Black Certificate of Citizenship document case belonging to German Jewish prewar emigre

Leo Nast was born on October 3, 1885, in Schulitz, Germany. He had a sister, Frederica, and the family was Jewish. He attended Heidelberg University and studied chemistry. He became interested in the production of plastics and, at the age of twenty, received a patent for the creation of his first plastic. Leo received his Ph.D. in chemistry in 1912 and became a chemical engineer. He moved to Cologne and worked at a plastics factory. During World War I (1914-1918), he served in intelligence for the German Army. Leo married Berte (Bertha) Kautz, who was born in 1889 in Cologne. After the war, Leo moved to Hamburg to work at the Triton Works company. In January 1933, Hitler came to power in Germany. Anti-Jewish laws were enacted to disenfranchise Jewish people. Leo and Bertha decided to leave Germany. The Catalin Corporation of America wished to hire Leo and sponsored their immigration visas. They left London on board the SS Manhattan and arrived in New York on July 14, 1934. Leo worked for the Catalin Corp. in New Jersey. In 1935, he helped found the Superlithe Corporation in New Brunswick, New Jersey. In 1936, Leo became the vice president, treasurer, and technical director at the Universal Plastics Corporation in New Brunswick. During the Kristallnacht pogrom of November 9-10, 1938, Jewish synagogues and businesses all over Germany were vandalized and there were mass arrests of Jewish males. In 1939, Germany invaded Poland. Leo wished to get his sister, Frederica, out of Germany. He needed to be a US citizen to sponsor her, but was a few months short of the five year minimum residency required to apply for American citizenship. Leo applied anyway, explaining his family circumstances. With the help of the governor of New Jersey, he was able to obtain her visa and she arrived in the US in 1939. Leo and Bertha became naturalized American citizens that year. In 1940, Leo sponsored the emigration of Frederica’s daughter Johanna Cohn, her husband Arthur, and eighteen year old daughter Irma, who lived in Breslau, Germany. Arthur was born in Switzerland and obtained a Swiss visa, which also covered Johanna and Irma. The family arrived in America in May 1940. They stayed with Leo at first, who also provided Arthur got a job at the plastics company. Leo and Bertha later moved to Delaware. Bertha, age 74, died in 1963. Leo, age 78, died in July 1964.

The document case was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2012 by Irma Cohn Clemens, the great-niece of Dr. Leo Nast.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Irma Cohn Clemens

Funding Note: The cataloging of this artifact has been supported by a grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.