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.
Rosa Ringel married Pinkas Twiasschor in a borough of London in January 1911, at the same time that Twiasschor's sister wed another Berlin businessman. What was that all about?
Stan's Mathematica notebooks document his later work and speculations
Five siblings who stayed true to German ideals until the bitter end
Ed loved crosswords, so Dan Ruby created a tribute puzzle for his memorial. Kate and Twyla were the clue crew.
Betty Ringel's two daughters were able to leave Germany before 1938. They were in the twenties and they settled in London.
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?
She made each of her six grandchildren feel special
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
When Hermann turned 21 in 1906, he presented documentation to secure legal German citizenship.
After the war, Joe Liebman came back to Paris with a glamorous new wife. Oh, what a life they led
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.
German refugees in the UK, even Jews like Gerhart Feidt, were deemed potential enemy aliens
When and why did Walter Rabinowitz take on our abbreviated last name? He may have gotten the idea during intermission at a Bronx nickelodeon
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.
Rosa Feidt was the only Lewi sibling who got out, to her everlasting remorse
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
The Clerc jewelry assets were seized and resold to an Aryan buyer. The Nazis kept perfect records of the transactions.
Out of the files of the U.S. Patent Office and into the peculiar subculture of corkscrew collectors
A surprising artifact discovered after a parent's death leads to a series of discoveries and a new pastime in genealogy
In 1907, Moritz Feidt built a department store in Berlin Stieglitz. It still stands today
Most of the family from Tiegenhof found their way to Berlin by the early years of the twentieth century. At first they prospered—until the coming devastation
The estranged husband of Betty Ringel was one of the 1000 war evacuees who found safe haven in the only U.S refugee camp
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.
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.
The Ringel sisters, Betty Twiasschor and Rosa Schattner, lived with their children in adjacent apartments on Lothringerstraße.
The U.S. liquor industry took off after the repeal of Prohibition. Walter Ruby was the marketing manager for the American Spirits company
Walter Ruby hustled his way as a traveling silver salesman, with some career side trips into boxing promotion and medicinal alcohol.
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.