologne, Germany, who traveled throughout Europe and was at one time the king of Corsica. According to Wikipedia, “At Genoa, Neuhoff made the acquaintance of some Corsican rebels and exiles, and persuaded them that he could free their country from Genoese tyranny if they made him king of the island. With the help of the Bey of Tunis, he landed in Corsica in March 1736 with military aid. The islanders, whose campaign had not been successful, elected and crowned him king. He assumed the title of King Theodore I, issued edicts, instituted an order of knighthood, and waged war on the Genoese, at first with some success. But in-fighting among the rebels soon led to their defeat.”

Theodor Neuhoff

Emma Neuhoff was a gifted musician and an excellent horsewoman, according to her granddaughter Angelika.

Emma Neuhoff Oppenheimer Photo courtesy of Angelika Oppenheimer

Here are two pages from a German magazine discussing M.J Oppenheimer and his wife Emma. I think it’s a publication about thoroughbred breeding and racing, but I cannot read the pages. Perhaps some kind German-speaking reader can help?

(Angelika told me that the drawing of Emma illustrating this article was commissioned by the Historical Museum of Frankfort based on Emma’s reputation as an excellent horsewoman.)

Moritz and Emma had two children: Paula (1902) and Walter (1904), Angelika’s father. Paula married a Catholic man named Rudolf Spiegler, a doctor, and converted to Catholicism; they had two children, Gabriele and Wolfgang. Paula and her family did not face any persecution during the war.

As for Angelika’s father Walter, he married Suzanne Zier on December 23, 1933. Walter had been raised and baptized as a Christian, and his wife also was not Jewish, yet Walter faced substantial discrimination during the Nazi era. In April 1945, as the war in Europe was ending, he wrote the following essay, describing both his own life and what happened to his father Moritz after the Nazis came to power:

27 April 1945

Biographical memorandum

I was born on 10 July 1904, son of the industrialist and thoroughbred horse-breeder Consul M.J. Oppenheimer, in Frankfurt am Main. After three years at preparatory school, I attended the Goethe Gymnasium in that city for nine years; I left school, having obtained my school leaving certificate (Abitur), at Easter 1923. After studying for six terms at Frankfurt University (Law and National Economy), I sat the examination for articled clerk at the Frankfurt Higher Regional Court [Oberlandesgericht]. After a period as an articled clerk at the court in Frankfurt, in 1927 I took my doctorate under Professor de Boor. After a lengthy period of practical training as a fitter in an engineering works, and as a paper-maker in paper-mills, I then joined my father’s paper-products company, the Mitteldeutsche mechanische Papierwarenfabrik, in Frankfurt. From 1931 I was Chief Company Secretary of this company belonging to my father as sole owner. At that time it was the largest company of its kind in Germany, and for a period employed together with its subsidiaries more than 1,000 people. In 1932 I built a major subsidiary factory for my father’s company in Berlin.

My father was arrested in the autumn of 1933, at the instigation of two [NSDAP] party members (August Hartmann and Helmut Vögler) working in collaboration with the NSDAP. His entire assets were put in the hands of the lawyer [Rechtsanwalt] Max-Ernst Cuntz as prospective administrator. A bankruptcy was thus brought about, and the assets liquidated at the lowest rate, the said lawyer Cuntz selling each item at a rate far below its value, for the most part at one twentieth of purchase value. The stud farm and stables, for example (probably the biggest and best of their kind in Germany), were disposed of at a price below the level of profits from racing for the following year. The case was similar in respect of the factories, share portfolios, Hippodrome A (whose director I also was, and all shares in which belonged to my father), etc. I myself was immediately removed without compensation from all my posts by the lawyer Cuntz, on the grounds of my non-Arian status. I was also compelled to surrender my own stables, representing an approximate worth of between 70,000 and 100,000 Reichsmark, without receiving any compensation. My father was also quite illegally disqualified from receiving the stud prize. To satisfy the rules in this latter regard, for years my mother and I continued to hold two mares for my father, so that he could legally be assigned 10% of all racing prizes won by horses bred by him, in accordance with stud rules: except with the proviso that no stud prizes could be paid out to a Jew; the authorities retained this annual sum, comprising up to 100,000 Reichsmark, and finally had it credited either to themselves or to the Union Klub. My father, who was perfectly healthy, became ill owing to ill-treatment during his detention. He was declared unfit for detention in 1934/5, and finally took his own life when he was about to be arrested again in 1941 preparatory to being sent to a camp.

I myself with my mother had founded the company Paverk, Gesellschaft für Papierverarbeitung in December 1933. As I could not appear in person as a holder of shares in a limited company, an Arian uncle of my mother acted for me. Then, in 1937, I transferred this share in trust to my father-in-law Otto Zier, now [April 1945] of Friedberg in Hessen, Dieffenbachstrasse 25, together with a further 20,000 Reichsmark of shares created in settlement of my assets, so that, of the total sum of 40,000 Reichsmark in shares of the above company, 10,000 Reichsmark of my mother’s and 30,000 of mine belonged in trust to my father-in-law. By the beginning of the war, however, with a nominal capital of 40,000 Reichsmark the company had an actual value of some 250,000 to 300,000 Reichsmark, as, thanks to the diligent efforts of my employees, the company had been highly successful under my stewardship.

My wife having died suddenly from pneumonia in April 1935, at the beginning of 1941 my father-in-law saw fit to attempt to misappropriate the shares that had been transferred to him in trust. As, owing to my status as a person of mixed blood, I myself could not appear as a plaintiff, I assigned my claim to my mother, who instituted legal proceedings and won her case, at both first and second instance. The papers relating to the case are still available in their entirety: reference 2/5 2/9 0 30/41. These papers clearly demonstrate how Zier attempted to influence the court using the entire gamut of National-Socialist arguments, with reports against me and the company being sent to all sections of the Party, including district and financial counsellors (Kreis- und Wirtschafts-berater – [advisors to the Gauleiter under National Socialism]) Eckhardt, Degenhardt, and Avieny, the DAF [Deutsche ArbeitsFront – national trades union organisation under the National Socialists], the Gestapo, etc. At last instance, the High Court [Reichsgericht] awarded my mother only 10,000 Reichsmark unconditionally, while presuming improper concealment [unsittliche Tarnung] in respect of the remaining 20,000 Reichsmark. This finding is the subject of a new trial before the District Court [Landgericht] in Frankfurt (2/5 0 36/44), over whose outcome in my mother’s favour there may be little reason to doubt. Quite apart from these machinations on Zier’s part, which caused not only the Paverk company but also my mother and myself endless spiritual and material harm, we had also much else to suffer at the hands of the NSDAP.

When the company was heavily bombed in 1943, and totally bombed out in February 1944, Herr Hermann of the Gauwirtschaftskammer [regional economic organization under National Socialism] prevented the rebuilding of the plant and re-acquisition of machines. In addition, I myself was arrested by the Gestapo in the autumn of 1942, the only charge against me being my engagement to an Arian woman in contravention of the rules. I was not released again until 28 May 1943. My entire household effects to the value of about 70,000 Reichsmark (peacetime value), including art collections etc., had meanwhile been taken, and the Gestapo official Wildhirt installed in my flat. In 1943, my fiancée was conscripted to work at the Mayfahrt company under the harshest of conditions at the direct instigation of the Gestapo. The main initiator in these matters was Zier, who did not, however, proceed in his own name, but employed the services of his friends Fabian-Gramlich (insofar as I have been able to determine up to now), while my furniture was removed by a painter by the name of Baumann, who did work for the police.

I married on 11 April 1945, immediately after the liberation by the Americans. I was allocated a flat at Freiherr vom Stein Strasse 56/1, which I immediately had redecorated and furnished with furniture belonging to my wife, only to have the flat abruptly requisitioned by US soldiers on 26 April 1945.

Initialled “W.O.” at Frankfurt am Main on 27 April 1945

I, David M.B. Richardson MCIoL, certify this to be a true and fair translation of a photocopied document in German provided to me by Frau Angelika Oppenheimer, daughter of Walter Oppenheimer.

Westcliff-on-Sea, 11 August 2015.

Walter’s essay reveals so much about the hate-filled and carefully plotted system used by the Nazis to crush, humiliate, and destroy the Jews. First, they stripped them of their property, then they stripped them of their dignity, and finally they killed them and stripped them of their lives. Moritz Oppenheimer, a man of great wealth, was brought to his knees by the Nazis and demoralized to the point that he took his own life rather than be subjected to further humiliation and abuse and ultimately murdered. One aspect of that humiliation and abuse not mentioned in Walter’s essay was the forced annulment of his marriage to Emma Neuhoff because of Moritz’s Jewish background.

Moritz and Emma’s son Walter, a highly educated and successful man in his own right and not even raised as a Jew, was denied his property and his rights and had his own father-in-law betray him and his trust after his first wife died in 1935. According to Angelika, Walter’s brother-in-law was in the SS. Only because Walter had a non-Jewish mother who bribed the local Nazi official in Frankfort was he allowed to survive.

As he wrote above, Walter married his second wife, Elsa Lina Wiegandt, in 1945, and they had a daughter, my cousin Angelika. In 1946, Walter sought the return of the property that had been taken from him by the Gestapo, primarily the books he treasured so much. Here is the letter he wrote and Angelika’s translation of that letter:

Dr. Walter Oppenheimer Frankfurt a. M., den 25. Oktober 1946 Niedenau 45

An das Archival Depot

Offenbach am Main

Mainstraße 167

Concerning: stolen books

With polite reference to the notice published the 22^nd October under the above mentioned headword in the ‘Frankfurter Rundschau’, I take the liberty of presenting you the following:

I was arrested by the Gestapo the 26^th October 1942 for purely political and racial reasons. My apartment was handed over to the Gestapo officer Wildhirt while my furniture was first and foremost transferred by a Gestapo agent to the second principal of the Gestapo here, Mister Grosse. The biggest part of my library was taken away with it. A part of the books was rubber-stamped with my name but the bigger part of it was without the name of the legitimate owner.

If there are any books of mine in your office, I ask you nicely to furnish information to me. Especially the following books mean much to me:

A 17-vlume gilt-edged edition of GOETHE in red morocco leather;

A complete half leather edition of HAUFF with gold ornament on the spine;

A half leather edition of KLEIST’s writings with gold ornament on the spine;

MUTHER: 3 volumes of history of painting, green cloth binding;

SPRINGER: 5 volumes on art history, half cloth binding and cloth binding respectively;

20 – 25 volumes of monographs on artists, partly half leather editions, partly with half cloth binding and cloth binding respectively, red with gold ornament, edition of the Stuttgarter Verlagsanstalt;

A five volume edition of HÖLDERLIN, grey pasteboards.

Many thanks indeed for your efforts in anticipation.

With all due respect to you!

I was impressed by the diversity of subjects in his library and by how much he valued his books. I also was struck by how polite and almost deferential he was in asking for the return of what was already rightfully his own. At least some of the books were returned and remain today with Angelika. Here is a photo of her father Walter.

Walter Oppenheimer 1972 courtesy of Angelika Oppenheimer

Walter Oppenheimer
courtesy of Angelika Oppenheimer

Angelika shared this photograph of her family and friends at her Lutheran confirmation celebration taken in about 1961.

Angelika's confirmation Courtesy of Angelika Oppenheimer

Angelika’s confirmation c. 1961
Courtesy of Angelika Oppenheimer

From left to right: Paula Oppenheimer Spiegler (paternal aunt) , Emma Neuhoff Oppenheimer (grandmother), Christiane Wiegandt (Angelika’s maternal cousin), Christiane Bott (classmate), Sylvia Berres (classmate), Elsa (nee Wiegandt) Oppenheimer (Angelika’s mother), Angelika,, Walter Oppenheimer (Angelika’s father), Karl Wiegandt (Angelika’s maternal uncle), Karli (Angelika’s maternal cousin), Annie Wiegandt (wife of Karl), Herta Dorner (friend), Gabriele Spiegler (Paula’s daughter), either Wolfgang Spiegler or Gabriele’s husband.

I feel very fortunate that Angelika was able to find me through this blog. Her family’s story is yet another lesson in the destructive power of prejudice, on the one hand, and the ultimate power that human beings have to survive and overcome those destructive forces, on the other.

Angelika and I have lived very different lives; we grew up with different religious backgrounds, we live in different countries, we speak different languages. My immediate family lived through World War II in relative safety; hers was scarred forever. But despite those differences, we know that we share a common history that ties us together as cousins. Isn’t that remarkable?

Lotte’s Story, Part III: Coming to and Settling into America

Posted on August 19, 2015 by Amy

In Parts I and II of Lotte’s story, we saw how my cousin Lotte’s idyllic childhood as the daughter of a successful doctor in Mannheim, Germany, was shattered after Hitler and the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933. By 1937, her sister Doris had left for the US, and a year later, Lotte and her parents Joseph and Anna (Winter) Wiener had moved to Luxembourg, where Anna’s parents, Samuel and Laura (Seligmann) Winter had already relocated.

After visiting her daughter Doris in the US, Anna returned to Luxembourg and convinced Joseph that they also should relocate there. First, they had to obtain visas to travel to the US. Lotte wrote:

The nearest American consulate was in Antwerp, Belgium, necessitating a fairly long trip. My grandparents were rather disabled by that time and in no condition to undertake the long journey. Reluctantly, we had to leave them behind when we made the trip. After a long wait we were admitted to the consul’s office where he sat, pipe in the corner of his mouth and feet on his huge executive desk. A most unfriendly man, he asked my parents all the necessary questions. When my turn came up, he quizzed me in some of the simplest arithmetic questions. When he was satisfied that I was not imbecile, he condescended to tell us that we could expect the visas in “six months to one hundred years”. Fortunately it took only a little over six months before we could sail.

While waiting for the visas to come through, Lotte worked at a baby hospital in Luxembourg. She worked long hours taking care of the infants, and in the end she earned a Red Cross certificate, which proved to be quite valuable when she later applied to nursing school in New York.

The atmosphere in Luxembourg grew increasingly tense. After the Munich agreement allowed Germany to take over the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia in the fall of 1938, more and more Jewish refugees were leaving Germany for Luxembourg.

Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-R69173 / CC-BY-SA [CC BY-SA 3.0 de (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/deed.en)], via Wikimedia Commons

Signing the Munich Agreement
From left to right: Chamberlain, Daladier, Hitler, Mussolini, and Ciano pictured. Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-R69173 / CC-BY-SA [CC BY-SA 3.0 de (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/deed.en)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons

As Lotte described it:

Many Jewish refugees had arrived in Luxembourg, many only with their fur coats and jewelry in assets. Having nothing else to do but to wait for the possibility of a visa, most unlikely on the Austrian and Hungarian quotas, they spent a lot of time in the local cafés. That in turn aroused a certain amount of the latent antisemitism in the population. Or maybe it was not so latent. My roommate at the hospital, a devoutly Catholic young lady who went to mass almost every morning, confided in me that she needed to “confess” to the priest that she was sharing her room with a Jewish girl. She had to admit, however, that I neither had horns nor did anything evil as far as she knew.

It was becoming very clear that there would be a war in Europe, and the events of Kristallnacht in November, 1938, also frightened those who were still in Luxembourg.

Finally, in April 1939, Lotte and her parents received their visas and could leave for the United States. There was, however, no way to take Lotte’s grandparents, Laura and Samuel, with them.

Tickets for the voyage were booked, and soon my parents and I found ourselves on a train to Le Havre without them. We never were to see them again. As we found out later, Oma died of a heart attack while looking for an apartment, having been evicted when the German army took over Luxembourg in the spring of 1940. Opa was deported to Theresienstadt where he reportedly died “of natural causes”.

When I think about these separations, it tears me apart. I cannot imagine leaving my parents behind, as Annie Winter Wiener was forced to do. Anyone who has seen the recent movie “A Woman in Gold” will remember the scene when Maria Altmann leaves her parents behind in Vienna for similar reasons. It’s a scene that breaks your heart and stays with you long after the movie ends with Maria victorious in her legal battles over the Klimt painting. Maria was a real person, just as Lotte is a real person. These are not Hollywood stories written just to wring tears from viewers. These are the lives and the experiences that thousands and thousands of people endured.

But somehow these people, including Lotte and her parents, survived and found the strength to move on. Lotte’s description of her sea voyage to America, leaving her grandparents and her homeland forever, reveals that tenacity, the strength, that courage.

Below is the ship manifest listing, on lines 6,7, and 8, Lotte and her parents (her real first name is Leonore) and a photograph of the George Washington, the ship that brought them to the US.

Year: 1939; Arrival: New York, New York; Microfilm Serial: T715, 1897-1957; Microfilm Roll: Roll 6313; Line: 1; Page Number: 176

The George Washington, the ship that Lotte and her parents sailed on to the US in 1939
Ancestry.com. Passenger Ships and Images [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2007.
Original data: Various maritime reference sources.

Lotte chose to write this section in the third person, which I found interesting and revealing. Was she distancing herself from that teenaged girl who was herself distancing herself from her past?

It was a grey and rainy day in April of 1939. A wet and blistery wind blew, adding to the girl’s anxiety. The security of her world had been shattered, slowly at first, but then with increasing speed and ferocity. Her best friend had been left behind – without her being able to say a proper good-bye – perhaps they would never have a chance to see each other again. Here she stood at the pier in Le Havre, ready to embark on the longest journey of her young life. Slowly she and her parents stepped on the planks of the ship, the ocean liner which would bring them from a Europe threatened by the certain relentless march toward war to the vast and unknown entity of America which lay before her.

The voyage was stormy and rough. The ship rocked from side to side with the huge waves. Most of the time she felt sick. Staying in the cabin was awful. When she stepped on deck, she felt even worse. Looking at the ominous grey sky above as well as watching the wildly moving waves below made her dizzy. Eating became a nightmare. Keeping any food down was impossible. They suggested broth. That wouldn’t work. Eating a baked potato– who had ever heard of a baked potato before? The English spoken on board did not sound at all like what she had learned in school. The ship’s entertainment was provided by an enormously fat and very jolly man with the incongruous name of “Tiny”. Was everybody crazy?

Finally, during the fifth night, the storm passed, and in the morning the sea was calm and the sun shone brightly. She stepped outside and saw to her right the exhilarating sight she had been told to expect: New York Harbor with the Statue of Liberty. Suddenly she felt well. Her excitement grew. Soon she would be able to set foot on the land which would be her new home. She resolved that she would accept whatever there was. She would not compare things with what had been.

Statue of Liberty National Monument, Ellis Island and Liberty Island, Manhattan, in New York County (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Lotte seemed to stay true to those resolutions. She quickly adapted to life in New York City, working as a babysitter while awaiting acceptance to a nursing program. She was accepted into Cornell University-New York Hospital’s nursing program for the fall of September, 1939, less than six months after her arrival in New York. Lotte wrote about some of the culture shock she experienced when she began her nursing studies in New York:

Once I was notified that I had been accepted at the prestigious Cornell University – New York Hospital School of Nursing, it took me exactly one week to purchase the few required items and to pack my suitcase. Actually admissions had been closed quite a while before, but they had made an exception for me. Of course I had lost no time getting all my documents together and to have my credentials translated and notarized. I had taken a six-week crash course at a private school in Manhattan, located on Sixth Avenue behind the Public Library. How I had sweated that summer, taking the Subway from Kew Gardens to Times Square and back, and then to take the Regents exams! The courses, American History, 4th Year English, and Civics, were required in order to obtain a “Nurse Qualifying Certificate”.

So one fine September morning in 1939 my father and I, all of 18 years old, set out to travel from Kew Gardens, Queens, to the nurses’ residence on York Avenue in mid-Manhattan. With two big suitcases we walked to the subway station, went downstairs, took the train to 59th Street and Lexington Avenue, dragged the suitcases back upstairs, walked to the Second or Third Avenue Elevated which was still running at that time, and then walked to the York Avenue address. As we entered, we saw several taxis pulling up, bringing some of my new classmates to the same destination. Only they did it the easy way. It had never occurred to us to take a cab as money was very tight. I said goodbye to my father and went about to register and to get settled in my new quarters.

The schedule of activities for the first day included a four o’clock tea for all the newcomers in the formal and somewhat stuffy library. True to my nature I was there right on time, the first one to appear, to be exact. All the others were still busy taking showers and changing into the kind of clothes you were supposed to wear for an afternoon tea. Little did I know that that was the thing to do. I was still in my travel outfit and felt rather sweaty. Well, I entered the library and found a stunning-looking white-haired woman in a gorgeous red dress seated at the solid oak table, “pouring” tea. I learned that she would be one of my nursing instructors. Soon the other students came, and we began to get acquainted.

*****

During the first six months the emphasis was on academics. Actually one of the entrance requirements had been one year of chemistry. Most of my classmates had two years of college with all the needed requirements behind them, while I had barely obtained my high school equivalent certificate. My European education had been superior in some ways, but badly missing in science. I did not even know how to balance a chemical equation. So here I was supposed to obtain a basic knowledge of inorganic as well as organic chemistry in all of six weeks. It seemed like it was going to be a disaster. But with the help of a fellow student who had dropped out of medical school, and with the kindness and understanding Miss Rynbergen, my teacher, showed to me, I did overcome that hurdle and even managed to get an “A” in the course. None of the other courses presented any problems, at least not academically.

Cornell New York Hospital https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cornell_med_01.jpg#filelinks

Obviously, Lotte was an extremely gifted student. She had neither the academic background nor the social benefits of most of her classmates, yet she excelled in her studies, even though English was her second language. In fact, Lotte did so well that she tried to be admitted to NYU Medical School and met with the dean to discuss her application. Here is what happened:

I had mustered a lot of courage. After two years of practicing hospital nursing I really wanted to pursue the ambition I had nurtured since childhood – to become a doctor like my father. Thus I marched up the long corridor at my hospital’s medical school and entered the dean’s office. Of course the visit had been properly scheduled ahead of time. The dean, bespectacled, grey-haired, lean and stern-looking, listened to my brief story: that I was dissatisfied with the prospect of my future nursing career, and that I really would like to find out how I could be admitted to the medical school. The man just took one look at me and smiled. “My dear, you are asking for the impossible. First of all, you are a woman. There is quite a limit placed on the number of females at our school. Secondly, you lack the necessary college preparation. It would take several years for you to catch up with our requirements. Thirdly, you are Jewish. Do you know what that means? All kinds of difficulties along the way! You’d better forget about it.”

Lotte must have been devastated. She was being discriminated against as a woman and as a Jew. The fact that she had excelled in the nursing program was not enough to outweigh her limited pre-nursing school education. She had left Germany to escape anti-Semitism, and here it was, thrown in her face again.

In 1942, as World War II was in full force with the US now itself involved, Lotte graduated from nursing school and began working the night shift in the internal medicine department at New York Hospital. The family received news of Samuel Winter’s deportation to Theriesenstadt, and the news overall was quite disturbing. Lotte somehow kept a positive outlook.

Terezin

My mother was desperate. This war is going to end in a terrible nightmare of defeat, she stated. But I, being young and more optimistic by nature, I just KNEW that good had to prevail over evil, that things would eventually come out all right. I knew that history had its ups and downs. This was a down. Sooner or later there would be an up. I wrote so to my friends. I never gave up hope. In the end, I was right.

How incredible is it for Lotte to have concluded, after all she had experienced and all she would soon learn about her relatives in Europe, “that things would eventually come out all right?” It truly takes a real strength of character and a positive view of the world to see things that way. I greatly admire her for that depth of character and strength.

There is much more in Lotte’s memoirs—stories about how she met her husband, their courtship and wedding, and their happy marriage of 58 years. There are stories about their travels and anecdotes about various events in Lotte’s adult life. But I will end Lotte’s story with one that I think says so much about her—who she was as a child and who she is today. It’s a story that brought tears to my eyes. It has nothing to do with the Holocaust or the war per se; it’s about an incredibly sensitive and generous woman. I hope you find it as powerful as I did.

A PRIZED POSSESSION

There was a piece which was part of me. Ever since I was a teenager it went with me wherever I moved. But it is no longer in my possession. I gave it away. But I do hope that whoever uses it now appreciates what I did and gets as much enjoyment from it as it gave me at one time. It was my violin, my beautiful Italian violin bearing a label, glued to the inside, reading

“Matteo Albani fecit Bolzano anno 1698″.

How did I receive this beautiful instrument, and why did I dispose of it the way I did? It’s a long story which began in 1937 when my parents began to make preparations for our eventual emigration from Germany to the United States. Since they had been able to put aside a sizable sum of money which could not be legally transferred abroad, they had to find various ways to buy objects of value which might be suitable for a later sale in the U.S. or which might be useful to us. My mother schemed and bought a trousseau for my sister and also for me. They bought two Leica cameras, modern lamps, clothing and many other articles. But my father, who had at one time played the violin, insisted that he wanted to buy me a fine instrument which hopefully would not have to be sold so soon.

That’s why he traveled with me to Stuttgart, a city about two hours away, where, with the help of my violin teacher, he had located an internationally known dealer of fine string instruments, Hamma & Company, which incidentally is still in business at the present time. I did not have much to say in the matter, but between my father and my teacher they found a suitable violin, full size but not too large, for the acceptable price of DM 3,000.00, bargained down to DM 2,200.00, a substantial sum of money at that time. Proud as a peacock I traveled home with my new possession, my princess, carefully wrapped in a blue silk cloth and placed in a light brown leather case with light blue plush lining.

Now I must describe my pride and joy: It was beautiful to look at with its light orange-brownish varnish. The top was made of spruce with fine, even grain. The back, pleasantly curved for an aesthetic feel of form, was made of two pieces of maple with small, faint flames. The label, mentioned above, was found on the inside, to be seen through the F-shaped openings on the top. Later on I was assured that the label was authentic, and that the violin really was the work of Matteo Albani, a highly respected violin maker, and that it was a fine example of his work.

Yes, it was beautiful to look at, and beautiful to feel. But the most important quality of such an instrument is, of course, its sound. Played by my teacher it sounded magnificent. My own technique left something to be desired, but I had received the impetus to improve, and I worked hard at it. Friends in my chamber-music group admired it, envied me for it. I took good care of it. I treated it like the princess it was, what with the silk wrap and plush lining of the case.

From now on the violin went with me wherever fate took me. In 1938 we left Germany. After one year in Luxembourg we embarked for New York where I ended up living in my hospital’s Nurses’ Residence. I did not have much time to practice or to play, but I did have my own private room where I could do so at various times. I also once participated in a talent show where I played something or other in a miserable performance. My fellow student nurses were not very kind. They made a number of nasty cracks about my playing, but assured me that it was all meant in good humor.

My violin was with me on Pearl Harbor Day. I had been playing some chamber music on a rare, free Sunday afternoon and found myself on the platform of the A-train subway in Washington Heights when the terrible news broke. I will never forget it.

Later on, while raising my family and through most of my married years, I played only sporadically, sometimes in orchestras, sometimes in chamber music groups. At one time I even took some more lessons. But I found that I did not have it in me to work at it the way I needed to in order to really improve. Most of the time my precious fiddle was locked up in a hall closet. Yet I knew it was there.

And then disaster struck. At pretty much the same time I developed arthritis and a great clumsiness in my fingers along with a noticeable loss of hearing. The latter distorted many of the higher frequency sounds, thus making it impossible for me to play with the required accuracy. I grew discouraged and finally gave up. Much as I loved my violin, I knew that it was no longer of service to me. I also knew that it had appreciated greatly in value. Thus I made a very painful decision.

Selling my violin would have been like selling a piece of me. Leaving it to my children might create problems and certainly cause unnecessary difficulties. Yet it was not doing me any good. So I decided that I would give it to someone who would truly appreciate it. I made a number of inquiries and soon learned that there was a place for my intended gift right here in town. The non-profit Colburn Foundation collects instruments for use by aspiring artists, to be loaned and returned when they can afford to buy their own.

The decision was easy, the execution was hard. On one rainy afternoon in 1996 my husband and I traveled to the magnificent Colburn mansion in the Hollywood Hills. We were greeted quite cordially and even received a tour of the estate. That’s where we left my beautiful princess, still wrapped in blue silk and in her blue plush-lined leather case, to be given to someone who really needed it. I never found out to whom it was given, but I do hope he or she is taking good care of it. After all, although the wound has healed, it was a part of me.

For me, that final sentence says it all. It is not only about her lost violin, but also about every other loss she suffered: her grandparents, her home, her friends, her school, her country, her language.

An Albani violin

Perhaps someone reading this will know the fate of Lotte’s beloved violin. If so, like Lotte, I hope it is being well taken care of and played with all the heart and soul and passion that Lotte herself has demonstrated through her writing and throughout her life.

Thank you, Lotte, for sharing your life story with us.

A Few New Tidbits about Moritz and Babetta, My Great-great-great-grandparents

Posted on August 8, 2015 by Amy

I am working on a blog post about the descendants of the last child of Marx and Sarah Seligmann, Mary Seligman Kornfeld, but am awaiting some documents before I can post it. So I am going to digress in this post from that line and return to my three-times great-grandfather, Moritz Seligmann (who was, of course, an older brother to Marx Seligmann). When my cousin Wolfgang sent me the handwritten family tree he and his mother found in their magic suitcase, he had originally not included the pages about Moritz, thinking I had all the information I needed about Moritz and his children. I asked him to send them to me anyway so that I would have the full document, even if there was no new information.

But in fact there was some new information or at least information that corroborated or clarified assumptions I had made based on inference, anecdotes, and other documents.

The first page names Moritz and his first wife, Eva Schoenfeld.

The next page lists the children of Moritz and Eva Schoenfeld. I had wondered what had caused Eva’s death and also what had happened to their son Benjamin. This page answered both questions. Benjamin died shortly after his birth as did his mother, so I assume it was related to childbirth.

This page also provided confirmation and new information about when the other children died.

On the third page, the writer identified Babetta Schoenfeld as the second wife of Moritz Seligmann and lists their children. There were several bits of important new information here. One is the date of Babetta’s death: January 15, 1899. It also states that she was 89 years old. This information helps to confirm that the photograph of the family group with the elderly woman was in fact a photograph of my three-times great-grandmother Babetta.

The other bit of interesting information on this page is in the list of children. The last child listed is Jacob, and it indicates that he was in England. This is further corroboration of the fact that Moritz’s brother James Seligman who immigrated to England was in fact named Jacob at birth and is most likely the Onkel Jakob in the family photograph with Babetta, below.

In addition, from this page I was able to learn when several of the other children of Moritz and Babetta had died.

The remaining pages cover some of the children of Moritz: Pauline, Hieronymous, August, and Mathilde. Although I did not find any really new information on these pages, they do provide additional confirmation of the information I already had as well as some dates I did not have. Unfortunately, some of the writing is not legible, and so I cannot determine what those additional words say. If anyone can read them, let me know. I’ve circled the words I cannot read.

UPDATE: My friend Dorothee in Germany tells me that the words after Joseph and Moritz indicate that they were both married and also both divorced. Thank you, Dorothee! My friend Ralph added to this, saying the words to the far right of Joseph say, “Son and daughter.” Unfortunately, I have no records for Joseph’s children. Ralph also said that to the right of Martha, it says in part “Floersheimer,” which was her married name. Thank you, Ralph!

UPDATE: Dorothee says that the symbol before Artur means “doctor” and the words after Artur say “in Baden-Baden, married.” Thank you again, Dorothee! Ralph added that the word next to Emil Ochs could be Mailand (Milan), which would make sense since Bettina entered Switzerland from Italy, as I wrote here. Thank you again, Ralph!

Brick Walls Everywhere

Posted on August 6, 2015 by Amy



Embed from Getty Images

I’ve run into some tough brick walls in my research, but never as many as I have with the descendants of Charlotte Seligman, the third child of Marx and Sarah Seligman. It’s been one frustration after another, searching for her children and grandchildren.

As noted in my earlier post, Charlotte (or Lottie) married Max Schlesinger in 1874, and they had four children: Harriet (1875), Arthur (1876), Lillie (1877), and Louis (1884). Max was in the tie manufacturing business. Lillie and Louis were still living at home in 1900.

By 1900, Harriet (or Hattie) had married George Cain and had had one child, originally named Edith, but then renamed Lucie in memory of George’s sister. The following year Harriet and George had a second daughter named Ethel.

I could not locate Arthur at all on the 1900 census, nor have I found him on any other record aside from the 1880 census and the NYC birth record index. There is one possible military enlistment record for him dated March 4, 1895, but I can’t even be sure it is the same Arthur Schlesinger from the record.

On December 14, 1904, Max and Charlotte’s third child Lillie married Solomon Sondheim. Solomon, or Sol, was born in New Hampshire in 1867, making him ten years older than Lillie. His father, a German immigrant, was in the dry goods business. After living in New Hampshire, Sol had lived in Buffalo, New York, and then Bradford, Pennsylvania. By 1900 when he was 33, Sol was working as a salesman and living in New York City as a boarder in what appears to be a large boarding house at 589 Second Avenue. After marrying, Lillie and Sol were living on East 116^th Street, and Sol listed his occupation on the 1905 NY census as a merchant.

In searching to learn more about Sol Sondheim, I found numerous articles about the suicide of his brother Philip. From these articles, I learned that Sol’s father had been a wealthy man, leaving quite a large estate to be divided among his four children (which apparently Philip squandered through gambling).

New_York_Times_December_9_1900_page_1 Philip Sondheim

Boston Herald December 13, 1900 p. 8

As for the rest of the family of Charlotte and Max Schlesinger, the 1905 NY census just presented me with problems. First, I cannot find Hattie and George Cain at all on the 1905 census (and Arthur still was missing). What’s even more confusing, Charlotte Schlesinger is listed twice on the 1905 census (both with the date June 1, 1905, preprinted on the page). On one page, Charlotte and Max were living at 231 West 116^th Street, and Max was still working in manufacturing (presumably ties).

Max and Charlotte Schlesinger 1905 NY census New York State Archives; Albany, New York; State Population Census Schedules, 1905; Election District: A.D. 21 E.D. 39; City: Manhattan; County: New York; Page: 24

On another page of the 1905 census, Charlotte is listed with her son Louis and his wife Alice, living at 1838 Seventh Avenue. Louis was only 21, and Alice was only 19.

Louis Schlesinger 1905 census
New York State Archives; Albany, New York; State Population Census Schedules, 1905; Election District: A.D. 21 E.D. 35; City: Manhattan; County: New York; Page: 38

I assume Max died sometime between the first census listing and the second, but I cannot find any record for Max’s death. There is no listing in the NYC death index, no obituary, nothing that explains what happened to him. Moreover, the NYC marriage index has Louis marrying Alice Stacke on April 26, 1906, a year after the 1905 census. Is it possible that this second census entry was filled in and filed a year late? Or perhaps it is more likely the marriage certificate was filed a year late. Or they weren’t legally married until April 1906?

According to the 1910 US census, Louis and Alice were still living with Charlotte, now listed as a widow (the NY 1905 census had not asked about marital status). They were living at 200 West 136^th Street, and Louis was working as a clothing salesman. Harriet and George Cain and their two daughters were living at 2308 Seventh Avenue, and George was the secretary of a bank. Lillie and Sol Sondheim were living on West 122^nd Street, and Sol was a traveling salesman. Arthur remained missing.

On June 4, 1914, Harriet’s husband George Cain died. I could not find a death record for him, but did find this death notice in the June 5, 1914, New York Times.

New York Times, June 5, 1914

Since there is no listing for George Cain in the NYC death index, I assume George died someplace outside of New York City. He left behind two young daughters, just 14 and 13, as well as his wife Harriet. On the 1915 NY census, Harriet was living with her two daughters Lucie and Ethel as well as her mother Charlotte at 2308 Seventh Avenue. No one in the household was employed outside the home.

Harriet Schlesinger Cain 1915 NY census
New York State Archives; Albany, New York; State Population Census Schedules, 1915; Election District: 23; Assembly District: 21; City: New York; County: New York; Page: 11

In 1920, Harriet was living with Lucie and Ethel, now 19 and 18, at 465 Central Park West. Harriet’s occupation was reported as “renting rooms” at home, and there was one lodger listed in the household, but her name was crossed out. Lucie was working in the bonding department of a security company, and Ethel was not employed.

I cannot find either Louis Schlesinger or Lillie Schlesinger Sondheim on the 1915 NY census. (These people are just incredibly elusive, no matter how I search.) But between 1910 and 1920, much had changed for both of them. First, on July 12, 1917, Louis married a second time, this time to Bertha Stein.

New York, New York City Marriage Records, 1829-1940,” database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:24HM-6GL : accessed 4 August 2015), Louis Schlesinge and Bertha Stein, 12 Jul 1917; citing Marriage, Manhattan, New York, New York, United States, New York City Municipal Archives, New York; FHL microfilm .

I would have thought this was a different Louis, except that the marriage record reveals his parents’ names as Charlotte Seligman and Max Schlesinger. What had happened to Alice, his first wife? I don’t know. There is no death record for her, but neither was there one for George Cain or for Max Schlesinger. There are a number of later records for women named Alice Schlesinger, but none is obviously the right one. If she remarried, I haven’t found her.

At any rate, Louis and Bertha Schlesinger had a child on June 14, 1918, less than a year after marrying. They named him Arthur, which makes me believe that Louis’ older brother Arthur had died. According to his draft registration for World War I, Louis was the financial secretary for the Joe Morris Music Publishing Company, and he, Bertha, and their son Arthur were living at 301 St. Nicholas Avenue in New York City. Their residence remained the same on the 1920 census.

Louis Schlesinger World War I draft registration Registration State: New York; Registration County: New York; Roll: 1786672; Draft Board: 139

As for Lillie, her life also changed dramatically between 1910 and 1920. Her husband Sol died on March 12, 1919, while he was in Chicago; I assume he was traveling there as part of his job as a salesman as he died at a hotel. He died from heart and kidney disease. He was 52 years old.

Six months later Lillie married William Lindsay on September 24, 1919. William was born in Philadelphia, the son of Joseph Lindsay and Mary Thomson, who were born in Scotland and Ireland, respectively. William grew up in Philadelphia, where his father was a shirt manufacturer. In 1920, William was working as an advertising solicitor for a trade magazine, and he and Lillie were living on 112^th Street.

Thus, between 1910 and 1920, three of the children of Charlotte Seligman and Max Schlesinger had had major marital status changes in their lives. Harriet had become a widow; Lillie also had become a widow and then remarried; and Louis had either become a widower or had his marriage end, and he had remarried. Meanwhile, their mother Charlotte was living on her own at 2040 Seventh Avenue. Charlotte died three years later on January 19, 1923, when she was 69 years old.

I cannot find Harriet on the 1925 NY census, but according to a directory listing, she was still living at 465 Central Park West in 1925. Her younger daughter Ethel had married Milton Robitchek on June 29, 1922, when she was 21, and had a daughter Georgia in 1928. By 1930, however, Ethel was divorced, and she and two year old Georgia were living with Harriet on West End Avenue. Ethel was a public school teacher. (I can’t seem to find Milton Robitchek at all after the 1922 marriage record. How could someone with such an unusual name just disappear?)

Harriet Schlesinger Cain 1930 US census
Year: 1930; Census Place: Manhattan, New York, New York; Roll: 1557; Page: 12B; Enumeration District: 0465; Image: 685.0; FHL microfilm: 2341292

Harriet’s older daughter Lucie was living on her own on Clinton Street in Brooklyn, according to the 1930 census, which reported that her occupation was “child placing” for an accountant. I have no clue what that means.

In 1940, Harriet was still living with her daughter Ethel, now on East 68^th Street, and with her granddaughter Georgia, now twelve. Ethel was still working as a teacher. Lucie was still living on her own in Brooklyn, and her occupation now clearly states that she was a public accountant. I have not found any later records for Harriet, Lucie, Ethel, or Georgia. I have searched as many ways as I can, but have found no documents, no news stories, no obituaries.

As for Harriet’s sister Lillie, she became a widow again on November 14, 1924, when her husband William Lindsay died at age 58. Like Harriet’s first husband Sol, William died of both heart and kidney disease.

I’ve had no luck finding Lillie on either the 1925 NY census or the 1930 US census, but did find her on the 1940 census. She was 62 years old, living at the Wyndham Hotel, and not employed. That is the last record I have for Lillie.

Finally, there is Charlotte and Max’s youngest child Louis Schlesinger. In 1925, he was still married to Bertha, and they were still living on St. Nicholas Avenue with their son Arthur, now six years old. Louis was still employed in music publishing. Although the family had moved to West 180^th Street by 1930, all else remained the same (though everyone was five years older, of course).

But then the big mystery for me surrounding Louis and his family surfaced in the 1940 census. Now Louis, Bertha, and Arthur are living on West 164^th Street, but there are two more children living with them: Henry, listed as their son, 17 years old, and Matilda, listed as their daughter, 12 years old. Where did these two children come from? If they were in fact Louis and Bertha’s children, they should have been listed with them on the 1930 census, but they were not. Had they been adopted after 1930? They both had the surname Schlesinger, at least on the census record. I don’t know, and what’s even more mystifying, I cannot find either of them on any later record or document. I would think Henry would have served in World War II, but I cannot find any record that would match him, if his name in fact was Henry Schlesinger.

Louis Schlesinger 1940 US census
Year: 1940; Census Place: New York, New York, New York; Roll: T627_2677; Page: 8B; Enumeration District: 31-2144

At any rate, in 1940 Louis was still in music sales, and his son Arthur, now 21, was a clerk in an advertising firm. On his draft registration for World War II, Louis reported that he was a music salesman and the president of Lewis Music Company.

Arthur Schlesinger, Louis and Bertha’s son, died on February 20, 1943. He was 24 years old. His death certificate does not report the cause of death, but it does indicate that he had been under a doctor’s care since October, 1942. He had been working as a clerk in federal court.

That, unfortunately, is the last record I have for Louis Schlesinger and his family. As with his siblings Harriet, Arthur, and Lillie, I do not know when he died. I don’t know when his wife Bertha died, what happened to his first wife Alice, or what happened to the two children who were living with him as his children in 1940, Henry and Matilda.

Since I cannot find out what happened to Ethel Cain Robitchek’s daughter Georgia either, I don’t know whether there are any living descendants of Charlotte Seligman and her husband Max Schlesinger. Harriet’s other daughter Lucie did not marry. Lillie had no children. Louis’s son Arthur died at a young age. But what I did learn about Charlotte and her family is that this was a family where many marriages ended early either due to divorce or death. Lillie was widowed twice. Harriet was left a widow at a young age with her two young daughters. Her daughter Ethel’s marriage was over by the time Ethel’s daughter Georgia was only two. And Louis married twice, though I don’t know if the first ended because his first wife died or because they divorced.

So many unanswered questions. I am hoping that with further digging, some answers will turn up, but for now I must say that searching for the family of Charlotte Seligman has made me feel like a very poor researcher and a very frustrated genealogist! If any of you out there reading have any suggestions on how I might find more about these people, please let me know.



Embed from Getty Images

And The Suitcase Just Keeps on Giving!

Posted on July 9, 2015 by Amy

As I mentioned briefly in my last post, as I was finishing up my write-up about the handwritten family tree we are calling Emil’s tree, Wolfgang’s mother discovered another handwritten tree. It appears to be written by someone else, but I don’t know who. It covers only the ten children of Jacob Seligmann and Marta/Martha Mayer and their grandchildren so is not as wide or deep in scope as the first one, but it contains some useful extra tidbits that have helped me locate more family members. (Each page has a letter “b” written in the upper right hand corner. I have no idea what that means, unless to show these page were about one particular line in the family.)

The cover page lists the children of Jacob and Mart(h)a and also the children of Isaac Seeligmann and Felicia Goetzel, that is, the two sets of Emil’s great-grandparents. Page 1 simply has Simon Seligmann’s name and that he was from Bingen, and Page 2 just has Isaac Seligmann (son of Jacob and Marta) and that he lived in Gensingen, a town near Bingen. Martha Seligmann and her children with her husband Benjamin Seeligmann are listed on Page 3. Page 4 (to be posted) covers the family of Moritz Seligmann, my three-times great-grandfather, and the family of Leopold Seligmann is on Page 5. So far all this information is consistent with what was on Emil’s tree and does not add anything very important.

On Page 6, however, there is some new information about the family of Mina Seligmann. The first tree reported, as in this one, that she married Leopold Mayer of Oberursel and had a son Adolf Eduard. Here it is clear that there were two sons, Adolf and Eduard, and also two daughters: Helene, who married Jakob or Jak (or maybe Isak?) Wolf, and an unnamed daughter who died and was not married.

Page 7 also contains some new information. This page is devoted to Caroline Seligmann, who married Moses Moreau from Worrstadt, another town not very far from Bingen. Underneath are four names that the creator of this tree originally labeled as the children of Caroline and Moses, but then crossed out and wrote “grandchildren.” The names are the same as those on the earlier tree—Markus, Albert, Bertha, and Alice. Next to Markus it says “England,” and next to Albert it says “Amerika.” I searched for both with the surname Moreau, but so far have had no luck. Perhaps, however, they were the sons of a daughter of Caroline and Moses Moreau and had their father’s surname and not Moreau. For Bertha, the notation says that she was the wife of Aschaffenburg (which Wolfgang told me is also a town in Bavaria), and for Alice it says that she was the wife of D. Mastbaum. But why are the grandchildren listed and not the children? And what are the two names at the very bottom?

The page that has provided me with the most new information is Page 8. In my last post I talked about the confusing passage at the end of the tree’s notes on Marx Seligmann. Someone had gone to America later—but who? Was it the children, the ex-wife, or Marx himself? Well, this new tree provides more clues and led me to more answers.

The first part of Page 8 repeats the information about Marx’s marriage and divorce from Rosina Loeser, and then on the bottom of the page, according to my wonderful helpers in the German Genealogy group on Facebook, it says that Marx (or Max) remarried in New York and that his son married someone named Coppel, and that they had a daughter who married a film agent, but when I went to search for Marx Seligmann in New York, I found this marriage record:

“New York, New York City Marriage Records, 1829-1940,” database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:2492-DVZ : accessed 8 July 2015), Max Schlesinger and Charlotte Seligmann, 17 Jun 1874; citing Marriage, Manhattan, New York, New York, United States, New York City Municipal Archives, New York; FHL microfilm .

Although this record indicates that Marx Seligmann himself was married Sara Koppel, not a son of Marx, it can’t be just coincidence that someone named Marx Seligmann had a wife named Koppel. Also, Marx and Sara did have a daughter, Charlotte, and she married someone named Max Schlesinger. I don’t think, however, that he was a film agent.

If this second family tree is accurate and I am making correct assumptions that this is in fact the same Marx Seligmann who was a son of Jacob Seligmann and Marta Mayer and thus my four-times great-uncle, then this new tree just opened up a huge door to learn about more Seligmann cousins living in the United States. In my next post, I will write about what I’ve learned about Marx and his descendants.

For now, to finish the second family tree, Pages 9 and 10 add no information about Salomon Seligmann and Babette Seligmann that was not already included on Emil’s tree. The only thing I can’t decipher here are the faintly written words at the bottom of page 9.

Thus, once again I have been blessed with a treasure from that suitcase in Germany. What if Wolfgang had not found my blog and contacted me? I would know nothing about all these people. Sometimes you just have to be thankful for good luck.

More Hidden Treasure from Wolfgang’s Magic Suitcase

Posted on July 7, 2015 by Amy

http://www.wpclipart.com/money/. Per the license: These images are public domain. License . (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I have had many exciting finds through the course of my search for my family history: wonderful photographs and letters, newspaper articles, government documents, birth and marriage and death certificates, and so on. But for me some of the most special finds have been the family trees prepared by other members of my extended family, like the family tree prepared by my Aunt Elaine. These trees are special not only for the information they convey, but also because they tie me to someone else who cared about the family history and wanted it preserved for posterity.

So you can imagine how excited I was when my cousin Wolfgang sent me a four page family tree prepared at least 75 years ago by one of our Seligmann cousins in Germany. We know that this tree was prepared by a child of Karoline Seligmann, the daughter of my three-times great-grandfather Moritz Seligmann and his first wife, Eva Schoenfeld because the tree refers to Karoline Seligmann and her husband Siegfried Seligmann as “our parents.” Karoline (sometimes spelled Caroline or Carolina) and Siegfried had five sons and two daughters: Heinrich, Eva, Wilhelm, Emil, Eugen, Rosa, and Carl. Two of the sons died in infancy, Wilhelm and Carl, , and one I cannot account for beyond his birth, Heinrich. Emil, Eugen, and Eva all died during the Holocaust. Only one child survived the Holocaust, their daughter Rosa, who immigrated to the US in 1940. I discussed Karoline’s children here. I don’t know which child created this tree.

Wolfgang thought Emil was the most likely author of the tree, so for simplicity purposes I will refer to it as Emil’s tree and to its author as Emil. (The last date given on the tree is 1909, and unfortunately it stops with the generation of Karoline and Siegfried and does not include their children.) Although I cannot be sure which of the surviving children—Emil, Eva, Eugen, or Rosa—was my fellow genealogist, I am extremely grateful to whoever created this tree because it provides me with one more generation of my Seligmann and Schoenfeld relatives—the siblings of my three-times great-grandfather, Moritz Seligmann, and the siblings of my three-times great-grandmother, Babetta Schoenfeld (Eva’s sister). It, of course, also raises new questions and new pathways for research.

Starting with page 1 of the tree:

Page 1 of Emil’s tree

It says at the top, “Our great-grandparents in Gaulsheim: a) fathers side: Jacob Seeligmann, his wife: (Merle) Marta nee Mayer (Gaulsheim).” I found it interesting that the early spelling of the family name was Seeligmann. Marta (Martha) Mayer’s name is consistent with the record I obtained for the marriage of their son Moritz to Eva Schoenfeld. Jacob and Marta were my four-times great-grandparents. According to prior records I’d obtained, they were both born around 1773.

According to Emil’s tree, Jacob and Marta had ten children. Until seeing this tree, I had only found three: my three-times great-grandfather Moritz and two other sons, Leopold and Isaac. I had found Leopold and Isaac on the Steinheim Institute website, but not the other seven children. According to the Emil tree, they were Simon, Martha, Mina, Caroline, Marx, Salomon, and Babette.

The next section of the first page and the second page provide information for the ten children of Jacob and Marta. For Simon and Isaac, it seemed that Emil had no information, except that Simon was living in Bingen. The entry for Leopold simply says “in Gaulsheim.” But then on the second page of the tree (see below), Emil returned to Simon, Isaac, and Leopold and listed what appears to be the names of their children. It looks like he thought Simon had two sons, Louis and Richard, and Isaac had a son named Hermann. Leopold’s children were Malchen, Sigmund, Sophie, August, and Roschen.

Page 2 of Emil’s tree

This, however, is not consistent with what I found on the Steinheim website. According to the Steinheim website, Isaac was born in 1795 and died in 1860. He seems to have lived in Gaulsheim all his life. The Steinheim site states that Isaac married Rosine Blad and that they had five children: Pauline, Magdalena, Henriette, Ludwig (Louis), and Richard. My best guess is that Ludwig and Richard are the same people who Emil listed as Louis and Richard. I don’t know whether Emil is correct or the Steinheim site is correct as to whether they were Simon’s sons or Isaac’s sons. I also don’t know where Hermann fits into the family. Was he really Simon’s son and Emil had it backwards? I don’t know.

There is also some inconsistency between Emil’s facts for Leopold and the information on the Steinheim website. The Steinheim site lists Leopold’s wife as Caroline Marum, and I found a marriage record for them dated December 17, 1849.

Marriage Record of Leopold Seligmann and Caroline Marum

According to the Steinheim site, they had five children: Amalie, Rosalie (Roschen?), Sophia, August, and Therese. Emil did not have Therese or Amalie, but had instead Malchen and Sigmund. I don’t know which information is more accurate.

For Jacob and Marta’s daughter Martha, Emil wrote that she married Benjamin Seeligmann. To the right of Martha’s name is a box that says, “Our grandparents in Bingen.” Then next, for our mutual ancestor Moritz, Emil wrote “our grandfather in Gau-Algesheim.” There is a date underneath that looks like 13-2-1877; I believe that must be his date of death. But how could Martha and Moritz, sister and brother, both be Emil’s grandparents? Well, that will become clear later on.

For Mina, it says that she was the wife of Leopold Mayer of Oberursel and that they had one child, Adolf Eduard, who died and was never married. I wonder if this Mayer was a relative of Mina’s mother Marta Mayer. The next child of Jacob and Marta, Caroline, married Moses Moreau (?) of Worrstadt, and they had four children whose names are written underneath; the first I cannot decipher (maybe Markus?), but the other three are Albert, Bertha, and Alice.

The last entry on the first page is a long one for Marx Seligmann. With the help of the kind people in the German Genealogy group on Facebook, I was able to get a sense of what happened to Marx. He married Rosina Loeser on June 11, 1838. They were legally separated in June 1848, and he agreed to pay support for the children. They were divorced in February, 1849.

On page 2 of the Emil tree, Emil continued with the facts about Marx Seligmann.

Page 2 of Emil’s tree

This is the hardest part of the document for me to understand, despite help from Wolfgang and the German Genealogy group. At the top are listed the names of the two daughters of Marx and Rosina: Mathilde and Sophie. But what does it say underneath? All my German helpers agreed that is says, “Underage ??? in Amerika.” One thought it said “Wife in Amerika,” another thought it said “Later in Amerika.” Who went to America? And when did they go? I have started looking, but so far have not had any luck.

(As I was finishing this post, Wolfgang sent me another handwritten version of this tree with more information about Marx and a few others. I need to finish deciphering that one and then will update with more information.)

Emil wrote that Salomon had a wife named Anna Chailly of Mainz and a son and daughter, whose names are not listed here. I found an entry in the Mainz Family Register database on ancestry.com for Salomon and his family, and his children were named Emilie, Mathilde, Siegmund, and Jacob. Jacob married Dora Rosenberg in 1887, and they had a daughter named Anna Dora, born in 1890. I have not yet found any further information for the other three children of Salomon and Anna.

Finally, for Babette, the tree recorded that she had died unmarried and had lived in Gaulsheim.

That completed Emil’s entries for the children of Jacob Seeligmann and Marta Mayer. He then drew a horizontal line across the page as if to start a new section. Under that line he wrote, “Isaac Seeligmann and his wife Felicitas nee Goetzel of Bingen.” I was totally confused when I saw this; was this the same Isaac Seligmann, the son of Jacob and Marta, about whom Emil had written already? Underneath the names of this Isaac and Felicitas was a list of their children, and they were not the same names that I had found on the Steinheim site, discussed above, for Jacob and Marta’s son Isaac. Instead, the following names were listed: Benjamin, Theodor, and Martha. Who were these people?

According to my German Genealogy helpers, under Benjamin’s name it says, “Our grandfather from Bingen.” Suddenly something clicked. This was the Benjamin Seeligmann who married Martha Seligmann, the daughter of Jacob and Marta and the sister of Moritz. Remember that Martha and Benjamin had also been named as Emil’s grandparents. This section of the tree is reporting on Emil’s other great-grandparents, the other Isaac Seligmann and his wife Felicitas Goetzel, and their children.

Was this Isaac Seeligmann related to Jacob Seeligmann, my four-times-great-grandfather? They all lived in the Bingen-Gaulsheim area. I’ve yet to find any documentation linking the two different Seligmann families, but my hunch is that they were in fact cousins if not brothers, meaning that Benjamin Seeligmann might have married a cousin, Martha Seligmann.

Emil then reported on his grandfather Benjamin’s siblings. Theodor was living in Nancy (in France, presumably), and he had a son August who lived in Paris. Martha married Isaac Cahn of Mainz, and they had a son Adolf Cahn.

That brings me to the third page of Emil’s tree.

Page 3 of Emil’s tree

This page is primarily devoted to Emil’s grandparents Benjamin Seeligmann and Martha Seligmann. He provides their birth and death dates and then the names of their seven children: Siegfried, Emilie, Hermann, Karoline, Ferdinand, Lambert, and Bertha. Under their names, Emil reported on who some of them married, including his father Siegfried, who married Karoline Seligmann. Suddenly the rest of the tree made sense to me.

Emil’s father Siegfried was the son of Martha Seligmann; his mother Karoline was the daughter of Moritz Seligmann. Moritz and Martha were siblings, so Siegfried and Karoline were first cousins. Thus, Emil’s paternal grandmother Martha and his maternal grandfather Moritz were sister and brother. Now if in fact Benjamin Seeligmann, Martha’s husband, was also a cousin, there is truly a remarkable amount of inbreeding there. Here is a family chart that will (I hope) help to visualize these relationships:

Pedigree Chart for Emil Seligmann

The last entry on the third page provided me with the death dates for Moritz Seligmann and Eva Schoenfeld, information I had not had before.

Finally on page four Emil discusses his maternal great-grandparents, a) the family of Jacob Seligmann of Bingen, already discussed under his paternal great-grandparents; and b) the family of his grandmother Eva Schoenfeld, sister of my three-times great-grandmother Babetta Schoenfeld, the sister who married Moritz Seligmann after Eva died in 1835.

Page 4 of Emil’s tree

As I already knew, Eva and Babetta were the daughters of Bernard Schoenfeld and Rosa Goldmann of Erbes-Budesheim. I also had records of the names and births of most of their children. Emil’s list confirmed these and added one more for whom I did not have a record, Alexander. The children as listed on Emil’s tree are Alexander, Eva and Babetta (described as the first and second wives of Moritz Seligmann of Gau-Algesheim), Maria Anna (wife of Alexander Levi of Kirchheimbolanden), Sara (wife of Leokov (?) Kahn of Bubenheim), Zibora (wife of Karl Levi of Alzey and mother of Albert, Bernhard, and Berta), and Rebecca (wife of Salomon Goldmann of Kirchheimbolanden). Then at the bottom Emil listed the children of Maria Anna and Alexander Levi: Fridolin, Leonhard, Judith, Lina, Hedwig, Elise, and Ottmar.

I was recently contacted through Wolfgang by one of the grandchildren of Zibora Schoenfeld Levi and am hoping to learn even more about my Schoenfeld ancestors.

What a treasure trove this tree is! Such a gift from one of my predecessors as a family historian—someone who died during the Holocaust and who left behind evidence not only of his ancestors’ lives, but of his own. Now it is my job to try and fill in the details and continue the story.

Too Many Missing Pieces: Part II

Posted on April 29, 2015 by Amy

In my last post, I wrote about the list of English James Seligmann’s heirs that my cousin Wolfgang found in his family’s papers. There were 21 principals named as heirs on that document, and I had discussed all the easily identified ones and some of those that were more difficult to figure out. I had discussed Numbers 1, 2, 6-13, 15, 16, 19-21. That left Numbers 3-5, 14, 17, and 18. Here again is the list of heirs:

So let’s start with Number 3, Johanna Bielefeld, the one whom Elsa Oppenheimer had claimed was not a daughter of Hieronymus Seligmann in her July, 1984 letter.

Perhaps Elsa was wrong; after all, she was wrong about Adolph Seligman not being the child of Moritz and Babetta, as discussed last time. Or maybe Johanna was the daughter of Benjamin Seligmann. I am not sure yet, but I do know that she was born in Gau-Algesheim. Wolfgang found this registration card for her, dated January 12, 1939, issued by the police in Mainz. It gives her birth name as Seligmann, her birth date as March 15, 1881, and her birthplace as Gau-Algesheim. I have written to my contact in Gau-Algesheim, asking him to see if he can find a birth record for Johanna so I can determine who her parents were. Notice also the large J on her card, indicating that she was Jewish.

http://www.uni-heidelberg.de/institute/sonst/aj/STANDREG/FFM1/PDF/B_5.1_Abt_IV_0748.pdf

Here is the companion card for her husband Alfred Bielefeld:

http://www.uni-heidelberg.de/institute/sonst/aj/STANDREG/FFM1/PDF/B_5.1_Abt_IV_0402.pdf

The list of heirs provided the names of Johanna and Alfred’s children, Hans and Lili (or Lily). It indicated that Johanna had died as had Hans, he in 1948. Then it provided a married name for Lili, Mrs. Fred Hecht, and an address on West 97^th Street in New York City. Searching for Hans Bielefeld brought me to someone with that name on the 1940 census, living in Cleveland, Ohio. He was working as an insurance agent, was 37 years old, and had been residing in Mainz, Germany, in 1935.

Year: 1940; Census Place: Cleveland, Cuyahoga, Ohio; Roll: T627_3221; Page: 5A; Enumeration District: 92-451

Further searching found an index listing in the Ohio Deaths database on Ancestry for Hans Bielefeld, indicating he had died on September 13, 1948, the same year of death given on the list of heirs document. On Fold3.com, I then found naturalization papers for Hans Ludwig Bielefeld, indicating that he was divorced, that he was born on July 1, 1902 in Maine (sic), Germany, and that he had arrived in the US on the SS Gerolstein on July 14, 1938.

Publication Number: M1995
Publication Title: Naturalization Petition and Record Books for the US District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, Eastern Division, Cleveland, 1907-1946
Content Source: NARA
National Archives Catalog ID: 1127790
National Archives Catalog Title: Naturalization Petitions, compiled 1867 – 1967
Record Group: 21
Partner: NARA
State: Ohio
Court: Northern District, Eastern Division
Catalog Keywords: Petitions Naturalization Immigration Citizenship
Fold3 Publication Year: 2008

That led me to a passenger manifest for the SS Gerolstein, where I found Hans listed as a divorced merchant from Mainz. It seemed like this could be the son of Johanna Seligmann Bielefeld, but I couldn’t be sure.

So I searched for his sister Lili. I first searched for her as Lili Hecht, but had no luck, so I searched for Lili Bielefeld and found her first on an English ship manifest dated September 18, 1940, from Liverpool bound for Montreal, Quebec. Lili was listed as 36, having last resided in London, but born in Germany. Her occupation was given as a domestic. The age, birthplace and name seemed correct, so I considered it likely that this was the right person.

Ancestry.com. UK, Outward Passenger Lists, 1890-1960 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2012.

Then I found her listed with the same information on a US manifest for passengers entering the United States from Canada. But since Lili did not arrive until September, 1940, she is not listed on the 1940 census, making it extremely difficult to find her in the online databases on Ancestry. There were a number of Fred Hechts, but how would I know if any of them were married to Lili?

So I turned to Google and entered “Lili Bielenfeld Fred Hecht,” and once again I hit the jackpot. Like Fred and Ilse Michel, Fred Hecht and Lili Bielenfeld have papers in the collection at the Leo Baeck Institute entitled “Hecht and Gottschalk Family Collection; AR 5605.” In the biographical note included with this collection, I learned that Fred Hecht came from a German Jewish family with a long history. I will quote here only the sections relevant to Fred, Lili and Hans:

Jakob and Therese Hecht had a son, Siegfried Max Hecht (alternatively Fritz, later Fred, 1892-1970). Siegfried Hecht became a merchant and served in the German military during World War I. Siegfried and his wife Emma née Cahn divorced in 1939, and he immigrated to the United States in 1940, where he took on the name Fred. He settled in New York City and became a jewelry salesman. In December of 1944, he and Lili née Bielefeld (1904-1977) were married.

The Bielefeld family can be traced back to the late 18th century. The family lived in Karlsruhe, Mainz, and Mannheim until the 1930s, when some members immigrated to the United States. Lili Hecht née Bielefeld was the daughter of Alfred Bielefeld, a wine merchant, and Johanna Bielefeld née Seligmann. Despite efforts to procure passage to the U.S., both Alfred and Johanna perished in the Holocaust. Alfred died in Theresienstadt, and Johanna was deported from Theresienstadt to Auschwitz, where she perished.

Lili Hecht née Bielefeld’s brother Hans Ludwig Bielefeld (1902-1948) was a merchant. He married Lilli née Kiritz in 1933, and the couple divorced in 1936. Hans Ludwig immigrated to the United States under the sponsorship of his cousin, Irma Rosenfeld, and settled in Cleveland, Ohio, where he worked in insurance. After his death, his sister Lili Hecht née Bielefeld was the sole heir to the Bielefeld family property, which she claimed in the 1960s alongside restitution for her parents’ deaths.

Thus, from these papers and this biographical note, I was able to find out a great deal about what had happened to Johanna Seligmann Bielefeld, her husband, and her two children, Hans and Lili. I will write more about them in a separate post once I have a chance to examine the LBI collection more carefully and obtain translations where necessary.

Number 4 on the list, Bettina Arnfeld, was more difficult to locate, but I found a Bettina Elizabeth Arnfeld listed on FindAGrave with the notation, “Body Lost or Destroyed.” Her birthdate was given as March 17, 1875. This may have been the “Elizabeth” whom Elsa claimed was not a child of Hieronymus Seligmann. I then looked for and found Bettina Elizabeth Arnfeld in the Yad Vashem Database. The entries there confirmed that her birth name was Seligmann, that she was born on March 17, 1875, and that she had resided in Muelheim Ruhr in Germany at the time she was deported. She was exterminated at Thieresenstadt on January 23, 1943.

The list of heirs indicated that Bettina had a son, Heinz Arnfeld, living on 22 Gloucester Square in London, and he was not difficult to locate. I found several entries for Heinz and Liselotte Arnfeld at that address in London, England, Electoral Registers on Ancestry. I also found Heinz and Liselotte listed in the England & Wales Marriage Index on Ancestry. They were married in Doncaster, Yorkshire West Riding in 1945. Heinz is also listed as a survivor of the Holocaust in the Shārit ha-plātah database on JewishGen.

Heinz died in 1961 and left his estate to Liselotte; she died in 1988. I do not know whether they had any children. Since they were married in 1945 when Liselotte was 37, it does not seem likely.

That brings me to Numbers 17 and 18 on the list, putting Numbers 5 and 14 aside for now. Who were Eva Hansu and Rosa Reisz? If these were nieces of English James Seligmann, then they had married and changed their surnames, so how could I find them? Since they were listed right after Emil and Eugen, sons of Carolina Seligmann and Siegfried Seligmann, I went back to the list of Carolina’s children and realized that she had daughters named Eva and Rosa. Thus, I assumed that Eva became Eva Hansu and Rosa became Rosa Reisz.

I had good luck searching for Rosa Seligmann Reisz. I knew her daughter’s name was Hedwig Neter from the list of heirs, and that seemed unusual enough that I decided to search for it first. Sure enough the name came up on a passenger’s manifest dated August 31, 1940, for the ship Cameronia departing from Glasgow, Scotland, for New York. Sailing with Hedwig was her husband Emil Neter and her mother Rosa Reis. Emil was a 61 year old manufacturer, Hedwig a 48 year old housewife, and Rosa was 73 without occupation. They all had last been residing in London and said the US was their intended permanent residence.

Ancestry.com. UK, Outward Passenger Lists, 1890-1960 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2012.

According to FindAGrave, Rosa Seligmann Reis died on January 29, 1958, and is buried at Hauptfriedhof in Mannheim, Germany. Her son-in-law Emil Neter died on July 8, 1971, in Washington, DC, and is also buried at Hauptfriedhof in Mannheim, as is her daughter Hedwig Reis Neter, who died on May 28, 1979, in Washington. I found it very interesting that after living in the United States all those years, Rosa, Emil, and Hedwig chose as their burial place the country they had escaped so many years before. A little more searching turned up Hedwig’s birth certificate and a family record from 1891, both of which revealed that Rosa’s husband’s name was Ludwig Reis, son of Callman Reis, a merchant.

Ancestry.com. Mannheim, Germany, Births, 1870-1900 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014. Original data: Personenstandsregister: Geburtsregister Standesamt Mannheim und Vororte 1876-1900, Stadtarchiv Mannheim, Mannheim. Deutschland.

Hedwig Reis Birth Certificiate Ancestry.com. Mannheim, Germany, Births, 1870-1900 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014.
Original data: Personenstandsregister: Geburtsregister Standesamt Mannheim und Vororte 1876-1900, Stadtarchiv Mannheim, Mannheim. Deutschland.

Ancestry.com. Mannheim, Germany, Family Registers, 1760-1900 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014.
Original data: Polizeipräsidium Mannheim Familienbögen, 1800-1900. Digital images. Stadtarchiv Mannheim — Institut für Stadtgeschichte, Mannheim, Germany

Searching at Hauptfriedhof on FindAGrave, I found that Ludwig had died in 1928 and had been buried at Hauptfriedhof. It seems that Rosa and her daughter Hedwig wanted to be buried where Ludwig had been buried years before. With the help of Matthias Steinke in the German Genealogy group on Facebook, I was able to locate the headstone for all four of them at the Stadtarchiv Mannheim website.

https://www.stadtarchiv.mannheim.de/jh/Bilder_08/B2-A-07-07/B2-A-07-07a.JPG

https://www.stadtarchiv.mannheim.de/jh/Bilder_08/B2-A-07-07/B2-A-07-07e.JPG

At first I couldn’t find anything about Eva Hansu, Number 17. I couldn’t find her husband’s first name, and although the heirs’ list gives her daughter’s married name as Alice Kauffman of France, I had not been able to find her either. Then after Matthias introduced me to the Stadtarchiv Mannheim website where he had found the headstones for Rosa and her family, I decided to search for all people with the birth name Seligmann and found Eva as Eva Seligmann Hanau, not Eva Hansu as I had mistakenly read it on the list of heirs. It provided the same birth date I’d already found for Eva, March 18, 1861, and it reported her date of death as March 18, 1939. Her husband was Lion Hanau, born May 24, 1854, in Altforweiler, Germany, and he died February 7, 1921. The archive also included photographs of their headstone.

https://www.stadtarchiv.mannheim.de/jh/Bilder_08/D1-MGr-18/D1-MGr-18.JPG

As for their daughter, now that I had the correct spelling of her birth name Hanau, I was able to find her marriage certificate for her marriage to Ernst Kaufmann on August 10, 1911.

Ancestry.com. Mannheim, Germany, Marriages, 1870-1920 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014. Original data: Personenstandsregister: Heiratsregister Standesamt Mannheim und Vororte, Stadtarchiv Mannheim, Mannheim. Deutschland.

I do not know what happened to either Alice or Ernst during or after the war.

So that leaves me with only two names on the list of heirs for whom I as yet have no answers: Anna Wolf, Number 5, and Bettina Ochs, Number 14. Anna Wolf is listed as a fraulein, so that is her birth name, not a married name. It says that Johanna Bielfeld was her aunt, so presumably Anna’s mother was a sister of Johanna. If, in fact, Johanna was a child of Hieronymus Seligmann, she had two sisters, Mathilde and Auguste and perhaps Bettina. I don’t have any information about them aside from what was listed in Elsa’s letter, posted above. More work to be done.

And Number 14, Bettina Ochs, is even more of a puzzle. I’d have assumed that Ochs was her married name, Seligmann her birth name. But the note on the document mentions a brother as her next of kin, and his name was Arthur Erlanger. That would suggest that Bettina Ochs was born Bettina Erlanger, not Seligmann. So how is she related? Who was her husband? Which one is the blood relative of English James Seligmann? I found one listing on JewishGen.org for Bettina Ochs-Erlanger with a secondary name as Bettina Oberdorfer. She was born May 7, 1870, and her nationality was Italian, consistent with the Milan address provided on the heirs list. She was listed in the Switzerland, Jewish Arrivals, 1938-1945 database; I can’t see the original document, but the index indicates that she arrived in Switzerland on August 5, 1944.

It’s amazing how much information I could mine from this one little document. Unfortunately, although I should have gotten great satisfaction from finding so many people and so much information, I ended up feeling very sad and very drained as I added all these names of my cousins to the list of those killed in the Holocaust. It is beginning to overwhelm me. So much loss, so much evil. Incomprehensible.

More in the DNA Wars

Posted on March 15, 2015 by Amy

Lately I have been drowning in DNA. I am trying to figure out how to interpret the DNA results I have and make use of them in searching for my ancestors. Specifically, my Brotman ancestors. As I look forward to visiting Poland in May and seeing Tarnobrzeg, I more and more want to be able to find something that actually corroborates my conclusion that that was the general area where my great-grandparents Joseph and Bessie Brotman lived. I was hoping that perhaps with DNA results, I’d find another clue, another cousin, who knew something I didn’t know.

Animation of the structure of a section of DNA. The bases lie horizontally between the two spiraling strands. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

So I dove into the DNA. When I last wrote about the DNA tests, I talked about the fact that the autosomal DNA results supported the story my aunt had told about Joseph Brotman and his brother who had moved to New Jersey where they named the town for him, i.e., Brotmanville. Moses Brotman’s granddaughter Elaine tested as a likely second cousin to my mother, just as she would be if Moses and Joseph were brothers. I am still waiting for results of an autosomal DNA test of Larry, who is a great-grandson of Moses Brotman, for further support (I hope) for that conclusion. But sadly the Brotmanville Brotmans are also not clear on where Moses lived or was born in Galicia. Family stories suggest Preszyml, which isn’t too far from Tarnobrzeg (about 90 miles), but there is no paper record to support that story either. They also do not have any records or stories about the parents or siblings of Moses Brotman.

But the DNA results also produced an unknown likely second cousin for my mother named Frieda. Frieda’s niece and I have been in touch, and we have narrowed down the possibilities of the connection. We believe that the connection is through Frieda’s mother whose name was Sabina Brot. We think that Sabina’s father might have been Bessie Brotman’s brother. Here is a chart that helps to visualize the potential relationships:

Again, there is no paper trail, but this is how we reached that tentative conclusion:

First, not only did my mother test as a second cousin to Frieda, but my brother tested as a second to fourth cousin to Frieda. But Elaine, the granddaughter of Moses, tested as a third to fifth cousin to Frieda, meaning that Frieda shared more DNA with my mother and my brother than she did with Elaine. Since Elaine would be more closely related to Joseph than she would be to Bessie,[1] I inferred that Frieda was more likely connected to my mother through Bessie, not Joseph. (Keep in mind that Joseph and Bessie were supposedly first cousins, so even Elaine could share some DNA with Bessie from Bessie and Joseph’s mutual grandparents, Elaine’s great-great-grandparents.)

At the suggestion of Frieda’s niece, I then ordered an mtDNA test on my mother’s kit to see if she and Frieda were in the same haplogroup. As defined by the International Society of Genetic Genealogy (ISOGG), “A haplogroup is a genetic population group of people who share a common ancestor on the patrilineal or matrilineal line.” Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is only passed by mothers to their children. Although sons inherit mtDNA from their mothers, they do not pass it down to their children. Thus, mtDNA is a way of testing the maternal line—from mothers to daughters and so on. If Frieda and my mother were not in the same haplogroup, we would be able to infer that the connection had not come from Frieda’s grandmother as a sister of Bessie, but more likely from Frieda’s grandfather. As it turned out, my mother was not in the same haplogroup as Frieda, meaning Frieda’s mother (Sabina)’s mother was not the connection to my mother’s mother’s mother. Thus, we concluded that if my mother and Frieda are second cousins, it was most likely that Bessie, my mother’s grandmother, and Frieda’s grandfather were siblings.

If only Frieda knew the name of her grandfather or the town where he lived, we could make some progress. But unfortunately, Frieda’s family knows almost nothing about the background of Sabina Brot or her parents, so we are once again at an impasse. Frieda’s niece believes Sabina lived in Radomysl nad Sanem, a town not far at all from Tarnobrzeg.

https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Radomy%C5%9Bl+nad+Sanem,+Poland/Tarnobrzeg,+Poland/

I put aside the DNA at that point, figuring I’d done what I could do. I emailed a few other “matches” on FamilyTreeDNA, and I received a few responses. But no one had any helpful information or anything that seemed like a possible link to my family.

Then I decided to try and get more out of the results. I asked a lot of questions in various Facebook genealogy groups, read a lot of blogs and websites, but was still without a clue. I tried a program called DNAgedcom, which has a tool known as ADSA that allows you to see who else matches your kit on a specific chromosome and who else matches with that person. It is a great tool, but unfortunately DNAgedcom is not yet equipped to handle the large number of matches that most Ashkenazi Jews will generate through autosomal DNA testing.

As I’ve learned, and as I’ve seen in my own family on several lines, Ashkenazi Jews are an endogamous population, meaning that they tended to marry within their own community and even within their own families. Thus, a typical Ashkenazi Jew will share some bits of DNA with thousands of other Ashkenazi Jews. My mother had thousands of matches, but most of them are so distantly related as to be irrelevant. As was recently stated in one report, some researchers believe that all Ashkenazi Jews are descended from several hundred Jews who lived about 600 years ago. So we are, in fact, all one big tribe.

That’s all well and good until you want to use DNA to find closer relatives. For DNAgedcom, it was just too much data. Their website estimates that a typical download will take about 30 minutes. My mother’s data was still downloading after SIX hours, and it wasn’t nearly done. In fact, it crashed and never completely downloaded.

Then people told me to try GEDmatch, another website for interpreting DNA results. I sent the data to GEDmatch for my mother, brother, Bruce, and Elaine, and Frieda’s niece sent Frieda’s data. Then I had no clue what to do with GEDmatch. Like DNAgedcom, it’s a free site run by wonderful people who are interested in genealogical uses of DNA. But free means you can’t complain when things aren’t clear or you can’t figure something out. I was totally perplexed by GEDmatch. Lots of numbers, lots of charts. But what did they all mean? And how could I use them to interpret the DNA results or find new matches?

Here’s a portion of one page of many showing (with identifying information deleted) some of my mother’s matches on GEDmatch:

Yeah, right? What does all THAT mean?

Back to the Facebook groups I went, and this time I found three incredible women, Julie, Leah, and Lana, who volunteered to help me figure out how to use the DNA results and the various tools available. Together they have backgrounds in biology and IT and math. We created our own space on Facebook to work together. Well, mostly they worked, and I learned. Am still learning. They are amazing. We have spent hours and hours online together despite the fact that we are spread across two continents and many times zones.

What I have learned? To begin with, I now understand how DNA is affected during the process of meiosis, that is, the creation of gametes, i.e., sperm and egg. I won’t show off here, though I do wonder what my high school biology was teaching us since I never learned this. The bottom line is that DNA changes during meiosis when segments of the chromosomes “cross over” and then randomly sort themselves before the cell splits into ultimately four new cells, each with a unique selection of DNA on the chromosomes contained therein. As a result, two children with the exact same parents will not have identical DNA since the sperm and egg that created the first sibling will have different DNA than the sperm and egg that created the second sibling. (This may explain why my brother has the science brain and I, quite obviously, do not. I am sure he and others will gladly point out anything that is not correct about this description.)

Here’s a cute video that I found helpful:

Why is any of that relevant to using DNA for genealogy? Because it means that even siblings will share varying amounts of DNA and different DNA. It’s not only that every generation has new parents mixing into their offspring’s DNA; it’s also that each parent shares different DNA with each child. And with each generation there are more crossovers, more sortings, and thus more differences. So when two people share a fairly large amount of overall DNA and also some large segments of DNA, it is quite reliable as an indication of a familial relationship. Given all the crossovers and mixing and new DNA with every generation, it’s not likely that two people would share a lot of DNA unless they were related.

I won’t go into all the statistics and terminology. That’s not my goal here. I just wanted to explain why I’ve found these three women so helpful. I like to understand things, not just accept numbers without an explanation. And it didn’t stop with the science. My mentors then helped me figure out how to use GEDmatch to “triangulate.” No, not like Bill Clinton. In using DNA in genealogy, it helps to find out who shares DNA with you on a particular location on a particular chromosome. Then you need to figure out who among those people also share with each other. Thus, if A, B, and C share with me on Chromosome 12 at a given location for a certain segment, but A and B do not share with C, I know that C shares with me from a different parent than A and B. But I don’t know whether A and B share with the DNA I got from my mother or the DNA I got from my father.

Another thing I learned: I knew that chromosomes came in pairs, one from each parent for each of the 23 pairs of chromosomes. But I didn’t know that the testing companies don’t really distinguish one side from the other. They test two strands from each pair of chromosomes (one from each chromosome in that pair), but the two are jumbled together on the companies’ depictions of what is on that Chromosome 12 I mentioned above. What that means is that when I look at their depiction of a chromosome and see matches, I’ve no idea which parent’s strand that match pairs up with.

Human metaphase chromosomes were subjected to fluorescence in situ hybridization with a probe to the Alu Sequence (green signals)and counterstained for DNA (red). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

For example, if you look at my brother’s chromosomes with my mother’s as a match, it looks like she matches all his DNA. All that orange is where she matches his DNA on his chromosomes. But in fact, that’s just half of his DNA. The DNA from my father isn’t reflected. All we are seeing is that my mother gave my brother half of his DNA.

In this case, we know that this is DNA from his mother because, well, I know she’s his mother. But when I look at someone else on my brother’s chromosomes, I don’t know if that person is matching the strand from my mother or my father unless I triangulate the three kits.

Here’s a more typical chromosome browser display with various matches:

Each color represents a different person who shares some DNA with my brother, and as you can see, there are some places where two colors overlap, like on the 21st chromosome. How do I know whether those people share DNA with my brother that comes from my mother or from my father? How do I know if those two overlapping people are related or just one shares my father’s DNA on the location and the other shares my mother’s DNA at that location? Triangulation. We have to figure out if those two people also share DNA with each other at that location and also whether they share with my mother at that particular location. And that’s what Leah, Lana, and Julie taught me to do.

Where has that gotten me? Well, we found that on Chromosome 21 my mother and Frieda had a large segment overlap with three other people. I then triangulated and found that all of them also matched Frieda and each other at that location on Chromosome 21. That means that they are all somehow related: Frieda, my mother, and A, B, and C all share a common ancestor who passed on this rather large segment that they all share. I don’t know for sure whether my mother got that segment from her mother or father, but since we have reason to believe that my mother and Frieda are connected through my great-grandmother’s Bessie’s family, it would seem that A, B, and C are also somehow related to my mother and Frieda through that family line.

So I emailed A, B, and C. I’ve heard back from two of them, but with nothing that’s very helpful. The little information each had showed nothing to explain this DNA connection. There are no common surnames and no common geographic locations. These two didn’t even have roots in Galicia that they knew of. Huh? Now what?

Good question. We are still tweaking the numbers, scouring other chromosomes, hoping something will provide a breakthrough. But at the moment I hold out limited hope that we will find someone who can connect all the pieces. It’s just too far back in a place where very few records survive and where surnames only started 200 years ago. Maybe A, B, and C had relatives who adopted different surnames, not Brot or Brotman. Maybe their great-great-grandfather moved to Ukraine or Lithuania or Latvia or mine moved away from there. We can speculate all we want, and the DNA doesn’t lie. But we may never, ever find the answer to how we are related.

So I have no better information today about where my great-grandparents lived or the names of their siblings or the names of earlier generations. But I know a lot more about DNA and about the tools out there for using it, thanks to Lana, Julie, and Leah.

***********************************

I will be taking a short break from the laptop—SPRING BREAK! (Now that I am retired, it’s not really my spring break, but years and years of celebrating it still has its effects.) See you soon.

For anyone who wants a broader introduction to DNA and chromosomes, Steve Morse (of stevemorse.org) wrote a very clear laymen’s overview of the topic here.

[1] Although Bruce, another great-grandchild of Joseph and Bessie, also tested as a third to fifth to Frieda, he shared more DNA with her than Elaine did, although he shared less than my brother did. In theory at least, Bruce and Ira should test as the same distance from Frieda, if she is related to us through Bessie. But DNA does not always pass on in equal segments, or so I’ve learned. Bruce might have more from Joseph’s side through his parents and grandparents than from Bessie’s side and my mother might have more.

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