Tag Archives: Germany

Amalie Meyer Bloch: Where Was Her Husband During the War?

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Although I said I was going to write next about Ferdinand, Regina Goldschmidt Meyer’s youngest son, I have just connected with one of his descendants and hope to get more information before I post. So I am skipping ahead to the youngest of Regina Goldschmidt and Aaron Meyer’s children, Amalie Meyer Bloch, and will return to Ferdinand in a later post.

Amalie Meyer was married to Charles Bloch and had one child, their daughter Else, born in 1913. They escaped from Nazi Germany in time and ended up in England and then the US.

By 1939, Else, now spelling her name as Ilse, was living in England, working as a domestic servant.

Ilse Bloch, The National Archives; Kew, London, England; 1939 Register; Reference: RG 101/1599D, Enumeration District: DEBC, Ancestry.com. 1939 England and Wales Registe

But she left England for the US and arrived in New York on July 29, 1940. When she filed her declaration of intention on September 2, 1941, she was living in New York City and working as a factory worker.

Ilse Bloch, declaration of intention, The National Archives at Philadelphia; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; NAI Title: Declarations of Intention for Citizenship, 1/19/1842 – 10/29/1959; NAI Number: 4713410; Record Group Title: Records of District Courts of the United States, 1685-2009; Record Group Number: 21, Description: (Roll 628) Declarations of Intention for Citizenship, 1842-1959 (No 498401-499300), Ancestry.com. New York, State and Federal Naturalization Records, 1794-1943

Her mother Amalie had arrived on August 9, 1941. On the ship manifest she was sailing without Charles and indicated she was heading to her daughter Ilse in New York and leaving behind her husband’s cousin, “Friedrike Meyer,” who, I believe, must have also be the same Friederike who was married to Amalie’s brother, Ferdinand.1

On her declaration of intention, Amalie wrote that her last residence had been Lisbon, Portugal.

Amalie Meyer Bloch, declaration of intent, The National Archives at Philadelphia; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; NAI Title: Declarations of Intention for Citizenship, 1/19/1842 – 10/29/1959; NAI Number: 4713410; Record Group Title: Records of District Courts of the United States, 1685-2009; Record Group Number: 21, Description: (Roll 641) Declarations of Intention for Citizenship, 1842-1959 (No 510101-511000), Ancestry.com. New York, State and Federal Naturalization Records, 1794-1943

But where was her husband Charles? She still listed him as her husband, but she had not listed him on the passenger manifest as the person she was leaving behind. It would appear he was still living, but not in Germany or Portugal. So where was he?

This document, prepared by the occupying forces after the war, indicates that Charles, here identified as Carl, had most recently been living in Paris while Amalie had gone to the US.

Arolsen Archives, Digital Archive; Bad Arolsen, Germany; Lists of Persecutees 2.1.1.1; Series: 2.1.1.1, Reference Code: 02010101 oS, Ancestry.com. Europe, Registration of Foreigners and German Persecutees, 1939-1947

This one identifies him as Charles:

Arolsen Archives, Digital Archive; Bad Arolsen, Germany; Lists of Persecutees 2.1.1.1; Series: 2.1.1.1, Reference Code: 02010101 oS, Ancestry.com. Europe, Registration of Foreigners and German Persecutees, 1939-1947

I was also able to locate a ship manifest dated April 12, 1946, listing Charles Bloch going to his wife Amalie in New York. According to the manifest, he had last resided in Toulouse, France, and this was his first time in the United States. It also indicated this his wife had paid his fare and that he was coming permanently.

Year: 1946; Arrival: New York, New York; Microfilm Serial: T715, 1897-1957; Microfilm Roll: Roll 7093; Line: 7; Page Number: 40, Ancestry.com. New York, Passenger and Crew Lists (including Castle Garden and Ellis Island), 1820-1957

But I still don’t know exactly where Charles spent the years during the war or why he and Amalie ended up in separate countries or where he was for the year after the war ended in Europe until he left on April 12, 1946. Perhaps a displaced persons camp.

The good news, however, is that Amalie, Charles, and Ilse all survived and were living in New York City by the end of April, 1946.

Charles died eleven years later on November 11, 1957; he was 76.2 Amalie survived him less than four years; she died on May 31, 1961, at the age of 69.3 Ilse, who appears to have gone by her middle name Helen in the US, lived to 91, dying on November 28, 2004.4 It appears that she never married or had children.

Thus, there are no descendants of Amalie Goldschmidt Bloch to answer my questions about her husband’s whereabouts during World War II. Maybe there is a relative out there who will knows the answer. Or maybe a reader will have some suggestions for how to learn the answers.

 

 

  1. Amalie Bloch, Year: 1941; Arrival: New York, New York; Microfilm Serial: T715, 1897-1957; Microfilm Roll: Roll 6568; Line: 6; Page Number: 80, Ancestry.com. New York, Passenger and Crew Lists (including Castle Garden and Ellis Island), 1820-1957 ↩
  2. Name: Charles Bloch, Age: 76, Birth Date: abt 1881, Death Date: 11 Nov 1957, Death Place: Manhattan, New York, New York, USA, Certificate Number: 24005, Ancestry.com. New York, New York, Death Index, 1949-1965 ↩
  3. Amalie Bloch, Age: 69, Birth Date: abt 1892, Death Date: 31 May 1961, Death Place: Manhattan, New York, New York, USA, Certificate Number: 12285, Ancestry.com. New York, New York, Death Index, 1949-1965 ↩
  4. Helen I Bloch, Gender: Female, Birth Date: 30 May 1913, Death Date: 28 Nov 2004
    SSN: 100121080, Ancestry.com. U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007 ↩

Regina Goldschmidt’s Children: Did They Escape in Time or Not?

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When Hitler came to power in Germany in 1933, Regina Goldschmidt Meyer had already outlived her husband Aaron Meyer, who had died in 1902, and two of her seven children, Sally having died in childhood and Jacob in 1928. Her other five children—Alfred, Max, Siegfried, Ferdinand, and Amalie— were still living as well as a number of grandchildren.

But Regina died in Frankfurt on October 7, 1938, just a month before Kristallnacht. She was 83 years old.

Regina Goldschmidt Meyer, death record, Personenstandsregister Sterberegister; Bestand: 903; Signatur: 11076, Year Range: 1938, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Deaths, 1851-1958

Some of her five surviving children fared better than others during the Holocaust. For some, I ran into brick walls when I tried to learn more about their lives during or after the war. For others, I discovered tragedy. This post will focus on her four oldest children and their families.

The fate of Regina’s oldest child, Alfred Meyer, is somewhat unclear. I found only two documents for him after his birth record. First, I found this card in the Arolsen Archives:

2 Registration of Foreigners and German Persecutees by Public Institutions, Social Securities and Companies (1939 – 1947) / 2.1 Implementation of Allied Forces’ Orders on Listing all Foreigners and German Persecutees, and Related Documents / 2.1.1 American Zone of Occupation in Germany / 2.1.1.2 Lists of all persons of United Nations and other foreigners, German Jews and stateless persons; American Zone; Bavaria, Wurttemberg-Baden, Bremen (2) / Excerpts from “Hausstandsbüchern” of the town of Frankfurt/Main

With help from the German Genealogy group, I learned that this card says that Alfred was a widower and that he had no occupation. The final column indicates that Alfred was still living in Frankfurt on April 24, 1939, and then left for France and was there until November 3, 1939.

The second card, also from the Arolsen Archives, came up through a search on Ancestry.com:

Arolsen Archives, Digital Archive; Bad Arolsen, Germany; Lists of Persecutees 2.1.1.1; Series: 2.1.1.1, Reference Code: 02010101 oS, Ancestry.com. Europe, Registration of Foreigners and German Persecutees, 1939-1947

According to the description on Ancestry, this document was prepared after the war by the American forces occupying West Germany as an attempt to document the Jews who had been persecuted by the Nazis. This particular document lists those who had become or were French citizens. Under the last category, “Aufenthaltsdaten,” or dates of stay, it says April 24, 1939, to November 3, 1939. This appears to be consistent with the other card from the Arolsen Archives.

But what happened to Alfred after November 3, 1939? Did he return to Frankfurt and survive? Was he killed? He does not appear in either the Yad Vashem database or the US Holocaust Memorial and Museum database. There are many other post-war records for men named Alfred Meyer, but the name is so common and the records so vague in identification information that I have no idea what happened to my cousin Alfred Meyer. Cibella and Baron say he died in a concentration camp, and I fear that that is probably the case even though I can’t find him at Yad Vashem.

As noted above, Alfred’s brother Jacob Meyer had died in 1928, leaving his wife Elli and their children to survive him. I was able to find records for Elli showing that she had immigrated to England by 1939; she and her son Arthur are listed together on the 1939 England and Wales Register.

Ellie and Arthur Meyer, The National Archives; Kew, London, England; 1939 Register; Reference: RG 101/416H, Enumeration District: APCA, Ancestry.com. 1939 England and Wales Register

Arthur also registered as an enemy alien in 1939; at that time he was working as an apprentice shirt cutter for Harrod’s. Note that his address is 28c Maida Avenue.

Arthur Meyer, The National Archives; Kew, London, England; HO 396 WW2 Internees (Aliens) Index Cards 1939-1947; Reference Number: HO 396/187, Piece Number Description: 187: German Internees Released in UK 1939-1942: Mayer-Morgens, Ancestry.com. UK, WWII Alien Internees, 1939-1945

Also living at 28c Maida Avenue in 1939 when she registered as an enemy alien was Arthur’s sister Hilde Meyer, who was a student and an unemployed domestic worker.

Hilde Meyer, The National Archives; Kew, London, England; HO 396 WW2 Internees (Aliens) Index Cards 1939-1947; Reference Number: HO 396/61, Piece Number Description: 061: Internees at Liberty in UK 1939-1942: Mer-Mid, Ancestry.com. UK, WWII Alien Internees, 1939-1945

On the 1939 England and Wales Register, Hilde was working as a parlor maid and living elsewhere, so she must have found work by the time that was enumerated.1

As for the third child whom Cibella/Baron identified as a child of Jacob and Elli Meyer, Lotte Henriette Meyer, I did not have much luck locating records. Cibella/Baron report that she married Helmut Leopold Wallach in Frankfurt on April 27, 1934, and that they had twin daughters born in 1935, but I could not find a marriage record or birth records for the twins. I did find a 1937 ship manifest for a Lotte Wallach with two daughters born in 1935, heading from England to Argentina2 and a separate 1937 manifest for a Helmut Leopold Wallach heading to Uruguay,3 but nothing more specific to tie Lotte to Jacob and Elli Meyer or to Helmut Wallach.

Elli Loeser Meyer lived the rest of her life in England, dying there on April 18, 1966. The listing for her in the England & Wales, National Probate Calendar names “Arthur Meyers, company director,” as one of the executors.4 I have been unable so far to find any other later records for any of her children. Thus, I do not know when or where they died, whether or not they married or had children, or anything else.

Max Meyer and his family escaped from Nazi Germany to Argentina. It appears that their son Arnold had immigrated there in July, 1936, but had been living in Basel, Switzerland prior to heading to Buenos Aires:

Arnold Meyer, Ancestry.com. Swiss Overseas Emigration, 1910-1953. Original data: Schweizerisches Auswanderungsamt und Auswanderungsbüro. Überseeische Auswanderungen aus der Schweiz, 1910-1953. Schweizerisches Bundesarchiv (National Archives of Switzerland). E 2175 – 2.

According to Cibella/Baron, Arnold’s parents Max and Anna also both immigrated to Buenos Aires and died there, Anna in 1941 and Max in 1952. Unfortunately, I have no records for these events or for Arnold’s death in 1959.

Siegfried Meyer met a tragic end. He immigrated to the Netherlands, but on April 21, 1943, he was deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp, where he was murdered on November 23, 1943, and cremated.5

Arolsen Arhives, 1 Incarceration Documents / 1.1 Camps and Ghettos / 1.1.42 Theresienstadt Ghetto /1.1.42.2 Card File Theresienstadt /Ghetto Theresienstadt Card File, Reference Code
11422001

Thus, for Regina’s four oldest children, I have mixed results. Jacob’s family ended up in England and possibly Argentina; Max’s family ended up in Argentina. Tragically, Siegfried was murdered by the Nazis, and Alfred probably was also.

The next post will report on Regina’s youngest son, Ferdinand, and his family.

  1.  Hilde Meyer, Gender: Female, Marital status: Single, Birth Date: 21 Nov 1912, Residence Year: 1939, Address: 24, Residence Place: Yiewsley and West Drayton, Middlesex, England, Occupation: Parlourmaid, Schedule Number: 167, Sub Schedule Number: 3, Enumeration District: BZAA, Registration district: 127/1, The National Archives; Kew, London, England; 1939 Register; Reference: RG 101/994A, Ancestry.com. 1939 England and Wales Register ↩
  2. Lotte Wallach, Gender: Female, Age: 31, Birth Date: abt 1906, Departure Date: 16 Oct 1937, Port of Departure: Southampton, England, Destination Port: Buenos Aires, Argentina, Ship Name: Almanzora, Shipping Line: Royal Mail Lines Limited, Official Number: 136353, Ancestry.com. UK and Ireland, Outward Passenger Lists, 1890-1960 ↩
  3. Helmut Wallach, Gender: Male, Age: 31, Birth Date: abt 1906, Departure Date: 5 Feb 1937, Port of Departure: Southampton, England, Destination Port: Montevideo, Uruguay, Ship Name: Arlanza, Shipping Line: Royal Mail Lines Limited
    Official Number: 132021, Ancestry.com. UK and Ireland, Outward Passenger Lists, 1890-1960 ↩
  4. Elli Meyer, Death Date: 18 Apr 1966, Death Place: London, England, Probate Date: 6 Jun 1966, Probate Registry: London, England, Ancestry.com. England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1858-1995 ↩
  5. Siegfried Meyer, entries at Yad Vashem:  https://tinyurl.com/yazazrxa and https://tinyurl.com/y6v946fm ↩

Regina Goldschmidt Meyer: Another Young Widow

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Now I turn to Jacob Goldschmidt and Jettchen Cahn’s second daughter Regina Goldschmidt, who married eight months after her older sister Helene. She married Aaron Meyer in Frankfurt on August 26, 1874. Aaron was born on October 10, 1846, in Linz, Germany, to Abraham Meyer and Amalie Jacob.

Marriage record of Regina Goldschmidt and Aaron Meyer, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland, Year Range: 1874, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930

Regina and Aaron had six sons and one daughter.

Alfred Meyer was born on June 16, 1875, in Frankfurt.

Alfred Meyer, birth record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 903; Signatur: 903_8865, Year Range: 1875, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901

Jacob Meyer was born on September 29, 1876, in Frankfurt.

Jacob Meyer birth record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 903; Signatur: 903_8895 Description Year Range: 1876 Source Information Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901

Max Meyer was born on May 13, 1878, in Frankfurt:

Max Meyer birth record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 903; Signatur: 903_8917, Year Range: 1878, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901

Siegfried Meyer was born on August 16, 1881, in Frankfurt:

Siegfried Meyer birth record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 903; Signatur: 903_8957, Year Range: 1881, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901

A fifth son, Sally Meyer, was born on February 26, 1883, but died just a few days later on March 2, 1883, in Frankfurt.

Sally Meyer birth record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 903; Laufende Nummer: 145, Year Range: 1883, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901

Sally Meyer, death record, Personenstandsregister Sterberegister; Bestand: 903; Signatur: 10361
Year Range: 1883, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Deaths, 1851-1958

Regina and Aaron’s sixth son Ferdinand Meyer was born on April 27, 1886, in Frankfurt.

Ferdinand Meyer birth record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 903; Signatur: 903_9017, Year Range: 1886, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901

Finally, Regina and Aaron had a daughter Amalie Meyer, who was born on January 12, 1892, in Frankfurt:

Amalie Meyer, brith record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 903; Signatur: 903_9100, Year Range: 1892,  Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901

Like her sister Helene and her mother Jettchen, Regina was widowed at a relatively young age. Aaron Meyer died on December 30, 1902. He was only 56 years old, and Regina was 47. Their six surviving children ranged in age from 27 (Alfred) to ten years old (Amalie).

Aaron Meyer, death record, Personenstandsregister Sterberegister; Bestand: 903; Signatur: 10565
Year Range: 1902, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Deaths, 1851-1958

I have not yet found any marriage records for Alfred Meyer or Siegfried Meyer, but Regina’s other children all married.

Jacob Meyer married Elli Loeser on February 26, 1906. She was born June 24, 1884, in Koln, Germany, to Ferdinand Loeser and Helene Doctor.

Marriage record for Jacob Meyer Elli Loeser, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Signatur: 9690, Year Range: 1906, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930

According to Roger Cibella and David Baron’s research, Jacob and Elli had three children, Lotte (1907), Hilde (19120, and Arthur (1916).

Sadly, Jacob Meyer died when he was 51 on August 23, 1928. He was survived by his wife Elli and their children.

Jacob Meyer, death record, Personenstandsregister Sterberegister; Bestand: 903; Signatur: 10941
Year Range: 1928, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Deaths, 1851-1958

Max Meyer married Anna Katzenstein on February 28, 1910, in Eschwege, Germany.  She was born in that town on December 19, 1886, to Gustav Katzenstein and Julia Loewenstein Kayser.

Marriage of Max Meyer and Anna Katzenstein, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 923, Year Range: 1910, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930

According to Cibella/Baron, Max and Anna had one child, and I am looking for a record to establish that connection.

Ferdinand Meyer married Friederike Jaenecke on February 6, 1920, in Frankfurt. She was born to Karl Adelbert Jaenecke and Friederike Elisabethe Weber on July 6, 1891, in Frankfurt. Friederike was Protestant, not Jewish, one of the few “mixed marriages” I’ve encountered in my research of my relatives living in Germany during this time period.

Ferdinand Meyer and Friederike Jaenecke marriage record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 903, Year Range: 1920, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930

Ferdinand and Friederike had two children. Eleanora Meyer was born in Frankfurt on August 23, 1919. I do not have a birth record for her, but obtained this date from her parents’ naturalization papers filed years later.1 I noticed, of course, that her birth date was almost six months before Ferdinand and Friederike’s wedding on February 6, 1920. I assume that Ferdinand was nevertheless the biological father. This also may explain the unlikely marriage of a Jew and a Protestant in 1920.

Their second child, Erich Adelbert Meyer, was born on January 30, 1924, in Frankfurt.2

Finally, Regina and Aaron’s youngest child and only daughter, Amallie Meyer, married Charles Bloch in Frankfurt on November 24, 1911. Charles was born on August 14, 1881, in Frankfurt, to Julius Bloch and Clara Herzberg.

Marriage record of Amalie Meyer and Charles Bloch, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 923, Year Range: 1910, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930

Amalie and Charles had a daughter Ilse (or Else) Helen Bloch born in Frankfurt on May 30, 1913.3

Thus, by 1933, Regina Goldschmidt Meyer had survived her husband Aaron and two of her children, Jacob and Sally. Her other five children and her many grandchildren were still living when Hitler came to power in 1933.

We will pick up with Regina and her family in the next series of posts.

 

  1. Friederike Meyer naturationalization papers, National Archives at Boston; Waltham, Massachusetts; ARC Title: Petitions and Records of Naturalization , 8/1845 – 12/1911; NAI Number: 3000057; Record Group Title: Records of District Courts of the United States, 1685-2009; Record Group Number: RG 21, Ancestry.com. Massachusetts, State and Federal Naturalization Records, 1798-1950 ↩
  2. Erich Meyer naturalization papers, The National Archives at Atlanta, Georgia; Atlanta, Georgia; ARC Title: Petitions for Naturalization, compiled 1880 – 1975; NAI Number: 2111793; Record Group Title: Records of District Courts of the United States; Record Group Number: 21, Ancestry.com. Florida, Naturalization Records, 1847-1995 ↩
  3. Else Helen Bloch naturalization papers, Declaration Date: 2 Sep 1941
    Declaration Place: New York, Court: U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, Declaration Number: 498770, Box Number: 372, The National Archives at Philadelphia; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; NAI Title: Declarations of Intention for Citizenship, 1/19/1842 – 10/29/1959; NAI Number: 4713410; Record Group Title: Records of District Courts of the United States, 1685-2009; Record Group Number: 21,
    Ancestry.com. New York, State and Federal Naturalization Records, 1794-1943 ↩

Retrieving Art Stolen by the Nazis and Helping Victims of Discrimination: Helene Goldschmidt Fuld’s Grandsons

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Helene Goldschmidt Fuld’s only son Harry Fuld was my third cousin, twice removed.

Harry died on January 27, 1932, in the Netherlands, according to one source, or in Switzerland, according to others. He was 52 years old. Harry was survived by his wife and by two sons from his two earlier marriages, Harry Fuld, Jr., and Peter Harry Fuld.

By Googling Harry Fuld (sometimes I am amazed by what can be found!), I learned a great deal more about Harry and his sons than I had through ordinary genealogy tools. According to the website Deutsche Biographie,1 Harry Fuld, Sr. was a very successful entrepreneur. His grandfather Jacob Meier Goldschmidt wanted him to enter into the family’s art and antiques business, but Harry wanted to go into his own business. After training in a bank in Frankfurt and working in businesses in England, Belgium and France, he learned about an American business that leased telephone equipment and began his own such business in Germany. He experienced tremendous success, and his company expanded all over Germany as well as much of Europe. Harry also collected modern art and amassed a huge collection. When he died in 1932, he was a very wealthy man.

Harry’s heirs inherited his business and art collection, but when Hitler came to power and Jewish owned businesses were “Aryanized,” the Nazis seized the assets of the business and the art collection. There are numerous articles about the seizure of the art collection and the family’s efforts to reclaim the works after the war (see links below).

One thing that confused me about these articles is that they all referred to Harry’s widow as Lucie Mayer-Fuld, not Elsa Cajzago Tedesco, the name of his wife on the 1926 marriage record. Had Harry divorced his third wife Elsa Cajzago Tedesco Fuld and married a fourth time before he died in 1932?

That sent me down a rabbit hole, of course, looking for Lucie Mayer-Fuld. I couldn’t find a marriage record for a Lucie Mayer and Harry Fuld, nor could I find a birth record for her. The only records I initially found were listings for Lucie Mayer-Fuld in several Frankfurt directories from the late 1930s. But, of course, they did not tell me when or even whether she married Harry Fuld. Here’s one example from 1939.

Amtliches Fernsprechbuch für den Bezirk der Reichspostdirektion Berlin, 1939
Ancestry.com. German Phone Directories, 1915-1981

Then I located several ship manifests for Lucie Mayer-Fuld, but sailing with a man named Acatiu Mayer-Feld. Some of these manifests said he was born in Romania and so was Lucie; others said Hungary. I was really confused at this point. Had all those articles about the recovery of Harry’s art collection been wrong about the name of his widow?

Mayer-Fuld on passenger manifest, Year: 1941; Arrival: New York, New York; Microfilm Serial: T715, 1897-1957; Microfilm Roll: Roll 6521; Line: 1; Page Number: 8, Ancestry.com. New York, Passenger and Crew Lists (including Castle Garden and Ellis Island), 1820-1957

Mayer-Fuld, passenger manifest, The National Archives at Washington, D.C.; Washington, D.C.; Series Title: Passenger and Crew Lists of Vessels and Airplanes Departing from New York, New York, 07/01/1948-12/31/1956; NAI Number: 3335533; Record Group Title: Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, 1787-2004; Record Group Number: 85; Series Number: A4169; NARA Roll Number: 205, Ancestry.com. U.S., Departing Passenger and Crew Lists, 1914-1966

The breakthrough came when I found one index of a ship manifest for a ship arriving in Buenos Aires, Argentina on August 27, 1940, that identified Lucie Mayer-Fuld’s birth place as Funfkirchen, and that rang a bell. I went back to check, and sure enough, Elsa Cajzago Tedesco Fuld was born in Funfkirchen. Could she be the same person as Lucie Mayer-Fuld? And if so, where did the Mayer in her surname come from?

Ship LUISA C. arriving to Buenos Aires on Aug 27, 1940, found at https://www.hebrewsurnames.com/arrival_LUISA%20C._1940-08-27

Searching for Acatiu, an unusual enough name, was easier than searching for Lucie, and I found this immigration card from Brazil. His father’s surname was Mayer, so the Mayer in Lucie’s name had come from Acatiu, not from her own birth name.

Acatiu Mayer-Fuld, Digital GS Number: 004914991
Ancestry.com. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Immigration Cards, 1900-1965

I assumed that if Acatiu had gone to Argentina in 1940 and Lucie was on the same ship with him, she also must have had an Brazilian immigration card. But it had not come up during my Ancestry search for Lucie Mayer-Fuld. This time I did a more focused search in that database, and her card appeared. And there was my answer; her parents were A. Cajzago and Alice Cajzago. Lucie Mayer-Fuld was the same person as Elsa Cajzago Tedesco Fuld, the third wife and widow of my cousin Harry Fuld. She had remarried after Harry’s death and escaped from Germany with her new husband Acatiu.

Lucie Mayer-Fuld, Digital GS Number: 004561378
Ancestry.com. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Immigration Cards, 1900-1965

As for Harry’s two sons, according to Wikipedia, Harry, Jr., the son of Flora Sondheimer and Harry Fuld, Sr., escaped to Switzerland in 1937, leaving his father’s art collection behind in his haste to leave Germany. By 1939, Harry, Jr. was in England. On his registration as an “enemy alien” in 1939, Harry stated that he was the manager and a shareholder of Autophone Ltd, which I assume was in some way related to his father’s phone leasing business. Harry, Jr. was sent to an internment camp as an enemy alien from June 21, 1940, until December 22, 1941, according to his enemy alien registration form.

Harry Fuld, Jr., The National Archives; Kew, London, England; HO 396 WW2 Internees (Aliens) Index Cards 1939-1947; Reference Number: HO 396/152, Piece Number Description: 152: Australia Internees 1940-1943: Germans and Austrians Released in Australia, A-J, Ancestry.com. UK, WWII Alien Internees, 1939-1945

After the war Harry, Jr., and his family began efforts to regain his father’s art collection. As the many articles devoted to these efforts reveal, it took many years and a great deal of effort, but eventually the family had some success. Sadly, most of that success came years and years after Harry, Jr., died in London on October 31, 1963;2 he was only fifty years old.

For more on the return of the family’s art collection, see the stories and images at the links listed below. Some of the works were just returned as recently as the fall of 2019. The stories are quite fascinating, the art quite beautiful. I can’t do justice to it here on the blog.

https://www.thejc.com/news/world/stolen-by-nazis-restituted-to-its-rightful-owners-now-sold-at-sotheby-s-for-magen-david-adom-uk-1.486050

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

https://news.artnet.com/art-world/artworks-confiscated-nazis-restituted-jewish-art-collector-1640692

https://www.art-critique.com/en/2019/09/germany-returns-works-to-heirs-of-jewish-collector-and-businessman/

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/268431

As for Peter Harry Fuld, Harry, Sr.’s son with his second wife, Ida Felsmann, in the 1930s he was a teenager and living with his mother in Frankfurt. Ida was not Jewish, but because Peter’s father had been Jewish, making Peter a Mischling of the First Degree, Ida was concerned for his safety and sent him to Switzerland in 1937 and then to England in 1939. Peter wanted to study law at Cambridge University, but was interned on the Isle of Man as an enemy alien. He was then sent to Canada in June, 1940, where he again lived in an internment camp. According to the website for the foundation established in his name, he faced painful rejection and discrimination while confined in England and Canada: “Because of his Jewish roots on his father’s side, he was rejected by German and Jewish fugitives and avoided as a German by Canadian fellow students. He hardly found friends.”

After his release in 1941, Peter studied law at the University of Toronto and eventually returned to England after the war and devoted much of his time as a lawyer helping victims of discrimination. Peter married in 1957, but like his half-brother Harry, Jr., he died young. He died from an inoperable brain tumor on March 21, 1962, at the age of 41.

As mentioned above, a foundation was established in Peter’s name to provide support to victims of discrimination and to support education to fight discrimination.  You can learn more about the foundation here. All the information above about Peter came from that website.

Harry, Jr., and Peter died so close to each other in time that the London probate index lists them one after the other. How very sad.

Ancestry.com. England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1858-1995. Original data: Principal Probate Registry. Calendar of the Grants of Probate and Letters of Administration made in the Probate Registries of the High Court of Justice in England.

Like their father Harry Fuld, Sr., both Peter and Harry, Jr., left their mark on the world and are still remembered today. They were my fourth cousins, once removed.

 

  1. Lerner, Franz, “Fuld, Harry” in: New German Biography 5 (1961), p. 725 f. [Online version]; URL: https://www.deutsche-biographie.de/pnd136471404.html ↩
  2.  Registration district: Marylebone, Inferred County: London, Volume: 5d, Page: 357
    General Register Office; United Kingdom; Ancestry.com. England & Wales, Civil Registration Death Index, 1916-2007 ↩

Escaping from Germany to Brazil and Israel: Brick Walls

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We’ve already seen that Helene Goldschmidt Fuld’s second child, Minna Fuld, who was born in 1875, had a complicated marital history. First, she married Leo Offenstadt in 1894 when she was eighteen, and that marriage ended in divorce in 1904. She and Leo had had one child, Flora, in 1894. Then Minna married Ladislaus Polacovits in 1906, and he died in 1913; Minna had one child with Ladislaus, Lisolette, who was born in 1907.

Finally, Minna married Hermann Heinrich Karl Reuss in 1923, with whom she had no children. Hermann is listed in the 1940 Frankfurt directory1 and died in Frankfurt on September 27, 1947.

Hermann Reuss death record, Personenstandsregister Sterberegister; Bestand: 903; Signatur: 225
Year Range: 1947, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Deaths, 1851-1958

His death certificate indicates that he was a widower at the time of his death. I have no record for Minna’s death, but unsourced trees indicate that she died in Tel Aviv on May 3, 1944. Had Hermann gone with her to Palestine and returned to Germany after she died? Or had Hermann never left Germany?  I don’t know.

As we saw, Minna’s daughter Flora Offenstadt2 married Hermann Durlacher in 1918 and had two children with him, Siegfried Julius Thomas (known as Thomas) and Ulla Louise Sara. Flora and the two children immigrated to Brazil in 1939, as seen in these immigration cards.

Flora Offenstadt Durlacher, Digital GS Number: 004764836
Ancestry.com. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Immigration Cards, 1900-1965

Siegfried Julius Thomas Durlacher, Digital GS Number: 004916940
Ancestry.com. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Immigration Cards, 1900-1965

Ulla Durlacher, Digital GS Number: 004916940
Ancestry.com. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Immigration Cards, 1900-1965

I could not locate any further records for Hermann Durlacher, but several unsourced trees indicate that he died in Sao Paolo, Brazil, on November 15, 1954, so perhaps he also immigrated to Brazil either before, with, or after his family. I don’t know what happened to Flora or her two children after they immigrated to Brazil in 1939. An unsourced tree on Geni reports that Thomas died in Sao Paulo on December 23, 2007.

Minna’s second daughter, Liselotte Polacovits, married Wilhelm Strauss-Reich on June 5, 1928, and had one child, as discussed here. I was not able to find information about their whereabouts during the 1930s, but by 1942 Liselotte and Wilhelm both had Palestinian passports that they renewed in 1947. I was able to locate a marriage record for their son (who may still be living) in England, so perhaps they also ended up in England or maybe they stayed in Israel.

Liselotte Strauss-Reich, Israel Archives, at https://tinyurl.com/wwdy88x

Thus, there is much to do to learn more about Minna and her descendants. So far, however, I’ve hit dead ends and brick walls. Searching online for answers in Brazil and Israel has led me nowhere. Not knowing how to read either Portuguese or Hebrew (except some basic terms) makes the task even more difficult. If anyone has any thoughts, please let me know.

 

 

 

  1.  Title: Amtliches Frankfurter Adressbuch, Deutsche National Bibliothek; Leipzig, Deutschland; Publisher: August Scherl; Signatur: ZC 811; Laufende Nummer: 1, Ancestry.com. Germany and Surrounding Areas, Address Books, 1815-1974 ↩
  2. Flora’s father, Minna’s first husband Leo Offenstadt, died at Theriesenstadt concentration camp on January 9, 1943. See his entry at Yad Vashem at https://tinyurl.com/tz3gz73. ↩

Escaping from Germany: Another Splintered Family, the Cramers

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Helene Goldschmidt and Salomon Fuld’s oldest child, Clementine II, was born in 1874 and married David Cramer in 1892. They had two children, Sally David Cramer (1893) and Caroline Lilly Cramer (1894).

Let’s review where each member of the family was as of 1933 when the Nazis came to power and then learn where they were up through the end of World War II.

Sally David Cramer

Sally married Margarete Steinberg in 1921 and they had two sons, Hans Clemens and Peter Andreas, born in the 1920s.

Peter died as an eight-year-old on February 14, 1932, in Frankfurt.

Peter Cramer death record, Personenstandsregister Sterberegister; Bestand: 903; Signatur: 11001
Year Range: 1932, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Deaths, 1851-1958

Sally and Margarete then had a third child, a daughter, born July 15, 1933, in Frankfurt,1 just months after Hitler’s rise to power.

Fortunately, they left Germany by 1939 and were living in England where Sally was working as a “company director.”2

Their family suffered another terrible tragedy when their oldest son Hans Clemens, then known as John Denis Cramer, was killed on March 23, 1943, while serving in the British army during World War II; he was only 21 and was the second child of Sally and Margarete to predecease them.3

Thus, leaving Germany had not saved young Hans/John from danger.

Hans Clemens aka John Denis Cramer, probate listing, ncestry.com. England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1858-1995. Original data: Principal Probate Registry. Calendar of the Grants of Probate and Letters of Administration made in the Probate Registries of the High Court of Justice in England.

Caroline Lilly Cramer Drey

We saw that Sally’s sister Lilly (as she was known) married Arthur Drey in 1919, and they had three children born in Frankfurt in the 1920s: Dorothy, Claude, and Elizabeth. Arthur Drey was a known Expressionist poet and playwright in Germany. You can read a collection of his poems (in German, but easily translated by Google Translate) here.

Lilly and Arthur got out of Germany not long after Hitler came to power. According to this website devoted to the works of his son Claude Drey, Arthur feared he would be denounced for his anti-Nazi activities, and in 1933, he and his family left Germany and settled in Milan, Italy, for six years.

Then when Mussolini began to collaborate with Hitler in the late 1930s, Lilly and Arthur decided to leave Italy. They arrived in the United States on May 22, 1939 after first going to England, according to their naturalization papers. That was the same day that Hitler and Mussolini signed their Pact of Steel, forging a military alliance and paving the way to World War II.

Arthur Drey, Declaration of Intent, he National Archives at Philadelphia; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; NAI Title: Declarations of Intention for Citizenship, 1/19/1842 – 10/29/1959; NAI Number: 4713410; Record Group Title: Records of District Courts of the United States, 1685-2009; Record Group Number: 21,  (Roll 566) Declarations of Intention for Citizenship, 1842-1959 (No 443101-444000), Ancestry.com. New York, State and Federal Naturalization Records, 1794-1943

On the 1940 census, they were living in New York City, and Arthur was working as a director for an “electric firm.”4 His World War II draft registration identified him as self-employed by the Filtered Water Service Corporation in New York City.

Arthur Drey, World War II draft registration, The National Archives at St. Louis; St. Louis, Missouri; Record Group Title: Records of the Selective Service System; Record Group Number: 147, Ancestry.com. U.S., World War II Draft Registration Cards, 1942

Their son Claude was also working for his father’s company:

Claude Drey, World War II draft registration, Ancestry.com. U.S. WWII Draft Cards Young Men, 1940-1947

This biography of Claude provides greater details about his life:

During his first years in New York, Claude dedicated his time to studying English and engineering. He attended City College at night, and worked in the family’s water cooler rental business by day. He also began a lifetime pursuit of analytical psychology.  Claude worked with analysts under the school of Carl Jung.

In 1943, Claude’s older sister Dorothy married Rudolf Gerd Hamburger,5 who later changed his surname to Harvey.6 Rudolf was born in Berlin, Germany, on September 8, 1909, to Leo Hamburger and Johanna Borchardt.7 Dorothy and Rudolf had two children together.

Clementine Fuld and David Cramer

Meanwhile, Sally and Lilly’s parents Clementine and David Cramer had been living in Nice, France,  They arrived in New York on October 27, 1941, after the Nazis had occupied France.

David Cramer, declaration of intention, The National Archives at Philadelphia; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; NAI Title: Declarations of Intention for Citizenship, 1/19/1842 – 10/29/1959; NAI Number: 4713410; Record Group Title: Records of District Courts of the United States, 1685-2009; Record Group Number: 21, Description: (Roll 649) Declarations of Intention for Citizenship, 1842-1959 (No 517601-518500), Ancestry.com. New York, State and Federal Naturalization Records, 1794-1943

On the ship manifest as well as the declaration of intent, they named both their children, Sally in England and Lilly in New York.

David and Clemetine Cramer, passenger manifest, Year: 1941; Arrival: New York, New York; Microfilm Serial: T715, 1897-1957; Microfilm Roll: Roll 6588; Line: 1; Page Number: 114
Ancestry.com. New York, Passenger and Crew Lists (including Castle Garden and Ellis Island), 1820-1957

Thus, the whole family had left Germany in time and escaped the Nazis, but Clementine and David had lost their grandson Hans/John in the fight against the Nazis.

After the War

The family suffered two losses in the first years after the war. David Cramer died in New York on February 8, 1946 just five years after his arrival in the US and six months after the end of World War II; he was 84, and he was survived by his wife Clementine, their two children Sally and Lilly, and their grandchildren.8

Then on June 17, 1948, Dorothy Drey’s husband Rudolf was killed in a plane accident in Mt. Carmel, Pennsylvania.  He was one of 43 people killed when a United Airlines DC-6 tried to make an emergency landing and hit a 60,000 volt electrical tower and burst into flames.9 Dorothy was only 26 when she lost her husband; their two children were just preschoolers.

Rudolph Harvey, death certificate, Pennsylvania Historic and Museum Commission; Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; Pennsylvania (State). Death certificates, 1906–1967; Certificate Number Range: 051151-053700, Certificate Number Range: 051151-053700, Ancestry.com. Pennsylvania, Death Certificates, 1906-1967

According to Cibella/Baron, Dorothy remarried a few years later and had another child with her second husband.

But not all the family news was bad after the war. Elizabeth, the youngest Drey sibling, married Eric Harry Caspari in September 1949, in New York City.10 Eric was the son of Leo Caspari and Margarete Meyer and was born on April 6, 1914, in Berlin, Germany. 11  Elizabeth and Eric had three children together.

In the 1950s, Claude Drey developed an interest in photography. The website devoted to his works included this comment:

As with so many other pursuits he was determined to bring it to a professional level. He studied under several photographers and was influenced by Edward Weston.  Most of his work was in black and white; he did all of his own development.  Claude was successful in having his work exhibited in several gallery shows including a one-man exhibit at the Image Gallery. His works was sold to publishers for use in advertising and appeared in several books.  

Most of Claude’s photography focused on nature. He took many pictures of animals, plants and flowers. He traveled to California and did a series on Point Lobus.  Claude’s family and friends were models – especially his young wife Grace.  His photography related in many ways to his psychological studies and particularly in his pictures of people, he tried to capture a part of their spirit.

A more unusual series of photographs Claude created was on car “graveyards” and on a slaughterhouse.  For some the pictures of the animals being killed and butchered may be disturbing.

I would imagine that that series of disturbing photographs was somewhat inspired by the experiences he had as a teenager and young man running from the Nazis and Fascists in Europe and then learning what had happened to those who had not been fortunate enough to leave in time. You can see some of Claude’s photography here.

Clementine Fuld Cramer survived her husband David by sixteen years; she died at 87 on March 30, 1962.12

Her son-in-law Arthur Drey died on July 1, 1965; he was 72.13 And his wife Lilly Cramer Drey followed him almost exactly a year later. She died on June 23, 1966, at the age of 71.14 They were survived by their three children and eight grandchildren. Their daughter Dorothy died on February 10, 1972, in New York, 15 Claude Drey died on November 7, 1989,16 and the youngest sibling Elizabeth died on July 8, 2005.17

Clementine’s son Sally Cramer, who had outlived his two sons as well as his parents and sister Lilly, died in London at the age of 87 on March 9, 1977;18 his wife Margarete died ten years later on December 10, 1987.19 She was 89. They were survived by their youngest child.

Clementine Fuld Cramer’s story is another story of German Jews who escaped in time and ended up contributing much to their new homeland. Claude Drey’s photographs are worth examining to see the beauty that he could find around him despite having had such a difficult and disrupted boyhood.

 

 

 

  1. FHL Film Number: 004909566m Ancestry.com. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Immigration Cards, 1900-1965 ↩
  2. Sally David Cramer and family, The National Archives; Kew, London, England; 1939 Register; Reference: RG 101/868A, Enumeration District: BOAA, Ancestry.com. 1939 England and Wales Register ↩
  3. Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com : accessed 03 April 2020), memorial page for Pvt John Denis Cramer (unknown–23 Mar 1943), Find a Grave Memorial no. 151392819, citing Willesden United Synagogue Cemetery, Willesden, London Borough of Brent, Greater London, England ; Maintained by Find A Grave (contributor 8) . ↩
  4. Arthur Drey and family, 1940 US census, Census Place: New York, New York, New York; Roll: m-t0627-02647; Page: 2A; Enumeration District: 31-964, Ancestry.com. 1940 United States Federal Census ↩
  5.  Name: Dorothy Drey, Gender: Female, Marriage License Date: 26 May 1943
    Marriage License Place: Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA, Spouse: Rudolph F Hamburger, License Number: 10550, New York City Municipal Archives; New York, New York; Borough: Manhattan; Volume Number: 5, Ancestry.com. New York, New York, Marriage License Indexes, 1907-2018 ↩
  6. See his World War II draft registration at Ancestry.com. U.S. WWII Draft Cards Young Men, 1940-1947. ↩
  7. Rudolf Harvey death certificate, Pennsylvania Historic and Museum Commission; Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; Pennsylvania (State). Death certificates, 1906–1967; Certificate Number Range: 051151-053700, Ancestry.com. Pennsylvania, Death Certificates, 1906-1967 ↩
  8.  Certificate Number: 3719, New York City Department of Records & Information Services; New York City, New York; New York City Death Certificates; Borough: Manhattan; Year: 1946, Ancestry.com. New York, New York, Index to Death Certificates, 1862-1948 ↩
  9. There are many news articles about the crash, which was the second worst in US history at that time. For example, “DC-6 Wreck Hides Cause of Tragedy,” The Times-Tribune, Scranton, Pennsylvania, 18 Jun 1948, Fri • Page 1 ↩
  10.  Elizabeth H Drey, Marriage License Date: 9 Sep 1949, Marriage License Place: Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA, Spouse: Harry E Caspari, License Number: 24292, New York City Municipal Archives; New York, New York; Borough: Manhattan; Volume Number: 35, Ancestry.com. New York, New York, Marriage License Indexes, 1907-2018 ↩
  11. Eric Harry Caspari, Birth Date: 6 Apr 1914, Birth Place: Berlin, Federal Republic of Germany, Death Date: 6 May 1975, Father: Leo Caspari, Mother: Margarete Meyer
    SSN: 168126664, Ancestry.com. U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007 ↩
  12. Certificate Number: 7231, Ancestry.com. New York, New York, Death Index, 1949-1965 ↩
  13.  Arthur Drey, Social Security Number: 094-14-0864, Birth Date: 9 Sep 1890
    Last Residence: 10025, New York, New York, New York, USA, Death Date: Jul 1965
    Social Security Administration; Washington D.C., USA; Social Security Death Index, Master File, Ancestry.com. U.S., Social Security Death Index, 1935-2014 ↩
  14.  Lilly Drey, Social Security Number: 068-24-9127, Birth Date: 26 Sep 1894
    Last Residence: 10025, New York, New York, New York, USA, Death Date: Jul 1966
    Social Security Administration; Washington D.C., USA; Social Security Death Index, Master File, Ancestry.com. U.S., Social Security Death Index, 1935-2014 ↩
  15. Dorothy Schaefer, Birth Date: 30 Mar 1921, Death Date: Feb 1972
    SSN: 130142475, Ancestry.com. U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007 ↩
  16. Claude Clemens Drey, Birth Date: 13 Nov 1919, Birth Place: Francfort PR, Federal Republic of Germany, Death Date: 7 Nov 1989, Father: Arthur Drey, Mother: Lilly Cramer, SSN: 072127096, Ancestry.com. U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007 ↩
  17. Elizabeth Helen Drey, [Elizabeth Helen Caspari]Birth Date: 22 Jan 1926
    Birth Place: Frankfurt Yi, Federal Republic of Germany, Death Date: 8 Jul 2005
    Father: Arthur Drey, Mother: Lilly Cramer, SSN: 076202437, Ancestry.com. U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007 ↩
  18. Sally Cramer, Registration district: Westminster Inferred County: Greater London
    Volume: 15, Page: 2123, General Register Office; United Kingdom; Volume: 15; Page: 2123, Ancestry.com. England & Wales, Civil Registration Death Index, 1916-2007 ↩
  19. Margarete Cramer, Death Date: 10 Dec 1987, Death Place: London, Probate Date: 11 Oct 1988, Probate Registry: London, Ancestry.com. England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1858-1995 ↩

Helene Goldschmidt Fuld’s Children: Marriages and Divorces

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The oldest child of Jacob Meier Goldschmidt and Jettchen Cahn, Helene Goldschmidt Fuld, was widowed as a young mother in 1882 and left to raise her four children on her own: Clementine II (1874), Minna (1875), Harry (1878) and Hedwig (1880).

In the 1890s, her three daughters all married.

The oldest daughter Clementine Fuld II married David Cramer, son of Jacob Cramer and Caroline Furth, on June 24, 1892, in Frankfurt. David was born in Thundorf, Germany on January 1, 1862.

Marriage of Clementine Fuld and David Cramer, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 903, Year Range: 1892, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930

Clementine II and David had two children. Sally David Cramer was born on May 21, 1893, in Frankfurt.

Sally David Cramer birth record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 903; Signatur: 903_9120, Year Range: 1893, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901

His sister Caroline Lilly Cramer was born the following year on September 26, 1894, in Frankfurt.

Caroline Lilly Cramer birth record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 903; Signatur: 903_9138, Year Range: 1894, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901

Caroline Lilly Cramer (known as Lilly) married Arthur Drey on January 27, 1919. Arthur was the son of Simon Drey and Flora Lovis and was born on September 9, 1890, in Wuerzberg, Germany. Arthur and Lilly would have three children born between 1919 and 1926: Claude (1919),1 Florence (1921),2 and Elisabeth (1926).3

Lilly Cramer and Arthur Drey marriage record,
Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 903
Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930

Lilly Cramer Drey’s brother Sally Cramer married two years after she did. Sally married Margarete Steinberg on April 29, 1921 in Frankfurt. She was born in Frankfurt to Albert and Carrie Steinberg on April 24, 1898.  Sally and Margarete had two sons born in the 1920s: Hans (1921)4 and Peter (1923).5

Sally Cramer and Margarete Steinberg marriage record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 903, Year Range: 1921, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930

Salomon and Helene’s second child, Minna Fuld, married Leo Offenstadt on September 7, 1894, just over two months after her sister Clementine’s wedding. Leo was born on June 6, 1870, in Frankfurt, the son of Amschel Offenstadt and Julie Schwab.

Marriage record of Minna Fuld and Leo Offenstadt, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 903, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930

They had one daughter, Flora Offenstadt, born the following year on June 30, 1895, in Frankfurt.

Flora Offenstadt birth record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 903; Signatur: 903_9153, Year Range: 1895, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901

Minna and Leo were divorced on November 15, 1904, as noted on their marriage record. According to several sources, including Roger Cibella and David Baron, in 1906 Minna then married Ladislaus Polacovitz, who was born in Kala, Hungary, on April 30, 1868. These sources also report that Minna and Ladislaus had a child, Liselotte Polacovitz, on May 14, 1907, in Sofia, Bulgaria.

I cannot find any source for the marriage or any other official record for Ladislaus, but I do have a FindAGrave entry for Ladislaus Polacavitz indicating that he died on September 13, 1913, in Frankfurt, just seven years after their marriage, if the unsourced marriage date is correct.6

I have only two records that support the marriage of Ladislaus Polacovitz to Minna Fuld. The first is Minna’s third marriage record. On June 8, 1923 in Frankfurt, a Minna Polakovicz geb. Fuld married Hermann Heinrich Karl Reuss.

Marriage record of Minna Fuld and Hermann Reuss, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 903, Year Range: 1923, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930

The second record is a marriage record for a Liselotte Polacovitz and Wilhelm Strauss-Reich dated January 5, 1928. Wilhelm was the son of Benjamin Strauss and Franziska Silberberg and was born in Munich on May 29, 1899.

Marriage of Liselotte Polacovitz and Wilhelm Strauss-Reich, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 903, Year Range: 1928, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930

The marriage record does not include Liselotte’s parents’ names, but one of the witnesses to that marriage was Clementine Fuld Cramer, Minna’s sister, supporting the inference that Liselotte was related to Minna Fuld Polacovitz. Liselotte and Wilhelm had one child born in the 1920s, according to Cibella/Baron.

Meanwhile, Minna’s daughter from her first marriage, Flora Offenstadt, had married Hermann Durlacher on November 21, 1918, in Hamburg. That record indicates that her mother’s name was currently Polacovitz. Hermann Durlacher was born in Muehringen, Germany, on October 14, 1885, to Julius Durlacher and Luise Schweitzer. Flora and Hermann would have two children, Siegfried Fritz Julius Thomas, born in Hamburg on September 1, 1919,7 and Ulla Louise Sara, born on July 27, 1923, in Hamburg.8

Marriage of Flora Offerstadt and Hermann Durlacher, Year Range and Volume: 1918 Band 02
Ancestry.com. Hamburg, Germany, Marriages, 1874-1920. Original data: Best. 332-5 Standesämter, Personenstandsregister, Sterberegister, 1876-1950, Staatsarchiv Hamburg, Hamburg, Deutschland.

Here is a chart showing Minna’s three husbands and her two children and their spouses.

The youngest of Helene and Salomon’s daughters, Hedwig Fuld, also married before the 20th century began. She was nineteen when she married Isidor Reiling on November 17, 1899, in Frankfurt. Isidor was born in Mainz on October 30, 1867, making him thirteen years older than Hedwig. He was the son of David Reiling and Esther Schmalkalden.

Marriage record of Hedwig Fuld and Isidor Reiling, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 903, Year Range: 1899, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930

Hedwig and Isidor had one daughter, Netti Reiling, born in Mainz on November 19, 1900.

Netti Reiling birth record,Year Range: 1900 Band 5, Ancestry.com. Mainz, Germany, Birth Records, 1872-1900. Original data: Personenstandsregister Geburtenregister 1876-1900. Digital images. Stadtarchiv Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

On August 10,1925, Netti married Laszlo Radvani, who was born in September 13, 1900, in Budapest. I will have a lot to say about Netti and Laszlo in a later post.

Helene Goldschmidt Fuld’s son Harry Fuld married Flora Sondheimer sometime early in the 20th century. Flora was born in Strassbourg, France, on January 22, 1881, to Aron Sondheimer and Fanny Oppenheimer.9 I do not have a marriage record for Harry and Flora, but David Baron and Roger Cibella’s rerport shows that they were married in Strassbourg on March 12, 1903.

Harry and Flora had one child who shared his father’s name, Harry Fuld, Jr. He was born in Frankfurt on September 2, 1913.10 The fact that Harry was born ten years after the date reported for his parents’ marriage makes me wonder whether that date is correct. and if it is correct, whether there were other pregnancies prior to the birth of Harry, Jr.

Harry, Sr., and Flora divorced sometime before May 28, 1920, when Harry married his second wife, Ida Margareta Maria Felsmann. She was the daughter of Eugen Felsmann and Emma Stolze and was born in Mainz on December 8, 1884. They had one son, Peter Harry Fuld, born in Frankfurt on February 12, 1921.11

Marriage of Harry Fuld, Sr. and Ida Margarete Maria Felsmann, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 903, Year Range: 1920, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930

Harry and Ida divorced in 1926, and on May 12, 1926, Harry married his third wife, Elsa Cajzago Tedesco, who had also been previously married. Elsa was born in Funfkirchen, Hungary, on March 21, 1881, and was living in Budapest at the time of the marriage. More on Elsa in a subsequent post.

Marriage record of Harry Fuld and Elsa Tedesco, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 903, Year Range: 1926, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930

Here’s a chart showing Harry’s three marriages and his children.

While all these marriages, divorces, and births were occurring, the family lost its matriarch when Helene Goldschmidt Fuld died on April 15, 1922, at the age of 68.

Helene Goldschmidt I Fuld death record, Personenstandsregister Sterberegister; Bestand: 903; Signatur: 10857, Year Range: 1922, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Deaths, 1851-1958

She had outlived her husband Salomon by forty years and had managed to raise four children on her own. Looking at Minna and Harry’s marital histories–each married three times—one has to wonder what impact losing their father when they were so young had on them.

That brings Helene Goldschmidt Fuld’s family up to the late 1920s. Next we will see what happened to each of them in the 1930s and after.

 

  1. Claude Drey, Birth Date: 13 Nov 1919, Birth Place: Frankfort, Germany, Registration Date: 1 Jul 1941, Registration Place: New York, New York, Ancestry.com. U.S. WWII Draft Cards Young Men, 1940-1947 ↩
  2. Dorothy Drey, Naturalization papers, The National Archives at Philadelphia; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; NAI Title: Declarations of Intention for Citizenship, 1/19/1842 – 10/29/1959; NAI Number: 4713410; Record Group Title: Records of District Courts of the United States, 1685-2009; Record Group Number: 21, Ancestry.com. New York, State and Federal Naturalization Records, 1794-1943 ↩
  3. Elizabeth Drey, Birth Date: 22 Jan 1926, Birth Place: Frankfurt Yi, Federal Republic of Germany, Father: Arthur Drey, Mother: Lilly Cramer, SSN: 076202437, Ancestry.com. U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007 ↩
  4.  Hans Clemens Cramer, Birth Date: 15 Dez 1921, Birth Place: Bonn, Last Residence: Frankfurt am Main, National Archives and Records Administration (NARA); Washington, DC; Name Index of Jews Whose German Nationality Was Annulled by the Nazi Regime (Berlin Documents Center); Record Group: 242, National Archives Collection of Foreign Records Seized, 1675 – 1958; Record Group ARC ID: 569; Publication Number: T355; Roll: 2, Brüll, Erna – Fränkel, Werner, Ancestry.com. Germany, Index of Jews Whose German Nationality was Annulled by Nazi Regime, 1935-1944 ↩
  5.  Peter Andreas Cramer, Age: 8, Death Date: 14 Feb 1932, Death Place: Frankfurt, Hessen (Hesse), Deutschland (Germany), Civil Registration Office: Frankfurt IV
    Certificate Number: 180, Personenstandsregister Sterberegister; Bestand: 903; Signatur: 11001, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Deaths, 1851-1958 ↩
  6. Ancestry.com. Germany, Find A Grave Index, 1600s-Current, Original data: Find A Grave. Find A Grave. http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi. ↩
  7.  Siegfried Fritz Julius Thomas Durlacher, Birth Date: 1 Sep 1919, Birth Place: Hamburg, National Archives and Records Administration (NARA); Washington, DC; Name Index of Jews Whose German Nationality Was Annulled by the Nazi Regime (Berlin Documents Center); Record Group: 242, National Archives Collection of Foreign Records Seized, 1675 – 1958; Record Group ARC ID: 569; Publication Number: T355; Roll: 2, Brüll, Erna – Fränkel, Werner, Ancestry.com. Germany, Index of Jews Whose German Nationality was Annulled by Nazi Regime, 1935-1944 ↩
  8.  Ulla Louise Sara Durlacher, Birth Date: 27 Jul 1923, Birth Place: Hamburg, National Archives and Records Administration (NARA); Washington, DC; Name Index of Jews Whose German Nationality Was Annulled by the Nazi Regime (Berlin Documents Center); Record Group: 242, National Archives Collection of Foreign Records Seized, 1675 – 1958; Record Group ARC ID: 569; Publication Number: T355; Roll: 2, Brüll, Erna – Fränkel, Werner, Ancestry.com. Germany, Index of Jews Whose German Nationality was Annulled by Nazi Regime, 1935-1944 ↩
  9. Flora Sondheimer Fuld death record, Personenstandsregister Sterberegister; Bestand: 903; Signatur: 11125, Year Range: 1941, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Deaths, 1851-1958 ↩
  10. Harry Fuld, Gender: Male, Nationality: German, Birth Date: 2 Sep 1913, Birth Place: Frankfurt, Germany, The National Archives; Kew, London, England; HO 396 WW2 Internees (Aliens) Index Cards 1939-1947; Reference Number: HO 396/152, Ancestry.com. UK, WWII Alien Internees, 1939-1945 ↩
  11. Peter Fuld death record, Deutschland, Hessen, Frankfurt, Standesbücher 1928-1978,” database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QKVW-26XV : 12 April 2019), Peter Harry Fuld, 21 Mar 1962; citing Death, Frankfurt am Main, Hessen, Deutschland, Hessische ↩

A Mother and Her Daughter, Both Widowed Too Young

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Having told the stories of my four-times great-uncle Meyer Goldschmidt’s two oldest children, Ella and Sarah, I now turn to his oldest son and third child, Jacob Meier Goldschmidt. Jacob was born on October 26, 1824, in Grebenstein, Germany. We saw that Jacob married Jettchen Cahn on July 6, 1853.

Jacob and Jettchen had five children.

Helene Goldschmidt was born on April 4, 1854, in Frankfurt.

Helene Goldschmidt birth record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 903; Signatur: 903_8804, Year Range: 1854, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901

Regina Goldschmidt was born July 31, 1855, in Frankfurt.

Regina Goldschmidt birth record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 903; Signatur: 903_8806, Year Range: 1855, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901

Julius Goldschmidt was born on March 20, 1858, in Frankfurt.

Julius Goldschmidt birth record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 903; Signatur: 903_8812, Year Range: 1858, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901

Mayer Goldschmidt (obviously named for his grandfather and later known as Marcel) was born on July 12, 1860, in Frankfurt.

Mayer Goldschmidt birth record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 903; Signatur: 903_8816, Year  Range: 1860, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901

And finally, Helmina Goldschmidt was born in Frankfurt on October 23, 1863.

Helmina Goldschmidt birth record, Certificate Number: 1368, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 903; Signatur: 903_8824, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901

But Jacob Meier Goldschmidt did not live to see those five children grow up. He died January 20, 1864, when he was only 39 and his children were all younger than ten years old. Little Helmina was only three months old and never knew her father.

Jacob Meier Goldschmidt, death record, Personenstandsregister Sterberegister; Bestand: 903; Signatur: 10258, Year Range: 1864, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Deaths, 1851-1958

Losing their father at such a young age must have been traumatic for the family. Fortunately, Jacob’s family continued to grow and become his legacy—his five children, twenty-two grandchildren, and numerous great-grandchildren, as we will see.

The rest of this post and the set that follow will focus on his oldest child, Helene Goldschmidt Fuld, and her family.

Helene married Salomon Fuld on January 23, 1874, in Frankfurt.

Helene Goldschmidt I marriage to Salomon Fuld, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland, Year Range: 1874, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930

Salomon was also a Frankfurt native, born there on February 5, 1836, making him nineteen years older than Helene. He was the son of Herz Salomon Fuld and Caroline Schuster and the older brother of Clementine Fuld, wife of Selig Goldschmidt, who was Helene’s uncle, her father Jacob’s brother.

Helene and Salomon had four children, Clementine, Minna, Harry and Hedwig.

Clementine Fuld was born December 3, 1874, in Frankfurt. At first I thought she’d been named for Salomon’s sister, but his sister Clementine was still alive when her niece was born. If the baby was named for her living aunt, that would have been unusual, given Jewish naming patterns. She could have been named for the same deceased relative for whom Clementine I was named.  But it seemed to happen a few times in this branch of the family that children were given the names of living relatives. I will refer to Helene and Salomon’s daughter as Clementine Fuld II.

Clementine Fuld II birth record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 903; Signatur: 903_8859, Year Range: 1874, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901

Helene and Salomon’s second daughter Minna Fuld was born on December 13, 1875, in Frankfurt.

Minna Fuld birth record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 903; Signatur: 903_8867, Year Range: 1875, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901

Harry Fuld was born on February 3, 1879, in Frankfurt.

Harry Fuld birth record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 903; Signatur: 903_8927, Year Range: 1879, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901

And finally, Hedwig Fuld was born in Frankfurt on February 21, 1880.

Hedwig Fuld birth record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 903; Signatur: 903_8941, Year Range: 1880, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901

Then, just as Helene had lost her own father when she was just nine years old, her children lost their father as young children when Salomon Fuld died on May 27, 1882 at the age of 46. Helene was only 28, a widow with four children ranging in age from two year old Hedwig to seven year old Clementine II.

Salomon Fuld, death record, Personenstandsregister Sterberegister; Bestand: 903; Signatur: 10353, Year Range: 1882, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Deaths, 1851-1958

Helene managed to raise those four children on her own, perhaps with the help of her extended family, as we will see in the next post.

 

Escaping from Germany, Part VI: Germany’s Loss, America and Israel’s Gains

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Abraham and Johanna (Goldschmidt) Stern’s daughter Clementine had died in 1919 during the 1918 flu epidemic, survived by her husband Siegfried Oppenheimer and three children: Erika (1909), William Erwin (1912), and Sarah Gabriele (1917). After Clementine’s death, Siegfried married her younger sister Alice Lea, with whom he had five more children, all born in the 1920s. All eight of those children as well as Alice and Siegfried themselves escaped from Germany in the 1930s.

The Children of Clementine Stern and Siegfried Oppenheimer

Siegfried and Clementine’s oldest child, Erika Oppenheimer, first escaped to the Netherlands in 1933, but she immigrated to the United States on July 4, 1938, appropriately enough. Two weeks later she married Paul Fromm in Chicago, Illinois, on July 20, 1938. Paul also had arrived on July 4, 1938, so the two may have met and fallen in love on the ship that brought them to the US. Paul was born in Kitzingen, Germany, on September 28, 1906, into a family with a long tradition as vintners. He had been living in Bingen, Germany, before immigrating. Erika and Paul both filed their naturalization papers on August 26, 1938, less than two months after their arrival.

Erika Oppenheimer Fromm, Declaration of Intent, National Archives at Chicago; Chicago, Illinois; ARC Title: Illinois, Petitions for Naturalization, 1906-1991; NAI Number: 593882; Record Group Title: Records of District Courts of the United States, 1685-2009; Record Group Number: RG 21
Description: Petitions for naturalization, v 1185, no 296351-296550, ca 1943-1944
Ancestry.com. Illinois, Federal Naturalization Records, 1856-1991

Paul Fromm, Declaration of Intent, National Archives at Chicago; Chicago, Illinois; ARC Title: Illinois, Petitions for Naturalization, 1906-1991; NAI Number: 593882; Record Group Title: Records of District Courts of the United States, 1685-2009; Record Group Number: RG 21
Description: Petitions for naturalization, v 1185, no 296351-296550, ca 1943-1944
Ancestry.com. Illinois, Federal Naturalization Records, 1856-1991

The 1940 census reports them living in Chicago, where Paul was the proprietor of a wholesale liquor importation business and Erika a psychologist working in a hospital clinic.1 They would have one child born in 1940.

Both Paul and Erika achieved great success in the US. Paul was a very successful wine merchant, but also made his name as a philanthropist who generously supported the arts, music specifically. He created the Fromm Foundation at Harvard to support musicians and composers and musical events such as Tanglewood and the Aspen Music Festival. John Rockwell, the long-time music critic for the New York Times, described Paul Fromm as “the most active and distinguished private patron of contemporary classical music in the United States.” Paul died on the 49th anniversary of his arrival in the US, July 4, 1987.  He was eighty years old.2

Erika also had a distinguished career. She had received her doctorate in psychology from the University of Frankfurt in 1933 before escaping to the Netherlands. After immigrating to the US in 1938, she became a research assistant in psychiatry at the University of Chicago for a few years and then spent years in practice, eventually returning to the faculty at the University of Chicago in 1961, where she became a scholarly expert in the use of hypnosis. Her obituary described some of her professional accomplishments:3

Dr. Fromm considered hypnosis a valuable analytical tool that, when used by a skilled practitioner, could provide access to a patient’s unconscious conflicts and desires. She said hypnosis could induce an altered state of consciousness involving heightened awareness and focus in approximately 1 in 12 people.

She used hypnosis to treat severely disturbed patients as well as victims of incest and those suffering from post-traumatic stress disorders. She also advocated self-hypnosis as a path to self-exploration.

In the 1980’s, Dr. Fromm joined the growing field of behavioral medicine, which uses hypnosis, meditation, biofeedback and other techniques to treat physical ailments. Her book ”Hypnosis and Behavioral Medicine,” written with Dr. Daniel P. Brown and published in 1987, presented research supporting those methods in treating allergies, asthma, migraines and hypertension.

Erika Oppenheimer Fromm died on May 25, 2003, in Chicago. She was 93.4

Clementine and Siegfried’s son William Erwin Oppenheimer (often called Erwin) left Germany very early; he arrived in Palestine on November 8, 1933, less than a year after Hitler was elected Chancellor of Germany. By 1938, when he applied for Palestinian citizenship, he was married to Hannie Halpern, who was also a refugee from Germany. She was born in Frankfurt on September 1, 1914. Erwin was then working as a farmer near Rehovoth.5 According to trees on MyHeritage, he died on April 22, 1963, in Jerusalem. He was only fifty years old.

Immigration and Naturalization File, Israel Archives, found at https://www.archives.gov.il/en/archives/#/Archive/0b07170680034dc1/File/0b071706810638e5

As for Clementine and Siegfried’s younger daughter Sarah Gabriele Oppenheimer, known as Gabriele, I am missing some pieces to Gabriele’s story, but it appears from documents that she had been married to a man named Leon Schindel, whom she divorced in Jerusalem on July 28, 1941.6

Among Gabriele’s immigration documents is her original Palestinian passport, issued on December 2, 1937, so she was already a citizen of Palestine by then. She was a professional photographer, according to her passport.

She married a second time in Tel Aviv on September 11, 1942, to Martin Lederman; he was born in Dresden, Germany, on April 13, 1904, and had immigrated to Palestine on March 26, 1940; he had previously been living in Panama. According to his Palestinian naturalization papers, Martin was a publisher.7

Martin and Gabriele did not remain in Palestine, later Israel, for too long after the war ended.  They made several trips to England and the US after the war, and in June 1949, they indicated on the ship manifest taking them from England to the US that their intended future permanent residence was the “USA.”8  Gabriele became a naturalized US citizen on December 20, 1954,9 and Martin on February 14, 1955.10 They were residing in New York City.

Both Martin and Gabriele lived into their eighties. Martin died on July 9, 1991, at 87,11 and Gabriele died on January 11, 2001, at the age of 83.12 As far as I can tell, they did not have any children.

Alice Stern and Siegfried Oppenheimer

I don’t have many documents for what happened to Alice and Siegfried Oppenheimer before they arrived in Palestine in late 1938. But as we saw in my last post, a letter written by Erich Stern, Siegfried Stern’s son, to his brother Gunther Stern in 1938 on November 13, 1938, revealed that Siegfried Oppenheimer was arrested in the aftermath of Kristallnacht just days before his family planned to travel to Palestine.

But eventually Siegfried and Alice and all five of their children made it to Palestine. Alice and Siegfried Oppenheimer arrived with three youngest of those children, and their two oldest children arrived separately around the same time.13 They all became naturalized citizens of Palestine in 1941.

I do not have death records for Alice or Siegfried, but the research of Cibella/Baron indicates that both died in Israel, Siegfried in 1959, Alice in 1986. All but one of their five children also lived the rest of their lives in Israel; the other child immigrated to the US after the war.

Thus, of the eight children of Clementine and Alice Stern, six ended up in Israel, two in the United States. Clementine, Alice, and Siegfried Oppenheimer have many descendants living in both countries. What Germany lost—e.g., a brilliant psychologist, a philanthropist and entrepreneur, and a photographer–were gifts to the countries that took them in.

  1. Erika and Paul Fromm, 1940 US census, Census Place: Chicago, Cook, Illinois; Roll: m-t0627-00929; Page: 4B; Enumeration District: 103-268, Ancestry.com. 1940 United States Federal Census ↩
  2. “Paul Fromm dies at 80; was Fromm week patron,” The Berkshire Eagle
    Pittsfield, Massachusetts, 07 Jul 1987, Tue • Page 12. “Paul Fromm, Philanthropist,” Hartford Courant, Hartford, Connecticut, 06 Jul 1987, Mon • Page 128. Paul Fromm
    Social Security Number: 323-12-0163, Birth Date: 28 Sep 1906, Issue State: Illinois
    Last Residence: 60637, Chicago, Cook, Illinois, USA, Death Date: Jul 1987, Social Security Administration; Washington D.C., USA; Social Security Death Index, Master File, Ancestry.com. U.S., Social Security Death Index, 1935-2014 ↩
  3. “Erika Fromm, 93, Psychologist and Expert in Use in Hypnosis,” The New York Times, May 30, 2003, Section B, Page 9. ↩
  4.  Erika Fromm, Social Security Number: 340-32-7862, Birth Date: 23 Dec 1909
    Issue year: 1955-1956, Issue State: Illinois, Last Residence: 60637, Chicago, Cook, Illinois, USA, Death Date: 25 May 2003, Social Security Administration; Washington D.C., USA; Social Security Death Index, Master File, Ancestry.com. U.S., Social Security Death Index, 1935-2014 ↩
  5. Erwin Oppenheimer, Immigration and Naturalization File, Israel Archives, found at https://tinyurl.com/rxv8ox4 ↩
  6. Martin Lederman and Gabriele Oppenheimer Schindel Lederman, Immigration and Naturalization File, Israel Archives, found at https://tinyurl.com/tbvdq97 ↩
  7. See footnote 6. ↩
  8. Martin and Gabriele Lederman, ship manifest, Departure Date: 22 Jun 1949
    Port of Departure: Southampton, England, Destination Port: New York, USA,
    Ancestry.com. UK and Ireland, Outward Passenger Lists, 1890-1960 ↩
  9. Martin Lederman, Naturalization Date: 14 Feb 1955, Residence: New York, New York, Ancestry.com. New York, Index to Petitions for Naturalization filed in New York City, 1792-1989 ↩
  10. Gabriele Lederman, Naturalization Date: 20 Dec 1954, Residence: New York, New York, Ancestry.com. New York, Index to Petitions for Naturalization filed in New York City, 1792-1989 ↩
  11.  Martin Lederman, Social Security Number: 060-26-6446, Birth Date: 13 Apr 1904
    Death Date: 9 Jul 1991, Social Security Administration; Washington D.C., USA; Social Security Death Index, Master File, Ancestry.com. U.S., Social Security Death Index, 1935-2014 ↩
  12.  Gabriele Lederman, Social Security Number: 121-54-6243, Birth Date: 20 Jul 1917, Death Date: 11 Jan 2001, Social Security Administration; Washington D.C., USA; Social Security Death Index, Master File, Ancestry.com. U.S., Social Security Death Index, 1935-2014 ↩
  13. Siegfried and Alice Stern Oppenheimer, Immigration and Naturalization File, Israel Archives, at https://tinyurl.com/r7k6qau ↩

Escaping from Germany, Part IV: Helene and Martha Loewenthal, An Unfinished Research Project

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I am really torn. Do I post about my family history in these times when we are all so anxious and focused on the present and the future, not the past? I prepared this post a few weeks ago, and in re-reading it now, I decided that reading about how others faced serious threats to their lives and their family’s lives might provide hope and strength to some who read it. So I am going forward.

Thus far we have seen what happened to three of Abraham Loewenthal and Keile Stern’s children and their children during the Holocaust. This post will report on the two youngest siblings, Helene and Martha, and their families. How did their lives change as a result of the Holocaust?

We saw that Helene Loewenthal’s first marriage to Edward Feuchtwanger had not lasted and that in 1913 she had married Oscar Friedrich August Heinrich Maximilian Schultze. They had one child, Elisabeth Auguste Aloysia Schultze, born on December 3, 1914, in Coblenz, Germany, where she was baptized on May 12, 1915. Thanks to my dear friend Aaron Knappstein, I now have Elisabeth’s birth record.

Notice that it indicates that her religion was evanglische, i.e., Protestant.
Elisabeth Schultze, birth record, Coblenz

Oscar Schultze died on September 6, 1931, in Hanover, Germany. (Thank you again to Aaron Knappstein for obtaining this death record for me.) He was survived by his widow Helene and daughter Elisabeth.

StadtAH_1_NR_3_08_2_1057_1920_1931 Oscar Schultze death certificate

Despite the fact that Elisabeth was raised as a Christian and that her mother Helene had married a Christian, both Elisabeth and Helene were enumerated as minorities on the 1939 Minority Census in Germany, living in Hannover.1 Helene died three years later on November 28, 1942, according to this document found in the Arolsen Archives. She was 65. It incorrectly lists her birth name as Loewenstein, not Loewenthal, but this is definitely my cousin Helene.

1 Incarceration Documents / 1.2 Miscellaneous / 1.2.4 Various Organizations /
1.2.4.1 “Reichsvereinigung der Juden” Card File / 12673184 – HELENE SCHULTZE. ITS Digital Archive, Arolsen Archives

I don’t know what happened to Elisabeth during the Nazi era after 1939. She would have been considered a “Mischling” of the first degree since her mother was born Jewish as were her mother’s parents, and not as a Jew because she was not disqualified from being a Mischling under the criteria enumerated by the Nazis, that is, she was not raised as a Jew nor was she married to one before 1935. Whether she faced any persecution or not is not clear, but we’ve seen that other Mischlings were persecuted.

But Elisabeth did survive the war. As indicated on the annotation to the birth record shown below, Elisabeth married in Hamburg in 1955 and died in Bad Krozingen in 1991. Aaron Knappstein is now looking to see if he can find her marriage and death records. Since it appears that Elisabeth married when she was 41, I assume she did not have children.

Annotation to birth record of Elisabeth Schultze

As for Martha Loewenthal, I have mostly secondary information from my cousins Roger Cibella and David Baron and numerous unsourced family trees on Ancestry and Heritage, but I will report what I can as best I can to do honor to these cousins. We’ve seen already that she married Jakob Wolff and that they had three children in the first decade of the 20th century: Anna, Hans Anton, and Hans Walter.

UPDATE: Thank you once again to Aaron Knappstein, who has located the marriage record for Anna Wolff and Simon Wittekind. They were married on June 7, 1929, in Frankfurt. Simon was the son of Wilhelm Wittekind and Fanny Mendele, and he was born in Bad Kissingen on December 10, 1892. He had served in World War I for Germany.2 He was a doctor.

Less than a year after witnessing her daughter’s marriage, Martha Loewenthal Wolff died on May 19, 1930, in Frankfurt, as we saw.

Her widower Jakob Wolff immigrated to Palestine on August 21, 1934. By that time Jakob had remarried; his second wife was Ilse Gruenebaum, born October 27, 1901, in Maden, Germany. They became naturalized citizens of Palestine on July 21, 1938.3

Naturalization Certificate of Jacob and Ilse Wolff found at https://www.archives.gov.il/en/archives/#/Archive/0b07170680034dc1/File/0b07170680e4ea29

MyHeritage reports that Jakob and Martha (Loewenthal) Wolff’s children all also ended up in Palestine/Israel, where they married and had children and have descendants still living in Israel. Their father Jakob died on October 14, 1953, in Israel. He was 77.4

If and when I find more documentation for Elisabeth Schultze and the descendants of Martha Loewenthal Wolff, I will update this post. For now, that brings to a close the stories of the children of Sarah Goldschmidt Stern’s daughter Keile and her husband Abraham Loewenthal. Next I will turn to the families of Keile’s brother Abraham Stern and his wife and cousin, Johanna Goldschmidt, and their fate during and after the Nazi era.

 

 

  1. Helene and Elisabeth Schultze, German Federal Archives, Abteilung R (Deutsches Reich), List of Jewish Residents of the German Reich 1933-1945, found at https://tinyurl.com/tyzfaab and at https://tinyurl.com/tjfhud3 ↩
  2.  Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; München; Abteilung IV Kriegsarchiv. Kriegstammrollen, 1914-1918; Volume: 20351. Kriegsstammrolle, Ancestry.com. Bavaria, Germany, WWI Personnel Rosters, 1914-1918 ↩
  3. Immigration and Naturalization File of Jacob and Ilse Wolff, Israel Archives, found at https://tinyurl.com/r7524xh ↩
  4. https://tinyurl.com/regavyr ↩