Berlin (Germany)

Abstract

This box contains oral history interviews on DVD. The interviews are with members of the Grünfeld/Heimann family.

Abstract In the aftermath of Kristallnacht, in December 1938, two young Jewish boys, ages 12 and 14, boarded a train out of Berlin for Holland, to escape the escalating brutality against Jews in Germany. Arriving in Nijmegen, Holland without documents or family, George and Alexander Tscherny were placed with a family by the Dutch Committee for Jewish Refugees, waiting to be granted asylum from the Queen and then dispatched to a refugee camp.When Germany invaded...

Abstract This collection details the Grünfeld Heimann family Holocaust stories. Kurt Heimann and Lotte Grünfeld Heimann married in 1938 and took a train with family to Shanghai in 1940 to escape Nazi violence. They survived in the Shanghai Ghetto alongside thousands of other European Jewish refugees until they were able to relocate in 1948. Kurt, Lotte, and their young son relocated to the United States and settled in Denver, Colorado where their second child, Giselle, was born, and where they...

Abstract oral history interview with Kurt Heimann. Kurt, born December 7, 1912 in Berlin, Germany, describes being barred from advancing in his early career because of the German antisemitic laws in the 1930s; his family life; meeting and marrying his wife (Lotte Grünfeld); escaping Berlin, Germany via train on September 16, 1940 with his wife, parents, and brother (Gerhard); arriving in Shanghai, China; life in the Shanghai Ghetto with other Jewish refugees; conditions in the ghetto, including the...

Abstract Oral history interview with Lotte Grünfeld Heimann. Lotte, born September 3, 1918 in Berlin, Germany, discusses her happy childhood in prewar Germany; her parents Leo (Eliezar) and Erna (Esther) who had emigrated from Tarnow, Poland in 1913 and were tailors; how her aspirations to become a gymnast and compete in the 1936 Olympics were dashed as Hitler came to power; her work as an apprentice at Hermann Tietz department store; meeting Betty Abraham (Wagowski) who introduced her to a cousin,...

Abstract Oral history interview with Margot Grünfeld Shafran. Margot, born on January 10, 1924 in Berlin, Germany, discusses her early years as a treasured only child; growing up with an extended Jewish family in Berlin in the 1920s and 1930s; her father Reuben Grünfeld, a Polish citizen who in October 1939 was seized and deported to the Polish border where he languished for nine months until his wife, Lotte Secher Grünfeld, arranged for three sets of papers and...

Abstract

This series contains Oral history interviews with members of the Grünfeld/Heimann family who discuss their escape from Nazi Germany and experiences as refugees.

Abstract Part two of oral history interview with Gerhard Heimann and Lotte Gruenfeld Heimann. Gerhard Heimann, born on September 29, 1921 in Berlin, Germany, discusses his childhood in Berlin, where he helped his family with their upholstery business; the aftermath of Kristallnacht when his family determined that the 17 year old should flee to Holland; arriving in Nijmegen, Holland, where he was turned away by a Nazi boarder guard; returning to his family in Berlin;...