United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Otto Weinmann was born in Vienna, Austria, on January 12, 1903. When he was six years old, his family moved to Karlovy Vary, Czechoslovakia, where he attended elementary and grammar schools. In 1916, the family returned to Vienna, where Otto completed his education. After graduation, he moved to Germany and worked as an administrative clerk at a banking and shipping firm in Hamburg, and later in Berlin, between 1921-1931. In 1931, he moved to Amsterdam, where his uncle Paul was working as a bookbinder. He spent four years there, working with the merchant Bank and Export firm of Leeser. In 1935, Weinmann moved to Prague to work in the textile manufacturing and export business. His mother, Jenny, passed away in 1936. As rumors of the political situation worsened, Weinmann left Prague in 1938 and moved to Paris. In 1939, he joined the Czechslovak army under French command. When Germany invaded France in 1940, Weinmann was caught up in the wave of Allied military evacuations and was one of the soldiers evacuated from Dunkirk to England. Once in England, he joined the 2nd Armored Regiment, 3rd Squadron of the Czech forces, working as part of a tank regiment under British command. In London, he met Monna Steinbach, a refugee from Vienna who fled to England in 1938. They married in early summer 1943. On November 3, 1944, Monna gave birth to a daughter, Janice. Otto Weinmann was sent with his regiment to France in September 1944, where he participated in the liberation of the Dunkirk region. He was demobilized and returned to his family in England in 1945. After the war, he learned that his uncle Paul had likely been deported from the Netherlands and perished in the Holocaust. Otto, Monna, and Janice Weinmann emigrated to the United States in 1948.
Copyright Holder: Dr. Janice Weinman Shorenstein
boxes 2
The collection is arranged in three series: Series 1: Correspondence from Otto Weinmann to Monna Steinbach Weinmann, 1941-1945 Series 2: Correspondence from Monna Steinbach Weinmann to Otto Weinmann, 1943-1945 Series 3: Miscellaneous correspondence and documents, 1912-1949
The collection consists largely of correspondence between Otto and Monna Weinstein during their courtship and after their marriage, while Monna was living in London and Otto was serving with the 2nd Armored Regiment, 3rd Squadron of the Czech forces under British command. While the bulk of the collection consists of their personal correspondence, Otto was very careful to keep any information about his work or location away from enemy hands; therefore, their correspondence with each other is largely personal. Also includes pre-war and wartime correspondence between Otto and his uncle Paul in Amsterdam, terminating in 1943; an attempt to trace Paul’s fate after the war; and wartime correspondence from Monna’s mother, Marya Steinbach, who had emigrated to Rishon le Zion, Palestine, prior to the outbreak of war.
Otto and Monna Weinmann papers