Augsburg AgendaAdam Yamey, November 2010

My cousin George (formerly ‘Günter’) Sturm was invited by the Jüdisches Kulturmuseum Augsbur-Schwaben to return to Augsburg, the city where he was born 80 years earlier.

In late 1939, the 9-year-old Günter and his parents arrived as penniless refugees in the port of Hoboken in New Jersey. The Museum wanted George to share his memories as part of their series of “Lebenslinien”- German-Jewish Family Stories.

George knew from his late cousin John Englander about my interest in our roots in Bavaria and invited me to join him in Augsburg. I accepted. While I was attending this moving, and interesting occasion I began thinking about my closer family links to this ancient and important city. The following account is in two main sections. The first deals with my immediate family’s connections with the city. The second deals with my recent visit.

Part 1: From Augsburg to Africa

Encounter in a synagogue

Sometime in the 1980s, after 1982 when I qualified as a dentist, I visited Augsburg. I was visiting an English dentist friend of mine, Neil Casson, who had his own practice in the city. He met me at the station and led me to his new Mercedes Benz. Pointing at it proudly, he said, “Look, I’ve made it at last.” Then he took me around to the rear of the vehicle, and with a grin on his face showed me the small Union Jack badge he had attached to it! I spent a night at Neil’s home, and did a little sightseeing on my own.

I stumbled upon the synagogue, and seeing that it contained a Jewish museum, I entered it and after looking at the exhibits I remembered that my mother had mentioned something about her family having come from Augsburg. At that stage, I had no details, no idea who had come from the city. I asked at the museum reception desk if there was someone who might be able to give me more information about my family, and she said I was in luck because she could see the museum’s director approaching.

After having been introduced, the director began questioning me in English. One thing he said was, “You don’t look Jewish.” I replied that I did not think that there was a particularly Jewish appearance, to which he replied, “Ah, so you don’t believe in the physiognomic theory of racial types.” And so it went on. Eventually, he paused, thought for a moment, and said, “You are what we call an ‘assimilated’ Jew.” From that moment onwards, he seemed satisfied that I was not a terrorist or some kind of neo-Nazi, and told me that if I returned the next day, he would look into my query about my origins. Unfortunately, I was leaving that day and had to decline his offer. In retrospect, it was lucky. Had I been able to meet him, it would have been very embarrassing because in those days all I knew was the little my mother had told me, namely that her ancestors were German Jews, some from Beuthen others from Augsburg, and that would not have got me very far at all!

Clothilde

The principal link my mother had with Augsburg was her great grandmother Clothilde Rieser (1841-1921). One of her daughters, my great grandmother, Hedwig (1867-1955) married Franz Ginsberg (1862-1936) in 1888 in Rouxville in the Orange Free State. They lived in the Eastern Cape at King Williams Town, where Franz was an industrialist and politician at the local and national levels.

Soon after I became more seriously interested in researching our family’s history, I visited Richard Rieser (son of the etcher and engraver, the late Dolf Rieser, 1895-1983). He gave me copies of a number of family documents including a photograph album assembled by his great grandmother Clothilde Rieser. The album contained some notes that Clothilde had written about the family. The notes were in handwritten

German. I sent them to another relative, the late Jack Shopley (formerly Jakob Schoepflich) whose mother was a Rieser. Jack (1917-2006) left Munich in the 1930’s and joined his Ginsberg relatives in King Williams Town. He carefully deciphered and translated Clothilde’s jottings for me.

The first entry in Clothilde’s notes reads, “On Monday 26 June 1874, moved with my children to Augsburg. May it be for good fortune and blessings.” She had come from Ulm, and lived in Augsburg for 39 years. However, soon after arriving there her children began to leave her one by one. She spent the last few years of her life in Munich.

A large family in IchenhausenDescendants of Jakob Seligmann

JakobSeligmann1775 - 1843

Gitl Or GietelBergmann

1780 - 1862

Sophie (Sprintz)Seligmann1802 - 1847

Leopold SiegfriedFriedberger1794 - 1872

Klara (Gluck)Seligmann1807 - 1872

LazarusBergmann

1800 - 1888

Peppi (born Rebecka)Seligmann1810 - 1893

HeinrichWimpfheimer

1813 - 1876

Minette (?Mindel)Seligmann1811 - 1856

Isak RafaelSeligmann1813 - 1870

HaleSpringer

1819 - 1896

This family tree shows the 5 children of Jakob and Gitl Seligmann of Ichenhausen, and their spouses, and is presented to show the connections between the various families that are mentioned in this text. Clothilde Rieser, the Steinfelds, the Heilbronners, the Sturms, and the Englanders were all descendants of Rebecka & Heinrich WIMPFHEIMER; the Bergmanns, Rosenfels, Lerchenthals, and Gerstles were all descendants of Klara & Lazarus BERGMANN; Sigmund Seligmann was a son of Izak Rafael & Hale SELIGMANN. I am a descendant of both Izak Rafael Seligmann and Rebecka Wimpfheimer

Rebecca & Heinrich Wimpfheimer

Clothilde Rieser’s mother was Rebecka Wimpfheimer (1810-1893), daughter of Jakob Seligmann (1775-1843) and his wife Gitl (née Bergmann: 1780-1862). Jakob was born in Ichenhausen, a few miles south west of Augsburg. Rebecka’s husband Heinrich Wimpfheimer (1813-1876) was also born in Ichenhausen where he was in the textile trade. He became a leader of its substantial Jewish community as well as an important member of its chamber of commerce.

Rebecka (Seligmann) Wimpfheimer was the third born of the five children of Jakob and Gietl Seligmann. The youngest child was their only son Isak Rafael Seligmann (1813-1870). He married Hale Springer (1819-1896) from Bamberg. They produced 18 children, 15 of whom made it beyond infancy to childhood and beyond. One of their younger sons was Clothilde’s cousin Sigmund Seligmann (1856-1939) who had connections with Augsburg. In his retirement, he wrote an autobiography, which his grand-daughter Fea Bradley translated and shared with me, and from which I quote.

From Augsburg to Africa via America

In September 1869, when Sigmund was aged 14, his mother took him to school in Augsburg. Many years he wrote, “I was lodged with a Mrs. Eger in the Wintergasse. Anselm Öttinger and a boy Bissinger from Ichenhausen also came to live there. Apart from us there were two more boys, non-Jews; also a young man of about twenty who had his own room. We five young boys had to share one bedroom. Breakfast and supper consisted of coffee and rolls. For my lunch I went to the nearby Restaurant Schwarz. On the first Saturday morning after my arrival, Mrs. Eger entered our room with a big jug of hot water which she poured into our washbasins, ordered us to strip down to our underpants and wash ourselves with soap. I made excuses that Jews were not permitted to wash with soap on the Jewish Shabbat. Whereupon, Mrs. Eger created such a furore. She scolded and shouted as I had never witnessed in all my life. So I forgot my piety and carried out my ablutions. I obviously would not make a good martyr to defend my religious belief!

There was no facility to have a real bath at Mrs. Eger’s. So one day Öttinger, Bissinger and I betook ourselves to the Augsburg Public Baths. The owner asked us what Jewish Holiday was approaching, as he was used to seeing many of my co-religionists came to visit him before such days. The ‘Baths’ consisted of two rooms, each one containing two wooden tubs; the water for these had to be carried in buckets.

Some Sundays Mrs, Eger took us for a walk. This was usually a visit to one of the two cemeteries situated near the railway lines. There she looked at the recently departed, who were displayed in their coffins surrounded by flowers, behind a viewing-window. There were First Class, Second Class and Third Class interments. Mrs. Eger assured us that she was not a pretentious person, but on no account did she want to be buried Third Class. She was willing to work hard to be able to afford a Second Class burial. I wonder if her wish was fulfilled?”

Later on, he writes, “Back to me in Augsburg: Every Thursday afternoon the Ichenhauser Postman came via Jettingen. He drove a tarpaulin-covered wagon pulled by two horses. His ‘Stop’ was at a Wirtshaus called “Zum Eisenhammer, if I remember correctly.

So every Thursday afternoon I expectantly made my way to the Eisenhammer, I usually received a small package from home containing cakes and biscuits. The Thursday before my Bar-Mitzvah I ran all the way to the Eisenhammer. The parcel I received contained the long expected, dearly wished-for silver watch and a variety of baked goodies. The watch was my Bar-Mitzvah present from my parents. I cannot remember whether the parcel contained also small gifts from my brothers and sisters.

At my Bar Mitzvah Service I succeeded in reading the well-studied Bracha without any hesitation. After synagogue a few friends and I climbed the Perlach Tower and that was my Bar Mitzvah Party!”

When Sigmund was almost 16, he emigrated to The United States of America, “… with all the official necessary papers to hand. I left Ichenhausen at midnight on the 3rd September 1872, travelling in a two-span coach accompanied by my brother Nathan. Max Lehman came along with us as far as Ulm. From there we went to Hamburg, stopping for a day or two at Frankfurt a.M. We left Hamburg by the Steamer ‘Thuringia’ on the 11th of September, called at le Havre and arrived in New York, Hoboken, after a voyage of 10 ½ days. We left New York in the morning of 26th September, arrived at Springfield Ill. on the morning of the 28th and at Rienzi, my destination, in the afternoon of the same day.” His older brother Julius (1843-1910) had a smallholding at Rienzi in Cotton Hill Township, Illinois. However, Illinois did not suit Sigmund. He returned to Germany in 1874, but not for long.

To let Sigmund continue, “From there I went to South Africa. This was a time when there was no German settlement there yet. Sixty years ago (it is 1933 now) South Africa had no railways or bridges etc. that I knew of.” First, he worked for a Mr Wiarda in Rouxville, north of the Orange River in the Orange Free State.

Kaiser Wilhelm I became 80 on the 2nd March 1877. The Germans in Rouxville held a party for him. Sigmund relates, “For some time prior to the day, we Germans planned a great celebration and got together to organise the festivities. There was shop owner Mr. Meier, his employee Amman Zinn, my own boss Mr. Wiarda, two Seligmanns, two Hellmanns, two Rosenfells, a Reichenberger, and a Bergmann. We were all ‘Germans’, irrespective of the fact that the majority were of the Jewish persuasion! One of our great concerns was that we had no German beer. Then we heard of a trader whose several ox spans were en route from the coast laden with goods among which was a crate with 36 bottles of Bavarian beer. These ox wagons arrived in Rouxville just in time, on the eve of our big party. They got a rousing welcome!”

Several of these guests were not only Jewish but were also related to Sigmund. The other Seligmann was his brother Jakob (1846-1906) who, after escaping from prison, ended up in Illinois. One of the two Rosenfels, both his cousins, eventually retired to Augsburg, and we will meet him again further on. The ‘Bergmann’ was his cousin Ludwig (born 1835, died 1900). His brother Heinrich Bergmann (1830-1866) was the first member of the Ichenhausen Seligmann family to settle in the Cape Colony. The Reichenberger was not related to Sigmund but was born in Ichenhausen.

“The party was held in the room of my boss Mr. Wiarda, and was very successful; we enjoyed it greatly. I heard the new German anthem sung for the first time, “Deutschland, Deutschland über Alles...” I was much moved and felt very proud. On the day of Kaiser Wilhelm’s birthday all shops, even the English ones, were shut. In the evening everybody was invited by the German ladies to a Ball which was held at the school-house as there was no other suitable venue. The snacks and cakes were prepared by the Germans…”

Soon after this, Sigmund found a job in Lady Grey, working in a trading business owned by a German gentile named Oelschig. Africa suited Sigmund. Business was brisk, and in 1880, his employer suggested that he should take a holiday in Germany, he set off. He remembered that when he arrived in Ulm where he met his sister Eva, there was a brief Anti-Semitic encounter. He wrote, “… as we left the station, a fairly

big boy with a coloured cap called to us ‘Hepp, Hepp!’ I stopped the coach and wanted to question the boy, but he made himself scarce.”

It was during this trip to see his family in Germany that Sigmund, “…asked Emmanuel Rieser, the son of my cousin Clothilde, to come with me...” to Africa.

Emptying the nest

Emmanuel’s mother, Clothilde, recorded, “My dear son Emanuel left on Saturday 25 April 1881 (eve of Rosh Hashanah) for Africa. May God hear my prayers and ?? for good fortune, blessings and a long life for him.” Sigmund relates, “I left Emmanuel in Cape Town, as I myself was then still only an employee and could not offer him a post in my firm. From Cape Town he moved to Paarl which was nearby. There he obtained employment. He was given a two-horse wagon, which was loaded up with household goods. He had to drive this to the farms in the vicinity and exchanged the goods for ostrich feathers. These feathers were very much in demand at that time and there were many ostrich farms in the Paarl area. Ostrich feathers brought good money, as much as £1 (20 Marks) each. A female ostrich was valued at £100 (2,000 Marks).

Suddenly, out of the blue, the demand for ostrich feathers ceased. The birds were not worth feeding and one often read in the newspapers how the farmers let the ostriches go free into the bush, just so they would not have to feed them any more. After a few months Mr. Oelschig wished to engage extra help in the business. I recommended Emmanuel and Mr. O. invited him to come to Lady Grey to work for him as a clerk. Although Mr Oelschig did not pay high wages, Emmanuel gladly took up the offer; it seems that Emmanuel had not earned very much in Paarl. Following my departure from Mr. Oelschig’s, Emmanuel became one of the three persons who ran Mr. O.’s business and took over from him.”

Clothilde Rieser was soon to record another departure from home, “My dear daughter Paula left on 28 April 1884 for a position in Aachen. May the good Lord bless her, Amen.” And less than 8 months later, “My daughter Paula left on Old Year's Eve for Africa. Good fortune and blessings. Augsburg, 1 January 1885.” Having arrived in southern Africa, events moved quickly, as Clothilde recorded, “My dearly beloved daughter Paula became engaged to Mr Michaelis Arnholz on 15 February 1885 in Rouxville. I offer my sincere prayers to the Almighty Father. May He bless my child now and forever, Amen.”

Michaelis Arnholz (1846-1921) who was born in Pomerania owned a store in Rouxville. He married Paula (born 1865) on the 1st April 1885, 3 months after she left Germany. It is highly improbable that the bride and bridegroom met by chance! Was Emmanuel the arranger of this match? Jewish traders such a he and Michaelis did travel around the small towns doing business. So, it is possible that Emmanuel had lined up a groom for Paula before she set off for Africa.

Barely had Paula settled into domestic life in remote Rouxville, when Clothilde recorded that her youngest daughter, Hedwig (1867-1955), “… left on 7 September 1887 for Cologne for her departure to Africa. The ship Roslin Castle went to sea on

the 16th.” Hedwig went to live with Paula in Rouxville. One might wonder why she chose to settle in such a godforsaken place, but Clothilde soon reveals all.

Herr Franz Ginsberg (1862-1936) left his native Beuthen in Prussia to open a photographic studio in King Williams Town in 1880. By 1887, he owned a factory making soap, candles and matches. I am told that he made business trips around the small towns promoting his wares. It was the custom that when a visiting Jewish business traveller came to a town or settlement where there were other Jews, he would pay them a courtesy visit. It was on such an occasion that Franz first met the recently arrived Hedwig.

Although I have heard that it was not love at first sight, Clothilde records, “My dear Hedwig became engaged to Franz Ginsberg, from King William's Town in South Africa on 22 Nov. 1887. This gives me much joy and happiness. May God continue to bestow his blessings.” One thing led to another: “The wedding of my dear Hedel took place on 5th April 1888 in Rouxville South Africa. May God bless my dear children.”

Two months later, Clothilde’s youngest child, Jakob (1868-1916) left for the Cape, having completed an apprenticeship in Holzkirchen. She was left alone in Augsburg.

Enter the Steinfelds

Hedwig and Franz Ginsberg had three children, all born in King Williams Town: Margarethe (1889-1964), Ilse (1893-1948: my mother’s mother), and Rudolf (1899-1969). A decade elapsed before Hedwig returned to Germany for a holiday. Her mother recorded, “I traveled to Berlin on 19 April 1897 to welcome my dear Hedwig - who had been gone ten years - and her darling children Gretel and Ilse and her dear husband Franz Ginsberg. The stay in Berlin and Leipzig was extended till 13 May. That night at ten o'clock we finally arrived home again. I thoroughly enjoyed the pleasant visit.” This was the first of many visits the Ginsbergs made to Augsburg. Other long visits were made in 1902, 1907, 1911, and 1913 the year Clothilde left Augsburg to live in Munich (at Tattenbachstrasse). Following the First World War, they visited in May 1920 to celebrate her 79th birthday. Ilse, by now married, was pregnant at the time, carrying my mother Helen who was born six months later in October.

Many years later, in 1966, Rudolph Ginsberg recalled his childhood visits to Augsburg in a letter he wrote to his cousin John Englander, “At the outset let me say that I well remember the Steinfelds’ “Tuchausstellung” (was it in Bahnhofstrasse?). This was of course pre 1914-18 war. My grandmother (Clothilde Rieser) lived in this street. I have often tried to describe the Steinfeld emporium to my family - very silent and dignified with only the very best of everything displayed in the best of taste! Incidentally I also remember your late mother and her twin. They were of course older than I was - I think of the generation of my oldest sister who died lately aged nearly 80.”

The ‘Tuchausstellung’ which Rudolf mentioned was ‘Wimpfheimer & Cie.’, a fabrics and clothing company that was started by Jakob Wimpfheimer (1844-1917), Clothilde Rieser’s youngest brother, and Michael Heilbronner (1833-1891), his brother-in-law. The Steinfeld that ran the business in Augsburg was Hugo Steinfeld (1864-1941). He

was married to Lina (1869-1941), who was Michael Heilbronner’s daughter, and Klothilde Rieser’s niece. Lina’s mother was Clothilde’s sister Henriette (‘Jette’: 1837-1912) Wimpfheimer who married Michael in Ichenhausen where they were both born.

The Ichenhausen marriages register record for the marriage of Michael Heilbronner & Henriette Wimpfheimer, 17 Dec 1857. Heilbronner’s profession is described as ‘Kleiderhandler’.

Clothilde Rieser was close to the Steinfelds, and recorded, “I celebrated my 70th

birthday on 9th May 1911. It was a beautiful day, a day of happiness for me. My dear Rieser children and Jette and the Steinfelds were here by me and we had an enjoyable afternoon family coffee party.”

Lina Steinfeld had twins in 1891, Hedwig and Anna. Hedwig married a dentist, Paul Englander (1815-1943) and Anna (1891-1943) married Max Sturm (1884-1943) from Nuremberg. Max and Anna had three children: Walter (1920-1989), Ilse (1922-2001), and George (born 1930).

On the 13th of November 2010, I set out from London to meet George Sturm in Augsburg.

Part 2: Aufenthalt in Augsburg.

Saturday, 13th November.

It was cold and damp when I set off for Munich from Heathrow Airport early in the morning. I was well wrapped in my blazer and my heavy leather jacket bought years ago in Bangalore, India. The Lufthansa flight departed punctually. It was a small ‘plane, an Embraer bearing the insignia of ‘Augsburg Airways’, with only four seats in each row. As we descended towards Munich’s airport, I could clearly see the serried ranges of the Alps through the starboard portholes. We left the aircraft and walked across the tarmac to the terminal. I realised that I was seriously overdressed. The temperature was well in excess of 20 degrees Celsius.

A 45-minute ride on the S-Bahn brought me to Munich’s Haupbahnhof, where I treated myself to a bratwurst whilst awaiting the arrival of the train to Ulm that would pass through Augsburg. The train was, according to announcements made over its public address system, due to divide into two sections at Augsburg. One of my travelling companions was a young Hungarian studying quality control in Basel. He became quite agitated when he learnt about the impending dissection of the train. He knew that front half was the one he needed to be in, but none of us knew whether our carriage was counted as being in the front or the rear section. We sped smoothly and silently through the undistinguished, flat countryside, and soon I alighted at Augsburg’s attractive station. Its concourse building (built 1843-46, reconstructed 1869) is one of the oldest surviving examples of railway architecture in Germany.

I could not be bothered to find out which bus or tram I needed to take to reach my hotel. So I set off to walk there, feeling that I had a rough idea where it was located. After walking for 5 or so minutes, I learnt that I was walking in the wrong direction. After another 10 minutes, I reached the Jakoberhof Hotel, a late nineteenth century building near the Jakobertor, an old town gate at the eastern extreme of the city’s historic centre. My room had a bed, a wash basin but no soap, a wardrobe and a chair: simple but comfortable. My bedroom window overlooked Pilgerhausstrasse, a busy traffic thoroughfare by Augsburg standards, but not by mine!

After getting rid of my warm clothes and unnecessary clutter, I wandered around the historic centre of the city, making a bee-line for Annastrasse. When Dr Robert Lerchental (1880-1956), a descendant of Klara (née Seligmann) Bergmann (1807-1872), was living in New Zealand (he went there from Germany in 1937) he wrote an unpublished history of the Bergmann family. His son John allowed me to copy it, and together with John Englander’s help a translation was begun. John E’s untimely death left the translation incomplete. Augsburg figures a lot in Robert’s writing.

Klara Seligmann who was born in Ichenhausen married the hat maker Lazarus Bergmann (1800-1888) from Dittenheim. By 1860, when his son Henry married, the Bergmanns had moved to Klara’s birthplace. Later, Lazarus moved to Augsburg. Robert Lerchenthal wrote, “I can still well remember my great-grandfather Lazarus Bergmann. He died in the year 1888 and then I was already eight years old. He was a small stocky little man with a fisherman’s beard. He lived in the Annastrasse in one of the older houses, and I believe that he had only three or four rooms and lived very modestly. His history, as far as I can gather, is the following: he came from a very religious Jewish family and he also remained as such his whole life...” I walked up and down Annastrasse hoping that I would see one of the older houses mentioned in this excerpt, but all the buildings in this shopping street where John Englander and his parents resided later on were heavily restored and modernised. One of the houses that belonged to the famous Fugger family is now branch of the C&A department store. Nevertheless, it sent a tingle down my spine when I thought that I was walking along the same street as Lazarus Bergmann had walked many years before.

I watched the sun setting behind the Ulrich Church at the southern end of the Maxmilianstrasse, one of the main thoroughfares in the historic core of the city. Then, I visited the corner of Halderstrasse and Schaetzlerstrasse, where Jakob Rosenfels (1855-1906) used to live. Jakob, a grandson of Lazarus Bergmann, was one of the Rosenfels at the party held to celebrate the Kaiser’s eightieth birthday in Rouxville, as described by Sigmund Seligmann (see excerpt earlier on). His wife Pepi (née Bacharach) was his niece. I visited the site mentioned by Robert Lerchenthal.

Robert Lerchenthal wrote, “Pepi married her cousin Jakob Rosenfels. As mentioned above, Jakob was a fine person - if not rich, he was blessed with intellectual riches. He lived in South Africa’s Orange Free State, and earned much money, and in about 1893/4 settled in Augsburg, and brought with him the considerable assets worth 800,000 Marks. At that time, the side of the Bahnhofstrasse was still undeveloped. He bought the corner plot where Bahnhofstrasse and Schaetzlerstrasse meet, and thereupon erected a house that still stood when I left Augsburg. Jakob was a man of independent means and allowed himself to be appointed honorary consul for the

Transvaal and Orange Free State. There were two coats of arms on the first floor balcony, and the flags of the South African republics hung on festive occasions. At that time the two nations were not yet English. Jakob was a most interesting person for us children. He narrated adventures to us, of snakes and hunting. He had brought with him empty ostrich eggs, native’s weapons, and we received postage stamps from the Cape of Good Hope, the Transvaal and the Orange Free State, which would fetch a tidy sum today. His wife Pepi was often ill, mentally very poor. She died before him in about 1900.”

The site overlooks the leafy Königsplatz, but is now occupied by a huge modern office block. I continued on my way to the Hotel Riegele facing the Hauptbahnhof. When I passed through the front door and climbed three steps, I was warmly greeted by George Sturm, his youngest son Max, John Englander’s daughter Diane Peyser, and her son Alex. We sat chatting for about an hour and a half, awaiting the arrival from Nuremberg of our cousin Ruth Ceslanski, a fourth cousin of mine. She is a descendant of Olga (1865-1900), a daughter of Henriette and Michael Heilbronner. She arrived by about 8 p.m. and we entered the dining room of the Riegele.

I ordered Maultaschen soup, one of my Schwabian favourites. The Maultaschen are filled pasta sacs. Rather like the Italian ravioli and related food items, they come in a variety of shapes and sizes. They are often filled with a green stuffing consisting of minced green leaf vegetables, delicious herbs, and other unidentifiable ingredients. I followed George’s suggestion and had a ‘Schwäbischer Rostbraten mit abgeschmelzten Zwiebeln’ to follow. It was a beautiful piece of beef, red in the middle, and topped with onions. I walked back to my hotel, phoned Lopa, and fell asleep.

Sunday, the 14th November morning: a tale of two twins

I awoke to blue skies and brilliant sunshine, and donned my blazer, shirt and tie before partaking of the hotel’s generous breakfast buffet. As I was early, I walked randomly northwards from the historic Stadtbad (I wonder if this is the one that Sigmund Seligmann mentions in his autobiography) and found myself ascending the picturesque old Mauerberg, which appropriately led to the remains of the city walls. From there I reached the church of St Stefan, which I entered. Although it is many centuries old, its interior was simple, but tasteful. A couple of gilded, wooden baroque sculptures adorned each of the north and south walls. A minute or two later, I reached the Dom, Augsburg’s twin-spire cathedral. I entered through the automatic doors, and listened to the congregation singing beautifully in the Gothic nave. There is a park on the south side of the building in which a number of Roman statues and tombs are displayed, as well as an excavation that reveals the foundations of an earlier church.

I continued towards the Hotel Riegele, and spotted a plaque on a building in Prinzregentenstrasse. It recorded that this building, now some kind of social service for young children, used to be the headquarters of the Gestapo in Augsburg. I began thinking of Hitler’s favourite restaurant in Munich was the ‘Osteria Bavaria’ in Schwabing. Now renamed the ‘Osteria Italiana’, and, incidentally, a superb restaurant, its motto is ‘in touch with history’. Seeing the building in Prinzregenthenstrasse gave me very much the same thought! Further on, just behind the Riegele, there is a huge building, the Landratsamt which was built in 1939. Its main entrance is surmounted

by an enormous eagle with outstretched wings clasping a circular wreath in its claws. The centre of the wreath now contains a rather indistinct coat of arms and the two scrolls on either side of it are plain. I wondered whether something else had adorned these locations in 1939.

The Sturms and Peysers were waiting with Ruth Ceslanski in the Riegele’s lobby along with the curator of the Jewish Museum, Frau Benigna Schönhagen. Ruth drove me to the S’Ensemble Theatre (it is east of the old city, a kilometre beyond the Jakobertor), and the others travelled with Frau Schönhagen. We were welcomed by Herr Georg Haindl, a retired papermaker who sponsors a variety of charitable events including the Jewish Museum, and some other people involved with organising the “Lebenslinien” event. Then, I met Debbie Rausch and her brother Robert Sturm, both children of George’s older brother Walter Sturm (1920-1989). It was nice to meet Gernot Roemer again. Although we have corresponded occasionally by email, we had not seen each other since about 2002 when I attended the launch of Arnold Erlanger’s book ‘Ein Schwabe überlebt Auschwitz’ in the synagogue at Ichenhausen. (Arnold was one of the only two of Ichenhausen’s Jews to survive the camps of the Holocaust.)

The front two rows of the seats in the tiny theatre were reserved for family, which included me. The rest of the auditorium was filled to capacity. At 11 o’clock, the proceedings commenced with a couple of speeches, which I partially understood. Then, in a clear easy to follow German, Souzana Hazan a young Bulgarian researcher, told the story of the Sturm family. In brief, Hugo Steinfeld married Lina Heilbronner in 1890 in Augsburg. Her mother Jette Wimpfheimer, Clothilde Rieser’s older sister, was married to Michael Heilbronner. In 1871, Michael and his brother-in-law Jakob Wimpfheimer founded the clothing and textile store, the ‘Tuchausstellung’, known as ‘Wimpfheimer & Cie.” It became a large business that employed almost 60 people in 1907.

The Steinfelds, Lina and Hugo, lived in a comfortable flat above the store in Bahnhofstrasse 18 1/5. The building was destroyed in air raids in the 1940s. Today, a branch of ‘C&A’ stands on the site. It faces a yellow painted nineteenth century block whose ground floor is occupied by a large Chinese restaurant. In 1891, Lina and Hugo Steinfeld had twins Hedwig and Anna. They both died in 1943 but in starkly different circumstances.

Hedwig Steinfeld married first. She married Paul Englander (1884-1943). He was one of Augsburg’s leading dentists, and was born in Jarotschin, which was in Poland. This

was to have fateful consequences for him. His Polish ancestry led to difficulties (especially delays) in obtaining a visa to go to the USA where his children, Lisl (1915-1980) and John (1919-2007), had already settled. John’s daughter Diane and her son Alex attended the Lebenslinie event.

A few years ago, John, seeing my article about the Wimpfheimers in Stammbaum a publication of the Leo Baeck Institute in New York City, wrote to me sending me a copy of the following letter sent by Hedwig Ginsberg to the Englanders:

“ K.W.T. 4/7 1939

Meine Lieben,Ich will schleunigst die Nächste Airmail benützen um Deinen l. Brief vom 27/6 zu beachten. - Ich werde sogleich die £100 - an die Bank in England, the (redacted)1

Bank, … , London EC4., überweisen lassen, zu Eurer Verfügung nach Eurer Auswanderung. Die £20-. Per monat bis zu Eurer Abreise nach Amerika, kann ich Euch auch versprechen, und habe mich heute mit Rudolph und Fritz Ginsberg, und unsern Bankmanager darüber besprochen, die Herren wollen eine Art finden das Geld monatlich Euch zur Verfügung zu stellen ohne die ganze Summe zu deponieren. Meiner Meinung nach ist es das einfachste die Summe zu deponieren Nur hast Du vergessen ganz klar auzugehen, welches Hilfs-Committee eigentlich die Garantie bekommen muss, um für Euch die Einreise in ganz zu bringen.Wäre es genügend von hier eine notariel lieglandigte Garantie für den monatlichen Betrag zu schicken? Und an wen? Aber wie gesagt , es wäre wohl das beste als Geld in der Bank in England auf Euren Namen zu deponieren. Man wird immer ängstlicher nach all den Ereignissen in der Europäischen Welt, und kann ich nur leicht vorstellen wie fürchterlich jeder augegriffen wird. - Ich werde nächste Woche wieder schreiben, vielleicht können wir hier herausfinden, wie die Geld-frage am besten zu lösen sei!Herzliche Grüsse an alle Familien Mitglieder von Eurer,Hedwig Ginsberg.”[My Dears,I hasten to use the next airmail in order to reply to your kind letter of 27 June. – I shall immediately transfer the £100 to the Bank of England, the (redacted) bank…,London EC4, for your use after your emigration. I can also promise you the monthly £20 up to your departure for America, having today spoken with Rudolph and Fritz Ginsberg and our bank manager about this. These gentlemen will find a way to make the money available to you on a monthly basis rather than having the entire sum deposited. In my opinion, it would be simplest to deposit the entire sum, but you forgot to make perfectly clear just which rescue committee is actually to receive the guarantee to enable you to get your entry permit.Would it suffice to have a notarized guarantee issued here for the monthly amount? And to whom [should it be addressed]? But as I say, it probably would be best to deposit the money in the Bank of England in your name. One grows increasingly apprehensive about all the happenings in the European world, and I can just imagine how terrifyingly everyone must be affected. — I’ll write again next week. Perhaps we can find out here how best to solve the money question.Cordial greetings to all family members from your,Hedwig Ginsberg]

Ten days later, Hedwig Ginsberg sent another letter from King Williams Town to her cousins the Englanders in Augsburg:

“K.W.T. 14/7 1939

Meine Lieben,

1 I have redacted the name and address of the bank, just in case this account still exists.

Wir bekamen Euer Kabelle vom 13/7 & will ich gleich sagen, dass ich die ganze Summe £480.-. an das HilfsKomité, Einwanderungs Abteilung, Bloomsbury House2, Bloomsburystr, London, habe überweisen lassen, d. h. £20.- . für 24 Monate, wie Ihr selbst angegegeben habt. Ob kurzen oder längen kann man ja heute nicht sagen. Jedenfalls soll es Euch die möglichkeit geben nach England zu gehen & dort abzuwarten, was die Zukunft bringt. - Es soll per Luftpost heute abgehen, ob die Bank damit fertig wird kann ich nicht sagen, aber jedenfalls ist die Summe in ein paar Tagen in London. - Die (redacted) Bank London wird das Hilfskomittee dort unterrichten, dass die Summe für Dr. P. Engländer & Frau zur Verfügung steht.

Ich wollte erst eine Garantie schicken, unser Rechstanwalt hat auch ein voluminöses Dokument abgefasst, ich habe mich aber entschlossen wie ich ja schon mal schrieb (?) den einfachsten Weg einzuschlagen, d.h. das Geld zu schicken die £100, die zur Einreise nötig sind, liegen für Euch bereit bei der (redacted) Bank in London wie ich ja schon schrieb. -Ich kann mir vorstellen, wie euch der Boden unter den Füssen brennt & hoffe es gelingt euch bald die Übersiedlung zu bemerkstelligen. Grüsset alle herzlichst von mir & fasset frischen Mich, vielleicht kommt nochmal eine ??kige friedliche Zeit für alle -

EureHedwig Ginsberg”

[My dears,

We have received your cable of 13 July and I hasten to tell you that the entire sum of £480.-. has been transmitted to the Rescue Committee, Immigration Department, Bloomsbury House, Bloomsbury Street, London, i.e., £20.- per month for 24 months, as you have indicated. If it will be shorter or longer, we can’t tell today. In any case, this should give you the means to go to England and to await there what the future shall bring. — It is to go off via airmail today. I don’t know if the bank will understand it but in any case the sum will be in London in a couple of days. — The (redacted) Bank London will advise the Rescue Committee there that the sum is to be made available to Dr. P. Engländer and his wife.

I first wanted to send a guarantee and our attorney also prepared a voluminous document, but I decided after all, as I already once wrote you, to take the simplest course, i.e., to send the funds. The £100 that you will need for your entry permit is already payable to you in the (redacted) Bank in London, as I have already written you.

I can imagine how hot the ground must be under your feet and hope to hear that your imminent move was successful. Cordial regards to everyone and to you, take fresh courage. Maybe there will once again come a ___(?) and peaceful time for all.Your,Hedwig Ginsberg]

Clearly, Paul and Hedwig Englander were in the midst of planning their departure from Germany in 1939. However, fate took a turn for the worse. On the eve of their deportation to the east in 1943, Paul and Hedwig took their own lives. Two years earlier, Hedwig Englander’s parents, Lina and Hugo Steinfeld, had taken the same tragic action.

2 “The Jewish community in Britain responded actively to the desperate plight ofJews in the Third Reich. The Central British Fund for German Jewry was set up toraise funds. The CBF guaranteed the government that it would bear all costs ofmaintaining the Jewish refugees. The Jewish Refugees Committee and otherAnglo-Jewish organisations found homes for the children and accommodation andjobs for the adults.In February 1939 these organisations and their Christian and charitablecounterparts were housed in Bloomsbury House, London, a lifeline for many adesperate refugee. Initially, many refugees were destitute and faced a desperatestruggle to maintain themselves and their dependents, while also coping with theemotional and psychological aftermath of enforced emigration.” (see: http://www.ajr.org.uk/documents/cb_4_arrival_in_gb.pdf).

Hedwig Steinfeld’s twin Anna married Max Sturm (1884-1970) from Franconia in 1919. Soon after this, Max became a co-owner of Wimpfheimer & Cie. They had three children: Walter, Ilse, and the youngest George who was the guest of honour at the S’Ensemble Theatre. By 1930, the family was living above the shop in Bahnhofstrasse. The gradual and increasing persecution of Jews after the Nazis came to power led Max to decide to emigrate with his wife and youngest child. (Walter and Ilse were already in England). They sailed for the USA late in 1939 and settled in New York. It was not until late 1943 that they learned of the fate of the family they had left behind. In November of that year, they learnt of the Englanders’ suicide. A few days later, Hedwig’s twin sister Anna Sturm died suddenly. She had a fatal cerebral haemorrhage.

After Ms Hazan had finished her detailed account of the lives of the Sturms and Englanders, an actress read some of the sad last letters written by those who had taken their own lives in desperation. Each letter was separated from the next by a series of peculiar musical interludes. A musician played a series of mournful pieces on an extraordinary instrument, an electric ‘cello. The letters were very moving in content. Several members of the Sturm family were in tears.

This harrowing letter reading was followed by an interview on the stage. George Sturm answered questions posed by Frau Schönhagen and Gernot Roemer. During this session, George mentioned that his father always used to say that he was, “…zuerst Deutsch, zweitens gar nichts, und drittens Jude.” In translation, he considered himself first a German (Max Sturm was decorated several time for his military service in the German Army in the First World War), secondly nothing at all, and thirdly a Jew.

Sunday, the 14th November afternoon

After two hours, the ceremony ended and the Sturms and relatives were invited to the Zebra Restaurant for lunch. I turned down the invitation because I had another meeting already arranged at the Bayernhaus am Dom, a restaurant specialising in Swabian food. My host was Johannes Fraundorfer who had made a two hour train journey from Ravensburg inland from Friedrichshafen on Lake Konstanz. He brought his five-year-old daughter who was perfectly behaved during the few hours we spent together.

During the years I have spent delving into family history, I have had many surprising bits of luck, but almost nothing can surmount the Fraundorfer letter. I had been researching the life of Heinrich (later ‘Henry’) Bergmann (1830-1866), the oldest first cousin of Klothilde and Jette Wimpfheimer. In 1849, he sailed to the Cape Colony. He was the first of many of my blood relatives to go to that place that was later to become known as ‘South Africa’. In brief, in 1850 he settled in Aliwal North a newly established frontier town on the left bank of the Orange River. He was a successful trader, and become remarkably wealthy.

In 1860, Henry returned to the German lands, to Frankfurt-am-Main, and married Charlotte Jenny Schuster, who according to Robert Lerchenthal was, “... a lady from the Jewish high aristocracy ...” She was indeed as he described, her parents being

bankers in Frankfurt’s Judengasse. Soon, after the marriage, they set off to return to Aliwal North, but they did not travel alone.

On Friday, the 4th November 2005, I received an email, extracts of which are as follows: “Hello, my name is Johannes Fraundorfer, I live in Ravensburg/Germany (not far from Friedrichshafen, which you know). I read at your several websites about your Yamey's family research and found the name of Henry Bergmann (1825-1866),who died in Aliwal North in South Africa.

My grand-grand-father Maximilian Fraundorfer (1843-1922, born in Augsburg) emigrated to South Africa on 6th Dec. 1860 and arrived there Jan.1861.He made a journey in SA to Smithfield (near Aliwal North), where he wasexpected. He describes this whole journey in a letter, which is an original documentin my hands. In this letter from 23th February of 1861 he mentions HenryBergmann (there called Heinrich Bergmann) for several times and Bergmannseemed to be the leader of the group. Very long he describes the arrival atAliwal North, where Mr. Bergmann was welcomed because he brought his wifeJenny with him. My Grand-Grandfather writes that Bergmann said: "This isyour new home, Jenny.”

And with this email, he sent me a copy of his transcription of Max Fraundorfer’s letter. It was a detailed account of their sea voyage and their long land journey across the mountains of the Cape and the desert wastes of the Karroo which must have been scorching hot during the period (January and February) when they were travelling. I was amazed with this document, and also puzzled. How did Max Fraundorfer’s family know Henry Bergmann? Did Henry visit Augsburg when he was in Europe in 1860?

Max’s great grandson Johannes, a teacher of Latin, history, and religion, and I discussed this and other matters whilst I ate more Maultaschen. This time they were not in a soup, but they were fried in a sauce containing tiny specks of bacon and herbs. Johannes wondered why Max left Augsburg. He was next in line to inherit the family textile business. His widowed mother by all accounts was a dominant character. Maybe, that was one reason for his abandoning a successful business for the godforsaken town of Smithfield in the Orange Free State.

He had connections in Smithfield, namely a Herr Scheuermann, who also had a relative in Burgersdorp, a small town in the Eastern Cape where he and the Bergmanns stopped on their way to Aliwal North. Also, Henry Bergmann’s younger brother Ludwig (born 1835) had a shop in Smithfield. I can only imagine that when Scheuermann in Smithfield wanted an assistant, he must have spoken to Ludwig, who then communicated this to his brother Henry who was about to return to Germany.

Max Fraundorfer became a naturalised British Subject in Port Elizabeth, married, was widowed, and returned to Germany where he married for a second time. My dining partner, Johannes, is a descendant of the second Frau Max Fraundorfer. Max had a brother Otto (1852-1904) who went to Bloemfontein, where there is a street named in his memory. He married Miss Beck, a German related by marriage to Gustav Adolf Fichardt a director of the State Bank in Bloemfontein.

After lunch, Johannes took me to see the house in Rathausplatz where Max’s father Lorenz Fraundorfer had his business. The building (now the ‘Eger’ clothing shop) dates from the seventeenth century and still stands facing the Rathaus across the square where, when we visited it, stalls were being prepared for a Christmas fair. Then we continued to Annastrasse where Max’s grandfather first lived and worked when he first left his farm and came to work in Augsburg. The house is still standing, highly restored. Maybe it was in a house like this that the elderly Lazarus Bergmann lived. We arrived at the Hauptbahnhof to discover that Johannes’s train was badly delayed. After seeing him and his daughter safely departed, I returned through the darkening streets to my hotel. I wanted to dump my jacket and tie before rejoining George and the others.

I began climbing the stairs to my second floor room, and noticed a figure ahead of me. You can imagine my surprise when the figure whose head I could not see properly greeted me. It was Gernot Roemer. He and his wife had sought me out to spend some time with me. We went to a café and had tea, before strolling through the city. Gernot is a remarkable person. George later told me that when Gernot was a child before the Second World War, he used to be taken to see a Jewish paediatrician. One day, he was no longer there. His sudden disappearance probably spurred Gernot’s interest, in later years, in the fate of the German Jews. Gernot told me that when he came to Augsburg a few decades ago, he inquired at the synagogue about the Jews of Augsburg. The Russian Jews who were then the sole users of this place of worship had no idea about the former Jewish population of the city, and no one else seemed to know anything about them, or even wanted to know. So, began Gernot’s researches into the history and fate of the city’s Jews. Over the years, he has done much valuable research and published numerous scholarly, informative books, one of which he kindly presented to me. In 2000, he was a recipient of one of the prestigious Obermayer German Jewish History Awards.

After parting from the Roemers, who were going to attend a classical concert in the synagogue, I joined the Sturms and Peysers at the Riegele. They had just returned from lunch, and claimed not to be hungry. However, it was about 7 p.m. and they sportingly accompanied me to the ‘1516’ beer hall next to the Hauptbahnof. Despite what they had said about their appetites, I was not alone in eating a hearty meal which commenced with a bowl of delicious Leberknödel soup, a clear soup in which a Bavarian form of matzo balls float about. Ruth Ceslanski had returned to Nuremberg, and Robert and Debbie were dining elsewhere.

Max Sturm, Alex Peyser and I felt like having a late night drink. We walked through the deserted old city, and found unsurprisingly that most, if not all, places were closed. As we walked along Annastrasse, the youngsters pointed out a house in which John Englander was brought up. Very appropriately for someone who spent much of his life in New York, the building now housed a store named ‘New Yorker’. When I returned to see the building early the next morning, I was confused: Annastrasse has two shops identically named!

Monday, the 15th November

I woke early. The sun was still shining. After breakfast, I wandered through the old town, stopping at the Barfüsser Church. The church is completely surrounded by other

buildings above which it projects. Although it claimed to be closed, I entered without difficulty. I continued my journey to the synagogue, an impressive building in Halderstrasse whose construction was assisted with substantial financial donations from the Sturm and Steinfeld families. I noticed that most of the doors in the building had bilingual signs: in German and Russian. Some years ago, a history teacher in Melsungen (in Hesse) surprised us by telling us that the Jews were the fastest growing group in Germany. The influx of Jews from the former Soviet Union accounted for this.

George and Max were already there, as was Souzana Hazan and Frau Schönhagen. Diane and her son Alex had left for Paris. Soon, twenty students from the Simpert-Kraemer Gymnasium in Krumbach arrived with their two teachers. The kids were aged from 15 to 17, and had special interests in history, although their faces did not betray this when we all sat in a large circle in one of the rooms in the synagogue.

A long strip of paper was placed like a diameter inside the circle. It was a time line with dates, such as 1871, 1917, 1932, 1938, 1945, and others in between. Rectangular scraps of white paper lay on both sides of the time line. Each child was told to pick up one of these scraps, and to turn it over. Each one bore a historical event, such as ‘Wannsee Konferenz”, or ‘Weimar Republik’. They then placed their pieces of paper where they thought it should be on the time line. Although one girl thought that the Weimar Republic began in 1945, most of the children placed them in the correct places.

Next, Souzanna Hazan read out a history of the Sturm/Steinfeld/Englander families. As she did so, copies of photographs of various family members were handed around the circle of children, and then carefully placed in the relevant points on the time line. Thus the history of the family was placed alongside the history of modern Germany. After this, the time line was divided into 5 sections. Each group of four students had to choose a section and then retire to a work table that contained materials relevant to that section. We adults retired to the Jewish Museum shop across the hallway to drink coffee and chat. After about 45 minutes, the school children joined us, and refreshed

themselves with cold drinks and butter filled pretzels. Then we returned to the room where the seminar was being held.

Each group of four students had produced posters illustrating the period they had chosen. One by one the groups of four students presented, and explained what was on their posters.

When a group had given their presentation, they asked George questions that had arisen in their minds whilst they had been preparing their posters. I cannot remember all of their questions but two linger in my mind. Could George speak English when he stepped off the boat at Hoboken? No, he could not, but by the end of the year he was the best speller (of English) in his class. Another child asked whether he helped in the family shop in Augsburg. George pointed out that he would have been little help as a five year old in the sophisticated cloth store, probably a hindrance. He did however help his grandfather gather chestnuts when they walked together in the Siebentischwald Forest on the edge of the city. These, he was told, were good for Opi’s rheumatism. The question was interesting because farmer’s children such as were attending the seminar would have found it normal to have to ‘muck-in’ when the family needed extra hands. George coped beautifully with their questions, and rapidly developed a great rapport with the children. It seemed to me that during the three hours that they had spent working on the family history, the children had begun looking at George’s family’s life and difficulties as if they were their own. After posing with the class for photographs, each member of the class shook each of our hands before leaving for their hometown.

Frau Schönhagen took us for a light lunch in an Italian restaurant in beautifully restored art nouveau building reached by a short alley leading off Bahnhofstrasse. Then, we returned to the synagogue where we found Debbie Sturm and her brother Robert waiting. All the family members piled into a taxi, and after some difficulty we found the Jewish Cemetery at Haunstetterstrasse. It was long after two o’ clock, and we were due at the town hall at three-thirty. So, we did not have much time to look around. The cemetery is a long rectangular plot. At one end, furthest from the gate, there are many new graves, many with Russian sounding names. The cemetery was well-maintained, even though some of the inscriptions are becoming difficult to decipher.

I spotted plenty of family names that I recognised including Kurt Bellmann (1873-1933). He married Anna Lerchenthal (1882-1986), Robert Lerchenthal’s sister. Her uncle was August Gerstle (1854-1899). August was a remarkable member of our extended family. In 1882, he founded the ‘Firma August Gerstle’, which existed as a banking house as late as 1936, when the Nazis wound it up. One of Gerstle’s major investments was in the ‘Maschinenfabrik Augsburg’. It was here that Robert Lerchenthal recalls watching Rudolf Diesel’s first demonstration of a working diesel engine. He wrote of this occasion, “Durch den Kontakt mit der Augsburger Maschinenfabrik kam mein Onkel mit Diesel , dem Erfinder des Dieselmotors zusammen. Ich erinnere mich, dass mein Onkel zu mir sagte: „Komm mit in die Maschinenfabr. Augsburg. Dort wird ein hoch interessanter Vortrag mit Vorführungen gehalten“. Diesel hatte in der MAN seinen ersten Dieselmotor gebaut, der jetzt in München im Deutschen Museum steht. Nur 100 Leute waren eingeladen, die Maschine vorgeführt. Ich war damals 17 Jahre alt und verstand nichts. Aber ich aß Haufen von den feinsten Sandwiches, die offeriert wurden, Cigarren und Wein verschmähte ich.” [“On account of the contact with the Machine Works Augsburg, my uncle met Diesel, the inventor of the Diesel motor. I recall that my uncle told me, ‘Come along to the Machine Works Augsburg. An interesting lecture with illustrations will be given there.’ Diesel built his first Diesel motor, which is now in the Deutsches Museum in Munich, in the MAN (Maschinenfabrik Augsburg Nürnberg). Only 100 people were invited as the machine was presented. I was then 17 years old and understood nothing. But I ate piles of the finest sandwiches that were offered, but turned down cigars and wine.”]

Years later, I saw the prototype diesel engine that Robert watched in the Science Museum in Munich. Later the Augsburg firm was to merge with one based in

Nuremberg, and the world famous ‘MAN’ company came into existence. Kurt Bellmann was a partner in Gerstle’s Bankhaus along with Robert Lerchenthal and his brother Alfred (1877-1938).

Being short of time we rushed about looking for graves of those we recognised, and taking hurried shots. The sky had clouded over. We locked up the cemetery and let its inmates return to their untroubled peace as the occasional train sped past along the line that connects Augsburg with Munich. Our taxi was waiting, and we were soon reached the Rathaus.

We were led into a magnificent reception room, where the mayor of Augsburg, Herr Grab, welcomed us in his open-necked shirt. I felt a bit miffed that I had bothered to wear a blazer and tie! We were also greeted by the charming Herr Haindl, the generous benefactor of the celebration of the Sturm family. He was most concerned to make us feel welcome in his home town. Frau Schönhagen and Souzana Hazan were also present, as were Gernot Roemer and his lovely wife. After a brief speech, the mayor presented George with a bottle of wine and a book. Then, we were all offered drinks. I was introduced to an elderly gentleman who would have been one of George’s neighbours in the thirties. Neither he nor George remembered each other, but it made me wonder what different lives they must have led. I drifted towards a man who seemed a bit remote from the proceedings. In bad German, I established that he was a cultural representative from the synagogue. He was Russian, and was very keen to learn whether we had synagogues in England, and how many, and did we sing Jewish songs. After a brief conversation he left the room.

After the reception we were taken into the magnificently reconstructed Goldener Saal, a huge hall in the centre of the town hall. Its elaborate gilded painted ceiling was totally demolished during the Second World War, and carefully recreated after it. It was breathtaking, but not as much as something that I was about the see the following day. The sun was setting, and we went our separate ways.

That evening I was due to meet Robert and Debbie for a dinner date. I arrived at the Maxmilianstrasse early because I wanted to take some photographs of the Ulrich Church by night. Whilst I was walking along, fiddling with my tripod, I heard my name called out. It was Robert Sturm sitting outside a bar smoking a thick cigar. I joined him for schnapps. He was in a good mood, puffing on his recently purchased Cuban cigar, something unavailable in the USA. Soon, we joined Debbie at the hotel, and we set off to the ‘König von Flanderen’ a very congenial basement restaurant entered through doorway that is in the middle of the window display of a large bookstore. We demolished vast quantities of food that was definitely not kosher!

Afterwards we returned to the lobby of their hotel, the Drei Möhren. This long established institution has had some well-known guests such as Leopold Mozart and his family, Goethe, Metternich, Richard Wagner, and Franklin D Roosevelt. It was after midnight when I returned to my humbler hotel.

Tuesday, the 16th November

After breakfast, I walked to the Stadtmarkt, just off Annastrasse. Robert and Debbie had spoken highly of the food they ate there. As it was only just after 8 o’clock, there was not much going on there. I decided to return nearer lunchtime. I reached the Riegele in time to have tea with George and his son Max whilst they took breakfast. We chatted mainly about music and composers George had met during his career in the classical music business in the USA. He also described how he was mugged after attending one of the first concerts at the Lincoln Centre in its early days before much of it had been built. After breakfast, we said farewell and went our separate ways: George and Max to meet some more students, and I to do a bit of sightseeing.

It was very cold when I reached the Königsplatz. Snow was falling and continued to do so all day. I walked to the Römisches Museum, which is housed in a vast deconsecrated church. I have to admit that the building was more interesting than the exhibits. From there it was a short walk through a courtyard to the Schaetzlerpalais. Its entrance is on Maxmilianstrasse.

The first part of the visit is a never-ending series of small rooms each containing several baroque paintings, mostly by artists I have never heard of: pleasant, but not exceptional. At the end of this longitudinal museum, a curator pointed me towards a small door, and opened it for me. I was unprepared for the magnificent sight that met my eyes. I had entered the vast rococo Festsaal. It was a riot of mirrors, frescos, sculptures, and ceiling paintings. It made the Goldener Saal of the Rathaus look dull in comparison. At the far end of this wondrous room another small door opened into what must have once been the rooms of some ecclesiastical building. These high ceilinged, gothic vaulted rooms housed a collection of mainly religious paintings (mostly 14th-16th century), although there was also a portrait of one of the Fuggers by Albrecht Dürer.

I was ready for lunch. I returned to the Stadtmarkt, and wondered where Robert and Debbie had found wonderful food for about 17 € per head. There seemed to be nowhere that offered such dishes. Just as I was about to abandon the Stadtmarkt, I spotted a door with ‘Fleischmarkt’ written above it in gothic script. I entered, expecting to find stalls with carcasses and slabs of meat, but was surprised to find none of this. A short staircase led down into a long rectangular hall. The centre of the hall was filled with small round tall tables at which people were eating, either standing or perched on tall stools. The walls along the length of the hall were lined with small stalls where all kinds of fresh food were being cooked. The choice was spectacular. I settled down to a plate of grilled wurst, sauerkraut and deliciously fried potatoes, and enjoyed the convivial atmosphere of this communal dining hall: so much more congenial than the plastic feeling of ‘food courts’ in shopping malls in the UK. As for the price, 6 € was sufficient to fill me. It would have been hard to cope with more than 10 € worth of food in that popular ‘völkisch’ feeding place.

I returned to Munich Airport by train, arriving there with plenty of time to spare. More than I had bargained for, because our flight was delayed several hours because of fog in London!

I am extremely grateful to George Sturm for help with editing and some translations. Any errors or omissions are entirely my responsibility.