Over the years, I tried to find information about my SCHEININ cousins from Leipzig.
Yesterday, thanks to the databases on Ancestry.com, I finally made some progress.
In 2001, I wrote to the archive of the Universität Leipzig and learned where and when Albert SCHEININ was born and the names of his parents, but did not learn anything more that could help me trace this family line.
In 2007, searching on Ancestry.com, I found information on the son Leo SCHEININ. It turned out he was born in 1888, and had emigrated to New York in 1907. He had been a merchant in Leipzig. In the US, he was a bookkeeper in New Orleans (as noted in the 1910 US Census), and was in the fur trade in New York (as noted in his WWI registration card). Leo died in the Bronx on 5 November 1935.
There things stood until last month.
When my brother Don and I were in Germany and Poland on a family research trip in November 2013, we stopped in Leipzig and went to the old Jewish cemetery. There, I happened to spot the gravestone of my great great aunt Auguste SCHEININ geb. KALISCHER (1851-1920).
Knowing that Auguste died in Leipzig, or at least was buried there, provided a new clue to aid in looking for this family. The gravestone inscription gave Auguste's Hebrew name as Golde, and Albert's Hebrew name as Zwi Dov; it also confirmed the family connection by identifying her father as haGaon R. Zwi Hirsch KALISCHER. With her birth date, I could confirm that Auguste was the youngest child of Zwi HIrsch KALISCHER, matching where she was listed (without dates) in the Familientafel Kalischer. And she must have had some living grandchildren in 1920 since she was a "geliebte Mutter und Grossmutter".
Back in Chapel Hill visiting my mother, I looked again for information about Auguste's husband Albert SCHEININ. Using Google Books, I found a copy of his book "Die Hochschule zu Jamnia und ihre bedeutendsten Lehrer" (1878):
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Finding Auguste's gravestone in Leipzig prompted me to seek information about the SCHEININ family from the Leipzig Jewish community and the Stadtsarchiv. A city archivist responded very quickly with a little information - it did not add much to what I knew, but did cause me to spend the afternoon yesterday looking for more clues. (More information should be coming from the archive in the next few weeks.)
On Ancestry.com, I found a Leipzig directory from 1936 that included Recha FUCHS. Then, I looked at 2 entries from UK directories, and was thinking the Recha FUCHS in London in 1939 and 1940 seemed to be the same person. She was living at the same address as a Max FUCHS. And a Recha FUCHS died in 1942 in Eton at the right age to be my cousin Recha FUCHS geb. SCHEININ (1879-1942) .
Following up on the possibility that Max FUCHS was one of the unknown sons of Recha and Wolf Beer FUCHS (d.ca.1914, Netherlands), I started looking for information about this Max FUCHS. That led me to a family tree posted on Ancestry.com by "LEFuchs".
From that tree, I learned that Max had a brother Leo, and then I found the third brother Alfred (Ephraim Alfred) from the Passenger List databases.
LEFuchs' information on Ancestry.com led me to living members of the FUCHS from a very loving obituary for the widow of Leo FUCHS -- Florence FUCHS geb. GOLDSTEIN (1918-2006). From there, Ancestry.com, Facebook and internet searches allowed me to find more details and photographs of these new cousins.
At the same time, I also found a little information about Recha's older brother Emanuel SCHEININ. He left Leipzig and settled in Fürth. German military records showed his service in World War I -- and also indentified his wife Meta geb. SCHLOSS and that, by 1917, they had had 4 children. Poking around on Ancestry.com, I found that one child was Max SCHEININ (1909-1982) who emigrated to the States in 1928. His sister Hilde SCHEININ (b.ca.1916) came to New York in 1934. Their mother Meta SCHEININ geb. SCHLOSS (b.ca.1880) came to New York in 1936. No sign yet of living descendants of this part of the family.
In the passenger list for Leo FUCHS' 1938 arrival in the US, he identified his "nearest relative or friend in the country whence alien came" as his "Aunt H. Scheinin, Nordplatz 1, Leipzig C.1". With this clue that Hanna SCHEININ was still living in Leipzig in 1938, I checked the "Gedenkbuch - Opfer der Verfolgung der Juden unter der nationalsozialistischen Gewaltherrschaft in Deutschland 1933-1945" (online) and learned the sad news that Hanna SCHEININ was deported to Riga:
born on 30th November 1886 in Leipzig / - / Sachsen
resident of Leipzig
resident of Leipzig
Deportation destination:
from Leipzig / Dresden
21st January 1942, Riga, ghetto
from Leipzig / Dresden
21st January 1942, Riga, ghetto
and was presumably murdered there.
I wish I could share this news with my wonderful cousin Herta MENDELSON (geb. MENDLOWICZ) (1893-1988), who spent her whole life finding and keeping track of the KALISCHER family. I think she would have loved finding the family of her great aunt Auguste -- and especially to discover that, during her lifetime, they were largely living in the greater New York area. Hertha lived in New York from her arrival in New York in 1941 until 1986 when she opted to spend her last years in Israel.
My mother escorted Hertha to Israel when she decided to move to the Dan Carmel hotel in Haifa in 1986, at age 93. My mother made a second trip to Israel in 1988 to visit Hertha for her 95th birthday. On that occasion, tiny Hertha said "’wenn mich nur meine Mutter jetzt sehen koennte..." -- her mother who would have been almost 125 years old at the time of Hertha's 95th birthday. Now, having found these close cousins, Leo FUCHS was Hertha's second cousin, I can say "wenn mich nur meine Hertha jetzt sehen koennte" (if only Hertha (age 120) could see me now -- and learn about these missing cousins)...
This was a great end-of-Hanukkah present for me.
Stephen, do you know the name of the ship, date and port of embarkation, and date of arrival in New York for my father, Leo Fuchs, youngest child of Recha, born February14, 1913, died January 30, 1971?
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