Kaiser Family Collection

The collection traces the history of the Kaiser family and the lives of its members over the course of the 20th century through correspondence, documents, writings, family history information, and photographs.

Correspondence in Series I provides the most detailed view, as it spans several epochs in the life of the Kaiser family. The earliest correspondence dates from the last 20 years of the life of family matriarch Mathilde Kaiser, during which time her husband died, her oldest son Isidor lived in America, and five of her other sons fought in World War I. Starting in the 1930s, the correspondence shifts its focus to Mathilde Kaiser’s youngest son Max, who immigrated to Palestine in 1934. As the 1930s progress, letters from Germany to Max begin including reports of the worsening situation of Jews there. By the late 1930s, the situation in Germany and the efforts of Max’s brothers Isidor, Alfred, Siegmund, Rudolf, and their families to emigrate dominate the correspondence. Letters from the early 1940s bring the news of the deportation of Rudolf and his family to Minsk and Siegmund and his family to Auschwitz. Correspondence of the post-war period consists mainly of letters from Isidor in Denmark to his brother Max and sister Berta in Israel. The Kaiser family correspondence essentially concludes in the wake of Isidor’s death on September 3, 1965, and Berta’s death on June 12, 1968.

Many of the events recorded in the correspondence are also described in Isidor and Max’s memoirs, found in Series III. The memoirs of Isidor Kaiser cover the period from his birth in Brilon on May 6, 1890, through his emigration from Germany in August 1939. He portrays his parents, childhood home, aspects of their Jewish family life, the political and social landscape of Prussia at that time, and his education, including remembrances of antisemitic taunting by other students. He also recounts the beginning of his apprenticeship with Gebr. Salomon in Hannover, which lasted for two years, as well as his journey to America in October 1912. Isidor’s memoirs also relate his experience of Kristallnacht and its aftermath and his efforts to arrange for emigration from Germany, departure in August 1939, and arrival in Denmark.

Max Kaiser’s memoirs span almost his entire life, from his birth in Wittenberge on September 1, 1910, to becoming a United States citizen in 1995. The memoirs include remembrances of his childhood and the difficult years of World War I. He notes his passing of his engineering exam in March 1933 and decision to immigrate to Palestine after Hitler came to power. Max documents his voyage to Palestine in 1934 and records the various positions he held in the paper industry throughout his career. An entry written in 1992 on his daughter Miriam’s 50th birthday describes the situation in Palestine the year of her birth, their family life, and her later military service and studies.

The correspondence and memoirs are supported by assembled documents pertaining to members of the related Buchthal, Frank, Heilbrun, Kaiser, and Silber families. Common document types include visiting and business cards, passports and identity cards, biographical notes, poems for birthdays and weddings, school records, birth, marriage, and death certificates, wills and estate materials, and pages of testimony submitted to Yad Vashem for those family members killed in the Holocaust.

Family history research and resources found in Series IV document not only the Kaiser family but also their town of Wittenberge. The most extensive folder in the series regards Stolpersteine laid in remembrance of the Kaiser family in Wittenberge. The last folder of this series contains Max Kaiser’s correspondence with various individuals in Wittenberge, particularly local historian Günter Rodegast, regarding the history of the family in that area. Family trees tracing the family’s ancestors back to the 17th century document the related Buchthal, Frank, Grunsfeld, Heilbrun, Kaiser, and Steinberg families. Miriam’s correspondence with the International Tracing Service (ITS) regarding her inquiry into her father, uncles, and their families includes relevant documents located and provided by the ITS.

The bulk of the albums in Series V contain photographs of the Kaiser siblings and their mother Mathilde. The Kaiser family album in Box 7, Folder 7 contains images of the largest number of members of the Kaiser and related families, beginning with a photograph of Hermann Kaiser and his family taken in 1870. Also included are Nathan Grunsfeld, Jacob and Berta Steinberg, Arthur and Mathilde Kaiser, the Kaiser siblings, the family’s residences at Burgstrasse 20 in Wittenberge and Ohestrasse 3 in Hannover, Moritz Kaiser, Adele Levin née Kaiser and her husband Sam Levin, Johanna Kaiser and her husband Gherardo Ferreri, Louis Heilbrun, Rudolf Kaiser, his wife Grete Kaiser née Buchthal, and their son Gerd, Alfred Kaiser, his wife Else Kaiser née Saalfeld, and their daughters Marion and Renate, and Siegmund Kasier, his wife Ruth Kaiser née Braun, and their son Heinz. Three of the albums in this series pertain specifically to Isidor Kaiser.

Loose photographs include portraits of Max and Leonie Kaiser, Isidor Kaiser, Johanna Kaiser, and the Heilbrun sisters. Also included are a set of photocopies of family photographs sent to Miriam Harel from her maternal uncle Henry Silver. These include photographs of Miriam, her husband Asher and their children Noam and Tamar, Miriam’s maternal grandparents Hersch Leib and Selde Silber, her maternal aunt Anna Kapp née Silber, Henry Silver, Henry’s wife Evelyn, and their son Norman.