Lily Knips, as many of you know, was a German Jewess who lived in Berlin prior to the Second World War. Her second husband, a non-Jew, had passed away earlier in the 1930s and she was alone in the city. Her only child, Lothar Sauer, had gone to England in the mid-1930s to study and […]
Haunted By History: Interview with Lily Knips’ Granddaughter Read More »
N.B. This is Part 3 of a 5-part series on H. Ely Goldsmith. Previous blog post links are at the bottom of this post. Introduction In the previous installment of this series, we witnessed Ely slide from a legitimate, presumably successful accountant to a sketchy, unqualified immigration consultant. Ely also put the American justice system
The Unusual Case of H. Ely Goldsmith – Part 3: Unrepentant Convicted Felon Read More »
How does a Certified Public Accountant end up in jail, not once, but twice, for smuggling aliens into the USA? How does a tax accountant end up dabbling in passports and visas? When I first came across H. Ely Goldsmith’s name in the Swiss Archives files, I had no idea he would lead me down
The Unusual Case of H. Ely Goldsmith – Part 1: From Berlin to New York Read More »
I’ve been absent from this blog for almost a year but I am now back in the blogging saddle! I hope. It is amazing how times flies! Life can get hectic and sometimes choices have to be made. I am slowly learning that I cannot do “everything”. For the past year, other life projects took
Back in the Blogging Saddle Read More »
I interrupt this series on Yvonne Sommerfeld for just a moment… Digging through the Swiss Archives online…. I have been a bit like a child in a candy shop. Stunned and gobsmacked… staring around me with wide-eyed wonder and glee. I’ll have this one… and this one… oh, and this one too! Oh heck… I’ll
While searching Ancestry a few months ago, I noticed that the array of Births, Marriages and Deaths from Berlin had been expanded. Births were now available up to 1906, Marriages up to 1936 (formerly 1920) and Deaths up to 1955 (formerly 1935 I think). Quite a bonanza! I had high hopes of tracking down the
New Release of Berlin BMD Records Read More »
Last May/June, I received a series of emails from Anat F. who had found my blog on Fritz Lasch, one of the desperate individuals who purchased forged Finnish passports from Algoth Niska. Anat was able to share a bit more information about Fritz’s wife, Basia, and their two sons. Fritz Lasch & Family In August
I may have tracked down another one of Ziebell’s black market passport clients – Alfred Gutmann. The 1939 German Minority Census on Mapping the Lives has only one Alfred Gutmann living in Berlin at the time. While I am not 100% sure that it is him, I thought that I would dig a bit deeper,
Black Market Passports – Alfred Gutmann Read More »
I received an email in early August 2020 from a gentleman living in Norway, the son-in-law of Karl Victor Hagen (son of Louis Georg Hagen). He had read my blogs on the pre-war black market passport business in Berlin and had a bit of information which he thought might be helpful. For those who wish
Black market passport business – Richard Eduard Wiener Read More »
The Book From Art to Life and Back: N.Y.-Berlin-Paris, 1925-1962. Yvonne Hagen. Xlibris. 2006. Background A relation of the Hagen clan, living in Norway, put me onto this book. Yvonne (née Forrest) Hagen was the wife of Karl Victor Hagen, who happened to be the son of Louis Georg Hagen, one of the individuals who
Book Review – From Art to Life and Back – Yvonne Hagen Read More »