Edgar Salom Cori

Edgar Cori and his wife. Bertha ( née Goldschmidt), from The Hague, were two of the many Spanish nationals not rescued through Spain. On February 1, 1943, the Spanish Embassy in Berlin testified that because the Coris possessed valid Spanish passports and their request to enter Spain was under consideration, they should not be deported with the other Jews from The Hague. The Germans responded that the Cori family was scheduled for deportation on the same date as the other foreign nationals, and they would come to no harm. The Germans waited a few months and then deported the husband to the concentration camp at Buchenwald and his wife to the camp at Ravensbrük. One year later, as a result of official Nazi procedure, the Reichskommissar in Holland took the trouble to inform the German Foreign Ministry of these arrests so that the latter could inform Spain. Von Thadden thought this announcement unnecessary, however, because the Spanish Embassy had taken no interest in these nationals during the preceding fourteen months. For some reason, the forty- two- year- old merchant and his wife were forgotten. According to a report concerning them in the Spanish Foreign Ministry, they had received Spanish passports during the 1920s and 1930s, but the documents in their possession did not include a formal registration under the rules set forth in the 1924 Primo de Rivera decree. Did Spain inherit the property of the Cori family? There is no evidence of this, but from the documents it is clear that Spain considered itself entitled to it.

Source: Book: Spain, the Jews, and Franco, Page 199.