Ruth Loewenstein papers
Extent and Medium
box
oversize folder
1
1
Creator(s)
- Ruth Loewenstein
Biographical History
Ruth Loewenstein was born in Munich, Germany in 1929 to Willy Loewenstein (1894-1957) and Annie Cahen Loewenstein (1902-1992) and had one younger sister named Marianne (“Janne,” 1932-2008). Willy Loewenstein served in the German Army during World War I, and his family owned a haberdashery store called JKA. Willy was arrested on November 10, 1938 during Kristallnacht, imprisoned in the Dachau concentration camp, and released in December 1938 on the condition that he would leave Germany. In March 1939 the Loewenstein family obtained entry visas to the United Kingdom, and they left Germany on July 25th, 1939. Ruth and Marianne carried hand sewn dolls their mother had given them and wore a tiny gold bracelet on their wrists. As they left Germany, the German guard tore off the bracelets but ignored the dolls, not realizing that the girls’ mother had hidden jewelry in the heads of each doll. During the blitz, Ruth and Marianne were evacuated to Northampton and lived with Ted and Elsie Mitchell and their son John, and Willy was interned as an enemy alien on the Isle of Man. The Loewensteins received US immigration visas on July 24, 1940, sailed from Glasgow to New York at the end of August aboard the SS Cameronia, and arrived in America on September 10. Their sponsors were cousins Bertha and Milton Oettinger. The Loewensteins lived in New York with relatives David, Lotte, and Margot Loewenstein; Henny, Meinhold, and Joseph Rothschild; and Willy’s mother Marianne Loewenstein. Willy and Annie sold the jewelry hidden in the dolls to pay for tickets to bring Annie’s parents, Gustav and Alice Cahen, from Havana to New York. The Loewensteins started a business in 1945 creating and importing embroidered handkerchiefs from Switzerland. Marianne Loewenstein married Harold Hammerschlag in 1954 and had three children.
Archival History
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Acquisition
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Ruth Loewenstein
Ruth Lowenstein donated the Ruth Loewenstein papers to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2017.
Scope and Content
The Ruth Loewenstein papers consist of biographical materials, correspondence, and photographs documenting the Loewenstein family from Munich, the family haberdashery business called JKA, Willy Loewenstein’s military service during World War I, his imprisonment in Dachau following Kristallnacht, the family’s flight to England, their immigration to the United States, and their embroidered handkerchief business Wil-Low Handkerchiefs in America. Biographical materials include identification papers, military papers, and immigration records documenting the Loewenstein family, Willy Loewenstein’s service during World War I, the family haberdashery business in Munich, their flight to England and immigration to the United States, and the sale of jewelry Annie hid in her daughters’ dolls so it would not be confiscated during the family’s departure from Germany. Correspondence includes postcards and receipts from Willy as a prisoner at Dachau, Gestapo letters documenting Annie’s attempt to obtain Willy’s release from Dachau as a wounded World War I veteran and his subsequent obligation to attempt to emigrate, letters from Ruth and Marianne to their parents describing their life in Northampton, letters documenting Willy’s loss of German citizenship and veteran pension benefits when he emigrated to England, letters from Annie’s parents as they immigrated to the United States in 1941, and a letter from the Mitchell family who housed Ruth and Marianne during the blitz. Photographs depict the Loewenstein family’s haberdashery store JKA in Munich, the Loewenstein family primarily before the war, and the Loewenstein’s American handkerchief business Wil-Low Handkerchiefs.
System of Arrangement
The Ruth Loewenstein papers are arranged as three series: I. Biographical materials, 1914-1956 II. Correspondence, 1920-1941 III. Photographs, approximately 1920-1963
People
- Ruth Loewenstein
Corporate Bodies
Subjects
- World War, 1914-1918--Participation, Jewish.
- Munich (Germany)
- Northampton (England)
- Germany--Emigration and immigration.
- Jewish refugees--New York (State)
- Jewish refugees--England.
- Jews--Germany--Munich.
- New York (N.Y.)
Genre
- Photographs.
- Document