BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

Andres Caro

Born 1944 in Buenos Aires/Argentinia

Visitors’ Program: 2016

Married to Monica Aptekmann

Brother:
Ricardo Caro

Parents:
Mother: Lotte Caro, nèe Wachenheimer from Frankfurt
Father: Hans Kurt Caro from Berlin

Grandparents:
Grandfather: Isaak Wachenheimer
Grandmother: Johanna Wachenheimer, née Epstein

Business Premises in Frankfurt:
Untermainkai 82

  • 1933: Emigration of Isaak Wachenheimer and part of his family to Denmark
  • 1936: Marriage of Lotte Wachenheimer and Hans Kurt Caro in Denmark
  • 1936: Emigration to Argentina
  • 1944: Birth of Andres Caro in Buenos Aires
  • 1970s: Accompanied by wife and daughters, Andres Caro spends a year in Munich for training to be a process computer expert with Siemens
  • 1994: Visit in Erfelden for consecration of memorial former synagogue

Sources:

  • Projekt Jüdisches Leben in Frankfurt (PJLF): Talks with members and friends of the Caro family
  • Förderverein jüdische Geschichte und Kultur im Kreis Gross-Gerau (Hrsg.), Die Geschichte der Juden in Biebesheim, Riedstadt 1997

Photos:
Caro Family
Georgette Brock

Text and Research:
Georgette Brock

Andres Reinerio Caro Wachenheimer

The Caros in Argentina

By Georgette Brock

Andres Caro from Olivos/Argentina participated in the visitors program of the city of Frankfurt in 2016, following his brother Ricardo Caro who had been part of the program in 2014 (see biographies A – C). Thus the family history could be filled up with a number of additional details.

Grandfather Isaak Wachenheimer

Andres Caro brought a drawing of the business premises of his grandfather Isaak Wachenheimer at Untermainkai 82 in Frankfurt. Isaak Wachenheimer traded with jewellery, but also with Jewish ritual objects, and he had establishments in Pforzheim, London, Barcelona, New Delhi, Kopenhagen and Haifa. His nickname was “Goldonkel” (gold uncle)

Andres Caro was accompanied by his wife Monica, a genealogist whose Jewish parents also came from Germany, and his daughter Lilly who has been a physiotherapist at the reha-division of the former German Jewish home for the aged and present rehabilitation Clinic Hirsch in Buenos Aires. Andres Caro is a technician in electronics, and was sent to Siemens in Germany by the Argentinian government in the seventies to become a process computer expert. He and his wife and their two daughters then lived in Munich.

Consecration of the Former Synagogue in Erfelden

In 1994 Andres and Monica Caro came to Germany again on the occasion of the consecration of the former synagogue Erfelden as a memorial. Erna Wachenheimer, the widow of his cousin Max, had returned several objects from the old synagogue to the Förderverein, including two Tora shrine curtains.

When the old synagogue was sold, these objects had been distributed among the last Jewish families, and some of the recipients had left the objects with Max Wachenheimer in London on their way to their future abode. Max Wachenheimer had emigrated to England in 1933 together with his wife Erna and had taken over the London establishsment of his uncle Isaak. Two of Isaak Wachenheimer’s grandchildren, Gerhard Kaufmann from Denmark and Edwin Bruchfeld from Sweden, who had both been born in Frankfurt, also came to Gross-Gerau for the consecration of the memorial.

Lotte Caro Wachenheimer in Argentina

Andres Caro also brought photographs showing his mother Lotte in Argentina, her new home, where she had emigrated in 1936 with her newly-wed husband Hans Kurt Caro. As soon as they had settled down, i. e. found a place to stay and work, in Parana, they had their father, Dr. Alfred Caro, his wife Hetty, née Lachmann and their daughters Ruth and Ilse come.as well. They reached Buenos Aires in 1938 on the last boat that was allowed to carry Jews to Argentina.

In 1941, Lotte Caro even managed to help her sister Else Wetzlar, Else’s husband Julius and daughter Lore as well as her sister-in-law Hedwig with husband Leo Nussbaum and son Rolf Nussbam, who were stuck in Marseille, to emigrate to Montevideo/Uruguay.

The Caros and the Jewish Community in Argentina

In Argentina the Caros engaged themselves in the Jewish community. Dr. Alfred Caro, the grandfather of Ricardo and Andres Caro, was involved in the founding of a liberal synagogue following the model of Leo Baeck. Life in most of the existing Jewish communities in Argentina which had been founded by east Europeans was so different from what the emigrants from Germany were accustomed to that they founded their own synagogues. With a Tora scroll saved from the flames, Baeck’s student, the former Rabbi Dr. Fritz Steinthal from Muenster and like-minded friends founded the German speaking community of Benei Tikva in Buenos Aires in 1939 which was joined by 675 families.

Later, Hans Kurt Caro, the father of Ricardo and Andres Caro, became vice-president of the synagogue and president of the lodge B’nai B’rith and saw to it that Mrs. Schindler who lived under difficult circumstances in a suburb of Buenos Aires, got a decent abode. Monica Caro wrote an article about Emilie Pelzl Schindler for the genealogical journal in August 2000. Andres and Monica Caro are still members of the synagogue whose present Rabbi is A. Skorka, a friend of Pope Francisco’s.

Visit to the Jewish Cemetary at Rat-Beil-Street in Frankfurt

When Andres and Monica Caro visited the graves of Andres’grandparents Isaak and Johanna Wachenheimer on the Jewish Cemetary at Rat-Beil-Street in Frankfurt, they also found the grave of Salomon Epstein, Johanna’s father and Andres’ greatgrandfather.

Monica Caro paid reverence to a relative of her’s: Nobel Prize winner Paul Ehrlich in whose honor the city of Frankfurt maintains a tomb.