Japha-Veit-Simon Family Collection

The Veit-Simon family resided in Berlin from the late 1730s until 1942. Juda Veit Singer established his family in Berlin in 1740. Three of his sons founded the banking firm Gebrueder Veit in 1780. The original family line was called Veit, the name Simon was added through the marriage between Herman Simon and Henriette Veit in 1816.


Heinrich (Heinz) Veit-Simon (1883-1942) was a prominent lawyer in Berlin. He married Irmgard Gabriel (1889-1971), daughter of the German Consul General to the Dutch East Indies. The couple had six children: Harro (1911-2011), Ruth (1914-1943), Ulla (1915-2004), Rolf (1916-1943), Etta (1918-2009), and Judith (born 1925). Harro and Ulla were able to leave Germany for Chile and Great Britain in the 1930s. In 1942, Heinrich was murdered by the Nazis and Etta and Ruth were deported to Theresienstadt. Ruth died the following year; Rolf was deported from the Netherlands and murdered. Irmgard survived the war in Berlin and emigrated together with Etta to London in the 1940s. Etta later moved to New York and took the last name of her husband Erwin Japha. Her siblings Ulla and Judith also lived in the U.S., Harro in Chile. The four surviving siblings later fought together for the restitution of the family property Katharinenhof in Gransee close to Berlin which originally belonged to their aunt Katharina Simon. Katharina Simon bought the estate in 1912 and established a flourishing fruit farm over the next years. She had to sell the estate in 1938 due to the new laws regarding Jewish property. Etta was also involved in the restitution claim pertaining to the property at Kronenstrasse 41 in Berlin. 
Leo Baeck was a friend of the family. He spoke at the funeral of Hermann Veit-Simon in 1914 and visited Etta in prison before her deportation in 1942.