Jakob Geismar

"Germany, Baden, Church Book Duplicates, 1800-1870," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:2D9Y-SXJ : 20 August 2015), Leo Geismar in entry for Jakob Geismar, 10 Jun 1869; citing p. 116, volume Landesarchiv Baden-Württemberg - Staatsarchiv Freiburg L10 Bd. 0472B, Breisach am Rhein, Breisach, Baden, Germany, Landesarchiv Baden-Württemberg, Freiburg, Deutschland (Baden-Württemberg Provincial Archives, Freiburg, Germany).

Rosalie Geismar, Erna and Hans-Jürgen Maier Rosalie Geismar, born Uffenheimer was in Breisach, the daughter of Max Uffenheimer and Caroline, born Cheerful, born on August 31, 1879. In 1902 she married the same age Jacob Geismar, who also came from Breisach. The Uffenheimers and Geismar were long-established Jewish families Breisach. The couple lived in the midst of the small town in southern Baden the Rheintorstraße 53 On June 29, 1903 daughter Erna came to the world, two years later, on March 2, 1905 was followed by son Lothar. Jacob Geismar died just 33 years old on May 19, 1912. Rosalie Now Geismar had to fend for themselves provide for the family of three. All alone she got a leather and shoemaking trade demand. It was just a small shop, with which the family could barely make ends meet, there was not even a separate account in the Breisach rural savings bank or credit union. But Rosalie Geismar had great skill and improvisational talent, and products from the garden and from our own field plots offered one, though narrow base for livelihood. Daughter Erna was industrious and ambitious and eventually attended high school in Freiburg, son Lothar completed a commercial education. While Lothar remained single later, Erna married early, on December 23, 1924 23-year-old Julius Maier. He was born on December 12, 1901 in Karlsruhe, his life had gone by then under much happier circumstances than that of Geismar family in Breisach.He was the son of the cigar manufacturer Ludwig Maier and Helene, nee Maier, and grew up in Karlsruhe Oststadt in secure circumstances. , the couple moved into a nice apartment in the Academy Street 75 On July 6, 1929 her only son Hans-Jürgen was born . Julius Maier was an ambitious and successful merchant, who introduced its own import and export company for machinery and chemical products since 1921. In 1929, he liquidated this company, specializing entirely on the wholesale and the representation of companies in the bike industry and also accessories sales sewing machines. The full-time secretary of the Jewish community Friedrich Walter Abt Julius Maier described later as a man "with simply rustic blank. I want to say that he was someone who likes spending money. "Family it was financially very well, they could show their wealth in furnishing their apartment, with precious Persian carpets, Bohemian crystal and Meissen porcelain, the Chippendale Buffet in Salon and chairs made ​​Safianleder and walnut. Obviously you also interested in art and literature, the family owned numerous paintings, including an oil painting by Hans Thoma and valuable books, a library comprised of six glass cabinets. Erna privation experiences from her youth seemed to have turned happy. While Julius Maier succeeded in its trade with sewing machine parts, which he mounted to the part itself and sales with high profit margins, extend to the whole of West Germany, Erna Maier was also ambitious and successful. She used her knowledge of the maternal action leather and worked with her ​​husband in the machine shop for the leather industry. They took over independent representation for leather machinery in France and in Switzerland. Yet the couple Erna and Julius Maier had lived apart, in marriage, there were serious crises and Erna Maier filed for divorce. However, a final decree of divorce seems to be never done. Erna Maier and Hans-Jürgen lived now in Virchowstrasse. Julius Maier was arrested after Kristallnacht on November 10, 38 and spent in the concentration camp at Dachau. After his release a few weeks later he operated with high pressure to emigrate to the United States. In April 1939, he managed to exit via France, on May 1, he was able to board a ship to England and, in February 1940, came over Liverpool to New York. He would have taken too happy to Hans-Jürgen, which meant a lot to him with it, but Erna Maier refused. "Where I am, the boy is," she wrote. The required by the guardianship court consent to leave her yet husband she gave, "I hereby declare my consent to the fact that my husband Julius Israel Maier, businessman, alone, that is entering without me in the United States of America." Even his married still with him wife Erna and Hans-Jürgen had their own applications run with Mother Rosalie Geismar on emigration to the United States. Rosalie Geismar, previously supported by her son, Lothar, was drawn in February 1939 to daughter and grandson to Karlsruhe. The longed-for passports were actually issued, but to leave in the U.S., it did not, the registration number 8507 for all three was too high and during the anxious waiting for an entry permit to the U.S. passports in December 1939 had to be extended. In fact, this extension was carried out for one year. But the departure was no longer possible. On October 22, 1940 Rosalie Geismar, Erna and Hans-Jügen Maier were deported like all Jews from the southwest of Germany to the internment Gur in southern France. There, under the indescribably poor conditions, they should last up to accommodate. The son or brother Lothar Geismar had now reached it to Lisbon in Portugal, where he had also furnished comfortably and professionally. He was anchor of hope of the three, but also Julius Maier seems to have helped to leave the departure despite the adverse circumstances with Erna Maier and despite the war, still succeed.But it seems to have been nothing more. Not even in one of the bearings such as Les Milles for the men and one of the "Hôtel" in Marseille for women they have reached that had to endure after the deportation to Gurs in these special camps if they could demonstrably follow the exit on. Rosalie Geismar seems to have the last hope to not give up, in July 1942, she expressed in a letter to his son Lothar in Lisbon the hope that they would not have to spend in terrible Gurs the following winter again. "If we were in the U.S. we could find all the work," and she hoped to "back-ordered life." Hans-Jürgen was now 12 years old, the circumstances must have depressed him, his boyish mind it seems but to have maintained " collect me postage stamps, greeting and kiss your Jürgen "he added by hand at the end of the grandmother letter. In Stock Gur he celebrated in the summer of 1942, his bar mitzvah. 's hopes were not fulfilled, all three had to remain continue in the camp Gur. From August 5, 1942, the last letter of Erna Maier comes to her brother in Lisbon. "We are desperate," she writes, "Today we must continue and not know where to go ... When we hear and what of you." On this day were Rosalie Geismar, Erna and Hans-Jürgen Maier of Gur in the large transit camp Drancy been spent in Paris, where in those days went off several times a week the transports to the extermination camp Auschwitz. "We have all the bad luck of the world. I hope we can soon be hearing from us. Dearly Most greeting and kisses, your Erna "were the last lines.Hans-Jürgen had added "greeting and kiss Jürgen." Of all the three were never heard from again.On 10 August 1942, the train went to Auschwitz, where Rosalie Geismar, her daughter Erna and grandson Hans-Jürgen were. From their last hours of life nothing is handed down. Probably all three were sent directly upon arrival to the gas chamber and murdered. Via the transport is known. No. of persons 1006 The majority of transportation consisted of women and children. After the selection you gave 140 men and 100 women prisoners in the camp. The remaining people were gassed. Shortly after the alleged death of the three, writes Julius Maier completely unaware of New York to be brother Lothar in Lisbon. "Dear Lothar, none of your letters reached me. Since June 1942, I got no more news of Erna, although the visa papers were recognized on July 28th and I have read it telegraph to Marseille. Please let me know immediately how it goes ... " Julius Maier had probably approved papers, and boat tickets for departure worried, but they were probably not in time arrived in France. Julius Maier was in the U.S. a successful investment advisor, he married a second time. But on the death of his beloved son Hans-Jürgen he never came across. He died at only 63 years in 1964 in New York. His second wife wrote to the authorities to Germany: "Hans-Jürgen had been gassed eight days after his bar mitzvah-. My late husband, Julius Maier had loved his son very much ... I know that his son was the first nail in the coffin for my husband's coffin! "Lothar Geismar remained even after 1945 in Portugal in Lisbon. (Miriam Boudin, Miriam Janssen, Elisabeth Aubrecht, Kira Zurell, 10th grade Spruce High School, July 2007)