us-005578-irn619187
has or had subject: http://lod.ehri-project-test.eu/vocabularies/ehri-terms/843
scope and content: The Fred Strauss papers consist of biographical materials, correspondence, photographs, and printed materials documenting Fred Strauss’ attendance at the Israelitische Waisenanstalt school in Frankfurt, his inclusion in a Kindertransport from Frankfurt to Paris in 1939, his life as a child refugee in OSE homes in France, his immigration to the United States as part of an USCOM children’s transport from Lisbon in June 1941, his mother’s death in 1943, his move to New York, and his enlistment in the United States Army. Biographical materials include identification papers, travel papers, and medical certificates documenting Fritz’s inclusion in a Kindertransport from Frankfurt to Paris in 1939 and on the June 1941 USCOM children’s transport to America. This folder also includes two lists documenting Fritz’s travels from Miehlen to Frankfurt, through France, and to the United States. Correspondence primarily consists of German letters to Fritz while he was a refugee in France from family and friends. This folder also includes three letters from Ida Bellet, Association for Jewish Children of Philadelphia, about Fritz’s housing situation following his mother’s death. Photographs depict Fritz and friends in Frankfurt between 1936 and 1939, with other children in the group that traveled on the SS Mouzinho in June 1941, with friends in Pennsylvania and New York in the early 1940s, and in military uniform in 1945. Printed materials include a brochure from the Israelitische Waisenanstalt in Frankfurt featuring a photograph with Fritz Strauss (front row, second from left), a program titled “Cirque Supermedrano, le plus grand du monde” from an OSE children’s home where Fritz stayed, a clipping titled “Orphans of the Storm” featuring a photograph of Fritz with other children aboard the SS Mouzinho bound for America, two Lisbon postcards, and an SS Mouzinho postcard.
title: Fred Strauss papers
identifier: irn619187
has or had identifier: http://lod.ehri-project-test.eu/units/us-005578-irn619187/alternateIDs/2
archival history: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
biographical history: Fritz (later Fred) Strauss (1926-2013) was born in Miehlen, Germany, the only child of Albert (?-1926) and Martha (or Marta) Strauss (nee Strauss, 1902-1943). Albert died while Fritz was an infant, and Martha moved them into her parents’ house. Fritz’s grandfather, Jakob, owned a kosher butcher shop on the first floor of their home and his grandmother, Trautchen (1867-1943), did the majority of the cooking. The small town had around 1,800 residents, including a dozen Jewish families and a synagogue. Once or twice a week, a Hebrew schoolteacher would come to teach Fritz and two other Jewish children in the community. During religious holidays, an uncle, aunt, and two cousins would visit from a nearby town. After Hitler was appointed chancellor of the German government in January 1933, the German administration began issuing anti-Semitic decrees and regulations to isolate and restrict the everyday lives of the Jewish community. In 1935, the German authorities passed the Nuremberg Laws, which excluded people of Jewish ancestry from German citizenship and stripped them of their political rights, barred them from many professions, forbid marriage between Jews and non-Jews, and banned the kosher slaughter of animals. The growth of anti-Semitism in Miehlen meant that his grandfather’s butcher shop closed and the environment at the public school became unbearable for Fritz. In 1936, Fritz’s mother sent him to attend a Jewish school at the Israelitische Waisenanstalt, a large orphanage in Frankfurt. There were many other non-orphan children at the school, unable to stay in their small towns for school due to persecution. Within a few years, anti-Semitism in Frankfurt had grown, and during the Kristallnacht pogrom in November 1938, all of the teachers at the orphanage were arrested. While Fritz was in Frankfurt, his mother remarried a man from Cologne, Albert Falkenstein, and his grandfather passed away. On March 8, 1939, Fritz was one of ten children from the orphanage sent …
has or had some members with language: deu
date: circa 1932-1947
has or had identifier: http://lod.ehri-project-test.eu/units/us-005578-irn619187/alternateIDs/1
results or resulted from: http://lod.ehri-project-test.eu/units/us-005578-irn619187/acquisitions/1
has or had some members with language: fra
has or had identifier: http://lod.ehri-project-test.eu/units/us-005578-irn619187/alternateIDs/3
record resource structure: The Fred Strauss papers are arranged as four folders.
has record set type: Item
has or had holder: us-005578
type: RecordSet
record resource extent: folders 4
has or had some members with language: eng
has or had subject: http://lod.ehri-project-test.eu/vocabularies/ehri-terms/701