The prayer book was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2012 by Irma Cohn Clemens, the daughter of Artur Cohn.
Prayer book with a paper replacement cover with a handwritten title; 14 cm. ; 37 p. 27 p. front cover, handwritten, ink : Gebetbuch für Rosch ha-Schana und Jom Kippur frontpage, pencil : Eigendum der Em. Reservist / Siegmund Lichtenstein Grabow endpage, pencil : Moritz Leberstein (?) M(?) Kaufman (?)
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Jewish prayer book brought with Arthur Cohn when he escaped from Breslau, Germany, with his wife Johanna and 18 year old daughter Irma in May 1940. The appointment of Hitler as Chancellor in 1933 led to increasingly harsh persecution of the Jewish population. Arthur was out of town during the Kristallnacht pogrom of November 9-10, 1938, when the Gestapo searched his home and arrested the other Jewish males in the building. They told Johanna that Arthur could not leave the home when he returned. But when they searched the building again the next day, they did not search the Cohn's. Johanna's uncle, Dr. Leo Nast, had emigrated to the US in 1934. He sponsored the Cohn family's visa applications and they left for New York in May 1940.
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