Salo Flörsheim

Salo Flörsheim Direktor und Teilhaber (mit Siegfried Kramarsky) von Lisser & Rosenkranz , bank in Hamburg und Amsterdam.

Salomon Jakob Flörsheim, (1893 -1979) Salomon Jakob (Salo) Flörsheim was born on the 8th of February 1893 in Hamburg, Germany, and attended the well known “Realschule” Talmud Torah there. Salo was an intelligent young man, and joined his father’s banking business as a young man. While still in Hamburg he married his second cousin Eva Flörsheim, also born in Hamburg in 1892. The family emigrated to Amsterdam, Netherlands around 1922, and Salo continued their private banking and brokerage businesses in Amsterdam, where he joined with another emigrant from Hamburg, Mr. Siegfried Kramarsky, a well known art collector, who escaped to New York just before the war. In 1944 the Flörsheims were deported via the Dutch camp Westerbork, to the Thereisenstadt concentration camp, where they survived the war. There is a reference to his survival in his ex-libris: “ שמר כל עצמותיו אחת מהנה לא נשברה ”. Salo and Eva made Aliyah during the 50’s, and settled in Kfar Shmaryahu, where Eva passed away in 1975, and Salo on Chanuka, 1979. Salo had an extensive knowledge of the Tanach and Jewish literature, which he studied alone in his free time, as well as under the tutelage of private teachers. He befriended many Rabbis, scholars, and community leaders, and was personally acquainted with the early leaders of the State of Israel, including the late presidents Weizmann and Ben Zvi. He was a very active philanthropist, who not only practiced a great deal of charity, but did it with no fanfare. In the late 30’s, he urged family and friends to flee Hitler’s Germany. Usually his home was the refugees’ first stop for a day, week or month, and for those who could not afford it, he even paid for the trip! Thus he saved many families from the clutches of the Holocaust. He began collecting Judaica after his immigration to Amsterdam. His entire collection was miraculously saved from the Nazis, and following his return from the camps he continued to collect. Their beautiful villa, which was confiscated by the Nazis, was also returned to them. The photograph on the ex-libris was taken in his library at the villa, with an antique desk and candelabra in the forefront