N.B. This is Part 5 of a 5-part series on Ely Goldsmith. Links to earlier articles are at the bottom of this post.
Introduction
We’ve learned a lot about Ely Goldsmith over the last four blog posts. He left a very large footprint in the court records and press. But what of his family? His wife, daughter and granddaughters? What became of his parents and sister in Nazi Germany? It is a mixed story. But before we get to that, let’s see what became of Ely in the latter years of his life.
One Last Hurrah: Ely Fades from View
Ely was sent to prison in 1939 for a sentence of seven years. Given what comes next, we can presume that he was released early, likely in 1944, perhaps for good behaviour or perhaps because the parole board decided that he deserved to be paroled.
On 4 January, 1945, Ely appeared in person before the New York Supreme Court. He had visited the New York public records office and had demanded to inspect the marriage record index, since it was a “public record”. The records clerk had told him that he needed to pay a fee and Ely had balked at this. The court, of course, agreed with the records office, particularly as Ely apparently wanted to access the index “for the purpose of obtaining information to enable him to institute an action at law”. His case was rejected. He had failed again. Courts 22 (?), Ely 2.
Perhaps this last case finally broke Ely. We find no further trace of him in the legal case files, nor in the newspapers. We next learn that, on 15 March, 1950, Ely passed away at the age of 69. His obituary in the New York Times on 16 March, was brief, as obituaries were back then:
GOLDSMITH–Herman, beloved husband of Ida and devoted father of Amy Furmansky and loving grandfather of Olga and Ilsa. Services today at 10 A.M., “The Riverside,” 76th St. and Amsterdam Ave.
Beloved husband? Devoted father? Loving grandfather? Those would all seem to be serious stretches of the truth. Or Ida simply did not believe in speaking ill of the dead. Or perhaps it was true. Perhaps at home Ely was a completely different person.
The Unhappy Lives of Convict Wives
Despite all of the material on Ely, we have learned very little about his wife and daughter. Women generally did not appear in newspapers of the time unless they were famous or infamous. The fact that we find very little on Ida and Amy is a good thing. The same can’t be said for Harold Van Riper’s wife.
Harold Van Riper, one of Ely’s associates, had been sent to the Atlanta federal penitentiary in 1932 for three years. His wife at the time, Helene, found that she could not cope with his disgrace. According to a 9 September, 1932, article in the Washington Herald:
MRS. VAN RIPER DRAINS IODINE IN GOTHAM TAXI
NEW YORK, Sept. 8 (U.S.). Mrs. Helene Van Riper, 26, beautiful wife of Harold Van Riper, immigration lawyer recently sent to Atlanta for three years for complicity in an alien smuggling ring, attempted to take her life here today.
Despondent at the loss of happiness she had found in her marriage after a life of sorrow in Russia, she drained the contents of a bottle of iodine while driving in a taxicab on Fifth Avenue.
Emetics administered at the Reception Hospital saved her life, and she was transferred to the psychopathic ward at Bellevue Hospital.
In the cab police found a large envelope containing a picture of her with her husband, handsomely clad in evening attire. The envelope was addressed to Van Riper in Atlanta.
On the back of the picture she had written this note, partly incoherent and partly illegible:
“Dear Harold:
I won’t be no ore, but why I have to be punished so much for no reason—. I wish you all the happiness in the world. I know now you will be very happy. I am tired of this kind of life. I left everything in condition. I have nothing. I sent to deposit $120 in Washington, D.C., to cover the (illegible) case. Have all your cases in good shape. Helene.”
There is no word about what became of Mrs. Van Riper. Harold, after his release from prison in 1934, had to serve five years probation, although he did launch several appeals and counter appeals, all of which failed. On 13 May, 1938, his probation was revoked (he must have been suspected of something) but was later reinstated upon appeal. And finally, on 1 April, 1939, his term of probation expired, but he was not free and clear. On 8 May, 1939, he was re-arrested and charged with violating probation. His sentence was suspended and probation was reinstated for another five years. He appealed this decision but, again, failed. At least he didn’t end up in jail like Ely! In 1940 and 1950, Harold Van Riper was living with his “wife” Irma, a native-born American. Was this just another name for Helene? No. Harold had married Helene Doubrousky (a Russia immigrant) in 1924 in New York, so either Harold got a divorce from Helene, or she passed away (no record of that) or… she was locked up indefinitely in a psych ward after her suicide attempt and Harold was simply a bigamist.
Ida would appear to be made of sterner stuff than Helene, although her life could not have been easy with her husband in and out of workhouses and prisons. His many schemes may have brought in a lot of money, so perhaps she was content with a sumptuous home and time to dote on her two granddaughters. Ida passed away three years after Ely, on 9 October, 1953. Her obituary mentioned her daughter Amy, and her two granddaughters Olga and Ilse.
Ely’s Daughter & Granddaughters
As noted earlier, Amy had married Harold Furmansky, a musician, in 1932. The couple had two children, Olga, born 1933, and Ilse, born 1937. Amy was a fairly well-known singer in her early years, but disappears from view after her marriage to Furmansky. She did live a long life, passing away in 2003 at the age of 94. While we might not know much about Amy, the same cannot be said about her daughters.
Amy’s youngest daughter, Ilse (or Ilsa), married Arthur Haaker in 1958. The couple had several children and Ilse became a teacher. She remarried twice, to a Charette and then to a Weinstein (or Winston). In 1991, her name was in the news after a tragic accident at Sunquam Elementary School on Long Island, where Ilse was working as school principal. A fourth grade girl had been crushed by a folding door in the gymnasium and was taken off life-support in the local hospital several days later. Apparently the gym teacher and propped a piece of wood against the door’s “close” button so that the door would close while he went to supervise the boys in their locker room. The unfortunate girl tried to squeeze between the door and the gym wall and was caught by the neck. The door did not have an auto-stop or auto-retract feature and the motor burnt out as it continually tried to close. Rescuers took almost 20 minutes to extract her, stymied by the jammed door and its useless motor. Criminal charges against the gym teacher were considered but the police later said it was considered an accident. Four days after the accident, the school boarded voted to close the school, supposedly for financial reasons, although parents questioned that decision. Ilse passed away four years later in 1995.
Amy’s oldest daughter, Olga, married Jacques Claude DuFour in 1954 and the couple had several children. Olga was an English teacher and her 2016 obituary notes that she was “revered for her innovative teaching”. She also seems to have been a savvy businesswoman with her own interior design company. The obituary makes no mention of nieces or nephews (children of her sister) but she may have been estranged from them. Believe it or not, Olga ended up in court in 2011. Apparently a distant cousin had applied to the Austrian government for Nazi-era reparations (this would be via the Marcus family – on Ely’s maternal side). The cousin and his brothers were awarded a sum of money but Olga was awarded much more. The case ended up in court because Olga’s nieces and nephews (Ilse’s children), claimed that half of Olga’s amount should be awarded to them (CaseText 2011 07 08). The problem lay with the fact that the reparations had been applied for after Amy had died, but were considered to be part of her estate. Since Ilse had passed away in 1995, before Amy’s death, Ilse (and her children) were not considered beneficiaries of Amy’s estate. Ultimately, the court sided with Olga. She was able to keep her entire share of the reparations and did not need to divide it with Ilse’s children. The nieces and nephews launched an appeal a month later, the results of which are unknown.
It’s rather sad to learn that Ely’s grandchildren and greatgrandchildren ended up in court, squabbling amongst themselves over money. But, in some ways, it doesn’t surprise me. Something of Ely’s fight against injustice must have been passed down the generations.
Caught in a Trap: The Final Goldschmidt Woman
Through all of this, you may be wondering… what became of Ely’s parents and sister? Ely had emigrated to the USA in 1903, leaving them behind in Germany. As he “helped” German-Jewish refugees secure entry into the United States in the 1930s, what happened to his family?
As we know from Ely’s 1920 visit to Berlin, his parents were both still alive, and his sister, Johanna, had married Ernst Loewe (1909). Ely’s mother, Margarete (neé Marcus) passed away on 18 April, 1928, in Berlin-Wilmersdorf at her residence, Nachodstrasse 15. She was 73 years old and the death informant was Ernst Loewe, her son-in-law.
As the 1930s dawned (and Ely was in and out of prison), the National Socialist Party came to power in Germany. The year 1933 marked a turning point for Jews in Germany, as their rights were slowly stripped away by successive pieces of legislation. Johanna’s husband, Ernst, passed away on 17 November, 1934, in Berlin-Wilmersdorf at his residence. Four years later, Ely’s father, Gustav, passed away on 1 December, 1938, at the Jewish hospital at Iranische Strasse 2. He died of an intestinal obstruction and heart failure.
And so, we are left with Ely’s sister, Johanna. There is no evidence that she and Ernst ever had any children, although it is always possible. What became of Johanna? Did Ely manage to extract her from the horrors of Nazi Germany? Did he get his Berlin contact, Jürgen Ziebell, to secure her a Cuban passport. No. He did not.
On 17 May, 1939, Johanna was living on her own at Schweidnitzer Strasse 7, in Berlin-Wilmersdorf. Whether she was still practicing her profession as a teacher is unknown. If she was, she would have been teaching Jewish children only. By 1941, she had moved to Bier Strasse.
On 27 October, 1941, she was likely forced to go to the synagogue on Levetzowstrasse, the muster point for transports to the east. This was the same synagogue from whence Josef’s uncle-in-law, Gustav Goldemann would be deported a few months later in January 1942. It could not have been comfortable in the synagogue but Johanna would only spend a couple of nights there. On 29 October, 1941, at the age of 55, she, and over 900 other Jews, boarded the Ost (East) Transport to the Jewish ghetto in Łódź. Less than six months later, on 4 May, 1942, Johanna was sent to the extermination camp at Chelmno, 30 miles northwest of Łódź. Chelmno was the first stationary facility to use poison gas for the mass murder of Jews. Her exact date of death is unknown.
Conclusion
When did Ely learn that his sister had perished in the Holocaust? After she was deported from Berlin? After she was murdered in Chelmno? Or was it several years after the war as news of the atrocities was revealed for all to see? I would hope that this news stopped Ely in his tracks and made him reflect on his life. For all of his expertise and experience with immigration procedures, he had failed to help his own sister escape the Nazi horrors. Maybe it was this news that took the wind out of Ely’s legal sails.
I can’t say, having become very familiar with Ely over the last few months, that I respect the man. He was a scammer and a fraudster. He was out to make as much money as possible. It didn’t matter who got dragged through the mire. It didn’t matter who got into trouble because of him. He reminds me very much of Jürgen Ziebell, taking advantage of desperate people.
Ely also reminds me of my own grandfather, Josef Jakobs, who also tried all sorts of fraudulent schemes in the 1930s – everything from gold counterfeiting to an import/export scheme. One could argue that these were “victimless” crimes, except for the jewelers who purchased his fake gold. But then… Josef got involved in Ziebell’s black market passport scheme. Not a victimless crime. There are many aspects of Josef that I don’t respect either. And yet, Josef got his reckoning in British prisons and interrogation centres. I’m not sure that Ely ever faced the reality of what he had done. Perhaps, if/when he got news of his sister. Perhaps.
H.Ely Goldsmith Blog Series
Part 1 can be accessed here – 3 October, 2024
Part 2 can be accessed here – 10 October, 2024
Part 3 can be accessed here – 17 October, 2024
Part 4 can be accessed here – 24 October, 2024
Part 5 can be accessed here – 31 October, 2024
References
YadVashem – notes Johanna (neé Goldschmidt) Loewe’s Ost Transport – Transport 3 from Berlin to Łódź Ghetto on 29/10/1941
CaseText legal case – 2011 07 06 – Marcus vs. Dufour
Header Image by Guy Percival from Pixabay