Lotte, Julius and Else Rosenberg (née Pabst). Source: Private Collection

The pogrom of Kristallnacht, the 9/10 November 1938, transformed Nazi policy towards German Jews from encouraged emigration to forced emigration. The burnings of synagogues, smashing of shop windows, incarcerations of men over 16 years of age, were all warnings to get out — fast.

German Jews had been emigrating steadily in the six years since Hitler had become Chancellor on 30 January 1933: by early November 1938, about one-quarter (25% or 150,000) had left.  They clearly heard the warning of November 1938 and by the end of 1939, nearly double that number (280,000) had left Germany. Those remaining in Germany, approximately 200,000, continued to search desperately for refuge.

The Rosenbergs’ Auswanderung/Emigration File. Source: Private Collection

The story of the family of Julius Rosenberg, his wife, Else, a non-Jew, and their daughter, Lotte (b. 1934) takes us inside this world. Julius and Else had begun to apply for emigration/immigration papers in mid-1938. On Kristallnacht, Julius was arrested and imprisoned in Buchenwald; upon his release in December, they intensified the search. The file, shown at left, titled simply Auswanderungpapiere (Emigration papers) contains copies of all the letters and forms written by Julius and Else and by others on their behalf, as well as copies of the responses they received. It’s a thick file.

In early 1939, the Rosenbergs received notification of their numbers on the waiting list for admission into the United States, They knew immediately that it would be at least two  years before the American quota on German & Austrian immigrants (Jews and non-Jews alike) would allow them to enter. They continued to search for other possibilitiesm but there were none to find. The Rosenbergs remained in Germany throughout WWII: Julius was arrested in 1943 and murdered, probably in Auschwitz; Else and Lotte survived the war and emigrated from Germany for Canada in the early 1950s.

In February 1939, Julius Rosenberg replied to this ad in a Berlin Jewish newspaper that suggested that India might accept Jewish immigrants. He did not receive a reply and India accepted very few Jewish immigrants. Source: Private Collection.

The letters and postcards of Clara and Max Müller to sons Meinhold and Willi, both of whom had left Germany before November 1938, provide us with a different perspective of the hunt for safety. Clara and Max too received numbers on the USA’s waiting list and knew how long the wait would be; as Clara wrote to her 16-year olf son, Willi, in Palestine on 9 April 1939;

Clara Müller, Themar, to Willi Müller, Palestine, 9 April 1939. Source: Private Collection

Aunt Bertha [Clara’s sister-in-law] from Hersfeld will move this month to Frankfurt and stay there until her number comes up. Siegfried Nussbaum and his wife will probably leave this summer for the States. We have a very high number and must wait a very long time. Love, Mama.

Documents such as these challenges the assumption that Jewish Germans, particularly the older generation, didn’t really want to leave Germany and did not attempt to leave, even after the warning of Kristallnacht. To date, little in the research about the Jewish community in Themar supports this notion. We know that very elderly people, those in their late 80s/early 90s, did not apply to emigrate, but Jewish Themarens in their early 80s did.

Rather, it is the indifference of other countries to the plight of Jewish victims of Nazi oppression that screams out from the pages of evidence. By the end of June 1939, 309,000 German, Austrian, and Czech Jews had applied for the 27,000 places available under the quota. The Rosenbergs and the Müllers knew that their numbers would not fall within this quota for at least two years, given that the quota applied to both Jewish and non-Jewish Germans. They persisted in applying elsewhere.

Canada’s reluctance to accept Jewish refugees deserves special mention in this regard, given the special bond between Canada and Themar that has arisen since 2007, when the letters of Manfred Rosengarten were donated to the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre. Canada accepted only one of Themar’s Jews, Lothar Frankenberg, b. 1895. That’s not a record to be proud of!

Sharon Meen
Vancouver, Canada

Quotation from Thuringen Office of Racial Affairs to Mayor Themar, 28.06.1943. (Themar City Archives) Images: l/r: Markus & Else Kahn-Rosenberg, Max & Frieda Freudenberg- Müller (Private Collections)

Between June 1942 and February 1945, 58 Jews connected to the families of Themar were transported to Theresienstadt. The first were Georg and Rudolf Gassenheimer, both born in Themar, with their wives. The last was Doris Lorenzen, née Frankenberg, born in Themar.

On 19 September 1942, seven Jews were deported from the city of Themar: Meta Krakauer née Frankenberg, Hugo and Clara Grünbaum née Schloss; Max and Frieda Muller née Freudenberger, and Markus and Else Rosenberg née Kahn. They were initially transported to Weimar and there 
herded into a train with 357 other Jews of Thüringen. On 20 September 1932, they set off for Theresienstadt; 520 Jews joined the transport in Leipzig. The deportation train stopped in 
Bauschowitz as the ghetto itself did not have a train station until the summer of 1943. The prisoners had to walk the three-kilometer 
stretch to the ghetto on foot and under guard.

Nanny Steindler née Rindsberg, was the first of the Themar Jews to die — 10 days after her arrival, at the age of 88 years. By the end of 1942, 10 more had died of hunger and typhus. In 1943, another 12 Themarer Jews died, among whom were Max Muller and his wife, Frieda,
 both of whom died in November 1943.

In September 1943, the first two Themar Jews were transported to Auschwitz and 19 more followed in 1944. Five were women like Else Rosenberg, née Kahn, who was taken to Auschwitz after the death of her husband, Markus, simply 
to be murdered there.

In February 1945, the last Jew of Themar was deported to Theresienstadt — Doris Lorenzen, née Frankenberg, born 1895 in Themar. Doris lived in Dinslaken
 where her ‘privileged marriage’ to a non-Jew had protected her from deportation until this time. She was 50 years old.

There were still seven people connected to Themar alive in Theresienstadt when Doris Lorenzen arrived and all survived the war:  Minna Frankenberg,
 née Gassenheimer; Helene Gassenheimer, née Hirsch; Hulda Grossmann, née Bär, Meta Krakauer, née Frankenberg; and Rita Dressel, née Walther, and her two children. Hulda Grünbaum, née Schlesinger, was also alive in Switzerland; she had been freed as part of a prisoner-exchange in February 1945 that took 1000 Jews from Theresienstadt to Switzerland. None of those who had been deported to Auschwitz
 survived.

These are the names of those men and women with connections to Themar who were deported to Theresienstadt Ghetto. These people played an important role in the life of the city of Themar and one should never forget them.

MEMBERS OF THE JEWISH FAMILIES OF THEMAR WHO WERE DEPORTED TO THE THERESIENSTADT GHETTO, 1942-1945.

THE FAMILY OF SAMUEL & JETTE BAER, b. Walther
Hulda GROSSMAN, b. Bär 1874 Marisfeld, d. 1948 Berlin
Anneliese REHBOCK, b. Gerau 1911 Hildburghausen, murdered [Auschwitz]
Adolf REHBOCK, b. 1886 Gehaus, d. 26 March 1944 Theresienstadt
Machol Peter REHBOCK, b. 1938 Hildburghausen, murdered [Auschwitz]

THE GRÜNBAUM & SECKEL FAMILIES
Bertha SECKEL, b. Grünbaum 1867 Walldorf, d. 30. Nov 1942 Theresienstadt
Rosa HERZBERG, b. Seckel 1864 Groß Munzel, d. 29 March 1943 Theresienstadt
Hugo SECKEL, b. 1866 Groß Munzel, murdered Sept 1942 Treblinka
Ella SECKEL, b. Heinemann 1874 Hull/Eng, murdered Sept 1942 Treblinka
Karl GRÜNBAUM, b. 1876 Themar, d. 29 March 1943 Theresienstadt
Hulda GRÜNBAUM, b. Schlesinger 1876 Wasungen, d. Australien

THE FAMILY OF LÖB & JETTE FRANKENBERG, b. Hermann
Hermann FRANKENBERG, b. 1862 Marisfeld, d. Sept 1942 Treblinka
Klara FRANKENBERG, b. Bauer 1863 Albingshausen, d. 30 Dec 1942 Theresienstadt
Meta KRAKAUER, b. Frankenberg 1868 Marisfeld, d. 1955 Dinslaken
Martha KATZ, b. Frankenberg 1887 Themar, murdered [Auschwitz]
Leopold KATZ, b. 1876 Hannover, d. 02. Juli 1944 Theresienstadt
Günter Norbert KATZ, b. 1923 Dinslaken, murdered 14 March 1945 Kaufering
Doris LORENZEN, b. Frankenberg 1895 Themar, d. 1970 Dinslaken

THE KAHN FAMILIES
Isaak KAHN, b. 1870 Marisfeld, d. 22 Dec 1942 Theresienstadt
Jacob KAHN, b. 1868 Marisfeld, d. 28 June 1943 Theresienstadt
Hulda KAHN, b. Adler 1875 Bremke, d. 18 June 1943 Theresienstadt
Else ROSENBERG, b. Kahn 1888 Themar, murdered [Auschwitz]
Markus ROSENBERG, b. 1886 Lichenroth, d. 17 July 1943 Theresienstadt
Rosa LILIENFELD, b. Kahn 1906 Marisfeld, murdered [Auschwitz]
Hans LILIENFELD, b. 1930 Neustadt, murdered [Auschwitz]
Walter LILIENFELD, b. 1935 Neustadt, murdered [Auschwitz]

THE FAMILY OF HUGO & EVA FRIEDMANN, b. Kahn
Sitta LEWIN, b. Friedmann 1903 Themar, d. 22 Feb 1943 Theresienstadt
Ernst LEWIN, b. 1895 Falkenburg, murdered [Auschwitz]
Joachim LEWIN, b. 1935 Falkenburg, murdered [Auschwitz]

THE FAMILY OF SALOMON & KAROLINE MÜLLER, b. Friedmann
Rita DRESSEL, b. Walther 1903 Hildburghausen, d. Frankfurt am Main
___ DRESSEL, b. Hildburghausen, survivor
___ DRESSEL, b. Hildburghausen, survivor
Gertrud HEIM, b. Walther 1888 Hildburghausen, survivor
Max MÜLLER, b. 1873 Themar, d. 26 Nov 1943 Theresienstadt

Frieda MÜLLER, b. Freudenberger 1874 Neustadt, d. 06 Nov 1943 Theresienstadt
Nanny STEINDLER, b. Rindsberg 1854 Uehlfeld, d. 17 Sept 1942 Theresienstadt
Emma NEUHAUS, b. Steindler 1887 Cham, murdered 1944 [Auschwitz]
Adolf NEUHAUS, b. 1879 Herelshausen, d. 17 July 1943 Theresienstadt

THE FAMILY OF SAMUEL & LOTTE GASSENHEIMER, b. Stein
Minna FRANKENBERG, b. Gassenheimer 1872 Themar, d. 1961 Halle a. d. Saale
Nathan FRANKENBERG, b. 1863 Marisfeld, d. 06 Dec 1942 Theresienstadt
Siegfried FRANKENBERG, b. 1895 Coburg, murdered [Auschwitz]
Hertha FRANKENBERG, b. Meyer 1909 Berlin, murdered [Auschwitz]
Georg GASSENHEIMER, b. 1874 Themar, murdered [Auschwitz]
Selma GASSENHEIMER, b. 1880 Berkach, murdered [Auschwitz]
Elise NEY, b. Gassenheimer b. 1876 Themar, d. 06 Oct 1942 Theresienstadt
Rudolf GASSENHEIMER, b. 1880 Themar, murdered [Auschwitz]
Tekla GASSENHEIMER, b. Schwab 1884 Berkach, murdered [Auschwitz]
and
Louis GASSENHEIMER, b. 1873 Bibra, d. 21 Jan 1943 Theresienstadt
Helene GASSENHEIMER, b. Hirsch 1877 Schweinfurt, d. 1953 Kalifornien
Alma STEINHARDT, b. Gassenheimer 1877 Bibra, murdered [Auschwitz]

THE FAMILY OF GABRIEL & BERTA SCHLOSS, b. Schloss
Hedwig SACHS, b. Sachs 1866 Themar, d. 09 Jan 1943 Theresienstadt

THE FAMILY OF NOA & MINNA GRÜNBAUM, b. Friedmann
Hugo GRÜNBAUM, b. 1868 Walldorf, d. 24 Oct 1942 Theresienstadt
Klara GRÜNBAUM, b. Schloss 1873 Schwanfeld, d. 25 Nov 1942 Theresienstadt
Minna ROSENTHAL, b. Grünbaum 1872 Themar, d. 01 June 1943 Theresienstadt

THE FAMILY OF SAMUEL & BABETTE WALTHER, b. Landecker
Richard WALTHER, b. 1874 Themar, d. 25 Dec 1942 Theresienstadt
Ida WALTHER, b. Levor 1881 Barchfeld, murdered [Auschwitz]

THE FAMILY OF NATHAN & MALVINA WERTHEIMER, b. Frankenberg
Milton WERTHEIMER, b. 1886 Themar, murdered 11 Oct 1944 Auschwitz
Rosa EDELMUTH, b. Wertheimer 1887 Themar, murdered 09 March 1944 Auschwitz
Jacob EDELMUTH, b. 1884 Beuern, murdered 09 March 1944 Auschwitz

At the end of October 1939, shortly after Aaltje’s birth, Mutti, Papa and I, a six- year old “adventurer,” escaped from Germany. It all began with a visit to Mutti’s relatives in Amsterdam. We stayed with Tante Käthe and Onkel Isaak where I met Aaltje for the first and only time. I held the baby with great love. Everyone reminded me often that this was my only cousin. I couldn’t really play with this babe of two months. How does one “play” with a newborn? At best, one shakes a rattle in hopes of eliciting a gurgle. Did we roll on the carpet? Did I teach her a song? Surely, it was the clichéd love at first sight.

Fred Amram is the boy in front. His mother, Sitta Amram, née Nussbaum, was daughter of Else Nussbaum, née Müller, born in Marisfeld to Nathan and Bertha Müller. Source: Family Collection.

Early in November of 1939, my parents and I found our way to Antwerp, Belgium. I remember none of that journey which lasted only a few days. Some trains. Some walking. No other memories. I already missed Aaltje.

The Nazis invaded Holland on May 10, 1940. We don’t know the details of the family’s suffering. Years later, however, while studying records at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, I learned that on February 19, 1943, Aaltje, with her twenty-nine year old mother, died at Auschwitz. The Nazi killers had kept scrupulous documentation in a clear script. Aaltje’s age at the time of her murder: 3½.

What can I tell about Aaltje Wurms? All I remember is that she was small, an infant, when I saw her last. I can only imagine her life story; what might have been. Might she have become an Anne Frank? A Nobel laureate scientist? Or, might she have become a housewife caring for her own children and grandchildren? She might have grown old, just as I did. She might have grown old with me to become my only cousin — just six years my junior. Parents gone. Uncles and aunts gone. Cousin Aaltje, gone. I am an only child. All I have left is the photograph of a child who did not survive the Holocaust.

Fred Michael Brick Amram
www.fredamram.com
Original Post: http://www.fredamram.com/Aaltje.html

Reprinted with permission of Fred Michael Brick Amram. Many thanks.

Source: Themar City Archives

On 12 November 1941, Martha Hahn, geb. Katz in 1889 in Themar, was deported from Frankfurt am Main to Minsk Ghetto in Belarus, 1672 km to the east. Martha was the member of the Adolf & Meta Schwab Katz family, one of the large families that lived in Themar in the final decades of the 19th century and first decade of the 20th century.

Martha probably lived in Themar until around 1910. We do not know much about her life once she left Themar: in December 1938, she registered the addition of ‘Sara’ to her name in 1939 with the Themar Standesamt/City Register, and from this form, we know that she was married, Martha Hahn, geb. [=née] Katz, and that she was living in Frankfurt at Herbartstrasse 9.

And we know that she was deported from Frankfurt am Main on November 12 1941. She was 52 years old. We do not know, and probably never will, the exact date of her death. Few people survived the November 12 1941 transport and the sources suggest that the survivors were male.

Between November 1941 and October 1942, approximately 20,000 Jewish people from the Old Reich were deported to the ghetto. By October 1943, most of them were dead.

We honour the memory of one of these people, Martha Hahn geb. Katz in 1889 in Themar.

See Themar Jews & the Minsk Ghetto.

Page of Testimony submitted to Yad Vashem by Hugo and Eva Kahn Friedmann’s grandson. Source: Yad Vashem. 

October 16, 2011 — 70 years since the first deportation of members of Themar’s Jewish community to the ‘east.’ On this day in 1941, Hugo and Eva Friedmann were deported from Luxemburg-Trier to the Ghetto in Lodz, or Liztmannstadt as it had been renamed by the Nazis.

The Friedmanns lived in Themar in the first decade of the 1900s and their four children — two daughters, Johanna and Sitta, and two sons, Friedrich and Hugo — were born there. Hugo Friedmann came to Themar in the early 1900s as Lehrer and the family lived in the apartment over the synagogue in Hildburghäuser Strasse 17. The family left Themar in 1909 to go to Bernkastel-Kues where they remained until the late 1930s or early 1940s.

The Friedmanns were on the first transport of German Jews to the ‘east’ authorized by Hitler in mid-September 1941. Hitler had changed his mind and given the green light to top-ranking advisors, such as Goebbels in Berlin and in Hamburg, to proceed full steam with the systematic, centrally controlled deportation of the Jews from the Altreich (Germany and Austria) and the Protectorate (Bohemia and Moravia). As well, Hitler agreed that forced migration east could happen while the war with Russia continued rather than only at its conclusion — although he still hoped that the two events would coincide

Hitler’s closest advisors rapidly formulated and implemented the plans. The first transports were to go to Litzmannstadt Ghetto. As Himmler relayed the orders:

“The Fuhrer wishes the Altreich and the Protectorate to be cleared of and freed from Jews from West to East as soon as possible. Consequently, I shall endeavor, this year if possible, and initially as a first stage, to transport the Jews of the Altreich and the Protectorate to those Eastern territories which became part of the Reich two years ago, and then deport them even further eastwards next spring. My intention is to take approximately 60,000 Jews of the Altreich and the Protectorate to spend the winter in the Litzmannstadt Ghetto which I have heard, still has available capacity.”

Less than one month later — on October 15, 1941 — the transports to Litzmannstadt Ghetto began: a transport left Vienna carrying over 1000 Jews. The next day, October 16th, the first transport from Germany left from Trier on the western border of Germany — this transport included Jews from Luxemburg, among whom were Hugo and Eva Friedmann.

Members of the Jewish families of Themar who lived elsewhere in Germany were on other transports of 1941 and the information that we have, slight though it may be, provides us with one lens through which to view the genocide.

The Deportations of the Members of Themar’s Jewish Families
The Deportation of the German Jews, 1941 
The Deportations to Litzmannstadt Ghetto, Ocktober 1941

July 1938/Themar: l/r, Willi Müller, Clara Müler, Flora Wolf Müller, Herbert Müller, Frieda Mayer Wolf, Max Müller. Source: The H. Müller Collection.

In late summer 1941 — seventy years ago — around 145 people directly related to the Jewish community of Themar (parents, husbands, and children) were still in Germany or elsewhere in occupied Europe (Holland and France). For them, September 1941 was the month when the Nazis unleashed the full fury of their hatred against the German Jews.

The blows came fast and furious: the most fateful of all was the decision made by Hitler — sometime in the middle of September — to let top-ranking Gauleiter/regional leaders such as Joseph Goebbels in Berlin and Karl Kaufmann in Hamburg go full steam ahead with a new plan for the physical removal of the Jews from Germany. Instead of voluntary, albeit forced, emigration to whichever country would offer refuge, the German Jews were now to be sent forcibly ‘east’ and settled in inhospitable locations and squalid conditions where they would die of disease, starvation, cold or cold-blooded murder. Moreover, this massive resettlement was to begin before the war ended rather than after, as earlier planned. The first transports were planned for mid-October after which voluntary emigration elsewhere was prohibited.

The story of what happened to Themar’s Jewish community in the three and a half years after September 1941 is one of unrelieved pain, as a once proud community was shattered by the politics of hatred and the shared hatred, sheer indifference and/or fear of most members of the city’s non-Jewish community.

The photograph above takes us to the heart of this story: shortly after the July 1938 wedding pictured above, Willy Müller, the groom’s brother, emigrated to Palestine and a new life. Herbert Müller and his bride, Flora Wolf, and her mother, Frieda Mayer Wolf (next to the groom), were able to leave Europe from Lisbon in July 1941 for the United States. But the parents of the groom, Max Müller II and his wife, Clara Nussbaum Müller, failed to receive their visas in time, despite the determined efforts of their family. They were on the first transport of Thüringen Jews to the ‘east’ on May 10, 1942.

Over the next few months, we will relate what we know about the fate of Themar’s Jewish community seventy years ago.
See 1941 & Themar’s Jewish Community

Source: Themar City Archives.

A list, yellow with age, hand-written in pencil, with marginalia jottings, has become one of the touchstone documents in finding the Jewish community of Themar. On September 3, 1962 — almost 50 years ago — Oskar Stapf, the City of Themar archivist, drew up the list of the Jewish families who had lived in Themar after 1900. Stapf, born in 1885, had known most of these families personally, and most, if not all, of the Jewish children had attended the Volksschule of which he was principal.

Stapf identified the household head, the type of business or economic activity, and the number of children in the family. In the left-hand margin are some numbers that have not yet been successfully interpreted, and in the right-hand margin are additional names of one individual, [Klara] Eisenfresser, and two additional families. Hist totals were: thirty-three (33) households, 74 children, and eight (8) ‘Mischlinge’ or children of Christian/Jewish parentage. An estimate of the total number identified by Stapf as living in Jewish families is 147.

Nearly fifty years later, Stapf’s list serves as the starting point to restore the names of the once thriving Jewish community of Themar. Most, but not all, of the households identified have been found. The accuracy of Stapf’s memory means, of course, that we are still intent on finding missing family members. In some instances, such as Alfred and Louis Walther, we know of them as individuals. But we do not yet know exactly who Alfred’s three children were or Louis’s five.

Stapf’s list has also allowed a push back of the family histories into the nineteenth century. As a result, we now have a fuller sense of the families who, in the late 1860s, created the Jewish community in Themar — the families of Samuel & Jette Baer, Löb and Jette Frankenberg, Samuel and Lotte Gassenheimer, Salomon & Karoline Müller, Abraham & Regina Schwab, the Gustav and Berta Betty Schloss family, and various branches of the Walther family.

Go to this page for more information about the families of Themar’s Jewish Community.

Sabine Müller and Hubert Böse, 30 April 2011, Themar Amtshaus Welcome. Credit: J. Ewing.

On April 29, 2011, the City of Themar welcomed the families of former Jewish residents of Themar. On the evening of Friday April 29th, Themar’s mayor, Hubert Böse, greeted the guests. Sabine Müller, Chair of the association, “Themar trifft Europa/Themar greets Europe” provided a translation of Mr. Böse’s words as well as welcoming the guests herself. The following text is Sabine’s translation of the mayor’s words:

“Dear guests,
I welcome every one of you most warmly here to our town. I want to thank everybody who followed our invitation and is here today. Partly, you went for a very long trip, which was surely hard, not only because of the long distances but also since you were accompanied by a very special kind of restlessness and mixed feelings.

I also say thank you to those invited people who would have liked to have come but could not because of the time factor or medical reasons. A lot of them wrote letters to me in which they described their feelings and these connect them with this meeting. I read so many lines full of emotion. The thoughts and feelings I could read about in the letters or emails have one thing in common: this event is important and the memory connected with it is long overdue. All those who can’t be here very much regret it but they say ‘good luck’ to our event. Now I know that our dialogue, which started in November 2008, is right and I hope direct personal connections will be developed.

Frankly, when I was writing this invitation, I wasn’t sure how many of the descendants of the former Jewish citizens of our town would actually come to get to know the home of their parents and grandparents. There are so many, it is very impressive to us. Surely, it is a very emotional journey for you but be sure it is as emotional for us as hosts too.

Nothing that happened to the Jewish families in Germany and in our city after 1933 can be justified. It was and remains a crime.

Nevertheless, your deep connection with your homeland moves me and lets me hope to get forgiveness since we, as the descendants of the former offenders, are willing to have a critical view of our history. We want to deal intensively with this dark side of Themar’s past and remember it so that the horror of that time will never be forgotten and will never be able to develop again.

The Jewish families benefitted this town. For a very long time, they influenced the social, economic and cultural life of Themar. Their traces are still visible today and show how deep their roots were. Their roots and their ‘home/Heimat’ were stolen from them but the love for their home/Heimat could not be extinguished. Think of Manfred Rosengarten or Marion Syktich née Sander, whose son Glen Syktich wrote to me that his mother wasn’t able to forget Themar and mostly thought of the nice moments she had had as a girl and a young woman.

I wish you have a nice stay here in Themar and I hope you will see that this town has a friendly face. Furthermore, I hope you like the program, which is surely extensive and hard. I hope that you will feel that you are very much welcomed in Themar.

I thank all the persons who did their best to organize this meeting and tomorrow’s event. We thank Sharon Meen, Rolf Lengemann, Barbara and Arnd Morgenroth, the family of  Fritz Stubenrauch, the family of Andreas Stapf, Joachim Hanf, Rolf Kammerdiener and the association, “Themar trifft Europa”. Have a good time in Themar.”

Ever vigilant to discover any new traces about Themarens, a recent google search for “Meta Krakauer” brought lots of news!

Six months ago, Anne Prior of Dinslaken published a book about the Jewish community of Dinslaken, „Wo die Juden geblieben sind, ist [...] nicht bekannt.” It received excellent reviews and quite a bit of publicity, and the google entry pictured above highlighted Meta Krakauer. The book itself provides much welcome information.

We already knew a lot about Meta Krakauer. Born 1866 in Marisfeld, she was a member of the very large Frankenberg family that moved from Marisfeld to Themar in the late 1860s/early 1870s. Meta lived most of her life, therefore, in Themar, leaving it only in September 1942, age 74, when she was deported to Theresienstadt. We also knew that Meta had survived the Holocaust, in Theresienstadt and that she was the only Jew deported from Themar to survive. We also knew that Meta had gone to Dinslaken after the war because, in 1946, she wrote a two-page letter to Gertrud Stubenrauch in Themar. But after that, we knew nothing.

M. Krakauer, Dinslaken, to G. Stubenrauch, Themar, 09.09.1946. Source: The Stubenrauch Collection, Themar.

But now we know whyMeta went to Dinslaken: her niece, Doris Frankenberg Lorenzen, who was also deported to Theresienstadt and was also in the Ghetto upon liberation, took Meta home with her to Dinslaken. There was no reason for Meta to return to Themar and thus she remained in Dinslaken. She died ten years later on July 10, 1955, and was buried in the Dinslaken Jewish Cemetery, “the only survivor,” Prior tells us, “of a National Socialist ghetto to be buried there.”

Meta Krakauer’s Gravestone. Source: Anne Prior.

This information brings closure to Meta’s story, but Prior’s research also provides detail about Doris Frankenberg Lorenzen, about whom we knew little. We knew that Doris had been born in Themar in 1898 because she submitted the “Addition of Sara” form to the city administration in December 1938. The form told us that she had married in 1926 in Krefeld and lived in Dinslaken-Lohberg. But after that, silence. Her name did not appear in any of the databases, such as Ancestry.com, the Deutsches Archiv, Gedenkbuch, or Yad Vashem, so we did not know what had happened to her: the possibilities were many: perhaps she had emigrated to Israel, South Africa or someplace not yet included in the Ancestry.com databases, or she had died before the Holocaust, or perhaps she had survived. We had questions: Whose daughter was she? Whose sibling? Who was her husband? Did she have any children? What happened to her?

Source: Themar City Archives.

Now we have answers: Doris Frankenberg Lorenzen did survive the Holocaust. Her husband, Karl Lorenzen, was not Jewish, and Doris’s status within a so-called ‘mixed marriage’ protected her into 1944. But in September 1944, that protection ceased, and Prior believes that Doris was probably arrested and imprisoned in a large camp in Kassel-Bettenhausen from fall 1944 until early spring 1945. On February 14, 1945 —  just 11 weeks before the liberation — Doris, age 46, and three other women of Dinslaken in similar marriages were deported to Theresienstadt. In the ghetto, Doris found her 77-year old aunt, Meta Krakauer, the youngest sister of Doris’s father, Nathan, b. 1853. After liberation, Doris brought Meta back to Dinslaken with her.

We now know as well where Doris fits in the Frankberg family map. She was the youngest of five daughters of Nathan and Bertha Rosenthal Frankenberg. (Her father, Nathan, was the eldest son of Löb and Jette Hermann Frankenberg. Nathan was 13 years older than his youngest sister, Meta, and died in 1920.) Doris’s mother, Bertha, died in May 1942 in Essen where she had presumably gone to live with her daughter, Martha, and her family; it appears that Bertha died of natural causes. With the exception of one sister, Hilde Frankenberg Sander, who died of natural causes in 1938, Doris lost her other three sisters — Martha Frankenberg Katz, Lucie Frankenberg Heinemann, and Ida Frankenberg Katz — to the Holocaust. She converted to Catholicism and was buried in the Catholic cemetery upon her death in early January 1970.

Doris Lorenzen. Source: Anne Prior

Death Notice for Doris Lorenzen with announcement of burial at Roman-Catholic church. Source: A. Prior, p. 117

Thank you, Anne Prior!

Clockmaker Karl Saam of Themar. Source: City of Themar.

"Clock goes home to Themar." Freies Wort, 9.12.2010

On the 9th of December, 2010 a clock made by Karl Saam of Themar was unveiled in the window of the former Morgenroth Haus on the Church Square of Themar. The newspaper article describes the quasi-formal dedication of the clock in its window. And, although it may seem a little strange, this event had a very direct connection to the history of this website.

Four years ago, the son of Manfred Rosengarten (b. 1921 Themar/d. 1987 California), brought a box of letters in German to the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre (VHEC). Andrew Rosengarten, the son, reads no German and the Center asked me, a German-speaking volunteer, if I would assist him in understanding the content of the letters. In the box we found both sides of a remarkable four-year correspondence (1983-1987) between Manfred, 62 years old, and a small group of non-Jewish school friends he had seen in the 30′s in Themar.

A curious coincidence had led to this correspondence: in the early 1980s, Manfred wanted to make a photo album of Themar, his hometown, for his children and grandchildren and he needed new pictures of Themar. The sister of a California friend, who lived in the GDR, volunteered to go to Themar and take photos.

Manfred of course wanted to have a picture of his birthplace — and the house was the home of watchmaker Saam. On the day of the photoshoot, it just so happened that the photographer met Karl Saam in the front of the house. He remembered the Rosengartens and, via the photographer, invited Manfred to write.

And so, on 21 August 1983, Manfred Rosengarten wrote Karl Saam and asked him to distribute the letter to his former classmates, if any of them were interested to hear from him.

They were and the result was an “avalanche” of letters that crossed the ocean between Manfred and the small group of classmates who were still living in Themar.

Source: Rosengarten Collection, VHEC Archives, Vancouver British Columbia.

In the history of this site say the name Karl Saam is very important. And it may be that when people look at the clock in window of the Morgenroth House, they will also think of the former Themarerjuden and how their voices are still alive!

Morgenroth House, Themar. Source: City of Themar.