Fred Herz Family Collection
Scope and Content Note
Series I contains personal and professional documents belonging to and pertaining to Fred and Gertrud Herz and their families. There are some genealogical documents including a family tree, and immigration and citizenship documents. There is some printed material, and newspaper and magazine clippings. The bulk of this collection, however, contains personal correspondence between family members and close friends, largely between 1936-1941. Related correspondence from the 1990s is between Fred Herz and the American Red Cross and the Memorial and Museum of Auschwitz-Birkenau, and concerns relatives who disappeared during the Holocaust. There are, in addition, some religious documents which may be of particular interest, including a prayer-book for mourners, Jahrzeit (memorial) calendars and a Ketuba (marriage contract).
Series II is a collection of photographs of both sides of the family, and of Fred and Gertrud together since their marriage. Most are portraits, group photographs and holiday photographs. There are also photographs from a visit to Steinheim-am-Main in 2000.
Dates
- 1904-2000
- Majority of material found within 1936-1945
Creator
- Herz, Cary, 1947- (Person)
Language of Materials
The collection is primarily in German and English, and there is one document in Czech.
Access Restrictions
Open to researchers.
Access Information
Collection is digitized. Follow the links in the Container List to access the digitized materials.
Readers may access the collection by visiting the Lillian Goldman Reading Room at the Center for Jewish History. We recommend reserving the collection in advance; please visit the LBI Online Catalog and click on the "Request" button.
Use Restrictions
There may be some restrictions on the use of the collection. For more information, contact:
Leo Baeck Institute, Center for Jewish History, 15 West 16th Street, New York, NY 10011
email: lbaeck@lbi.cjh.org
Biographical Note
Friedrich (later Fred) Herz was born in 1913 in Steinheim-am–Main, Germany.
Fred Herz went to Offenbach aged 15 or 16 to learn a trade; he worked for a company dealing in leather goods, A. N. Schmidt & Co. Eventually he moved to Berlin and worked for the same company, (which became Alligator Leather Goods Co. Ltd.) managing five of their stores. After Kristallnacht in November 1938 Fred Herz was taken to Dachau Concentration Camp. He was released several months later and went to England, and then moved to the United States in 1940. He married Gertrud Weinreb in 1942 and became an American citizen in 1946. They had two children, Cary and Leonard. Fred Herz died in the United States in 2001.
Gertrud (Weinreb) Herz was born in 1918 and was from an affluent Jewish family in Austria. Her father Heinrich (Chaim) Weinreb was originally from Poland. Her mother was Rosa née Steinhardt. She had one sister, Stella. She came to the United States at the end of the 1930s and died in 2004 in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Extent
2 Linear Feet
Abstract
This collection contains correspondence, documents and photographs pertaining to the life of Fred Herz, his family and his wife's family, the Weinrebs. In particular there are several albums of family photographs ranging over the span of nearly a century.
Arrangement
The material has been divided into two series:
Microfilm
Collection is available on 2 reels of microfilm (MF 1025).
- Reel 1: 1/1-1/23
- Reel 2: 1/24-2/9
Separated Material
One magazine (Spessart) and some books have been removed from the collection (photocopies of front covers in Box 1, Folder 22).
Processing Information
The original order formed by the creator of the collection has been preserved. There are hand-written notes included by the creator of the collection aiding the researcher with additional or missing information.
- Correspondence
- Emigration and immigration
- England
- Genealogical tables
- Genealogy
- Herz family
- Herz, Fred, 1913-2001
- Herz, Gertrud, 1918-2004
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)
- Legal documents
- New York (State)
- Photograph albums
- Photographs
- Pretoria (South Africa)
- Siddurim
- Steinheim am Main (Hanau, Germany)
- Vienna (Austria)
- Weinreb family
- Title
- Guide to the Papers of the Fred Herz (1913-2001) Family 1904-2000 AR 25324 / MF 1025
- Status
- Completed
- Author
- Processed by Corinne Shmuel
- Date
- © 2009
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
- Language of description note
- Description is in English.
- Edition statement
- This version was derived from FredHerz.xml
Revision Statements
- August 21, 2012 : Links to digital objects added in Container List.
Repository Details
Part of the Leo Baeck Institute Repository
