The Fritz Rosenthal Family papers are arranged as four series: Series 1: Biographical Materials, 1900-1995; Series 2: Correspondence Files, 1924-1994; Series 3: Photographic Materials, 1911-1990s; Series 4: Professional Career, 1941-1993
box 1
Fritz Rosenthal family papers
The Fritz Rosenthal Family papers measure 0.5 linear foot and date from 1900-1995. The collection contains biographical materials, correspondence files, photographic materials, and professional records documenting major life events of Rosenthal family members, the immigration of Fritz, his wife Marty, and his father Karl Rosenthal to America, the lives of the Rosenthals in the United States, and Fritz Rosenthal’s career in chemistry. Records documenting Karl and Claire Rosenthal’s experiences in Würzburg during and after Kristallnacht are particularly noteworthy. Other family members highlighted in the collection include Babette, Gerson, and Max Rosenthal and Paul Grüninger, Marty Rosenthal’s godfather. Biographical materials document the birth, education, marriage, immigration, and death of Rosenthal family members. Records include identity, immigration, and naturalization papers, an autobiography and a family history, death notices, family trees, a mourning album, school records, a wedding menu, translations of a will and of a trade certification, and clippings. Karl Rosenthal’s autobiography is a particularly rich document, describing his experience as a Jewish lawyer in Würzburg following the Nuremberg laws, his role as a consultant for German Jews dispossessed during the process of Aryanization, his arrests and his week at the Buchenwald concentration camp, and his experience returning to Germany after the war to help with Jewish restitution cases. Photocopied pages from Der Novemberpogrom von 1938 in Unterfranken: Vorgeschichte, Verlauf, Augenzeugenberichte include the letter Claire Rosenthal wrote her children just before her suicide. Correspondence files include letters between Fritz and Marty Rosenthal in the United States and Karl and Claire Rosenthal in Germany describing the family’s immigration efforts and the younger couple’s life in America, a 1939 letter from Hans Zellweger to Swiss Bundesrat Johannes Baumann asking for help securing Karl Rosenthal’s emigration, and Fritz and Marty Rosenthal’s annual reports describing the couple’s family life in the United States and their travels abroad. Photographic materials include images of Fritz Rosenthal in his chemistry laboratory, family members, family members’ gravestones in Germany, and the Rosenthal family home in Würzburg. Records documenting Fritz Rosenthal’s professional career as a research and industrial chemist specializing in plastics, specialty papers, and specialty coatings at various chemical companies in Germany, England, and the United States include articles written by Rosenthal, clippings about him, correspondence about his work, and his patents, patent applications, and patent assignments.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Fritz Rosenthal was born in Würzburg, Germany on July 4, 1911 to Dr. Karl Rosenthal and Claire Rosenthal (nee Buschhoff). He attended school in Würzburg, Berlin, Bern, and Geneva. He left Germany for England around 1935 and immigrated to the United States in 1936, initially settling in Pittsfield, MA with his father’s cousins. His sister and brother, Anni and Paul, followed shortly after. Fritz Rosenthal married Martha Zellweger in March 1938. In November 1938, Karl and Claire Rosenthal’s house was destroyed during Kristallnacht, and Karl Rosenthal was arrested and taken to the Buchenwald concentration camp. When he was released a week later, he found that his wife, Claire, had deliberately overdosed on Veronal and been taken to the hospital where she died of pneumonia. Karl Rosenthal’s sister in Munich also committed suicide that month after learning that her only son had died after being transported to Dachau. Karl Rosenthal was forced to close his law practice at the end of 1938 and to sell his home for half of its true value in the spring of 1939 under Nazi Aryanization. He was granted an American visa in late September 1939 and immigrated to the United States via Genoa, settling with Anni and Paul in Chicago. Fritz Rosenthal became an American citizen in 1941 and pursued a successful career in research and industrial chemistry. Karl Rosenthal became an American citizen in 1945. He returned to Würzburg in 1949 to work on restitution claims and re-entered the United States in April 1953. Karl Rosenthal died in 1970, and Fritz Rosenthal died in 1994.