Family Story Finder
The sweep of family history across the generations
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.
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 by the lake
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
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
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.
Ghosts of Weißensee—the cemetery played on
How did Betty Katz meet her end in February 1942?
Green Valley Drive—our exurban childhood
Our years in Pittsburgh were spent in a tract house in a natural wonderland—backed up against a family farm and an equestrian estate.
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.
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.
Rabbi Spektor's true genealogy
Most of what we discovered about Rabbi Spektor's genealogy was entirely true. All but the myth of our family's connection to it
Rose Ratner's scar—the 1881 pogrom in Rostov
The Tulbowitz tavern in Novocherkassk was overrun by Cossacks during the Rostov pogrom of 1881
Sputnik in the backyard
Watching Sputnik at night from our back yard in a suburb of Pittsburgh is one of my earliest memories.
Stan at Brant Lake
Stan summered at a Jewish summer camp in the Adirondacks.
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 Kaufhaus at Schloßstraße 97
In 1907, Moritz Feidt built a department store in Berlin Stieglitz. It still stands today
Third Generation Rubys
First came Walter, then Danny and Joanne. They would carry on the Ruby-Ringel genes.
Twyla's childhood
Outlooks of a pre-millennial
Yichus and our relation to the famous rabbi
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.