Tag Archives: The Holocaust

Malchen Rothschild Rosenblatt’s Descendants in the Colonia Avigdor in Argentina

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As we saw, Malchen Rothschild and Daniel Rosenblatt’s daughters all were killed in the Holocaust. Their son Julius had died as a young man, leaving behind a young widow Julie Rosenblatt and their infant son Fredi. Julie and Fredi escaped to Uruguay, and thanks to Fredi’s son Julio, I’ve been able to learn and share much of their story.

Malchen and Daniel’s other two sons Felix and Siegmund escaped to Argentina, not Uruguay,1 and thanks to the magic of the internet, I am now in touch with Felix’s granddaughter in Argentina, Carmen. I found a photograph of the gravestone of Felix’s son Ludwig Rosenblatt (see below) on JewishGen and posted it on Tracing the Tribe, asking for a translation of the Hebrew inscription. A woman in the TTT group tagged Carmen when she saw my post, and Carmen, Ludwig Rosenblatt’s daughter, responded. Although Carmen doesn’t speak English and I don’t speak Spanish, we’ve managed to communicate, thanks to Google Translate and DeepL.

Carmen shared with me a lecture2 she delivered in 2018 to the Latin American Rabbinical Seminary about the community where her family has lived since 1936 when they immigrated from Germany to Argentina. It is in Spanish, and I’ve used DeepL to translate it and now will paraphrase and take excerpts from the translation to share the story of Carmen’s family and their community. Carmen also filled in other details through email.

As Carmen explained in her lecture, the German philanthropist Baron Maurice de Hirsch formed the Jewish Colonization Association (“JCA”) in the late 19th century to acquire land and create settlements in Argentina for Jews escaping persecution in Russia and Eastern Europe. When Hitler came to power in the 1930s, it became apparent that there was a need for more land and more places for German Jews to escape, so the JCA acquired additional land to create a new settlement called Colonia Avigdor, which is over 300 miles from Buenos Aires.

Thanks to the efforts of the JCA, Jewish families like Carmen’s were able to escape Nazi Germany. I asked Carmen what convinced her grandparents to leave Germany. She wrote that one night her grandfather’s car was confiscated by the Nazis in Zimmersrode, and when it was returned to him the next day, an official in the town told him: “Felix, this is getting very ugly for you Jews, take your family and leave Germany.” Felix replied, “How??? I have to sell my house, my things.” The official replied, “Leave everything, don’t sell anything… nobody is going to pay a Jew.” Felix contacted the JCA and asked for help to leave Germany and move to Argentina.

Carmen’s grandparents Felix and Minna (Goldwein) Rosenblatt and their sons were one of the ten families that first settled in Colonia Avigdor. They arrived in Buenos Aires, Argentina, with their sons Ludwig, then 17, and Siegfried, 20, and their daughter-in-law, Siegfried’s wife Jenny Feilmann, on January 25, 1936. As Carmen explained to me and in her lecture, because the JCA required a family to have five adults to qualify for the settlement program, Siegfried, although only twenty years old, had married Jenny at such a young age in order for the family to qualify.

After a few days in Buenos Aires, Felix, Minna, and their family traveled by train from Buenos Aires to Bovril, the closest train station to Avigdor. From there they traveled the last fifteen miles of the over 300 mile journey “by horse-drawn carts through trees and bushes in the woods along winding paths” to get to their new home. Carmen wrote that they were “full of hope that they would adapt to such a hard life and happy to set foot on land that promised above all FREEDOM and work to build a good future.”

Carmen’s description of their early lives cannot be paraphrased adequately; here is how DeepL translated her words:

Each of the settlers was allocated 75 hectares of land and a poorly constructed house made of mud-covered bricks with a dirt floor, two rooms, one kitchen, one veranda, and a bathroom at the back, about 10-15 meters away from the house. In each house, they found a bag of hard “cookies” (country bread), several days old… as well as some work tools, a few cows, some horses, some chickens… The next day, they got to work, first clearing the yards of wild trees, then the fields so they could plant them, building fences to divide them. It was very hard work, but as I said, they were happy because they had hope for progress. The women devoted themselves more to the tasks in the yard, tending to the chickens and other poultry, milking the cows for the milk they consumed, in addition to their household chores. They had to knead the bread in wood-fired ovens, whose mouths opened into the kitchen…

They say that at first, these women did these tasks crying practically all day (and at night too) because of the precarious conditions around them… there was no electricity, the lamps were kerosene… there were no refrigerators, no appliances whatsoever. And it should be emphasized that they came from an advanced civilization in Germany… Some, those who came from small towns, adapted more easily, but those who came from cities such as Berlin, Munich, Frankfurt, etc., of which there were many… found it extremely difficult, or simply could not get used to it…

Colonists plowing the land
Courtesy of Carmen Rosenblatt

A colonist’s yard
Courtesy of Carmen Rosenblatt

Children coming to school
Courtesy of Carmen Rosenblatt

The community grew as more and more refugees came from Germany; eventually there were about 120 families. The settlers engaged in many forms of agricultural work: dairy, livestock, farming, gardening, and beekeeping. They established a cooperative to market their products. A school was established by the JCA, and there was a post office, a synagogue, a kosher butcher, and a Hebrew teacher. There was even a small hospital to provide health care to the settlers and a social center for dances, theaters, and orchestral performances. Land was also set aside for a cemetery.

The synagogue in Colonia Avigdor
Courtesy of Carmen Rosenblatt

Interior of the synagogue
Courtesy of Carmen Rosenblatt

But conditions remained fairly primitive for a long time. It wasn’t until 1971 that there was electricity in the colony, and there were only dirt roads until 1987. Despite all these challenges, Felix and Minna and their children remained at Colonia Avigdor, working hard to achieve their dreams.

Their younger son Ludwig Rosenblatt married Ruth Plaut, another refugee from Germany, in 1944. They had two children, Carmen and her sister Alicia. Ludwig’s older brother Siegfried and his wife Jenny also had two daughters, Miriam and Lenore.

Felix Rosenblatt died on February 4, 1955, and is buried at the Centro Unión Israelita de Colonia Avigdor cemetery in Colonia Avigdor, Argentina, as is his wife Minna Goldwein Rosenblatt, who died on February 16, 1969. Here is a photograph of their gravestones.

Felix and Minna Rosenblatt headstones from JOWBR database, found at https://data.jewishgen.org/imagedata/jowbr/ARG-06046/WA0125.JPG

Their son and Carmen’s father Ludwig Rosenblatt died on October 10, 1977, and is buried at the same cemetery as his parents. He was only 57 when he died. As translated by the kind people at Tracing the Tribe, the Hebrew reads: “Here [lies] buried / Leib son of Uri / a reputable man / a faithful protector of / his family / an example for his descendants / [we] remember him with love / may his soul be bound in the bond of [eternal] life.”  The footstone engraving in Spanish mentions his wife, children, and grandchildren; it was placed there on the occasion of what would have been his 70th birthday on November 15, 1989.

Ludwig Rosenblatt headstone at JOWBR database, found at https://data.jewishgen.org/imagedata/jowbr/ARG-06046/WA0143.JPG

As for Siegfried Rosenblatt, Felix’s other son, he died on October 23, 2004, and is buried at Cementerio Israelita De San Vicente Cordoba, in Cordoba, Argentina; he was predeceased by his wife Jenny Feilmann who died on May 23, 1978, and is buried in the same cemetery.3 Their daughter Lenore, who was born on November 2, 1940, died on April 27, 2001.4

Carmen still lives in Colonia Avigdor with her husband Abraham Isaac Kogan, whom she married almost 58 years ago. They had two sons, one of whom passed away; the other still lives in Argentina, but not in Colonia Avigdor. Today there are only about twelve Jewish families left in Colonia Avigdor because many people left long ago to live in the cities. Carmen wrote, “These days, basic services such as electricity, water, roads, television, communications, etc. are practically comparable to those in cities… the precariousness has been overcome… but let’s not forget that since the founding of Avigdor in 1936, 82 years have passed… and the vast majority have left…”

Carmen generously shared with me some photographs of her extended family. This photograph was taken at her wedding in 1967.

Photograph taken at Carmen Rosenblatt’s wedding to Abraham Kogan in 1967, courtesy of Carmen Rosenblatt. Standing from left to right: Ruth Plaut, Carmen’s mother; Ludwig Rosenblatt, Carmen’s father; Abraham Isaac Kogan; Carmen Alexander; Jenny Feilmann, wife of Siegfred Rosenblatt; Siegfried Rosenblatt, Carmen’s uncle Seated: Family friend,\; Minna Goldwein, Carmen’s grandmother; Else Schwab, wife of Sigmund Rosenblatt; Sigmund Rosenblatt, Carmen’s great-uncle.

This more recent photograph was taken in 1981 on the occasion of Carmen’s son’s bar mitzvah. I think it illustrates how Jewish traditions are similar all over the world. This photograph could have been taken at any bar mitzvah in the US in 1981, and it would have looked very much the same.

Abraham Kogan, Andres Kogan, Carmen Rosenblatt, Marcelo Kogan, 1981. Courtesy of Carmen Rosenblatt

Carmen’s story has given me a new perspective on the lives of those who escaped from Nazi Germany. It’s hard to imagine how they adapted to such a hard life—a precarious one, to use Carmen’s word. They were coming from a place where their ancestors had lived for centuries to a primitive place, far from any city, where people spoke a language they didn’t know, and they had to live according to the rules and subject to the authority of the JCA—and yet they were filled with hope and grateful for the chance to survive and live freely.

All this reminds me to be grateful for what I have and to empathize with all those around the world who are forced to abandon their homes in search of a safer and better life.

 

 

  1. Although they came from different villages in Germany and ended up in different countries in South America, the Rosenblatts in Uruguay and the Rosenblatts in Argentina have stayed in touch and even visited each other over the years. Julie Rosenblatt was a first cousin to Felix and Siegmund as well as their sister-in-law. ↩
  2. Carmen Rosenblatt, unpublished lecture, “Immigracion de Judio Perseguidos en Alemania, Colonizados en Los Campos de Colonio Avigdor (Entre Rios),” (September 2018). ↩
  3. See burial records at the JOWBR database at JewishGen, found at https://www.jewishgen.org/databases/cemetery/jowbr.php?rec=J_ARGENTIN_0036804 and at https://www.jewishgen.org/databases/cemetery/jowbr.php?rec=J_ARGENTIN_0036805 ↩
  4. See burial records at the JOWBR database at JewishGen, found at https://www.jewishgen.org/databases/cemetery/jowbr.php?rec=J_ARGENTIN_0071081 ↩

Zooming with My Cousin Julio Rosenblatt in Uruguay

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Since it’s been a while since I wrote about the Blumenfeld clan, let me recap where I was. I was writing about the family of Malchen Rothschild, the ninth child of Gelle Blumenfeld and Simon Rothschild. Malchen and her husband Daniel Rosenblatt had seven children, one of whom died as a child (Betti) and one, Julius, who died in 1920 as a thirty-six year old newlywed whose wife Julie Rosenblatt had just recently given birth to their son, Manfred or Friedel/Fredi (hereinafter “Fredi.”)

Thus, when Hitler came to power in 1933, there were five living children of Malchen and Daniel: their daughters Julchen, Jette, and Auguste, and their sons Felix and Siegmund. Also living was their daughter-in-law Julie and their grandson Manfred/Fredi.

But as we saw, the three daughters were all killed by the Nazis as were some of their family members. Fortunately their two sons and their daughter-in-law Julie survived as did two of the children of Auguste. And that is where we will now pick up.

As I wrote in my last post about this family, I was able to find a descendant of Julius and Julie Rosenblatt, their grandson Julio, named for his grandfather Julius. I finally had a chance to zoom with Julio on September 10, and he was able to fill me on on the story of the surviving branches of Malchen and Daniel’s family.1

As noted above, Julio’s father Fredi was born just three months before his father Julius Rosenblatt died in December 1920. I asked Julio how his grandmother Julie Rosenblatt (wife and first cousin of Julius) coped with raising a baby without her husband. Julio told me that after Julius died, his grandmother moved from Zimmersrode where they’d been living back to Beisefoerth where her father and two of her brothers were still living. Julie and Fredi lived with them and, as Julio said, she not only raised her son but also took care of her father and brothers.

Here is a photograph taken in about 1931 of Fredi and some of his cousins in Beisefoerth. Fredi is the boy in the front, “driving” the motorcycle. The motorcycle belonged to his uncle Ferdinand Rosenblatt, his mother’s brother.

Lothar Rosenblatt, Claire Rosenblatt, Doris Rosenblatt and Fredi Rosenblatt on the motorcycle of Ferdinand Rosenblatt at Beiseförth in about 1931, 1932. Courtesy of Julio Rosenblatt

Once Hitler came to power, the family experienced antisemitism. When Fredi was fourteen or fifteen years old, boys threw rocks and apples at him. After Kristallnacht, Julie knew it was time to leave Germany.

This is a photograph of Fredi taken in Beisefoerth in 1938 the day before he left Germany.

Fredi Rosenblatt c. 1938 Courtesy of Julio Rosenblatt

Julio explained how his grandmother Julie and father Fredi ended up in Uruguay. Julie’s brother Ferdinand Rosenblatt had a sister-in-law, his wife Flori’s sister, who owned a well-known cafe in Frankfurt called Cafe Falk. The Uruguay Consul General Florencio Rivas was a regular customer at the cafe, and after the Nuremberg Laws were enacted, he offered to help the family get visas to immigrate to Uruguay.

Florencio Rivas not only helped the Rosenblatt family; he helped hundreds of German Jews survive the Holocaust. As The New York Times reported:2

While serving as consul general in Germany, Rivas harbored more than 150 Jews on embassy grounds during Kristallnacht in 1938, when Nazi-inspired mobs attacked synagogues and Jews. He then issued them all passports and visas ensuring passage to Uruguay.

Ferdinand Rosenblatt and his wife and son were the first Rosenblatts to leave Germany and go to Uruguay. Fredi left in 1938, and after Kristallnacht in November 1938, Julio’s grandmother Julie Rosenblatt joined them in Montevideo, Uruguay.

This photograph is of Ferdinand Rosenblatt and his wife Flori Goldschmidt. In the middle is their niece, Martha Rosenblatt.

Ferdinand Rosenblatt, Martha Rosenblatt, and Flory Goldschmidt. Courtesy of Julio Rosenblatt

I asked Julio about the family’s transition from Germany to Uruguay, and he told me that Uruguay has always been a very open and accepting country to immigrants. As The New York Times commented:3

Unlike Argentina and many other Latin American countries, Uruguay has been a liberal, secular democracy for much of its history. It became a republic in 1830 and has remained one, with the exception of right-wing dictatorships in the periods of 1932-38 and 1973-85. It separated church and state in 1917. And by 1890, it had enacted a ”policy of the open door,” encouraging immigration by issuing visas free of charge and even providing a hostel for new arrivals.

Julio said that his grandmother quickly found work as a maid in Montevideo and that his father Fredi worked making tapestries to cover furniture. They were welcomed and did not encounter any antisemitism. Julio clearly loves his country and feels deeply grateful that Uruguay took in his grandmother, father, and other relatives and gave them a place to be safe and to prosper.

Fredi Rosenblatt married Erika Katz in 1949 in Uruguay. Here they are on their wedding day:

Erika Katz and Friedel Rosenblatt on their wedding day in 1949. Courtesy of Julio Rosenblatt

Erika Katz and Fredi Rosenblatt on their wedding day in 1949. Courtesy of Julio Rosenblatt

wedding of Fredi Rosenblatt and Erika Katz 1949. Courtesy of Julio Rosenblatt

Julio was the only child of Fredi Rosenblatt and Erika Katz. Here is a photo of him with his parents, taken in 1954.

Fredi Rosenblatt, top; Julio Rosenblatt and Erika Katz, bottom. Courtesy of Julio Rosenblatt

Julio is married to Ana Bogacz, and they have two children. This photograph is of Ana with her daughter Beatriz and Julio’s grandmother, Julie Rosenblatt Rosenblatt.

Ana Bogacz, Beatriz Rosenblatt, and Julie Rosenblatt Rosenblatt, in 1976. Courtesy of Julio Rosenblatt

Julio and Ana have two children. One lives in Uruguay and and the other in England. They also have three grandchildren, one in Uruguay and two in England. So Julius Rosenblatt, who died when his son Fredi was just a baby, and his wife, Julie Rosenblatt, have living great-grandchildren living across the world because Julie Rosenblatt Rosenblatt was smart enough and strong enough and lucky enough to leave Germany when she did.

Thank you to my cousin Julio for sharing his stories and these amazing photographs of his family. I am so glad we connected!

 

  1. The information about Julie Rosenblatt and her family in this post almost all came from her grandson Julio Rosenblatt during a Zoom on September 10, 2025. ↩
  2. Samuel Freedman, “A Treasure Hunt for Lost Memories,” The New York Times, August 16, 2003, p. A 15. ↩
  3. Ibid. ↩

Malchen Rothschild Rosenblatt, Part III: How I Found Her Great-Grandson Julio

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Although the three daughters of Malchen Rothschild and Daniel Rosenblatt were all murdered in the Holocaust, their two surviving sons Felix and Siegmund were able to escape Nazi Germany as was their daughter-in-law Julchen Rosenblatt Rosenblatt, the widow of their son Juda/Julius.

I did not have a great deal of information about Felix or Siegmund because they escaped to Argentina, and I have limited resources for research there. I could not find them or their children on the CEMLA website for ships going to Argentina. All I had were burial records for some of them from the Jewish Online Worldwide Burial Registry (JOWBR) at JewishGen.org.

But some of the bricks in this wall crumbled a bit. In looking at the Pages of Testimony for Thekla Rosenblatt and Julie Rosenblatt Wolf, I noticed that both were filed by someone named Julio Rosenblatt. No relationships were given by the submitter, and I had no one in my tree with that name. Julio submitted the pages fairly recently–in 2017–and he lived in Montevideo, Uruguay.

Thekla Rosenblatt page of testimony, found at https://collections.yadvashem.org/en/names/13324460

Julchen Rosenblatt Wolf page of testimony, found at https://collections.yadvashem.org/en/names/13324463

So I googled his name and found two links that helped me figure out who he is and how is he related to the other Rosenblatts and to me. The first page I found was an interview with Julio Rosenblatt of Uruguay that revealed that Julio is the author of several children’s books in the “Max y sus desafíos” series (translated either as Max and His Questions or Max and His Challenges). The books tell the story of Julio’s family in Nazi Germany. “Max” is Julio’s middle name, and he was named in memory of his grandmother’s brother Max. But who was his grandmother? The interview did not reveal.

So I kept digging. And then I found the second website about Julio Rosenblatt, Judische Leben in Beisefoerth, or Jewish Life in Beisefoerth, which was the town where Daniel Rosenblatt was born and where the first two of Daniel and Malchen’s children were born. Seeing that confirmed that I was on the right track. The website had a detailed telling of Julio’s trip to Beisefoerth and his search for his family history there. And from that page I learned Julio’s ancestry and how he is related to me. The page describes his trip to the Jewish cemetery in Haarhausen with Hans Peter Klein, the same man who took me there in 2017. This is what they saw there (see photo accompanying quote below):

Five generations of Julio Rosenblatt’s ancestors from Zimmersrode and Waltersbrück are buried there; the oldest grave of his four-times [sic] great-grandfather, Simon Rothschild from Waltersbrück, dates back to 1811. Julio and his wife Ana were particularly touched by the grave of his grandfather Julius Rosenblatt, who died in 1920 at the age of just 36 and just a few months after the birth of Fredi Rosenblatt, Julio’s father.

Now I know exactly who Julio is. He is my fifth cousin, the four-times great-grandson of Abraham Blumenfeld I and Geitel Katz, my four-times great-grandparents. His father was the baby born to Julius Rosenblatt and Julie Rosenblatt, Manfred; his great-grandmother was Malchen Rothschild Rosenblatt, his great-great-grandmother was Gelle Blumenfeld Rothschild, his great-great-great-grandfather was Moses Blumenfeld I, the older brother of my great-great-great-grandmother Breune Blumenfeld Katzenstein.

Julio’s paternal grandmother was Julie Rosenblatt, the widow and first cousin of Julius Rosenblatt. And Julie had a brother Max Rosenblatt who was killed in the Holocaust and became the name of the character in Julio’s books. But Julie survived and immigrated to Uruguay with her son Manfred (or Fredi), and Julio was born there.

I have gotten in touch with Julio and learned more about the Rosenblatts who survived the Holocaust in South America. Once again connecting with a cousin has allowed me the privilege of better understanding and appreciating my family history.

On top of that, a cousin of Sigmund Rosenblatt’s family, Ellie, found me through the blog, and she has been updating me on that branch of the family.

To be continued in September. My family will be visiting for the next two weeks, so I will see you after Labor Day!

 

 

 

Malchen Rothschild Rosenblatt, Part II: Who Shall Live and Who Shall Die

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Of the five children of Malchen Rothschild and Daniel Rosenblatt who were still living when Hitler came to power in 1933, only two survived, the two sons Felix and Siegmund. Their three daughters—Julchen/Julie, Jette/Thekla, and Auguste–were all murdered by the Nazis.

Julchen/Julie and her husband Max Wolf were first deported from Kassel to the Riga ghetto on the December 9, 1941, transport that had deported so many other Rothschild family members. Julie and Max were then deported from Riga to Auschwitz on November 2, 1943, where they were murdered. Since their only child Edgar had died as a toddler, they had no direct descendants.

Julie Rosenblatt Wolf page of testimony, found at https://collections.yadvashem.org/en/names/13324463

Jette/Thekla Rosenblatt was also on the December 9, 1941, transport to Riga, where she did not survive. Since she had never married or had children, she also had no direct descendants.

Thekla Rosenblatt page of testimony, found at https://collections.yadvashem.org/en/names/13324460

Auguste’s husband Samuel Roth died on February 15, 1935, in Breitenbach. He was 52 years old.1 Auguste unfortunately had to face Nazi persecution without him. She was deported to the Sobibor death camp on June 1, 1942, and killed there two days later on June 3, 1942.

As for the four children of Auguste and Samuel, I only have the following information:

Irma Roth married Alfred Moses on December 19, 1934, in Berlin.

Irma Roth and Alfred Moses marriage record, Landesarchiv Berlin; Berlin, Deutschland; Personenstandsregister Heiratsregister, Register Year or Type: 1934 (Erstregister). Ancestry.com. Berlin, Germany, Marriages, 1874-1940

I found Alfred listed on the CEMLA website, immigrating to Argentina on December 30, 1939. I could not find a listing for Irma, but I assume she immigrated there as well since they are both buried together at the Cementerio Comunitario de Berazategui in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Alfred(o) died on March 28, 1980, and Irma died on May 30, 1999. I do not know whether they ever had children.

Alfred Moses CEMLA listing, at https://cemla.com/buscador/

Irma’s sister Friedel never married as far as I can tell. She was living in Luxembourg during World War II and was deported from there to the concentration camp at Argeles-sur-Mer in France. The camp at Argeles-sur-Mer was built by the French in 1939 to house refugees from the Spanish Civil War, and conditions were horrific. “The lack of lodging structures, as well as unsafe water supply and food scarcity, added to the exiled people’s poor health conditions caused the spreading of several diseases that, in turn, led to a dramatic increase in mortality among refugees.” Then during World War II, the camp was used to imprison Jews, gypsies, and other targets of Nazi persecution. Friedel Roth died as a prisoner there on June 11, 1941.

Friedel Roth death record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Personenstandsregister Sterberegister; Signatur: 598; Laufende Nummer: 926, Year Range: 1953, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Deaths, 1851-1958

Lothar Roth, the third child of Auguste Rosenblatt and Samuel Roth, also appears to have never married. The only record I could locate for him was a burial record in Buenos Aires, Argentina, indicating that he died there on July 27, 1992. I could not locate any birth or immigration or marriage record for him.

Auguste and Samuel’s youngest child Gretl was also murdered by the Nazis. I could not find any record of marriage for Gretl. She was deported from Berlin to Auschwitz on March 1, 1943, and was murdered there.

Thus, the three daughters of Malchen Rothschild and Daniel Rosenblatt and some of their children were victims of the Nazi killing machines.

But the two sons of Malchen and Daniel fared better than their sisters. For a long time I was up against a brick wall trying to find more about Felix and Siegmund Rosenblatt. I knew that they had gone to Argentina, but aside from burial records, I could learn nothing more.

And then I looked at the name of the submitter on the Pages of Testimony above for Julie and Thekla Rosenblatt: Julio Rosenblatt of Montevideo, Uruguay. I googled his name, and the bricks on that brick wall began to crumble.

 

 

  1. Samuel Roth death record, LAGIS Hessen Archives, TitelStandesamt Breitenbach am Herzberg Sterbenebenregister 1935 (HStAMR Best. 907 Nr. 927)AutorHessisches Staatsarchiv MarburgErscheinungsortBreitenbach am HerzbergErscheinungsjahr1935, p 6, found at https://dfg-viewer.de/show?id=9&tx_dlf%5Bid%5D=https%3A%2F%2Fdigitalisate-he.arcinsys.de%2Fhstam%2F907%2F927.xml&tx_dlf%5Bpage%5D=6 ↩

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Clara Rothschild c. 1910
Courtesy of the family

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

Moritz Katz in 1912. Courtesy of the family.

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

Clara Rothschild and Moritz Katz undated
Courtesy of the family

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

Caroline Katz 1930. Courtesy of the family

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

More on that to come in my next post.

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

Jeanette “Jenny” Rothschild Abraham: An Entire Family Murdered

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Turning now to Jeanette or Jenny Rothschild, the fifth of the eight Rothschild children who survived to adulthood, we saw that she married Salomon Abraham on November 11, 1920, and that they had two children: Walter, born in 1921, and Herta, born in 1928.

This photograph is possibly of Jenny and Salomon:

Maybe Jenny Rothschild Abraham
Courtesy of the family

Unfortunately, Jenny and her family suffered a fate like those of her older sisters Katchen and Auguste and not like those of her older brothers Siegmund and Max, both of whom survived the Holocaust. Jenny, Salomon, Walter, and Herta were all murdered in the Holocaust.

This document from the census taken in 1938-1939 by the Nazis of any household where a resident had at least one Jewish grandparent shows us that Jenny and Salomon and their children were living in Kassel at that time. It also shows that none of them had finished high school or vocational school and that all of them had four Jewish grandparents.

Salomon Abraham and family, RG-14.013M.0216.00000011, German minority census of 1939, United States Holocaust Museum and Memorial, also summarized at MyHeritage at   https://www.myheritage.com/research/record-10901-14585/herta-greta-abraham-in-german-minority-census?fbclid=IwY2xjawJyNahleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHjMpngFoUVAHvZ8hfTE5lCsMwdc-9bHAeMU5opyaipBCxYmQYX8bXBPReDTp_aem_DvzcPxQysQHhqKjX3STcgw

Another document created by the International Tracing Service reveals that in 1939-1940, Salomon Abraham was working in Kassel for the Georg Sauer railway, road, and underground construction company.1

Yad Vashem files and the Gedenkbuch report that on December 9, 1941, Salomon, Jenny, and their thirteen-year-old daughter Herta were deported along with over a thousand other Jews from Kassel and surrounding towns and sent to the Jewish ghetto established by the Nazis in Riga, Latvia. According to an article about the transport on Yad Vashem, “The deportees were told to bring a sum of 50 Reichmarks, a suitcase, a set of clothes, suitable shoes, bedding, tableware, and food supplies for a few days. They were also required to produce an inventory of all their properties. In the Kassel district, the Jews received notification that all furniture was to be carefully packed and placed in one room of the apartment. Household valuables were to be deposited in a closet together with a list of contents.”

The train took three days to get to Riga, arriving on December 12, 1941; according to one account by a survivor as quoted in the same Yad Vashem article, “The temperature was 40 degrees below freezing. Most of the luggage was left at the train station and we never saw it again. We had to walk to the ghetto while a terrible snow storm was blowing.”

Unfortunately, I do not have any specific information about what happened to Salomon or Jenny after arriving in Riga, except I know that they did not survive. Readers may recall that Jenny’s sisters Auguste and Katchen as well as Katchen’s husband Adolf Hirschberg and their son Ludwig Hirschberg were also deported to Riga on December 9, 1941, and that none of them survived the Holocaust either. According to the Yad Vashem article, “little is known about the further fate of the deportees from Kassel in the Riga ghetto. More than 900 Jews were shot in several “Aktionen” in the Bikerniki forest. Others were transported to Auschwitz-Birkenau or to Stutthof concentration camp for forced labour. According to the historian Monica Kingreen only 137 Jews from this transport survived.”

Records show that little Herta was one of those transported to the Stutthof concentration camp. The report from the ITS on Herta Abraham states that she was sent to Stutthof on October 1, 1944.2  I do not know what happened to Herta after that, but she also did not survive the Holocaust.

As for Walter Abraham, he had moved to Berlin sometime after the 1939 Minority Census was taken and was working as a baker. One document seems to suggest he had left Kassel on April 28, 1940. Unfortunately Walter’s move to Berlin did not save his life. On December 7, 1943, he was deported from Berlin to Auschwitz. I don’t know when exactly Walter was killed there, but like his mother, father, and sister, he was murdered by the Nazis.3

There thus are no descendants of Jenny Rothschild Abraham. Her entire family was wiped out by the Nazis.

 

 

 

  1. Tracing and documentation case no. 416.705 for ABRAHAM, SALOMON born 14.08.1898, Reference Code 06030302.0.382.916, 6 Records of the ITS and its predecessors / 6.3 Inquiry processing / 6.3.3 ITS case files as of 1947 / 6.3.3.2 Repository of T/D cases / Tracing and documentation cases with (T/D) numbers between 250.000 and 499.999 / Tracing and documentation cases with (T/D) numbers between 416.500 and 416.999 ITS Digital Archive, Arolsen Archives ↩
  2. See Note 1, supra. ↩
  3. Welle 61 – 47. Osttransport in das KL Auschwitz, 07.12.1943, 1 Inhaftierungsdokumente / 1.2 Verschiedenes / 1.2.1 Deportationen und Transporte / 1.2.1.1 Deportationen / Deportationen aus dem Gestapobereich Berlin /  Signatur 15510056b, Entstehungszeitraum. 1943-12-07 – 1943-12-10, Anzahl Dokumente 4, ITS Digital Archive, Arolsen Archive ↩

Auguste Rothschild Feldheim: Another Life Destroyed

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As I move on now to the next child of Gerson Rothschild and Fanny Kugelmann, I am struck by the differences in the fates of their eight surviving adult children. Siegmund and his wife and all his children left Germany in time to escape death at the hands of the Nazis. Katchen and her husband and son were all killed by the Nazis. Max and his family escaped to Argentina, but their son Erich died shortly after arriving from cholera; that might not have happened if they hadn’t had to leave Germany. Why were some able to escape while others were not? Fate seems so cruel and unpredictable.

Now I turn to the fourth child, Auguste “Gusta” Rothschild Feldheim. And sadly, Auguste’s fate was more like that of her sister Katchen than that of her brothers Siegmund and Max.

As we saw, Auguste married Wolf Feldheim on March 18, 1919, in Zimmersrode. Wolf was a widower. His first wife Johanna Risch died on April 29, 1916,1 less than a week after giving birth on April 23, 1916, to her fourth child with Wolf, their son  Arthur/Aharon.2 Wolf and Johanna also had three daughters born before Arthur/Aharon: Ruth, Selma, and Else, and all were younger than five years old when their mother died.3

Auguste married Wolf three years after Johanna’s death, and thus Johanna’s four children with Wolf were all still very young when Auguste became their stepmother. Here is a photograph of Auguste with her four stepchildren. Look how sad those children look. It’s heartbreaking.

Auguste Rothschild Feldheim with her four stepchildren. Courtesy of the family

And then Wolf and Auguste had their own child together, a son Bruno who was born in Fulda, Germany, on November 12, 1921.4

Auguste’s husband Wolf Feldheim died of a heart attack on October 4, 1940, in Fulda, Germany, where he and Auguste were living. Wolf was 65 years old. Was his death caused directly or indirectly by the Nazi persecution? I don’t know.5

Just over a year later Wolf’s widow Auguste was deported from her home in Fulda to Riga. A Page of Testimony filed at Yad Vashem by her stepson, Aharon Feldheim, reported that he believed she died there on or about December 8, 1941, the day after Pearl Harbor. The Gedenbuch summarized at Yad Vashem says she was deported to Riga on December 9, 1941, and died there in March, 1942.6 And then there is a second Page of Testimony for Auguste filed by her sister-in-law Elise Rothschild, wife of Siegmund Rothschild, saying that Auguste was deported to Bergen-Belsen. I don’t know which date or which place is more accurate. But the bottom line is the same. Auguste Rothschild Feldheim died at the hands of the Nazis.

Page of testimony at Yad Vashem filed by Aharon Feldheim. found at https://collections.yadvashem.org/en/names/13532864

Page of Testimony filed at Yad Vashem by Elise Rothschild, found at https://collections.yadvashem.org/en/names/798469

Bruno Feldheim survived the Holocaust by going to Palestine. His application for citizenship in Palestine in 1946 indicates that he arrived on March 27, 1939, from Fulda.

Bruno Feldheim Palestine immigration papers found at the Israel State Archives at https://search.archives.gov.il/

At some point after the war, Bruno moved to Belgium, where he had a diamond business, according to his cousin Hal Katz. Hal’s tree on Ancestry reports that Bruno died in Belgium on September 16, 2016. He was survived by his children and grandchildren. Here is a photograph of Bruno with his family, courtesy of Judy Katz, his first cousin, once removed.

Bruno Feldheim and family. courtesy of the family

I did not really research in depth the four stepchildren of Auguste, relying primarily on the Ancestry tree created by their stepcousin, Hal Katz. That tree reported that two of those stepchildren, Selma and Aharon, survived the Holocaust and ended up in Israel, but a third, Else, was murdered by the Nazis.

As for the remaining stepchild, Ruth, Wolf and Johanna’s oldest child, I went down a deep rabbit hole to learn what happened to her. It’s a Holocaust story I had not known before and that may not be very widely known.

Ruth was born on October 28, 1912, in Fulda, Germany.7 She married Jonas Tiefenbrunner, who was born in Wiesbaden on June 19, 1914. Sometime after Hitler came to power, Jonas left Germany for Belgium and established a youth home and yeshiva for religious boys in a town near Antwerp. Ruth later also left Germany for Belgium, and she worked as a cook in a different children’s home. According to a recorded interview with their daughter Judith, they had first met in Frankfurter, but reconnected and became a couple in Belgium. Ruth and Jonas were married on May 9, 1940, the day before the Nazis invaded Belgium.8

As told by Jonas and Ruth’s daughter Judith in that interview, after the Nazis invaded, the Queen Mother of Belgium intervened to protect the Jewish children and elderly. She convinced the commandant overseeing the Nazi deportation of Jews back to Germany, purportedly for “work,” that children younger than seventeen and the elderly would not be productive workers and that they should not be sent back to Germany. A number of orphanages and homes for the elderly were established, and Jonas Tiefenbrunner was made the head of one of those orphanages, the one in Brussels and the only one that was observant of Jewish laws and holidays, according to Ruth’s daughter.9

Jonas and Ruth took in up to fifty or sixty children at a time. They faced constant danger of raids by the Nazis, who accused them of hiding children who were over the age of sixteen or children who had not been properly registered with the Nazi regime in Belgium. Jonas was arrested once, but quickly released.10

In 1943, Ruth, Jonas, and their first-born daughter Jeanette had an opportunity to escape from the Nazis and emigrate from Belgium by obtaining what are now known as Mantello certificates. As described on JewishGen:

George Mandel was a Hungarian Jewish businessman who befriended a Salvadoran diplomat, Colonel José Arturo Castellanos, in the years leading up to World War II.  After Castellanos was named El Salvador’s Consul General in Geneva, he appointed Mandel, who had assumed a Spanish-sounding version of his last name, “Mantello,” to serve as the Consulate’s first secretary.  Even in Nazi-occupied Europe, Jews who were citizens of or held official documents from other countries were often able to escape deportation.  With the consent of Castellanos, George Mandel-Mantello used his diplomatic position to issue documents identifying thousands of European Jews as citizens of El Salvador.  He sent notarized copies of these certificates into occupied Europe, in the hope of saving the holders from the Nazis. … Word then spread among representatives of various Jewish organizations, who also approached Mandel-Mantello, each providing data and photographs of the people they wanted to try to save. … In total, Mandel-Mantello may have issued as many as five thousand certificates, many with the names and photographs of several family members.

Jonas and Ruth Tiefenbrunner were among those who received a Mantello certificate, describing them as citizens of El Salvador. They even applied for a Swiss passport relying on the evidence of their Salvadoran citizenship.  They could have left Belgium for a safer country by using those certificates as many others were able to do.

Jonas Tiefenbrunner application for Swiss passport, found at USHMM at https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1169302

But as described by their daughter Judith, they refused. Jonas would not abandon the children he was caring for so the family stayed in Belgium for the duration of the war.11

In August 1944, the Nazis decided to deport all the remaining Jews in Belgium including the children. “Luckily, Jonas received advanced warning and was able to take all the children to a convent run by an acquaintance, Father R.P. Robinet. Two weeks later, Brussels was liberated.”12 In the end, it is estimated that Jonas and Ruth were able to save over one hundred children.

Tragically, Jonas Tiefenbrunner died in Belgium in 1962 from a heart attack when he was only 48 years old. From what I can gather from various sources including Judith’s interview, Ruth and their three daughters all eventually ended up in Israel.13 Unfortunately I have not been able to find further information about Ruth or her daughters.

Although Ruth Feldheim and Jonas Tiefenbrenner were not my genetic relatives, I felt their story was important and wanted to share it with my readers.

  1. Johanna Risch Feldheim death record, Arcinsys Archives of Hessen, HHStAW, 365, 348, p. 11, found at https://digitalisate-he.arcinsys.de/hhstaw/365/348/00011.jpg ↩
  2. Arthur/Aharon Feldheim immigration papers found in the Israel State Archives at https://search.archives.gov.il/ ↩
  3. Ruth was born on October 28, 1912, according to this entry at Yad Vashem, https://collections.yadvashem.org/en/names/13474776  Selma was born on April 6, 1913, Selma Feldheim, Enemy Alien Registration card, The National Archives; Kew, London, England; HO 396 WW2 Internees (Aliens) Index Cards 1939-1947; Reference Number: HO 396/172, Piece Number Description: 172: German Internees Released In UK 1939-1942: Fa-Fl, Ancestry.com. UK, World War II Alien Internees, 1939-1945. Else was born on November 5, 1914, Arolsen Archives; Bad Arolsen, Germany; Record Group 1 Incarceration Documents; Reference: 1.1.46.1, Ancestry.com. Germany, Incarceration Documents, 1933-1945 ↩
  4. I still have not found a record linking Bruno to Auguste and Wolf, but Bruno’s first cousin Hal Katz confirmed that Auguste and Wolf did have a son Bruno, and that is certainly a reliable first hand source. Zoom call with Hal Katz on May 8, 2025. ↩
  5. Wolf Feldheim on a grave registration document found at Arolsen Archives, Digital Archive; Bad Arolsen, Germany; Lists of Persecutees 2.1.1.1, Description
    Reference Code: 02010101 oS, Ancestry.com. Free Access: Europe, Registration of Foreigners and German Persecutees, 1939-1947 ↩
  6. Entry at Yad Vashem for Auguste Rothschild Feldheim, found at https://collections.yadvashem.org/en/names/13532864 ↩
  7. See Note 3, supra. ↩
  8. The information in this paragraph came from an interview with Ruth and Jonas’ daughter that is available on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1q4KCKrMjY Also, see Jonas Tiefenbrunner’s application for a Swiss passport below. ↩
  9. Ibid. ↩
  10. Biography of Jonas Tiefenbrunner found at the USHMM website at  https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1144757 ↩
  11. See Note 8, supra. ↩
  12. See Note 10, supra. ↩
  13. See Note 8, supra. ↩

Katchen Rothschild Hirschberg: A Family Destroyed

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The second oldest child of Gerson Rothschild and Fanny Kugelmann was their daughter Katchen, born in 1885 in Waltersbrueck. As we saw, she married Adolf Hirschberg in 1914, and they had one child, a son Ludwig born in 1920. According to their marriage record, Adolf was a merchant and a butcher. They were living in Kassel, Germany, when Ludwig was born in 1920. Unfortunately, I do not know much more about their lives before the Nazi era. But I know that all three were persecuted and killed during the Holocaust. But the records of where and how they died are in conflict.

Katchen Rothschild and Adolf Hirschberg marriage record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 920; Laufende Nummer: 9576, Year Range: 1914, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930

First, there are records at the Arolsen Archives showing that both Adolf and Ludwig were incarcerated at Buchenwald for some period of time after Kristallnacht in 1938.

Then, according to entries in the Gedenbuch (“Victims of the Persecution of Jews under the National Socialist Tyranny in Germany 1933 – 1945″ prepared by the German Federal Archives) as recorded at Yad Vashem, Katchen, Adolf, and Ludwig Hirschberg were all deported from Kassel on December 9, 1941, to the Riga ghetto in Latvia. As best I can determine from records at Yad Vashem, Katchen died in the Riga ghetto, but no date was given. For Adolf, the Gedenbuch reported that he died there on August 24, 1943.

Pages of Testimony were filed at Yad Vashem for Katchen, Adolf, and Ludwig by Katchen’s sister-in-law, Elise Block Rothschild, the wife of Siegmund Rothschild, one of the few siblings to survive the Holocaust. Elise filed many Pages of Testimony for the family members murdered by the Nazis, as we will see. Her Pages of Testimony for Katchen and Adolf state that they died at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, but after searching the Arolsen Archives lists of those killed at Bergen-Belsen, I was unable to find either Adolf or Katchen’s name, so I do not know how accurate Elise’s information was. Did they die in Riga, or were they at some point transferred to Bergen-Belsen and killed there? I don’t know.

Adolf Hirschberg Page of Testimony filed at Yad Vashem, found at https://collections.yadvashem.org/en/names/14982438

Katchen Rothschild Hirschberg Page of Testimony filed at Yad Vashem, found at https://collections.yadvashem.org/en/names/645337

As for Ludwig, there is also conflicting information. The Gedenbuch summary at Yad Vashem reports that Ludwig was killed at the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp in France on December 24, 1944. A record in the Arolsen Archives also indicates that he died at Natzweiler-Struthof on that date, and there is also a record on Ancestry that seems to confirm that Ludwig was imprisoned at Natzweiler-Struthof during the Holocaust.1 Both records indicate that Ludwig was transferred to Natzweiler-Struthof from the camp in Dautmergen, a town in southwest Germany about 100 miles from Natzweiler-Struthof in France.

Ludwig Hirschberg record at Arolsen Archives, 2 Registration of Foreigners and German Persecutees by Public Institutions, Social Securities and Companies (1939 – 1947) / 2.3 Post-war Evaluations of Various Organizations / 2.3.3 Haut-Commissariat de la République Française en Allemagne / 2.3.3.1 Card file of persecutees in the later French zone and of French persecutees in other areas / Documents without (captured) names and names from A; further sub-structure available /, Reference Code
02030301001.474

But other records on JewishGen and Ancestry2 indicate that Ludwig was at the Stutthof concentration camp in Poland. Those records, however, are confusing because they say “Riga/Stutthof/Natzweiler.” Did they mean Stutthof, or did they mean Struthof/Natzweiler?

But this card from the Arolsen Archives is clearly marked only Stutthof and indicates that Ludwig Hirschberg was incarcerated there.

Ludwig Hirschberg at Stutthof, 1 Incarceration Documents / 1.1 Camps and Ghettos / 1.1.41 Stutthof Concentration Camp / 1.1.41.2 Individual Documents Stutthof / Personal Files – Stutthof Concentration Camp / Files with names from HERZ , Reference Code
01014102 047.243found at https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/document/4493200

Could he have been at both camps? Or is one of these records incorrect? After all Struthof and Stutthof could be easily confused. The Page of Testimony filed by Elise Block Rothschild does not resolve this confusion because it only reported that his place of death was unknown.

Ludiwg Hirschberg page of testimony at Yad Vashem, found at https://collections.yadvashem.org/en/names/622945

Only to add to the confusion, the Projekt Judische Leben Frankfurt states that Ludwig was one of the passengers on the St. Louis, the ship that was turned back in 1939 after being refused entry by both Cuba and the United States, and that he was later killed at Auschwitz. I searched the list of St. Louis passengers on file at the US Holocaust Museum and Memorial, however, and did not find Ludwig Hirschberg on that list. Nor does any record at Yad Vashem or on JewishGen or on Ancestry indicate that Ludwig was murdered at Auschwitz.

One might conclude that Ludwig was at Natzweiler-Struthof based on the larger number of records so indicating, but how did he get there from the Riga ghetto? They are more than 1200 miles apart. Not that Riga is close to Stutthof either (469 miles), but still much closer. Also, the JewishGen database devoted to Stutthof includes a description that states, “The Stutthof camp was originally not designed to hold Jews, but, beginning in 1944, substantial numbers (30,000-50,000) of Jews were sent there, primarily from Kovno, Rīga and Auschwitz.” So it would make sense that Ludwig would have been sent from Riga to Stutthof, not to Natzweiler-Struthof.

Unless Ludwig was in fact on the St Louis? Since many of those passengers did end up in France after being turned back by the US and Cuba, that might explain how Ludwig ended up in Natzweiler-Struthof. But if he was on the St Louis in 1939 and then sent to France, how could he have been deported to Riga from Kassel with his parents in 1941? Something didn’t add up.

I was very fortunate to speak with Ludwig’s first cousin Hal Katz on May 8, 2025, and he confirmed that Ludwig was not on the St. Louis. That makes it even less likely that Ludwig ended up in France and thus in Natzweiler-Struthof. My best guess at this point is that Ludwig was sent to Stuffhof along with other prisoners from Riga. My hunch, totally speculative, is that somewhere someone mixed up Struthof and Stutthof and wrote the wrong name on one of Ludwig’s records.

Sadly, in the end, these details do not change the ultimate outcome. Katchen, Adolf, and Ludwig Hirschberg were all murdered by the Nazis during the Holocaust. One family story shared with me in my conversation with Hal Katz and his daughter Sandy and niece Judy is that Ludwig survived in the camp and was shot in cold blood by a guard on the day the camp was to be liberated.

May the names and memories of Katchen, Adolf, and Ludwig be preserved forever.

 

 

  1. Name Ludwig Hirschberg, Nationality German Jew, Birth Date 1 Feb 1920
    Transfer Place In Dautmergen, Death Date 24 Dec 1944, Prisoner Number 34908
    Microfilm/Roll/Section A3355/2/4, Alphabetical/Roll/Section A3355/76/GOE-HUA
    Record Number 24120, Irvin Horn, comp. France, Natzweiler-Struthof Concentration Camp Record Book, 1940-1945 ↩
  2. Ludwig Hirschberg, Birth Date 1 Feb 1920, Birth Place Kassel, Residence Kassel, Camp Riga/Stutthof/Natzweiler, Ancestry.com. Poland, German Jews at Stutthof Concentration Camp, 1940-1945. See also the same information at JewishGen found at https://www.jewishgen.org/databases/jgdetail_2.php ↩

Siegmund Rothschild: Escape from Nazi Germany

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It’s been a few weeks since I wrote about the family of Gelle Blumenfeld Rothschild, given the breaks for some updates, Passover, and our trip to England. Today I return to Gelle’s story, specifically the story of her son Gerson Rothschild. In my last post about Gerson, we saw he died in 1930 and was survived by his wife Fanny Kugelmann and eight children.

In my next series of posts, I will write about the eight surviving children of my cousin Gerson Rothschild and his wife Fanny Kugelmann. Only three of those children survived the Holocaust, making this task a very painful one. But I can start with one of those three who survived, the oldest child of Gerson and Fanny, their son Siegmund.

As we saw, Siegmund married Elise Olga Block on December 22, 1919, in Frankfurt, and they had two sons, Ernst, born March 1, 1922, and Werner, born January 12, 1928, both in Frankfurt. There is a wonderful resource about this family on the Projekt Judische Leben Frankfurt am Main website. Based in part on information obtained during a visit to Frankfurt by Werner Rothschild in 2019, the website details the family’s life before, during, and after the Nazi era. Much of the information in this post came from that website.

According to that website, Siegmund Rothschild moved to Frankfurt in 1911 and was known as “a valued historian with good contacts abroad and president of the liberal main synagogue in Frankfurt.”  He taught at Philanthropin, a free Reform Jewish school founded in 1804 in Frankfurt. An article from the Encyclopedia of Jewish History and Culture abstracted here states that the school was “one of the most significant German Jewish Reform projects in the first half of the 19th century.” Siegmund’s wife Elise also taught at Philanthropin on and off between 1913 and 1939.

UPDATE: I learned from Siegmund’s grandson Alex that Siegmund fought for Germany during World War I. Here is a photo of him from that time.

Siegmund Rothschild c. 1915
Courtesy of the family

Siegmund and his family were living a good life in Frankfurt, identifying more as German than Jewish, until Hitler came to power in 1933. Siegmund’s son Werner recalled that one friend joined Hitler Youth and stopped talking to him. Another time while visiting family in Borken, he and his cousins were tormented by Hitler Youth.

Here is the family in January 1938:

Siegmund, Werner, Ernst, and Elise (Bloch) Rothschild, January 1938.

As for Ernst, the older son, according to the Projekt Judische Leben Frankfurt website, he had always dreamed of being a dentist, but under Nazi persecution he was not allowed to pursue the studies to reach that goal. Instead he ended up working as an apprentice in a leather dressing business after leaving school in 1937. But when that business was Aryanized in 1938, Ernst lost his job.

The family’s situation became even more dire in November 1938 with Kristallnacht.  As reported on the Projekt Judische Leben website, “For Werner… the worst day of his young life was the so-called “Reichskristallnacht.” He saw furniture fly out of the windows and buildings burn. Immediately afterwards, his father was picked up by the Gestapo. They gave [Siegmund] ten minutes to pack his things, then they deported him to Buchenwald. Fortunately, [Ernst] was not at home or he would have been arrested too.” Elise did everything she could to get Siegmund released; he was released in December 1938 with orders to leave Germany quickly.

The Projekt Judische Leben Frankfurt website continued, “Siegmund was a broken man when he came home and it took weeks and intensive care from his wife before he regained his strength. As soon as his health permitted, he traveled to England with his son Ernst, with ten Marks in his pocket. More was not allowed per person. The only contact there was with two of Elise’s brothers who had emigrated from Ratibor in 1935 and opened a dental practice in London.”

Meanwhile, Elise and Werner remained in Frankfurt until Elise arranged in 1939 for Werner to leave Germany as part of the Kindertransport program. Werner took the train alone to Hamburg and was forced to strip naked so that the Gestapo could check to be sure he wasn’t taking anything prohibited with him. In Hamburg he took a ship to England, where he  was placed in a youth hostel.1

Once Elise also was able to escape to England, the family was reunited in London and Werner was able to attend school.   The 1939 England & Wales Register shows Siegmund and Elise living in London.2 But after the war started against Germany in September 1939, Ernst was interned as an enemy alien; Siegmund and Elise, however, were exempted from internship. Werner was just a child.

Siegmund Rothschild, The National Archives; Kew, London, England; HO 396 WW2 Internees (Aliens) Index Cards 1939-1947; Reference Number: HO 396/238, Piece Number Description: 238: Dead Index (Wives of Germans Etc) 1941-1947: Rosenber-Schitz, Ancestry.com. UK, World War II Alien Internees, 1939-1945

Elise Rothschild, The National Archives; Kew, London, England; HO 396 WW2 Internees (Aliens) Index Cards 1939-1947; Reference Number: HO 396/238, Piece Number Description: 238: Dead Index (Wives of Germans Etc) 1941-1947: Rosenber-Schitz, Ancestry.com. UK, World War II Alien Internees, 1939-1945

Ernst Rothschild, The National Archives; Kew, London, England; HO 396 WW2 Internees (Aliens) Index Cards 1939-1947; Reference Number: HO 396/193, Ancestry.com. UK, World War II Alien Internees, 1939-1945

Ernst was eventually released, and the family was finally able to immigrate to the United States in the summer of 1940, as we will see. Then they had to start their lives all over again. More on their life in the US in the next post.

  1. Werner Rothschild, Gender Male, Record Type Refugee List, Birth Date 12 Jan 1928, Residence Place Frankfurt, Document Date 22 Mär 1939 (22 Mar 1939)
    Permit Number 3813, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum; Washington, D.C.; Series: Selected Records Relating to Kindertransports; Record Group: RG-59.075; File Number: mh55-704.00000088, Ancestry.com. UK, Selected Records Relating to Kindertransport, 1938-1939 (USHMM) ↩
  2. Siegmund Rothschild, The National Archives; Kew, London, England; 1939 Register; Reference: RG 101/244E, Description Enumeration District: Akde, Ancestry.com. 1939 England and Wales Register ↩