From
Lengnau to New-York : the Guggenheim family, part two
How to make use of one’s wealth
Jacques-Henri GOUGENHEIM
As
announced in the first part, the increased number of descendants,
and thus heirs, and the fading of brotherly togetherness brought
an end to an apparently endless increase in wealth and power.
J.-H. Gougenheim portraits most of the descendants, mainly those
members of the second, third and fourth generation who were
talented and successful in their business. Almost all of the
Guggenheims devoted a significant part of their money to charitable,
artistic and scientific foundations that bear the name Guggenheim.
Their most remarkable success is to have found outside of the
family capable and devoted trustees to manage and develop these
foundations.
A genealogical-biblical
round trip
Ernest KALLMANN
A
then unknown Israeli genealogist contacted the author because
he had located his great-grandfather’s (in fact his great-great-grandfather’s)
family Bible with an also unknown lady. The Bible was published
in 1837 by German scholars directed by Leopold Zunz, the father
of German and American Reform Judaism. The copy bears handwritten
notes by the owner, recalling the main events of his family
life. It has been generously presented to Ernest Kallmann. In
the meantime the few uncertainties arising from its thorough
examination have been cleared. All persons involved in the discovery
and the return of the book, though not related, are linked by
a genealogical circle that is almost closed.
Searching
for the ancestors of Todrosse from Schalbach (Moselle)
Pascal FAUSTINI
While
helping a researcher who has hit a brick-wall with the marriage
record of his ancestor Todrosse in 1804, Pascal Faustini progresses
several generations back perusing the existing research tools,
mostly developed by volunteer members of our society. His paper
exemplifies how Jewish genealogy can be conducted back to the
late 17th century in Alsace and Moselle from one’s desk,
provided sufficient flair and cross-checking is applied.
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MISCELLANEOUS
How a
small group of Thessalonian Spanish Jews survived the Holocaust
Isaac REVAH
Isaac Revah was deported from Salonika in 1943 at the age of
9, and survived because his family owned a Spanish passport.
Salonika, nicknamed "a mother in Israel”, accepted
Jewish immigration coming from all parts of Europe over the
12th to the 19th century and became a thriving religious, cultural
and commercial center. Things began to degrade with the transfer
from Turkish to Greek domination in 1912. In 1924, Thessalonian
Jews speaking Judeo-Spanish, thus originally from Spain, were
allowed to request Spanish passports.
During WWII, the Germans offered the Jews from “friendly
nations”, among which the Turks and Spaniards, relative
protection, until 1943. At that time they gave these countries
the choice between repatriating them and having them treated
as ordinary Jews, i.e. deported.
Spain, under Franco, would not accept them on its territory.
In August 1943 Revah’s family was deported to Belsen-Bergen
in a convoy of 367 Spanish Jews, where they received a softer
treatment than normal inmates. They were finally released after
seven months, returned to Spain and after four further months
expelled to Gaza via Morocco and Egypt. They finally settled
in Tel Aviv, and later returned partly to Greece and France.
.
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