We know that Pinkas Twiasschor was one of the 1000 specially chosen refugees who came to the U.S., spent 18 months in an Army camp in Oswego, New York, and were finally admitted as legal immigrants in January 1946. I have begun reading the 1983 bestseller Haven, by Ruth Gruber, about her role in the operation and her experiences with the refugees. It is a gripping read. However, Pinkas Twiasshor is not specifically mentioned in the book. I'll come back and write about the book in a future installment.

Edith Twiasschor was born in Berlin on December 20, 1911, a very proper 11 months after her parents married in London.

I have not yet found her actual birth record, the information comes on this British security document from November 1939, when she was 28 years old and already resettled in England. It provides her with an exemption from internment as an enemy alien. Although she is a German national, she has refugee status and is therefore exempt. 

The other Berlin couple that married in London in January 1911, Dina Twiasschor and Israel Goldstein, prospered as a family and in business in Berlin in the 1910s and '20s. Their daughter Sally was born in 1912, and then two other children, Alfred and Ruth, followed a decade later. Israel ran a furniture and textile store on Brunnenstraße.

Back in Berlin after getting married in London, Betty and Pinkas produced two daughters, Edith and Geena, in the following years, let's say before 1920. I have not found their birth records and there are not any residence records for the family in those years. The next time Betty shows up it is in a 1926 address book and she is  living at 54 Lothringer, apparently without Pinkas. 

I'm sure there are better sources on the German occupation of Serbia in 1941-44, but the Wikipedia article on The Holocaust in German-Occupied Serbia has all we need to know. I'll go through the key points. 

Before getting back to the Twiasschor story, let's dig deeper into the family of Rosa Ringel's in-laws, the Schattners from Belgrade. First of all, in Serbia the name seems to be rendered as Shatner, the same way that actor William Shatner spells it. In fact, here is a relevant clip from Shatner's Wikipedia page:

The Twiasschor story is fairly convoluted, and this will be part one. 

In the Ringel's neighborhood, two blocks away on the other side of Lothringer, lived a Twiasschor family at Zehdenicker Str. 24/25. There was a son Pinkas Twiasschor and younger daughter called Dina though her given name was Diana. Betty Ringel was friendly with the two of them. 

I wrote yesterday that Ze'ev Sharon (Wolf Schattner) was born in 1913, which Walter found surprising and possibly in error, primarily based on his understanding of the age difference between our mother and her cousin. 

Helga was born in October 1924. Walter had believed that Ze'ev was only a few years older than Helga, and certainly not as many as 11 years older as my information suggested. So I told him I would go check my sources and try to update the information. 

Yesterday I wrote that I had not yet learned the histories of the two husbands of Hermann Ringel's sisters Rosa and Pessel (known as Betty). That was so yesterday.

I woke up this morning to email from Rodney who had already seen that and had done a little digging of his own. He also pointed out that I was in error yesterday when I wrote that only the front of the Ringel-Wohlgemuth marriage record was available. He found the back and sent it along, showing that the two marriage witnesses were Isaak Wohlgemuth and the merchant Martin Horowicz, who lived at Lothringer Straße 14.