Heydecker: family papers

Hermann Heydecker was born 5 December 1880 in Thalmässing, Bavaria. His wife Nelly (nee Röthler) was born 2 December 1885 at Gotha, Thuringia. They married on 21 August 1917 and had one son, Walter, born 5 June 1918 at Fürth, Bavaria.

Hermann attended a Nuremberg secondary school where he studied languages then banking at the Nuremberg branch of the Dresdner bank. He was in the service of this bank for 42 years. From 1919 he was the assistant director of the bonds and shares dept. In April 1938 he was finally discharged as the last Jew in the employ of the whole institution. His services were personally recognised by the managing directorate in Berlin. His primary role had been to advise customers thus a thorough knowledge of bonds and shares was vital. Having finished at the bank he took up training as a glazier in Mannheim 1938/9, with a view to finding work when he emigrated.

In the immediate aftermath of Reichskristallnacht, November 1938, he was incarcerated in Dachau concentration camp for a couple of weeks. Shortly thereafter he immigrated to Great Britain where he spent his first weeks in Kitchener camp for refugees in Kent.

Hermann Heydecker died on 13 August 1966 aged 85.

Walter Heydecker was born 5 June 1918 in Fürth, Bayern. He went to Karl-Friedrich Gymnasium in Mannheim and did his Abitur there in February 1937. His plan had been to study medicine in Heidelberg. Growing anti-Semitism precluded this possibility. In 1934 he joined the Zionist socialist youth organisation 'Werkleute'. He decided to study horticulture with a view to immigrate to Palestine. However he immigrated to Great Britain instead where he went to the University in Reading between September 1938 and July 1941.

Father and son were reunited in Hutchinson Internment Camp, Isle of Man on 25 June 1941.

After the war Walter continued to pursue a career in academia on his chosen subject of agriculture.

Nelly Heydecker, the daughter of David Röthler and Amalie née Strauss was born on 2 December 1885 in Gotha, Thuringia. After secondary school she trained as a dressmaker and married Hermann Heydecker in 1917. Her preparations for immigration to Great Britain included courses on nursery nursing and sports massage.

Hermann Heydecker had a brother, Alexander, who died on 1 May 1942 in the Warsaw ghetto having been deported there by the Nazis. He was born on 2 June1887 in Thalmässing. He had been forced to sell his house after Reichskristallnacht and he moved to Halberstadt on 3 January 1939 until his deportation. See 1654/4 for correspondence re compensation claims.

Hermann Heydecker also had a sister, Rosa Rothschild, who lived in Amsterdam with her family, with whom there is some correspondence (1654/1). He had another sister, Antonie Weinfeld who died after his brother.

Heydecker corresp

Donated 1987

Donor: Jane C Heydecker