Werner Rothschild |

School in Germany ended for Werner with the November pogrom of 1938. Many of his teachers were arrested and could no longer teach. It was the same with his father. Werner received a good leaving certificate on January 31, 1939 and was dismissed with best wishes for the future.

For Werner, however, the worst day of his young life was the so-called “Reichskristallnacht”. He saw furniture fly out of the windows and buildings burn. Immediately afterwards, his father was picked up by the Gestapo. They gave him 10 minutes to pack his things, then they deported him to Buchenwald. Fortunately, his brother was not at home or he would have been arrested too. His mother Elise was desperately looking for ways and means to get her husband back. As a recognized historian, his father was networked across Europe, so she turned to the Swedish consulate and even to a former war comrade from the First World War. This man was an alcoholic and had major problems during the war. Siegmund helped him out of a jam back then. Under the Nazis, this man had made a career in the Hitler Youth. When Siegmund came out of the concentration camp in December with the order to leave Germany quickly, the family wondered if this man might have been helpful. However, at that time fighters from the First World War were mostly released after a short time.

Siegmund was a broken man when he came home and it took weeks and intensive care from his wife before he regained his strength. As soon as his health permitted, he traveled to England with his son Ernst, with 10 Marks in his pocket. More was not allowed per person. The only contact there was with two of Elise’s brothers who had emigrated from Ratibor in 1935 and opened a dental practice in London.
Mother and Werner stayed behind in Frankfurt.

With the Kindertransport to England

Elise Rothschild found out that the English wanted to evacuate 10,000 Jewish children from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia. She registered Werner and when he got permission she took him to the main train station. He traveled to Hamburg without knowing anyone. Werner had to endure a particularly unworthy situation beforehand. The Gestapo ordered the 10-year-old to strip naked to check that he was not wearing anything prohibited on his body. From Hamburg he went with the American ship SS Manhattan via Le Havre to Southampton. Werner calls this trip his “first cruise” today. In Margate the children were accommodated in a youth hostel. The 7-15 year olds lived there undisturbed on the coast, but there were no school lessons, so they hardly learned any English. Werner has fond memories of the visit to the amusement park near the accommodation.

When the war broke out, the children were moved to the north of the country.
Since Elise had meanwhile been able to leave Germany, the parents brought Werner to them and the family lived in an apartment in London. Now he could go to school too. The nights were threatening. The family was often forced to take refuge in a shelter due to heavy bombing. While the brother was allowed to work in a tannery during this time, the father did not have a work permit. He was supported by a Jewish organization. His mother, who worked as a nanny in England at a young age, gave English lessons to the Jewish exiles and was able to earn something extra. In Germany, Elise Rothschild had applied to the American consulate in Stuttgart for a visa registration number for entry into the USA. 16 hours of waiting gave her the number 42,000. In view of the fact that at that time only 20,000 people were allowed to enter from Germany annually, this meant certain death. The family’s escape to England in early 1939 enabled them to survive. When their number came up in the summer of 1940, Werner and his father emigrated to the USA in a convoy of 60 ships. After 30 days of voyage, they arrived in Boston. Ernst and Elise followed soon afterward.

Siegmund and Elise Rothschild née Block

Both parents came from large families. The branch of the Rothschilds came from Waltersbrück in Northern Hessen. The family tree can be traced back to the beginning of the 18th century. Waltersbrück, today part of the Neuental commune, was a small Jewish branch in Zimmerrode in the 19th century, consisting of only a few families with their own prayer room in a private house. The Jewish school was in Zimmerrode, the central cemetery for all surrounding communities in Haarhausen.
Siegmund was born in Waltersbrück in 1884 as the eldest son of Gerson Rothschild and Fanny Kugelmann. Gerson died in Waltersbrück in 1930 and was buried in the Jewish cemetery in Haarhausen. His grave is one of the few well-preserved graves. Fanny emigrated to the Netherlands in 1939, where she was deported to Sobibor in 1943 and on May 14th, murdered the same year.

Siegmund came to Frankfurt in 1911 and taught at Philanthropin until 1939. He was a valued historian with good contacts abroad and president of the liberal main synagogue in Frankfurt.

Werner’s mother Elise, née Block, was born in Ratibor on 1892. Less information has come down from her. Elise passed her exams as a teacher in March 1911 and in May received the teaching certificate from the teacher training institute of Miss Martha Prusse in Ratibor. How she got to Frankfurt is not known.

According to her own statements, Elise taught at Philanthropin from 1913 to 1939 with interruptions. The question of whether she gave up teaching there when she married in 1921 remains unanswered. Teacher celibacy, introduced in 1880, required female teachers to be celibate. In 1919, the Weimar Constitution ended discrimination against female teachers. All exemptions have been eliminated. But just four years later, a regulation stipulated that married civil servants could be removed from school service. The economic times were difficult and the jobs were primarily to be reserved for men. Elise still gave private lessons and worked at the Jewish Lehrhaus in Frankfurt, where she taught English, according to a certificate from Professor Ernst Kantorowizc, a well-known historian at Frankfurt University.

Elise was an energetic woman. She not only made sure that her husband was released from Buchenwald, but she also organized the trip to England and the USA. The relocation lists prepared by the family from February 1939 have been handed down. It had to be meticulously listed what the family wanted to take with them. These documents not only provide insight into the Rothschild household effects, but also into the reading habits of intellectuals and their children. From the banal slip box under “Miscellaneous” to Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist from Ernst’s list with the note “Confirmation gifts”, the entire household, purchases made before 1933 or after, was noted. Numerous notes and children’s songs testify to the musicality of the family. But all the effort was in vain. The moving boxes never arrived at their destination. On February 3, 1939, Elise signed an affidavit that there were no debts with the Reichsbank, that there was no foreign depository for securities and that incorrect information would lead to criminal prosecution.

Most of the relatives were murdered

Siegmund had seven siblings, six sisters and one brother. His sister Klara was able to emigrate to the USA in 1939, and thanks to her affidavit, Werner’s family managed to come to the USA. Klara lived in New York, while brother Max emigrated to Argentina. Their sons Fritz and Richard were named from then on Frederico and Ricardo. All other siblings did not survive the Holocaust. The fate of Ludwig Hirschberg, sister Käthe’s son, is tragic. He escaped on the St. Louis. But on arrival in Cuba, the ship was rejected. In New York, too, passengers were not allowed to go ashore. The same thing happened on the way back to Germany in England and Belgium, where only a small number were able to leave the ship. That didn’t apply to Ludwig. He was murdered in Auschwitz.

Elise had seven siblings. One brother died as a toddler. The three sisters perished in the concentration camp, one brother went to South Africa and two other brothers – as already mentioned – built a new existence for themselves in London. Edith Moses Geller, sister Grete’s daughter, emigrated to the USA and lived in Las Vegas. Werner, the son of Sister Trude, settled in Denver, Colorado. From then on he called himself Warren Torrington and had no contact with the family.

Werner’s children are also shaped by the experiences of the family. They feel immensely grateful that they have been given a different life and are involved in charity projects to support people who are underprivileged and have suffered persecution.

Visit to Frankfurt – back to the past with your own children

Werner, Amy, Dori and Gary visited Frankfurt from June 12th to 19th, 2019. As they repeatedly made clear, they were very touched by many encounters. From the first get-together to the final dinner, they were impressed by the offers and contacts: The reception in the Palmengarten with the speech by Mayor Peter Feldmann, the warm welcome in the Jewish community, the visit to the old Jewish cemetery, the Großmarkthalle memorial, the exhibition “Ostend. View into a Jewish Quarter ”in the bunker and the photo documentation“ Jews in Germany ”by and with Rafael Herlich, all of these program items were very well received by the Rothschilds.

Werner and his children were particularly pleased and emotional when the family was allowed to enter his former apartment in Eschenheimer Anlage 31. Today the house belongs to the St. Katharinen- und Weißfrauenstift. Ursula Poletti, the director, accompanied the family through the rooms. Many thoughts of the past came up again. And the Falk Café, at the corner of Eschenheimer Anlage/ Oederweg, was associated with sweet memories for Werner.
A special highlight was the meeting with the students of the Lessing-Gymnasium.

The advanced course under the direction of their teacher Martin van Kampen had prepared itself thoroughly and the young people were very interested in the life story of Werner Rothschild. In a period of two hours, Werner reported on his childhood under National Socialism, the Kindertransport to England and the tough starting conditions in the USA. He was sure of the captivated attention of the audience, which was also shown by the many questions after the event.

Conclusion: Werner is grateful that he had the opportunity to tell young, open-minded people his story during his visit. He knows about the danger of growing nationalism and anti-Semitism worldwide and hopes that society is and remains vigilant against anti-democratic tendencies.
For Amy, Dori and Gary it was the first time in Germany. They were impressed by the friendliness of the people and saw the new Germany very positively. According to their own statements, this week was a big win for the Rothschilds. That was also particularly true for me as their companion during this time.