Stop 4: The Rosenbaum Family
Düsseldorfer Str. 46 – go to map – go to starting point
Unlike most other Jewish merchants in Ohligs, Abraham “Adolf” Rosenbaum had not been born in the Prussian Rhine Province or in Westphalia, but came from Rozhniativ, a village that lay far in the east and, at the time of his birth on 14 October 1884, still belonged to the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. He moved to Ohligs in December 1909 and opened a store there in 1912. His business was located at Düsseldorfer Straße 46 and sold men’s wear, footwear, haberdashery as well as worker’s robes. Two years later, he registered a business for footwear at the same address. In 1911, his older brother Moses Rosenbaum had already opened a shoe store in Solingen-Wald.
In early 1914, Adolf Rosenbaum got married to Cilly Weissfeldt who had been born on 19 October 1883 in Zempelburg in West Prussia. Her two brothers had founded a store for men’s wear in Solingen, named “Gebr. Weissfeldt” (literally “Weissfeldt Brothers“), after the turn of the century.
Another difference between Adolf Rosenbaum and his competitors at Düsseldorfer Straße was the fact that he did not advertise. In the “Ohligser Anzeiger”, there is a notice of the store’s opening and a small notice of the store remaining closed during Yom Kippur. Apart from that, there is only one more ad in the local newspaper, covering half a page: in it, Adolf Rosenbaum declared that he’d do without expensive advertisement so that he could offer his customers especially affordable prices.
On 22 June 1922, Cilly Rosenbaum gave birth to daughter Lia in Ohligs. The family was considered wealthy, lived in a generous four- to five-room apartment, had more than 6,000 pair of shoes in stock and employed three to four staff members and auxiliaries. The boycott of Jewish businesses that started with the Nazi’s seizure of power did not have a massive effect on the Rosenbaum family at first. However, the effect on their business‘ revenue became more and more tangible over the years and their employees had to be dismissed one by one.
After World War I, Adolf Rosenbaum was no longer considered an Austrian, but a Polish citizen – something that became a fateful twist for him in 1938. At the end of October, he was deported to Poland as part of the so-called “Polenaktion” (literally “Polish Action”), the coordinated detention and forceful expulsion of at least 17,000 Jews all over Germany. However, the Polish border authorities were not prepared for these unexpected deportations and, in most cases, refused the entry. As a consequence, many people had to stay in camps or completely outdoors for weeks. According to Solingen’s synagogue community, Adolf Rosenbaum stayed in Warsaw in January 1939. His business had been deregistered on 13 December 1938, never having re-opened after the “Kristallnacht” anyway.
Cilly officially moved to Düsseldorf on 25 May 1939 and was probably taken in by the Lubascher family at their guesthouse of Steinstr. 60. We don’t have any information on how long she stayed there.
Advertisement by guesthouse “Haus Lubascher“, Düsseldorf, in the Jewish newspaper “Jüdische Rundschau“ of 12 August 1938. Source: University Library in Frankfurt on the Main, Compact Memory
In Adolf Rosenbaum’s registration card of Solingen, the last entry reads [in translation] “is said to be in Brussels now”. We don’t know yet whether Cilly and Lia managed to somehow make their way to Belgium and be reunited with Adolf there. In any case, the family’s next known residence is Nice. For a long time, the city in southern France belonged to the country’s non-occupied zone and, as a result, many Jewish refugees gathered there, hoping to be able to emigrate to the USA or some other non-European country from there.
Nice came under Italian occupation from November 1942 until September 1943. Though their rule was brutal, the Italians stopped the antisemitic measurements taken by the Vichy regime and did not turn any Jews in to the Germans, for a few exceptions only. However, after Italy had declared its withdrawal from the war, the Germans took over there as well and immediately started conducting razzias in order to arrest resistance fighters and Jews.
By now, at the latest, the Rosenbaum family must have went into hiding. There is an account by contemporary witness Joseph Sungolowsky who, as a boy, was hidden in the villa “Cottage Bellevue” in Nice. Joseph recalls the anxious weeks at Avenue Sainte Colette that he and his brother Leon spent being separated from their father, mother and sister. At the time, the villa, originally a childcare facility, was home to the three members of the Rosenbaum family, an elderly couple named Bialystok, the two Sungolowsky brothers and textile manufacturer Léon Mark-Geschwind. The latter had been born in Zolkiew in 1898 and was Lia’s fiancé.
For a while, they all hid in a makeshift shack in the cellar that didn’t have any windows. The inhumane conditions of this hiding place, however, drove them back into their respective rooms eventually. In October 1943, the Gestapo (Geheime Staatspolizei, literally “Secret State Police”) conducted a razzia one night. The villa’s landlady, Madame Lemas, pretended that the two boys were her own sons, but she was unable to save the rest of the group. The Rosenbaum family and the elderly man, Mendel Bialystok, were arrested and taken away. Bialystok’s wife was left behind since she was not fit for transport.
In 1943/44, more than 3,000 Jews were arrested and deported in and around Nice. Adolf, Cilly and Lia Rosenbaum were taken, together with Lia’s fiancé Léon Mark-Geschwind, from Nice to the Drancy camp, close to Paris. Almost 65,000 Jews were deported from this central assembly and transit camp until August 1944, their transports going to the extermination camps in Eastern Europe. The responsible French police commander in Drancy noted down meticulously how much money and what valuables had been taken off Adolf and Lia in early November. The list reads [in translation]: 3,070 Francs, 1 golden men’s watch no. 20729, 1 golden necklace, 1 long golden necklace, 1 golden bracelet, 1 golden brooch, 1 golden medallion (broken), 1 golden tooth, 1 golden women’s watch, 2 golden women’s bracelets, 4 golden rings with brilliants.
On 20 November 1943, the family was taken from Drancy to Auschwitz, as were Léon Mark-Geschwind and Mendel Bialystok. All of them were murdered at the concentration camp.
After the war, Adolf’s nephew Leo Rosenbaum applied, as heir, for compensation. Back in 1934, his father, Adolf’s brother Moses Rosenbaum, had managed to sell his shoe store in Solingen-Wald and emigrated to Palestine with his family. After Moses had died, Leo returned to Germany. In 1956, he became re-naturalised in Solingen and, in 1958, founded shoe stores in Remscheid and Düsseldorf. Between 1961 and 1976, he ran a third branch in Solingen, located at Hauptstraße 20-22.