In preparation for emigration, Gerhard had sold the business, including the building, for a to a man from Trier, who sold it on to the major retail chain of Wertheim in 1937, only to be expropriated by the Nazis in 1938.

Günther Wertheim had set up a large chain of deparmetn stores in Berlion but left his own flight from Germany unitl 1939. He was lucky to be able to safely reach the United States, where he became a chicken farmer. Wertheim's granddaughter Mrs. Barbara Principe lives in New Jersey. 

It was after lunch on the fourth day of hearings at the Condado Hotel on the beach in San Juan, Puerto Rico, when the whole barrel business first came up.

Until then, the June 1943 investigation by a subcommittee of the House Committee on Insular Affairs, as well as a week of testimony in Washington, D.C. had been mostly at the policy and political level, with testimony from leading politicians and government officials.

The hotel was informally known as the Pich-Sachs House

2015 journal article gives flavor of refugee life in postwar London

2015 journal article gives flavor of refugee life in postwar London

The pension on Adamson Road was run by two formidable dowager ladies

Ilse told the story that Rosa travelled by train to Rome, probably shortly before flying to England. The daughter of a friend gave Rosa jewelry for Rosa to get of the Germany on her behalf. 

Rosa bought herself a first-class ticket and found an empty compartment, the jewelry tied into her underwear, only to find  herself being joined by a Gestapo officer, who felt free of course to make a pass at any female he came across. Ilse had similar tales to tell; the Gestapo seemed to make a habit of it, never passing up an opportunity. They knew full well they could get away with it. 

Not one of those left behind would survive. the war

And what of Rosa, Gerhard's mother and Susie's paternal grandmother, who along with Susie also remained in Germany until March 1939?

Rosa had had to leave the apartment in Steglitz, certainly by 1937 when Gerhard sold the business. First she had moved to the house in Schweinfurtstrasse 62, Berlin-Dahlem, specifically to get out to the way of the ever increasing Nazi activity in the business areas of the city, where brutal thugs and bullyboys were operating.