Schlesinger-Bischeim collection

The Schlesinger and Bischheim families are related through the cousins Bernard Bischheim (1850-1917) and Richard Schlesinger (1861-1940).

The Bischheims originally came from Frankfurt-am-Main. Bernard Bischheim’s son Simon Bischheim (b. 1885) was a textile merchant. He married Elsa Salomon (1889-1958) in 1919. They had four children: Bernard Ernst (b. 1920), Helene Auguste (b. 1921), Eric Marx (b. 1922) and Richard Jacob (b. 1925). In the 1930s, it became increasingly difficult for Simon to maintain his business as merchants decided not to do business with a Jewish agent. The family emigrated with the help of their relatives in England in 1933. Simon's sisters Adele and Clare managed to leave Frankfurt with their families before the outbreak of the war, as did his mother Auguste (née Toeplitz). Many of their extended family, however, perished in the Holocaust.

Bernard Schlesinger (b. 1896), son of Richard and Dolly Estella Schlesinger, grew up in Britain. He married Winifred (née Regensburger, b. 1897) in 1924 in London. They had five children: John (b. 1926), Wendy (b. 1927), Roger and Hilary (b. 1929), and Susan (b. 1933). Winifred studied modern languages at Oxford University. Bernard was a paediatrician working at various hospitals in London. The couple set up a hostel for children rescued from Nazi Germany in the late 1930s. In 1939 they bought a property in Kintbury, Berkshire, where Winifred and their children lived during the Second World War while Bernard served as an army medic in Norway and India. When Bernard returned in 1945, they moved to Woodlands St Mary, Berkshire.