The sweep of family history across the generations
Two of the Ruby offspring went back to Israel for significant periods.
Watching from afar as British ‘heavies’ are lobbed into Berlin's neighborhoods
In 1898, Paechter’s Kaufhaus in Tiegenhof came under repeated anti-Semitic arson attacks.
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
Five siblings who stayed true to German ideals until the bitter end
Ed was the rector at Saint Martin's By the Lake in Minnetonka Beach, Minn. The family was raised in towns around the lake region west of Minneapolis, including in the church rectory
Our reconstructed timeline: How Elly and Helga Ringel were smuggled with SS escort out of Germany and across the Belgian border in October 1938
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.
How did Betty Katz meet her end in February 1942?
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.
Remembering our Ringel and Wohlgemuth/Paechter family members who perished in the Shoah.
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
Mel accomplished many things in life, but his life’s greatest moments happened during the Battle of the Bulge
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.
Our Paechter family prospered in the Vistula delta town of Tiegenhof. But their roots probably go back further in west Pomerania.
Rosa Feidt was the only Lewi sibling who got out, to her everlasting remorse
The Tulbowitz tavern in Novocherkassk was overrun by Cossacks during the Rostov pogrom of 1881
Stan summered at a Jewish summer camp in the Adirondacks.
The Clerc jewelry assets were seized and resold to an Aryan buyer. The Nazis kept perfect records of the transactions.
In 1907, Moritz Feidt built a department store in Berlin Stieglitz. It still stands today
Our family’s amazing year of discovery and connection
In a dramatic moment while crossing the Mississippi River, he broke with his parents' austere Lutheranism for a more ecumenical approach
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.