Ernest Fiedler document collection

Ernest Fiedler (1922-2003) was born on 25 February 1922 in Breslau, Germany, the only child of Max and Louis (nee Kochanowski) Fiedler. Max Fiedler owned an antique business on the central town square, and the family lived in an apartment above that. With the increasing anti-Semitism following the Nazi rise to power, Ernest was prohibited from attending public school in 1936, and he worked as an assistant in various jobs related to the arts. Max Fiedler was jailed on false charges that he manipulating accounting documents in his business. Louisa Fiedler was able to obtain visas for the family to immigrate to the United States, on the basis of an affidavit from her brother, Bernard Kochan, who lived in New Haven, Connecticut. The Fiedlers arrived in the United States in October 1938, and settled in New Haven, where Max and Louisa opened a pawn broker business, while Ernest trained to be a photo processor. In 1943, Ernest joined the United States Army, and was assigned to the Counterintelligence Corps, where he eventually was based in Bavaria in the immediate postwar years. Upon returning to the United States following his discharge, he took over his family's pawn shop, and worked there until retirement in the 1970s. He died in New Haven on 4 November 2003.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Anita and Marc Fiedler

Gift of Anita and Marc Fiedler, 2017.