Archives

Karl Saam, the man to whom Manfred Rosengarten wrote his first letter to Themar in 1983. Source: Rosa Bosseker Collection, Themar.

The following are examples of documents that will be included in this section.

Example 1: Correspondence
Manfred Rosengarten, born in Themar in 1921, left the city in 1936; he left Germany in 1939 for Shanghai and eventually California. He never actually set foot  in Themar again but, between 1983 and his death in November 1987, Manfred returned there with his thoughts and his memories.

In 1983, he wrote the letter attached here to Karl Saam, a clockmaker of Themar. Saam circulated his letter to Rosengarten’s old school chums and they wrote back. An intensive exchange of letters crisscrossed the ocean between Manfred and his schoolmates who had not seen each other since 1936.

Manfred Rosengarten, Martinez, California, to Karl Saam, Themar, 23.08.1983
als pdf-Datei (in German)
English Text

Example 2: Eyewitness Testimony
Ludwig Mühlfelder’s father, Julius, was born in Themar in 1891, the son of Amalia Frankenberger (1862-1931) and Jonas Mühlfelder (1863-1937). Ludwig was born in 1924 in Suhl; in 1939, he, his sister, Ellen, mother and father escaped from Germany to America. Three years later, Ludwig volunteered to return to Europe as a soldier. By one of those ironic twists of fate, he was among the American troops who liberated the town of Themar. His great-aunt, Meta Frankenberger Krakauer, who had lived in Themar until deportation in 1942, survived Theresienstadt.

Ludwig Muhlfelder published his memoirs, Because I Survived: An Autobiography. He died in 2004.