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Elisabeth Kahn Born: 1898 in Augsburg. Father’s occupation: factory owner. Address: Am Sparrenlech. Elisabeth was the daughter of Aaron Kahn (1841–1926) and Flora, née Farnbacher (b. 1852). Aaron was one of the two owners of the spinning and weaving mill “Kahn & Arnold”, his partner was Alban Arnold. After her wedding in Augsburg in 1870, Flora had nine children by 1884. When Elisabeth followed in 1898, her mother, Flora, died a few weeks after the delivery. Elisabeth, whom everybody used to call “Else”, was an aunt of Ruth Kahn. Else attended the “Municipal School for Daughters” (“Städtische Töchterschule”), which from 1914 on was called “Maria-Theresia-School”, from 1909 to 1915, at first in classes 1–5 (skipping class 2), then in class 6 of the “Realabteilung” and finally for one year, in 1914/15, in the “school for women” (“Frauenschule”). On April 23, 1914, a celebration took place, after which the girls’ parents were invited to visit the new building of Maria-Theresia-School, which had just been completed, on Gutenbergstraße. On this occasion Ernst Johann Groth’s play Madame Breitkopf. Dramatisches Kulturbild aus dem deutschen Frauenleben der Rokokozeit was performed (“Madame Breitkopf: A dramatic picture from German women’s culture and life at the Rococo period,” cf. Goethe’s letters from the Leipzig period and Dichtung und Wahrheit, Part II, Book 8). Else played the role of “Fräulein von Ploto”. In 1921, Else married the General Practitioner Heinz Eckert (b. 1892 in Rheydt), who was a Protestant. Their children, Wolfgang (“Wolf”, b. 1922) and Eva Eckert (b. 1927), were baptized as Protestants, too. Heinz died in 1926, four weeks before Eva was born. During the war, Else worked, initially voluntarily, in an armaments factory, which provided her protection from deportation for some time (July 1942 – January 1944). |
In January 1944, however, Else was deported to Terezin, where she lived until her liberation in Spring 1945. Else returned to Augsburg, where Eva had stayed and survived the war. Wolf had had to leave the school of engineering because he was regarded as a “first grade half-breed”. In 1944, he had to do forced labor in a camp in Jena. He died in Augsburg in January 1947. In 1947, Else teached Polish Jews who had come to Augsburg in English. In the next year, Else and Eva emigrated to New York. Else fell ill with Parkinson’s disease. After having been taken care of by her daughter for 17 years, she died in New York in 1978. In 1933, the factory “Kahn & Arnold” belonged to Arthur and Benno Arnold, as well as to Else’s brothers Alfred (b. 1876) and Berthold Kahn (b. 1879). At the end of the 1930s, the factory was “Aryanized”. In 1940, it was sold to the NAK (“Neue Augsburger Kattunfabrik”). Due to certain obligations the families Kahn and Arnold did not receive compensation for the factory, however after the war a settlement was reached. Berthold Kahn fled first to England, then to New Zealand, where his son, Joachim Kahn, had settled together with his wife, Gertrud, née Lerchenthal. Alfred Kahn fled first to Bombay, then to New York. The brothers Arnold were deported from Augsburg to concentration camps. Arthur Arnold died in Dachau on November 23, 1941. Benno Arnold (Head of Augsburg’s Jewish community in 1941) and his wife, Else’s sister Anna, née Kahn (b. 1882), were deported to Terezin in August 1942, where Anna died after only a few weeks in September 1942, Benno in March 1944. |
(Eva Eckert has added to this biography of her mother via her relative Joyce Meltz.) Further reading: Else Eckert, Letter from Augsburg, 1947 (stating that several Augsburg citizens helped their former neighbors who were going to be deported or already lived in concentration camps); excerpt: Ernst Jacob, Circular No. 14, September 1947, Gernot Römer, ed., “An meine Gemeinde in der Zerstreuung.” Die Rundbriefe des Augsburger Rabbiners Ernst Jacob 1941–1949, Augsburg, 2007, pp. 136–43, 140. |
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Martha Kahn Born: 1911 in Regensburg. Father’s occupation: businessman in Regensburg. Martha Kahn attended Maria-Theresia-School from 1924 to 1927 in classes 4–6. Presumably, she had joined the school in 1921 in class 1. |
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Ruth Kahn Born: 1913 in Augsburg. Father’s occupation: factory owner. Address: Am Sparrenlech. Ruth’s parents were Berthold Kahn (b. 1879) and Charlotte, née Schreiber (b. 1892). Berthold and his brother Alfred (b. 1876) were two of the four co-owners of the spinning and weaving mill “Kahn & Arnold”. The other two were Arthur Arnold and his brother Benno. Alfred Kahn married Gertrud Schreiber. During the wedding, Alfred’s brother Berthold met Charlotte, the bride’s sister, who later on became his wife. Berthold had a son from a previous relationship, Joachim (b. 1907), whom he adopted after Joachim’s mother had died in an auto accident. (Joachim later married Gertrud Lerchenthal.) Ruth also had a younger brother, Hans Günther Kahn (b. 1918). She was a niece of Elisabeth (“Else”) Eckert, née Kahn, and a cousin of Else’s daughter, Eva Eckert. Ruth attended Maria-Theresia-School for two years only, 1926–28, in classes 4 and 5. Those years must have been difficult for her, for her parents divorced in 1926 when she was a 13-year-old child. Her mother left the children with her father, which was rather unusual at those times. Ruth passed her maturity exam (“Abitur”) in Montreux, Switzerland. Afterwards, she studied X-ray technology at the University of Zurich. There she met several young medical students from New York who were studying there due to Jewish quota in New York. Because of them Ruth emigrated to New York c. 1935. In 1941, Ruth married Kurt Rosenbaum (b. 1903) in New York. Kurt had studied law at the universities of Frankfurt on Main and Heidelberg but had been disbarred from the Bar by the Nazi Regime in 1933. Consequently, he had emigrated to Chicago. In order to become a lawyer there, he would have had to go back to |
school for another year and a half. Instead, by working in another field, he earned money to bring his parents over. Ruth and Kurt settled in Philadelphia, where their daughter Joyce was born in 1943. Kurt worked as a manufacturer’s Rep for office furniture. Ruth was a devoted home-maker, loved to cook, loved her garden, loved classical music and playing Bridge. Ruth died in Philadelphia in 1964. At the end of the 1930s, the factory “Kahn & Arnold” was “Aryanized”. In 1940, it was sold to the NAK (“Neue Augsburger Kattunfabrik”). Due to certain obligations the families Kahn and Arnold did not receive compensation for the factory, after the war, however, a settlement was reached. The Kahn family was scattered all over the world by the National Socialist regime. Some of the elder family members did not survive persecution. Ruth’s older brother, Joachim, whom she adored, and her father Berthold with his second wife, Jossy, emigrated to New Zealand. Ruth’s younger brother Hans and her mother Charlotte with her second husband emigrated to South America. Other relatives settled in New York, among them were Ruth’s aunt Else Eckert with her daughter, Eva, and Ruth’s uncle Alfred Kahn with his wife, Trude. Ruth was very close to them, whereas she did not see her parents any more. The brothers Arnold were deported from Augsburg to concentration camps, where they died. Arthur Arnold died in Dachau on November 23, 1941. Benno Arnold (Head of Augsburg’s Jewish community in 1941) and his wife, Ruth’s aunt Anna, née Kahn (b. 1882), were deported to Terezin in August 1942, where Anna died after only a few weeks in September 1942, Benno in March 1944. |
(This short biography is based on several letters which Ruth’s daughter, Joyce Meltz, wrote to the project group in 2006 and 2007.) Letters and memories: Excerpt from a letter by Joyce Meltz, Ruth Kahn’s daughter, written in November 2006. |
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Erna Katzenstein Born: 1913 in Augsburg. Father’s occupation: textile merchant. Flat: 3 Prinzregentenstraße. Business: 5 Bahnhofstraße. Erna’s father, Ernst Katzenstein, was the owner of a department store for men’s wear (“Heinrich Kuhn”) on Bahnhofstraße. Erna’s mother was called Josefine; she was non-Jewish. Erna had a younger brother, Rudolf (b. 1916). Erna attended Maria-Theresia-School from 1924 to 1929 in classes 2–6; presumably, she had joined the school in 1923 in class 1. On May 25, 1928, Erna celebrated her “confirmation” in Augsburg, together with three other Jewish girls (Bat Mitzvah: the feast of religious maturity for Jewish girls; it can be celebrated individually after a girl’s 12th birthday, but in Augsburg it was held annually or after even longer intervals for several age groups together, similar to the Protestant confirmation). On April 1, 1933, “Heinrich Kuhn” was among the stores boycotted by the National Socialists. A few months later, Erna’s father was arbitrarily imprisoned and mistreated for four days at the prison of Munich. In November 1933, he sold his store, while Erna transferred to Lausanne, Switzerland, in order to study there. In 1936, she married. Her parents moved first to Berlin, then to Baden-Baden. In November 1938, also her father moved to Lausanne; her mother followed in 1940. Also her brother, Rudolf, settled in Lausanne. Erna’s father, Ernst, died in Lausanne in 1946. Source and further reading: Maren Janetzko, “Die ‘Arisierung’ von Textileinzelhandelsgeschäften in Augsburg am Beispiel der Firmen Heinrich Kuhn und Leeser Damenbekleidung GmbH,” Andreas Wirsching, ed., Nationalsozialismus in Bayerisch-Schwaben. Herrschaft—Verwaltung—Kultur, Ostfildern, 2004, pp. 153–83. |
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Lisbeth Kaufmann Born: 1921 in Augsburg (no place of birth is given in the Annual School Reports). Father’s occupation: businessman. Lisbeth’s father, Artur Kaufmann, and his wife, Klara, née Metzger (b. 1893 in Binswangen), got divorced. In 1928, Klara emigrated to the USA. She died in Denver, Colorado, in 1937. Lisbeth attended Maria-Theresia-School from 1931 to 1934 in classes 1–4. 13-year-old Lisbeth left the school during the school year on October 10, 1934, without graduating. S hortly afterwards, she emigrated to the USA together with her aunt Marta Weikersheimer, née Metzger, and Marta’s husband, Max. She lived with the Weikersheimer family, at first in New York, then in Denver. As a trained nurse she applied for the Army Nurse Corps in 1943 and worked there in the rank of a 1st Lieutenant. In 1944, her military medical unit was moved first to Scotland, then to Normandy and finally to Germany in 1945. In December 1945, Lisbeth, having returned to the USA, married Werner Gross (b. 1914 in Bingen on Rhein). Werner worked as a commercial traveller for furniture factories. Lisbeth kept on working as a nurse until she bore the first of her four children in 1950. Werner Gross died in 1999. Lisbeth Gross, née Kaufmann, died in Denver in 2000. Sources and further reading: Gernot Römer, “Wir haben uns gewehrt.” Wie Juden aus Schwaben gegen Hitler kämpften und wie Christen Juden halfen, Augsburg, 1995, pp. 108–11. Beate Goetz, “Weinrebe ziert Grab in Colorado,” Allgemeine Zeitung (Rhein-Main-Presse), October 28, 2003. |
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Selma Klein Born: 1895 in Mitterteich. Father’s occupation: businessman in Mitterteich. Selma’s parents were Josef Klein (b. 1854 in Malinetz, Bohemia) and Paula, née Welsch (b. 1869 in Ottensoos, near Nuremberg). They ran a grocery and general store in Mitterteich, in the Oberpfalz region of Bavaria, on a street called “Vorstadt”. Selma attended the “Municipal School for Daughters” (“Städtische Töchterschule”), which later was to be called “Maria-Theresia-School”, for only one year, 1906/07 in class 1. Selma married Sigmund Schuster and lived with him in Hofheim from July 1921 onward. The couple had a daughter, Ruth (b. 1922). In 1933 or 1934, the family emigrated, according to a former neighbor, to the USA. In 1944, however, Selma and Sigmund lived in Wimbledon (near London), whereas their daughter, Ruth, and her husband, Sidney S. Sperling, lived in the USA. Apparently, the parents joined their daughter in the USA only later. Selma’s father died in 1923. The widowed Paula Klein moved to Regensburg for a while. From the summer of 1925 onward, however, she lived again in Mitterteich. Her son Heinrich (b. 1898) took charge of the store. Josef and Paula were Jewish, and their children are also entered as Jewish at the Mitterteich Registry Office. However, they say that Paula was baptized a Catholic and that both parents and their son Heinrich (b. 1898) were buried in the Christian cemetery of Waldsassen. Selma had five siblings, two sisters and three brothers. Eleonora (“Lore”) Freimann, née Klein (b. 1896), owned a textile store in Mitterteich, which she sold around 1937/38, when she left Germany for the USA, but reclaimed it after the war. Betty Klein (b. 1901) was called Schneider in her first marriage. She lived in Falkenau and had at least one son from her first husband. After her first husband’s death she married a second time. Together with her second husband, Max Rederer (b. 1896), she lived in Pilsen, Bohemia. The couple was deported to Terezin in January 1942 and from there to Izbica, Poland, in March 1942, where presumably they were killed. |
Selma’s
brothers were Ernst (b. 1894), Arnold (b. 1900), and Heinrich
Klein; they say that also Arnold was killed during the National
Socialist regime. In 1938, Heinrich had to sell the store.
Senior primary school teacher Max Rüth wrote in his chronicle of
Mitterteich: “Since that time our town has been free of Jews.”
Heinrich was imprisoned in the concentration camps Sachsenhausen
and Dachau. After the war, he and his old mother again took
charge of the store in Mitterteich. |
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Luise Kohn Born: 1903 in Augsburg. Father’s occupation: retiree. Luise attended Maria-Theresia-School from 1913 to 1920 or 1921, at first in classes 1–6, then for another year or two at the “school for women”. In 1931, Luise (“Liesl”) married Lucian Loeb (b. 1889), who was a lawyer in Darmstadt. Around 1936, Lucian Loeb was committed to the emigration of the German Jews to Palestine; he was a member of the “Ortsausschuss Darmstadt der Jewish Agency for Palestine”. Luise and Lucian Loeb could emigrate to the USA before 1941. Liesl Kohn-Loeb was mentioned by Ernst Jacob, the former rabbi of Augsburg, in his circulars in 1941 and 1949. Liesel (Luise) Loeb, née Kohn, died in 1991 in Gwynedd, Pennsylvania. Sources and further reading: Lucian Loeb, Allgemeine Falschbeurkundung. (§§ 271–273 RStGB.), diss., Berlin, 1914 (with curriculum vitae). Ernst Jacob, Circulars No. 2, September 1941, and No. 18, October 1949, Gernot Römer, ed., “An meine Gemeinde in der Zerstreuung.” Die Rundbriefe des Augsburger Rabbiners Ernst Jacob 1941–1949, Augsburg, 2007, pp. 36–46, p. 43, and pp. 164–170, p. 166. Eckhart G. Franz and Heinrich Pingel-Rollmann, “Hakenkreuz und Judenstern. Das Schicksal der Darmstädter Juden unter der Terror-Herrschaft des NS-Regimes,” E. G. Franz, ed., Juden als Darmstädter Bürger, Darmstadt, 1984, pp. 159–89, esp. p. 169 (Lucian Loeb’s name on a printed invitation to a Zionist meeting, Darmstadt, May 28, 1936). |
Gertrud Kominik Born: 1914 in Augsburg. Father’s occupation: businessman. Gertrud attended Maria-Theresia-School for only one year, in 1925/26 in class 1b. Gertrud emigrated to the USA in 1930. |
Silva Krailsheimer Born: 1890 in Augsburg. Father’s occupation: businessman. Silva’s parents were Gustav Krailsheimer (b. 1850 in Pfersee, near Augsburg) and Flora, née Einstein (b. 1863 in Fellheim). Silva had two brothers, Wilhelm (b. 1884) and Max (b. 1893). Silva attended the “Municipal School for Daughters” (“Städtische Töchterschule”), which later was to be called “Maria-Theresia-School”, from 1903 to 1906 in classes 1–3. After finishing school, Silva worked as a clerk. After her father (July 1906) and a few years later also her mother (1910) died in Augsburg, Silva and her younger brother Max moved to Nuremberg, where their elder brother, Wilhelm, already lived. Silva married Karl May (b. 1871 in Gerolzhofen) and lived with him in Straubing. In May 1942, the couple had to move to Regensburg. From there they were deported to Terezin in September 1942. Karl died in Terezin in August 1943. In May 1944, Silva was taken to Auschwitz. Silva’s brothers, Wilhelm and Max, were deported from Nuremberg to Riga-Jungfernhof on November 29, 1941, and are listed as missing. Silva May’s name is listed on a glass plaque of the shoah memorial that can be visited in Augsburg’s City Hall (artist: Klaus Goth). |
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Jeanette Kupfer Born: 1908 in Munich. Father’s occupation: merchant. Jeanette attended Maria-Theresia-School for only one year, in 1918/19 in class 1. |
Ruth Kupfer Born: 1925. Father’s occupation: businessman. Ruth was a daughter of Simon Kupfer (b. 1899 in Munich) and Berta, née Priester (b. 1900 in Augsburg). Simon ran a leather shop at Annaplatz. Ruth has an older sister, Edith (b. 1924). On April 2, 1936, Ruth left Maria-Theresia-School after only one year in class 1. Her father was a Polish citizen. At the end of September 1938, several weeks before the “Reichskristallnacht”, he and his family (?) were taken to Poland by force, like many Jews from Augsburg and Munich who were of Polish origin. However, they were not allowed to enter the country. On October 2nd, the Kupfers and the other deportees were back in Augsburg again. In the morning after the pogrom night of November 9/10, 1938, Simon was arrested and taken to the Dachau concentration camp, where he was held for some time. At the end of the year, the family went on board of the ship “Washington” in order to emigrate to the USA. In the USA, Simon was a factory worker at first, Berta a cleaner. The two girls, Edith and Ruth, could not attend school any longer, they had to earn money, too. After several years, however, Simon and Berta could open a leather shop again. Ruth married Joseph Greco and the couple had a child. Up to this day, Ruth still lives in the USA (2005). She has never wanted to visit Germany again. Ruth’s parents died in Brooklyn, New York, Berta in 1952, Simon in 1954. Ruth’s maternal grandparents were deported to Terezin at the beginning of August 1942. Aloisia Priester, née Stein (b. 1870), died there on January 11, 1943; Albert Priester (b. 1872) was taken to Auschwitz in May 1944. |
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