Siegfried Thalheimer: Personal papers

Siegfried (Schlomoh) Thalheimer was born in Düsseldorf in 1899 to Johanna and Isaak Thalheimer, the editor-publisher of the Düsseldorfer Lokal-Zeitung (1905-1931). Siegfried received a doctorate from the Friedrichs-Wilhelms-Universität in 1926 and then worked wrote for his father's newspaper. In 1928 he married Gerda Stern (b. 1902, Mönchengladbach). Together they had a daughter, Ruth (b. 1929).

After the Nazi accession to power, Thalheimer was blacklisted for his anti-Nazi activities. He moved with his family to Saarbrücken, where he founded and edited Westland, an anti-Nazi newspaper that opposed the German annexation of the Saar. However he lost control of Westland in 1934. The Thalheimers then relocated to Paris, where he published a Jewish political journal, Ordo. After the start of World War Two, Siegfried was interned as an enemy alien. In February 1940, he was released and served as a prestataire (worker) in the French army. That November the Thalheimers received a visa for the USA; they travelled to New York via Spain and Morocco, arriving in March 1941. Thalheimer started selling paintings provided by his brother-in-law Max Stern, setting up Fine Arts Associates with Otto Gerson (1902-1962) for this purpose.

In the 1950s, Thalheimer returned to Germany, leaving his wife (whom he had divorced) and daughter in New York. He settled in the Bavarian village of Seenon after living around Salzburg and in Munich. In Germany he started writing again, publishing Gespräch über Deutschlands Zukunft in 1959 and Die Affäre Dreyfus in 1963. He married a German woman named Erentraud and converted to Christianity. He died in 1981.

Sigmund (Sigi) Hirschfeld was born in Vienna. In 1924 he moved to Palestine, where he established a business selling copper and brass. He found Palestine too limiting and isolated, so hoped to move to New York. However he ended up settling in Wellington, New Zealand, instead. Here he founded the Metal Import Company. He helped all but one of his eleven siblings escape the Nazis.