Family Story Finder
The sweep of family history across the generations
Abraham Blokh came from Minsk
Before he became Abe Ratner, he was Abraham Blokh from Minsk.
Anguish during the bombing of Berlin
Watching from afar as British ‘heavies’ are lobbed into Berlin's neighborhoods
Arson! The Paechter family store is targeted
In 1898, Paechter’s Kaufhaus in Tiegenhof came under repeated anti-Semitic arson attacks.
Benjamin Hopper settles in California
Fleeing English coal country, he founded the family base in California's Central Valley
Bilingual blogging—my French collaborator
Historical blogging makes strange bedfellows. A French jewelry critic and I were both interested in the history of the Clerc jewelry business during the Nazi era
Eilertsens at sea
Members of a farming family took to the sea both as an occupational calling and a means of emigration
Escape from Berlin—last good chance to get out
Our reconstructed timeline: How Elly and Helga Ringel were smuggled with SS escort out of Germany and across the Belgian border in October 1938
Family roots in the Plymouth colony
Isetta Stetson descended from early Massachusetts colonists, going all the way back to the Mayflower on one side. Nine generations later, her midwestern parents still upheld Yankee values
Final days in Kovno
The amazing story of the unrelated Rabinowitz family in the days before the liquidation of Kovno. Two sons survived to make their lives in Israel.
From Rezitsa to Rostov
Sholom and Sophie Tulbowitz left their ancestral town in the 1870s to settle for 20 years in Russia near Rostov-on-Don.
Ghosts of Weißensee—the cemetery played on
How did Betty Katz meet her end in February 1942?
If walls could talk—75 years in a Parisian villa
Insider dealings in the French jewelry trade. Swank cocktail parties for the Nazi elite. A rough-cut Jewish jeweler and his ebullient new wife. Where Henry Kissinger met Le Duc Tho.
Lest we forget—family Holocaust testimony
Remembering our Ringel and Wohlgemuth/Paechter family members who perished in the Shoah.
Lisbon to New York—with a detour to Havana
The Ringel family crossed from Lisbon on the SS Guine—but their entry to the U.S. was anything but routine
Margot Dränger's survival story
Helga's second cousin suffered unimaginable traumas in and around Krakow from 1939 to 1945. She survived and gave testimony later in life
Motives for mercy—the consuls of Toulouse
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?
Our family during the Nazi years in Berlin
During the first five years of Hitler's reign of terror, Jewish families of Berlin faced one repression after another.
Paechter roots in West Prussia
Our Paechter family prospered in the Vistula delta town of Tiegenhof. But their roots probably go back further in west Pomerania.
Ratner family passage to America
Abe Blokh became Abe Ratner to avoid conscription and get out of Russia. With his young wife and her mother, they voyaged from Bremen to Leeds to New York
Rose Ratner's scar—the 1881 pogrom in Rostov
The Tulbowitz tavern in Novocherkassk was overrun by Cossacks during the Rostov pogrom of 1881
The Clerc jewelry aryanization files
The Clerc jewelry assets were seized and resold to an Aryan buyer. The Nazis kept perfect records of the transactions.
The Eilertsens in Brooklyn
From Red Hook to Gerritsen Beach to Bay Ridge, Jack and Camilla Eilertsen lived the Norwegian immigrant experience in Brooklyn
The Kaufhaus at Schloßstraße 97
In 1907, Moritz Feidt built a department store in Berlin Stieglitz. It still stands today
The Ringel family roots in old Rzeszów
Moses Ringel and Rose Lea Reichman raised a large family in Rzeszów in the Galizianer tradition
The Rubys in Israel—1961 sabbatical
Our family’s amazing year of discovery and connection
The Stetson family’s manifest destiny
From stalwart Yankee roots, Herbert and Hattie Stetson went west with the country
The Wohlgemuths in Danzig
Before moving his family to Berlin in 1912, Isaak Wohlgemuth prospered as a mover in Danzig. His family roots were in nearby West Prussia.
Tulbowitz in the USSR—an alternative history
If Sholom Tulbowitz had gone to Dvinsk instead of Rostov, as his cousin did, his Ratner descendants might have grown up in Perm instead of Albany.