Asking the Red Cross

I just found this letter in the Arolsen Archives, a major source of Holocaust information.  I hadn't looked at it too directly before.  An American soldier, Alfred Schwab wrote a letter to the National Tracing Bureau, an agency working with the Rec Cross looking for displaced people.  And there were a ton of them.

But, if you were looking for somebody, you contacted the Red Cross.

This soldier is another of my mother's second cousins.  His letter dated June 1945 asks about the whereabouts of his uncle, aunt and cousin, David, Marta and Lothar Baumann.  Last address 6 Sloestratt Amsterdam.  He has not heard from them since late 1941.

Yes, the same family that we placed with stolpersteine memorials in 2022.  

The Red Cross replied about a year later saying that the members of this family were transported from Westerbork (the transit camp) to Sobibor and Auschwitz.

So they knew.  David Baumann's siblings and their families knew.  But not clear if the information got to the cousins. Or they listened.  If they knew.

But it's getting closer.
 

The farm in Rockland County

 The group of farm people my mother's cousin Jack brought over in 1939 and 1940.  German Jews, very dangerous.  Don't know how he did it.  Though my mother insisted they were self-sufficient and sometimes they brought vegetables.  I don't think the farm lasted very long.  Not much agrarian background among European Jews.

Some of  my closer relatives are in this picture; I can identify them.  Left was the cousin Jack.  Next to him is my Aunt Ruth, I think the lady in the white jacket in the middle is my great aunt Gertrude with her youngest son Jim crouching next to her.  Farthest to my right is my grandmother Regina.

I haven't figured out the rest of the people.  But it was Jack's sister Flora, her husband Wilhelm Adler and her father in law Abraham Adler.  Jack's brother Julius and his wife Irene.  I don't know about Flora.

Julius and Irene had their children in the 1920s as did my grandmother.  I don't know who the other young boy is.  

This is around 1940, don't know how to date it.

But here's the kicker.  Jack, Flora and Julius' were siblings.

Another sibling -- David Baumann, for whom we laid the stolpersteine memorial in Amsterdam two years ago.  

I wondered why my mother and family didn't know about David and his family.  My mother had passed away when we discovered it.  Oh, people didn't know, they didn't know my grandfather's cousins, they were far away, people didn't talk about it,  it was different then, no computers, etc.

Nope, not buying it now or before.  Here are 3 of David's siblings right in this picture (somewhere) posing with my grandmother, my aunt, my great aunt and her son.  My mother telling me the story of the farm in 1985.  Flora and her husband sailed from Rotterdam and registered in Amsterdam.  They had to know about David being in Amsterdam.

Picture on the Bureau

 In the box of framed photos I received is this one which I recognized.  I think a similar picture was on my mom's bureau.

Where is that picture anyway?  Things just slip away.

Who is it?  I think it's my great grandmother.  Sophia Roytenburg Cohen.  Those names are not necessarily 'accurate'  They were married quite young.  They arrived around 1890.  The 'story' was that they did not go through Ellis Island but posed as the children of a Canadian couple.  Over and over, they tell us that names were not changed at Ellis Island.  The story was that Edward Cohen took that name when he came to America.  He thought it would be a good name for a Jewish family.  Not Kohanim and not claiming to be so.  By cousin Sonia was named for her and also myself Sandra.

Lederer Meetup!

 We're very busy organizing the Lederer family reunion.  It's not really a reunion as most of us have never met.  But New Brunswick in August.

This picture, a posted picture  on the occasion of the youngest son's bar mitzvah.  I don't think they observed for any of their other sons.  I don't have the date but I am sure I will know soon.  The sibling I'm related to is Clara (my great grandmother), one of two young woman standing at the back of the picture;

The Lederer also had a family of 11 children's who all made to adulthood.

I have not paid much attention to this side of my family as my third cousin Susan G. has worked very hard on that side.  We hope that that descendants from every sibling attend.

Giving our Archives presentation

 On Friday night, the six of us in our Archives Hearth Group presented our projects at Temple.  These groups are designed to help people get to know each other.  Supposed to last six weeks, we're almost a year.  These art projects address the problem of how to construct something that will communicate some of our family information to others, especially the younger generations.  So we all made one.  They are mounted on the walls in a hall off the main lobby.  We all made a two minute speech introducing our work.  Here I am, doing it.

I think I need images of all of them.

I was nervous at first thinking of producing an art piece.  But not so bad!  Many thanks to our leader Ken and our (accidental) artist in residence Mercer.

Archives Art Project

 We started as a 6 week class last spring.  About Archives.  At our synagogue.  But we're still going!  Somehow the idea turned into an Art Show.  Nobody is sure how that happened.  The idea was to use the archival materials that we had and turn it into some art object.

Art?  Aaack!

So mine is called "Why no yiddishkeit?"  It started with an uncomfortable conversation I had with somebody I knew who assured me that she knew ALL about being Jewish.  After awhile, she was substituting the yiddish culture from Eastern Europe, the people, the food, the music, the theater the language for Judaism.  But then I thought about my own family.  There really was none of that yiddishkeit in my family at all.  Why not?

So this piece explores that.  On my mother's side (the top half), her relatives were (almost) all from the earlier 1840-1860 migration from the German States.  About 250,000 came; they did not come from yiddish (and it's culture) lands.  Many from Bavaria ssettled in New Haven, CT.  They spoke German and considered themselves German.

My father's side (the bottom half) came from the much larger (about 2 million) later migration (1880-1925) from Eastern Europe.  Where the yiddish culture flourished.  The Lower East Side, the garment trade, etc.  But my father's family settled in Rochester NY.  In 1918, my grandfather, won a scholarship to Harvard and was a proud 1920 graduate.  From that point on, he was a Harvard Man.  He and my grandmother denied their immigrant past of their parents; they obliterated it.

As you know, I have a lot of archival material.  And I use it.  A lot.

There's the final piece though I'm still picking at it.

Could it be Lithuania? Or similar?

 

I've been struggling to get my relatives over the pond.  There are the three sister great great grandmothers (there could be more sisters) from a village in Bavaria.  And my second great grandfather Zunder from Fuerst.  Another second great grandfather supposedly from Berlin but I have no evidence.  All on my mother's side

On my father's side, I'm still working on it.   My paternal grandmother told the story about a young couple from Ukraine, the young man without family and the young woman living with her grandparents came over with a Canadian couple and changed their name to Cohen because they thought it would be a good Jewish name.  Talk about brick wall.  But maybe I may have something from my paternal grand father.  Maybe if I believe some other family trees (always dangerous) and I believe Boruch Mytnik is the father of Dina Mitnick (and some people do) then he was married in Lozdzieje (not Lodz) and also lived in Pumpenai.  Both place names in Lithuania.  Or what's now Lithuania.  I know Poland was heavily involved in Lithuania so maybe it's Polish.

Who knows?

Bertha

A picture of Bertha Hervitz of Rochester NY, dated 1886.  Look at that getup, whew!  I don't quite know how to describe my relationship to her.  She's my great grandmother Minnie Hervitz's sister.  And also the first wife of Minnie's husband.  She married J. Lester Ginsburgh first, had one child Frances, then died at the age of 28.

I dunno, not sure about this.  This picture was taken 1886 by a Rochester photographer.  According to a hint to a ship manifest records Bertha Hervitz with the correct age arrives in 1889.  She could still have married J. Lester in 1890.  But she wouldn't be in Rochester to take that  picture.  There's a record of that ship manifest but I can't yet find the record on the primary document.

Maybe this isn't Bertha?  We'll say it is for now.  I got the picture from a new-to-me third cousin who recently got it from her uncle.

It would be my great grandfather's first wife and she's looking good, pretty stylish and flashy in this picture.

That immigrant experience

I recently watched a Jewish Gen program moderated by Daniel Mendelsohn who wrote about his search for his relatives killed in the Shoah.  "The Lost."  I checked it out from the library, realized that I had read it before.  But I'm still reading it.  His story revolves around the "four beautiful daughters" of his great uncle in Poland.   Killed by the Nazis.  He talked a lot about stories from his elderly relatives.

I've also joined a Facebook group about Jewish genealogy.  The posts are often about  primary information from relatives in Eastern Europe.  People know their relatives and where they lived.  They want to interpret  records from Ukraine, etc.

What struck me was, even with all this work, I've never gotten much from across the pond.

My situation may be a little different.  In regards to the provenance of my great grandparents, 5 are from German states mostly from the much earlier immigration (1840-1860); only 3 from Eastern Europe and a later immigration (1870-1890).  After 1890 everybody was here.  Which is unusual.  And I've got nothing except for some vague non-specific stories about where these great grandparents came from.

Part of that comes from the utter rejection of the immigrant experience mainly from my paternal grandparents and embraced by my parents.  My grandparents (Harold and Betty Ginsburgh) were both children of Eastern European immigrants.  But you would never ever know it.  They obliterated their immigrant roots.  It's not that they rejected it; it just wasn't there, absent.  They saw themselves as part of cultured Boston, Harvard alumni..  No Yiddish sayings or recipes.  No stories told by their parents.of the old country.  There was no old country as far as they were concerned.  Nothing to be gained from those roots.  Way way gone.

My parents (married in 1950) picked that up.  They committed themselves to the mid-century corporate life style.  My father was an aeronautical engineer also with training in nuclear engineering from ivy-league schools.  His life revolved around his work and the company.  They wanted to raise their family in the suburbs; with the conventional nuclear family.  Assimilation was the theme; California suburbs was the place.  They had no interest in living near extended family.  The advantages of the modern lifestyle more than made up for that.  None of those immigrants stories mattered.  My mother descended from the Bavarian Jews who settled in New Haven (talk about endogamy, whew!).  She liked to talked about the ancestors who lived in America.

Daniel Mendelsohn, wrote about a lot of interactions with his generation grandparents and extended family.  Absorbing the lore, stories and habits they brought with them.

But I have none of that. My grandfather, under direct questioning, said his parents came from Poznan, my grandmother told a crazy story from the Ukraine involving a young couple who changed their name to Cohen.  But they weren't much interested and it's all Brick Wall.  Nothing to go on.

No older relatives to tell me stories.  I grew up in the suburbs far away from my parents' New England roots.  I rarely saw my grandparents and my parents endorsed the idea that 'children should be seen and not heard'.'  I see now how that cripples me now.

Marvin Bargar - May his memory be a blessing

In honor of Marvin Bargar, the longtime archivist at the Jewish Historical Society of Greater New Haven.  This picture was taken by myself, featured on this blog 10 years ago.  Marvin was 85 at that time and running the archives with enthusiasm.  And my cousin Mary Ann, my boots-on-the-ground, we always liked to go to the Ethnic Heritage Center where 5 ethnic historical societies shared a space.  Dennis would say that it was the most enjoyable part of the trip.

See, the white folks, they have a large historical society, known colloquially as "The Colony" and they have a big mansion on one of the most fashionable streets.  But the Jews, the Irish, the Italians, the African Americans and the Ukainians all banded together to make their own place.  A great thing actually.  In a corrogated windowless building with huge industrial doors.  

But that was our place, that's why Dennis liked it so much.

I heard that Marvin Bargar passed away last week.  He was the archivist until he was 95.  He was so good to me and Mary Ann.  Always helped us, gave me permissions, always engaged and helpful.  One time, we were looking for information about my aunt's first husband.  Marvin got a gleam in his eye and went up this huge ladder "OMG, Marvin don't, you are going to KILL yourself."  He brought down this scrapbook that somebody had made about all the WW II  Jewish soldiers.  Sure enough, there was a page for him.  Mary Ann and I shrieked!  The Ukrainian lady from the next one over came over and said "What's going on over here, you are having too much fun!"

But no windows and all that glare, it made taking pictures really hard.  You can see "The Picture" in the background.  Of Maier Zunder, Mary Ann and my great great grandfather.  Taken out for special occasions only.  I tried to take a picture, hopeless.  So we asked my cousin Mal to come and take a picture.  He said, there's no way we can take the picture with all the glare and reflections, we have to take it outside in natural light.  Oh, the fuss about that!

We always knew that Marvin would help us.  I appreciated him so much.  May his memory be a blessing.

New theme: Bohemia

 We had our 'Lederers' cousin call yesterday with a cousin Eytan from Haifa.  He knows a lot and has made progress working in Europe regarding the ancestors of Samuel Lederer (1824-1916) and Marie Abeles (1830-1909), my great great grandparents.  Because my cousin Sue has done a lot of work with this side, I have not made much effort.  But, now I'm getting more inspired.  Both Samuel Lederer and Marie Abeles came from Bohemia, they met and married in the US.  Bohemia, now part of the Czech Republic.  That makes 1/8 of my heritage Bohemian, which sounds satisfactorily bohemian.

Pictured is the home town of Marie, Doudleby nad Orlici.  I'm practicing spelling it.

Lothar story with Laureen Nussbaum

I had the good fortune to visit Laureen Nussbaum today.  She's the local author who was featured in last Sunday's paper with her new book about German Jews in occupied in Amsterdam.  I wrote her asking about Lothar Baumann.  She said that she had received 8 notes from the article and was thrilled to get a note about somebody she knew.  There were thousands of German Jewish refugees in Amsterdam at that time.  But she did know Lothar Baumann and had a story about him.

The upper picture was her sixth grade class in Amsterdam in 1939.  This was a special school for the German Jewish refugees; one of the main objectives was to teach Dutch from a workbook.  With the irony that most of these children would never grow up to use their Dutch.  Lothar is the tall looking kid on the lower right.  Laureen herself is by the upper arrow holding the ball.  She said she had been in school with Lothar both in Mannheim and in Amsterdam so he was kind of an anchor to her.  In the 3rd grade, they were both learning Dutch from the workbook and doing quite well.  For the next year, the principal, trying to ensure that they would do well in the 4th grade, assigned Laureen back to the third grade and Lothar to the 4th grade.  Laureen was incensed, she did not want to stay back.  Her parents were not interested and told her she was on her own.  She went to the principal and insisted that since Lothar was the same age and she was doing as well as he was, she should be able to progress to the 4th grade.  She won her case!

When they got to high school, he went to a different school and she lost track of him.  Her family was close to the Frank family but she said that Lothar's family was not in the same circle though they lived nearby.  She didn't know anything about his parents.

She was reclassified as 'not a Jew' and 'shed' her star.  Lothar was not so fortunate and was identified in the first raid done by letter or phone call.  The same one targeting Margot Frank.  Laureen agreed with my dates.  Lothar hit Westerbork (the transit camp) on 10 July 1942 and died in Auschwitz in September 1942.

But Laureen welcome us to her apartment and served us tea and cookies.  She is nimble, smart and in great shape.  She lives right around the corner from Seattle Pops.  She was quite interested and we walked down for a visit.

Lothar would be my mother's second cousin.

1953 Oak Ridge babies

A picture of my first birthday party in 1953.  I'm the dark featured baby on the left with the blue dress on.  My father went to reactor school in Oak Ridge and the wives were there and everybody had a baby girl.  I have been corresponding with Michael T. who saw a reference to Julius Baumann.  Turns out that's his sister just to the right of me.

Who knew?

The Baumanns

This family history story is still developing and has so many facets.  Start with the letter that I got Michael T. a few days ago looking for some information about Julius Baumann who was a sib of my great grandfather.  He had seen a reference on this very blog.  Haven't quite figured how he got my address but whatever.  So we're writing back, I'm still trying to get them out of Rockland County but he's sure they lived in Queens.  Then he sends me a big long family history document, full of small print.  Page 42 is what you want, he says.  They are not on Ancestry.  I go and see he's born in Oak Ridge TN.  For those who might not know, Oak Ridge was built out of whole cloth by the Manhattan Project for nuclear development.  After the war, young aspiring men (of course) went to 'reactor school' there.  My father did when I was just a baby.  He sent me this address.  My parents and his parents lived in this apartment house or something very similar.  I kept thinking about Oak Ridge and his name and, our of the deepest long term memory comes the name Hedi Tobias.  I remember, my mother talking about meeting a cousin of hers at Oak Ridge who she hadn't known before.  They became friends and wrote for years.  His mother and my mother.  Sure enough, I dig up the picture of my first birthday and there's his sister in the picture.  "Hey, I think our parents knew each other," I say.  His sister has been thinking the very same thing.  But look at the family history and I realize that his grandparents and uncle died in the Holocaust.  Auschwitz and Dachau.  Aaack, no more Holocaust victims, we already have some.  But, you know, there are too many to count.  Too many to know.

This story, like the impeachment inquiry, is still developing.....

My Mother's cousin Marilyn

Since we're on the theme of parent's cousins, or first cousin once removed ... just so happens that I have another picture that meets the theme.  My mother's favorite cousin Marilyn.  Who passed away a short time ago.  Shown here with my favorite (she's always got to be the fave) second cousin, Marilyn's daughter, Flash/Susan.  Always looking gorgeous, talented and lovely.  With her mom at some formal event.  Flash posted this picture recently with this comment:

She always asked, "What time are you going on?" so she could consciously send support that moment. Now it's my turn to always think of her.

My father's cousin Stuart

Many thanks to Wendy  H S a new-to-me second cousin who I met (but not yet in person) through Ancestry.  As I might have guessed, the fairly close to me people would be through my paternal grandmother who came from a family of six.  Here is Stuart (on the right) with his husband Cliff.  They went to visit Wendy (a favorite niece) in Colorado.  I know they went to a big Beatles tribute concert in a large outside venue.

Stuart would be my father (Al)'s first cousin.  My father did not pay attention much to his cousins so I didn't know them.  I think that might make him first cousin once removed to me.  Or the other way around.

The continued search for Lothar

I've made some great progress in finding out more about my mother's second cousin Lothar Baumann who perished in Auschwitz (see above).  Faithful readers know that I discovered that Lothar, aged 16, died there.  His parents and grandparents also died in the Holocaust.  I intend to participated in a memorial activity, a Stoperstein or stumbling stone in Amsterdam.  When, I don't know, some delays.  They encourage you to search for family members and let them know.

I've beat on this project for quite some time without much success.  Except lately, I have exciting news.  I've taken over my brother's Ancestry account, a great deal, he pays and I use it.  They have started matching people in your tree with other resources.  You can find out other stuff and helps in your sourcing (which my tree needs).  So I look at Lothar's record and I see there are several other family trees that include him.  I decide to write to the owners of these trees saying what I'm looking for.  Who knows?  Can't dance.

And I hit it big!  Inge Marcus!  Lothar's first cousin!  She and her family escaped Germany in 1937.  I knew Martha's brother had gone to Australia but no other leads.  It's them!  They are interested in the Stolperstein, knew what it was.  Inge is 84, that's the generation.  She says she has pictures.  I hope she will scan and send them to me.  She has a partner who is interested in genealogy and he wrote me too!  This is a big break and I hope to hear more from them.

Allen Sidney Ginsburgh age 10 months

My father Allen Sidney Ginsburgh at age 10 months in April 1927.  I haven't had any baby pictures of him before.  This is by way of my newly discovered second cousin Wendy S. from Colorado. Through my reluctantly done DNA test.  I should have realized that would be the quadrant where the new cousins would come from; from my paternal grandmother Betty Cohen Ginsburgh.  She was one of six and I was little vague on that whole group.  Time to get it all figured out. 

I knew about the other grandparents.  She send me a whole bunch of pictures via Facebook.  But we don't know who they are.  Look some  young men looking rather privileged though their parents came from Ukraine with nothing.

Butcher's Advocate

An obituary for my great great grandfather Samuel Lederer.  Appeared in the June 28, 1916 edition of the Butcher's Advocate mourning the loss of a leading member of the hide and tallow trade.  I don't want to think too much about that.  I don't work too much on this side of my family; I leave that to my third cousin Sue Geiger.

I haven't worked much on genealogy in recent years.  One question that I learned from the genealogy teacher in my certificate class.  There's always some reason why somebody is living in a particular place.  If they moved there, why?

I would like to ask that question regarding another great great grandfather Paul Weil.  He moved from Berlin to New Haven CT around 1860.  Why?

And a great grandfather who moved with his family as a child from Poznan, a district either in Poland or Eastern Prussia depending on how you look at it.  Why did his family move to Rochester NY?  Why?

Samuel Lederer came from what is now the Czech Republic.  Towns with impossible combinations of letters.  Not sure why he ended up in New Jersey.  There's a torah with his name on it in some congregation.

I guess I still have some work to do.

Paul Weil's watch

During our lunch at the country club, Judy W showed me a gold watch belonging to Paul Weil.  She is the widow of Paul's great grandson.

There was a round picture in the watch; Judy insisted we take it.  Our initial reaction was that it should stay with the watch.  But, she pointed out that whoever ended up with the watch, by gifting or sale, would not know who the person was.

My guess was that it was Paul's wife Johanna (sister of Regina and Mina and maybe more).  I don't have any pictures of either Paul or Johanna.

So it's a guess.

I'm including the best version of the small picture I could come up with as well as the inscription on the watch clearly given him in appreciation of his service as president in 1887.  He was President from 1884-1891.