The sweep of family history across the generations
Elly worked hard to earn a living as a hat maker while Helga adapted easily at Julia Richmond High School. In the summer, they took a room in a beach town on Long Island.
Stan's Mathematica notebooks document his later work and speculations
In 1898, Paechter’s Kaufhaus in Tiegenhof came under repeated anti-Semitic arson attacks.
Following Isaak's death in 1929, Betty lived comfortably in the cosmopolitan Bavarian Quarter—until the Nazi repressions made life unbearable
Ed loved crosswords, so Dan Ruby created a tribute puzzle for his memorial. Kate and Twyla were the clue crew.
Members of a farming family took to the sea both as an occupational calling and a means of emigration
How did Betty Katz meet her end in February 1942?
Our years in Pittsburgh were spent in a tract house in a natural wonderland—backed up against a family farm and an equestrian estate.
Amid the chaos of the Nazi period, the Zionist school in Charlottenburg taught skills and values that lasted a lifetime
German refugees in the UK, even Jews like Gerhart Feidt, were deemed potential enemy aliens
Remembering our Ringel and Wohlgemuth/Paechter family members who perished in the Shoah.
From civil rights to war resistance to arms control, Ruby family members embraced liberal social causes
The Ringel family crossed from Lisbon on the SS Guine—but their entry to the U.S. was anything but routine
Two young Berliners make a modern marriage—with lasting consequences
Helga's second cousin suffered unimaginable traumas in and around Krakow from 1939 to 1945. She survived and gave testimony later in life
Harriet Berkowitz was doubly distanced from her Rabinowitz roots, first by her father’s partial family estrangement and then by his divorce. But she shared a trove of precious family documents and childhood memories after discovering this blog.
Stan was smart and fresh, with something to say about almost anything
Three brothers of the Kleemann family from the Weinberg district of 19th century Danzig operated a coffee and tea import business. Hugo Lewi married into the family and was a dealer in military effects.
In July 1940, consular officials from three nations conspired to open an escape route for Jews out of occupied France. Why did they do it?
During the first five years of Hitler's reign of terror, Jewish families of Berlin faced one repression after another.
Our Paechter family prospered in the Vistula delta town of Tiegenhof. But their roots probably go back further in west Pomerania.
Home from the war, Stan Ruby was a graduate student in physics at Columbia University. Helga Ringel was a smart, pretty war refugee from Berlin
In 1812 in Preußisch Stargardt, an elderly Jew Moses and his sons Salomon and Herz took the surname Wohlgemuth in exchange for Prussian citizenship rights. Our family, descended from Herz Wohlgemuth, stayed in Stargardt for the next three generations
In 1907, Moritz Feidt built a department store in Berlin Stieglitz. It still stands today
How and why did Stan Ruby's important post-graduate research go wrong, and what impact did it have on his career in physics?
Stanley Ruby entered the public debate over nuclear missile technology in 1968-69.
Joseph and Lena Rabinowitz were Russian immigrants who ran a corner grocery in Jewish Harlem. Their nine children were native Americans
From 1880s to the 1930s, the Ringel family prospered in the garment trade in the German capital. Herman made men's outerwear.
Before moving his family to Berlin in 1912, Isaak Wohlgemuth prospered as a mover in Danzig. His family roots were in nearby West Prussia.
In 1912, Isaak and Betty Wohlgemuth moved to the German capital and settled in Weißensee, where their two daughters came of marriageable age
Joseph Rabinowitz’s mother was Bertha Yesersky. Was she related to Sora Yesersky, the wife of Rabbi Elchanon Spektor?
A pioneer to Palestine in 1936, Ze’ev married Penina and they did their part to build the state of Israel as founders of Kibbutz Afek.