The family of Isaak Klein

Isaak Klein was born on 29 July 1846 in Poppenlauer near Kissingen. On 04.08.1979 he married Sophie Cromwell from Gunzenhausen. She was the daughter of the trader David Cromwell and his wife Karoline, nee Rindskopf.  The couple lived at Burgstallstrasse 1 and ran a ladies’ garment shop at Gerberstrasse 7.

The four children of the family :

Lina *07.06.1880 in Poppenlauer.  She went under the name of Lana as of December 1938. On 11 March 1907 she married the merchant Siegfried Radisch (*08.08.1877 in Berlin +04.08.1938 in Berlin) in Gunzenhausen. The widow was still living in Berlin, Solingerstrasse 3, in 1939.

Gerdi *15.03.1882 in Poppenlauer. She married the merchant Arthur Knopf (*21.07.1878 in Berlin) on 27.11.1905 in Gunzenhausen. . In 1938 the couple was living in Berlin at Manfred-von-Richthofen Strasse 16

Siegfried *30.05.1884 in Gunzenhausen, married to Jeane Levy.

Theodor *03.03.1886 in Gunzenhausen. He was married to Erna Kohn *03.11.1891 in Diesback. The couple divorced after 1934.

In 1914 the son Theodor took over and ran the shop together with his wife Erna. They lived on the shop’s premises in Gerberstrasse 7.  In 1927 Isaak Klein died and his widow moved to the daughters in Berlin in 1932.

The Kleins sold their house already on 27.7.1934 to the furrier Gottlieb Abel, who then added his business to the dress shop. Theodor and Erna Klein left Gunzenhausen on 06.10.1934 and moved to Stuttgart, where they got divorced.

Source: Documentation on the Jewish inhabitants of Gunzenhausen, compiled by the Municipal Archivist Werner Mühlhäuser

© “Briefe aus England in die Pfalz” (Letters from England to the Palatinate), published by the palatinate cultural foundation and edited by Hans-Helmut Görtz, Gabriele Giersberg and Erik Giersberg.
The interior of the clothing store
Photo of the shop furnishings, which were included in the sale by Theodor Klein to the Abel family © Barbara Krüger

So far, the further fate of the couple was unknown to us, but Dr. Hans-Helmut Görtz gave us new information about the Klein family:

During my activities researching the Jewish family Kohn who originated from Uehlfeld, I discovered Erna Kohn, born on 3. February 1894 in Diespeck. She had married a merchant from Gunzenhausen, Theodor Klein. According to the municipal archive of Nürnberg, Theodor Klein fled to Brazil in 1937, leaving his wife behind.  Erna Klein née Kohn apparently moved then to her widowed father Kosman Kohn in Nürnberg. It seems that as of June 1 1939 both lived in a Jewish house, Hochstrasse 15, 1st floor. Erna Klein was deported from there to Izbica in East Poland on 24 March 1942.  Erna Klein’s nephew, who goes under the name of Fred Kolm and lives in America (the son of Martin Kohn), sent me a handwritten letter from Kosman Kohn, in which he tells his nephew about the whereabouts of his daughter Erna Klein.

It is actually not known  what became of Erna Klein. On 26 December 1962 she was entered as deceased in the civil registry of Diespeck, the town of her birth, with the (fictitious) date of death of 31 December 1945.

Through an enormous piece of luck I just discovered the wedding photo dated 10 June 1926 of Martin Kohn, Erna Klein’s brother. Martin’s two sisters, Paula and Erna, are shown with their husbands , but it is not sure exactly who is who.

The photo came from the book Sinsheimer “Briefe aus England in die Pfalz” (Letters from England to the Palatinate), published by the palatinate cultural foundation and edited by Hans-Helmut Görtz, Gabriele Giersberg and Erik Giersberg.

The wedding of Frieda Reuter and Martin Kohn, brother of Erna Klein.      Who remember the Kleins?

© “Briefe aus England in die Pfalz” (Letters from England to the Palatinate), published by the palatinate cultural foundation and edited by Hans-Helmut Görtz, Gabriele Giersberg and Erik Giersberg.

The wedding guests, according to Reuter.

© “Briefe aus England in die Pfalz” (Letters from England to the Palatinate), published by the palatinate cultural foundation and edited by Hans-Helmut Görtz, Gabriele Giersberg and Erik Giersberg.