Heilbronn and Wertheim families papers

Heilbronn and Wertheim families papers 

Heilbronn and Wertheim families papers 

box 1 

The Heilbronn and Wertheim families papers consist of correspondence to German Jewish immigrants Hugo and Else Heilbronn in Pennsylvania from their Heilbronn and Wertheim family members in Germany, England, Belgium, and Rhodesia and French concentration camps at Gurs and Les Milles; correspondence arranging aid for relatives in Germany and France; and a 2005 newspaper article in which Ruth Gottlieb, daughter of Hugo and Else Heilbronn, describes her family’s experiences of Nazi persecution in Germany and immigrating to the United States in 1939. Ruth Gottlieb’s article describes her very early years in Nazi Germany, restrictions on her father’s cattle business, the destruction of family property during Kristallnacht, immigration to the United States, their efforts to bring their relatives to America, and learning that most of their family was killed in the Holocaust. Correspondence consists of letters to the Heilbronn family in Pennsylvania from their relatives in Europe. Letters from Henny and Simon Strauss describe conditions in Gurs and Les Milles and their desperate need for money. Letters from Louis, Rosa, Lina, Kathinka, and Emil Heilbronn, Hannah and Louis Tobias, Emma Rosenthal, and Selma and Walter Wertheim describe their lives in Frankfurt and Wesel, Germany, family news, health, their difficulties arranging emigration and pleas for help, and news about the deportations of relatives and friends. Letters from Henny and Simon Strauss describe life in Gurs and Les Milles and their desperate need for money. Letters from Selma Heilbronn and Helga, Ilse, and George Feilmann in England, from Sally Heilbronn in Rhodesia, and from Fred and Alice Strauss in New Jersey describe their concern for their relatives in Europe. Packages, travel, and tracing documents consists of correspondence with aid organizations and travel companies that documents Hugo and Elsie Heilbronn’s efforts to arrange money, packages, affidavits, and transportation for their relatives in Europe and to locate them after their correspondence ceased. 

The Heilbronn and Wertheim families papers are arranged as three series: I. Personal narrative, 2005, II. Correspondence, 1941-1943, III. Packages, travel, and tracing documents, 1940-1944