Arnold and Werner A. Stein Collection

Arnold Stein

Arnold Stein was born on January 16, 1890 in Burgsinn, Germany to Amalia (variously Malchen, Malchien) née Blum (1868-circa 1942) and Isaak Stein (1856-1906). He grew up in Burgsinn and served in the German army during World War I. He was wounded twice in August 1914 and discharged in 1916. Arnold became a Jewish teacher in Duisburg, and was engaged to Gertrude (variously Trude, Gertrud) Rosenthal in January 1917. He moved to Berlin in April 1919 where he continued to teach; he and Gertrude were married on April 18, 1920.

In 1922 Arnold bought the printing business Lindemann and Ludecke, a graphic arts offset letterpress company that printed posters, brochures and advertising prints largely for arts and entertainment companies. Marianne was born in 1922 and Werner in 1925. According to Werner’s later translation of Arnold’s personal timeline, a “boycott took [his] business down”; the sale of the business to Otto Conrad was finalized in 1939. Arnold and Otto corresponded after Arnold emigrated, and worked out additional details of the sale of the business.

The family received visas to Australia, as well as to Bolivia and Cuba, and left Germany on July 29, 1939. They stopped briefly in the Netherlands and arrived in London August 12th. All of their belongings were shipped to Australia, but before they arrived war was declared, and the ship returned with its cargo to Hamburg. Arnold corresponded for years with the shipping company and the insurer over reimbursement for the loss; he also corresponded into the 1970s on issues of restitution for specific property including the forced sale of his printing business in 1939.

On October 24th, 1940, the family departed from Liverpool on the S.S. Baltrover. The ship was attacked by a U-boat and an airplane before docking in Boston. The family traveled the last leg of their journey, by bus, to New York.

The family settled in Kew Gardens, Queens, New York City, and not long after were joined nearby by Arnold’s brother Ludwig and his wife Erna. Arnold opened a printing business. Arnold participated in the American war effort by buying war bonds, and in connection with the Immigrant Victory Council, after many hours as a volunteer, was inducted into the United States Citizen Service Corps in 1945.

Both Arnold and Gertrude applied for restitution for their home in Berlin and their family’s homes in Germany on behalf of those who had been murdered in the war. They also applied for restitution in connection with Arnold’s printing business, jewelry and all of their household goods that were not recovered after being sent back to Germany before reaching Australia.

Arnold died on July 29, 1974. Gertrude died in 1981.

Werner A. Stein

Werner Arnold Stein was born in Berlin on April 15, 1925 to Gertrude née Rosenthal and Arnold Stein. Amid the growing danger for the Jewish community across Germany, Werner observed his bar mitzvah on April 30, 1938 at the Prinzregenten Synagogue (which was destroyed November 9, 1938).

Werner attended the Goethe School from 1931 to 1936 according to school records in the collection. When Jewish students were forced to leave public schools in Berlin, Werner was sent to the Private Waldschule Kaliski, where the students, who were all Jewish, were taught survival skills as well as regular subjects; there is documentation of Werner’s attendance at the Waldschule from 1936 to February 1939. From April 1939 through the end of June 1939 Werner attended a private trade school of the Jewish community in Berlin.

The family emigrated from Germany to temporary haven in London. During the year and a half, they were in London, Werner took a “course of studies” at the Gregg Schools, September 1939 to July 1940, where he studied shorthand, typewriting, English and bookkeeping. He joined the Boy Scouts while in London, and in his Boy Scout diary for 1939-1940 Werner included entries on scout meetings, movies, and a few very brief details of the family’s dangerous journey by ship from Liverpool to Boston during October and November 1940.

The family settled in Kew Gardens, Queens, New York City soon after arriving in the United States. Werner attended evening classes at Straubenmuller Textile High School in Manhattan while working at a machine shop during the day to help support his family. While still a teenager Werner joined a chapter in Forest Hills, Queens of the youth group of the New World Club, the organization that published the German-Jewish newspaper Aufbau. After high school, he began studying at the College of the City of New York, School of Business and Civic Administration in 1944; with gaps (and credits) for Army service, Werner graduated in 1950. By 1948 Werner was a United States citizen, and he served as a poll watcher in Queens during the 1948 presidential election. He served twice in the United States Army; he was discharged the first time in 1947 and again, after enlisting in 1948, in 1952, after working as an assistant to the Jewish chaplains at Fort Custer, Michigan. He followed his father into the printing business.

In 1954 Werner married Helga Marcus Stein, who was born in Leipzig, Germany and emigrated in 1938 with her parents at the age of five to the United States. They had two daughters, Barbara Stein Katz and Susan Stein Shore and six grandchildren born between 1988 and 1994. Werner remained very involved with Aufbau throughout his adult life, for many years as the chairman of the paper and as treasurer of the New World Club. He became involved in the leadership of his synagogue in Great Neck and maintained a connection with the German-Jewish Congregation Habonim in Manhattan. Helga supported various Jewish fundraising and civic organizations, both by active participation on their boards and by playing in tennis tournaments in Great Neck.

Werner died in 2017.