Paul Meyer was born in St. Louis, Missouri on April 12, 1925 to Abraham and Adele (Rosenfeld) Meyer. Theirs was a politically active and educated family. Adele, born in Harlem, graduated from Hunter College in 1919 with degrees in German and music. She performed opera in synagogues and churches. Abraham immigrated from Russia in 1906 …
Read MoreRuth Lindemann was born in February 1933 in Vienna, Austria. Ruth’s mother was a secretary and her father worked in a warehouse. When Ruth was six her father was taken to Dachau and she and her mother were forced to move into a house with several other Jewish families. Ruth’s mother enlisted the help of …
Read MoreAlice Kern was born Alice Lucy Koppel in Sighet, Romania on March 30th, 1923. She, her mother, father, and two older brothers all lived in a house on the same street as future Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Weisel. Alice’s father traveled frequently around Romania for work, bringing home fresh cheeses and other dairy products …
Read MoreDr. Henry Kahn was born in Bad Nauheim, Germany on August 21, 1902. His paternal grandfather, Morris Kahn, was the proprietor of a general and dry goods store in the German state of Hesse, where he faced antisemitism from local villagers. Henry’s maternal grandparents, the Rosenthals, owned a butcher shop in Bad Nauheim. Henry’s hometown …
Read MoreGarry Kahn was born in San Francisco, California on April 20, 1936, to Wilfred and Mildred (nee Cooper) Kahn as the oldest of three. His sister Judith is a year younger and his brother Rick is nineteen years his younger. Wilfred and Mildred met c. 1934 when Mildred went on a trip to San Francisco …
Read MoreEline Hoekstra Dresden was born the youngest of four Jewish children on January 4, 1923 in The Hague, The Netherlands; two years later her family moved to Utrecht, The Netherlands. It was apparent to Eline’s family that some parts of Europe were no longer safe for Jews as soon as the beginning of the Second World …
Read MoreGunter Hiller was born an only child in 1928 to working class parents outside of Berlin, Germany. He attended school briefly in Berlin before his parents moved the family to Amsterdam in the summer of 1938. Gunter was in public school in Amsterdam, but only briefly; the pogroms forced him and all of his other …
Read MoreHelen Herner was born on June 6, 1932 in San Jose, California. She was the second child of Dina Gevertz Ball and Max Ball, both immigrants from Austria/Hungary. Her father was a tailor who immigrated to Oakland, California in 1920 and married Dina Gevertz there. Helen’s brother Paul was born in 1922 and the family …
Read MorePeter Greg was born Peter Guggenheimer on March 26, 1925 in Berlin, Germany. He was the only child of a Jewish father and a Christian mother. Peter attended grade school and gymnasium in Berlin until 1942 when all of the Jewish students were expelled from public German schools. Although the pogroms and the war made …
Read MoreLottie Hirsch Goodwin was born Lieselotte Veronika Hirsch in Karlsruhe Baden, Germany, on November 20, 1916. She was the third and youngest child of Heinrich and Jenny Hirsch. Heinrich, later Henry Higdon, owned a factory that made military uniforms for the First World War and, after war ended with demilitarization, for the railroad and postal service. Prior …
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