us-005578-irn49854-irn72131
type: RecordSet
archival history: The shoes were donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2012 by Esther Rosenfeld Starobin.
biographical history: Esther Rosenfeld was born on April 3, 1937, in Adelsheim, Germany, the youngest child of Adolf and Katherine (Katty) Lemburger Rosenfeld. Adolf was born in Korb on June 16, 1898, into a large Jewish family of 10-13 children. He was the next to youngest child, and was in business with his younger brother. Adolf was a veteran of the First World War, during which he lost a leg. He was cattle dealer, and also sold livestock feed and supplies. Katty was born on June 18, 1999, in Rexingen to Simon and Babette Frohrlich Lemberger, also a large family of 10-13, with at least three sisters. The couple first lived in Korb, where Adolf's family had lived for generations. Their first child, Bertl, was born there on October 25, 1925. About a year after Bertl’s birth, the family moved to Adelsheim. It had a larger Jewish community and the synagogue had enough male members to form the minyan needed for certain religious rites. The couple had three more children, in addition to Esther and Bertl: Edith, born on February 17, 1926, Ruth born on August 11, 1930, and Herman, born on April 27, 1933. In January 1933, Hitler was appointed Chancellor and began to put into practice the Nazi pledge to persecute Jews. The older children attended public school until the mid-1930s, when, as Jews, they were prohibited from attending. Esther's three sisters went to live with relatives and attend a Jewish school in Heilbron. They were then sent to live with their maternal aunts, Friederike and her sister, in Aachen. The families decided to leave Germany. and they received the affidavits of support from relatives in the US neede for US visas. Because of the strict US quota, it was not possible to get US visas for everyone. The extended family made a decision to send one uncle’s family to the US. In March 1939, Esther's aunt arranged for the children to leave for Great Britain on the Kindertransport (Children’s Transport), a rescue mission to save Jewish children. They had another maternal aunt Hanna…
physical characteristics and technical requirements: a. Child's very worn left brown leather lace-up ankle boot with a brown leather rounded apron toe cap. A black shoelace with frayed ends is inserted through 7 metal eyelets, 3 are missing on the left. The lacing holes are reinforced with leather. The open tab lacing is not sewn to the vamp at the bottom front. The counter, or heel section, is reinforced and has a leather back strap. The interior is lined with thin offwhite cloth that is stained and very worn with visible nail heads. The re-heeled shoe has a black plastic heel and a metal cleat. The leather sole has a separate, added or replacement, layer nailed to the ball and toe area with over 2 dozen nails. The polished leather is creased and wrinkled and the toes are scuffed. b. Child's very worn right brown leather lace-up ankle boot with a brown leather rounded apron toe cap. A black shoelace with frayed ends is inserted through 7 metal eyelets, 3 are missing on the left. The lacing holes are reinforced with leather along the interior. The open tab lacing is not sewn to the vamp at the bottom front. The counter, or heel section, is reinforced and has a leather back strap. The interior is lined with thin offwhite cloth that is stained and very worn with visible nail heads. The re-heeled shoe has a black plastic heel and a nailed on metal cleat. The polished leather is creased and cracked and the toe is very scuffed. The right shoe shows more use than the left. The shoes are tied together.
conditions of access: No restrictions on access
conditions of use: No restrictions on use
has beginning date: 1964-01-01
has beginning date: 1939-01-01
has end date: 1939-12-31
has end date: 1964-12-31
has or had holder: us-005578
has or had identifier: 1
has record set type: Item
identifier: irn72131
is or was included in: us-005578-irn49854
record resource extent: a: Height: 6.000 inches (15.24 cm) | Width: 2.500 inches (6.35 cm) | Depth: 3.500 inches (8.89 cm) b: Height: 6.000 inches (15.24 cm) | Width: 2.500 inches (6.35 cm) | Depth: 3.750 inches (9.525 cm)
results or resulted from: 1
scope and content: Brown leather lace-up boots bought for 2 year old Esther Rosenfeld by her parents in Germany and worn when she left on a June 1939 Kinderstransport to Great Britain, as her three older sisters Bertl, Edith, and Ruth, had done in March. As the adult Esther remembered:"The boots traveled with me from Germany as I left my home and parents when I was just two years old to start a new life in England. ... I suppose I wore them on the train, the ship, and then another train as I traveled to a new family. In Thorpe, I must have worn those boots for a long time. My foster father, who worked in a shoe factory, repaired them many times, as is evident when I look at them. Like all children, I outgrew the boots and cared nothing more about them. ... in 1964, Alan Harrison, my foster brother... brought me a gift from my foster mother of these boots, which she had kept safe all these years" Hitler's assumption of power in 1933 resulted in increasingly harsh persecution of the Jewish populace in Germany. Esther's extended family got affidavits of support from relatives in the US, but because of the strict US quotas, they could not get visas. Esther had a maternal aunt Hannah (Johanna) who had worked in England since 1933 and she found people willing to give the sisters homes. Esther lived with the Harrison's until 1947 when she went to America with her sisters. Her parents Adolf and Katty were murdered in Auschwitz concentration camp and many other relatives perished during the Holocaust.
title: Brown leather lace-up boots worn by a young Jewish girl who escaped Germany on the Kindertransport