Louis Rosenzweig Collection

Louis Rosenzweig was born on August 18, 1885 in Kassel, Germany. He was the son of Traugott Rosenzweig, a chemist, and his wife Henriette Rosenzweig née Eisenberg. Louis Rosenzweig attended the Gymnasium in Kassel and in 1902 became apprenticed to a merchant. Later he worked as a clerk in factories and export firms in Kassel, Berlin and Paris. On May 1, 1911 he became manager of the Federstahl-Aktiengesellschaft in Kassel. In 1919 he married Grete Kaufmann, who was one of only a few women at the time trained in goldsmithing. The couple had two children, Ernst and Irmgard.

From 1931-1933 Louis Rosenzweig worked as an independent public accountant, attending to the affairs of Jewish immigrants. From 1931-1939 he also served as a member of the administration of the Jewish Community of Kassel and also assisted with overseeing the finances of the Jewish Orphanage of Kassel. On Kristallnacht he was arrested along with many other men in his community, but was released a few days later. In December 1938 he became an agent for the Cunard White Star Line. In 1940 Louis and Grete Rosenzweig immigrated to the United States via Italy, while their children had already been sent to England on kindertransports. After a brief sojourn in New York the family was reunited with their daughter while Ernst remained in England; the family resettled in the Midwest. Following a stay at the Quaker Scattergood hostel in Iowa to acclimate themselves to the different culture, the family moved to Eureka, Illinois in 1941, assisted by a local church congregation. There Louis Rosenzweig worked as an accountant.

Louis Rosenzweig died in 1960 in New Haven, Connecticut, where he and his wife had moved in order to be closer to other family members.