WALTER ROSENBAUM IN THE NETHERLANDS, 1938-1939 Joseph Rosenbaum and the author are both great-grandsons of Hannchen and Isaac ten Brink of Denekamp in The Netherlands. John’s grandmother Julia was murdered in Auschwitz, her sister Rosalie had managed to escape from Europe in October 1939. She took her teenage son Walter Rosenbaum (1922-1997). Joe is Walter’s […]
Ach Du Lieber…
Remembering Hermann Loewenhardt, 1892-1972 by Pauline and Lucy Loewenhardt, USA, and John Löwenhardt (introduction) Hermann Loewenhardt was 28 years old when on 12 September 1921 he arrived in the USA. He was the youngest of the twelve Löwenhardt children from Oberhemer, Germany and the second and last to arrive in the US.
The last shoykhet of Oldenzaal – II
Homage to Leizer Melamed, 1871-1942 Leizer Melamed (Melammet in Dutch civil records) was thirty-two years of age when in 1903 the Jewish community (Kehile) of Oldenzaal appointed him shames and shoykhet (see glossary below). For almost forty years preceding the Holocaust he was one of the most visible representatives of the declining number of Jews […]
The last shoykhet of Oldenzaal – I
Leizer Melamed (Melammet in Dutch civil records) was 32 years of age when in 1903 the Jewish community of Oldenzaal appointed him shammes and shochet (see below). For almost forty years preceding the Holocaust he was one of the most visible representatives of the declining number of Jews of the old city of Oldenzaal and […]
Of hope and despair – and reassurance
The words written on 15 May 1943 are despair in a nutshell: ‘[We’ve] heard nothing from Uncle, [or] Julius’ – Vom Onkel, Julius hoeren nichts.
Ö or œ, d or dt?
The Löwenhardt family name since 1840 Very few Dutchmen carry the family name Löwenhardt. The 1947 census counted six: three people in the province of Gelderland, two in Overijssel and one in Amsterdam. Sixty years later in 2007 the Meertens Institute counted eight Löwenhardt name carriers. I count ten, both in 2007 and in 2013. […]
The origins of Hannchen
For ten years longer than she lived my great-grandmother Hannchen has lain at the ‘youngest’ Jewish cemetery at De Knik in Denekamp. She died on 18 October 1930. For forty years she lived at the spot now occupied by the Blokhuis butcher’s shop – bearing six children – with her husband Isaak ten Brink, cattle […]