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.
The Ratner family became established in the Fifth Ward of Albany, N.Y. Abe bottled soda water and Rose nurtured a brood of children.
In 1898, Paechter’s Kaufhaus in Tiegenhof came under repeated anti-Semitic arson attacks.
Five siblings who stayed true to German ideals until the bitter end
Farmers and seafarers from the south Norway coast
Our reconstructed timeline: How Elly and Helga Ringel were smuggled with SS escort out of Germany and across the Belgian border in October 1938
Two young Berliners make a modern marriage—with lasting consequences
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.
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
Walter thought he had proved the family legend of descent from the celebrated Kovno Rav, Rabbi Yitchak Elchanon Spektor. Later facts emerged that suggested a more tenuous connection.
Family stories may be sweeping or specific. They capture some essential aspect of the family's generational journey.