Karlsruhe (Germany)

The Adolf Loebel Collection primarily documents the events of the Holocaust in Baden-Württemberg with an extensive amount of newspaper clippings. To a smaller extent it shows a few of the experiences of Adolf Loebel, head of the Jewish community in Heidelberg. In addition to the many newspaper clippings the collection contains circular letters and announcements, some correspondence, a list of Jews in Baden from 1940 and a few photographs.

Personal and family documents; family trees.

Various archival materials from archives in Hesse, Nuremberg, Trier, Oldenburg, Regensburg, Maarburg, Mecklenburg, Frankfurt, Cologne, and Luebeck, pertaining mainly to the history of conversion and assimilation of Jews in Germany. The materials were collected by Deborah Hertz for her research on the book “How Jews Became Germans”.

"Mein Weg von Karlsruhe ueber Heidelberg nach Haifa" is the memoir of Frieda Hirsch (née Goldberg) (1890- ). She describes the history of her parents, her upbringing in Karlsruhe as daughter of a well-to-do Jewish-orthodox family, her education at a humanistic high school (Gymnasium), her university studies (medicine) in Heidelberg, Karlsruhe and Breslau (1908-1913), and life during World War I in Karlsruhe and Heidelberg. She married Albert Hirsch (1887-1954) in 1915, a medical student and member of the Zionist student organization "Verein Juedischer Studenten" and settled in Heidelberg, where Albert worked as a pediatrician. Frieda Hirsch tells about life in Heidelberg, the births and upbringing of her children, various friendships (among others with Georg Hermann, Frieda Reichmann, Erich Fromm, and Eugen Taeubler), Zionist activities of her husband, and first anti-Semitic persecutions in Heidelberg in 1933. She gives detailed testimony of her emigration from Heidelberg via Salzburg and Triest to Haifa, where the family settled, of the difficult first years in Palestine with her husband opening a new medical office, and describes her experiences during World War II in Haifa, the founding of the state of Israel in 1948 and moving to Kiryat Ono after her husband's death in 1954.

The second text, an attachment of Hirsch's memoir, contains a genealogical table and a detailed history of Frieda Hirsch's (née Goldberg) and Albert Hirsch's families.

This collection pertains to the personal lives of Gustav and Hannah Landau née Stein, especially centering on their lives in the 1930s. The focus of the collection is the handwritten correspondence exchanged between the couple, as well as their experiences with Zionism and the youth group Kadimah. Other notable items include a photo album and school and university papers.

The bulk of the collection contains correspondence to and from John Hans Baer in New York, 1940-1945. Also included are letters and other materials pertaining to Anna Holz in Nuremberg, the wife of a high ranking Nazi official.

This collection contains assorted items regarding the Jewish community in Karlsruhe: photocopied excerpts from Carlsruher Wochenblatt, 1774-1775 about court cases; manuscript of songs and prayers on occasion of Prince Carl Ludwig Friedrich and his wife Stephanie Napoleon's visit to the Karlsruhe synagogue on July 18, 1806; manuscript entitled Geschichte und Schicksal des Karlsruher Judentums, an unpublished 1985 research paper by the Karlsruhe municipality, containing lists of Jewish residents in Karlsruhe during the 1930s and their fate. Includes extensive appendix of names and last known fate.

This collection portrays the significant life events of members of the related Malachowski and Wertheimer families. The bulk of the collection consists of family photographs. Other materials include wedding documentation, restitution and financial correspondence, and a smaller amount of personal correspondence, personal and professional papers of family members.

This collection contains material about Marta (1912-1999) and Curt (1903-1989) Herz. It includes letters dating from 1938 and 1939 from Marta Baer's parents in Karlsruhe to Marta and Curt in New York. It also contains photo albums depicting the travels of Marta and Curt Herz throughout Europe in the early 1930s, as well as some loose photographs and other material.

The collection comprises documents related to the Meyer family and Jewish life in Württemberg as well as newspaper clippings from the 20th century. Mostly it features materials about Jewish life in Southern Germany from the 18th century to the 19th century. Moreover, personal notes from Max Meyer on religious topics, Festschriften and items related to the Jewish graveyard in Stuttgart-Hoppenlau are part of the collection.

The items in this collection consist of synagogue music scores from Southwestern Germany, both cantor's manuals and choral music.

The collection is comprised of files pertaining to the restitution claims of Paul Engel, his wife Margaret A. Engel née Elikann, Margaret’s sister Selma Hacker née Elikann, and Selma’s husband Carl Hacker, along with wartime and post-war family correspondence.

This collection contains music by composer Richard Fuchs. It also includes some clippings and other music.

This collection contains the documents of diplomat Richard Straus, his wife Elaine, and his son Alan in addition to documentation on his extended family members, especially including members of the Straus, Heimberger, and Niedermann families. The most prominent topics in the collection relate to Richard Straus's role as diplomat, family members' emigration and Holocaust experiences, and Alan Straus's early life, although material relating to family members' lives in Germany prior to the 1930s is also present. The collection includes extensive personal family correspondence and photographs; official, educational, and professional documents; family members' writings as well as articles about them; childhood and educational memorabilia; and documentation related to the deaths of family members.

Robert Raphael Geis (1906-1972) was a rabbi, educator, and Jewish theologian. He identified strongly with German liberal Judaism, but his keen interest in Jewish studies brought him close to leaders of conservative Judaism as well. Before the Second World War Robert Raphael Geis worked as a rabbi for the youth and Religion teacher in Munich and Mannheim, and as a rabbi in Kassel, Germany. After the war he served as a rabbi in Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Germany. In the early 1960s, Raphael Robert Geis became engaged in the dialog of Protestant and Jewish theologians. The Robert Raphael Geis collection consists mainly of correspondence and writings. There are only a few personal documents. The writings consist of newspaper articles, reviews of books on Jewish topics and sermons for major Jewish holidays. The correspondence has two main foci: the periods before and after the Second World War. The first period is characterized by letters written by various leading figures of Jewish communities in Germany and is concerned with employment opportunities for young rabbis, as well as insights into inner workings of congregations. A large amount of letters from this period also come from Robert Raphael Geis' students. The correspondence written after the war centers on theological matters and the workings of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft der "Juden und Christen" (Working Group of "Jews and Christians").

The collection focuses on the wartime experiences of Rosa Traub and some of her extended family members. Included are Rosa Traub’s diary from Camp de Gurs, a photocopy of her identity card, her handwritten last will and testament, and other items, such as documents pertaining to her nephew Max Liebmann and photo negatives of Albert Einstein.

The bulk of the Rudy Appel family collection holds detailed family trees of the Appel family; the Appel-Loewenstein families; the Willstätter-Appel families; the Hofmann family; the Stein family; and the Stein-Hofmann families, all created by Rudy Appel, 1966-1969. Also included is a 2 page typescript with the biography of Ephraim Willstaetter (1761-1829), written originally by his son Rabbi Elias Willstaetter (1796-1842) and translated by Rudy Appel. There is also a page with Yiddish notes on noteworthy events in Krefeld (1805-1811), and Rudy Appel’s letter to the LBI, explaining his donation.

The Salier Family Collection holds papers of members of the Salier family as well as related families, such as the Alexander, Lipmann, and Lehmann families. The collection consists primarily of official, educational, and professional documents of family members, along with a small amount of family correspondence, a few photographs, family writing, newspaper clippings and articles, a cookbook, and a friendship album.

The collection includes official and personal documents pertaining to Sigmund, Selma and Erna Weinberger as well as photographs of the family, World War I sites and medical staff.

The Suzanne Schrag Collection holds papers of Suzanne (née Fuchs) and Paul Schrag, as well as papers of family members, especially Suzanne's parents and Paul's maternal uncle Nathan Sulzberger. Much of the collection focuses on the lives of family members, especially as documented in their extensive family correspondence. Prominent is also the unpublished writing of Paul Schrag and Nathan Sulzberger, notably the memoirs of Paul Schrag and short stories of Nathan Sulzberger. Some official documents, especially those pertaining to the education of Paul and Suzanne Schrag are also present, along with a few photographs, notes on genealogy, and other papers.

The collection holds the documents and correspondence of the Wimpfheimer family from Karlsruhe. The collection covers the Wimpfheimers’ emigration to Switzerland and later the United States as well as their restitution efforts regarding the family’s malting factory in Karlsruhe.