Hoexter family collection

Herbert Hoexter was born on January 28, 1906 to Robert and Selma Hoexter. He had one younger sister Beate (b. 1913). His parents owned a well-known department store, Kaufhaus Hoexter, in Homberg in Hesse, Germany. However after the government confiscated their store to widen the road in July 1938, the family relocated to Frankfurt. The following month, Herbert registered to immigrate to the United States. He was sponsored by a distant relative Louis [last name unknown]. On the evening of Kristallnacht Herbert witnessed the arrest of relative. Thinking he would be safer if he were not at home, he took a bus to Stuttgart. Ironically, the police never looked for him in Frankfurt since he had moved only recently and was not on their lists. However, the following day he was arrested there and sent to the Dachau concentration camp. He was released on February 2, 1939 after his sister petitioned the Jewish community to lobby on his behalf. Both Herbert and Beate increased their efforts to emigrate. Herbert moved to England in August and was sent to the Kitchener Camp. The refugee camp was established by the Jewish Refugee Committee in England which had rented a former World War I military camp in southeast England to house Jewish male refugees from Germany and Austria between the ages of 18 and 40. Herbert remained there for about nine months. Meanwhile, his sister Beate left Berlin on the trans-Siberian Railroad in 1940 and made her way to Japan. From there she boarded a ship to America and arrived in California on August 9, 1940. Herbert immigrated to the United States on April 17, 1940. He first went to Pittsburgh where he met his wife Gerda Einstein (b. October 1, 1913, in Ulm Germany). Her father Ernst Einstein had also been arrested by the Nazis and sent to a concentration camp. Since he had the same last name and came from the same town, Albert Einstein agreed to write an affidavit on his behalf to help get him out of camp and to the United States. In 1945 Herbert and Gerda moved to New Hampshire. Though Herbert and Beate immigrated to safety, their parents did not escape. On October 19, 1941 they were deported to Łódź. Robert died in the ghetto on May 7, 1942 and Selma also perished during the Holocaust.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Sandra Hoexter

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

Collection donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum on 6/12/2009 by Sandra Hoexter.