The Lost Race against Time during "The Final Solution" : The Emigration of the Jewish Families Guggenheim of Konstanz and Rosenwald of Cologne to Argentina and the USA Fails in 1938 - 1942

An Unexpected Discovery of Clues The book about the fate of the Guggenheim family of Konstanz, launched in the spring of 2010 with the title “In Argentinien gerettet – in Auschwitz ermordet” (“Saved in Argentina – Murdered in Auschwitz”), seemed to have been completed. All the documents, which had been found during a two-year intensive search of various archives and memorial sites, had been checked and the results shared in interviews with the descendendants in Argentina. Admittedly, there were scant document to be had, since the letters between the interned Guggenheim family members and their relatives – now safe in Argentina – were no longer available; they had simply been lost. The lack of any correspondence from Camp Gurs, Camp Les Milles and Marseille to Buenos Aires is particularly unfortunate. Of course, the letters going the other way disappeared with the murder of Salomon, Toni and Dagobert Guggenheim in Auschwitz. The life of the three Guggenheims and the way to their destruction could be considered fully researched, given the lack of further evidence at the time. So it was a big surprise when, in June 2017, more than seven years after the publication of the book, a Jewish woman with German ancestors contacted the author from abroad; she expressed a keen interest in the documentation of the fate of the Guggenheim families of Konstanz and Donaueschingen. This contact was doubly surprising: for one thing, this person – Joan Rosenwald-Fradkin – got in touch not from Argentina, but from the USA, and her ancestors came not from Konstanz or Donaueschingen, but from Cologne. The other astonishing fact was that Joan’s father and aunt, the siblings Fritz and Lisel Rosenwald, had a close relationship with both Guggenheim families. Fritz Rosenwald had become friends with Isi Guggenheim during his three-year position with a Konstanz company, while his sister Lisel had a romantic relationship with Dagobert Guggenheim. These connections were neither documented in the available papers, nor did the descendants in Buenos Aires know about them. It turned out to be a special stroke of luck that the abundance of letters – a total of over 300 – written by Lisel and her parents in Cologne to their brother and son Fritz, who emigrated to New York City in 1938, had been preserved. It is especially the letters of Lisel, written to her brother every week from 1938 until her deportation at the end of 1941, that provide previously unknown details. Key among them are the emigration efforts of the Guggenheims waiting in Konstanz and Lisel’s relationship with Dagobert. The letters give an in-depth look into the emotional life of the Guggenheim and Rosenwald family members, as they desperately struggled to reach “safe harbors” abroad. Their hopes, their fears, their disappointments – all come to the fore in these letters. The reports also make clear the amount of time and the financial expenses Fritz Rosenwald devoted to overcoming the obstacles that kept getting in his sister’s way on the American side of the Atlantic. All this, while he was just getting settled in the USA. Right at the end, just before their deportation to Riga, Fritz receives the heartfelt gratitude of his family. It is especially touching that the siblings never reproach each other during all the dashed hopes, but instead, continue to give each other encouragement. Remarkable, too, is how the parents and sister, though being subjected to discrimination and harassment in Cologne, are concerned about Fritz establishing himself professionally in his new residence – New York City – and wanting him to have leisure time to enjoy his freedom. In short: the letters are an expression of a loving connection between the Rosenwald parents and children, especially between brother and sister. The insights from the letters into the relationships between the Guggenheim and Rosenwald families, their shared struggles and defeats in trying to escape the Nazi’s “Final Solution”, as well as Lisel Rosenwald’s courageous attitude throughout, have prompted the author to revise this book in an expanded form.

Hans-Hermann Seiffert was born in 1940 in Sehnde, near Hannover, Germany. He received a Master of Business Administration in Göttingen and subsequently held management positions with manufacturing systems engineering companies in southwest Germany. Upon retiring in 2005, Seiffert decided to devote himself to the study, research and publication of the story of National Socialism and the Holocaust.